Mistress Bradstreet

by Charlotte Gordon

  The unsteadiness of the monetary rates underlined the financial ruin they might face. Anne and her family knew that if their mission failed and they had to return to England, they could never recoup what they had spent, and many of their supplies were useless except in America. Each purchase, then, further sealed their fate, and each possession they parted with deepened their commitment to the future. Ten years earlier, the Pilgrim leaders John Robinson and William Brewster had acknowledged, “We shall much prejudice both our arts and our means by our removal; who if we should be driven to return, we should not hope to recover our present helps and comforts, neither indeed look ever for ourselves to attain unto the like in any other place during our lives.”10 Despite these risks, no prudent person skimped on provisions. Francis Higginson, the minister who had been sent ahead to America in the advance party, wrote a letter home warning his friends to “be careful” and to pay attention to their needs

  before you come. . . . For when you are once parted from England, you shall meet neither with taverns nor alehouses, nor butchers, nor grocers, nor apothecaries’ shops to help what things you need, in the midst of the great ocean nor when you come to land.”11

  This was one of the few letters they had received from the expedition, and so Higginson’s words had particular weight.

  During the last few months of preparation, Simon and Dudley were usually either in London ordering supplies, such as the ten thousand gallons of ale or the two hundred dried oxen tongues that they would store in the Arbella’s hold, or meeting with Winthrop and the other company leaders in Cambridge. Their absence during such an anxious time threw Anne wholly on the resources of the women in her family, a circumstance that was somewhat unfamiliar, as she had spent so much of her girlhood in the company of her father and Simon. Yet these weeks provided excellent training for another aspect of what lay ahead. Anne would have to learn to do without either her husband or her father for long stretches once she was in the New World, and so she and her sisters needed to weave strong relationships as they sorted, prayed, sewed, and worried, comparing notes with the other women bound for America.

  In fact it was almost impossible to stop the deepening of intimacy that occurred among the prospective travelers. Their daily routines had been dismantled, while their old friends were still going about their accustomed business. Consequently, even someone like Anne Hutchinson, who fully supported them in their venture but who had not yet chosen to take apart her own home or to trade her extra woolen underskirts for cart wheels and cod hooks, must have sometimes seemed unconcerned, or at least on the other side of the fence from those who were about to plunge into the unknown. Fortunately for the flagging spirits of the Dudley women, the Lady Arbella was undoubtedly a frequent visitor.

  However, even Arbella could not cheer them up when a strain of what was apparently the black plague struck that winter. The affliction was so virulent it wiped out two of Hutchinson’s daughters in less than a week. When word spread of the rising death toll in Lincolnshire, tension escalated rapidly; it was increasingly urgent for the truly devout to flee England, as this scourge seemed a new sign of God’s displeasure with the corruption of the Old World. Dudley, Simon, and the other leaders rushed through the company’s business transactions in an effort to speed their departure. But no matter how hard they pushed, they could not control the slow pace of the captains they had hired. Eleven ships needed to be readied, and the sailors seemed intent on puttying every crack and polishing each brass fixture.

  Businessmen as well as pious pilgrims, Dudley and the other men spent as much of their waiting time dreaming up new ventures for potential investments as praying. As a result, their official letters often dealt with projects for salt production, “planting vines, collecting furs, setting up iron mines and exploiting New England’s vast timber reserves.”12 Even Higginson, in his famous letter home, had written urgently requesting more skilled workers instead of more preachers, arguing that “of all trades carpenters are most needful, therefore, bring as many as you can.”13

  Dudley and his fellow planners understood that piety was not the only requirement of their recruits. The settlers would also need to take care of themselves, and so Dudley called for voyagers who were “endued with grace and furnished with means.” True believers should be able to “feed themselves and theirs for eighteen months.” If his vision of an American “plantation” were to succeed, the colony would have to be productive as well as saintly, rich in goods as well as religion.14

  That these two realms, economic and religious, were tangled in an uneasy but inevitable snarl created an odd mix of snobbery, humility, disdain for material possessions, and a high estimation of wealth that seemed logical only to Anne and her family. When Dudley discouraged “the poorer sort” from joining their mission, it was not only because he was convinced that indigent “godly” men without any skills could endanger the fledgling colony but also because in the Puritan mind, destitution was often a sign of divine disfavor. Those who possessed solid assets were more likely to be righteous individuals because they had clearly found a righteous calling, or vocation. Those who were poor, on the other hand, might well have done something to deserve God’s disfavor.

  Thus, although Anne’s father never promoted the Puritan mission as a profit-gaining adventure, he had no intention of taking a vow of poverty in the New World. Indeed, Dudley strongly disapproved of any such notion, declaring that any pious man who wished to come to America with no “goods” should be dissuaded. However, the other extreme was just as bad. A year after he had arrived in New England, Dudley wrote, “If any come hither to plant for worldly ends, that can live well at home, he commits an error, of which he will soon repent him.”15

  At last February turned to March. Ideal sailing weather began in April and extended through the summer, and so the race was on to finalize their preparations. If they missed their chance to sail, they would have to wait another twelve months before they could begin their journey. By virtue of their important position in Puritan society, Anne and her family shouldered an undue load of responsibility when it came to the success of the journey. If Anne and her mother made the wrong decisions about their domestic needs in the New World, they could ruin not only their own family’s chance of survival but that of other families who looked to them for guidance. And if Dudley miscalculated or gave assent to the wrong individual’s request to join them, the whole enterprise could be endangered. Everyone understood that bringing in the wrong sort of person could pollute their endeavor and doom it to failure.

