This book is dedicated to Margaret E Mahoney, president of the Commonwealth Fund of New York, 1980–95 Crueltye and bloodde is in our streetes, the lande abowndeth with murthers slawghters Incestes Adulteryes, whoredom dronkennes, oppression and pride … even the leaste of these, is enowghe, and enowghe to make haste owte of Babylon —AN ENGLISH PURITAN GIVING REASONS FOR MIGRATION TO AMERICA, 16291 Contents List of Maps Author’s Note Prelude: THE BEAVER OF MAWOOSHEN Part One: THE HEAVENS AND THE SEA One: THE YEAR OF THE BLAZING STAR Two: MR JONES IN PLYMOUTH SOUND Three: CROSSING SINAI Part Two: ORIGINS Four: TROUBLECHURCH BROWNE Five: MEN AND WOMEN OF THE CLAY Six: THE MAKING OF A PILGRIM Part Three: SEPARATION Seven: THE ENTRAILS OF THE KING Eight: DISOBEDIENCE AND CONTEMPT Nine: STALLINGBOROUGH FLATS Part Four: THE PROJECT Ten: THE TOMB OF THE APOSTLE Eleven: WHY THE PILGRIMS SAILED Twelve: THE BEAVER, THE COSSACK, AND PRINCE CHARLES Thirteen: IN THE ARTILLERY GARDEN Part Five: AMERICA Fourteen: COMFORT AND REFRESHING Fifteen: THE MYSTIC AND THE THAMES Sixteen: DIABOLICAL AFFECTION Seventeen: IF ROCHELLE BE LOST Part Six: THE WAYS OF SALVATION Eighteen: THE PROPHECY OF MICAIAH Nineteen: THE FIRST BOSTONIANS Twenty: THE EXPLODING COLONY Epilogue: THE LAST SHAMAN Acknowledgments Notes Further Reading Maps Canoe Routes of the Eastern Abenaki The Pilgrim Quadrilateral, 1600 Mayflower London Southeastern New England, 1616–40 Author’s Note A pest, a fanatic, and a hypocrite, worse than a cattle thief: that was a Puritan, said King James I of England Despite his many talents, the king had many aws, and we cannot trust him to describe men and women whom he loathed We have to nd a less insulting way to de ne them, brie y but with fairness Without such a de nition, what follows will make very little sense The word “Puritan” rst appeared early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in about 1565 Puritans were people who believed that she failed to go far enough when she established a Protestant Church of England They urged her to abolish every last trace of Roman Catholic ritual that still lingered within it They also wished to see an end to the hierarchy of bishops that the queen had left intact Her Majesty had not the slightest intention of agreeing to these demands So, if Puritans could not have the kind of o cial religion they wanted, they chose to look for God in private As the law required, they went to their parish church every Sunday, but at home they prayed, discussed sermons, and studied the Bible Mainly, Puritans read the book of Genesis, the letters of Saint Paul, and the Psalms In the New Testament, they also paid special attention to the Acts of the Apostles Here they found the story of the early Church, and a portrait of Christianity in what seemed to be its most authentic form Free from distortion by popes and cardinals, it offered a model they felt obliged to copy Before the English Civil War, almost every single Puritan was also a Calvinist What did this label signify? It meant that they followed the teachings of the French reformer John Calvin, who died in 1564 A lawyer by training, Calvin began by precisely de ning the nature of God Then, with the austere logic of a judge, he explained the fearful consequences of divinity For Calvin, God was an absolute monarch, a king who created the universe and then sustained it at every moment by a supreme act of will But if God was almighty, and foresaw everything that occurred, then before the beginning of time he must have decided already the fate of each human soul This was called the doctrine of double predestination Like Calvin, English Puritans believed that God had divided the human race in two Before they were born, those chosen to receive the gift of faith were set apart for eternal life They were called the elect The remainder of humanity were doomed to punishment forever Try as they might, they could never obtain salvation, and so they were known as the lost Did these ideas make men and women fatalistic? If human beings could not change the mind of God, why bother with faith, hope, and charity at all? In fact, Calvinists reached the opposite conclusion If Christians wanted to be sure that they belonged to the elect, it was all the more important to good deeds and to worship correctly To persevere in holiness gave them the best evidence that they were saved Among the Puritans in England, some of those who persevered the most were a small minority known as Separatists In terms of theology, they were strict Calvinists too, but they carried Puritan beliefs as far as they would go They argued that the Church of England was beyond redemption because of its Roman Catholic past In their eyes, it bore the marks of Satan, not those of Jesus Christ Because of this, Separatists felt compelled to more than read and pray in private They decided to leave the established Church entirely and set up alternative congregations Untainted by the in uence of Rome, these assemblies would be pure in their membership, and in the way they worshipped In 1593, Parliament and Queen Elizabeth made Separatism a crime Printing, and Bookselling in England, 1551–1700: Twelve Studies (New York, 1965), pp 75–91 and 