Anne Marbury, born 1591 in Alford, Lincolnshire, was the daughter of Rev. Francis Marbury, a playwright contemporary of Shakespeare, author, and early Puritan leader. I will have a blog post dedicated to him very soon, but for now just know he was imprisoned for heresy in the notorious Marshalsea Prison for his influence.
Queen Elizabeth I was a protestant herself, and considered head of the Church of England, but like her father before, she clung to many Catholic beliefs, even insisting that a crucifix remain on her personal prayer altar. The Puritans believed such relics of Roman Catholicism were idols abhorred by God, and were not afraid to speak it aloud. Let’s just say, Elizabeth was not a fan of the Puritans.
The Rev. Marbury had powerful friends and was eventually released from Marshalsea, but he would not stop spreading the “true religion” and found himself under house arrest as a compromise (he had already been jailed three times). The benefit of his home incarceration was that the intelligent young reverend was able to homeschool his children exactly as he wished, producing some of the next generation’s most significant reformers.
After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, James VI Stuart, the son of her cousin and sometime frenemy, Mary Stuart Queen of Scots, was crowned King of England.
BTW, in my previous blog I mentioned the Audible audiobook Catherine de Medici by Leonie Frieda. Catherine became the mother-in-law of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, whom she had reared as her own daughter in the French court. The book is highly recommended by me, if you would like to learn more about Mary, Catherine, and the spread of protestantism in France.
James VI of Scotland, and I share something in common in that we are both Great-grandsons of King James I Stuart, though he is my 16th GGF, and James VI was a bit closer, but that’s a story for another blog post. What we do not share is that James VI Stuart of Scotland became James I, King of England.
King James I is probably most famous for the excellent Bible translation produced in his honor, though the Puritans were big fans of the previous Geneva version which is still preferred by many of my Presbyterian friends and family. You would think the King of Scots, tutored as a young man by Scottish Presbyterians, would favor the Presbyterians, but eventually he did not, and even wrote a book on the “Divine Right of Kings” (if you ever played the game Civilization 6, you are familiar). This book stood in contradiction to the Puritan/Presbyterian belief that church hierarchy should stand completely separate from the power of government. Hmm, separation of church and state, where have I heard that before?
Perhaps it was on the advice of the former Queen of England that James opposed the Presbyterians. Anticipating that James VI, King of Scotland at the time, was likely her replacement, Queen Elizabeth advised him, “There is risen both in your realm and mine a sect of perilous consequence such as would have no kings, but a presbytery.”
This may seem abrupt, but this blog post could get very long if I don’t summarize a bit. Rev. Marbury died unexpectedly in 1611. In 1612, Anne Marbury married her childhood friend from Alford, the wealthy Lincolnshire wool merchant William Hutchinson. They became friends and followers of the Puritan rising star Rev. John Cotton of Boston, Lincolnshire, frequented by William due to its large sheep market. King James, a long time party animal, dies not so unexpectedly in 1625 after a protracted and extremely painful bout with gout and kidney stones.
James’ son, Charles I, could not bring his new bride Henrietta Maria of France to his coronation, because she was a Catholic. Charles himself was part of an anti-Calvinist sect called the Arminians. Quite opposite of the Puritans, the reactionary Arminians did not believe in predestination and reveled in the pomp and ceremony of the Church of England.
Tensions rose in 1628 after the assassination of the 1st Duke of Buckingham, the king’s closest advisor. The murder was not necessarily political as the killer was a disgruntled officer of the Duke’s who had been passed over for promotion and was still owed a large sum of back pay, but it left a gap for a new advisor. William Laud quickly filled that gap.
A graduate of Oxford, Laud was not inculcated with Puritan thought, as many of his Cambridge educated contemporaries. Like Charles I, he was in favor of the pomp of the Church of England and a proponent of the Divine Right of Kings. The two conspired to “unify” the religion of England by crushing the opposition.
There were many powerful figures in the British Parliament who were Puritan sympathizers, if not Puritans outright. In 1628, they took a stand against the anti-Calvinist Bishop of London, William Laud, and so King Charles dissolved the Parliament. Yay, Monarchy.
In 1633, William Laud was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, and he immediately set out to reform the reformers. As an artist, I much prefer Lauds’ focus on beautifying England’s churches. He also brought back into vogue fancy vestments for the clergy. Puritan ministers wore their black collegiate robes, and eschewed anything that reminded them of the ostentatious Roman Catholic Church.
This all seems very petty, and perhaps it was, but when Archbishop Laud insisted churches stick strictly to the Church of England’s Prayer Book with no exceptions, the Puritans reacted in their usual manner, printing tracts and leaflets condemning Laud and the new reforms of the Church of England. Laud reciprocated by rounding up some of the most popular Puritan writers and having their ears cut off.
