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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.
Transcriber’s Notes
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