97–129; ODNB entries for Butter and Bourne; and Bellamy’s entry in Henry R Plomer, A Dictionary of the Booksellers… from 1641 to 1667 (London, 1968) CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DIABOLICAL AFFECTION Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (Boston, 1844; repr., Baltimore, 1974), pp 272–73 Arrival of Massasoit: Letter of Emmanuel Altham, Sept 1623, in Three Visitors to Early Plymouth: Letters About the Pilgrim Settlement in New England During the First Seven Years, ed Sydney V James Jr (Plymouth, MA, 1963), pp 29– 32 Map of Plymouth, 1830: The Bourne map, Massachusetts State Archives, vol 68, no 2161, p Sherley and Andrewes v Weston et al (1623), E 112/104/1569, NAK C M Andrews, The Colonial Period in American History, vol 1, The Settlements (New Haven, CT, 1934), pp 332–34; and the comprehensive account in William Heath, “Thomas Morton: From Merry Old England to New England,” Journal of American Studies 41, no (2007), esp pp 143–47 Personal communication, April 2008, from Francis J O’Brien Jr (Moondancer) of the Aquidneck Indian Council Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America (1643), in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society for the Year 1794 (Boston, 1810), vol 3, p 228 London Port Book (exports) for 1619, entry for July 31, 1619, E 190/22/9, NAK Kathleen L Ehrhardt, European Metals in Native Hands: Rethinking the Dynamics of Technological Change, 1640–1683 (Tuscaloosa, AL, 2005), pp 57–59 and 76–81; Laurier Turgeon, “The Tale of the Kettle: Odyssey of an Intercultural Object,” in Ethnohistory 44, no (winter 1997), pp 1–21 The various accounts of Wessagussett are Bradford’s, in Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647, by William Bradford, ed Samuel Eliot Morison (New York, 1979), pp 113–19; Winslow’s, in Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, pp 296– 311 and 327–41; the narrative of Phineas Pratt, in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th ser., (1858), pp 476–79; and Thomas Morton’s, in New English Canaan (Amsterdam, 1637) Morton’s text is now easily available as an e-book, via Google Books and other portals, in an edition first published in 2000 by Jack Dempsey 10 CLIMOD statistics for Plymouth-Kingston (1893–2007) from Northeast Regional Climate Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 11 Appraisal of the Little James’s armament, anchors, rigging, and so forth (1624?), HCA 24/81/120, NAK 12 All quotations from Altham’s letters are from James, Three Visitors to Early Plymouth, pp 13 Wills of Edward Altham (1605) and Elizabeth Altham (1623), PROB 11/106 and PROB/11/139, NAK On the Althams: Harleian Society, Visitations of Essex Part II (London, 1879), pp 538–39; and transcripts of the Altham family papers, T/A 531/1, ECRO The Altham family had strong kinship ties to the leading Puritan families of eastern England: the most important was the marriage of Emmanuel’s eldest brother, Sir James Altham, to Elizabeth Barrington The Barringtons were active Puritan politicians in successive Parliaments and closely related by marriage to Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden 14 Records of the lawsuit Stephens and Fell v the ship Little James et al (1624), HCA 24/81/40, 41, and 158, NAK 15 Letters of John Bridges and Emmanuel Altham, 1623–24, PMHS 44 (1910–11), pp 178–89 16 Will of Emmanuel Altham (1638): PROB/11/178, NAK Altham at Armagon: W Foster, ed., The English Factories in India, 1630–1633 (Oxford, 1910), pp 183–84, and The English Factories in India, 1634–1636 (Oxford, 1911), pp 47–48, 296, and 327; and E B Sainsbury, ed., A Calendar of the Court Minutes of the East India Company, 1635–1639 (Oxford, 1907), p 318 17 Pelts imported into Plymouth, Devon, in 1622: See the Plymouth Port Book (new impositions), Easter 1622– Michaelmas 1622, E 190/1030/10, NAK For 1624: E 190/1030/19, NAK The rst record of substantial imports of beaver skins into Plymouth comes in July 1626, when Abraham Jennings shipped home more than one thousand pelts on the Consent: E 190/1031/6, NAK 18 Bradford’s narrative of the Lyford a air, from which all my quotations come unless otherwise indicated, is in Morison, Of Plymouth Plantation, pp 146–70 19 “Malignant” entry in The Oxford English Dictionary 20 Winthrop: Francis J Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Founding Father (New York, 2003), pp 72–73 and 98–99 Winslow: Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, Edward Winslow: New England’s First International Diplomat (Boston, 2004), pp 1–2 Slany: Court Minutes of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, 1611–20, MS 34010/5, pp 77, 108, 150–51, and 173–75, Guildhall Library 21 W H Rylands, ed., The Four Visitations of Berkshire (London, 1907), vol 1, p 244, and vol 2, pp 172–73; William Page and P H Ditch eld, eds., The Victoria County History of Berkshire (London, 1924), vol 4, pp 81–84 and 110–14; and J Foster, ed., Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1714 (Oxford, 1891–92), vol 22 Puritan clergy in Ireland: Alan Ford, “The Church of Ireland, 1558–1634: A Puritan Church,” in As by Law Established: The Church of Ireland Since the Reformation, ed Alan Ford, J I McGuire, and Kenneth Milne (Dublin, 1995), pp 56–67 Armagh cathedral prebendaries: J B Leslie, Armagh Clergy and Parishes (Dundalk, Ireland, 1911), pp 59–73 On the Ulster Plantation generally: S J Connolly, Contested Island: Ireland, 1460–1630 (Oxford, 2007), pp 290–302 23 For Lyford at Loughgall, see Diocese of Armagh, “Visitation Royal 1622,” fols 54r–55, showing appointment of Lyford as prebendary on Oct 21, 1613, Armagh Robinson Public Library; List of the Temporalities of 1622, le DIO/4/4/2, fol 40, entry regarding Levalleglish, PRONI; and Leslie, Armagh Clergy, p 351 24 The O’Neills and the scation of Loughgall: John McCavitt, “Rebels, Planters, and Conspirators: Armagh, 1594– 1640,” in Armagh: History and Society, ed A J Hughes and William Nolan (Dublin, 2001), pp 253–58; and R J Hunter, “County Armagh: A Map of Plantation, c 1610,” in the same volume, pp 268–73 Copes at Loughgall: “A Book of the Plantation of Ulster” (1619), in Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts, 1603–1624, ed J S Brewer and William Bullen (London, 1873), pp 415–16 ODNB; and will of Anthony Cope (1633), Cope Papers (28–1975), Armagh County Museum 25 Lyford and Church land: Entry regarding John Lyford in Robert C Anderson, The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony, 1620–1633 (Boston, MA, 2004), p 313; map of Loughgall in 1834, OS/6/2/8/1, PRONI; and James Morrin, ed., Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland in the Reign of Charles I (Dublin, 1863), p 322 Hampton and long leases: Sir James Stuart, Historical Memoirs of the City of Armagh (Newry, UK, 1819), pp 308–10; and “Orders Concerning the Church of Ireland 1623,” inside the manuscript “Visitation Royal 1622,” Armagh Robinson Public Library 26 Pory’s letters: James, Three Visitors to Early Plymouth Bradford on Pory: Morison, Of Plymouth Plantation, pp 112–13 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: IF ROCHELLE BE LOST Massachusetts Historical Society, Winthrop Papers, vol 2, 1623–1630 (Boston, 1931), pp State Papers (France), SP 78/80, fol 83 (Oct 12, 1626); fol 97 (Oct 13); fols 114–16 (Nov 6); fol 163 (Nov 30); and SP 78/81, fol 187 (1627), NAK Also, Francisque Michel, Histoire de commerce et de la navigation Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1870), vol 2, pp 52–54 and 61–62; and Thomas R Cogswell, “Prelude to Ré: The Anglo-French Struggle over La Rochelle, 1624–1627,” History 71 (1986), pp 13–14 SP 78/80, fol 116, NAK; and Charles de la Roncière, Histoire de la marine franỗaise (Paris, 1923), vol 4, pp 558628 Franỗois de Vaux de Foletier, whose book first appeared in 1931 MP: Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, April 1, 1628, in Commons Debates, 1628, ed R C Johnson and M J Cole (New Haven, CT, 1977), vol 2, p 228 French commerce in French hulls: See, for example, “Declaration du roy,” in Etienne Cleirac, Les us et coutumes de la mer (Rouen, 1671), pp 2–3 La Rochelle, its defenses, and the preliminaries of the siege: Franỗois de Vaux de Foletier, Le siốge de La Rochelle (La Rochelle, France, 1978), pp 16–18, 81–94; and Cogswell, “Prelude to Ré.” Barnstaple: SP 16/51/25–26, Jan 26, 1627, NAK Sailors: J F Larkin, Stuart Royal Proclamations, vol 2, 1625–1646 (Oxford, 1983), pp 127–128 Samuel Eliot Morison, ed., Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647, by William Bradford (New York, 1979), p 34; and S M Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London (Washington, DC, 1906–35), vol 1, pp 221 and 228 Clinton’s pamphlet, SP 16/54/82.i, Jan 24, 1627, NAK; and Richard Cust, The Forced Loan and English Politics, 1626– 1628 (Oxford, 1987), esp pp 32–39, 102–3, 170–76, and 298–99 Wincob, Coddington, and Lincolnshire loan refusers: SP 16/56/39, March 8, 1627, NAK; and the 1625 certi cate of residence of “John Wincope… gent,” E 115/46/56, NAK Dudley and the loan: SP 16/72/36, July 28, 1627, NAK Identi cation of John Wincob: Records relating to taxpayers in Lincolnshire have survived in large numbers and in very good condition They list only one gentleman with a name like John Wincob or Weyncopp He was registered as a taxpayer in the parish of Kirkby Underwood The village is eight miles from Sempringham, where the Clintons owned a manor house, and three miles from Folkingham, where they owned land and which they later chose as their principal residence 10 Bread Street Ward forced loan refusers: SP 16/71/15, July 16, 1627, NAK Other City wards: SP 16/72/60, 61, 62, 64, and 65, NAK Pocock’s arrest warrant, July 19, 1627: Acts of the Privy Council of England (January–August 1627) (London, 1938), p 424 11 Deposition against Archbishop Laud, SP 16/500/4, NAK 12 The Marmaduke: London port book (exports) for 1627, E 190/31/1, fol 113, NAK John Gibbs and the Plymouth Colony: Morison, Of Plymouth Plantation, p 197 13 Lynn Ceci, “Native Wampum as a Peripheral Resource in the Seventeenth-Century World-System,” in The Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation, ed Laurence M Hauptman and James D Wherry (Norman, OK, 1990), pp 48–63 14 For example, see household accounts of Lord Bayning, Jan 30 and Oct 17, 1634, SP 46/77, NAK 15 Robert Le Blant, “Le commerce compliqué des fourrures canadiennes au début du XVII siốcle, Revue Historique de