By Neil Sears
Daily Mail
August 27, 2008
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1049285/Coded-diary-reveals-secret-sex-scandal-haunted-Methodist-founder-Charles-Wesley.html
As a founding father of Methodism, Charles Wesley has been revered for centuries as a deeply holy man.
But a secret code in his 270-year-old diaries has been cracked - revealing that he was dogged by sexual scandal and feuded with his church leader brother John.
In the 18th century, Charles joined John on a missionary trip to a new British colony in America but mysteriously returned after just a few months.
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| Charles Wesley, best known for his popular hymns |
The decoded diaries reveal that he fled home amid allegations that he had sex with a colonist after trapping her husband under a tree.
The secrets have been uncovered by Reverend Professor Kenneth Newport, of Liverpool Hope University, after nine years of research.
Charles Wesley began writing his diaries in 1736, and over the next 20 years filled 1,000 pages.
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| Founding father of Methodism, John Wesley |
Scholars who have pored over them remained mystified by the sections written in a shorthand code. Professor Newport finally solved the code after discovering Charles had also transcribed gospels from the King James bible into the same shorthand.
Using these transcriptions he was able to decipher the mystery passages.
The coded sections began in March 1736, when Charles was in the new colony of Georgia.
While parts in plain English talk of his calling the colonists to prayers at all hours, the coded paragraphs show he was accused of sexual misconduct by one Anne Welch, wife of a doctor to the colonists, James Welch.
Mrs Welch first told Charles Wesley that the governor of the colony of Georgia, James Oglethorpe, was 'a wicked man' who kept three mistresses in England. It later emerged however that she had been making similar allegations to Mr Oglethorpe about Charles.
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| The secret code in the 270-year-old diaries |
A section reveals Mr Oglethorpe told Charles: 'She came crying to me with complaints that you had confined her husband by keeping him three days under a tree, and come to bed with her'.
Charles fiercely denied the allegations - but also had to face taunts that he had sex with a maid.
He wrote that a pair of colonists shouted out to him as he strolled along in conversation with the maid: 'There goes the parson with his whore. I saw her and him were under the bushes.'
Within months, Charles was back in England - but his diaries show the misconduct rumours were still circulating years on, and that later allegations of 'lewdness' followed.
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| Cracked the code: Professor Kenneth Newport |
The diaries also reveal strained relations between Charles and John.
When Charles decided to marry Sally Gwynne, he asked his brother if the church could start paying him a salary of ?100 a year. Charles wrote: 'Talked with my brother about a provision in case I married, and he said 'The church could not afford it'.
'Then I thought the church did not deserve a gospel minister.'
But he was equally opposed to his brother marrying Grace Murray, writing: 'He is insensible of both his own folly and danger.'
Professor Newport said: 'I was determined to unlock the code. The sections of his diary show he had a pretty rough time.'
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