Dorcas Erbery

Dorcas Erbery (fl. 1656–1659), was an English militant Quaker preacher. She was arrested with others in Bristol for blasphemy. James Nayler was convicted and he was sentenced by the English parliament to cruel and unusual punishment.

Life Erbery was probably born in Cardiff. Her mother, Mary, was a Quaker preacher and her father, William, was an unconventional member of the clergy. He expected that a regime of 'saints' would (in the later 1640s) carry out God's will in England.

She came to notice in June 1656 when she and her mother were arrested in Cardiff. Mary and Dorcas Erbery were arrested with Toby Hodge because the three of them had been disrupting the service of an established clergyman and they were sent to prison. despite the denials of Nayler. etc., apparently believing that Nayler was in some manner representing the return of Jesus Christ. Hannah Stranger refused to say if she called him "Jesus", Erbery, Martha Simmonds and Hannah Stranger gathered around the pillory where Nayler was tortured in a way that recalled the followers of Christ at his crucifixion.