Making Haste from Babylon

by Nick Bunker

  17. R. A. Houlbrooke, The Letter Book of John Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich (Norwich, UK, 1975), letter of July 1573, pp. 196–97.

  18. Covenant of Asa: George Garnett, ed., Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (Cambridge, UK, 2003), pp. 21–37; Lloyd E. Berry, ed., John Stubbs’s Gaping Gulf (Charlottesville, VA, 1968), pp. 16–20; Peel and Carlson, Writings of Harrison and Browne, pp. 161–62 and 405. Mornay and the Vindiciae: Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge, UK, 1978), vol. 2, pp. 304–6. Bradford on Mornay: William Bradford, A Dialogue or Third Conference, ed. Charles Deane (Boston, MA, 1870), pp. 5–6. Brewster’s bookshelves. H. M. Dexter, “Elder William Brewster’s Library,” PMHS, 2nd ser., 5 (1889–90), pp. 37–85.

  19. Mornay, Sidney, and Walsingham: Mémoires de Madame Mornay (Paris, 1868), pp. 118–19. Mornay and the idea of Protestant colonies: Hugues Daussy, Les Huguenots et le roi: Le combat politique de Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, 1572–1600 (Geneva, 2002), pp. 87–91 and 282–84.

  20. Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, A Notable Treatise of the Church, trans. John Field (London, 1579), chap. 10.

  21. Jean Morély, Traicté de la discipline et police chrestienne (1562; fac. ed., Geneva, 1968), p. 65. Morély as a refugee: Philippe Denis and Jean Rott, Jean Morély et l’utopie d’une democratie dans l’église (Geneva, 1993), esp. pp. 73–91.

  22. Morély and Ramus: Robert M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–1572 (Geneva, 1967), pp. 101–10. Ramus and Sidney: Walter J. Ong, Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Cambridge, MA, 1958), p. 302. Browne and Morély: For the closest similarities, see Morély, Traicté, pp. 23–27, and compare Peel and Carlson, Writings of Harrison and Browne, pp. 161–66.

  23. Walsham: K. M. Dodd, ed., The Field Book of Walsham-le-Willows, 1577 (Ipswich, UK, 1974); D. P. Dymond, “The Parish of Walsham-le-Willows: Two Elizabethan Surveys and Their Medieval Background,” Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 33 (1976); Bacon MSS, 4109 and 4121, summaries at SROB; Martineau Papers, D/190 and FL 646/3/18, SROB.

  24. John Phillips, The Wonderfull Worke of God Shewed upon a Chylde, Whose Name Is William Withers (London, 1581).

  25. Robert Harrison, A Treatise of the Church, in Writings of Harrison and Browne, ed. Peel and Carlson, p. 47.

  26. S. H. A. Hervey, Rushbrooke Parish Registers, 1567–1850 (Woodbridge, UK, 1903), pp. 143–46 and 207–24.

  27. C2/1, fol. 6, SROB, Book of Remembrances and Orders for ye Government of Bury.

  28. Margaret Statham, ed., Accounts of the Feoffees of the Town Lands of Bury St. Edmunds, 1569–1622 (Woodbridge, UK, 2003), p. 22.

  29. Lansdowne MS 27, no. 70, BL.

  30. John Craig, Reformation Politics and Polemics: The Growth of Protestantism in East Anglian Market Towns, 1500–1610 (Aldershot, UK, 2001), pp. 78–108.

  31. Fuller, Church History of Britain, vol. 5, p. 64; and Lansdowne MS 33, nos. 67 and 20, BL.

  32. Peel and Carlson, Writings of Harrison and Browne, p. 424.

  33. St. Mary’s: Samuel Tymms, A Historie of the Church of St. Marie, Bury St. Edmunds (Bury, UK, 1845). Royal arms: H. M. Cautley, Royal Arms and Commandments in Our Churches (Ipswich, UK, 1934), pp. 36–39; and Stanley J. Wearing, Post-Reformation Royal Arms in Norfolk Churches (Norfolk, UK, 1944), pp. 8–16.

  34. Revelation 2:19–20.

  35. John Strype, Annals of the Reformation (Oxford, 1824), vol. 3, pt. 1, pp. 176–77; Lansdowne MS 36, no. 65, BL; and Albert Peel, ed., Tracts Ascribed to Richard Bancroft (Cambridge, UK, 1953), p. xviii.

