ILLUSTRATIONS
| Page | |
| The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbour | [Frontispiece] |
| The Cells, Guildhall, Boston | [xi] |
| A Bit of Old Gainsborough | [5] |
| The Old Manor House, Scrooby, where William Brewster was born.—Scrooby Church | [9] |
| The Cottage at Austerfield where William Bradford was born | [13] |
| The Old Hall, Gainsborough, in which the Separatist Church was founded in 1602 | [17] |
| Guildhall and South Street, Boston | [21] |
| The Old Courtroom, Guildhall, Boston | [25] |
| The River Witham, Boston | [29] |
| The Pilgrim Cells, Guildhall, Boston, showing the Kitchen beyond | [33] |
| Old Town Gaol, Market-place, Boston | [37] |
| Trentside, Gainsborough | [41] |
| Elder William Brewster | [45] |
| John Robinson's House, Leyden, where the Pilgrim Fathers worshipped | [49] |
| St. Peter's Church, Leyden | [53] |
| Bust of Captain John Smith | [57] |
| The Embarkation of the Pilgrims | [61] |
| Model of the Mayflower | [65] |
| Plymouth Harbour, as seen from Cole's Hill | [69] |
| The Landing of the Pilgrims | [73] |
| The March of Miles Standish | [77] |
| The Canopy over Plymouth Rock | [81] |
| The Old Fort and First Meeting-House | [85] |
| Pilgrims going to Church | [89] |
| The Departure of the Mayflower | [93] |
| Captain Miles Standish | [97] |
| Governor William Bradford | [101] |
| The Pilgrim Memorial Monument at Provincetown | [105] |
| Plymouth Rock | [109] |
| A Bit of Old Boston | [113] |
| The Site of the Old Fort, Burial Hill, Plymouth | [117] |
| First Church, Plymouth | [121] |
| The Pilgrim Fathers' Memorial, Plymouth | [125] |
| John Alden.—Priscilla Mullins | [129] |
| Governor Bradford's Monument, Burial Hill, Plymouth | [133] |
| Governor Carver's Chair and Ancient Spinning Wheel | [137] |
| Elder Brewster's Chair and the Cradle of Peregrine White | [141] |
| The Grave of John Howland | [145] |
| The Grave of Miles Standish, Duxbury | [149] |
| The Miles Standish Monument, Duxbury | [153] |
| Governor Edward Winslow | [157] |
| Mayflower Tablet on the Barbican, Plymouth, England | [161] |
| Scrooby Village | [165] |
| The Ancient Kitchen, Guildhall, Boston | [169] |
| Robinson Memorial Church, Gainsborough | [173] |
| Tablet in Vestibule of Robinson Memorial Church, Gainsborough.—Memorial Tablet on St. Peter's Church, Leyden | [177] |
| Design by R. M. Lucas for the Tercentenary Memorial at Southampton | [181] |
| The Font, Austerfield Church.—The Font, Primitive Methodist Chapel, Lound | [185] |
PREFACE
By a strange yet happy coincidence, on the very day the writer of these lines sat silent in a Pilgrim cell at Boston—the Lincolnshire town where the Pilgrims were imprisoned in their first attempt to flee their native country—pondering on the past and inscribing his humble lines to the New World pioneers, the President of the American Republic was at Provincetown, Massachusetts, dedicating a giant monument to the planters of New Plymouth, the last of the many memorials erected to them. The date was the fifth of August, 1910. President Taft in his address at the commemoration ceremonies declared very truly that the purpose which prompted the Pilgrims' progress and the spirit which animated them furnish the United States to-day with the highest ideals of moral life and political citizenship. Three years before, another American President, Mr. Roosevelt, at the cornerstone laying of this monument, enlarged on the character of their achievement, and in ringing words proclaimed its immensity and world-wide significance.
Down through the years the leaders of men have borne burning witness to the wonderful work of the Pilgrim Fathers. Its influence is deep-rooted in the world's history to-day, and in the life and the past of our race it stands its own enduring monument.
The object of the present narrative is to give to the reader an account of the Mayflower Pilgrims that is concise and yet sufficiently comprehensive to embrace all essentials respecting the personality and pilgrimage of the Forefathers, whom the poet Whittier pictures to us in vivid verse as:
those brave men who brought
To the ice and iron of our winter time
A will as firm, a creed as stern, and wrought
With one mailed hand and with the other fought.
In the pages which follow, the Old World homes and haunts of the Pilgrim Fathers are depicted and described. The story has the advantage of having been written on the scene of their early trials, concerted plans of escape, and stormy emigration, by one who, from long association, is familiar with the history and traditions of Boston and the quaint old sister port of Gainsborough, and perhaps imparts to the work some feeling of the life and local atmosphere of those places in the days that are dealt with, and before. The Pilgrims are followed into Holland and on their momentous journey across seas to the West. The story aims at being trustworthy and up-to-date as regards the later known facts of Pilgrim history and the developments which reflect it in our own time. It does what no other book on the subject has attempted: it traces the individual lives and varying fortunes of the Pilgrims after their settlement in the New World; and it states the steps taken in recent years to perpetuate the memory of the heroic band. The tale that is told is one of abiding interest to the Anglo-Saxon race; and its attractiveness in these pages is enhanced by the series of illustrations which accompanies the printed record. Grateful acknowledgment is made of much kindly assistance rendered during the preparation of the work, especially by the Honourable William S. Kyle, Treasurer of the First (Pilgrim) Church at Plymouth, Massachusetts.