Who were the Pilgrims?

by William T. Davis

The next independent church established in England was that of John Smith, organized at Gainsborough in 1602. Mr. Smith shortly after removed with his congregation to Amsterdam, where dissensions among his people embarrassed his work. Though a learned man, he was unstable and capricious, as appears by his own confession in the preface to one of his books, in which he desires that his last writings may always be taken for his present judgment. He afterward became a Baptist, and moved with his disciples to Leyden, where he soon afterward embraced the views of Arminius, which he ably defended in a book answered by John Robinson in 1611. In early life he had been a pupil of Francis Johnson, and was at one time connected with the Southwark church. This church, which is claimed by Mr. Waddington to have inspired the movement which resulted in the Pilgrim church at Scrooby, has certainly a memorable record. Francis Johnson was its first pastor, John Greenwood its first teacher, Daniel Studley and George Kniston its first elders, and Christopher Bowman and Nicholas Lee its first deacons. Henry Jacob and John Lathrop, its pastors at a later day, complete the list of those known to have been connected with it in its earliest years. Surely every true son of New England should hold the old church of Southwark, the parent of Congregationalism in England, only less dear to his heart than the old Plymouth church, the child of the Pilgrim church at Scrooby.

The date of the formation of the Separatist church at Scrooby has generally been considered the year 1602. What is now known to have been an error had its origin in a statement of Nathaniel Morton in his memorial, made without a reference to any authority. The discovery of Bradford’s history has exposed this among other errors, and fixed the year 1606 as the true date. It is known that the departure of the congregation for Holland took place in the early part of the year 1608. Bradford says: “So after they had continued together about a year, they resolved to get over into Holland as they could, which-was in the year 1607-8.” He further says that Brewster died in 1643, and “that he had borne his part in weal and woe with this persecuted church above thirty-six years in England, Holland, and this wilderness.”

The founder of this church was William Brewster, one who, in the language of an English antiquarian, “was the most eminent person in the Pilgrim movement, and who, if that honor is to be given to any single person, must be regarded as the father of New England.” He was the son of William Brewster of Scrooby, who held the position of postmaster for many years. He was born in 1560, and having spent four years in the University of Cambridge, entered in 1584 the service of Sir William Davison, who had recently returned from a two years’ embassy in Scotland. At that time Philip of Spain was at war with the Netherlands, and Elizabeth had been importuned to save the United Provinces from his grasping hand. Davison was immediately intrusted with a mission to prepare the way for such substantial aid as might rescue the Netherlands from Catholic despotism. Brewster attended him as secretary, and in this and a subsequent mission rendered important service. The port of Flushing, with important fortresses in Holland and Zealand, were transferred to Elizabeth as security for men and money loaned, and held as cautionary towns. The keys of Flushing were placed by Davison in the hands of Brewster, and held by him until the arrival of Sir Philip Sidney, who was appointed to its permanent command. On the eve of the return of Davison to England he was presented with a golden chain in recognition of his valuable services, which he placed on the neck of Brewster, requesting him to wear it until their arrival at court. This request was doubtless in token of his high esteem of the fidelity with which his secretary had performed his duties. Davison the ambassador was now made a Secretary of State, and one of the Privy Council, and Brewster continued to act as his secretary.

While these scenes were enacting, Mary Queen of Scots was in prison, awaiting deliverance or death. Repeated and urgent petitions to Elizabeth to send her to the block were met neither by rejection nor approval, and the mind of the Queen wavered between a desire to save her cousin and a conviction that her death alone could suppress the plots which, with or without her connivance, her adherents were hatching against the Protestant throne. In one of her severer moods she sent for Davison, and ordering him to procure a death-warrant, signed it, and required him to bear it to the Lord Chancellor for affixing the great seal. With the seal appended, Davison delivered it to the Council, who sent it at once to the officials to whom it was directed, and the execution followed. When the information of the death of Mary reached the Queen, she manifested extreme indignation at the haste which had been used, and declared that though the warrant had been signed and sealed, it was not to have been enforced until after further orders. The indignation of the Queen, feigned or real, was visited on Davison, and he was committed to the Tower, and carried before the Star Chamber Court for trial. The court, though pronouncing him to be “a good, able, and honest man,” yet, wishing to shield the Queen, fined him ten thousand marks, and committed him to the Tower during her Majesty’s pleasure. His public career had reached an abrupt conclusion, and after a life of honorable retirement, he died in 1608, in the very year in which Brewster and his church were leaving England for Holland.

