Who were the Pilgrims?
Date: 2025-01-16T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Puritans -- History

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Title: Who were the Pilgrims?

Author: William T. Davis

Release date: January 16, 2025 [eBook #75121]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Harper and Brothers, 1882

Credits: Steve Mattern

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHO WERE THE PILGRIMS? ***

Who Were the Pilgrims?

by

William T. Davis

Harpers New Monthly Magazine

Volume LXIV Number 380

January, 1882

The Pilgrims were Separatists from the English Church, and the offspring of Puritanism. Puritanism was the child of the Reformation. It may be well in a few preliminary words to follow the various prominent steps by which that stage of the Reformation was reached from which the passage to Puritanism and thence to Separatism became easy and natural.

As early as the year 1350, Bradwardine, the chaplain of Edward the Third, somewhat infected with the doctrine of Walter Lollard, who was burned for heresy at Cologne in 1322, induced his royal master to resist the encroachments of Clement the Sixth on the religious liberties of England, by passing what was called the Statute of Provisors, by which imprisonment or banishment was decreed for all who should procure from the court of Rome any presentation of benefices in the English Church.

In 1377, Wycliffe, a professor of divinity in the University of Oxford, came out in open rebellion against the authority of the Pope, and not only quickened the sluggish blood of the ancient establishment of the English Church, then well-nigh dead, but increased its current, and enlarged the channels through which it flowed. In 1393, under Richard the Second, the Act of Provisors was renewed, and it was also enacted that whoever should bring into England, receive, publish, or execute there any papal bull, excommunication, or other like document, should be out of the King’s protection, and forfeit goods, chattels, and liberty. This was called the Statute of Præmunire, which signified a statute fortifying the royal power against foreign assault. Thus for a time the supremacy of the Pope was technically overthrown in England. During the succeeding reigns of the houses of York and Lancaster, papal intrigue succeeded in rendering these statutes a dead letter, and the old encroachments and usurpations again crept in. It is doubtful whether these encroachments would have been resisted by Henry the Eighth if they had not placed obstacles in the way of his divorce from Catherine. But owing to the determination of Clement to oppose his wishes in this respect, Henry shook off allegiance to Rome, and declared himself the head of the Church. Afterward, provoked into new attitudes of hostility to the Pope, and finally exasperated by a retaliatory excommunication, he extended the breach between himself and Rome, already too wide to be healed, until the last span was broken in the bridge which connected them. Monasteries were suppressed, saintly shrines were demolished, the worship of images was disallowed, and Wolsey, a prince of the Roman Church, was arrested under the Act of Præmunire, and tried for treason. The clergy were dismayed at these royal acts, but opposed them in vain. The arrest of their cardinal brought them to terms, for the acts of which he had been found guilty had been shared by them, and their only safety lay in a recognition of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the King.

But Henry remained a Catholic nevertheless, and though he had overthrown the power of Clement within his realm, he was practically the Pope himself. He issued a bull, whose provisions in 1538 became a law, called the Statute of the Six Articles, or Bloody Statute, or the Whip with Six Strings. This article declared:

1. That if any one denied that the bread and the wine of the sacramental supper were the real body and blood of Christ, he should be burned alive, without the privilege of abjuring.

2. That the bread is both the body and the blood, and that the wine is both the body and blood, of Christ, so that partaking of either is sufficient.

3. That priests ought not to marry.

4. That vows of chastity are perpetually binding.

5. That private masses ought to be continued.

6. That confession to a priest is necessary to forgiveness.

It was added that whoever should deny either of the last five articles should forfeit—even if he should recant—all his goods and chattels, and be imprisoned as long as the King pleased; and if he continued obstinate, or, after recanting his disbelief, relapsed, he should be put to death.

But though Henry remained a Catholic, as averse as ever to the doctrines of the Reformation, his warfare with the Pope could not fail to let in a little sunlight on the seeds of Protestantism about him, and swell them into vegetation and growth. In order that the minds of the people might be turned against Rome, the Bible, translated into English by Tyndale a few years before, and smuggled as a prohibited book into England from the Continent, was permitted to be printed at home, and thus the popular use and reading of the Scriptures became the corner-stone on which the structure of religious freedom was destined to be built.

