The Beginnings of New England Chapter II - The Puritan Exodus
by Genseric (the Vandal)
In the preceding chapter I endeavoured to set forth and illustrate some
of the chief causes which have shifted the world's political centre of
gravity from the Mediterranean and the Rhine to the Atlantic and the
Mississippi; from the men who spoke Latin to the men who speak English.
In the course of the exposition we began to catch glimpses of the
wonderful significance of the fact that--among the people who had
first suggested the true solution of the difficult problem of making a
powerful nation without sacrificing local self-government--when the
supreme day of trial came, the dominant religious sentiment was arrayed
on the side of political freedom and against political despotism. If we
consider merely the territorial area which it covered, or the numbers
of men slain in its battles, the war of the English parliament against
Charles I. seems a trivial affair when contrasted with the gigantic
but comparatively insignificant work of barbarians like Jinghis or
Tamerlane. But if we consider the moral and political issues involved,
and the influence of the struggle upon the future welfare of mankind,
we soon come to see that there never was a conflict of more world-wide
importance than that from which Oliver Cromwell came out victorious. It
shattered the monarchical power in England at a time when monarchical
power was bearing down all opposition in the other great countries of
Europe. It decided that government by the people and for the people
should not then perish from the earth. It placed free England in a
position of such moral advantage that within another century the
English Idea of political life was able to react most powerfully upon
continental Europe. It was the study of English institutions by such men
as Montesquieu and Turgot, Voltaire and Rousseau, that gave shape and
direction to the French Revolution. That violent but wholesome clearing
of the air, that tremendous political and moral awakening, which ushered
in the nineteenth century in Europe, had its sources in the spirit
which animated the preaching of Latimer, the song of Milton, the solemn
imagery of Bunyan, the political treatises of Locke and Sidney, the
political measures of Hampden and Pym. The noblest type of modern
European statesmanship, as represented by Mazzini and Stein, is the
spiritual offspring of seventeenth-century Puritanism. To speak of
Naseby and Marston Moor as merely English victories would be as
absurd as to restrict the significance of Gettysburg to the state of
Pennsylvania. If ever there were men who laid down their lives in the
cause of all mankind, it was those grim old Ironsides whose watchwords
were texts from Holy Writ, whose battle-cries were hymns of praise.
[Sidenote: Influence of Puritanism upon modern Europe]
It was to this unwonted alliance of intense religious enthusiasm with
the instinct of self-government and the spirit of personal independence
that the preservation of English freedom was due. When James I. ascended
the English throne, the forces which prepared the Puritan revolt had
been slowly and quietly gathering strength among the people for at least
two centuries. The work which Wyclif had begun in the fourteenth century
had continued to go on in spite of occasional spasmodic attempts to
destroy it with the aid of the statute passed in 1401 for the burning
of heretics. The Lollards can hardly be said at any time to have
constituted a sect, marked off from the established church by the
possession of a system of doctrines held in common. The name by which
they were known was a nickname which might cover almost any amount
of diversity in opinion, like the modern epithets "free-thinker" and
"agnostic." The feature which characterized the Lollards in common was a
bold spirit of inquiry which led them, in spite of persecution, to read
Wyclif's English Bible and call in question such dogmas and rites of the
church as did not seem to find warrant in the sacred text. Clad in long
robes of coarse red wool, barefoot, with pilgrim's staff in hand, the
Lollard preachers fared to and fro among the quaint Gothic towns and
shaded hamlets, setting forth the word of God wherever they could find
listeners, now in the parish church or under the vaulted roof of the
cathedral, now in the churchyard or market-place, or on some green
hillside. During the fifteenth century persecution did much to check
this open preaching, but passages from Wyclif's tracts and texts from
the Bible were copied by hand and passed about among tradesmen and
artisans, yeomen and plough-boys, to be pondered over and talked about
and learned by heart. It was a new revelation to the English people,
this discovery of the Bible. Christ and his disciples seemed to come
very near when the beautiful story of the gospels was first read in
the familiar speech of every-day life. Heretofore they might well have
seemed remote and unreal, just as the school-boy hardly realizes that
the Cato and Cassius over whom he puzzles in his Latin lessons were once
living men like his father and neighbours, and not mere nominatives
governing a verb, or ablatives of means or instrument. Now it became
possible for the layman to contrast the pure teachings of Christ with
the doctrines and demeanour of the priests and monks to whom the
spiritual guidance of Englishmen had been entrusted. Strong and
self-respecting men and women, accustomed to manage their own affairs,
could not but be profoundly affected by the contrast. [Sidenote: Work of
the Lollards]
While they were thus led more and more to appeal to the Bible as the
divine standard of right living and right thinking, at the same time
they found in the sacred volume the treasures of a most original and
noble literature unrolled before them; stirring history and romantic
legend, cosmical theories and priestly injunctions, profound metaphysics
and pithy proverbs, psalms of unrivalled grandeur and pastorals of
exquisite loveliness, parables fraught with solemn meaning, the mournful
wisdom of the preacher, the exultant faith of the apostle, the matchless
eloquence of Job and Isaiah, the apocalyptic ecstasy of St. John. At a
time when there was as yet no English literature for the common people,
this untold wealth of Hebrew literature was implanted in the English
mind as in a virgin soil. Great consequences have flowed from the fact
that the first truly popular literature in England--the first which
stirred the hearts of all classes of people, and filled their minds with
ideal pictures and their every-day speech with apt and telling phrases--
was the literature comprised within the Bible. The superiority of the
common English version of the Bible, made in the reign of James I., over
all other versions, is a fact generally admitted by competent critics.