  36. Peel and Carlson, Writings of Harrison and Browne, especially pp. 69–74.

  37. J. S. Cockburn, A History of English Assizes, 1558–1714 (Cambridge, UK, 1972), pp. 202–6.

  38. On Coppin, see Lansdowne MS 27, no. 28, and MS 38, no. 64, BL.

  39. William Bradford, A Dialogue; or, The Sum of a Conference Between Some Young Men Born in New England and Sundry Ancient Men That Came out of Holland and Old England, 1648, in Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (Boston, 1844; repr., Baltimore, 1974), pp. 427–28.

  40. Rougham parish register: Microfilm, SROB. Will of Sir Robert Jermyn: Hervey, Rushbrooke Parish Registers, pp. 143–52; and PROB/11/123, NAK.

  41. The Barrows were very close to the events at Walsham le Willows and Bury. Their estates included not only the manor of Westhorpe, a few miles from Walsham, but also a group of manors clustered around the town of Sudbury, within the same archdeaconry.

  42. Browne, Barrow, and Separatists in Norfolk and Suffolk: Matthew Reynolds, Godly Reformers and Their Opponents in Early Modern England: Religion in Norwich, c. 1560–1643 (Woodbridge, UK, 2005), pp. 91–97. For the chain of influence between Browne and Barrow, see Patrick Collinson, “Separation in and out of the Church: The Consistency of Barrow and Greenwood,” Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society 5, no. 5 (Nov. 1994), pp. 243–46.

  CHAPTER FIVE: MEN AND WOMEN OF THE CLAY

  1. Dwight B. Heath, ed., Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (Bedford, MA, 1963), p. 30. On the authorship of Mourt’s Relation, see Heath’s introduction, pp. x–xiv.

  2. Joseph Hunter, Collections Concerning the Church or Congregation of Protestant Separatists Formed at Scrooby (London, 1854), pp. ix–x.

  3. Ronald A. Marchant, The Puritans and the Church Courts in the Diocese of York, 1500–1642 (London, 1960).

  4. The population estimate is based on the number of people taking Holy Communion at Easter 1603, from Archdeaconry Records, Presentment Bills, Easter 1603, AN/PB 294/1 224–273, U Nott.

  5. Steve Hindle, The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1550–1640 (Basingstoke, UK, 2002), pp. 38–54; Peter Bowden, “Agricultural Prices, Farm Profits, and Rents,” in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, ed. Joan Thirsk (Cambridge, UK, 1967), vol. 4, pp. 595–99; and Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern England (New Haven, CT, 2000), pp. 182–94.

  6. E. G. Smith et al., Geology of the Country Around East Retford, Worksop, and Gainsborough (London, 1973), esp. pp. 1–4 and 215–32; and Robert Van de Noort and Stephen Ellis, eds., Wetland Heritage of the Humberhead Levels: An Archaeological Survey (Kingston upon Hull, UK, 1997), pp. 7–12 and 81–88. Also, D. V. Fowkes, “The Progress of Agrarian Change in Nottinghamshire, c. 1720–1830” (Ph.D. diss., Liverpool University, 1971), pp. 25 and 192–211.

  7. David Marcombe, English Small Town Life: Retford, 1520–1642 (Nottingham, UK, 1993), p. 102.

  8. Extract of a subsidy roll for Bassetlaw (1593), Newcastle Papers, Ne S 32, U Nott; and Bassetlaw lay subsidy roll (1600), E 179/160/252, NAK.

  9. Meadows: John Norden, The Surveyor’s Dialogue (London, 1607), bk. 4, pp. 192–95. The Ings: Drainage map of 1769, LA 2 S M.P. 1058, NAN. Rents: Holles estate accounts in miscellany books of Sir John Holles, second Earl of Clare, Portland Papers, PWv4 and PWv5, U Nott.

  10. On Gainsborough, see Richard Bernard, Plaine Evidences (London, 1610), p. 20; C. W. Foster, ed., The Parish Registers of Gainsborough (Horncastle, UK, 1920); Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (London, 1979), pp. 388–90; and national statistics in E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England, 1541—1871: A Reconstruction (Cambridge, MA, 1981).

  11. Proceedings: Lincoln Episcopal visitation journals, Aug. 6, 1607, Vj 19, fol. 52–53, LAO. On illegitimacy: Hindle, The State and Social Change, pp. 185–88; and Michael J. Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England, c. 1550–1700 (Cambridge, UK, 2000), pp. 143–45.

