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| This Plaque is in Leyden Where John Robinson was buried. |
Continued from prior post, after much research and skimming through chapters of almost thirty books written about the immigrants of the Mayflower; I still do not understand our love affair with Thanksgiving and our genealogical pursuit for a family connection to the Mayflower. Now don't get me wrong, I love to eat a home cooked meal just as much as the next guy. But through commercialization have we not lost the true tradition of Autumn harvest? And I am just one of 8 million people who can trace their roots to the Mayflower. Do we really think that if we find these lost cousins they are going to invite us over to share in the great feast?
King James I had financed the settlement of Jamestown Virgina in 1607. Later the Father of Canada, Samuel de Champlain established a settlement on July 03, 1608 on the east coast of the Americas in Kannata, the Huron-Iroquoian word for 'town'. . Prior to the settlement by Champlain, Jacques Cartier a French explorer had discovered the St. Lawrence River and named an Indian village Mont Real. The Spanish built the first University of the Americas, the University of Mexico in 1551. Prior to that, by 1550 Charles V laid claim to many Caribbean islands, and through conquest most of the central region along the Rio Grand through Mexico and most of South America except for Brazil, which belonged to Portugal. Santa Fe, at Pueblo Santa Fe founded a settlement in 1608. Historically the Pilgrims were not the first settlers. In fact they were fugitives from the law. They were pretty much forgotten, left to starve or die of disease or Indian attack. Jamestown Virginia was the place where fortune and new life was almost guaranteed.
How did this Puritan group known as Pilgrims become so close?
The Separatist group that met just north of Nottingham and the Lincolnshire boarder formed a nonconformist group under the leadership of Pastor Richard Clifton and Pastor John Robinson. John Robinson was born in 1576 in Sturton-le Steeple on the old Roman road, which traveled from Lincoln to Doncaster. John Robinson was of yeoman stock, and was educated at Cambridge, where he stayed for twelve years from 1597 as a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. When James I became King of England in 1603, and a more repressive regime appeared, John Robinson left his fellowship and went back home due to revisions of the teachings. He had received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1596, and his Master of Arts degree in 1599. He was then a teacher at Cambridge for many years. In addition to leaving Cambridge and his job he resigned from the living of St. Andrew's, Norwich, because he refused to follow the revised Thirty-nine Articles, which were the points of the doctrine maintained by the Church of England, that all candidates for ordination as clergymen of the Anglican Church must subscribe to them. Married men were also prohibited from teaching. And just five days later, John Robinson married Bridget White (1579-1643) of Fenton, which was a half mile from Sturton-le-Steeple. She was also of yeoman stock. Her parents were Alexander White and Eleanor (Smith). The new couple went to live on the banks of the Trent river at Gainsborough and could look across the river into the county of Nottingham. There they had three children, John, Bridget, and Isaac Robinson. Pastor John Robinson moved his congregation twelve miles west of Gainsborough to the village of Scrooby. Can you imagine walking 12 miles to go to church? Especially since highway robbery and murder were still everyday occurrences. Nearby Bawtry was a rendezvous for bandits and ruffians of the day, and Scrooby was know as a mean county.
Sir William Davison was chosen by Elizabeth Tudor to go to the Netherlands and take possession of the towns of Flushing and Brielle. They were ceded to England as a guarantee of the cost of the Earl of Leicester's expedition of 1585 that had not been handed back in over thirty years. This was successful and Sir William Davison was given the keys to the city he handed them to William Brewster who was the steward and bailiff of Scrooby Manor Farm as was his father before him. Here is where Pastor John Robinson held church meetings. John and William Brewster were friends since their days at Cambridge. As their futures were looking bright, Elizabeth Tudor was looking for a scapegoat for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, and in 1587 had Sir William Davidson held prisoner and taken to the Tower. William Brewster became the postmaster, and his wife Mary bore him three children. The first born in 1593, christened Jonathan, followed by two daughters, Patience, born in 1600, and Fear, born in 1606. William Brewster was then dismissed from his job in 1607 because of his religious belief and fined for disobedience in the matters of religion. Brewster joined Pastor Robinson in leading the meetings of the Separatists in Scrooby and together recruited many new followers.