The sonorous Latin of the Vulgate is very grand, but in sublimity of
fervour as in the unconscious simplicity of strength it is surpassed
by the English version, which is scarcely if at all inferior to the
original, while it remains to-day, and will long remain, the noblest
monument of English speech. The reason for this is obvious. The common
English version of the Bible was made by men who were not aiming at
literary effect, but simply gave natural expression to the feelings
which for several generations had clustered around the sacred text. They
spoke with the voice of a people, which is more than the voice of the
most highly gifted man. They spoke with the voice of a people to whom
the Bible had come to mean all that it meant to the men who wrote it. To
the Englishmen who listened to Latimer, to the Scotchmen who listened
to Knox, the Bible more than filled the place which in modern times
is filled by poem and essay, by novel and newspaper and scientific
treatise. To its pages they went for daily instruction and comfort,
with its strange Semitic names they baptized their children, upon its
precepts, too often misunderstood and misapplied, they sought to build
up a rule of life that might raise them above the crude and unsatisfying
world into which they were born. [Sidenote: The English version of the
Bible]
It would be wrong to accredit all this awakening of spiritual life in
England to Wyclif and the Lollards, for it was only after the Bible, in
the translations of Tyndall and Coverdale, had been made free to the
whole English people in the reign of Edward VI. that its significance
began to be apparent; and it was only a century later, in the time of
Cromwell and Milton, that its full fruition was reached. It was with the
Lollards, however, that the spiritual awakening began and was continued
until its effects, when they came, were marked by surprising maturity
and suddenness. Because the Lollards were not a clearly defined sect, it
was hard to trace the manifold ramifications of their work. During the
terrible Wars of the Roses, contemporary chroniclers had little or
nothing to say about the labours of these humble men, which seemed
of less importance than now, when we read them in the light of their
world-wide results. From this silence some modern historians have
carelessly inferred that the nascent Protestantism of the Lollards had
been extinguished by persecution under the Lancastrian kings, and was in
nowise continuous with modern English Protestantism. Nothing could be
more erroneous. The extent to which the Lollard leaven had permeated all
classes of English society was first clearly revealed when Henry VIII.
made his domestic affairs the occasion for a revolt against the Papacy.
Despot and brute as he was in many ways, Henry had some characteristics
which enabled him to get on well with his people. He not only
represented the sentiment of national independence, but he had a truly
English reverence for the forms of law. In his worst acts he relied upon
the support of his Parliament, which he might in various ways cajole or
pack, but could not really enslave. In his quarrel with Rome he could
have achieved but little, had he not happened to strike a chord of
feeling to which the English people, trained by this slow and subtle
work of the Lollards, responded quickly and with a vehemence upon which
he had not reckoned. As if by magic, the fabric of Romanism was broken
to pieces in England, monasteries were suppressed and their abbots
hanged, the authority of the Pope was swept away, and there was no
powerful party, like that of the Guises in France to make such sweeping
measures the occasion for civil war. The whole secret of Henry's swift
success lay in the fact that the English people were already more than
half Protestant in temper, and needed only an occasion for declaring
themselves. Hence, as soon as Catholic Henry died, his youthful son
found himself seated on the throne of a Protestant nation. The terrible
but feeble persecution which followed under Mary did much to strengthen
the extreme Protestant sentiment by allying it with the outraged feeling
of national independence. The bloody work of the grand-daughter of
Ferdinand and Isabella, the doting wife of Philip II., was rightly felt
to be Spanish work; and never, perhaps, did England feel such a sense of
relief as on the auspicious day which welcomed to the throne the great
Elizabeth, an Englishwoman in every fibre, and whose mother withal was
the daughter of a plain country gentleman. But the Marian persecution
not only increased the strength of the extreme Protestant sentiment, but
indirectly it supplied it with that Calvinistic theology which was to
make it indomitable. Of the hundreds of ministers and laymen who fled
from England in 1555 and the two following years, a great part found
their way to Geneva, and thus came under the immediate personal
influence of that man of iron who taught the very doctrines for which
their souls were craving, and who was then at the zenith of his power.
[Sidenote: Secret of Henry VIII.'s swift success in his revolt against
Rome] [Sidenote: Effects of the persecution under Mary]
Among all the great benefactors of mankind the figure of Calvin is
perhaps the least attractive. He was, so to speak, the constitutional
lawyer of the Reformation, with vision as clear, with head as cool, with
soul as dry, as any old solicitor in rusty black that ever dwelt in
chambers in Lincoln's Inn. His sternness was that of the judge who
dooms a criminal to the gallows. His theology had much in it that is in
striking harmony with modern scientific philosophy, and much in it, too,
that the descendants of his Puritan converts have learned to loathe as
sheer diabolism. It is hard for us to forgive the man who burned Michael
Servetus, even though it was the custom of the time to do such things
and the tender-hearted Melanchthon found nothing to blame in it. It is
not easy to speak of Calvin with enthusiasm, as it comes natural to
speak of the genial, whole-souled, many-sided, mirth-and-song-loving
Luther. Nevertheless it would be hard to overrate the debt which mankind
owe to Calvin. The spiritual father of Coligny, of William the Silent,
and of Cromwell must occupy a foremost rank among the champions of
modern democracy. Perhaps not one of the mediaeval popes was more
despotic in temper than Calvin; but it is not the less true that the
promulgation of his theology was one of the longest steps that mankind
have taken toward personal freedom. Calvinism left the individual man
alone in the presence of his God. His salvation could not be wrought by
priestly ritual, but only by the grace of God abounding in his soul; and
wretched creature that he felt himself to be, through the intense moral
awakening of which this stern theology was in part the expression, his
soul was nevertheless of infinite value, and the possession of it was
the subject of an everlasting struggle between the powers of heaven and
the powers of hell. In presence of the awful responsibility of life, all
distinctions of rank and fortune vanished; prince and pauper were alike
the helpless creatures of Jehovah and suppliants for his grace. Calvin
did not originate these doctrines; in announcing them he was but setting
forth, as he said, the Institutes of the Christian religion; but in
emphasizing this aspect of Christianity, in engraving it upon men's
minds with that keen-edged logic which he used with such unrivalled
skill, Calvin made them feel, as it had perhaps never been felt before,
the dignity and importance of the individual human soul. It was a
religion fit to inspire men who were to be called upon to fight for
freedom, whether in the marshes of the Netherlands or on the moors of
Scotland. In a church, moreover, based upon such a theology there was
no room for prelacy. Each single church tended to become an independent
congregation of worshippers, constituting one of the most effective
schools that has ever existed for training men in local self-government.