  12. Family trees of the Robinsons and Whites: M. L. Holman, “The Robinson Family,” American Genealogist 17, no. 4 (April 1941), pp. 207–15; Walter H. Burgess, John Robinson, Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers (London, 1920), pp. 10–26; and Robert S. Wakefield, “The Family of Alexander White of Sturton Le Steeple,” Mayflower Descendant 43, no. 2 (July 1993), pp. 183–86. Sturton generally: Robert T
horoton, The Antiquities of Nottinghamshire (1790–96; fac. ed., Wakefield, UK, 1972), vol. 3, pp. 298–99, and 399–400.

  13. J. E. B. Gover, Allen Mawer, and F. W. Stenton, The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire (Cambridge, UK, 1940), p. 24.

  14. Property of the Whites: Postmortem inquisitions on Alexander White, July 10, 1596, C 142/245/18, NAK; and Charles White, Sept. 3, 1634, C 142/503/25, NAK. Coal mines: Will of Charles White, March 1, 1634, Archdeaconry Wills, East Retford, NAN; and Fillingham of Syerston Papers, DDFM 80/1–13, NAN.

  15. Parliamentary survey of Scrooby Manor in 1648: “Assessment of the Manor of Scrooby,” Feb. 11, 1648, Ga 11,850, Galway of Serlby Papers, U Nott (quotation from fol. 3). Layout of Scrooby: “A Map of the Parish of Scrooby in the County of Nottingham, 1776,” DDRC 14/22, NAN. Will of Richard Torre: Proved May 25, 1602, Archdeaconry Wills, East Retford, NAN.

  16. Minutes of the Nottinghamshire Quarter Sessions, East Retford, July 19, 1605, and Jan. 16, 1607, C/QSM/1/66/1–3, NAN.

  17. On the Idle valley before the railways, see C. W. Hatfield, Historical Notices of Doncaster (Doncaster, UK, 1866), from articles in the Doncaster Gazette (1862–65), esp. pp. 18–25 and 92–94. Also, John Raine, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Blyth (Westminster, UK, 1860), pp. 1–2; and John Holland, The History, Antiquities, and Description of the Town and Parish of Worksop (Sheffield, UK, 1826), pp. 5–10.

  18. T. W. Beastall, Tickhill: Portrait of an English Country Town (Doncaster, UK, 1995), pp. 38–39; and Diana Newton, The Making of the Jacobean Regime (Woodbridge, UK, 2005).

  19. William Bradford’s family: W. B. Browne, “Ancestry of the Bradfords of Austerfield,” NEHGR 83 (1929), pp. 439–64, and 84 (1930), pp. 5–16. Austerfield taxpayers: Subsidy roll, Stratforth and Tickhill Wapentakes (1599), DZ/MZ/85/HP/32/1, Doncaster Archives. Layout of Austerfield: Depositions regarding common lands of Austerfield in 1658, including testimony by William Bradford’s stepbrother Robert Briggs, E 134/1658/East34, NAK.

  20. Austerfield survey of 1608, LR 2/229, fols. 172–85, NAK.

  21. Business relationships: Noble v. Downes et al. (1596–98), REQ 2/245/46, NAK. Accounts, with details of crops and cattle: Rent book of Robert Eyre of Blyth and Austerfield, 1593–1602, Clifton Papers, CL A 37, U Nott.

  22. Remarkably, the last remaining open-field-farming village in England can still be found about twenty miles from Scrooby, at Laxton in Nottinghamshire. Thanks to this, and the excellent state of the archives relating to the village, we have a very clear picture of open field farming as the Pilgrims would have known it, in two fine books about Laxton: C. S. Orwin and C. S. L. Orwin, The Open Fields (Oxford, 1954); and J. V. Beckett, A History of Laxton (Oxford, 1989).

  23. For the property of the Frobishers, see postmortem inquisition on Francis Frobisher, Sept. 8, 1604, C 142/283/95, NAK. Also, Merchant Taylors’ Company, “Register of Apprentice Bindings, 1606–1609,” MS 34038/5, p. 112, Guildhall Library.

  24. On estate plans, see “G. Stow’s Estate at Sturton High Steeple in Nottinghamshire” (1762), Fairbanks Collection, F/STU 1L, 2L, 3L, Sheffield Archives.