Thus the reign of Henry the Eighth ended, in 1547, and that of his son, Edward the Sixth, began. Sir Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, and eldest brother of Queen Jane, the mother of Edward, who had been named as one of the executors, was created Duke of Somerset, and made Lord Protector of the realm. Having been a friend of the Reformation, he had secured John Cheeke, a Greek lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and Richard Cox, as preceptors of the prince, who had instructed their pupil with great care in the Protestant faith. Edward immediately after his accession favored the Reformation, and urged the religious instruction of the people. The Statute of the Six Articles was repealed, and a new liturgy, or Book of Common Prayer, was drawn up. The mass was changed into the communion; confession to the priest was left optional; but the sign of the cross in baptism, in confirmation, and in anointing the sick was retained. The English Bible was placed in every church, marriages by the clergy were permitted, the removal of all images and pictures from the churches was ordered, and the ceremonies of bearing palms on Palm-Sunday, candles on Candlemas-day, ashes on Ash-Wednesday, and some of the rites used on Good-Friday and Easter, were forbidden. Cranmer and Ridley and other prominent leaders in the Reformation were, however, too timid to venture upon a thorough reform, lest they might shock the prejudices of the people, and finally failed in their attempted work. Thus in framing the new liturgy many Popish superstitions were retained, and the Roman manual was to a great extent adopted as its model. But as in every reform the most speedy and thorough eradication of old errors is the surest and safest method, so the timid policy of Somerset and Cranmer not only failed to appease the opponents of reform, represented by Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, but also fell far short of meeting the requirements of the reformers, who were panting for the entire demolition of the Roman establishment.

The result of this policy was Puritanism, and the first Puritan was John Hooper. An Oxford scholar at the time of the passage of the Statute of the Six Articles, Hooper was severe in its denunciation, and in consequence was obliged to leave the university. Afterward, further persisting in his opposition to the ecclesiastical tyranny of Henry, he fled to Germany, where he pursued his studies in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and became a learned scholar and divine. Returning to London early in the reign of Edward, he was permitted by Somerset to preach, and recommended by him to the King. He was afterward commanded by his Majesty to continue his labors, and on the 5th of February, 1550, received orders from the King and Council to preach before the court once a week during Lent. In 1550 he was appointed Bishop of Gloucester, but declined it on account of the oath, and the habits worn by the bishops. The oath of supremacy was made in the name of God and the saints and the Holy Ghost, which Hooper thought impious, because God alone ought to be appealed to. The King, becoming convinced of this, struck the offensive words out of the oath; but the scruples of the new bishop concerning the habits were not so easily reconciled. The King and Cranmer were inclined to dispense with them, but a majority of the Council said, “The thing is indifferent, and therefore the law ought to be obeyed.” After a contest of nine months, in the course of which Hooper suffered a short imprisonment for his contumacy, a compromise was effected, by which he consented to be robed in his habits at his consecration, and when he preached before the King or in any public place, but at all other times they should be dispensed with.

Pending the settlement of this vexed question the Reformation went on. The doctrine of the Church was yet to be remodelled. Under the direction of Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Ridley, forty-two articles were framed upon the chief points of Christian faith, which, after correction and approval by other bishops and divines, received the royal sanction. These articles are, with some alterations, the same as those now in use, having been reduced to thirty-nine at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth. The final work of reformation in Edward’s reign was a second revision of the Book of Common Prayer, by which some new features were added, and some of those which had proved oppressive to advanced reformers struck out. Thus ended, in 1553, the reign of Edward, the boy King, whose death at the age of sixteen dashed the well-grounded hopes of the nation for a gradual but in the end a thorough reform.

It is unnecessary to speak of the reign of Bloody Mary. Of course the reformatory laws of Edward were repealed, and Romanism was once more triumphant; but only for a season. Her reign was short—of only five years’ duration—and perhaps by the persecutions which characterized it was in one respect the means of advancing the Protestant cause more vigorously than would have been possible if Edward had continued on the throne. It is doubtful whether, in the progress of that gradual abandonment of Romish doctrine and Romish forms upon which Edward had entered, the ritual prescribed by him would not have been finally divested of enough of its objectionable features to make it acceptable to the whole body of reformers. But on the accession of Mary, Protestants were forced in large numbers into exile, and subjected in other lands to new and potent influences. The current of Protestantism which flowed toward the Continent to escape her persecutions became divided there by the opposite teachings of Frankfort and Geneva, and flowed back after the accession of Elizabeth in separate streams, one to buoy up and sustain the English Church with all the forms with which the new Queen had invested it, and the other to sweep away, if possible, every vestige of Romanism in its ritual. The contumacy of John Hooper was but a single Puritan wave, which met a yielding barrier and disappeared. With the return of the exiles from Geneva a new tide of Puritanism set in, with an ocean of resolute thought behind it, which no royal hand could stay. It began its career, as was the case with Hooper, with a simple protest against forms of worship—a protest which, when conformity was demanded by the bishops, gradually extended to a denial of the power which demanded it. The more urgent the demand, the greater the resistance, until at last, like blows on yielding metal, which only serve to weld and harden it, persecution converted objection to a ritual into a conscientious contempt of prelatical power. Nor did it stop here. The sword which had been sharpened for the necks of the Catholics became two-edged in the hands of Elizabeth, and was wielded with equal force against nonconforming Protestants. Barrow and Greenwood and Ap-Henry felt it to-day, and to-morrow the Romish priests Ballard and Maud suffered a martyr’s death. To-day the death of Mary was demanded to protect a Protestant throne from the insidious attacks of Philip of Spain, and to-morrow Thomas Settle and Peter Wentworth were sent to prison to quench the spirit of Protestant liberty, which threatened the foundations of ecclesiastical power.