Thus ended the life at court which Brewster had begun with such brilliant promise. Had Queen Mary died in prison, or had Davison by any other dispensation been retained at court, it is probable that Brewster would have become a courtier or statesman instead of a hunted Pilgrim. Brewster followed the fallen fortunes of his patron, faithful in his friendship to the last. Queen Mary was executed on the 8th of February, 1586-7, and Davison was committed to the Tower six days afterward. Brewster probably moved to Scrooby about the year 1588, to take charge of the business of his father, who was in poor health. It is known that his father died in the summer of 1590, and that he then claimed, in his application for the appointment to fill the vacancy, that he had performed the duties of the office for a year and a half. It seems to be certain that though Davison had been deposed and imprisoned, he had not lost the respect and influence which he had formerly possessed. Sir John Stanhope, who was appointed Postmaster-General by letters patent bearing date June 20, 1590, wrote a letter, now extant, to Davison, whom he styles Secretary, dated August 22d in that year, in reply to his recommendation of his old secretary for the appointment. There seems to have been some misunderstanding on the part of Sir John, under which he had made another appointment, which he expresses himself in his letter as willing to revoke. At any rate, it is known that on the 1st of April, 1594, William Brewster was in full possession of the office, and remained its incumbent until September 30, 1607.

To Scrooby, then, in 1588, William Brewster went—a small village on the borders of Nottinghamshire, about two miles from Austerfield, in Yorkshire, with the river Idle flowing between. He occupied the old manor-house of the bishops, which as far back as William the Conqueror had been a possession of the Archbishops of York. Here slept Margaret, Queen of Scotland, daughter of Henry the Seventh, on her way to that kingdom, in 1503; here Cardinal Wolsey, when dismissed by his King, passed several weeks; and here also Henry the Eighth halted on his journey north in 1541. Nothing now remains of the ancient grandeur of the spot but a portion of the building, incorporated into a farm-house, and an old mulberry-tree planted by the great cardinal. Here Brewster lived, as Bradford says, “doing much good in promoting and furthering religion, not only by his practice and example, but by procuring good preachers to all places thereabouts, and drawing in of others to assist and help forward in such a work, he himself most commonly deeply in the charge, and sometimes above his ability.” Here he remained a mild Nonconformist at first, and, as Bradford again says, “doing the best good he could, and walking according to the revealed light he saw, until the Lord revealed further unto him.” Finally, owing to the more and more stringent demands of the bishops, to the tyranny of Whitgift, increased rather than diminished by his successor, Bancroft, and to the unyielding temper of James, of whose liberality high hopes had been raised, lie determined to throw off all allegiance to the Church, and organize a congregation independent of its teachings and rule. Sabbath after Sabbath they met in the manor-house, at first under the ministrations of Richard Clyfton, and afterward of John Robinson. Clyfton had been vicar of Marnham, and afterward rector of Babworth, and when deprived of his living by reason of his nonconformity, he took charge of the little congregation at Scrooby. He went with them to Holland in 1608, but remained in Amsterdam when they removed to Leyden, and died in 1616.