Anne and William Hutchinson did not wait for things to escalate this far. As early as 1620, a group of religious separatists sailed from Plymouth to the New World on the ship Mayflower, and established a colony which they named Plymouth, unironically.
After the murder of the Duke of Buckingham and upon the ascension of William Laud in 1628, many Puritans were seeking to book passage to New England. Puritan lawyer and leader John Winthrop joined with the Massachusetts Bay Company to organize a flotilla of eleven ships carrying hundreds of Puritans and provisions to outfit a new colony in Massachusetts Bay, crossing the Atlantic in the summer of 1630.
By the way, Winthrop made this passage with his 3rd wife, Margaret Tyndale. Margaret was the Great-granddaughter of Sir John Tyndale, who was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Anne Boleyn. Sir John is also my 16th GGF.
Sir John was the father of William Tyndale who made the first English translation of the Bible to be widely printed on the recently invented (in historical terms) printing press. As I always say, I’m sure we’ll speak more of him in an upcoming post, but we’ll summarize for now.
Devout Roman Catholic Sir Thomas More (or should I say Saint Thomas More?) was currently the friend and advisor of Henry VIII Tudor. If you have watched the HBO series “The Tudors”, you will know exactly of whom we are speaking. The King and he would fall out over Henry’s plans to divorce Catherine of Aragon (see my very first blog post on Sir Walter Blount), but for now, they are thick as thieves and searching for Bible translator William Tyndale.
William Tyndale, who was hiding in Flemish Antwerp, was betrayed by someone whose name I will not repeat here and captured by the authorities. He was returned to England and imprisoned.
The Crown could not seem to decide how to handle the Tyndale situation as his own wife, Queen Anne, was a supporter of William Tyndale, but eventually Tyndale’s enemies won out, and he was tied to the stake, mercifully strangled to death, and then his body burned.
Speaking of Protestant martyrs, William Tyndale’s sister was Margaret Tyndale (not the wife of John Winthrop, but her great-aunt and namesake, and yes, I know Wikipedia says “niece”, but what do they know?). She was married to Rev. Dr. Rowland Taylor and they are my 15th Great-grandparents. Rowland Taylor, unlike his brother-in-law William Tyndale, was burned ALIVE at the stake by Bloody Queen Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. But, that is for another blog post.
Now to continue with the Winthrop Fleet…
This large contingent of Puritans had planned to settle in the vicinity of the newly created township of Salem (which meant “peace”). But, it seemed there would not be enough fresh water for the number of settlers, cattle, and all, so they traveled south till they reached the Shawmut Peninsula. There they met the peculiar Rev. William Blackstone, an Anglican priest and Cambridge graduate, who had fled England in 1623, having fallen out with King James I and the current slate of bishops. Rev. Blackstone claimed the Peninsula as his own, and had built his home near Beacon Hill in Boston with a freshwater spring and a particularly great view of the Bay.
Rev. Blackstone may have been too accommodating, since Winthrop and the Massachusetts Bay Colony decided to stay there. They built a church and named the township Boston.
Unfortunately for the reverend Blackstone, his new neighbors were not to his liking and the feeling was mutual. Perhaps the Puritans did not care for his habit of riding around naked on his big white bull.
After a few years and many disagreements, he moved to the newly formed Rhode Island community (we will come to that), where he would become the first permanent English resident. His famous quote is “I left England on account of Bishops, and I leave Boston on account of Brethren.”
In Rhode Island, he built a new home and a library, and married a Boston widow who gave him a son. He held Anglican church services for the Natives, and was eventually murdered by them and his home and library burned to the ground.
So back to the Hutchinson’s…
Their friend and leader John Cotton was forced into hiding upon the ascension of William Laud to Archbishop. In 1633, he did his best to convince the Hutchinson’s to move with him to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but they were not prepared to leave just yet. In fear for his life, Rev. Cotton and his family boarded the ship Griffin and sailed for Boston.
In 1634, the ship Griffin returned to London to collect the Hutchinsons, who sailed to New England with a few dozen of their followers and one Rev. Zechariah Symmes (5th GGF of President Benjamin Harrison). The months aboard the Griffin gave Anne and Rev. Symmes plenty of time to “talk religion”, and they found themselves opposed.
Symmes was not as convinced as the Hutchinson’s and their followers that Anne had the gift of prophecy, even though predictions Anne made about their arrival in Boston would soon prove true. Anne also believed she had the gift of recognizing persons who were chosen by God (we’ll have to discuss Predestination in another blog post), and she informed Rev. Symmes that he was not. This went over like a lead balloon, and Symmes began to plot his revenge before they had even reached land.
(To be continued in Anne Marbury Hutchinson Part 2)