[Sidenote: Calvin's theology in its political bearings]
When, therefore, upon the news of Elizabeth's accession to the throne,
the Protestant refugees made their way back to England, they came as
Calvinistic Puritans. Their stay upon the Continent had been short, but
it had been just enough to put the finishing touch upon the work that
had been going on since the days of Wyclif. Upon such men and their
theories Elizabeth could not look with favour. With all her father's
despotic temper, Elizabeth possessed her mother's fine tact, and
she represented so grandly the feeling of the nation in its
life-and-death-struggle with Spain and the pope, that never perhaps in
English history has the crown wielded so much real power as during the
five-and-forty years of her wonderful reign.
One day Elizabeth asked a lady of the court how she contrived to retain
her husband's affection. The lady replied that "she had confidence
in her husband's understanding and courage, well founded on her own
steadfastness not to offend or thwart, but to cherish and obey, whereby
she did persuade her husband of her own affection, and in so doing did
command his." "Go to, go to, mistress," cried the queen, "You are
wisely bent, I find. After such sort do I keep the good will of all
my husbands, my good people; for if they did not rest assured of some
special love towards them, they would not readily yield me such good
obedience." [2] Such a theory of government might work well in the hands
of an Elizabeth, and in the circumstances in which England was then
placed; but it could hardly be worked by a successor. The seeds of
revolt were already sown. The disposition to curb the sovereign was
growing and would surely assert itself as soon as it should have some
person less loved and respected than Elizabeth to deal with. The queen
in some measure foresaw this, and in the dogged independence and
uncompromising enthusiasm of the Puritans she recognized the rock on
which the monarchy might dash itself into pieces. She therefore hated
the Puritans, and persecuted them zealously with one hand, while
circumstances forced her in spite of herself to aid and abet them with
the other. She could not maintain herself against Spain without helping
the Dutch and the Huguenots; but every soldier she sent across the
channel came back, if he came at all, with his head full of the
doctrines of Calvin; and these stalwart converts were reinforced by the
refugees from France and the Netherlands who came flocking into English
towns to set up their thrifty shops and hold prayer-meetings in their
humble chapels. To guard the kingdom against the intrigues of Philip and
the Guises and the Queen of Scots, it was necessary to choose the most
zealous Protestants for the most responsible positions, and such men
were more than likely to be Calvinists and Puritans. Elizabeth's great
ministers, Burleigh, Walsingham, and Nicholas Bacon, were inclined
toward Puritanism; and so were the naval heroes who won the most
fruitful victories of that century, by shattering the maritime power of
Spain and thus opening the way for Englishmen to colonize North America.
If we would realize the dangers that would have beset the Mayflower and
her successors but for the preparatory work of these immortal sailors,
we must remember the dreadful fate of Ribault and his Huguenot followers
in Florida, twenty-three years before that most happy and glorious
event, the destruction of the Spanish Armada. But not even the devoted
men and women who held their prayer-meetings in the Mayflower's cabin
were more constant in prayer or more assiduous in reading the Bible than
the dauntless rovers, Drake and Hawkins, Gilbert and Cavendish. In the
church itself, too, the Puritan spirit grew until in 1575-83 it seized
upon Grindal, archbishop of Canterbury, who incurred the queen's
disfavour by refusing to meddle with the troublesome reformers or to
suppress their prophesyings. By the end of the century the majority
of country gentlemen and of wealthy merchants in the towns had become
Puritans, and the new views had made great headway in both universities,
while at Cambridge they had become dominant. [Sidenote: Elizabeth's
policy, and its effects] [Sidenote: Puritan Sea-rovers]
This allusion to the universities may serve to introduce the very
interesting topic of the geographical distribution of Puritanism in
England. No one can study the history of the two universities without
being impressed with the greater conservatism of Oxford, and the greater
hospitality of Cambridge toward new ideas. Possibly the explanation
may have some connection with the situation of Cambridge upon the East
Anglian border. The eastern counties of England have often been remarked
as rife in heresy and independency. For many generations the coast
region between the Thames and the Humber was a veritable litus
haereticum. Longland, bishop of Lincoln in 1520, reported Lollardism as
especially vigorous and obstinate in his diocese, where more than two
hundred heretics were once brought before him in the course of a single
visitation. It was in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, and
among the fens of Ely, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, that Puritanism was
strongest at the end of the sixteenth century. It was as member and
leading spirit of the Eastern Counties Association that Oliver Cromwell
began his military career; and in so far as there was anything sectional
in the struggle between Charles I. and the Long Parliament, it was a
struggle which ended in the victory of east over west. East Anglia was
from first to last the one region in which the supremacy of Parliament
was unquestionable and impregnable, even after the strength of its
population had been diminished by sending some thousands of picked men
and women to America. While every one of the forty counties of England
was represented in the great Puritan exodus, the East Anglian counties
contributed to it far more than all the rest. Perhaps it would not be
far out of the way to say that two-thirds of the American people who can
trace their ancestry to New England might follow it back to the East
Anglian shires of the mother-country; one-sixth might follow it to those
southwestern countries--Devonshire, Dorset, and Somerset--which so
long were foremost in maritime enterprise; one-sixth to other parts of
England. I would not insist upon the exactness of such figures, in a
matter where only a rough approximation is possible; but I do not think
they overstate the East Anglian preponderance. It was not by accident
that the earliest counties of Massachusetts were called Norfolk,
Suffolk, and Essex, or that Boston in Lincolnshire gave its name to the
chief city of New England. The native of Connecticut or Massachusetts
who wanders about rural England to-day finds no part of it so homelike
as the cosy villages and smiling fields and quaint market towns as he
fares leisurely and in not too straight a line from Ipswich toward Hull.
