The quest of liberty ; the adventures of the "Mayflower" pilgrims

Front matter

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THE QUEST OF LIBERTY

Foreword

By Viscount Bryce, O.M.

Three centuries ago, in 1620, a little band of English people — men, women, and children — to the number of about one hundred, sailed from Plymouth in a ship called the Mayfloiuer to settle on the bleak and then almost unknown coast of North America.

There they landed at a spot where a huge stone, one of those ice-borne boulders that strew the low shores of Massachusetts Bay, is said to mark the place at which they stepped ashore, now become a place of pilgrimage to which many come from all over the United States, visiting it with reverence. There this storm-tossed and sea-weary company built their huts and a wooden blockhouse for defence against the native Indians, and prepared to cultivate the soil.

Not long before an English settlement had been planted in Virginia, and other English colonists came a few years later to another part of the New England coast, where is now the town of Salem. But this Plymouth Settlement (for that was the name they gave it) was the most remarkable of the three, just because it was the smallest and weakest, carried out with the least official favour, least noticed by the, world of its own day.

The Pilgrims were humble men, none of them persons of any consequence or influence. But the historical significance and moral dignity of an event are not to be viii FOREWORD

measured by the power or honour, or rani:, or wealth of those who bear a part in it.

This was one of the great events in the annals of the English race. It was the second migration of that race. The first was made in war-ships coming from the mouth of the Elbe, manned by fierce heathen warriors, who came as plunderers and conquerors, and took nearly three centuries of fighting to complete their conquest of South Britain (except Wales). This second migration from the Old England of Angles and Saxons, across a far wider sea, to the New England in America marked the beginning of a nation which was to increase and multiply till it overspread a vast continent. It was a peaceful migration. But the Plymouth Pilgrims had the qualities which belong to the English race. They had courage, constancy, loyalty to their convictions. They stamped these qualities upon the infant colony. They gave that distinctive quality to the men of those northeastern American colonies which has told upon and determined the character of the whole American people.

It was by their faith in God's help and blessing and by the courage with which they bore hardships and faced dangers that the men who sailed in the Mayflower won undying fame. The memory of what they were and what they did is to-day one of the strongest links that bind America and England together. They set a noble example for the youth of England as well as for the youth of America to remember and to imitate. It is an example in which the present generation, now called upon, as it reaches manhood, to make good the losses of the war, may find stimulus and cheer.

A time has now come again, as it came three cen-

FOREWORD ix

turies ago, in wliicli faith and courage and constancy, and the hopefulness which trust in God and courage give, must have their perfect work.

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Contents

CHAPTER PAOB

Foreword, by Viscount Bryce, O.M. . vii

Prologue: The Adventures of the

Prologue

THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE

TO EOAM ACEOSS THE OCEAN

How sweet it is to ride upon the surges, and to leap from wave to wave, while the wind sings cheerful in the cordage, and the oars flash fast among the foam! How sweet it is to roam across the ocean, and to see new cities and wondrous lands, and to come home laden with treasure, and to win undying fame!

The Song of Orpheus

PEOLOGUE

THE ADVENTUKE OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE

In the old days of long ago, Greek sailor-boys of Corinth and of the ports by the laughing ^gean Sea used to sit in the sunshine on the harbour-side, leaning against the posts to which the ships were warped, listening to the stories of the sailor-men who had voyaged in strange waters. Of all these stories the favourite was the tale of Jason, the son of ^son, who sailed through perilous adventures in Quest of the Golden Fleece.^

The tale they heard was a very long one; but this is the heart of it.

There was a boy named Jason whose father took him to the cave on Mount Pelion where Cheiron the centaur lived. He was half-man and half-horse, and the wisest of all created beings. On the mountain-side he trained Hercules, and many other mighty and skilled men. Cheiron's cave was a school of heroes.

' The story is told in Charles Kingsley's The Heroes, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales.