It is not necessary to describe in detail the oppression and persecution of the Puritans under Elizabeth. The great body of them, however, remained in the Church, simply protesting against its objectionable features, but tolerating them as long as they were prescribed by law. The result was a natural one. As the demands of the bishops had given birth to a protest against prelatical tyranny, so the bloody hand of the Queen at last inaugurated a denial of regal supremacy in the affairs of the Church. Hence, though the great body of Puritans remained within the ranks of episcopacy, desirous only of its reform, here and there were those who claimed the right to set up churches of their own, with their own church government, their own pastors and elders, subject to no control or interference either from the bishops or the crown.

The first separation from the Church worthy of note took place in 1567. After the failure of a new attempt in Parliament to pass a bill “touching reformation of matters of religion and church government,” a body of worshippers, to the number of a hundred or more, occupied a hall in London, in Anchor Lane, belonging to the company of the Plumbers, and held service in accordance with their own methods. The clergymen present were John Benson, Christopher Coleman, Thomas Rowland, and Robert Hawkins, all of whom had been deprived of their livings for nonconformity. Among the prominent laymen was William White, who is described as a “sturdy citizen of London, and a man of fortune.” The inquiry naturally suggests itself whether William White, the Mayflower Pilgrim, may not have belonged to the same family, and been perhaps his son. The discovery, however, by the writer of this article, some years since, in Doctors’ Commons in London, of the will of Bishop John White, dated 1621, in which allusion is made to an unnamed son, who had left his country and his Church, suggests a more probable parentage of the father of the infant Peregrine. Thirty-one of these worshippers were sent to prison, and the next day carried for examination before the commissioners of the Queen. At the close of the examination the prisoners were exhorted to forbear their religious assemblies; but it being evident that they would not yield, they were sent to Bridewell prison at the command of the Queen. After ten and a half months’ imprisonment they were warned of greater severity should they repeat their factious and disorderly behavior, and then discharged.

But the dispersion of these devoted Separatists far from extinguished the fire they had kindled. In 1576, John Copping, Elias Thacker, and Robert Brown, all clergymen of the Established Church, who had been deprived of their livings by the bishops, appeared on the scene, and by their zeal re-enforced the growing sentiment of Separatism. Brown was a man of high family, related to Lord Treasurer Burleigh, and chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk. Brown fled to Holland, where he became pastor of a Separatist congregation composed of English exiles. He there wrote two books, one entitled A Book which showeth the Life and Manners of all true Christians, and how unlike they are unto Turks, and Papists, and Heathen Folk, and the other, A Treatise of Reformation without tarrying for Any; and of the Wickedness of those Preachers who will not reform Themselves and their Charge because they will tarry till the Magistrate command and compel Them. These books, laying down substantially the platform on which seceding Separatists planted themselves, though exhibiting something of the exuberant zeal which characterized their author, were surreptitiously distributed in England, to the infinite annoyance of the Queen and her councillors. At the time of their publication Copping and Thacker were in prison for nonconformity, and in some way managed to aid in their circulation. For this offense they were transferred from the hands of the bishops to the secular power, and tried in June, 1593, under a charge of sedition. In the same month both died on the gallows, and thus while the dissenting flame was burning with increasing zeal, two sparks only were extinguished by royal power. In 1585 Brown returned to England, relying for immunity from punishment on those kind offices of his relation, Lord Burleigh, which had often before stood him in need. In 1588 he underwent the sentence of excommunication in a bishops’ court for contempt in not responding to a citation, whereupon he suddenly recanted, and submitting himself to the order and government established in the Church, was restored to good standing, and in 1591 was the recipient of a living at the hands of those whose power he had so long denied and resisted. During his eventful career he had stamped on his followers the name of Brownists, which was applied, without regard to minor differences of opinion in matters of doctrine and church government, to all who had separated themselves from the Established Church. It was disgust at his recantation and not opposition to his views which led Robinson at a later day to warn his followers to throw off and reject the name.

But the fate of Thacker and Copping, while it perhaps deterred the timid like Brown who were not made of martyrs’ stuff, failed to check the onward movement of Separatism. The martyrdom of Barrow and Greenwood and Ap-Henry followed soon after, and added fuel instead of water to the flame, for resistance to prelatical tyranny found ampler justification in the cruelty with which the tyrannical hand dealt its blows.

