The Muggletonians, so called because they were founded by two cousins, John Reeve and Lodowick Muggleton, were one of the many radical religious sects that emerged at the end of the English civil wars around 1650, in the aftermath of the execution of King Charles I. Reeve and Muggleton believed that they were God's two witnesses to the coming Millennium. Distinctive from other such sects for their disdain for evangelising, the movement therefore always remained marginal, but continued on a small scale into the twentieth century. Despite this, they sometimes faced disapproval from the authorities, due to their practice of cursing those who refused to accept their faith, and both leaders were imprisoned for causing the death of a Reverend Goffin, who died soon after they cursed him.

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