American Heroes

by Edmund S. Morgan

  To all outward appearances the whole affair was now patched up. Lane once more became executor of the will, though the agreement between him and the widow Keayne this time provided that she should have simply an annuity of twenty pounds and possession of the new house in Boston. Furthermore, he stipulated that if any more debts appeared “that hath not as yet beene taken notice of,” and beyond the value of the estate, the overseers of the will should take steps to assist him in the payments. On this basis the couple lived quietly together for the next four years. Edward became well established as a Boston merchant and attested his prosperity to his neighbors by sporting a London hat with a silver hatband. Anna meanwhile demonstrated that this time her marriage was genuine by giving birth to two children, a boy and a girl. The little girl, named after her mother, died at the age of eight months, but the boy, named after Edward, lived until 1680, meeting his death at the age of eighteen in Leyden.

  Early in 1664 Anna sailed for England, on what business is not known, but it was evidently understood in Boston that her husband would shortly follow. Before he could do so, however, he was dead. When Anna returned to Boston two years later, it was with a new husband, also a Bostonian who had been visiting England, Mr. Nicholas Paige. Now once more the rumors began to spread. It was said that Anna had married Paige before Lane had died, for some persons had received letters from Paige before the latter event in which he made mention of his wife. Since there were bound to be enemies in Boston of any descendant of Robert Keayne, the grand jury soon got wind of the matter and conducted an investigation, which resulted in an indictment against Anna for adultery. Before the trial took place, Anna gave herself away by proposing to the Court of Assistants a question to be resolved by the magistrates: “whether a woman may not have children by a man that is not in the eye of the world accounted her husband and yet not be accounted an adulteresse.” The cat was now out of the bag, and in the trial that followed evidence was produced that the boy who bore the name of the late Edward Lane was really the son of Nicholas Paige. Richard Cooke came into court and affirmed that “about two yeares since upon Mrs. Hannah Lanes going for England this deponent was desired to come unto the house of Mr. Edward Lane…at which time this deponent did heare Mrs. Lane acknowledge that the Children which She then had had were Mr. Page his Children and not mr. Lanes.” The whole truth came to light, however, when the following document, dated December 6, 1663, was brought forth:

  To all whom this present writing may concern this is to certify that whereas thear was a marriage between Edward Lane of Boston in the County of Suffolke in New England and Anna Keayne of the said Boston living together sometime, I the said Edward Lane being wholly insufficient through weakness and infirmity never in the least manner to performe the duty or office of a husband to the said Anna nor never knew her carnally: Upon Petition to the Court of Assistance held at Boston March, ’58, The Court upon good considerations pronounced the marriage a nullity wee wear bouth free from each other nine months after upon some considerations wee came to live togather and have so continued togather four yeares but the same weaknes and insuffitiency continuing to this day I thinke it not convenient for her any longer to bare the name of my wife who in truth before God is none. Therefore I utterly disown her and disseize her never more to maintain her or looke at her as any relation to me more then a friend from the date hereof for though we have made one house our habitation yet we have made use of tow beds therefore this is to atest the cause and truth of our seperation as is done by a coppy taken out of the Records As witnes my hand And in part of requitall for that great wrong I have done her I freely give her the pasture which was her Granfathers which lys behind the house of Goodman Pells.

  Confronted with the situation that was now apparent, the magistrates and the jury could not agree whether or not Anna Paige, formerly Anna Lane, should be punished for adultery. The matter was therefore brought before the General Court of the colony, where, as the record reads,

  …vpon a full hearing of the case, the Court found hir guilty of much wickednes, but vpon a motion from hirself, the Court gaue hir oppertunity to make acknowledgment of such hir great offences which were charged vpon hir, which accordingly she hath donne to the satisfaction of this Court, who doe hereby declare their acceptation of it, so as she make the like acknowledgment in open Court when called thereto; that as the Court hath seene the fruits of her repentance, so it may be declared to others also. The sajd Anna Page came into the Court, and openly made acknowledgment, in like manner, to the Courts acceptance, who ordered that Mrs. Page pay the charge of the witnesses, and so is discharged.