  Just as the Puritans had hated the “mixed” congregations of the Church of England, they dreaded the idea of importing sinners to the New World. It had been up to Dudley and his colleagues to sift through the constant flow of applications, to sort the upstanding individuals from those who might wreak havoc. Of course, if they needed a surgeon, they needed a surgeon, Puritan or not. There was no way around it; some of the emigrants would have to be “thorns,” although the uncompromising Dudley resented this idea. He yearned for a truly “pure” colony, made up only of the faithful. After all, the whole point of their exodus was to escape the taint of corruption, whether the source was irreligious individuals, the Church of England, or papists. It was painful to have to yield to the requirements of earthly life in the course of molding this long-envisioned utopian plantation.16

  Given their importance, the decisions about who should come and who should stay behind were wrenching ones, and they must have triggered Anne’s anxieties about her own candidacy. The men and women her father rejected for their exodus had at least wanted to partake in this “remove”; whereas she, who was supposed to be a true pilgrim, was reluctant to leave England behind. Again, she feared that she was not worthy to follow in her father’s footsteps. When Simon was near, he could reassure his young wife, and his steady love and belief in her piety were a great comfort. But usually she had to stare down her ambivalence on her own.

  Anne was not alone in her concerns,
nor in her resistance to the idea of the journey. Prospective voyagers wrote urgent letters of fearful inquiry.17 They also begged for help in making the final decision to join the emigrants. Would it be a betrayal to the good people in England whom they left behind? Would they be abandoning their duty to help improve the Church of England? One sympathetic critic of the journey wrote to Winthrop, “The church and common welthe heere at home, hath more neede of your best abylitie in these dangerous tymes, than any remote plantation.”18 Another close friend of the governor’s declared, “All your kinfolks and most understanding friends will more rejoice at your staying at home, with any condition which God shall send, than to throw yourself upon vain hopes with many difficulties and uncertainties.”19 But Dudley, Simon, Winthrop, and their friends had spent years devising their plans and at this point had no difficulty defending their probity.

  During these remaining days in Lincolnshire, last-minute lists were published to help people plan, save, and organize their materials, and Puritan ministers gave sermons promoting emigration. The Dudley women and their servants nailed down the lids of their boxes, paid final visits to friends who had chosen to stay behind, prepared and packed the salt fish and grains they would need for the first few days of the journey, and tried to find time for quiet prayer. There was little respite from their labors, however; they had to be ready whenever the summons for departure came.

  Finally the long-anticipated message arrived. Their ships were anchored in Southampton, three hundred miles away, pulling at their anchors and riding high in the water. It was time to leave Boston, meet up with their fellow travelers in Southampton, the port town that would be their point of embarkation for America, and oversee the loading of the vessels.

  They would have to travel rapidly to avoid the additional costs of anchorage. Although the distance by sea was almost double that of the overland route, English roads of the time were so poor that the most efficient way to reach the south coast was by water. Ships that sailed out of Boston were by necessity small and shallow keeled, since they had to navigate the perilous shallows of the Witham River.20 But this waterway that had always brought the world to them would now lead them out of their familiar corner of England to a terrifying adventure.

  Early in the morning of a blustery March day, Dudley locked the door of the earl’s townhouse behind them with a decisive click and Anne and her mother clutched the hands of the younger girls, Mercy, Sarah, and Patience, as they made their way down to the quay. After saying good-bye, perhaps for good, to the people they loved most in the world besides each other, including the dowager countess, John Cotton, Anne Hutchinson, and other members of their congregation, Anne and her family climbed up the narrow plank and found themselves aboard the unsteady ship. The canvas sails filled, and they floated down the muddy river. With each queasy hump of the ship, the teeming city of Boston shrank, until it looked like a toy village settled on a miniature plain.

  The misery of departure was compounded by the shock of being onboard a ship. Before long, the boat spilled out of the river’s mouth and into the waters of the sea, tumbling over the first waves Anne had ever experienced, and the new sensation was sickening. Although the indented coastline broke the force of the open ocean and the swells were mild, many people suffered from nausea. Of all the Dudley girls, perhaps only Anne’s sister Sarah embraced the challenge of the sea, as she would be the only one who would choose to repeat the transatlantic crossing several times.21 In contrast, in a telling display of repugnance, once she reached New England, Anne would never set foot on a ship’s deck again.

  After at least three days of sailing, the little boat clipped through the Strait of Dover, where Anne could gaze up at the sharp chalk cliffs. The water was quieter in the channel, and when they came in sight of St. Catherine’s Point jutting ruggedly out from the Isle of Wight, they knew that the first stage of their journey was almost over—Southampton and a safe harbor were close by.

