Sacred and Mundane Politics in Plymouth Colony (1620–1622)

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Matthew Rowley; Mariëtta van der Tol

Published:

2024

In the early 1600s, pressure to conform to the Church of England led many English dissenters to seek refuge elsewhere.Advocates of toleration, like Thomas Helwys, John Smyth, and Leonard Busher, spent considerable time in the Netherlands.A group of dissenters wished to establish their own, more religiously pure community, which was further catalysed by new military activity from Spain.In 1620, the Mayflower set off for New England. 194At the time, English colonies became increasingly common, and a group of English Separatists, mostly living in Leiden, received permission to start a colony in the northern part of Virginia -then a vast area that spanned much of the eastern seaboard of what is now the United States.In order to gain this patent, the Leiden Separatists emphasised their obedience to the English crown, in all godly commands, and downplayed the extent to which they viewed themselves as outside the Church of England.They left their ageing minister, John Robinson, in the Netherlands, and the pilgrims went without a minister for a decade.Difficulties and setbacks characterised the Separatists' endeavours from the beginning, and a high percentage of the colonists did not survive the first year.They landed off the coast of Cape Cod in November 1620, far to the north of the received patent.Some worried that previously established laws would not apply.The Mayflower carried many who relocated for religious reasons ('the godly'), but there were also those with mundane reas…

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