Henry Barrow was a graduate of Cambridge, a member of the legal profession in London, and “was sometime a frequenter of the court” of Queen Elizabeth. John Greenwood, also a graduate of Cambridge, had been ordained in the Church, and had served as chaplain in the family of Lord Rich, a Puritan nobleman of Rochford in Essex. John Ap-Henry, or Penry, as he is generally called in history, was a Welshman, who took his first degree in Cambridge, and the degree of Master of Arts at Oxford. They had all passed rapidly through the mild stage of Puritanism, which they found no fit resting-place, and by pen and voice had entered with zeal into the cause of Separatism.

As Separatism grew, Puritanism grew also, and the nonconforming Puritan, though denouncing Separatism as a schism, and hating schism as a sin, at last found himself in the outer circle of the whirlpool, where, all unconscious of his destination, he was drifting irrecoverably into the vortex of Independentism. In illustration of this, the career of Francis Johnson, a noted convert to Separatism, was a singular one. A determined Puritan, but a bitter enemy of Separatism, he was the pastor of an English congregation at Middelburg, in Zealand, when the fact came to his knowledge that a book written by Barrow and Greenwood in prison, entitled A Brief Discovery of the False Church, was in the hands of the printers there with a view to illicit distribution in England. As a loyal though Puritan minister of the English Church, he became alarmed at the thought of the harm its circulation might cause, and notified the English ambassador of the danger. He was at once employed to intercept the publication, and performed his commission so thoroughly as to accomplish the destruction of the whole edition, excepting two copies, which he preserved, one for himself and one for a friend. “When he had done this work, he went home, and being set down in his study, he began to turn over some pages of this book, and superficially to read somethings here and there as his fancy led him. At length he met with something that began to work upon his spirit, which so wrought with him as drew him to this resolution, seriously to read over the whole book, the which he did once and again. In the end he was so taken, and his conscience was troubled so, as he could have no rest in himself until he crossed the sea and came to London to confer with the authors, then in prison.” The result of his conversion was the organization, in 1592, of a Separatist congregation in Southwark, which was the original starting-point of a society now living and flourishing. In 1616 Henry Jacob became pastor of this church, followed by John Lathrop, who came to America in 1634, and was settled over the church in Scituate. The Southwark church was until recently under the charge of Rev. John Waddington, who for many years has been assiduous in his efforts to trace back the current of Pilgrim history. Francis Johnson, soon after the organization of his church, was banished from England, and became pastor of a banished church in Amsterdam, and there “caused the same books which he had been an instrument to burn to be new printed and set out at his own charge.”

But in this onward movement of Separatism it may be asked, what was the attitude of Puritanism? It must not be supposed, because Separatists were Puritans, that Puritans were Separatists, or that there was the slightest sympathy or friendship between the two. The Separatists pushed to the extremes of reform, and denounced those who tarried by the way. The Puritans, loyal to the Church establishment, while protesting against objectionable forms, were waiting for their correction in conformity with law, and the Separatists found no opponents more vigorous or hostile than those within their ranks. In the Parliament of 1593, in which the Puritan element predominated in the Commons, the most direct and positive law was enacted which the Separatists encountered in the whole history of their persecutions. In that Parliament the spiritual lords, who held the control in the Upper House, sent down to the Commons an act imposing the severest penalties on all Nonconformists, which the Puritans succeeded in so far modifying as to exclude themselves from its operation, and to substitute for the Separatist the punishment of banishment. Up to that time persecutions had been conducted under a forced construction of the act of 23 Elizabeth, intended, when enacted, to apply to papists only, which made writing or speaking against the bishops the same as seditious matter against the Queen. The odium incurred by the bishops in consequence rendered, in their opinion, a new law necessary, which should have a direct application to that class of recusants, who in the progress of time had become more dangerous than the papists to the stability of the Church. It has been claimed, in defense of the Puritans, that this act was a compromise with the House of Lords, and really substituted in behalf of the Separatists the milder punishment of banishment for that of a felon’s death. But it was really no compromise at all. The new law was a direct and positive enactment, purporting to explain, but not repeal, the old law. The old law remained in force, and would have been as potent as ever if the Queen and the bishops had seen fit to use it as an instrument of persecution.

The new law, passed by a Puritan Commons, contributed in no small degree to swelling the flood of oppression, which was destined to sweep Separatism out of England. The Puritans could not tolerate any opposition to the old idea of ecclesiastical unity, and were willing to go as far as the farthest in suppressing it. They held that the National Church, though perhaps in some respects corrupt and unscripturally organized, contained within itself a true Church of Christ, and therefore they abhorred separation from its worship and communion as a sinful schism. They believed that Parliament might rightfully enact laws for ecclesiastical government, and for the punishment of ecclesiastical offenders. Their approval of this law, therefore, was not inconsistent with their attitude of hostility to the Separatists, and should always be borne in mind by the reader as measuring the difference between two distinct bodies of reformers, which have been ignorantly and persistently mingled and confounded.

