The Mayflower

by Rebecca Fraser

  Roger Williams, meanwhile, had written a devastating account of how he and other dissidents had been persecuted, to accompany his own petition for a royal charter for the Providence plantations.

  Child’s carefully itemised and reasoned Remonstrance was the third denunciation of the New England way of life. Thanks to its well-connected petitioners, it had the potential to do real damage.

  With the confidence of a man who had been a grandee in Suffolk, Winthrop believed Massachusetts would not be ‘condemned before we are heard’. Edward was more suspicious. He had long feared Gorton spreading prejudice against New England. They needed to be better prepared in regard of the petitioners and many others who were very busy, and who ‘insult and boast as if the victory were attained’. One of Edward’s aims was to try and overturn the patent Lord Warwick had given allowing Gorton to settle at Shawomet and make sure Gorton was not allowed to return.

  Edward urged Winthrop to send someone with the status of a professional diplomat to England to give the Privy Council the right information. He should be a man ‘of wisdom and courage’. It was a ‘common error’ to have these affairs taken care of casually by colonists who happened to be over on business. As Edward told Winthrop severely, this issue was ‘of such consequence’ that if he failed to grasp the nettle he would repent it.

  John Winthrop may have smiled to himself. That man of wisdom and courage, to beard the Committee of Parliament in its den, had better be Edward himself. Winthrop wrote a rare compliment in his journal: Edward was ‘a fit man to be employed in our present affairs in England, both in regard of his abilities of presence, speech, courage, and understanding’. He had also become well known to the London commissioners over the years.

  * * *

  Despite it being late in the winter season for sailing, Edward departed for England in a mood of excited anticipation, even though one of the Child party said the mission was cursed because Edward’s horse had died under him as he rode to Boston. And he had taken that seriously. But he was buoyed by what he saw as providentially good winds. As he got older Edward was apt to see providential interference where in the past he assumed human agency was the more probable explanation. Plymouth’s and the other Puritan colonies’ success against the odds made God’s permanent intervention in human affairs demonstrable.

  With the same zest with which he abandoned London for the Leiden church, he was to throw his energies into attacking the colonies’ enemies in London, convincing the Committee for Plantations why it was so deleterious for them to interfere in New England and alter its way of life. A natural fighter, he thrilled to be in the thick of great events.

  For as well as arguing on behalf of New England, he was also going to a place which seemed to bode great, even apocalyptic, times. The effective imprisonment of the king in the spring of 1646 after he surrendered to the Scottish army, and in October the abolition of episcopacy (insisted on by Parliament’s Scottish Presbyterian allies), corresponded to the prophecies in the Book of Daniel taken so seriously by many New Englanders. Finishing his account of the colony’s history full of pride in its extraordinary events, William Bradford wrote in 1650: ‘Full little did I think, that the downfall of the Bishops, with their courts, cannons and ceremonies, had been so near, when I first began these scribbled writings.’

  Edward took with him a series of letters he intended to publish about Massachusetts’ new project of converting the Indians to Christianity. In 1644 a few Indians had submitted to the Massachusetts government and indicated some interest in learning something of their religion. These were regarded as ‘hopeful signs’, and John Eliot, a minister at Roxbury and close friend of Edward, had begun to preach to the Indians at Nonantum. Whether the chiefs who submitted really wanted to be Christian, whether they thought they would have greater power because the Christian God was powerful, or whether they were fearful of what would happen if they did not convert, Eliot’s mission and that of the Mayhews on Martha’s Vineyard from 1643 were astonishingly successful.

  At first Edward was himself doubtful about the conversion of what he had come to think of as the Indians’ frozen hearts. But as the evidence piled up, he began to think these Christian conversions might be a sign of the Second Coming.

  Every bone in Edward’s body was set to resist the imposition of English rule. The colonies must be allowed to rule themselves. If they had to wait until ‘we have leave from England, our throats might be all cut before the messenger would be half seas through’.