  Even as the first brief stage of their voyage ended, however, and Anne and the other passengers disembarked, no one could avoid anticipating the dangers that awaited them. They would rest in Southampton only as long as they had to. When the ships were loaded and the winds were right, they would set sail once again, and the challenges they would face on the Atlantic would be far more formidable than anything they had yet experienced. Nobody knew exactly when this moment would come. It was still early in the month of March and the weather was notoriously unpredictable.

  Chapter Seven

  Our Appointed Time

  The spring is a lively emblem of the resurrection.

  — ANNE BRADSTREET,“Meditation 40”

  SOUTHAMPTON WAS CROWDED, rough, and noisy and did not in the least suit the sensibilities of people like Anne and her family. Still, the town was planted on reassuringly solid ground, complete with houses, lanterns, and fresh water—a pleasant change after their voyage. These amenities, however, did not compensate for the fact that, to Puritans, the townspeople seemed even more frightening than a sea storm.

  Like the majority of the English, the locals scorned the dissenters, viewing them as dangerous traitors to the king, or at best as “busy bodies” who spent entirely too much time trying to tell other people how to live their lives.1 Anne and her family would have appeared peculiar to the locals. Puritans refused to enter the raucous alehouses. They would not join in local revelries during the Sabbath or on holidays; in fact, they made it clear that they disapproved of holidays altogether and would outlaw Christmas and Easter the moment they arrived in America. To the amusement of their non-Puritan fellows, they even hated the names of the days of the week, derived as they were from Roman and Germanic deities—for instance, Monday was named for the god Mars, Thursday after Thor—and lobbied their countrymen to denote each day simply with a number: Sunday would be the First Day, Monday the Second Day, and so on. Again, this innovation would have to wait until the New World.

  Whenever they “gadded,” which meant walking to church or a prayer meeting, Puritans proudly sang psalms or quoted Scripture frequently and loudly, asserting their religiosity with what could only be an off-putting kind of ferocity to outsiders. They believed, as one minister put it, that “none shall ever please Christ till they appear odd, strange, and precise to men of the common sort.”2

  And yet appearing “strange” put you at great risk, as Anne well knew. In some counties Puritans had been dragged through the street or beaten in their homes, and so she and her family faced some danger as they made their way along the narrow, littered alleys of Southampton, past alehouses, gambling dens, and brothels. Through the windows came raucous shouts, bawdy singing, cursing, and laughter, and from time to time, there were shocking sights: men and women slouched together in the shadows, sailors stumbling about drunkenly, boys holding knives to an enemy’s throat. Winthrop put his disgust into words:

  Cruelty and blood is in our streets, the land aboundeth with murders, slaughters, incests, adulteries, whoredom, drunkenness, oppression, and pride where well-doing is not maintained, or the godly cherished, but idolatry, popery and whatsoever is evil is countenanced; even the least of these is enough, and enough to make haste out of Babylon.3

  With her own eyes Anne could finally see why their flight was essential. Outside the Puritan stronghold of Lincolnshire, there was a “multitude of irreligious, lascivious, and popish-affected persons [that] spread the whole land like grasshoppers.”4 No degree of psalm singing could drown out the carnival, and though Dudley and Simon did their best to shield the women from the crowds of ne’er-do-wells, the task was an impossible one. Winthrop wrote to his wife, “I am veryly perswaded, God will bring some heavye Affliction upon this lande, and that speedylye.”5

  Dudley, Simon, and Winthrop spent each day in furious activity, overseeing the loading of supplies and meeting with the other Puritan leaders. Anne, her sisters, and the Lady Arbella must have often trekked down to the docks to marvel as chests and barrels were hoisted into the air and swung
onboard their vessel, the men groaning and sweating as they leaned on the winches.

  The leading ship of the enterprise was huge: 350 tons and approximately 150 feet long—about half the length of a modern football field. Originally called the Eagle, this old vessel had once been one of the most famous privateers in the Mediterranean, withstanding countless onslaughts from Catholic battleships. In the spirit of starting anew and perhaps in an attempt to reform even their boat, Dudley and his friends had decided to ignore the old nautical superstition never to change the name of a vessel and had bestowed a Puritan identity on the ship. It must have been a rather glorious surprise for Anne and her friends to come down to the docks one day and see the fresh paint on the vessel’s side announcing that the Eagle was now the new and holier Arbella.

  In keeping with the warlike fervor sweeping through many of their followers, Winthrop reported that he and Dudley had armed their ship with “twenty-eight pieces of ordnance.” The tradition of the sea was to rank ships like a military chain of command. Naturally, their ship was “to be admiral” of their voyage and the other three ships that seemed closest to being ready to sail, the Talbot, the Jewel, and the Ambrose, would be the “vice-admiral,” the “rear admiral,” and the “captain.”6 Like an advancing army, they had settled upon the order of the fleet, and this hierarchy would extend not only to the sea voyage but ultimately to life in the New World.