The next independent church established in England was that of John Smith, organized at Gainsborough in 1602. Mr. Smith shortly after removed with his congregation to Amsterdam, where dissensions among his people embarrassed his work. Though a learned man, he was unstable and capricious, as appears by his own confession in the preface to one of his books, in which he desires that his last writings may always be taken for his present judgment. He afterward became a Baptist, and moved with his disciples to Leyden, where he soon afterward embraced the views of Arminius, which he ably defended in a book answered by John Robinson in 1611. In early life he had been a pupil of Francis Johnson, and was at one time connected with the Southwark church. This church, which is claimed by Mr. Waddington to have inspired the movement which resulted in the Pilgrim church at Scrooby, has certainly a memorable record. Francis Johnson was its first pastor, John Greenwood its first teacher, Daniel Studley and George Kniston its first elders, and Christopher Bowman and Nicholas Lee its first deacons. Henry Jacob and John Lathrop, its pastors at a later day, complete the list of those known to have been connected with it in its earliest years. Surely every true son of New England should hold the old church of Southwark, the parent of Congregationalism in England, only less dear to his heart than the old Plymouth church, the child of the Pilgrim church at Scrooby.

The date of the formation of the Separatist church at Scrooby has generally been considered the year 1602. What is now known to have been an error had its origin in a statement of Nathaniel Morton in his memorial, made without a reference to any authority. The discovery of Bradford’s history has exposed this among other errors, and fixed the year 1606 as the true date. It is known that the departure of the congregation for Holland took place in the early part of the year 1608. Bradford says: “So after they had continued together about a year, they resolved to get over into Holland as they could, which-was in the year 1607-8.” He further says that Brewster died in 1643, and “that he had borne his part in weal and woe with this persecuted church above thirty-six years in England, Holland, and this wilderness.”

The founder of this church was William Brewster, one who, in the language of an English antiquarian, “was the most eminent person in the Pilgrim movement, and who, if that honor is to be given to any single person, must be regarded as the father of New England.” He was the son of William Brewster of Scrooby, who held the position of postmaster for many years. He was born in 1560, and having spent four years in the University of Cambridge, entered in 1584 the service of Sir William Davison, who had recently returned from a two years’ embassy in Scotland. At that time Philip of Spain was at war with the Netherlands, and Elizabeth had been importuned to save the United Provinces from his grasping hand. Davison was immediately intrusted with a mission to prepare the way for such substantial aid as might rescue the Netherlands from Catholic despotism. Brewster attended him as secretary, and in this and a subsequent mission rendered important service. The port of Flushing, with important fortresses in Holland and Zealand, were transferred to Elizabeth as security for men and money loaned, and held as cautionary towns. The keys of Flushing were placed by Davison in the hands of Brewster, and held by him until the arrival of Sir Philip Sidney, who was appointed to its permanent command. On the eve of the return of Davison to England he was presented with a golden chain in recognition of his valuable services, which he placed on the neck of Brewster, requesting him to wear it until their arrival at court. This request was doubtless in token of his high esteem of the fidelity with which his secretary had performed his duties. Davison the ambassador was now made a Secretary of State, and one of the Privy Council, and Brewster continued to act as his secretary.

While these scenes were enacting, Mary Queen of Scots was in prison, awaiting deliverance or death. Repeated and urgent petitions to Elizabeth to send her to the block were met neither by rejection nor approval, and the mind of the Queen wavered between a desire to save her cousin and a conviction that her death alone could suppress the plots which, with or without her connivance, her adherents were hatching against the Protestant throne. In one of her severer moods she sent for Davison, and ordering him to procure a death-warrant, signed it, and required him to bear it to the Lord Chancellor for affixing the great seal. With the seal appended, Davison delivered it to the Council, who sent it at once to the officials to whom it was directed, and the execution followed. When the information of the death of Mary reached the Queen, she manifested extreme indignation at the haste which had been used, and declared that though the warrant had been signed and sealed, it was not to have been enforced until after further orders. The indignation of the Queen, feigned or real, was visited on Davison, and he was committed to the Tower, and carried before the Star Chamber Court for trial. The court, though pronouncing him to be “a good, able, and honest man,” yet, wishing to shield the Queen, fined him ten thousand marks, and committed him to the Tower during her Majesty’s pleasure. His public career had reached an abrupt conclusion, and after a life of honorable retirement, he died in 1608, in the very year in which Brewster and his church were leaving England for Holland.