  * * *

  In later years Edward was compared to Hercules for his work defending New England’s independence. He had no premonition that he never would see again the country he helped create.

  He exchanged a land with dramatic waterfalls, whose rivers, ‘having their Originals from great lakes’, were hastening to the sea, for the homeland he had not lived in for over a quarter of a century. There were no tobacco pipes of stone with imagery upon them, and the quills of the porcupine were not an adornment. The land he had helped fashion became a dream of the past. The deer carried by Indians past his windows or spotted far away in the distance amidst the pine forests were replaced by their cousins in the deer parks which his new circle owned.

  Did he take a final voyage in the creek at the foot of his house across through Duxbury Marsh to Plymouth? He may have said an ordinary farewell as people do before the start of a long journey. William Bradford was displeased by the amount of time Edward spent on Massachusetts business and his going to England for Plymouth’s sister colony. Perhaps Edward decided instead to have a quiet drink with Myles Standish, whose house was closer. He probably asked Standish to keep an eye on Susanna and Josiah, who was now nineteen, and his daughter Elizabeth, who was fifteen.

  The Indian threat was over, at least for the time being, and no more guns were taken to church. Many of Edward’s relations lived just a few fields away. The cattle on the salt marshes below Careswell were mostly descended from the three Edward had brought across the ocean. Peregrine had planted apple trees on the land Edward had given him. A young man of twenty-six when Edward departed, Peregrine was a common sight riding across the country in a coat with big buttons the size of a silver dollar, to visit his mother.

  There must have been some kind of farewell between Edward and Massasoit. If not as tender as in the past, their relationship had the comfortable quality of long association. Edward needed to make sure his family was protected by the Wampanoags since his long-term views about Indian treachery were so pessimistic. But the Indians seemed well under control, and he would soon be back.

  In April 1644, two years before Edward left for England, William Brewster had died. William Bradford wrote how fortunate he was to die in his bed, in peace, given that so many of the early settlers met violent deaths. The gentle Brewster died in the midst of his friends ‘who mourned and wept over him, and ministered what help and comfort they could unto him, and he again, recomforted them whilst he could’. He still managed to be up and about even on the day of his death: ‘His speech continued till somewhat more than half a day, and then failed him; and about 9 or 10 o’clock that evening he died, without any pangs at all … he drew his breath long, as a man fallen into a sound sleep, without any pangs or gaspings, and so sweetly departed this life unto a better.’

  Brewster was borne to his final rest on the shoulders of the younger men of the colony, as well as his son Jonathan and his grandsons who had come from Connecticut. The boon companions of Brewster’s Mayflower youth were gnarled men approaching sixty, an age that was positively elderly in the seventeenth century. William Bradford recalled Brewster’s grand origins, heroic life and death on the American frontier. Bradford wondered whether Brewster had been tested too harshly: had his friend been the worse for his sufferings? No, he was the better, Bradford concluded, and they only added to his honour. Brewster could be sure of his heavenly reward. Relishing the simple grave they dug for Brewster at Duxbury, Bradford dismissed Brewster’s lack of ‘the riches and
pleasures of the world in this life, and pompous monuments at his funeral’. He wrote defiantly in his diary that ‘the memorial of the just shall be blessed, when the name of the wicked shall rot (with their marble monuments)’.

  Edward was not at all ready for such peaceful oblivion. The momentous events taking place in London were an irresistible magnet.

  As time passed, Bradford regarded Edward’s absence as an act of desertion. He later wrote sourly: ‘By reason of the great alterations in the State, he was detained longer than was expected; and afterwards fell into other employments there, so as he hath now been absent this four years, which hath been much to the weakening of this government, without whose consent he took these employments upon him.’