Countless little unobtrusive features remind him of home. The very names
on the sign-boards over the sleepy shops have an unwontedly familiar
look. In many instances the homestead which his forefathers left, when
they followed Winthrop or Hooker to America, is still to be found,
well-kept and comfortable; the ancient manor-house built of massive
unhewn stone, yet in other respects much like the New England farmhouse,
with its long sloping roof and gable end toward the road, its staircase
with twisted balusters running across the shallow entry-way, its low
ceilings with their sturdy oaken beams, its spacious chimneys, and its
narrow casements from which one might have looked out upon the anxious
march of Edward IV. from Ravenspur to the field of victory at Barnet
in days when America was unknown. Hard by, in the little parish church
which has stood for perhaps a thousand years, plain enough and bleak
enough to suit the taste of the sternest Puritan, one may read upon
the cold pavement one's own name and the names of one's friends and
neighbours in startling proximity, somewhat worn and effaced by the
countless feet that have trodden there. And yonder on the village green
one comes with bated breath upon the simple inscription which tells of
some humble hero who on that spot in the evil reign of Mary suffered
death by fire. Pursuing thus our interesting journey, we may come at
last to the quiet villages of Austerfield and Scrooby, on opposite
banks of the river Idle, and just at the corner of the three shires of
Lincoln, York, and Nottingham. It was from this point that the Puritan
exodus to America was begun. [Sidenote: Puritanism was strongest in the
eastern counties] [Sidenote: Preponderance of East Anglia in the Puritan
exodus]
It was not, however, in the main stream of Puritanism, but in one of its
obscure rivulets that this world-famous movement originated. During the
reign of Elizabeth it was not the purpose of the Puritans to separate
themselves from the established church of which the sovereign was the
head, but to remain within it and reform it according to their own
notions. For a time they were partially successful in this work,
especially in simplifying the ritual and in giving a Calvinistic tinge
to the doctrines. In doing this they showed no conscious tendency toward
freedom of thought, but rather a bigotry quite as intense as that which
animated the system against which they were fighting. The most advanced
liberalism of Elizabeth's time was not to be found among the Puritans,
but in the magnificent treatise on "Ecclesiastical Polity" by the
churchman Richard Hooker. But the liberalism of this great writer, like
that of Erasmus a century earlier, was not militant enough to meet the
sterner demands of the time. It could not then ally itself with the
democratic spirit, as Puritanism did. It has been well said that while
Luther was the prophet of the Reformation that has been, Erasmus was the
prophet of the Reformation that is to come, and so it was to some extent
with the Puritans and Hooker. The Puritan fight against the hierarchy
was a political necessity of the time, something without which no real
and thorough reformation could then be effected. In her antipathy to
this democratic movement, Elizabeth vexed and tormented the Puritans
as far as she deemed it prudent; and in the conservative temper of the
people she found enough support to prevent their transforming the church
as they would have liked to do. Among the Puritans themselves, indeed,
there was no definite agreement on this point. Some would have stopped
short with Presbyterianism, while others held that "new presbyter was
but old priest writ large," and so pressed on to Independency. It was
early in Elizabeth's reign that the zeal of these extreme brethren,
inflamed by persecution, gave rise to the sect of Separatists, who
flatly denied the royal supremacy over ecclesiastical affairs, and
asserted the right to set up churches of their own, with pastors
and elders and rules of discipline, independent of queen or bishop.
[Sidenote: Puritanism was not intentionally allied with liberalism]
In 1567 the first congregation of this sort, consisting of about a
hundred persons assembled in a hall in Anchor Lane in London, was
forcibly broken up and thirty-one of the number were sent to jail and
kept there for nearly a year. By 1576 the Separatists had come to be
recognized as a sect, under the lead of Robert Brown, a man of high
social position, related to the great Lord Burleigh. Brown fled to
Holland, where he preached to a congregation of English exiles, and
wrote books which were smuggled into England and privately circulated
there, much to the disgust, not only of the queen, but of all parties,
Puritans as well as High Churchmen. The great majority of Puritans,
whose aim was not to leave the church, but to stay in it and control
it, looked with dread and disapproval upon these extremists who seemed
likely to endanger their success by forcing them into deadly opposition
to the crown. Just as in the years which ushered in our late Civil War,
the opponents of the Republicans sought to throw discredit upon them by
confusing them with the little sect of Abolitionists; and just as the
Republicans, in resenting the imputation, went so far as to frown upon
the Abolitionists, so that in December, 1860, men who had just voted for
Mr. Lincoln were ready to join in breaking up "John Brown meetings" in
Boston; so it was with religious parties in the reign of Elizabeth. The
opponents of the Puritans pointed to the Separatists, and cried, "See
whither your anarchical doctrines are leading!" and in their eagerness
to clear themselves of this insinuation, the leading Puritans were as
severe upon the Separatists as anybody. It is worthy of note that in
both instances the imputation, so warmly resented, was true. Under the
pressure of actual hostilities the Republicans did become Abolitionists,
and in like manner, when in England it came to downright warfare the
Puritans became Separatists. But meanwhile it fared ill with the little
sect which everybody hated and despised. Their meetings were broken up
by mobs. In an old pamphlet describing a "tumult in Fleet Street, raised
by the disorderly preachment, pratings, and prattlings of a swarm of
Separatists," one reads such sentences as the following: "At length they
catcht one of them alone, but they kickt him so vehemently as if they
meant to beat him into a jelly. It is ambiguous whether they have kil'd
him or no, but for a certainty they did knock him about as if they meant
to pull him to pieces. I confesse it had been no matter if they had
beaten the whole tribe in the like manner." For their leaders the
penalty was more serious. The denial of the queen's ecclesiastical
supremacy could be treated as high treason, and two of Brown's friends,
convicted of circulating his books, were sent to the gallows. In spite
of these dangers Brown returned to England in 1585. William the Silent
had lately been murdered, and heresy in Holland was not yet safe from
the long arm of the Spaniard. Brown trusted in Lord Burleigh's ability
to protect him, but in 1588, finding himself in imminent danger, he
suddenly recanted and accepted a comfortable living under the bishops
who had just condemned him. His followers were already known as
Brownists; henceforth their enemies took pains to call them so and twit
them with holding doctrines too weak for making martyrs. [Sidenote:
Robert Brown and the Separatists]
The flimsiness of Brown's moral texture prevented him from becoming the
leader in the Puritan exodus to New England. That honour was reserved
for William Brewster, son of a country gentleman who had for many
years been postmaster at Scrooby. The office was then one of high
responsibility and influence. After taking his degree at Cambridge,
Brewster became private secretary to Sir William Davison, whom he
accompanied on his mission to the Netherlands. When Davison's public
career came to an end in 1587, Brewster returned to Scrooby, and soon
afterward succeeded his father as postmaster, in which position he
remained until 1607. During the interval Elizabeth died, and James
Stuart came from Scotland to take her place on the throne. [Sidenote:
William Brewster]
The feelings with which the late queen had regarded Puritanism were mild
compared with the sentiments entertained by her successor. For some
years he had been getting worsted in his struggle with the Presbyterians
of the northern kingdom. His vindictive memory treasured up the day when
a mighty Puritan preacher had in public twitched him by the sleeve and
called him "God's silly vassal." "I tell you, sir," said Andrew Melville
on that occasion, "there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland.