Jason grew up to be wonderfully strong — a man with a valiant spirit, powerful muscles and a clear, quick brain. He learned that all the fair land away to the South was really his ; but that he could not have it because Pelias the Terrible held it in his grip.

At last Jason decided that he would try to win back the land for himself. As he went forth wise old Cheiron said to him, "Jason, promise me two things before you go."

"I will promise," said Jason.

"Speak harshly to no soul whom you may meet, and stand by the word which you shall speak."

So Jason strode down the mountain-side into the world of adventure. He soon learned at the court of Pelias that he could only gain his kingdom if he brought back from a far country the Fleece of the Golden Ram that had carried off on its back Pelias' own children.

So Jason's heralds went far and wide, and cried out:

"Who dare come on the adventure of the Golden Fleece ?"

In answer to the challenge there came Hercules the Mighty, with his lion's skin on his back and his knotted club in his hand; wise Mopsus, who knew the speech of birds; Argus, the most skillful of the builders of ships; Tiphys, the unrivalled steersman; Idmon, who could foretell things to come ; and other splendid heroes. They were indeed, with Jason, a glorious company of old school-fellows, who had been trained to great deeds by the wise centaur, Cheiron.

The Fleece of the Golden Ram was nailed to a tree far, far away across the Euxine Sea ^ near the Caucasus 'The Black Sea.

PROLOGUE 19

Mountains. To secure it they must not only encounter many and great dangers, but they must also sail farther than men had ever dared to venture on the dark vsraters.

So the heroes with their axes felled the giant pines on Mount Pelion and with the timber they built, to the designs of the craftsman Argus, the first long ship that ever dared the greater seas. Fifty oars she had — one for every hero. And they gave to the good ship the name of Argo in honour of Argus, who designed her. The crew were, therefore, called the Argo-sailors — or, as we say, the Argonauts.

When she was built, however, she was too heavy for the heroes to launch. So Orpheus, the sweetest of all singers, played upon his harp and sang a song of magical power.

"How sweet it is," he sang, "to ride upon the surges, and to leap from wave to wave, while the wind sings cheerful in the cordage, and the oars flash fast among the foam! How sweet it is to roam across the ocean, and see new cities and wondrous lands, and to come home laden with treasure, and to win undying fame!"

As the ship Argo heard the words — the story tells us — a great longing came upon her to breast the waves and scatter the spray from her gleaming bows; so she surged forward from the sand to the rollers, and plunged swiftly into the waiting sea. y

For years upon years the Argonauts sailed the seas and took what adventure came their way. Tempests drove them into unknown oceans ; the sun scorched them and tanned their faces; the Sirens sought to lure them to death by their songs ; the icy blasts of the north froze them; enemies plotted and fought against them; but nothing could turn them back or strike any fear into their stout hearts.

At last Jason and his fellow Argonauts fought and ploughed their way through the perils that surrounded the Golden Fleece. By the help of the witch-maiden Medea and the golden-singer Orpheus, Jason overcame all dangers and tore the Golden Fleece from its tree.

Seizing the Fleece, he went aboard the Argo in triumph, and, at length, after so many adventures that a big book might be filled with the story of them, he at last came back and won his kingdom and reigned there. Always in his course Jason had remembered his promises to Cheiron that he would not speak harshly and that he would stand by his words. And because of this kindness and loyalty, even more than by his strength and skill, he had triumphed.

This tale of the Argonauts of ancient Greece speaks of heroes long ago in the dim davni of history. But it is a story that we always like to hear, because something in us thrills (as the timbers of the Argo herself did) to the Orpheus song of adventure in quest of some good prize that is hard to gain.

All through the story of man we find brave Argonauts launching into strange seas: some are Vikings seeking battle and booty ; some, like Prince Henry the Navigator and Columbus, Cabot and Captain Cook, search for new lands across uncharted oceans: others, like Damien and John Williams and Livingstone, sail away and penetrate untrodden places, not to bring away treasure, but to carry the Treasure of Life to other men J — they go, I say, for differing reasons, but they

PROLOGUE 21

all are ready to risk everything and to take what adventure may befall them.