lAmộrique Franỗaise 26, no (June 1972) I have converted the French prices in silver into English shillings of the period, using data from the history of the Royal Mint in London and in Natalis de Wailly, Mémoire sur la variation de la livre tournois (Paris, 1857) The price of twenty shillings in the late 1620s matches details given by Bradford 16 William Hubbard, A General History of New England from the Discovery to 1680 (Boston, 1848), p 68 17 On the restructuring of the Plymouth Colony’s finances, see Morison, Of Plymouth Plantation, pp 184–86 and 194–96 18 “Plymouth Company Accounts,” Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd ser., (1907), pp 200–201 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE PROPHECY OF MICAIAH John Preston, “A Sensible Demonstration of the Deitie,” in Sermons Preached Before His Maiestie (London, 1631), p 56 E W Harcourt, ed., The Life of the Renowned Doctor Preston, Writ by His Pupil, Master Thomas Ball… in the Year 1628 (Oxford, 1885) Also Irvonwy Morgan, Prince Charles’s Puritan Chaplain (Oxford, 1957), esp pp 111 and 126 The probate inventory of Miles Standish is available on the Web site of Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, MA: www.pilgrimhall.org H M Colvin, ed., The History of the King’s Works, Vol 4, 1485–1660, Part (London, 1982), pp 304–41; and Peter E McCullough, Sermons at Court: Politics and Religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean Preaching (Cambridge, UK, 1998), pp 31–42 Preston, Sermons Preached Before His Maiestie, pp 47 and 52–61 Harcourt, Renowned Doctor Preston, pp 158–62 Will of John Preston, signed 1618, proved 1628, PROB/11/154, NAK When Preston’s sermon appeared in print in 1631, the volume was edited by the Puritan minister John Davenport, a London friend of John Pocock’s brother Edward Davenport had close ties to the leading investors in the Massachusetts Bay Company Samuel Eliot Morison, ed., Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647, by William Bradford (New York, 1979), p 382 N M Sutherland, “The Origins of the Thirty Years’ War and the Structure of European Politics,” English Historical Review 107 (July 1992), esp pp 590–91 and 618–22; and David Parrott, “The Mantuan Succession, 1627–1631: A Sovereignty Dispute in Early Modern Europe,” English Historical Review 112 (Feb 1997), pp 20–25, 48–50, and 64–65 10 Harcourt, Renowned Doctor Preston, p 174 CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE FIRST BOSTONIANS Hakewill to Archbishop Ussher of Armagh, in The Whole Works of the Most Rev James Ussher, D.D., ed C R Elrington (Dublin, 1847–64), vol 15, p 418 Hakewill, a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, preached often at Barnstaple, where he married the daughter of the merchant and mayor, John Delbridge Regarding the St Peter and the White Angel: Barnstaple port book (overseas) for 1628, entries for Jan and Jan 23, E 190/947/5, NAK; and Patrick McGrath, ed., Records Relating to the Society of Merchant Venturers in the City of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century (Bristol, UK, 1952), p 203 Drowned shermen: Todd Gray, ed., Early-Stuart Mariners and Shipping: The Maritime Surveys of Devon and Cornwall, 1619–35 (Exeter, UK, 1990), p xvi Will of John Penrose, former mayor of Barnstaple (1624), PROB/11/145, NAK Letters to Cecil, 1603–4: HMC, Salisbury, vol 15 (London, 1930), pp 337–38, and vol 16 (London, 1933), pp 6, 116, 127, 136, and 345 Delbridge and Palmer: Will of Anthonie Palmer (1596), PROB/11/87, PCC Wills, NAK Micmac chieftain at Bayonne: This was a man called Messamouet; see Bruce J Bourque and Ruth R Whitehead, “Trade and Alliances in the Contact Period,” in American Beginnings: Exploration, Culture, and Cartography in the Land of Norumbega, ed Emerson W Baker et al (Lincoln, NE, 1994), pp 136–39 Delbridge and religion: Eastman v Delbridge, STAC 8/134/5 (1616) , NAK For Barnstaple’s activities in New England in 1622–23, see Records of the Council for New England (Cambridge, MA, 1867), pp 71, 83–84, and 96 Evidence of only very modest imports of beaver fur before 1628 comes from the Barnstaple port books recording payment of the customs duties on cargoes subject to the so-called new impositions, which included beaver skins These are: Barnstaple Port Book (new impositions), Easter 1624–Michaelmas 1624, E 190/946/3, NAK; Barnstaple Port Book (new impositions), Michaelmas 1625–Easter? 1626, E 190/946/8, NAK; and Barnstaple Port Book (new impositions), Michaelmas 1626–Easter 1627, E 190/946/10, NAK Three port books recording new impositions collected at Barnstaple survive from the years 1614–16 and show no beaver fur imports On Barnstaple generally, see J R Chanter and Thomas Wainwright, Reprint of the Barnstaple Records (Barnstaple, UK, 1900); Lois Lamplugh, Barnstaple: Town on the Taw (South Molton, UK, 2002); and Todd Gray, ed., The Lost Chronicle of Barnstaple, 1586–1611 (Devonshire Association, 1998) Barnstaple’s trade by sea is clearly displayed in the town’s overseas port book for 1615, E 190/942/13, NAK Also see contributions by Alison Grant and Todd Gray to The New Maritime History of Devon, ed Michael Du y et al (London, 1992), vol Barnstaple port book (overseas) for 1620, entry for Aug 30, E 190/944/8; and entries for Aug 28 and Sept 11, 1615, E 190/942/13, NAK Irish livestock: Donald Woodward, “The Anglo-Irish Livestock Trade of the Seventeenth Century,” Irish Historical Studies 18 (1972–73), pp 489–91 Richard W Cotton, Barnstaple and the Northern Part of Devonshire During the Great Civil War, 1642–1646 (London, 1889), pp 5–6 and 41 SP (France), 78/83, Jan.