  Apparently the General Court was as puzzled by the case as the inferior court had been; but just as Governor Endecott had decided that Anna’s first marriage had not been truly annulled, the court now, in 1666, must have decided that neither the first nor the second marriage had been truly a marriage. Thus although it was clear that Anna had committed “much wickedness,” the court was not ready to say that she was guilty of adultery, and so she escaped virtually scot-free.

  Having thus come out of danger, she and her husband began to take cognizance of her former estate. Besides the pasture he had granted her in the paper renouncing her as his wife, Lane had assigned her, in a paper dated four days earlier, the mansion house of Robert Keayne “wherein I the said Edward Lane now Dwell.” This grant was made on condition that she make no further claims whatever to his estate. Twelve days later Lane, who was evidently a sick man, made out another paper. Stating that he did not know “what condition he the said Edward Lane may fall into or what Providences as concerning himselfe may fall out in one regard or in an other &c.,” he transferred his property to Richard Cooke and John Wiswall of Boston, merchants, in return for his maintenance and for payments of all his debts.

  Accordingly when Anna and her new husband returned from England, they found Richard Cooke and John Wiswall installed in the possession of most of her grandfather’s property. Now the whole thing became apparent to Anna: it had all been a plot on the part of Richard Cooke from the very beginning. It was he who had persuaded her to marry Lane in the first place, he who had carried to her the pieces of gold and the messages of affection. After the annulment it was he who had persuaded her of Lane’s sufficiency and had brought them together again. He had even been present when the paper was drawn up in which Lane assigned her the mansion house in return for a resignation of all other claims to the estate. She had been so desperate at the time to free herself that she had not thought of what she was so blithely resigning; and yet twelve days later Cooke, with his accomplice Wiswall, had it all in his own hands, even the rich farm at Rumney Marsh that had been her grandfather’s pride. And then when she returned home from England, Cooke, wearing her grandfather’s big ring and Lane’s hat with the silver band, had furnished the principal evidence against her in the trial for adultery. It was only too clear that the whole business had been deliberately, diabolically planned.

  She had good evidence of Cooke’s malice toward her now that he had her estate. Several people were ready to report his reaction when he heard that she and her husband were returning from England. On the day when the news reached Boston, Ursula Cole and Alice Tilly both informed Cooke about it and warned him that she was coming to recover her lost property. Cooke replied that he would see her hanged if she tried to do it. John and Mary Mansfield told Anna how Cooke had stormed about the matter, how he had accused her of poisoning her husband, how he had sworn to “vse all the meanes he Could to have her hanged, and had said that if he failed to get her hanged in Boston, “he had a sonn in Barbadious: that should goe from thence to England: to prosecute the Lawe to hange hir there.”

  The case seemed to be open and shut, and Anna promptly petitioned the General Court to recover from Cooke and Wiswall all the property that Lane had given them. She demonstrated that her marriage to Lane had been a conspiracy on the part of Cooke to get her property and her grandfather’s into Lane’s hands so that Cooke
might eventually have it for himself. He had known that Lane was impotent and that therefore there could be no heirs; he had also known that Lane was sick and could not live long. He had even offered that fact to her grandmother as a reason for allowing the second marriage. The widow Keayne—who had since become Mrs. Samuel Cole—came into court and testified that Cooke had told her that Lane “was very sickley and would not live aboue Three or four years and Therefore fear not but Lett your Daughter have him and she may Quickley have an other husband.” Mrs. Cole was convinced that Cooke from the very start had “not only Indeavored to ruin my Daughter but mee.”

  Anna rested her case not just on this evidence of conspiracy but likewise on the claim that her second marriage with Lane was not valid, because it had never been consummated. Therefore, she said, the contract which depended upon that marriage and which put the estate again into Lane’s hands was likewise invalid. It was “Founded vpon the same mestake of a marriage as the former and upon the same Ground: Cann not bee of aney force to the prejudice of your petetioner.”

