Quaker Religious Thought Volume 95 Article 3 1-1-2000 "Hanging as a Flag" :Mary Dyer and Quaker Hagiography David L. Jones Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/qrt Part of the Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Jones, David L. (2000) ""Hanging as a Flag" :Mary Dyer and Quaker Hagiography," Quaker Religious Thought: Vol. 95 , Article 3. Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/qrt/vol95/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Quaker Religious Thought by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “HANGING AS A FLAG”: MARY DYER AND QUAKER HAGIOGRAPHY DAVID L. JOHNS INTRODUCTION overnor Endicott: “You will own yourself a Quaker, will you Gnot?” Mary Dyer stiffened. “I am myself to be reproachfully called so.” The jailer exclaimed, “She is a vagabond!” Governor Endicott continued, “The sentence was passed upon you by the General Court and now likewise; you must return to the prison and there remain until tomorrow at nine o’clock; then from thence you must go to the gallows, and there be hanged till you are dead.” Mary Dyer did not flinch. “This is no more than what you said before.” Governor Endicott: “But now it is to be executed; therefore pre- pare yourself tomorrow at nine o’clock.” Mary Dyer: “I came in obedience to the will of God to the last General Court desiring you to appeal your unrighteous laws of ban- ishment on pain of death; and that same is my work now, and earnest request, although I told you that if you refused to repeal them, the Lord would send others of his servants to witness against them.” Governor Endicott: “Are you a prophetess?” Mary Dyer: “I speak the words that the Lord speaks in me and now the thing has come to pass.” Governor Endicott: “Away with her! Away with her!” Led through the streets sandwiched between drummers...Mary Dyer walked to her death....Some of the followers...[pleaded] “Mary Dyer, don’t die. Go back to Rhode Island where you might save your life. We beg of you, go back, go back! Go back and live!” 7 8• DAVID L. JOHNS Raising her voice above the hammering of the drummers, she said, “Nay, I cannot go back to Rhode Island, for in obedience to the will of the Lord I came, and in His will I abide faithful to death.” ...close to Frog Pond by the great elm tree in Boston Commons, the drums were quieted and Captain John Webb spoke up. Turning to the agitated crowd in justification, he said, “She has been here before and had the sentence of banishment upon pain of death and has broken the law in coming again now. It is therefore she who is guilty of her own blood.” Mary Dyer spoke in contradiction, “Nay, I came to keep blood- guiltiness from you, desiring you to repeal the unrighteous and unjust laws of banishment upon pain of death made against the innocent ser- vants of the Lord. Therefore, my blood will be required at your hands who willfully do it.” “But, for those who do it in the simplicity of their hearts, I desire the Lord to forgive them. I came to do the will of my father, and in obedience to this will I stand even to death.” As her neck snapped, the crowd stood paralyzed in the silence of death until a spring breeze lifted her limp skirt and it billowed in response. General Atherton cracked the silence, “She hangs like a flag,” he said. A chorus of voices repeated, “Ay, she hangs like a flag.” And one strong voice continued, “She hangs like a flag for others to take example from.”1 “She hangs like a flag for others to take example from.” In this article I propose to examine Mary Dyer but not in order to further our understanding of her as a historical figure. Rather, using her as a model and an occasion I intend to look at the theolog- ical question of religious regard for the saints and ask whether Quakers possess a notion of sainthood and a hagiographic tradition (since it is unlikely that one exists apart from the other). Far from being a Roman Catholic question, any tradition that functions according to, or in conversation with, a formative narrative is a tradition that is potentially guided by human lives. At its best, this is precisely what the saints are and how their memory functions in practical terms. And while the Scriptures, the language of the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures have all been formative for Friends since their inception, I contend that there has been an implicit (if not actually explicit) notion of the saints operative within the Religious Society of Friends. “HANGING AS A FLAG”• 9 Narrative approaches to the Christian life may be built upon the story of the Scriptures, of course. However, an important narrative approach