  25. Sturton fracas of 1594: Lassells v. Quippe (1594), STAC 5/L36/16 and 7/25/4, NAK. Lassells family: Surtees Society, Visitations of Yorkshire and Northumberland in A.D. 1575 (Durham, UK, 1932), pp. 22–24.

  26. The manuscript records relating to Sturton are very extensive, with the sad exception of the loss of the parish register. Besides wills, the archives fall into four main categories: Star Chamber litigation, lawsuits in the Courts of Chancery and Exchequer, rolls of taxpayers, and papers from the ecclesiastical courts at York and Retford. The British Library also has a seventeenth-century manuscript history of the Thornhagh family, Add. MS 30997. Containing an especially rich mass of detail, the principal Star Chamber cases at NAK, besides those cited above, are Lassells v. Lassells (1594), STAC 5/L33/32; Thornhagh v. Lassells (1601?), STAC 5/T36/30; Thornhagh v. Lassells et al. (1580), STAC 5/T35/19; Williamson v. Lassells (1608), STAC 8/296/17; and Reyner v. Lassells (1604), STAC 8/251/30. The principal Exchequer case is Cherbery et al. v Thornhagh (1603), E134/1Jas1/Mich14. The Chancery cases are Lassells v. Thornhagh (c. 1575?), C3/112/15; and Thornhagh v. Lassells (1570s?), C3/181/33. The taxpayer rolls can be found within the E190 series at NAK. Sturton also possesses an excellent village history: John Ford, ed., The Town on the Street: The Story of the Nottinghamshire Village of Sturton-le-Steeple (Retford, UK, 1975), based on the work of Samuel Ingham, the village schoolmaster between 1875 and 1920.

  27. On Lassells and Biggs, see libel actions (1605) between Biggs, Lassells, and Ostler, Bigges v. Lascelles and Lascelles v. Ostler, AN/LB 220/6/1, AN/LB 220/6/4 (quotation on fol. 6), and AN/LB 220/6/5, Cause Papers (defamation), Archdeaconry Records, U Nott.

  28. Dickens v. Sturton (1597–98), HC CP. 1597/II, BI (York).

  29. J. Gairdner and R. H. Brodie, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (London, 1895), vol. 14, pt. 2, p. 359 and vol. 15, pp. 341, 520, and 590–91. Also Holland, History, Antiquities, p. 170.

  30. Thornhagh v. Lassells (1601), CP. H.42 and CP. H.48, BI (York).

  31. On Nottinghamshire, see J. E. Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (Harmondsworth, UK, 1963), pp. 57–63; Alison Wall, “Patterns in English Politics, 1558–1625,” Historical Journal 38, no. 4 (Dec. 1988), p. 954; and a splendid book about the Talbot/Stanhope feud by two local historians, Beryl Cobbing and Pamela Priestland, Sir Thomas Stanhope of Shelford: Local Life in Elizabethan Times (Nottingham, UK, 2003).

  CHAPTER SIX: THE MAKING OF A PILGRIM

  1. Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod (1855; Princeton, NJ, 2004), p. 22.

  2. Brewster v. Ward (defamation) (1587?), AN/LB 217/2/9/1–2, quotation from fol. 1, Cause Papers, Archdeaconry Records, U Nott.

  3. New England Society in the City of New York, Plymouth Church Records, 1620–1859 (New York, 1920–23), vol. 1, pp. 78–81.

  4. Hodgkinson Transcripts, vol. 1, fols.79 and 84, entries for April 29 and May 8, 1592, M461, NAN.

  5. C/QSM 1/66/1–5, with the Revell case dated July 17, 1607, NAN.

  6. John Smyth, Paralleles, Censures, Observations (1609), in The Works of John Smyth, ed. W. T. Whitley (Cambridge, UK, 1915), vol. 2, p. 371.

  7. Church court cases: Journal of the Archdeaconry of Nottingham, Sept. 1607–Jan. 1608, AN/A 24/11 and AN/A 24/12/2, Archdeaconry Records, U Nott. Retford magistrates, Oct. 9, 1607, and Jan. 15, 1608, C/QSM 1/66/5 and 67/1, NAN. Wise women and mad dogs: Whitley, Works of Smyth, vol. 1, pp. 93–96.

  8. J. A. Sharpe, Defamation and Sexual Slander in Early Modern England: The Church Courts at York (York, UK, 1980), pp. 7–9.