There is Christ Jesus the King, and his kingdom the Kirk, whose subject
James VI. is, and of whose kingdom not a king, nor a lord, nor a head,
but a member. And they whom Christ hath called to watch over his kirk
and govern his spiritual kingdom have sufficient power and authority so
to do both together and severally." In this bold and masterful speech
we have the whole political philosophy of Puritanism, as in a nutshell.
Under the guise of theocratic fanaticism, and in words as arrogant as
ever fell from priestly lips, there was couched the assertion of the
popular will against despotic privilege. Melville could say such things
to the king's face and walk away unharmed, because there stood behind
him a people fully aroused to the conviction that there is an eternal
law of God, which kings no less than scullions must obey. [3] Melville
knew this full well, and so did James know it in the bitterness of his
heart. He would have no such mischievous work in England. He despised
Elizabeth's grand national policy which his narrow intellect could not
comprehend. He could see that in fighting Spain and aiding Dutchmen and
Huguenots she was strengthening the very spirit that sought to pull
monarchy down. In spite of her faults, which were neither few nor small,
the patriotism of that fearless woman was superior to any personal
ambition. It was quite otherwise with James. He was by no means
fearless, and he cared more for James Stuart than for either England or
Scotland. He had an overweening opinion of his skill in kingcraft. In
coming to Westminster it was his policy to use his newly acquired
power to break down the Puritan party in both kingdoms and to fasten
episcopacy upon Scotland. In pursuing this policy he took no heed of
English national sentiment, but was quite ready to defy and insult it,
even to the point of making--before children who remembered the Armada
had yet reached middle age--an alliance with the hated Spaniard. In such
wise James succeeded in arraying against the monarchical principle the
strongest forces of English life,--the sentiment of nationality, the
sentiment of personal freedom, and the uncompromising religious fervour
of Calvinism; and out of this invincible combination of forces has been
wrought the nobler and happier state of society in which we live to-day.
[Sidenote: James Stuart and Andrew Melville]
Scarcely ten months had James been king of England when he invited
the leading Puritan clergymen to meet himself and the bishops in a
conference at Hampton Court, as he wished to learn what changes they
would like to make in the government and ritual of the church. In the
course of the discussion he lost his temper and stormed, as was his
wont. [Sidenote: King James's view of the political situation]
The mention of the word "presbytery" lashed him into fury. "A Scottish
presbytery," he cried, "agreeth as well with a monarchy as God and the
Devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their
pleasures censure me and my council and all our proceedings .... Stay,
I pray you, for one seven years, before you demand that from me, and if
then you find me pursy and fat, and my windpipes stuffed, I will perhaps
hearken to you .... Until you find that I grow lazy, let that alone."
One of the bishops declared that in this significant tirade his Majesty
spoke by special inspiration from Heaven! The Puritans saw that their
only hope lay in resistance. If any doubt remained, it was dispelled by
the vicious threat with which the king broke up the conference. "I will
make them conform," said he, "or I will harry them out of the land."
These words made a profound sensation in England, as well they might,
for they heralded the struggle which within half a century was to
deliver up James's son to the executioner. The Parliament of 1604 met
in angrier mood than any Parliament which had assembled at Westminster
since the dethronement of Richard II. Among the churches non-conformity
began more decidedly to assume the form of secession. The key-note of
the conflict was struck at Scrooby. Staunch Puritan as he was, Brewster
had not hitherto favoured the extreme measures of the Separatists. Now
he withdrew from the church, and gathered together a company of men and
women who met on Sundays for divine service in his own drawing-room at
Scrooby Manor. In organizing this independent Congregationalist
society, Brewster was powerfully aided by John Robinson, a native of
Lincolnshire. Robinson was then thirty years of age, and had taken his
master's degree at Cambridge in 1600. He was a man of great learning and
rare sweetness of temper, and was moreover distinguished for a broad and
tolerant habit of mind too seldom found among the Puritans of that day.
Friendly and unfriendly writers alike bear witness to his spirit of
Christian charity and the comparatively slight value which he attached
to orthodoxy in points of doctrine; and we can hardly be wrong in
supposing that the comparatively tolerant behaviour of the Plymouth
colonists, whereby they were contrasted with the settlers of
Massachusetts, was in some measure due to the abiding influence of the
teachings of this admirable man. Another important member of the Scrooby
congregation was William Bradford, of the neighbouring village of
Austerfield, then a lad of seventeen years, but already remarkable for
maturity of intelligence and weight of character. Afterward governor of
Plymouth for nearly thirty years, he became the historian of his colony;
and to his picturesque chronicle, written in pure and vigorous English,
we are indebted for most that we know of the migration that started
from Scrooby and ended in Plymouth. [Sidenote: The congregation of
Separatists at Scrooby]
It was in 1606--two years after King James's truculent threat--that
this independent church of Scrooby was organized. Another year had not
elapsed before its members had suffered so much at the hands of officers
of the law, that they began to think of following the example of former
heretics and escaping to Holland. After an unsuccessful attempt in
the autumn of 1607, they at length succeeded a few months later in
accomplishing their flight to Amsterdam, where they hoped to find a
home. But here they found the English exiles who had preceded them so
fiercely involved in doctrinal controversies, that they decided to
go further in search of peace and quiet. This decision, which we may
ascribe to Robinson's wise counsels, served to keep the society of
Pilgrims from getting divided and scattered. They reached Leyden in
1609, just as the Spanish government had sullenly abandoned the hopeless
task of conquering the Dutch, and had granted to Holland the Twelve
Years Truce. During eleven of these twelve years the Pilgrims remained
in Leyden, supporting themselves by various occupations, while their
numbers increased from 300 to more than 1000. Brewster opened a
publishing house, devoted mainly to the issue of theological books.