to the moral life, it seems, is an examination of lives that embody, or more theologically—incarnate—the values embraced and pursued. Lives of heroic virtue have provided, and continue to provide for Quakers, a narrative for structuring community life and for initiating neophytes into the faith. Hagiography in both its gen- eral and in its particularly Quaker expressions functions as example by establishing a pattern of faithfulness. It is an incarnationally contex- tualized expression of holiness. Since the first Christian saints were the martyrs, it makes sense to begin a discussion of Quakers and the saints with Mary Dyer: the most famous of Quaker martyrs. MARY DYER AND QUAKERISM It is clear that like the first proclamation of the Easter message the message of Quakerism in America is linked inexorably to women. Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, the first Quakers in Boston, arrived in July of 1656. They came not to settle nor to colonize but to preach as they had in Barbados, and as Fisher had with Elizabeth Williams, to the students at Cambridge University. Of course, the Boston mag- istrates were well aware of this troublesome sect, the Quakers, and promptly jailed Fisher and Austin and sent them back to Barbados as quickly as possible. Apparently, the greatest threat posed by these women, and a threat that was to be confirmed as legitimate later in the Boston magistrates’ protracted difficulty with Mary Dyer, was the disruption of a kind of civil order that was characterizing the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Soon laws were passed penalizing ship captains for even transporting Quakers to Boston. Anne Hutchinson, like Roger Williams, succeeded either by acci- dent or design in infuriating the Puritan leadership of Boston. Hutchinson was convinced of Puritan thought by John Cotton. However, while most of the New England Puritans would say with Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, and Peter Bulkley, that human beings could prepare their hearts for the moment of the Spirit’s regenerating work and that this “preparation for grace” was an essen- tial stage in the order of salvation, John Cotton stressed the gracious and even arbitrariness of God’s regenerative work. Hutchinson 10 • DAVID L. JOHNS admired Cotton and eventually with her family followed him from England to the New World (he in 1633, they in 1634). Hutchinson was an articulate supporter of Cotton and the Covenant of Grace; she was an equally outspoken critic of the Covenant of Works. At Cotton’s request, she held meetings in her home attracting many women and even the newly elected governor, Sir Henry Vane. These meetings became successful to the point of concern for ministers and magistrates alike. Somewhere during this period Mary and William Dyer migrated to New England and settled in Boston.2 Anne and Mary became friends rather quickly and Mary became a regular participant in the so-called “Antinomian” gather- ings. But Hutchinson was cast out of the Boston Church in 1638 for “infecting” others with her “erroneous and dangerous” opinions and for engaging in activities not “fitting for her sex.” How might she have been regarded had she sided with the Covenant of Works? Obviously, Hutchinson’s theological convictions carried political sig- nificance; however, it appears that the activities troubling Governor John Winthrop and others were theological, and perhaps even pas- toral. Even her words as she left the Boston Church after being cast out carry a more clearly theological tone: “The Lord judgeth not as man judgeth. Better to be cast out of the church than to deny Christ.” Apparently, “denying Christ” here would have meant not recognizing revelations that came to her, not acknowledging her gift- edness to speak to the gatherings at her home, not affirming grace over works. I call attention to this because the scene is quite differ- ent in the case of Dyer, where her activities are more clearly direct and intentionally confrontational acts challenging laws and decisions. As Hutchinson was banished from the Boston Church, the trial min- isters having turned their backs on her, Mary Dyer grasped her hand and walked with her from the church, thereby further identifyng her- self publicly with Hutchinson. From here we can sketch an outline of Mary Dyer’s travels and activities essentially as follows: Dyer moved from Boston with Hutchinson to Newport, Rhode Island. In 1643 Hutchinson, along with her entire family (save one daughter), was murdered in an Indian attack. Seven years later (1650) Dyer traveled alone to England and remained there for sev- eral years.