Romsey & District

The Voyage of the Mayflower from Southampton, August 1620 Researched and written by Chris Amery for the Architecture and Local History Group

Background

In the early years of the 16th century, Pope Leo X wanted money to rebuild St Peter’s Basilica. He tried to raise it by an aggressive drive to sell indulgences (i.e. forgiveness of sins and immediate entry to Heaven on death) to rich and poor alike. In 1517 the scholar and Augustinian monk Martin Luther, of Wittenberg in Germany, formally protested against what he saw as corruption, by (as the probably apocryphal story goes) nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the church there. With astonishing speed the resulting ‘Reformation’ spread across Europe. Protestantism was born, with its primary emphasis on personal faith (rather than adherence to an institutional structure) as the only route to salvation.

Just 17 turbulent years later, the English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, establishing Henry VIII as the head of the Church of England. The next few years saw a new orthodoxy established and embedded via liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer, Tyndale’s English translation of the Bible, a new formulation of the Ten Commandments, dissolution of the monasteries, and all the accoutrements of an official national Church with Bishops, the priesthood, tithes, etc. And the next few decades, with the reigns of Elizabeth and then the Catholic Mary, saw the struggle between this new Church and Rome end decisively in favour of the former. The Church of England became the Established Church.

Against a New Orthodoxy

Even among the reformers, not everyone was happy. ‘Revolutions devour their own children’. Protestants who listened to Luther, or Zwingli in Zurich, or Calvin in Geneva, or John Knox in Scotland, soon chafed at any sort of new orthodoxy that, as they saw it, simply replaced Rome with a lookalike. Doctrinal or liturgical differences between reformed church adherents became cause for trouble and schism. Bishops were a particular stumbling block. Splits and splinters were everywhere.

Reform in England

It is against the above background that our story begins, with a popular movement towards freedom of religious belief during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. The Separatists (i.e. ‘separate’ from the new state religion, the Church of England) wanted the freedom to worship God according to their own interpretation of Scripture, without bishops or in some cases even priests to stand between them and their God. Cambridge University was a hotbed of Separatism towards the end of the 16th century. Many of the leading characters in this tale studied and formed their passionate religious views there, influenced by the charismatic leader Robert ‘Troublechurch’ Browne.

Men of Conscience

William Brewster was the son of the postmaster of Scrooby, on the Lincolnshire / Yorkshire border. Living in Scrooby Manor House and administering the Archbishop of York’s estates there, the Brewsters were in touch with all the nation’s official news as it sped along the Great North Road, England’s main communications artery. An intelligent and perceptive man, Brewster studied at Cambridge and became one of Troublechurch Browne’s followers. Browne fled to Holland in 1578 and thirty years later his congregation welcomed Brewster and other fugitives whose story is told here.

After Cambridge, and service to one of Queen Elizabeth’s trusted diplomats, Brewster returned to Scrooby a committed Separatist, and became renowned for “ripping up ye hart and conscience before God”. The Church of England Rector of nearby Babworth Church was like-minded Richard Clyfton, another ex-Cambridge follower of Browne. Here Brewster and others worshipped in their own style, joined in 1603 by William Bradford from Austerfield and John Robinson and his wife Bridget from Sturton-le-Steeple, south of Scrooby: he too was educated at Cambridge University and was an inspired Separatist.

Across the River Trent in Lincoln, another ex-Cambridge man, the Separatist John Smyth, was dismissed in 1602 by his employer the Bishop of Lincoln, for preaching ‘strange doctrines’ in church. He moved to Gainsborough and formed the hub of a congregation of 60 or 70 Separatists there. He was allowed to worship secretly in Gainsborough Old Hall by its sympathetic new owner Sir William Hickman and his mother Rose, both themselves former religious exiles. This congregation swelled when Richard Clyfton was forced to resign from his Church of England post in 1604, and members, including William Brewster, came from a wide area on both sides of the river.

In late 1606 Brewster set up a second Separatist Church in his home at Scrooby Manor, despite the possible danger from his landlord the Archbishop of York. Some members of the Gainsborough congregation were now able to worship nearer home at Scrooby, with Richard Clyfton as their pastor, John Robinson their Teacher and William Brewster himself as Elder.

Escape!

In Gainsborough William Hickman was under pressure from the Bishop of Lincoln for encouraging John Smyth. William Brewster was being harassed by his landlord and employer the Archbishop of York for his own Separatist activities in Scrooby Manor. When he was briefly imprisoned in York and then fined, both Gainsborough and the Scrooby Separatists took fright, and made the stark decision to abandon their lives and livelihoods in England and to escape to Holland, to join the other Separatists there.

Unable to emigrate legally without permits, John Smyth and at least 40 of his Gainsborough congregation, including his wife and two babies, slipped away quietly in the winter of 1607/8. From the Gainsborough docks they would have boarded river barges bound down the Trent to Hull, and then have crossed anonymously to Holland. In Amsterdam they joined some 300 or so other English Separatists known as the Ancient Brethren, forming what became in effect the first Baptist Church.

Meanwhile in September 1607 the Scrooby congregation sold all their belongings and travelled overland to Boston, 60 miles to the south east. They too hired a ship to take them to Holland, but downstream from Boston at Scotia Creek “the captain betrayed them … Bailiffs put them into open boats and there rifled and ransacked them, searching them to their shirts for money … even the women. They carried them back to Boston and made them a spectacle in front of the multitude that came flocking on all sides.”