–Dec 1628, NAK 10 E 190/947/5, NAK, shows only 37 outward voyages from Barnstaple to overseas ports in 1628, compared with about 60 in other years for which the port books survive Of the 37, some 25 went to Ireland Inward voyages from abroad numbered 67, compared with the usual total of about 160 Taking these gures together, we see the number of voyages falling from about 220 in a normal year to 104 in 1628 11 R C Johnson and M J Cole, eds., Commons Debates, 1628 (New Haven, CT, 1977), vol 2, p 304 12 Bristol-Barnstaple connection: Barnstaple Port Book (coastal) for 1615 The White Angel as privateer: John Bruce, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1628–1629 (London, 1859), pp 439–42, letters of marque issued Nov 4, 1628 13 All of these details come from E 190/947/5, NAK 14 On Witheridge in Maine, and his contacts with Samoset, see James Phinney Baxter, Christopher Levett of York: The Pioneer Colonist in Casco Bay (Portland, ME, 1893), pp 101–3 15 For Sherley’s accounts, see Chapter Seventeen, note 18, above 16 Elbridge: Henry S Burrage, The Beginnings of Colonial Maine, 1602–1658 (Portland, ME, 1914), pp 180–82 and 217– 20; and also David Harris Sacks, The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy, 1450–1700 (Berkeley, CA, 1992), chap Regarding the trading season of 1628: Sherley to Bradford, Nov 17, 1628, in Samuel Eliot Morison, ed., Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647, by William Bradford (New York, 1979), pp 197–98 Morton in 1628: Morison, Of Plymouth Plantation, pp 204–10; and the sources referred to in Chapter Sixteen above, note 17 Cradock: Collections for a History of Sta ordshire (London, 1920 and 1922), vol 2, pp 22–23; and Sackville Papers, U 269/1, OEc 1, CKS Cradock, Russia, and fur: Minutes of the Muscovia Company (1630), State Papers (Russia), SP 91/2, fols 182–84, NAK, where Cradock’s name appears alongside that of Ralph Freeman among the company’s directors 18 Frances Rose-Troup, John White: Founder of Massachusetts (London, 1930), pp 64–99 Rose-Troup made occasional errors, and so caution is required in matters of detail 19 Baxter, Christopher Levett of York, pp 68–70 20 Will of Gervase Kirke (1631), PROB/11/159, NAK; London port book (exports), 1617, as in note 17; and Henry Kirke, The First English Conquest of Canada (London, 1908), esp 21 Massachusetts Historical Society, Winthrop Papers (Boston, 1931), vol 2, pp 145–49 22 Bannatyne Club, Royal Letters, Charters, and Tracts Relating to the Colonization of New Scotland (Edinburgh, 1867), p 47 23 In addition to Pocock, the investors were Christopher Coulson, Thomas Goffe, and John Revell 24 Cradock to Endecott, quoted in Sidney Perley, The History of Salem, Massachusetts (Salem, MA, 1924), pp 102–4 25 The Friendship of Bideford: Barnstaple port book (overseas) for 1630–31, Dec 29, 1630, E 190/947/8, NAK; Barnstaple port book (overseas) for 1633, March? 1633, E 190/948/10, NAK; Richard S Dunn, James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle, eds., The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630–1649 (Cambridge, MA, 1996), pp 53–55 Governors Island: Pre-1945 editions of the United States Coast Pilot; and Nancy S Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA, 2003), pp 375–79 26 St Kitts and the early English Caribbean colonies: Sir Alan Burns, History of the British West Indies (New York, 1973), pp 187–202 Slaves at St Kitts in 1626: V T Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions to the West Indies and Guiana, 1623– 1667 (London, 1925), p 26 27 Voyages of the Charles and the Gift: SP 16/203/48, NAK; Dunn, Savage, and Yeandle, Journal, pp 69–70 and 81; Barnstaple Port Books (overseas) for 1632–33, E 190/948/10 and E 190/948/11, NAK Pocock, Barnstaple, and Massachusetts: Bill of exchange of 1635, B1/4090, NDRO CHAPTER TWENTY: THE EXPLODING COLONY Quoted in Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (Boston, 1844; repr., Baltimore, 1974), pp 250–51 The Redenhall archives are held at Norfolk RO Probate inventory of John Fuller (1608): Micro lm, DN/INV 22/102 Manorial records: Court book of Redenhall Manor, 1615–25, file MC 584/7; and court book of Coldham Hall in Redenhall, 1564–1649, le MC 584/2 Redenhall church records: List of churchwardens, 1573–1852, continued to 1893, le PD 295/158 Also, for Fuller entries in the parish register: Francis H Fuller, “Fullers of Redenhall, England,” NEHGR, Oct 1901, pp 401–6 Genealogy of the Fullers: Robert C Anderson, The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony, 1620–1633 (Boston, MA, 2004), pp 212–21 James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz, The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in the Plymouth Colony (New York, 2000), pp 230–35 Virginia DeJohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York, 2004), esp chaps