William Bradford, born on March 19, 1589 was one recruit. He was born in the village of Austerfield three miles north on the Yorkshire boarder. After his father's death, his mother remarried and he was brought up in solitary living with his grandfather and two uncles. As a teen William Bradford had plenty of time to read and began questioning spiritual matters. For this he was persecuted by friends and his family did not take kindly. He sought out the true written Word of God, and in Scrooby is where he found it. The more oppressed the Separatists became, the greater belief they held that they were God's true elect, and that they would suffer for their faith like the martyrs described in the book of Martyrs by Foxe. The Separatists were watched, criticized, fired, informed upon and imprisoned. Bradford opens his journal with an explicit statement, "that England, first to break free from the darkness of popery, had naturally provoked the envy of Satan." I have to realize how literal was Satan at this time. After all it was the age of the Witch craze in Europe. Today we can turn to fictional books or watch the movies of Harry Potter that are loosely based on fact to see that demoniacal possession was as firmly believed then as the precepts of psychiatry are today.
At any moment a war might break out with Spain so time was running short to leave England and settle in Holland. Remember they did not have separation of Church and state at that time. In retaliation for the murder of Mary, Philip vowed to attack England and put a Catholic Monarch on the thrown. This war was being financed by Pope Sixtus V as he permitted Philip to collect crusade taxes to finance the war. However, no one could leave England without permission and it was doubtful that such permission would be given to Separatists especially in time of war. The only solution to their exodus was bribery and secrecy. They needed to be smuggled out of England. In 1607 Bradford was 18 years of age. He arranged a boat to carry the Separatists from Old Boston to Lincolnshire so the group set out. They had to first travel sixty miles from Scrooby to Old Boston. They took a boat down the Trent River to Gainsborough, then by the Roman canal called the Foss Dyke to Lincoln, then they took the River Witham all the way to Old Boston. However, the captain of the ship that Bradford hired to take them to Holland betrayed them and revealed their scheme. When the party arrived they were arrested in Boston and searched. Bradford was the first released, but Brewster, Robinson and Clifton stayed in prison for a month. In the spring of 1608 they would try again even though they had been told upon release from Guildhall never to attempt such a stunt again. Bradford and some other younger men jumped aboard a ship for Zeeland and made a successful crossing. The remaining members hired a Dutchman and he suggested that the group split up. The men to travel by land and the women and children with luggage would be picked up by boat, but not from a port. The women set off my boat to rough sea. So rough that they became sea sick and pulled to shore for calmer water. The boat became grounded and could not be pulled off until high tide at noon the following day. The Dutch captain arrived at the meeting point and picked up the men who had traveled by land. The last man had just came aboard when they noticed a hoard of mounted men and just as many on foot carrying weapons and bearing down on the women who were stuck in the mud. The captain quickly set sail to get to safety. The men were torn as their wives, children and all of their possessions were now captured. They had no food, no money and only the clothes on their backs. With tears in their eyes they begged the captain to turn back, but he refused. There was a horrible storm and it took a fortnight (fourteen days) to reach shore. Back in Old Boston the authorities were were faced with what to do with these destitute women and children with tears in their eyes. They agreed that the women were doing their Christian duty to obey their husbands and did not fine them or find them guilty. However, they could not send them home with no husbands, the only solution was to pack them across to Amsterdam. They reconnected in Amsterdam, but with the bad economy and no jobs they moved to Leyden, Holland where they lived for twelve years. Some of the older members die in Holland, and others moved back to England of those years. The remaining Pilgrims took notice that their children were becoming assimilated into the culture of Holland and had learned to speak a language that was foreign to them. The twelve year truce between the Spanish was to end in 1621, and they feared that Holland would become a bloodbath. They made plans to move to the New World. Not to become missionaries or to find riches, but to save their families and way of life.
Follow the next post as they board the Mayflower.