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In 1644, Independents in England started to gain the upper hand at the Westminster Assembly. And in New England, tensions between deputies and magistrates, presbyterians and independents, rose, ultimately causing the region’s most intense political battle since the Antinomian Controversy.
Intro
In England, by 1644, the war was trending in Parliament’s favor, and by June 1644, the King had virtually no chance of victory. And that changed the dynamic within the Parliamentary and Puritan movement. There were the Presbyterians who formed the backbone of the Peace Party, who wanted to negotiate with the King, quickly ending the war with some reforms. These people were the Earl of Essex, the Earl of Manchester and the like. Then, there were the Independents, leading the War Party, who wanted to push the King into complete submission, and who may or may not have already been considering deposing the King completely. Their leaders were Henry Vane and Oliver St. John.
Vane had been the person to write the Solemn League and Covenant, and had worded it in such a way that there was some wiggle room for interpretation, to allow for a future religious settlement which would allow the Independents some influence. It was sneaky. It was clever. It had serious implications in future years.
And as these debates continued, New Englanders grew more and more involved in them. They were noticeably favored for positions of authority, especially in the Army. And the Army was becoming the entity most associated with the Independent movement, while Parliament leaned either Presbyterian or Erastian – a viewpoint which said the Church should be nothing more than an arm of the state. Around this time, Berkeley’s old chaplain also went to England, via New England, where he had married John Winthrop’s cousin, and he’d also become a leader of the Congregational cause.
But, as the Independents increased in influence, the differences between them also increased in importance. Was the independent movement, as John Cotton said, a democratic movement which was totally able to root out so-called heresy? Or was it, as Henry Vane and Roger Williams said, a path to freedom of conscience? Williams and Cotton debated each other. Hugh Peter debated Nathaniel Ward. Roger Williams was actually in England at this point, finalizing the patent for Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. And, he was staying with Henry Vane. They were very good friends, and close allies.
So the Independent alliance was tenuous, perhaps fatally so, and that was never more awkwardly demonstrated than when Thomas Welde published a pamphlet written by John Winthrop entitled A Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruine of the Antinomians, Familists and Libertines that infected the Churches of New England. Of course, Henry Vane was one of the three leading antinomians discussed in the pamphlet. I mean, Henry Vane had just done more for the Independent, War Party cause than anyone, and here was a direct and deeply personal attack on him by another New Englander who was actually quite well respected. It was horribly timed, very stupid and embarrassing enough that Thomas Hooker said he thought the Presbyterians had tricked Shepard into publishing the document to harm the Independent cause. Of course, that was just an excuse by a horrified observer. Massachusetts had kicked Vane out, and its leaders really had no desire to be allied with him, especially as that alliance became less necessary.
And since John Cotton had become the internationally renowned leading voice supporting Congregationalism, it’s actually a good moment to talk about a unique aspect of the Congregational movement which I forgot to mention last time. And that’s Millennial thought. John Cotton’s influence came in large part from the fact that he was considered an expert at interpreting the Book of Revelation, and other leading New England Congregationalists like John Davenport and Thomas Shepard were, too, though slightly less so. With few exceptions, the strongest adherents of Millennary thought were Congregationalists. And, New Englanders took a lead in pushing this use of Scripture. Scottish Presbyterians had a millennialist outlook, but English ones did not. Most of the people who ended up forming the leadership in Cromwell’s government, were Millennialists. Fundamentally, millenialism interpreted Scripture to mean that there would one day be a thousand year rule of the Saints. But the important part of 17th Century millenialism is that they tried to interpret history to predict and possibly even influence when that thousand years began. At its core, this was a primitive form of historiography, fitting people and events into a pre-defined context to try to draw conclusions from it. But it was one that was very unique to specific groups of people. So, the Catholic Church was the whore of Babylon. The earliest beginnings of the Reformation, like John Wyclif, had hearkened the new era. And, the rule of Mary I was the spilling of the blood of the saints.