and 5 F Walker, Historical Geography of Southwest Lancashire Before the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, UK, 1939), pp 11–12; and Charles Foster, “Farmers and the Economy in Cheshire and Lancashire,” Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 101 Keryn D Bromberg and Mark D Bertness, “Reconstructing New England Salt Marsh Losses Using Historical Maps,” Estuaries 28, no (Dec 2005), pp 823–32 James Thacher, History of the Town of Plymouth (1835; fac repr., Yarmouth Port, MA, 1972), pp 312–14; also, William S Russell, Pilgrim Memorials and Guide to Plymouth (Boston, 1860), p 158 Benjamin Shurtle and David Pulsifer, eds., Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, vol 11, Laws, 1623– 1682 (Boston, 1855–61), pp 15 and 48 William T Davis, Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth: Part 1, Historical Sketch (Boston, 1883), pp 49–54 10 Cynthia Hagar Krusell, Marshfield: A Town of Villages (Marshfield, MA, 1990), esp pp 5–9 11 Dispersal of the Plymouth Colony: Darrell B Rutman, Husbandmen of Plymouth: Towns and Villages in the Old Colony, 1620–1692 (Boston, 1967), p 23 Abandonment of English manorial law: S C Powell, Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town (Middletown, CT, 1963), pp 142–44 12 For early comments about the Romney Marsh of Massachusetts, see Howard S Russell, A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England (Hanover, NH, 1976), p 41 13 Puritans in Cranbrook and Rolvenden: Patrick Collinson, “Cranbrook and the Fletchers: Popular and Unpopular Religion in the Kentish Weald,” in Godly People: Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism (London, 1983), pp 399– 428 Romney Marsh and English wetlands: Stephen Hipkin, “Tenant Farming and Short-Term Leasing on Romney Marsh, 1587–1705,” Economic History Review, n.s., 5, no (Nov 2000), pp 666–72; and Oliver Rackham, The History of the Countryside (London, 1986), pp 374–94 14 Sir William Dugdale, The History of Imbanking and Drayning of Divers Fens and Marshes (London, 1662), pp 374–416; and H C Darby, The Draining of the Fens (Cambridge, UK, 1956), pp 22–32 and 263–69 15 Will of Robert Ingols (1618), Consistory Court Wills, 1618, vol 2, 317, LAO; probate inventory of Robert Ingols, INV 121/118, LAO; Dugdale, History of Imbanking, pp 422–23; and Clive Holmes, Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, UK, 1980), pp 25–27 and 121–30 16 On Romney Marsh and the Pawtucket: Mellen Chamberlain, A Documentary History of Chelsea, 1624–1824 (Boston, 1908), pp 60–76, 86–109, and 635; Alonzo Lewis and James R Newhall, History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts (Boston, 1865), pp 32–42, 51–58, and 76–78; Benjamin Shurtle , The History of the Town of Revere (Boston, 1937), pp 11–13 17 Jeremy D Bangs, Indian Deeds: Land Transactions in Plymouth Colony, 1620–1691 (Boston, 2002), introduction 18 For a similar argument, see Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Piety in an English Village: Terling, 1525– 1700, 2nd ed (Oxford, 1995), pp 204–11 19 New England in the 1640s: Stephen Innes, Creating the Commonwealth: The Economic Culture of Puritan New England (New York, 1995), chap Population: Carla Gardina Pestana, The English Atlantic in the Age of Revolution, 1640–1661 (Cambridge, MA, 2004), pp 229–34 20 Carl Bridenbaugh, Fat Mutton and Liberty of Conscience: Society in Rhode Island, 1636–1690 (Providence, 1974), pp 19–31 EPILOGUE: THE LAST SHAMAN Joseph Nicolar, The Life and Traditions of the Red Man (Bangor, ME, 1893; repr., Durham, NC, 2007, ed by Annette Kolodny), p 115 Cotton Mather mentioned Dorothy Bradford’s death in his Magnalia Christi Americana of 1702, but even he makes only the briefest reference to it Shamanism and rock art in North America: James L Pearson, Shamanism and the Ancient Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Archaeology (Walnut Creek, CA, 2002), pp 53–64 Petroglyphs at Embden and elsewhere: Dean R Snow, “The Solon Petroglyphs and Eastern Abenaki Shamanism,” in Papers of the Seventh Algonquian Conference, ed William Cowan (Ottawa, 1975); Edward Lenik, Picture Rocks: American Indian Rock Art in the Northeast Woodlands (Hanover, NH, 2002), pp 51–57; and Joan Vastokas and Romas Vastokas, Sacred Art of the Algonkians: A Study of the Peterborough Petroglyphs (Peterborough, ON, 1976), pp 121–29 Shamanism in New England: Kathleen J Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1500–1650 (Norman, OK, 1996), pp 200–216; and Frank Speck, “Penobscot Shamanism,” Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association (1919), pp 239–88 Eric Lahti et al., “Test Excavations at the Hodgdon Site,” Man in the Northeast 21 (1981), pp 19–36 F H Eckstorm, Old John Neptune and Other Maine Indian Shamans (Portland, ME, 1945), esp pp 33–39; and two articles about Eckstorm and Neptune by Jacques Ferland and Pauleena MacDougall in Reconstructing Maine’s Wabanaki History, a special issue of Maine History 43, no (Aug 2007) Further Reading For reasons of space, the notes to this book chie y comprise references to primary sources, most of them unpublished Because so many may be unfamiliar even to experts in the eld, I have given full details of all of them I have