  9. James Kelly, That Damn’d Thing Called Honour: Duelling in Ireland, 1570–1860 (Cork, 1995), pp. 19–24.

  10. Charles White in 1614: HMC, Report on Manuscripts of Lord Middleton (London, 1911), pp. 178–79. Gentry status: J. P. Cooper, “Ideas of Gentility in Early Modern England,” in Land, Men, and Beliefs: Studies in Early Modern History (London, 1983); and Felicity Heal and Clive Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–1700 (Basingstoke, UK, 1994), pp. 7–29.

  11. Sir John Ferne, The Blazon of Gentrie… for the Instruction of All Gentlemen Bearers of Armes, Whome and None Other This Work Concerneth (London, 1586). My quotations are from the dedicatory epistle and from the first part (“The Glory of Generositie”), pp. 3, 7, 13–14, and 89–96.

  12. Contested real estate at Doncaster: Brewster’s Chancery lawsuit, c. 1580, C2/Eliz/B31/1, NAK. Dispute with the archbishop’s widow: Brewster v. Sandys (1588/9?), C2/Eliz/B14/11, NAK. Brewster’s ancestry: John G. Hunt, “The Mother of Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower,” NEHGR, Oct. 1970, pp. 250–54. John Smythe of Hull: A 1581 lawsuit regarding unpaid customs duties, E134/23Eliz/East4, NAK; and Exchequer port books for Hull, E 190/308/1 (for 1581–82) and E 190/308/4 (for 1583–84), NAK.

  13. T. A. Walker, ed., A Biographical Register of Peterhouse Men, Part II, 1574–1616 (Cambridge, UK, 1930), pp. 7
1–73.

  14. Stefano Guazzo, The Civile Conversation, trans. George Pettie and Bartholomew Young (London, 1586), pp. 82, 84, and 91. Bradford on Brewster: See note 3, above.

  15. Sturton tax records: “Extract of a Subsidy Roll of Bassetlaw” (1593), NE S 32, Newcastle Papers, U Nott. Quotations: Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, ed. Mary Dewar (Cambridge, UK, 1982), p. 72. For an excellent concise account of Elizabethan civic republicanism, including a list of recent scholarly literature, see Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the Massachusetts Polity,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 63, no. 3 (July 2006), pp. 427–30.

  16. William Nicholson, ed., The Remains of Edmund Grindal, D.D. (Cambridge, UK, 1843), pp. 325–26.

  17. “Visitation Book of Archdeacon Lowth,” 1587, AN/PB 292/1, Archdeaconry Records, U Nott.

  18. Plymouth Church Records, vol. 1, p. 139.

  19. Questionnaires of 1596–98: Steve Hindle, “Dearth, Fasting, and Alms: The Campaign for General Hospitality in Late Elizabethan England,” Past and Present, no. 172 (Aug. 2001), pp. 44–46, 51–54, and 61–73. Responses by Nottinghamshire churchwardens: Presentment bills (Easter 1598), AN/PB/292/7, fols. 3–72 (Scrooby is fol. 46), Archdeaconry Records, U Nott. Brewster’s treatment: Hodgkinson Transcripts, vol. 2, fol. 205, M461, NAN.

  20. Lansdowne MS, vol. 27, no. 26, fols. 48–49, BL.

  21. Hull: Port books, in note 11, above; E. Gillett and K. A. MacMahon, A History of Hull (Oxford, 1980), pp. 116–28, 143–44, and 148–50; and Claire Cross, Urban Magistrates and Ministers: Religion in Hull and Leeds from the Reformation to the Civil War (York, UK, 1985), pp. 14–16 and 17–18. Godly republics at Hull and elsewhere: Paul Slack, From Reformation to Improvement: Public Welfare in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999), pp. 30–36.

  22. Simon Adams, “A Puritan Crusade? The Composition of the Earl of Leicester’s Expedition to the Netherlands, 1585–86,” in Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester, UK, 2002), pp. 176–95. Adams’s 1973 Oxford Ph.D. thesis, “The Protestant Cause” (BLL D0419/74, Bodleian Library), remains an essential source. Except where stated, the following account of events at Flushing is based on the volumes of Sophie Crawford Lomas, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, vols. 19 and 20 (London, 1916 and 1921), covering the period 1584–86; Jan Den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, trans. R. B. Powell (London, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 37–73; and Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 220–30.