But I reiterate, this was far from a universal opinion. So-called radicals and heretics, by and large, didn’t believe in this application of Scripture. The real exception here is the Fifth Monarchists led by Thomas Venner. Henry Vane, didn’t believe in it. Roger Williams didn’t believe in it. George Fox didn’t believe in it. The Earl of Essex didn’t believe in it. The Earl of Manchester didn’t believe in it. The Earl of Warwick didn’t believe in it. Catholics didn’t believe in it. Arminians didn’t believe in it. John Cotton did. John Davenport did. Hugh Peter did. Oliver Cromwell did. And in that, we can see a unifying force for the future of the Puritan and Parliamentary movement. And we can also see the deep, deep connections between Millennial thought and New England. Virtually every millennialist in England was or had considered being part of New England colonization. And the idea would help to shape the region’s reactions to events in coming years and decades.
But before we move on with these developments, let’s go over to Massachusetts and discuss the deputies’ plans to curtail magistrate power. In 1644-45, this came in three waves, three clashes between the two groups. The first deputy attempt came with a program known as the Essex program.
Deputies had been working to shift the balance of the General Court since the la Tour incidents. With only the best deputies elected, with a sympathetic governor, and with a pre-organized legislative agenda, they hoped to become the magistrates’ political equals. For their governor, they chose John Endicott, who was electable, a longstanding colony leader, and on good terms with Winthrop. He wasn’t as ideologically extreme as Richard Saltonstall or John Bellingham, but he at least shared their opinions in the most extreme of circumstances. So he wouldn’t immediately be written off as a belligerently political choice, but he could support some of the deputies’ opinions in the cases which were most fundamentally important to them, like the la Tour issue. And, they would send their people to the United Colonies instead of leaving that to Bostonians.
And, in selecting Endicott, they could push for the colony’s capital to be moved to his hometown, Salem. Getting to elections, getting to Standing Council meetings, and the logistical choice of where to store weapons were all connected to capitol location, so this would immediately shift the colony’s balance of power. It was a very strategic, very intelligently crafted plan, except for one thing.
The magistrates could veto anything they wanted to, and they weren’t inclined to even feign sympathy to the deputies’ cause. Sure, the deputies got everyone elected they wanted to, but the magistrates still controlled one house of the legislature and they just vetoed everything the deputies tried to push through. And, nothing the deputies did could change that.
And a fundamental difference of opinion began to arise. The magistrates said that the ultimate authority in the colony was the Charter, and that everything else, from the magistrates to the deputies to the General Court, only existed by virtue of the Charter. And the Deputies said that the General Court should be the heart of the colony’s authority, with the Body of Liberties, which had actually been voted on, acting as its legal foundation. In a quasi-Constitutional government, which was the Constitution? Which was the heart of government authority?
Even accepting the magistrates’ position, though, the deputies noted that there was ample precedent for letting them take on an increased role in colony affairs outside the General Court. And to this, the magistrates simply replied that every example they’d mentioned was either a mistake or too trivial to be important. And then, they said the deputies would undermine the doctrine of the calling and divine sanction of the magistrates, and would eventually establish mob rule.
Facing an unyielding magistrate wall, the deputies made one last request. They wanted modifications to the Standing Council providing for General Court oversight and limited deputy involvement exclusively in cases involving war. Keep everything else, whatever, just give us this to prevent any more la Tour issues.
And to this proposition, the magistrates made a counter offer. They would accept that concession, if the deputies would relinquish any right to question magistrate authority in the future. I will note in the magistrates’ defense here, that the deputies had elevated themselves from nonexistence to legislative equality with the magistrates in just over a decade. They were tired of making concessions, and deputy populism had led to some pretty alarming behavior in the past.
But, in the deputies’ defense, magistrate high-handedness had proven every bit as dangerous, and they didn’t want to give up any future right to check the magistrates, who did seem pretty insistent that they could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. And, as constitutions went, the Charter wasn’t exactly ideal. It was a document sanctioning the formation of a corporation by the King. Where it had been meticulously crafted, that had been to subvert royal authority, not to create an ideal republican government. So, the deputies rejected the magistrates’ offer. Instead of trying to negotiate with the magistrates, they would directly appeal to voters. They resolved that nothing should be done on the issue of the Standing Council until the next Court session in October, and the magistrates agreed, twisting the knife by noting that this meant that if an emergency situation occurred in that time, they would act on it as they always had, with the magistrates having sole control. And to this, an indignant William Hawthorne responded, “You will not be obeyed.”