  CHAPTER XIII

  Republican England

  In New England, as a commissioner for the United Colonies, a former governor at Plymouth and a founder of Marshfield, Edward was a person of importance with a large estate. In London he had to re-establish himself. Life in London was always beset with problems for New Englanders because of a lack of cash, but discomfort had never put him off before – and neither had his pride. The same trust in God buoyed him up as it had all his life. He said of Gorton, ‘He can act no more than God hath determined’. The belief that everything was in God’s hands led to a wonderful confidence.

  England was almost unrecognisable after four years of war, polarised as never before. Brothers had fought against brothers. Parliament had taken over all Charles I’s functions. Quite unthinkably the monarch was a prisoner of the Scots. About 100,000 people had died, amongst them Archbishop William Laud, the chief reason so many colonists had left for New England, who had been executed on Tower Hill in 1645. Many survivors suffered from terrible injuries. The countryside had been ravaged, and the agrarian poor were starving. Most Royalist land was in the process of being confiscated. Many of the more ordinary gentlemen from old families were penniless. The landscape was transformed by officious Parliamentary soldiers who occupied county towns as garrisons. Edward had serious worries about the condition of his sister Magdalen and her family.

  The ancient Dorset family she had married into had suddenly found their world turned upside down. In the great upheaval Anglican clergy were expelled from their vicarages in counties controlled by the Parliamentary armies. The Wake family were one such casualty. Edward’s brother-in-law, a parson with a robust temperament, was as Royalist in his sympathies as Edward was Parliamentarian. Despite their religious differences Edward had strong family feelings, and his brother-in-law was a fine man.

  Although Edward’s purpose was to lobby Westminster and make sure New England was not interfered with, he was also determined to find his sister. He had written to her at the charming, pale stone vicarage in Wareham on the coast. It was no longer her home.

  Magdalen and her family had suffered horribly during the war. Her Royalist husband had been singled out for punishment. The Reverend Wake’s preaching made him a man of huge influence in the surrounding area. He was accounted the reason for the town all being ‘dreadful malignants’. When a Parliamentary local declared he had the authority to fortify the town, the fiery Wake challenged him in the marketplace. He was shot twice in the head and carried home by members of his flock (one of his loyal workers in the vicarage’s fields challenged the Parliamentary soldiers with her spade). Wake was imprisoned for a year in Dorchester, in agony from his wounds.

  Magdalen and her three children were turned out of doors. All their possessions had been looted in front of them. Wake’s assets were seized and his estate was forfeit for being a rebel.

  Not at all in good health, the parson next joined the Royalist army. He was at the siege of Sherborne Castle when he was paraded naked through the town. Then, in a prisoner exchange, he was one of the defenders during the legendary siege of nearby Corfe Castle, where Lady Bankes held out for three years. Because Wake’s money had been sequestered, Magdalen – who had been a considerable figure in Wareham as the vicar’s wife – was destitute as well as homeless. She and her daughter worked at humble jobs to put food in the mouths of the younger children.

  On arriving in England, Edward probably gave Magdalen and her younger children a home, while one of her sons became involved in some of Edward’s business ventures.

  It may have been Edward’s influence that helped the Wake children to get back pay for their father from the Dorset county committee in 1648. Like many New Englanders he had powerful friends amongst England’s new rulers. Despite her strong character Magdalen seems to have had a nervous collapse and was unable to petition herself. Her children succeeded: the Reverend Wake’s successor was ordered to pay Magdalen £15 for the year, starting with the arrears to provide for herself, her mother and her siblings. There were further orders for later years.

  * * *

  Edward now turned his attention to the onerous task for which he had been sent over. Gorton’s, Vassall’s and Child’s fierce critiques had to be argued against immediately. His great anxiety was that the Parliamentary Committee for Plantations might not see Massachusetts’ point of view. Edward could not rely on his oratory to sway the Earl of Warwick and his friends. He had not forgotten his earlier experience as a pamphleteer for the young colony of Plymouth. Written submissions were needed. Upon arrival he published an attack on Gorton, Hypocrisy Unmaskd.