They were held in Boston Guildhall cells whilst awaiting trial in the court room above, following which they were tried in Lincoln. After a month in prison most were sent back to their own parishes, but seven, including Clyfton, Robinson and Brewster were kept in prison longer. They too were released under pressure from local sympathisers, and all returned penniless to the Scrooby area for the winter.

In the spring of 1608 another Dutch ship owner was contacted in Hull. He agreed to pick up the Scrooby Separatists on a remote stretch of coast north of Grimsby near Killingholme.

The men walked the 40 miles from Scrooby and about 30 women and small children together with their baggage travelled by barge from there, along the River Idle to the tidal River Trent, and from there north to the Humber Estuary and the rendezvous. The barge arrived early, and the seasick women begged to land. The barge was grounded in the muddy Killingholme Creek at low tide when the Dutch ship arrived.

The captain saw the party of men ashore and began to ferry them out to the ship. William Bradford and most of the men got aboard but when the captain saw a large armed crowd coming to capture the illegal emigrants, he set sail at once to keep himself and his ship out of trouble, leaving the women and children on the shore. (There was a fearful storm at sea and the ship was driven up the treacherous North Sea as far as Norway before it could turn south and head for Amsterdam.)

Back in England the Justices did not know what to do with the captured homeless miserable women. In the end they were glad to get rid of them on any terms and by August 1608 almost all were reunited with their men in Holland.

But still all was not well. The English dissenters were foreigners in Holland, outsiders, unable to get work except as labourers. Worse, after a few years their children were beginning to grow up more Dutch than English. And although they had their long-desired freedom of religion, there were even signs that their Church itself was becoming prone to doctrinal and liturgical influences from the Dutch.

The Congregation took the drastic and brave decision to emigrate to the new colony in Virginia, where their children could be English, and they could worship freely. In 1620 a core group led by Brewster, Bradford and John Carver chartered the Speedwell to take them there, via Southampton.

The Mayflower and the New World

Meanwhile a sympathiser, Thomas Weston (a member of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London) had chartered the Mayflower to carry colonists to Virginia.

About 65 passengers embarked on the Mayflower in July 1620 at Wapping. The ship anchored at Southampton Water waiting for a rendezvous on July 22 with the Speedwell.

Protestant pilgrims are shown on the deck of the ship Speedwell before their departure for the New World from Delft Haven, Holland, on July 22, 1620. William Brewster, holding the Bible, and pastor John Robinson leading Governor Carver, William Bradford, Miles Standish, and their families in prayer. The prominence of women and children suggests the importance of the family in the community. At the left side of the painting is a rainbow, which symbolizes hope and divine protection.

The dimensions of this oil painting on canvas are 548 cm x 365 cm (216 inches x 144 inches; 18 feet x 12 feet) (Wikipedia.org) Embarkation of the Pilgrims by Robert W. Weir (photo courtesy Architect of the Capitol)

Initially, the plan was for the voyage across the Atlantic to be made in both vessels, and the two ships departed Southampton together on August 5 1620. But the Speedwell developed a leak, and had to be refitted at Dartmouth on August 17.

On the second attempt, the ships reached the Atlantic but again were forced to return to Plymouth because of the Speedwell's leak. Later, the Pilgrims came to believe that that there was in fact nothing wrong with the Speedwell, and that the crew had, in refitting the ship and by their behaviour in operating it, sabotaged the voyage in order to escape the year-long commitment of their contract.

After reorganisation, the final 66-day voyage was made by the Mayflower alone, leaving from Plymouth on September 6. With 102 passengers and 25-30 crew, each family had minimal space for personal belongings. The Mayflower stopped off at Newlyn in Cornwall to take on water.

The intended destination was northern Virginia. However bad weather forced the ship far off-course and well north of the Virginia settlement, where they had already obtained permission from the London Company to settle. As a result of the delay, the settlers did not arrive in Cape Cod until almost the beginning of the harsh New England winter. The ship dropped anchor on November 11, in what is now Provincetown Harbour.

Their first exploration ashore was of an empty Native American village. The curious settlers dug up some man-made mounds, some of which stored corn while others were burial sites. Nathaniel Philbrick recounts that the settlers stole the corn and looted and desecrated the graves, sparking friction with the locals. Philbrick goes on to say that as they moved down the coast to what is now Eastham, they explored the area of Cape Cod for several weeks, looting and stealing native stores as they went. He then writes about how they decided to relocate to New Plymouth after a difficult encounter with the local Native Americans, the Nausets, at First Encounter Beach, in December 1620.

However, Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation records (possibly euphemistically) that they took some of the corn to show the others back at the boat, leaving the rest; later they took what they needed from another store of grain and paid the locals back in six months, “which they gladly received”.

That first winter the passengers remained on board the Mayflower, suffering an outbreak of a contagious disease described as a mixture of scurvy, pneumonia and tuberculosis. When it ended, there were only 53 passengers, just more than half, still alive. Half the crew died as well. In spring they started to build huts ashore, and on March 21 1621 the surviving passengers left the ship.

On April 5, the Mayflower set sail from New Plymouth to return to England, arriving on May 6.

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2020 marks the 400th Anniversary of the Mayflower. In both the UK, US and the Netherlands, celebrations to mark the voyage may have been put on hold because of the Coronavirus pandemic.