  But the General Court was weary of this eternal squabble over Robert Keayne’s property and refused to believe the story that to Anna was so obvious. To her melodramatic pleas the icy reply was given that it was not thought “suiteable to reuive troubles to the Court” in a matter that had already been settled once before. Having herself failed, Anna persuaded the overseers of the will to make a similar plea the following year (1667), but they, too, were denied. With this rebuke she gave up the struggle for a while and settled down to a happy and normal life as Mrs. Nicholas Paige. Neither she nor her husband had forgotten the injury that Richard Cooke had done them, but justice was not yet to be had. They would bide their time, and someday, perhaps, the opportunity to recover their lost heritage would come. In the meantime there was no use crying over spilt milk. Nicholas had some capital of his own, and by careful investments and hard work gradually increased it. Before many years passed, he had become one of the leading merchants of Boston and recouped by his ships and shops as much as he and Anna had lost through the machinations of their enemies.

  Anna’s new husband was a bold and likable man, of generous impulses but shrewd in all his public actions. Though not disposed to reckon overmuch with religious scruples in his commercial dealings, he had sense enough never to offend Puritan sensibilities. He did his best to gain the friendship and respect of his community, especially of those men who seemed best qualified to help him. As a result, each new turn of events found him more firmly established in public favor and personal security. When King Philip’s War threatened the colony’s existence in 1675, Captain Paige won esteem by commanding a cavalry troop that helped to whip the savages into submission. A year later, when Edward Randolph came to enforce the Navigation Acts in Boston, Paige gained the commendations of his fellow merchants by threatening to knock Randolph on the head if the latter attempted to board his ships. Before long, however, Nicholas saw that the wind was not blowing in that direction. He and a number of other prominent citizens, including Joseph Dudley (Anna’s uncle), made friends with Randolph so that by 1685 the customs officer was writing letters to Dudley in which he sent his respects to “Mr. Page and his lady.”

  In the ensuing revolutions that rocked the colony, Paige played his hand with consummate skill. When the charter was revoked and Joseph Dudley became president of the Council for New England, Nicholas invited him to live at Boston in the house that he and Anna had acquired there. Since Dudley’s own house was in Roxbury, he gladly agreed to live with the Paiges, where his hostess would be his own niece. When Andros arrived as governor of the Dominion of New England in 1686, Paige kept in the good graces of that ruler, too; but when the people of Boston gathered together to overthrow the tyrant in 1689, Paige was on the scene, not exactly assisting the process but apparently not hindering it either. While the people called for Dudley’s blood along with that of Andros, they had such confidence in Captain Paige that they placed Dudley in his hands for safekeeping. When stable government was finally established under a new charter in 1691, Paige had weathered the storm safely. What is more, he had recovered Anna’s property, not only the houses and lands in Boston but the farm in Rumney Marsh as well.

  The fact is that the Cookes had not played their cards so well as the Paiges. Elisha Cooke, son and successor to old Richard, had chosen the wrong side in the struggle—as far as worldly success was concerned. He had never made friends with Randolph. Instead, he had led the opposition party, the one that favored resistance to Randolph, resistance to Dudley, resistance to Andros, resistance even to the new charter that Increase Mather obtained in 1691. Consequently it had been no great matter for Paige to procure a judgment returning the lands. As soon as the old charter was revoked in 1685, the old county courts dissolved, and a new system set up under control of Dudley, the Paiges entered an action against Cooke. The jury was handpicked by Paige’s friends; the judges were Paige’s friends; the result was inevitable: Paige got the lands (August 5, 1686). When the verdict had been rendered, Cooke appealed to the council, presided over by Dudley, then residing in Paige’s house. The result again was inevitable, and when Cooke appealed to the king in council, Dudley required him to give bond of a thousand pounds to Paige to prosecute the appeal (November 2, 1686). This was too much, and Cooke had to abandon the case (December 20, 1686). When he tried to reopen it under Andros, he met with a quick rebuff.

