[500] Paul’s Walk, as the central nave of old St. Paul’s was called, was in the reign of Charles I. much what a business arcade is now. There is a vivid description of it, with extracts from writers of the time, in W. H. Ainsworth’s romance, Old St. Paul’s (B. II. ch. 7). See also, Gardiner’s Charles I. (vol. ii. p. 11).
[501] The visit of Dr. Fuller to Salem, referred to in the text, may have taken place in 1628. Though he was also there in 1629; and again in 1630, when he likewise visited Charlestown. (Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 222, note.)
[502] This description of the usual effect of sea-sickness I take to be peculiar to Morton.
[503] Endicott’s first wife was Anna Gover, a cousin of Governor Cradock. Little is known of her. She came to New England with her husband, and died during the very early days of the settlement, as she seems to have been in failing health in September, 1628. Endicott was married to his second wife August 18, 1630; on the 17th of the following month he sat among the magistrates at Boston in judgment upon the author of the New Canaan, who had been “sent for” just five days after the marriage, which seems to have taken place at Charlestown. (Winthrop, vol. i. p. *30; Young’s Chron. of Mass., pp. 131, 292; Supra, [43-4].)
[504] This was the case of Roger Clerk, of Wandsworth, attached in the chamber of the Guildhall of London, before the mayor and aldermen, on the 13th of May, 1382, on a plea of deceit and falsehood as to Roger atte Hacche. The record is to be found in Riley’s Memorials of London and London Life (pp. 464-6), and is very curious as illustrating English manners in the time of Richard II. Morton’s reference would indicate that the case had then been handed down as a tradition for two hundred and fifty years. It seems that Clerk gave Hacche a bit of old parchment, rolled up in “a piece of cloth of gold,” asserting that it was very good for the ailments with which his wife was afflicted. Upon being arraigned, Clerk contended that upon the parchment was written “a good charm for fevers.” Upon examination, no word of the alleged charm was found in the paper. The court then told the prisoner “that a straw beneath his foot would be of just as much avail for fevers, as this charm of his was; whereupon, he fully granted that it would be so. And because that the same Roger Clerk was in no way a literate man, and seeing that on the examinations aforesaid, (as well as others afterwards made,) he was found to be an infidel, and altogether ignorant of the art of physic or of surgery; and to the end that the people might not be deceived and aggrieved by such ignorant persons etc.; it was adjudged that the same Roger Clerk should be led through the middle of the City, with trumpets and pipes, he riding on a horse without a saddle, the said parchment and a whetstone, for his lies, being hung about his neck, an urinal also being hung before him, and another urinal on his back.”
The punishment of the “pillory and the whetstone,” as it was called, was that ordinarily imposed on those telling falsehoods. In another case in the same volume (p. 316) it is thus given in detail: “The said John shall come out of Newgate without hood or girdle, barefoot and unshod, with a whetstone hung by a chain from his neck, and lying on his breast, it being marked with the words,—‘A false liar;’ and there shall be a pair of trumpets trumpeting before him on his way to the pillory.”
[505] The person referred to in this chapter was probably the Rev. Francis Bright, of whom very little is known. He was one of the three ministers sent over by the Massachusetts Company in 1629, Higginson and Skelton being the other two. In June of that year, when Graves and the Spragues were sent by Endicott to effect a settlement at Charlestown, Bright accompanied them as “minister to the Company’s servants.” (Young’s Chron. of Mass., pp. 316, 376.) As such, he was the Caiaphas, or high-priest, of that region, and it naturally devolved on him to “exercise his guifts on the Lords day at Weenasimute.” Morton further says that the person he refers to had been a silenced minister in England. That Bright had been silenced is not known, but both Skelton and Higginson had been (Magnalia, B. I. ch. iv. § 4; Neal’s Hist. of Puritans, vol. ii. p. 229); and, though Hubbard intimates that Bright was a conformist (p. 113), yet, in the Company’s letter to Endicott, the three ministers are stated to have “declared themselves to us to be of one judgment, and to be fully agreed on the manner how to exercise their ministry.” (Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 160.) Winthrop, Morton adds, “spied out Caiphas practise; and he must be packing.” Bright returned to England shortly after Winthrop’s arrival. Johnson says (Wonder-working Providence, p. 20) that he “betooke him to the Seas againe,” when he saw that “all sorts of stones would not fit in the building.”
Samuel Skelton is referred to by Morton a few pages further on (Infra, [306]) as “Pastor Master Eager,” which name may be taken to imply “covetousness” in him. But, though Skelton might be termed the “Caiphas” of the country, he was not silenced by Winthrop. He can, therefore, hardly be the person here aimed at.