End of clash one. Magistrate victory.
Clash two came with a PR battle. The deputies recruited popular support, John Endicott asked the ministers to more actively support the magistrates, and John Winthrop wrote a treatise defending the magistrates, and the Massachusetts system as it was, denying magistrate tyranny, denying the need for reform, and minimizing the importance of deputy influence. He then gave copies to some of the deputies, and while some agreed with it, others didn’t respond.
Instead, they read passages from it at the next General Court session, calling it a “dangerous libel of some unknown author,” treating it as an anonymous tract so that Winthrop’s popularity wouldn’t sway people’s opinions. They asked that the anonymous Winthrop be censured, but the magistrates again refused, and the deputies could do nothing.
The ministers then held a meeting to declare their political position, as requested by Endicott, and most deputies refused to attend, rightly anticipating that they would mostly support the magistrates. But though they did mostly support the magistrates, they supported the deputies on the key issues nearest and dearest to the deputies’ hearts. They still allowed for the idea that the deputies should participate in the Standing Council, they supported the deputies on the issue of pre-defined legal punishments, and they supported limited deputy judicial powers, exclusively in cases of appeal and crimes in office by high officials. This meant that they could monitor the Standing Council’s activities, and if it exceeded its powers or administered arbitrary justice, they could use their judicial powers to oppose it. They weren’t yet on the Standing Council, but they’d been given permission to address its abuses.
Clash two, much more minor than the first. Very slight deputy victory.
And the deputies used their newfound authority almost immediately, to challenge Standing Council interference in the Presbyterian town of Hingham. This will be the third and final confrontation of the episode, the Hingham Militia Case, and the colony’s most heated controversy since the Antinomian Controversy.
But, just a little background first.
In England, theological debate waned, and the fight between Presbyterians and Independents became more political, as Presbyterians sought peace with the King, while the Independents favored war, and thanks to that war, continued to build in strength, culminating in the Self-Denying Ordinance, which made the Independent-controlled Army, well, independent of Presbyterian-leaning Parliament.
And, as these trends occurred in England, they were mirrored in New England. There was a serious and growing undercurrent of Presbyterian opposition to the denial of communion, and the extent of opposition to the King in New England. A group of colonists petitioned the Massachusetts General Court asking that the communion policy be changed, and noting that New Englanders in England were being denied communion in retaliation, but the petition was ignored. Two bills were submitted to widen the franchise, but the matter had been postponed. And even in New Haven, one pastor who began to rethink the Congregationalist baptism policy, saying it would cause Churches to die out within a couple generations, moved his congregation to Long Island to Long Island to live under Dutch jurisdiction.
And, as opposition grew, so did enforcement of the status quo, especially a crackdown on so-called heretics. Massachusetts banned anabaptism. New Haven excommunicated its first lady, Anne Eaton, for being an anabaptist, while her husband watched silently.
And, to prevent any Presbyterian expressions of a desire end the war with the King, they passed a law which forbade anyone from saying anything which might be construed to support the King. And after passing it, they brought the commander of the Watertown militia before the General Court to answer accusations that he had, the year before, “in private conference, questioned the lawfulness of the Parliament’s proceeding in England.” He replied that he did, indeed, have scruples, but that the Court had no right to bring him in for a year-old private conversation. The Court pushed the matter until he relented. By some accounts, he fully recanted his previous position and said he would fight for Parliament if he were in England, and by others just that he would defend Massachusetts against the actions of the King or any party which acted against the colony. Regardless, he submitted and was allowed to go, but only after a thorough interrogation by the Court.