Thus ended the life at court which Brewster had begun with such brilliant promise. Had Queen Mary died in prison, or had Davison by any other dispensation been retained at court, it is probable that Brewster would have become a courtier or statesman instead of a hunted Pilgrim. Brewster followed the fallen fortunes of his patron, faithful in his friendship to the last. Queen Mary was executed on the 8th of February, 1586-7, and Davison was committed to the Tower six days afterward. Brewster probably moved to Scrooby about the year 1588, to take charge of the business of his father, who was in poor health. It is known that his father died in the summer of 1590, and that he then claimed, in his application for the appointment to fill the vacancy, that he had performed the duties of the office for a year and a half. It seems to be certain that though Davison had been deposed and imprisoned, he had not lost the respect and influence which he had formerly possessed. Sir John Stanhope, who was appointed Postmaster-General by letters patent bearing date June 20, 1590, wrote a letter, now extant, to Davison, whom he styles Secretary, dated August 22d in that year, in reply to his recommendation of his old secretary for the appointment. There seems to have been some misunderstanding on the part of Sir John, under which he had made another appointment, which he expresses himself in his letter as willing to revoke. At any rate, it is known that on the 1st of April, 1594, William Brewster was in full possession of the office, and remained its incumbent until September 30, 1607.

To Scrooby, then, in 1588, William Brewster went—a small village on the borders of Nottinghamshire, about two miles from Austerfield, in Yorkshire, with the river Idle flowing between. He occupied the old manor-house of the bishops, which as far back as William the Conqueror had been a possession of the Archbishops of York. Here slept Margaret, Queen of Scotland, daughter of Henry the Seventh, on her way to that kingdom, in 1503; here Cardinal Wolsey, when dismissed by his King, passed several weeks; and here also Henry the Eighth halted on his journey north in 1541. Nothing now remains of the ancient grandeur of the spot but a portion of the building, incorporated into a farm-house, and an old mulberry-tree planted by the great cardinal. Here Brewster lived, as Bradford says, “doing much good in promoting and furthering religion, not only by his practice and example, but by procuring good preachers to all places thereabouts, and drawing in of others to assist and help forward in such a work, he himself most commonly deeply in the charge, and sometimes above his ability.” Here he remained a mild Nonconformist at first, and, as Bradford again says, “doing the best good he could, and walking according to the revealed light he saw, until the Lord revealed further unto him.” Finally, owing to the more and more stringent demands of the bishops, to the tyranny of Whitgift, increased rather than diminished by his successor, Bancroft, and to the unyielding temper of James, of whose liberality high hopes had been raised, lie determined to throw off all allegiance to the Church, and organize a congregation independent of its teachings and rule. Sabbath after Sabbath they met in the manor-house, at first under the ministrations of Richard Clyfton, and afterward of John Robinson. Clyfton had been vicar of Marnham, and afterward rector of Babworth, and when deprived of his living by reason of his nonconformity, he took charge of the little congregation at Scrooby. He went with them to Holland in 1608, but remained in Amsterdam when they removed to Leyden, and died in 1616.

Soon after the pastorate of Clyfton began, John Robinson became associated with the band of worshippers in the manor-house—a man who by his character, influence, and writings won the title of Apostle of Independency. Born in Lincolnshire in 1576, he entered Emanuel College in 1592, took the degree of M.A. in 1600, and B.D. in 1607. He began his ministerial labors in Mundham, where, participating in the opposition to the ceremonies enforced by the hierarchy, he was at length suspended from his functions. He afterward retired to Norwich, where he gathered about him a small congregation of Puritans, with whom he labored until he finally renounced all communion with the Church. In Hanbury’s memorials the following passage is quoted from Ainsworth’s answer to Crashaw: “Witness the late practice in Norwich, where certain citizens were excommunicated for resorting unto and praying with Mr. Robinson, a man worthily reverenced of all the city for the grace of God in him, as yourself also will acknowledge.” He is afterward spoken of by Ephraim Pagitt as “one Master Robinson, who, leaving Norwich malcontent, became a rigid Brownist.” Robinson himself said “that light broke in upon him by degrees, that he hesitated to outrun those of his Puritan brethren who could still reconcile themselves to remain in the Establishment,” but that continual persecution drove him to the extremes of separation. His high character was well attested by Baillie, one of the opponents of Separatism, who calls him in his writings “the most learned, polished, and modest spirit that ever that sect enjoyed.”

William Bradford was another of the original Scrooby church. His grandfather, William Bradford, was living at Austerfield, a small town about two miles from Scrooby, in 1575. He had three sons, William, Thomas, and Robert, of whom William, the father of Governor Bradford, married Alice Hanson, the daughter of John Hanson. William Bradford, afterward the Governor, was born in 1589, and was consequently about seventeen years of age at the time of the formation of the Scrooby church. His father died in his infancy, and he was reared and educated under the care of his uncle Thomas. The house in which it is said he lived, and the church in which he was baptized, are still standing, and in the latter his baptismal record may now be seen. Though springing from the ranks of the yeomanry, he became a man of learning, and found time afterward in Holland to master the language of the country, to which he added a knowledge of French, Latin, Greek, and even Hebrew, which he studied “that he might see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in all their native beauty.” That so young a man should, in opposition to the wishes of his uncle and guardian, have cast his lot for conscience’ sake with the outlawed church of the Pilgrims, is an evidence of that native courage and independence which afterward, when fully developed, made him the staff and hope of the Plymouth Colony. In answer to all remonstrances he replied: “To keep a good conscience, and walk in such a way as God has prescribed in His word, is a thing which I shall prefer above you all, and above life itself.”