  After the new charter had been established—over his protest—Cooke tried again, but was nonsuited. As a last resort he introduced a special bill in the General Court (February 26, 1701/02) to allow him to have the case reviewed. At the time when he introduced the bill, the governor’s chair was vacant, but before the General Court took any action, Joseph Dudley was made governor. Needless to say, the bill received no further consideration.

  In the meantime, since the recovery of the estate, Anna had become the great lady that she must have wished to be when she first married Edward Lane. Paige was now Colonel Paige, with a coat of arms. He had purchased a coach for her and negro servants in livery to attend upon it, a luxury that even the wealthy Samuel Sewall felt himself unable to afford. She and Nicholas moved out to the farm at Rumney Marsh and there lived in regal style, entertaining guests in the most elegant manner. Samuel Sewall, who dined there on November 4, 1690, spoke of the “sumptuous Feast” that he had enjoyed. He had already had occasion to admire Anna’s coach, for he had recorded on September 12, 1688, “Rid to Cambridge Lecture, being rainy in the afternoon, Madam Paige invited me, and I came home in her Coach, with Mr. Willard and his wife, and Mrs. Paige’s Boy rid my Horse.”

  Apparently Boston had agreed to forgive Anna for her scandalous past and to accept her as one of the elite. The Mr. Willard to whom Sewall refers was the minister of the Old South Church, which Anna had joined in 1670. Although her husband never joined, that fact was not held against him socially, for by the close of the seventeenth century a large proportion of Boston’s leading citizens were in the same category.

  Thus by shrewd political maneuvering Anna and Nicholas Paige overcame the social and economic handicaps with which their wedded life began and won for themselves a position of the highest rank in Boston society. Anna lived to enjoy her success until June 30, 1704. When the news of her death at Rumney Marsh reached Boston, it caused the whole colony to pause. Sewall recorded the event: “As the Governor sat at the Council-Table twas told him, Madam Paige was dead; He clap’d his hands, and quickly went out, and return’d not to the Chamber again; but ordered Mr. Secretary to prorogue the Court till the 16th of August, which Mr. Secretary did by going into the House of Deputies.”

  A year before she died Anna had assisted her husband in making a will, the terms of which bring this story back to where it began. The will provided that all the property of Nicholas and Anna, except for a number of small legacies, should be given to their kinswoman Martha Hobbes, who was also to be executrix. The overseers of the will, however, among whom was Gov
ernor Dudley, must “Advise and Council this our Executrix in her Marriage with any Person that she may Marry withall And we do hereby leave it as a Solemn Charge upon her and as our dying request that she do take your Advice therein And be very Carefull how she doth dispose of her self in Marryage, And that she match into a good Familly and with one that feareth God, that so neither she and so fair an Estate be not thrown away in her Match.”

  —1942

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Case against Anne Hutchinson

  THE PURITANS WHO FOUNDED the New England colonies are sometimes portrayed as having fled from persecution in order to enjoy religious freedom. It would be fairer to say they had been unable to capture control of the English government and church in order to establish their way as the only way of worshipping God. They believed that absolute truth, of which, they said, nature gives only a hint, was revealed to man once and for all in the Word of God, the Bible. At the Reformation, Calvin had rejected the interpretation of the Bible used by the Catholic Church and had made a complete interpretation of his own. Since that time, two generations of Puritans had been revising Calvin’s interpretation, and this revision for them was absolute truth, divine and unquestionable. It was not merely the statement of things as they are in the world; it was truth eternal, unlimited by time or space. It was the way of salvation. By it the Puritans had determined to mold their daily lives, their church, and their state. And to make this determination a reality, they had crossed the Atlantic and had settled on the shores of Massachusetts Bay.