Robinson accepted a professorship in the university, and engaged in the
defence of Calvinism against the attacks of Episcopius, the successor
of Arminius. The youthful Bradford devoted himself to the study of
languages,--Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and finally Hebrew; wishing,
as he said, to "see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in all
their native beauty." During their sojourn in Leyden the Pilgrims were
introduced to a strange and novel spectacle,--the systematic legal
toleration of all persons, whether Catholic or Protestant, who called
themselves followers of Christ. Not that there was not plenty of
intolerance in spirit, but the policy inaugurated by the idolized
William the Silent held it in check by law. All persons who came to
Holland, and led decorous lives there, were protected in their opinions
and customs. By contemporary writers in other countries this eccentric
behaviour of the Dutch government was treated with unspeakable scorn.
"All strange religions flock thither," says one; it is "a common harbour
of all heresies," a "cage of unclean birds," says another; "the great
mingle mangle of religion," says a third. [4] In spite of the relief
from persecution, however, the Pilgrims were not fully satisfied with
their new home. The expiration of the truce with Spain might prove that
this relief was only temporary; and at any rate, complete toleration
did not fill the measure of their wants. Had they come to Holland as
scattered bands of refugees, they might have been absorbed into the
Dutch population, as Huguenot refugees have been absorbed in Germany,
England, and America. But they had come as an organized community, and
absorption into a foreign nation was something to be dreaded. They
wished to preserve their English speech and English traditions, keep up
their organization, and find some favoured spot where they might lay the
corner-stone of a great Christian state. The spirit of nationality was
strong in them; the spirit of self-government was strong in them; and
the only thing which could satisfy these feelings was such a migration
as had not been seen since ancient times, a migration like that of
Phokaians to Massilia or Tyrians to Carthage. [Sidenote: The flight to
Holland] [Sidenote: Why the Pilgrims did not stay there]
It was too late in the world's history to carry out such a scheme upon
European soil. Every acre of territory there was appropriated. The only
favourable outlook was upon the Atlantic coast of America, where English
cruisers had now successfully disputed the pretensions of Spain, and
where after forty years of disappointment and disaster a flourishing
colony had at length been founded in Virginia. The colonization of the
North American coast had now become part of the avowed policy of the
British government. In 1606 a great joint-stock company was formed for
the establishment of two colonies in America. The branch which was to
take charge of the proposed southern colony had its headquarters in
London; the management of the northern branch was at Plymouth in
Devonshire. Hence the two branches are commonly spoken of as the London
and Plymouth companies. The former was also called the Virginia Company,
and the latter the North Virginia Company, as the name of Virginia was
then loosely applied to the entire Atlantic coast north of Florida. The
London Company had jurisdiction from 34 degrees to 38 degrees north
latitude; the Plymouth Company had jurisdiction from 45 degrees down to
41 degrees; the intervening territory, between 38 degrees and 41 degrees
was to go to whichever company should first plant a self-supporting
colony. The local government of each colony was to be entrusted to a
council resident in America and nominated by the king; while general
supervision over both colonies was to be exercised by a council resident
in England. [Sidenote: The London and Plymouth companies]
In pursuance of this general plan, though with some variations in
detail, the settlement of Jamestown had been begun in 1607, and its
success was now beginning to seem assured. On the other hand all the
attempts which had been made to the north of the fortieth parallel had
failed miserably. As early as 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold, with 32 men, had
landed on the headland which they named Cape Cod from the fish found
thereabouts in great numbers. This was the first English name given to
any spot in that part of America, and so far as known these were the
first Englishmen that ever set foot there. They went on and gave names
to Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands in Buzzard's Bay; and
on Cuttyhunk they built some huts with the intention of remaining, but
after a month's experience they changed their mind and went back to
England. Gosnold's story interested other captains, and on Easter
Sunday, 1605, George Weymouth set sail for North Virginia, as it was
called. He found Cape Cod and coasted northward as far as the Kennebec
river, up which he sailed for many miles. Weymouth kidnapped five
Indians and carried them to England, that they might learn the language
and acquire a wholesome respect for the arts of civilization and the
resistless power of white men. His glowing accounts of the spacious
harbours, the abundance of fish and game, the noble trees, the luxuriant
herbage, and the balmy climate, aroused general interest in England, and
doubtless had some influence upon the formation, in the following year,
of the great joint-stock company just described. The leading spirit of
the Plymouth Company was Sir John Popham, chief-justice of England, and
he was not disposed to let his friends of the southern branch excel him
in promptness. Within three months after the founding of Jamestown, a
party of 120 colonists, led by the judge's kinsman George Popham, landed
at the mouth of the Kennebec, and proceeded to build a rude village of
some fifty cabins, with storehouse, chapel, and block-house. When
they landed in August they doubtless shared Weymouth's opinion of the
climate. These Englishmen had heard of warm countries like Italy and
cold countries like Russia; harsh experience soon taught them that there
are climates in which the summer of Naples may alternate with the winter
of Moscow. The president and many others fell sick and died. News came
of the death of Sir John Popham in England, and presently the weary and
disappointed settlers abandoned their enterprise and returned to their
old homes. Their failure spread abroad in England the opinion that
North Virginia was uninhabitable by reason of the cold, and no further
attempts were made upon that coast until in 1614 it was visited by
Captain John Smith. [Sidenote: First exploration of the New England
coast]
The romantic career of this gallant and garrulous hero did not end with
his departure from the infant colony at Jamestown. By a curious destiny
his fame is associated with the beginnings of both the southern and the
northern portions of the United States. To Virginia Smith may be said to
have given its very existence as a commonwealth; to New England he
gave its name. In 1614 he came over with two ships to North Virginia,
explored its coast minutely from the Penobscot river to Cape Cod, and
thinking it a country of such extent and importance as to deserve a name
of its own, rechristened it New England. On returning home he made a
very good map of the coast and dotted it with English names suggested by
Prince Charles. Of these names Cape Elizabeth, Cape Ann, Charles River,
and Plymouth still remain where Smith placed them. In 1615 Smith again
set sail for the New World, this time with a view to planting a colony
under the auspices of the Plymouth Company, but his talent for strange
adventures had not deserted him. He was taken prisoner by a French
fleet, carried hither and thither on a long cruise, and finally set
ashore at Rochelle, whence, without a penny in his pocket, he contrived
to make his way back to England. Perhaps Smith's life of hardship may
have made him prematurely old. After all his wild and varied experience
he was now only in his thirty-seventh year, but he does not seem to have
gone on any more voyages. The remaining sixteen years of his life
were spent quietly in England in writing books, publishing maps, and
otherwise stimulating the public interest in the colonization of the New
World. But as for the rocky coast of New England, which he had explored
and named, he declared that he was not so simple as to suppose that any
other motive than riches would "ever erect there a commonwealth or draw
company from their ease and humours at home, to stay in New England."