Three centuries ago a ship sailed out of England into the unknown, with a company of Argonauts — not men only, but women also, with boys and girls. They went out across the Atlantic Ocean in a little ship of only a hundred and eighty tons, in the Quest — not of a Golden Fleece — but of Liberty. What they sought in America, they — after adventures with Eed Indians and many hard knocks — found at last. And the freedom that they found they afterwards fought for in America, the land that had now become their own; they have now helped to win freedom for the world of our day, if that world will only share their heroic spirit and risk all else to keep that pearl of great price.

In these chapters that follow boys and girls are going to listen to the story of those hero-Argonauts who lived in England when Elizabeth was Queen, and, having striven for freedom in their own land till after James I was on the throne, voyaged across strange waters to the lands of the Eed Men and made a New England in the West.

Chapter I On The Great North Road The Dangerous Way Of The Pilgrims

Valiant-for-Truth : The most dangerous way in the world, said they, is that which the pilgrims go.

Greatheart: Did they show you wherein this way is so dangerous ?

Valiant : Tes, and that in many particulars.

Greatheart: Name some of them.

Valiant: They told me of the Slough of Despond, where Christian was well-nigh smothered. They told me that there were archers standing ready in Beelzebub Castle, to shoot them who should knock at the Wicket-gate for entrance. They told me also of the wood and dark mountains; of the Hill Difficulty; of the lions; and also of the three giants, Dioody-man, Maul, and Slaygood. They said, moreover, that there was a foul fiend haunted the Valley of Humiliation; and that Christian was by him almost bereft of life. Besides, said they, you must go over the VaUey of the Shadow of Death, where the hobgoblins are, where the light is darkness, where the way is full of snares, pits, traps, and gins. They told me also of Giant Despair, of Doubting Castle, and of the ruin that the pilgrims had met with here. Further, they said I must go over the Enchanted Ground, which was dangerous; and that after all this, I should find a river, over which there was no bridge; and that that river did lie betwixt me and the Celestial Country.

Greatheart : And did none of these things discourage you ? Valiant: No; they seemed but as so many nothings to me.

BuNYAN, The Pilgrim's Progress,

CHAPTER I ON THE GEEAT NORTH ROAD

The iron gate of a dungeon in London swung back on its creaking hinges in the last night of March in 1593, in the black hour before dawn. The flickering light o£ a candle-lanthorn fell on two men, who lay chained on the damp floor. Their names were Barrowe and Greenwood.

The warders ordered the men to rise. They brought them out of their dungeon. Then with hammer and chisel they struck off the iron shackles that bound the captives. The gate of the Fleet Prison swung open. Barrowe and Greenwood were led out.

The uneasy waters of the Thames tide, running in the narrow channels of the Fleet River between Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill, lapped against the prison walls. -^ The breeze of a chill spring morning caught the men as they mounted a cart that stood in the narrow road that led up from the river to Holborn. As the cart lurched up to Holborn the first grey light of dawn showed against the eastern sky the soaring spire of old St. Paul's Cathedral.

*The water of the Fleet stream runs now in a culvert under Farringdon Street, and enters the Thames under the first arch on the north side of Blackfriars Bridge. The opening can be seen at low tide. The Fleet Prison site ia now covered by the Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street.

Barrowe and Greenwood knew what was happening. They were going out, not to freedom, but to die. They had, only eight days earlier, been tried in the Old Bailey; and they had been convicted and sentenced to death.