So that forms the background of what came next. Hingham was one of the very few Presbyterian towns in Massachusetts, and its pastor, Peter Hobart, was one of the colony’s respected Presbyterian leaders. Its militia was led by a man named Anthony Eames, who though a relative newcomer, had always gotten along well with the congregation, and always been well respected in the town. In 1645, Eames was elected as the company commander of the Hingham militia band for life, and his name was sent to the Standing Council for approval.
But after his election, Eames signed his name to a petition complaining about Hobart’s Presbyterian Church, and the fact that the congregation didn’t have a vote in that Church, and asking that the General Court intervene. This changed the town’s opinion on their militia leader. In a heavily Presbyterian town, he was not only trying to change the congregation, but appealing to the General Court to do so. If that became the precedent, Presbyterianism could not survive in New England.
The petition came to naught, and the episode had done nothing except make Eames extremely unpopular in his adopted town, so the Hingham militia voted to change their nomination, and instead elected Bozoan Allen, a man who wasn’t necessarily as experienced as Eames, but who was a dedicated Presbyterian. The Standing Council hadn’t yet approved Eames, so the militia sent them a message saying that, they had changed their mind. They had voted, and in fact, they wanted Allen to be their militia leader. Don’t bother approving Eames, approve Allen instead. Please, and thank you.
That seems pretty reasonable, but we wouldn’t be talking about it today if it had gone smoothly. The Standing Council refused to consider Allen’s nomination, and said that Eames had more experience, so they didn’t want to damage Eames’s legitimate claims to the position. They told Hingham to keep Eames. So, to support the man who had protested Hingham’s lack of democratic influence, the Standing Council had refused to allow the town to democratically choose a civil leader. And the irony wasn’t lost on Richard Bellingham, one of the two most pro democratic, pro-Deputy magistrates. After the meeting, Bellingham took Eames aside and told him that it would probably be best for everyone if he just went home and honorably laid down his place, knowing how the town had voted.
In Hingham, the militia clerk, Peter Hobart’s brother, Joshua, reported the decision, but said that Bellingham, who was a magistrate and therefore a person in authority, had advised Eames to resign, and said that Eames should follow that advice. Eames refused. And at this point, even people who had supported Eames before switched to supporting Allen in protest of the Standing Council’s interference in local affairs.
The next day, Joshua Hobart ordered a militia drill session, but didn’t tell Eames about it. So, when the militia assembled, Eames was missing, and Allen took command. When Eames found out, he rushed to the field, faced his troops and gave a command, but not one person responded. Eames repeated his command, and Hobart demanded he show some order from an authority which gave him the right to train the band. Eames cited the Standing Council’s recent decision, and Hobart demanded a written order, but Eames refused to show it. Hobart said he’d heard a magistrate advise him to resign, so he was not the legitimate commander. And, Eames denied that this had happened. The militia vocally agreed with Hobart, and someone shouted that even if 3-4 magistrates had supported Eames, the Standing Council had no authority to overrule the militia’s vote. Another shouted “what have the magistrates to do with us?” And another, somewhat more dramatically, said he was willing to die for the right to pick his own officers. The militia clerk then called for an immediate vote of all present Hingham citizens to decide whether they supported the militia or the Standing Council, and the vote favored Allen and the militia. Hobart called Allen to assume his rightful post, and Allen agreed, but only after a new vote of the militia, itself, confirmed its continued support of him. Eames stormed off the field, declaring that he’d never lead the Hingham militia again. The third of militia members who had voted for him followed him off the field.
The next Sunday, the Hobarts confronted Eames about his behavior, and accused him of lying when he’d denied that authority had advised him to lay down his position. Eames denied the charge, and witnesses were called to testify. John Folsom said he’d heard both Dudley and Winthrop denying that they’d given Eames command of the militia, and denying that they had the right to do so. This was not true. Hobart testified about Bellingham’s advice, and that was true. Bellingham was a person in authority, so, by tenuous extension, authority had told him to resign. John Tower corroborated Hobart’s story. Pastor Hobart called on Eames to repent of his sins, such as his lies on the training field, and when he refused, the hot tempered Hobart almost excommunicated him, but several church members interceded and asked that no further action be taken until tempers cooled.