mentioned secondary works by modern scholars only when it seemed entirely necessary Nevertheless, I wish to record my debt to some excellent books that have provided indispensable assistance Within their pages readers will nd more information, and alternative views, about the very early history of New England and the origins of the Pilgrims Each book contains a bibliography and notes that will take the reader in most of the directions he or she might wish to travel With regard to Puritanism, and the wider religious history of England in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the most comprehensive recent survey is Felicity Heal’s Reformation in Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2003) It should be used in conjunction with the opening chapters of Michael Braddick, God’s Fury, England’s Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars (London, 2008) An equally important book is Alexandra Walsham’s Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999), especially chapter A brilliant analysis of the way in which people interpreted their experience in religious language, it supplements the description of the origins of Separatism contained in Making Haste from Babylon Sooner or later, every student of the period must turn to Professor Patrick Collinson First published in 1967, his book The Elizabethan Puritan Movement remains a classic of English historiography His concise treatment of Elizabeth I in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is essential too: by far the best account of that overexposed celebrity For those seeking to understand two complicated subjects— Calvinism and Separatist attitudes to the Church of England—Collinson supplies an eloquent shortcut, in chapters 2, 3, 6, and of his collection of essays From Cranmer to Sancroft (London, 2006) They supersede most earlier work on these vexed issues There are so many penetrating books about the politics of the period between 1580 and 1630 that a full list would require a volume of its own John Guy’s My Heart Is My Own: The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots (London, 2004) covers far more than its title suggests However, if readers want to know more about the 1580s, they might try Blair Worden’s controversial but fascinating book about Sir Philip Sidney, The Sound of Virtue: Philip Sidney’s Arcadia and Elizabethan Politics (New Haven, CT, 1996) For later decades, Ronald Hutton supplies a road map through the jungle in his Debates in Stuart History (Basingstoke, UK, 2004) I also recommend Conrad Russell’s Parliaments and English Politics, 1621–1629 (Oxford, 1979), another modern classic, and Kevin Sharpe’s Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, CT, 1992) I not agree with everything Sharpe says, but his account of the crisis of 1628 and 1629 is essential So are Richard Cust’s excellent biography, Charles I: A Political Life (Harlow, UK, 2005), and Roger Lockyer’s Buckingham: The Life and Political Career of George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham, 1592–1628 (London, 1981) American historians have produced an immense body of work dealing with the rst Puritan settlements To my mind, the nest literary account of early New England is still Charles Francis Adams Jr.’s Three Episodes of Massachusetts History, published as long ago as 1892 A man who fought at Antietam and Gettysburg before coming home to regulate railroads in his state, Adams had some excellent credentials to write the book in question For those who prefer something more recent, free from Adams’s errors, Francis J Bremer gives us a splendid start in his John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father (Oxford, 2003) So does David Hackett Fischer in Champlain’s Dream (New York, 2008), another book that does much more than it says on the label With more direct relevance to the Pilgrims, by far the most reliable narrative can still be found in the rst volume of C M Andrews’s Colonial Period of American History (New Haven, CT, 1934) It should be read alongside the elegant book by Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1955) They provide a solid introduction before one opens William Bradford’s history of the Plymouth Colony The best edition of that is contained in the annotated volumes published by the Massachusetts Historical Society: William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647 (Boston, 1912) However, because the society’s edition is hard to nd except in university libraries, in my notes I have preferred to cite Samuel Eliot Morison’s 1979 edition Morison made small mistakes in his own annotations, but none of them were fatal Besides Andrews and Bailyn, and other books mentioned in my notes, the American works to which I have turned most often have been Virginia DeJohn Anderson, New England’s Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, UK, 1991); Karen Ordahl Kupperman, The Jamestown Project (Cambridge, MA, 2007); Mark A Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (New York, 2002); Daniel K Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (Chapel Hill, NC, 1992); Neal Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500–1643 (New York, 1982); and David A Weir, Early New