Copy of Shorthand Found on Fly-leaf of Roger Williams’ Indian Bible
For many years scholars thought that Roger Williams was born at the close of the sixteenth century at Gwinear, Cornwall, England. Now it is generally believed that he was born in London, England, in the opening years of the seventeenth century. He had two brothers and a sister. His father was a tailor. About this time Timothy Bright and Peter Bales introduced into England a new method of writing which was called “shorthand.” The boy Roger Williams learned it and visited the famous Star Chamber to put it into practice. The judge noticed the lad and inspected his work. To his amazement, the record was complete and accurate. This judge, Sir Edward Coke, the most distinguished lawyer and jurist of his day, immediately took an interest in the lad, and became his patron, securing for Williams admission to the Charterhouse School. This was the school where John Wesley, Thackeray, Addison, and others were educated. He was admitted as a pensioner, in June, 1621. Later, through Coke’s influence, he was admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in June, 1623. He was graduated with the degree of bachelor of arts in 1627, and the year following was admitted to holy orders. About this time he was disappointed in a love affair, the lady of his choice being Jane Whalley. He sought permission of her aunt, Lady Barrington, to marry her. When refused, he wrote a striking letter in which he predicted for Lady Barrington a very unhappy hereafter unless she repented.
Sir Edward Coke
Courtesy of “Providence Magazine”
In 1629, we find him at High Laves, Essex, not far from Chelmesford, where Thomas Hooker, later the founder of Hartford Colony, was minister. Here he also met John Cotton. Men’s views at that time were changing. The people of the Established Church were divided into three classes. One stood by the Established Order in all things; another class of Puritans sought to stay by the Church, but aimed to purify the movement; the third class was for absolute separation. Williams, with hundreds of others, was disturbed. The anger of Lady Barrington and the suspicions of Archbishop Laud started a persecution which drove him out of England. He said:
I was persecuted in and out of my father’s house. Truly it was as bitter as death to me when Bishop Laud pursued me out of the land, and my conscience was persuaded against the national church, and ceremonies and bishops.... I say, it was as bitter as death to me when I rode Windsor way to take ship at Bristol.
Many years later he wrote:
He (God) knows what gains and preferments I have refused in universities, city, country, and court in old England, and something in New England, to keep my soul undefiled in this point and not to act with a doubting conscience.
Before leaving England, he was married. The only information we have in regard to his wife, up to that time, is that her name was Mary Warned. They sailed on the ship Lyon, from Bristol, England, December 1, 1630. After a tempestuous journey of sixty-six days they arrived off Nantasket, February 5, 1631. Judge Durfee speaks thus of this flight:
He was obliged to fly or dissemble his convictions, and for him, as for all noblest natures, a life of transparent truthfulness was alone an instinct and a necessity. This absolute sincerity is the key to his character, as it was always the mainspring of his conduct. It was this which led him to reject indignantly the compromises with his conscience which from time to time were proposed to him. It was this which impelled him when he discovered a truth to proclaim it, when he detected an error to expose it, when he saw an evil, to try and remedy it, and when he could do a good, even to his enemies, to do it.