[Sidenote: John Smith]
In this opinion, however, the bold explorer was mistaken. Of all
migrations of peoples the settlement of New England is preeminently
the one in which the almighty dollar played the smallest part, however
important it may since have become as a motive power. It was left for
religious enthusiasm to achieve what commercial enterprise had failed
to accomplish. By the summer of 1617 the Pilgrim society at Leyden had
decided to send a detachment of its most vigorous members to lay
the foundations of a Puritan state in America. There had been much
discussion as to the fittest site for such a colony. Many were in favour
of Guiana, which Sir Walter Raleigh had described in such glowing
colours; but it was thought that the tropical climate would be
ill-suited to northern men of industrious and thrifty habit, and the
situation, moreover, was dangerously exposed to the Spaniards. Half a
century had scarcely elapsed since the wholesale massacre of Huguenots
in Florida. Virginia was then talked of, but Episcopal ideas had already
taken root there. New England, on the other hand, was considered too
cold. Popham's experience was not encouraging. But the country about
the Delaware river afforded an opportunity for erecting an independent
colony under the jurisdiction of the London Company, and this seemed
the best course to pursue. Sir Edwin Sandys, the leading spirit in the
London Company, was favourably inclined toward Puritans, and through him
negotiations were begun. Capital to the amount of £7000 was furnished
by seventy merchant adventurers in England, and the earnings of the
settlers were to be thrown into a common stock until these subscribers
should have been remunerated. A grant of land was obtained from the
London Company, and the king was asked to protect the emigrants by a
charter, but this was refused. James, however, made no objections to
their going, herein showing himself less of a bigot than Louis XIV.
in later days, who would not suffer a Huguenot to set foot in Canada,
though France was teeming with Huguenots who would have been glad
enough to go. When James inquired how the colonists expected to support
themselves, some one answered, most likely by fishing. "Very good,"
quoth the king, "it was the Apostles' own calling." He declared that no
one should molest them so long as they behaved themselves properly. From
this unwonted urbanity it would appear that James anticipated no trouble
from the new colony. A few Puritans in America could not do much to
annoy him, and there was of course a fair chance of their perishing, as
so many other colonizers had perished. [Sidenote: The Pilgrims at Leyden
decide to make a settlement near the Delaware river]
The congregation at Leyden did not think it wise to cut loose from
Holland until they should have secured a foothold in America. It was but
an advance guard that started out from Delft haven late in July, 1620,
in the rickety ship Speedwell, with Brewster and Bradford, and sturdy
Miles Standish, a trained soldier whose aid was welcome, though he does
not seem to have belonged to the congregation. Robinson remained at
Leyden, and never came to America. After a brief stop at Southampton,
where they met the Mayflower with friends from London, the Pilgrims
again set sail in the two ships. The Speedwell sprang a leak, and they
stopped at Dartmouth for repairs. Again they started, and had put three
hundred miles of salt water between themselves and Land's End, when the
Speedwell leaked so badly that they were forced to return. When they
dropped anchor at Plymouth in Devonshire, about twenty were left on
shore, and the remainder, exactly one hundred in number, crowded into
the Mayflower and on the 6th of September started once more to cross the
Atlantic. The capacity of the little ship was 180 tons, and her strength
was but slight. In a fierce storm in mid-ocean a mainbeam amidships was
wrenched and cracked, and but for a huge iron screw which one of the
passengers had brought from Delft, they might have gone to the bottom.
The foul weather prevented any accurate calculation of latitude and
longitude, and they were so far out in their reckoning that when they
caught sight of land on the 9th of November, it was to Cape Cod that
they had come. Their patent gave them no authority to settle here, as
it was beyond the jurisdiction of the London Company. They turned their
prow southward, but encountering perilous shoals and a stiff headwind
they desisted and sought shelter in Cape Cod bay. On the 11th they
decided to find some place of abode in this neighbourhood, anticipating
no difficulty in getting a patent from the Plymouth Company, which was
anxious to obtain settlers. For five weeks they stayed in the ship while
little parties were exploring the coast and deciding upon the best site
for a town. It was purely a coincidence that the spot which they chose
had already received from John Smith the name of Plymouth, the beautiful
port in Devonshire from which the Mayflower had sailed. [Sidenote:
Founding of Plymouth]
There was not much to remind them of home in the snow-covered coast on
which they landed. They had hoped to get their rude houses built before
the winter should set in, but the many delays and mishaps had served to
bring them ashore in the coldest season. When the long winter came to
an end, fifty-one of the hundred Pilgrims had died,--a mortality even
greater than that before which the Popham colony had succumbed. But
Brewster spoke truth when he said, "It is not with us as with men whom
small things can discourage or small discontentments cause to wish
themselves at home again." At one time the living were scarcely able to
bury the dead; only Brewster, Standish, and five other hardy ones were
well enough to get about. At first they were crowded under a single
roof, and as glimpses were caught of dusky savages skulking among the
trees, a platform was built on the nearest hill and a few cannon were
placed there in such wise as to command the neighbouring valleys and
plains. By the end of the first summer the platform had grown to a
fortress, down from which to the harbour led a village street with seven
houses finished and others going up. Twenty-six acres had been cleared,
and a plentiful harvest gathered in; venison, wild fowl, and fish were
easy to obtain. When provisions and fuel had been laid in for the
ensuing winter, Governor Bradford appointed a day of Thanksgiving.