Some strayed reveller, as he saw the well-known prisoner's cart rolling along Holbom westward to the place of execution might wonder what crime these felons had committed to bring them to the scaffold. Their crime was that they had written and published books, arguing that a man ought to be free to worship God in the way that seemed right to him. They held that the Army of Jesus Christ (that is, His Church) was made up of men and women who had enlisted freely to serve Him ; and that the Church was not and could not be an Army of Conscripts of all kinds of folk ordered to go to worship. For such a Church included thieves and murderers, and every sort of evil man and woman. They said that Jesus Christ alone was the true Head of the Church, and not Queen Elizabeth or any governor, and that the people who really did worship Jesus Christ and desired to live pure lives should separate themselves into a Church. For thus "devising seditious books," as the judge called it, and for actually meeting for worship in private houses with other men who believed the same things, they were solemnly tried and condemned to death,

Barrowe and Greenwood, as they went to the gallows and looked back at the spire of old St. Paul's, may well have remembered for their comfort that St. Paul himself, in his day, had been thrown into prison and chained and beaten, and had at last been executed at

Eome, because he preached that Jesus Christ was high above all principalities and powers.

At last the lumbering cart brought them to the place of execution called Tyburn.^ The gallows on the scaffold stood up gaunt and horrible. A crowd had gathered about the foot of the scaffold — some out of curiosity; others because they sympathised with Barrowe and Greenwood. A noose of rope was placed about the neck of each of the prisoners. They spoke a few words of cheer and farewell to their friends about them. The order for execution was about to be given.

Suddenly came a shout and the sound of horses' hoofs on the road. The crowd divided.

"A messenger from the Queen," the cry went up. Then "A reprieve! A reprieve!"

The crowd cheered and rejoiced as they saw Barrowe and Greenwood brought from the scaffold. The news spread like wildfire. As they were taken back in the cart to the prison, people leaned out from the windows of the houses and cheered, and the crowds hurried from the roadway.

Queen Elizabeth's messenger, however, had only brought a reprieve, and not a pardon. Barrowe and Greenwood were not set free; they were simply sent back to prison in the dark cell. Within a week ^ they were again taken out from the dungeon and put on the cart and can-ied to Tyburn once more — and for the last time. No messenger came bringing reprieve to the foot of the gallows. They died as true martyrs to win freedom for all of us who have come after them.

* Where the Marble Arch now stands at the north-east corner of Hyde Park.

II

In those times Royal Messengers rode every day up the Great ITorth Road from London to Scotland, bearing the King's orders in their saddle-bags, and carrying on their lips the news of the doings in London town.

The Messengers rode on horseback from London northward from one post-house to another. In the summer they must travel at seven miles an hour; in the winter they were not expected to do more than five because of the snow and mud. Post-houses were fixed at intervals of a number of miles apart all along four great roads from London — one by the Great North Road to Scotland, one to Ireland by Beaumaris, one to Europe by Dover, and one to Plymouth, i.e. to the Royal Dockyard.

There were two horses kept at every post-house for the Messengers. A man would ride a horse from one post-house to another (say Doncaster to Scrooby) and then take a fresh horse from Scrooby towards London. The next Messenger going northward would ride the Doncaster horse back from Scrooby to his stable at Doncaster. From his saddle swung two leather saddle-bags lined with baize to carry his letters dry and safe, and over his shoulder hung a horn which he blew three or four times a mile, and as often as he met any other traveller on the road.

So the Messenger going north up the Great North Road early in April 1593, would be full of the story of how two brave men, Barrowe and Greenwood, had been executed on the gallows at Tyburn that very morning. As he rode out of London up the northern heights he would tell his story at post-house after post-house as the ostlers changed the horses and he took his flagon of ale.

The road all the way was rough, as all roads were in England in those days. They were covered with deep mud in that early spring weather. No coaches or wagons could go on the road without the wheels sinking into the mire almost to the axle-trees. A man on horseback had to pick his way carefully.