England: A Covenanted Society (Grand Rapids, 2005) However, to my mind some of the most relevant American scholarship in recent years has come from archaeologists and scientists I am referring especially to Professor David R Foster and his team at Harvard University’s Harvard Forest project Their research can be found in David R Foster and John D Aber, eds., Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England (New Haven, CT, 2004) An excellent account of New England salt marshes can be found in the essential textbook by Professor Mark Bertness of Brown University, Atlantic Shorelines: Natural History and Ecology (Princeton, NJ, 2007) I also recommend two recent publications that deal with the interaction between ecology, geography, Native American culture, and the arrival of European colonists The rst is by Lisa Tanya Brooks, The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast (Minneapolis, 2008) The second is an article by W Je rey Bolster, “Putting the Ocean in Atlantic History: Maritime Communities and Marine Ecology in the Northwest Atlantic, 1500–1800,” American Historical Review (Feb 2008) I cannot count the number of times that I have delved into the Web site of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, www.newengland ancestors.org For biographical facts about the Mayflower Pilgrims, another excellent source is the Web site maintained by Caleb Johnson, at www.mayflowerhistory.com Johnson sets high standards of accuracy, both on his Web site and in his privately printed book, The Mayflower and Her Passengers (2006) I have a last intellectual debt to repay For many years, much of the best work in the eld of North Atlantic history has come from French scholars, whether in metropolitan France or in French Canada My text and notes refer to Bernard Allaire, Laurier Turgeon, and three La Rochelle historians of a much earlier generation: Marcel Delafosse, ẫtienne Trocmộ, and Franỗois de Vaux de Foletier Behind them lie the great masters of modern historical writing: Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, and Fernand Braudel My account of the voyage of the Mayflower owes much to another French historian, Alain Cabantous I adapted the title of his book Le ciel dans la mer: Christianisme et civilisation maritime (XVIe–XIXe siècle) (Paris, 1990) for the title of the first part of my own Since the 1970s, Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs has plowed a deep but perhaps a lonely furrow, as a historian committed to using careful archival research to enhance our understanding of the Pilgrims and the Plymouth Colony His wide learning in art history and theology have assisted him greatly in the task In September 2009, when Making Haste from Babylon was entering its nal stages of preparation, Dr Bangs published his important book Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners: Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation (General Society of May ower Descendants, Plymouth, Massachusetts, 2009) Although it appeared too late for me to use it as a source, Strangers and Pilgrims provides additional perspectives of the highest value A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nick Bunker has worked as an investment banker, principally with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, as an investigative reporter for the Liverpool Echo, and as a writer for the Financial Times He attended King’s College, Cambridge, and Columbia University For more than ten years he served as a member of the board of the Freud Museum, London, latterly as chairman of the trustees He now lives in the shadow of Lincoln Cathedral, not far from the villages where the leaders of the Plymouth Colony were born THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A KNOPF Copyright © 2010 by Nick Bunker All rights reserved Published in the United States by Alfred A Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto www.aaknopf.com Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc Frontispiece: Ships, mariners, and their instruments, from a sailors’ guide to the English Channel and North Sea, The Light of Navigation, by Willem Janszoon Blaeu, published in Amsterdam in 1620 (The Old Library, St John’s College, Cambridge) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bunker, Nick Making haste from Babylon : the Mayflower Pilgrims and their world : a new history / by Nick Bunker.—1st American ed p cm eISBN: 978-0-307-59300-9 Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony) Massachusetts—History—New Plymouth, 1620–1691 Mayflower (Ship) I Title F68.B936 2010 974.4′02—dc22 v3.0 2009038520 ... dronkennes, oppression and pride … even the leaste of these, is enowghe, and enowghe to make haste owte of Babylon —AN ENGLISH PURITAN GIVING REASONS FOR MIGRATION TO AMERICA, 16291 Contents List... Parliament and Queen Elizabeth made Separatism a crime Rivers: from Gulf of Maine Watershed Map, Maine State Planning Office, 1991 Canoe routes: from David S Cook, Above the Gravel Bar (3rd edition, 2007)... west begins: but where did America start for new settlers arriving from England in the 1620s or the 1630s? Maybe they saw it rst from ten miles out on the ocean, with a glimpse of sandy cli s along