A few days later, Eames appealed to the Standing Council, who then asked several elders from nearby Churches to intervene to smooth the situation, prevent Eames’s excommunication and prevent a schism in the Church. But, a schism there would be, and outside interference only made the townspeople angrier. So Eames and 12 of his supporters stood up in front of the congregation and dramatically left the Church. Then he went to the Standing Council and asked them to intervene directly, and they did. They summoned five Hingham leaders, including Joshua, Thomas and Edmund Hobart, and Peter Hobart voluntarily accompanied them.
In Boston, Peter Hobart launched into an impassioned, and increasingly angry tirade, complaining that his brothers should be treated like common criminals. The Council ultimately stopped him, saying the only thing preventing them from arresting him for contempt was their respect for the Cloth. They ordered the five to appear at the next Court of Assistants. Then, they summoned five of the men who had testified against Eames in the Hingham Church.
Instead of obeying the summons, though, these five went to Winthrop’s home, with no warning, and demanded an explanation of the charges against them, and to know the names of their accusers. Winthrop couldn’t explain the former, and wouldn’t give the latter. He ordered them to give bond for their appearance before the court, they refused, and the next time he saw them, he had them arrested.
The 1645 election again favored the deputies. Deputy-advocate Dudley replaced Endicott, and Winthrop remained deputy governor, and new deputies included Joshua Hobart and Bozoan Allen from Hingham.
The day after the election, Hingham sent a petition signed by 81 people to the Deputies, hearkening to deputy ideals like local leadership, and local, elected power, and asking that the General Court find that the Standing Council’s actions had been wrong. The deputies eagerly entertained the petition, and the magistrates begrudgingly agreed.
But, before they would entertain the petition, the magistrates demanded concrete charges against a named individual. And, Hobart and Folsom named Winthrop as the individual who had done the most wrong. The magistrates then demanded that criminal charges be brought against Winthrop. And the deputies agreed. This, however, was a trap. It prevented the deputies from building their case on popular ideological arguments, and instead forced them to find something Winthrop had done criminally wrong, successfully prove their accusation, and impeach the most popular man in the colony. A very different dynamic indeed, and one which put popular sentiment on the side of Winthrop, and by extension the magistrates.
So, the stage was set for the showdown to end all showdowns. The presbyterians, the deputies, local power and popular authority, against the congregationalists, the magistrates, and central authority. The trial, the criminal trial, of John Winthrop.
In June 1645, the trial began. The Boston meetinghouse was the most packed it had been since the downfall of Henry Vane and Anne Hutchinson. Hobart and Allen listed Winthrop’s supposedly illegal actions, like imprisoning people for refusing to post bond for witnessing in a Church matter. And Winthrop gave a predictably brilliant defense. He noted that nothing he’d done had actually been illegal, and then said that if they condemned him, they condemned all judges, and in doing so, invited chaos.
At this point, probably predictably, the trial devolved into a bitter argument. Deputies and magistrates argued publicly for two days, unable to even agree on what the trial was about. Then they argued for even longer in private, with both sides voicing every little thing that had been bothering them over the course of years. The magistrates, though, out-debated the deputies, and eventually withdrew to discuss the case on their own. And then, the Court came together as a whole, yet again.
And when they did, the magistrates continued out-debating the deputies. By this point, the question was whether Hingham was guilty of mutiny. If they were, Winthrop’s actions were not only justified, but necessary. If they weren’t, then maybe he was guilty. But, gradually the magistrates chipped away at the deputies’ arguments and forced them to concede that Hingham had committed mutiny. Then they accused the town’s leaders of lying about what Winthrop had said, and to prove it they brought Folsom forward and asked him to repeat his story under oath, but Folsom refused.
At this point, the magistrates could sense complete victory. They’d gotten the deputies to overplay their hand, diverted the issues to those where they were the strongest, and chipped away at the deputies’ arguments. This trial had lasted for 7 weeks, with one week intermission, and now they were entering the final stretch.