  Edward’s dander was up. He wanted to take on all enemies of the New England way of life. Yet he was anxious not to insult Roger Williams, of whom he was so fond. Despite Williams’ attempts to damage Massachusetts, Edward felt he remained ‘a man lovely in his carriage, and whom I trust the Lord will yet recall’.

  On the committee there were many Presbyterians – who were pro-toleration – but there were also representatives of the Independent party. Sir Arthur Hesilrige, for example, was sympathetic to the vision of Massachusetts that Edward put forward. Edward knew several of the commissioners, including George Fenwick, who had actually lived at Saybrook in Connecticut and had briefly been the fort’s commander after the Pequot War. Fenwick and Edward had both been commissioners for the United Colonies. Fenwick was now the MP for Morpeth and Edward immediately got in touch with him to deliver a letter from John Winthrop.

  London was in a poor state in 1647. Though it had never been attacked, it was surrounded by ugly earthworks, which had been thrown up for eighteen miles round the city for its defence. Trade was only starting to revive. Nevertheless, for all its ragged state the capital required more formal clothing than Plymouth or Boston. Edward led an expensive life, wining and dining the influential. By the time he died he was hundreds of pounds in debt. Perhaps he was careless, living in lodgings away from his family, initially with his old friend James Sherley, the goldsmith who had been an original investor in the Plymouth colony. He may have taken larger premises to house Magdalen and her children. Perhaps everything in London cost more than he had anticipated.

  But he also had a benevolent new friend in the shape of Herbert Pelham, who made his life more pleasant and introduced him to some important politicians on the Plantations Committee. Edward and Pelham had got to know one another in Boston when they sat as United Colonies commissioners. Now back in England, Pelham knew several important Independent politicians. He introduced Edward to Sir Arthur Hesilrige, to whom he himself was connected.

  Pelham was alarmed at the low financial state Edward found himself in. Many of Pelham’s relations and friends, including his own father-in-law, Colonel Bossevile, had been involved in Puritan colonisation projects with the Earl of Warwick. It was in front of Warwick in the Parliamentary Committee for Plantations at Westminster that Edward was to appear to make the case for leaving Massachusetts alone.

  Herbert took an interest in the warm, energetic Edward, who had arrived with not much more than his courage and commitment. He opened doors for him and had him to stay in his house in Suffolk, Ferriers. Herbert had returned to England to sort out various conflicts with his former in-laws over their mutual Walde
grave inheritances – a number of manor houses in Suffolk with thousands of acres attached, and his own patrimony in Lincolnshire. Doing so had additional interest because his fellow Puritans were now in the ascendant. There was no longer a reason to be absent from England.

  Pelham’s second marriage to Elizabeth Harlakenden (née Bossevile) had also given his fortunes a tremendous boost. In the post-war world her father, Colonel Godfrey Bossevile, the MP for Warwickshire, was an important figure. He had raised a troop for Parliament in the war and was a member of the Independent party. Bossevile was a vehement man, who had pressed for the destruction of the bishops to ‘cleanse the house of God’ when MPs were faltering. He talked language Edward was comfortable with. Bossevile’s half-brother Robert, the 2nd Baron Brooke, who died in 1643, was the celebrated Parliamentarian, and one of the chief investors in Saybrook.

  And it was now discovered that Edward Winslow, Herbert Pelham and Arthur Hesilrige were cousins.* In letters of 1647 Edward was referred to as ‘my cousin Winslow’ and ‘my honoured cousin’ while Hesilrige’s wife Dorothy addressed him as ‘good cousin’ and signed her letter ‘your loving cousin, D. H.’ Edward had known Elizabeth Bossevile in Boston, but there does not seem to have been a recognition of their relationship then. But now, her father, Colonel Godfrey Bossevile, sat on a parliamentary committee with an old Worcestershire connection, John Wilde, so that may have been the link. The association may also have been made via the new MP for Droitwich, Thomas Rainborowe, a man with many New England connections. Somehow someone put two and two together.