At last, however, after travelling for days, the Messenger would be glad to see ahead of him one of the best post-houses in all England. Splashing through the ford of the stream below the water-mill, with the clump of fir-trees showing against the evening sky, and the fresh yellow of the early gorse-blossoms reflecting the afterglow, the messenger would trot his horse into the village of Scrooby. He would pass the Church among its dark trees, the cottages with the blue smoke of woodfires curling from the chimneys, the cows lurching along the lanes to the milking, the plentiful rabbits scuttling back to the warren as the messenger sounded his horn and startled them at their evening feeding, the shouting group of boys playing "touch" on the green.

All these he would pass without taking much notice of them. But his eyes would lighten with pleasure as he saw the great comfortable roof and massive timbers of the Manor House of Scrooby standing alone within the circle of its dark moat filled with water; yet with its windows gleaming at him, and the heavy old door thrown open on its sturdy hinges to welcome him as he crossed the drawbridge.

III

In the doorway at the top of the stone steps of Scroohy Manor ^ stood a young man of between twentysix and twenty-seven years of age. The Messenger would know him well. For William Brewster was the King's Master of the Post at Scrooby Manor, as his father and grandfather had been before him. He was responsible for taking care of the horses that carried the Post-Messengers on their backs.

The Messenger, as he went up the steps, would pull from his bag the book in which were written down the times when he had reached the post-houses all along the road. William Brewster would then get his quill and ink-horn and write down in the Post Book the time at which the messenger had arrived.

William loved the old Manor House, for he had grown up under its great timbered roof. He had played on its lawns and by its moat. He had fished as a boy in the river Idle near by. He had seen great knights and fair ladies from the Court of the Queen ride over the bridge to sleep in the Manor House; and anxious Secretaries of State, battered soldiers and travelstained pedlars — for people of all degrees stopped at the post-house as they journeyed north or south on the Great North Road.

William Brewster, indeed, thirteen years earlier,

* "Scrooby Manor House," said Leland the Antiquary, who waa there in 1541, "is builded in two courts, whereof the first is very ample and all builded of timber, saving the front of the house that is of brick, to the which aseenditur -per gradus lapideos. The inner court building . . . was of timber and was not in compass past the fourth part of the outer court."

when he was a boy, had left the old Manor House, and had gone south-eastward across the fen-land — perhaps by barge on the river, perhaps by pony on road and path — probably by both — till his eyes saw the pinnacles and towers of the wonderful University of Cambridga He had lived there as a student in the oldest of all the colleges at Cambridge — Peterhouse. He had matriculated there as a student — though he was only a fourteenyear-old boy — on December 3rd, 1580. The brave John Greenwood (who was hanged at Tyburn with Barrowe) was, when William Brewster entered Peterhouse, still a student at Corpus Christi. And William Brewster at Cambridge drank in those same ideas of liberty that John Greenwood had. There was another young student at Cambridge at the very same time named John Robinson, who, we may be sure, knew John Greenwood and William Brewster. We shall hear more about John. Eobinson later on.

Stranger things than this experience at Cambridge, however, had happened to William. For when he was only about seventeen years old (probably when he was home from Cambridge at the Manor House at Scrooby for the vacation) a gTeat Secretary of State, who was in the service of Queen Elizabeth, came to stay at the Manor.

His name was William Davison. He took a liking to the yoimg Cambridge student, William Brewster, and asked him if he would like to enter his service. So William Brewster, without waiting to take his degree at Cambridge, agreed to be Davison's helper, and rode with his new master all up the Great North Road to London to the court of Queen Elizabeth. Then they sailed across the North Sea to busy Antwerp in the

Netherlands, where Davison was the Queen's ambassador; and young William saw ships and strange sailors from all the countries of the wide world, and would meet men from far lands like Spain and Italy, and even from Constantinople and India.

In Antwerp, William Davison and William Brewster went together to the Puritan English Church. It was in that Church and in talk with Davison that William Brewster grew to follow the great Quest of Liberty that he had first seen at Cambridge when he was about sixteen years old.