Town-meetings had already been held, and a few laws passed. The history
of New England had begun.
This had evidently been a busy summer for the forty-nine survivors.
On the 9th of November, the anniversary of the day on which they had
sighted land, a ship was descried in the offing. She was the Fortune,
bringing some fifty more of the Leyden company. It was a welcome
reinforcement, but it diminished the rations of food that could be
served during the winter, for the Fortune was not well supplied. When
she set sail for England, she carried a little cargo of beaver-skins and
choice wood for wainscoting to the value of L500 sterling, as a first
instalment of the sum due to the merchant adventurers. But this cargo
never reached England, for the Fortune was overhauled by a French
cruiser and robbed of everything worth carrying away.
For two years more it was an anxious and difficult time for the new
colony. By 1624 its success may be said to have become assured. That the
Indians in the neighbourhood had not taken advantage of the distress of
the settlers in that first winter, and massacred every one of them, was
due to a remarkable circumstance. Early in 1617 a frightful pestilence
had swept over New England and slain, it is thought, more than half the
Indian population between the Penobscot river and Narragansett bay. Many
of the Indians were inclined to attribute this calamity to the murder of
two or three white fishermen the year before. They had not got over the
superstitious dread with which the first sight of white men had inspired
them, and now they believed that the strangers held the demon of the
plague at their disposal and had let him loose upon the red men in
revenge for the murders they had committed. This wholesome delusion
kept their tomahawks quiet for a while. When they saw the Englishmen
establishing themselves at Plymouth, they at first held a powwow in
the forest, at which the new-comers were cursed with all the elaborate
ingenuity that the sorcery of the medicine-men could summon for so
momentous an occasion; but it was deemed best to refrain from merely
human methods of attack. It was not until the end of the first winter
that any of them mustered courage to visit the palefaces. Then an Indian
named Samoset, who had learned a little English from fishermen and for
his own part was inclined to be friendly, came one day into the
village with words of welcome. He was so kindly treated that presently
Massasoit, principal sachem of the Wampanoags, who dwelt between
Narragansett and Cape Cod bays, came with a score of painted and
feathered warriors and squatting on a green rug and cushions in the
governor's log-house smoked the pipe of peace, while Standish with
half-a-dozen musketeers stood quietly by. An offensive and defensive
alliance was then and there made between King Massasoit and King James,
and the treaty was faithfully kept for half a century. Some time
afterward, when Massasoit had fallen sick and lay at death's door, his
life was saved by Edward Winslow, who came to his wigwam and skilfully
nursed him. Henceforth the Wampanoag thought well of the Pilgrim. The
powerful Narragansetts, who dwelt on the farther side of the bay, felt
differently, and thought it worth while to try the effect of a threat.
A little while after the Fortune had brought its reinforcement, the
Narragansett sachem Canonicus sent a messenger to Plymouth with a bundle
of newly-made arrows wrapped in a snake-skin. The messenger threw it
in at the governor's door and made off with unseemly haste. Bradford
understood this as a challenge, and in this he was confirmed by a
friendly Wampanoag. The Narragansetts could muster 2000 warriors, for
whom forty or fifty Englishmen, even with firearms, were hardly a fair
match; but it would not do to show fear. Bradford stuffed the snake-skin
with powder and bullets, and sent it back to Canonicus, telling him that
if he wanted war he might come whenever he liked and get his fill of it.
When the sachem saw what the skin contained, he was afraid to touch
it or have it about, and medicine-men, handling it no doubt gingerly
enough, carried it out of his territory. [Sidenote: Why the colony was
not attacked by the Indians]
It was a fortunate miscalculation that brought the Pilgrims to New
England. Had they ventured upon the lands between the Hudson and the
Delaware, they would probably have fared worse. They would soon have
come into collision with the Dutch, and not far from that neighbourhood
dwelt the Susquehannocks, at that time one of the most powerful and
ferocious tribes on the continent. For the present the new-comers were
less likely to be molested in the Wampanoag country than anywhere else.
In the course of the year 1621 they obtained their grant from the
Plymouth Company. This grant was not made to them directly but to
the joint-stock company of merchant adventurers with whom they were
associated. But the alliance between the Pilgrims and these London
merchants was not altogether comfortable; there was too much divergence
between their aims. In 1627 the settlers, wishing to be entirely
independent, bought up all the stock and paid for it by instalments
from the fruits of their labour. By 1633 they had paid every penny, and
become the undisputed owners of the country they had occupied.
Such was the humble beginning of that great Puritan exodus from England
to America which had so much to do with founding and peopling the United
States. These Pilgrims of the Mayflower were but the pioneers of a
mighty host. Historically their enterprise is interesting not so much
for what it achieved as for what it suggested. Of itself the Plymouth
colony could hardly have become a wealthy and powerful state. Its growth
was extremely slow. After ten years its numbers were but three hundred.
In 1643, when the exodus had come to an end, and the New England
Confederacy was formed, the population of Plymouth was but three
thousand. In an established community, indeed, such a rate of increase
would be rapid, but it was not sufficient to raise in New England a
power which could overcome Indians and Dutchmen and Frenchmen, and
assert its will in opposition to the crown. It is when we view the
founding of Plymouth in relation to what came afterward, that it assumes
the importance which belongs to the beginning of a new era.
We have thus seen how it was that the political aspirations of James I.
toward absolute sovereignty resulted in the beginnings of the Puritan
exodus to America. In the next chapter we shall see how the still more
arbitrary policy of his ill-fated son all at once gave new dimensions to
that exodus and resulted in the speedy planting of a high-spirited and
powerful New England.
