Henry Oldenburg, unpaid secretary of the Royal Society, spent the summer months of 1667 in the tower of London. As secretary, he maintained a voluminous correspondence. He had apparently complained to a foreign correspondent that the English navy had failed to prepare as it should. When the navy suffered humiliation, the government looked for individuals it could blame and fingered Oldenburg among others for treasonous correspondence. Although Oldenburg was not imprisoned for his faith, he was a man of faith and piety—the person who more than any other made the reputation of the young Royal Society, managing most of its scientific correspondence with such candor and tact that strangers were willing to trust their work to him.
Prisoners in Church History