Young Brewster found great favour in his master's eyes. Davison thought William "so discreete and faithfull as he trusted him above all others that were aboute him, and only employed him in all matters of greatest trust and secrecie ; he esteemed him rather as a sonne than a servante; and for his wisdom and godliness he would converse with him, more like a friend and familier, than a maister." He even gave William Brewster a gold chain of honour that he was to wear when they came home all the time as they rode through England.

William Davison, however (like poor Sir Walter Raleigh, who had risked his life a hundred times for England, but was cast into prison by Elizabeth), fell imder the great Queen's displeasure, and was throvvm out of office. So William Brewster lost his master and went riding back along the Great North Road to Scrooby Manor, where at last in 1590 he was made Postmaster when he was still only twenty-three.

He had been Master of the Posts at Scrooby for three years when the Messenger came that evening trotting on horseback over the bridge to the gates of the Manor

House witlL the news of tlie execution of brave B arrows and that Greatheart Greenwood.

As the Messenger sat eating his supper in Scroobj Manor that night in April 1593, by the flickering candle-light, he would be able to tell William Brewster, the Postmaster, all the news of London.

We can well believe that William would be stirred to anger and to sorrow when he heard that young John Greenwood (who had only left Cambridge two years before he himself did) had been foully hanged as though he were a criminal, simply because he had wished to worship God freely in the company of like-minded men. It may be, too, that William's young face looked stern and almost g-rim as he wondered whether he himself would some day have to face the scafl^old. For his mind was beginning strongly to have thoughts like those that had brought Barrowe and Greenwood to their deaths at Tyburn.

The Messenger went to his bed; and in the morning William Brewster wrote in the Post Book the hour of his starting. The horse came round, and the postrider trotted away. William Brewster was left with his thoughts.

TV

The years went on; and news came continually by traveller and Post-Messenger to the Manor House on the Great ISTorth Eoad. A baby who was born in a village called Austerfield — only three miles from William Brewster's home at the Manor — began to grow into a boy who loved to be with William Brewster. This Austerfield boy's name was William Bradford.

Together on a Sunday morning the two Williams,

S4, THE ARGONAUTS OF FAITH

boy and man, would walk twelve miles past Scraftworth, Everton, and Gringley-on-the-Hill down to the ferryboat that took them across the Trent towards Gainsborough.

They walked all that way to hear the preaching of a good man named John Smyth — a man who was so kind-hearted that he would give up his cloak to be cut up and made into clothes for some man who was too poor to buy any for himself to keep out the cold. John Smyth in Gainsborough was doing just what Barrowe and Greenwood had been killed for: he wrote books to defend liberty to worship God in separate gatherings, and he himself was minister to such a separate Church in Gainsborough.

At last there were so many people going from the villages round Scrooby to Gainsborough on Sundays that they felt it was unnecessary to walk every week so far across the country to Gainsborough. They could form a little Church themselves. They believed that if two or three were gathered together in Christ's name to worship Him there was the Church. So William Brewster, about the year 1600, asked the friends to come and meet under his roof at the Manor House at Scrooby.

This was very brave of Brewster; for Archbishop Whitgift was driving to prison men who dared to worship in this way. At any hour he might find himself robbed of his home and his living, and carried away to a dungeon and even a scaffold. But that did not stop him.

Their leader was a fine old white-bearded prophetpreacher named Eichard Clyfton. He was helped by the young Cambridge man — who (you remember) was about William Brewster's age — named John Robinson. As a joimg clergyman in Norwicli, Robinson had already been thrown into prison for gathering people in worship and for declaring their freedom to meet as they desired.

So on a Sunday morning the men and women came with their boys and girls from the farmsteads and the villages round about to the Manor House. We do not know whether they held their service in the big hall of the Manor, with its heavy timbered roof, great open fireplace, and cavernous chimney. It is more likely that they worshipped in the cosy bam, with its warm, thatched roof, its dim, cobwebby great beams and its piles of straw and hay and sacks of corn. Sometimes, maybe, they worshipped in the stable, where the words of the prayers would mix with the sound of the postr horses eating their com.