Soon after the pastorate of Clyfton began, John Robinson became associated with the band of worshippers in the manor-house—a man who by his character, influence, and writings won the title of Apostle of Independency. Born in Lincolnshire in 1576, he entered Emanuel College in 1592, took the degree of M.A. in 1600, and B.D. in 1607. He began his ministerial labors in Mundham, where, participating in the opposition to the ceremonies enforced by the hierarchy, he was at length suspended from his functions. He afterward retired to Norwich, where he gathered about him a small congregation of Puritans, with whom he labored until he finally renounced all communion with the Church. In Hanbury’s memorials the following passage is quoted from Ainsworth’s answer to Crashaw: “Witness the late practice in Norwich, where certain citizens were excommunicated for resorting unto and praying with Mr. Robinson, a man worthily reverenced of all the city for the grace of God in him, as yourself also will acknowledge.” He is afterward spoken of by Ephraim Pagitt as “one Master Robinson, who, leaving Norwich malcontent, became a rigid Brownist.” Robinson himself said “that light broke in upon him by degrees, that he hesitated to outrun those of his Puritan brethren who could still reconcile themselves to remain in the Establishment,” but that continual persecution drove him to the extremes of separation. His high character was well attested by Baillie, one of the opponents of Separatism, who calls him in his writings “the most learned, polished, and modest spirit that ever that sect enjoyed.”

William Bradford was another of the original Scrooby church. His grandfather, William Bradford, was living at Austerfield, a small town about two miles from Scrooby, in 1575. He had three sons, William, Thomas, and Robert, of whom William, the father of Governor Bradford, married Alice Hanson, the daughter of John Hanson. William Bradford, afterward the Governor, was born in 1589, and was consequently about seventeen years of age at the time of the formation of the Scrooby church. His father died in his infancy, and he was reared and educated under the care of his uncle Thomas. The house in which it is said he lived, and the church in which he was baptized, are still standing, and in the latter his baptismal record may now be seen. Though springing from the ranks of the yeomanry, he became a man of learning, and found time afterward in Holland to master the language of the country, to which he added a knowledge of French, Latin, Greek, and even Hebrew, which he studied “that he might see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in all their native beauty.” That so young a man should, in opposition to the wishes of his uncle and guardian, have cast his lot for conscience’ sake with the outlawed church of the Pilgrims, is an evidence of that native courage and independence which afterward, when fully developed, made him the staff and hope of the Plymouth Colony. In answer to all remonstrances he replied: “To keep a good conscience, and walk in such a way as God has prescribed in His word, is a thing which I shall prefer above you all, and above life itself.”

The registry of the Austerfield church records also the baptism of George Morton, February 12, 1598. An attempt has been made to identify him with the father of Nathaniel Morton, the secretary of Plymouth Colony, who came to New England in the Ann, in 1623. The discovery of his marriage record in Leyden has been made, however, by Henry C. Murphy, late United States Minister at the Hague, in which he is described as “George Morton, of York, in England, merchant.” It is probable that the Southworths and Carpenters were members of the Scrooby church, and the probability is re-enforced by the tradition that there had been an attachment between Bradford and his wife Alice (Carpenter) Southworth before Bradford left England. The tradition adds that her parents were opposed to the union on the ground of inequality of position, and she married Southworth. Bradford heard in America that she was a widow, and after the death of his first wife proposed anew by a letter, recently, if not now, in existence, and after accepting his proposal, she came in the Ann in 1623, and was married. The baptism of William Butten, son of Robert Butten, is also recorded in the Austerfield registry, under date of September 12, 1589, and that of William, son of William Wright, under date of March 10, 1589. Butten was probably the servant of Samuel Fuller, who started in the Mayflower, and was drowned on the passage. Wright was doubtless the same William Wright who was among the passengers in the Fortune in 1621, and both Butten and Wright, it is safe to presume, were members of the Scrooby church.

But this church was not to remain long unmolested. James the First had come to the throne in 1603. Whitgift, as Bacon calls him, “the conscientious and therefore relentless persecutor of Nonconformity,” had closed his career almost simultaneously with Elizabeth, and had been followed by Bancroft, whose intolerant spirit was neither guided nor regulated by conscientiousness or timidity. Smith had already planted himself with his congregation in Amsterdam, the London church had gone, and the free land of Holland was sprinkled with scattered exiles.