The registry of the Austerfield church records also the baptism of George Morton, February 12, 1598. An attempt has been made to identify him with the father of Nathaniel Morton, the secretary of Plymouth Colony, who came to New England in the Ann, in 1623. The discovery of his marriage record in Leyden has been made, however, by Henry C. Murphy, late United States Minister at the Hague, in which he is described as “George Morton, of York, in England, merchant.” It is probable that the Southworths and Carpenters were members of the Scrooby church, and the probability is re-enforced by the tradition that there had been an attachment between Bradford and his wife Alice (Carpenter) Southworth before Bradford left England. The tradition adds that her parents were opposed to the union on the ground of inequality of position, and she married Southworth. Bradford heard in America that she was a widow, and after the death of his first wife proposed anew by a letter, recently, if not now, in existence, and after accepting his proposal, she came in the Ann in 1623, and was married. The baptism of William Butten, son of Robert Butten, is also recorded in the Austerfield registry, under date of September 12, 1589, and that of William, son of William Wright, under date of March 10, 1589. Butten was probably the servant of Samuel Fuller, who started in the Mayflower, and was drowned on the passage. Wright was doubtless the same William Wright who was among the passengers in the Fortune in 1621, and both Butten and Wright, it is safe to presume, were members of the Scrooby church.

But this church was not to remain long unmolested. James the First had come to the throne in 1603. Whitgift, as Bacon calls him, “the conscientious and therefore relentless persecutor of Nonconformity,” had closed his career almost simultaneously with Elizabeth, and had been followed by Bancroft, whose intolerant spirit was neither guided nor regulated by conscientiousness or timidity. Smith had already planted himself with his congregation in Amsterdam, the London church had gone, and the free land of Holland was sprinkled with scattered exiles.

The story of the attempted departure of the Pilgrim church in the autumn of 1607, the treachery of the captain who was to take them on board his vessel at Boston, their detention and imprisonment, and their final arrival at Amsterdam, is a familiar one. Why their departure should have been interfered with, when the penalty of the offense of Separatism was banishment, many are unable to understand. But the King had issued a proclamation against emigration to the English colony of Virginia without a royal license, and a suspicion was entertained, either real or feigned, that such was the destination of the Scrooby band. It was intended at first to make Amsterdam their home, but the dissensions in the congregation of Smith, which they feared might become contagious, induced them to remove in 1609 to Leyden, and that place for eleven years they made their residence.

In Leyden, then, from 1609 to 1620, the Pilgrims lived, joined at various times by William White, Isaac Allerton, Samuel Fuller, Degory Priest, and Edward Winslow, from London, Robert Cushman from Canterbury, George Morton from York, and John Carver and other exiles from various parts of England. Of these, Winslow, a man probably of university education, or at least of liberal culture, the son of Edward Winslow, of Droitwich, in Worcester, joined the Pilgrims not many years before their embarkation for America. He married in Leyden, in 1618, Elizabeth Barker, of Chester, England, and became, as is well known, one of the staffs and supports of the Plymouth Colony. At a subsequent period he was appointed by Cromwell one of the three commissioners to determine the value of English ships destroyed by the King of Denmark, and afterward a member of the commission to accompany Admiral Penn and General Venable on the expedition against Hispaniola. While engaged in this enterprise he died, and was buried at sea.

Miles Standish also joined the Pilgrims at Leyden, probably not on account of any religious affinity, but because his bold and adventurous nature was tempted by the enterprise on which they were about to embark. His great-grandfather was a younger brother of the house of Standish of Dokesbury Hall, of which it is believed John Standish, knighted by Richard the Second, was the founder. Compelled to seek his fortune, he chose the profession of arms, and served with the troops sent by Elizabeth to assist the Dutch against the arms of Spain. During the armistice, which began the year of the arrival of the Pilgrims in Leyden, he fell in with some of their number, and finally cast in his lot with them.