The Magistrates wanted Winthrop exonerated, and the petitioners censured. The deputies said they didn’t think people should be censured for petitioning. So, the magistrates asked the deputies to present the case as they saw it. If they were going to vote down the magistrate proposal, let’s hear the alternative. And the deputies said that Bellingham had advised Eames to resign, and Eames had acted provocatively when he refused to show his orders to the company, and that the Standing Council had exceeded its authority, and that it shouldn’t have the powers it had, anyway. There was no reason for the Standing Council to confirm officers when the General Court could do it.
The magistrates rebutted each point, and then suggested that the petitioners, as part of their punishment, be forced to pay the costs of the prolonged General Court session.
The problem was … someone was going to have to pay those fees. If the deputies refused to make the petitioners pay the fines, they would have to get their own constituents to pay them. They either had to agree that the petitioners were wrong, or go home and ask their constituents for money to fight a losing court case. So, the deputies agreed, but asked that the fines be lowered, and insisted on fining Eames, too, because according the magistrates’ version of events, Eames had resigned his post by walking off the training field. And the magistrates refused. They would allow a mild admonishment, but no punishment. And they would only lower the fines if Winthrop was pronounced completely innocent, and the petitioners forced to publicly apologize to him. And, the magistrates said, if the deputies couldn’t agree to this, they’d call in the ministers and have them decide, knowing the ministers would likely give them an even worse deal. So, the deputies agreed.
Fines were set, between 4 and 20 pounds per mutineer, half a pound per petitioner, and John Tower was forced to serve his remaining prison time. A total, almost irrecoverable deputy loss. At the next Court session, everything was formalized, and immediately after Winthrop returned to the magistrates’ bench, he gave a speech on liberty which became famous. In the context of the time, it wasn’t just a speech on liberty, it was a complete denial of everything the deputies believed, and a total defense of magisterial authority, and without naming them personally, saying that what the deputies wanted would lead to wickedness and anarchy.
“There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to men with beasts and other creatures. By this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to do evil as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worst than brute beasts. That is the great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all the ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue it. The other kind of liberty, I call civil or federal. It may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and man, and the moral law, and the public covenants and constitutions among men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it, and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives if need be.”
For the deputies, the conflict was over for the time being. Winthrop had defined liberty in New England for the time being, and it did not include their ideas. But for Peter Hobart, it wasn’t. And actually his next actions not only tie into the war itself, but really cast the whole event in an intriguingly different light.
The next January, when the marshal went to collect the fines, Hobart refused to pay, saying that the demand wasn’t legal, because it wasn’t sent in the King’s name, and he had been sworn to the Crown of England. He said that Massachusetts Bay was no more than a corporation in England, and that as such, it didn’t have the right to execute people, or in fact to do a lot of the things it had done. And, it wasn’t appropriate to fine people for petitioning. Even if he had the money, they had no right to demand it, so he refused. It does seem that his fine was paid by his congregation, but for his statements, and we truly have to leave the matter here for now, he was again brought before the Court, this time for sedition, fined 20 pounds and bound 40 for good behavior, and ordered to appear at the next Quarter Court. And yet again, Bellingham and Broadstreet supported Hobart.
Now, there were a lot of other things going on at this time. New Haven continued to clash with New Netherland and New Sweden, and Plymouth worked to move to Nauset, and Saybrook sold itself to Connecticut. New Haven in this year considered getting a charter to legalize its existence, but when its agent was lost at sea, it didn’t bother sending another. New Haven also struck the King’s name from the Oath of Allegiance, and in Rhode Island, Coddington, who was trying to take control, asked to form an alliance with the United Colonies, but was refused unless he submitted to either Plymouth or Massachusetts government.
And there was another little dramatic event which happened around this time, but I’ll discuss that in another episode. As we leave New England, and specifically Massachusetts at the end of the First English Civil War, we leave a colony whose deputies were defeated, whose Presbyterians were disgruntled, and whose Congregational, magisterial elite had consolidated authority with a very, very specific interpretation of liberty. Every colony had increased its crackdowns on heresy, and the region’s prestige in England had risen with the victory of the Independent movement there.
But next week, we’ll leave New England for the most part, and see how the years 1644-45 played out elsewhere in English America.