Richard Clyfton having concluded to remain in Amsterdam, John Robinson was chosen pastor, and at his house, probably, the congregation met on the Sabbath. If they had any church, its situation is unknown. The house of Mr. Robinson, on Clock Alley, in the rear of St. Peter’s Church, was 156 feet west of Heeren Street, and had a frontage of 25 feet 6 inches, and a depth of 75 feet. Here he lived from the 5th of May, 1611, the date of the deed of the premises, until his death, in 1625. The records of the church of St. Peter show that he was buried under its pavement, and that the sum of nine florins was paid for the right of burial. This sum only secured a place of deposit for the term of seven years, and it is probable that at the end of that time either his coffin was removed to an unknown grave, or his ashes were scattered in the burial of others. Robinson was connected with the University of Leyden, one of whose professors, Arminius, died about the time of his arrival. Episcopius followed Arminius in the support of his peculiar doctrines, and Robinson, as a man of recognized ability and learning, was selected to defend the tenets of old Calvinism in discussions with that eminent scholar. But though an earnest opponent of Arminian doctrines, he felt no sympathy with those acts of the Synod of Dort which resulted in the death of Barneveldt and the imprisonment of Grotius, the story of whose escape, as told by Motley, is as full of interest as the most stirring fiction or drama. In addition to ministrations in his church, he took on himself also the labors of authorship. He published in 1610 A Justification of Separation from the Church, a copy of which, once belonging to Governor Bradford, and containing his autograph, may be seen in the Plymouth Registry of Deeds. Of Religious Communion appeared in 1614; Apologia Justa et Necessaria, in 1619; and a Defense of the Doctrine of the Synod of Dort, in 1624, the year before his death. His posthumous publications were Essays and Observations, Divine and Moral, in 1628; and a Treatise on the Lawfulness of Learning of the Ministers in the Church of England, in 1634. A sweet and liberal spirit pervaded his life, and the community of men and women chastened by his teachings had no room in their hearts for that bigotry with which by the ignorant they have been credited, but from which their whole career, shaped and directed in obedience to his teachings, was always free. A spirit of charity, toleration, and love characterized the Plymouth colonists, purified as they had been by the fires of persecution and the hardships of exile, until overrun by the narrower Puritan spirit of Massachusetts Bay, the harshness and severity of which, however, it served to mitigate and soften.

Brewster, obliged like the rest to seek some occupation for a livelihood, at first engaged in teaching the English language to students in the university. Being familiar with the Latin, the language of the schools and the court at that day, he was eminently fitted for the task. He afterward opened a publishing house, being assisted with capital by Thomas Brewer, an Englishman, who was a member of the university. Of course, under the circumstances, he engaged in the publication of books in the advocacy of Church reform, destined for circulation in England. In 1616 he published a commentary in Latin on the Proverbs of Solomon, by Cartwright, with a preface by Polyander. There are three copies of this work in Plymouth, one owned by the First Church, one by William Hedge, Esq., and another by the Pilgrim Society. In 1618 he published A Confutation of the Remish Translation of the New Testament, also by Cartwright, without, however, the name of the publisher on the title-page. When the Remish (Romish) translation appeared, Secretary Walsingham requested Cartwright to undertake its refutation, and sent him one hundred pounds to aid him in his work. Archbishop Whitgift, learning what Cartwright was doing, prohibited his proceeding further. Cartwright at first desisted, but afterward perfected the work as far as the fifteenth chapter of Revelation. The manuscript lay many years neglected, until at last, defaced and worm-eaten, it came into the hands of Brewster, and was given by him to the world. A copy also of this work is in the library of the Pilgrim Society. A treatise in Latin on the true and genuine religion, and Ames’s reply to Grevinchovius on the Arminian controversy, also in Latin, followed, and other works, which fully occupied his time until his departure for New England.

The appearance of these books did not fail to alarm King James, who gave orders to Sir Dudley Carleton, English Ambassador at the Hague, to prevent their further publication, and if possible to secure the arrest of the publishers. Brewster was sought for, but at that time was in England engaged in negotiations with the Virginia Company, and could not be found. Brewer was arrested, but being a member of the university, was, under its charter, exempted from the liability of being sent to England. He consented, however, to go of his own accord, the university making it a condition of his going that he should be treated as a free man and not a prisoner, that he should be well used, and after his examination be suffered to return without charge to himself. He was afterward discharged, and the abandonment by Brewster of his business in anticipation of his departure prevented further trouble.

But the Pilgrims were not destined to remain in Holland. Their residence there had begun at the beginning of the twelve years’ truce between Holland and Spain, and it was not unreasonably feared that a renewal of hostilities might result in the triumph of Philip, and a persecution of the little band more serious than any they had before encountered. They were also gradually losing their identity among strange people with strange language and habits, with whom, like a river flowing to the sea, they might be merged and lost. Having determined, then, to leave Leyden, their place of destination became the subject of serious and prolonged discussion. Virginia, however, was decided upon, and arrangements were at once made for their departure. It is unnecessary to trace their progress further; the story of their voyage is a familiar one. The little band, which disappeared from the eyes of the world, as what is mortal in man enters the valley of the shadow of death, has like his risen spirit emerged into a glorious immortality. The manor-house where they worshipped has gone to ruin; their sanctuary in Leyden is unknown; of the little house on the hill in Plymouth where their first prayers in the New World were uttered, no relic remains; but the little one has become a thousand, and wherever in this happy land a modest tower or spire rears its head above the trees, there may be found a Scrooby church.

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Table of Contents

- Who Were the Pilgrims?

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