Memorable Women of the Puritan Times

Chapter 1

17. APPENDIX.

No. II.—(p. 61). No. III.—(p. 382). Mrs. Oliver Cromwell’s Petition to Charles II. after the Restoration, and the Royal Jewels. (See p. 318). -- 6 of 478 -- T he Puritan Times embrace the most interesting and instructi

Chapter 2

1653. In thus taking into his hands the reins of government, he endeavoured

to vindicate himself by maintaining that his motive was a patriotic concern for the well-being of his country, which otherwise would have been torn to pieces by anarchy and faction. This may be admitted to be partly true

Chapter 3

1. In using this term at this early period we commit an anachronism. The

word “puritan,” the import of which is sufficiently obvious, did not come into use until after the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne, and it was employed by way of reproach. Baxter informs us that in his time it

Chapter 4

22. This act required, among other things, that every minister should pub-

licly profess before his congregation his assent to everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer as lately corrected; should subscribe a de- claration to the effect that it is unlawful upon any pretence to take up a

Chapter 5

26. Burnet’s Own Time, vol. ii. p. 315.

-- 42 of 478 -- MARY TRACEY, WIFE OF HORATIO VERE, BARON OF TILBURY. Monergism Books -- 43 of 478 -- W e begin these Biographies with the life of the wife of an illustrious general, who flourished in the reigns of Jam

Chapter 6

7. She adopted one of the children of the famous puritan divine Nicholas

Byfield, minister first of Chester, then of Isleworth in Middlesex, where he died in 1622, when not above forty-four years of age; and she had aided Byfield by her bounty in other ways during his life. These facts we lea

Chapter 7

18. Worthies of England, part i. p. 181; Church Hist., vol. iii. p. 479. Dod

was successively minister of Hanwell in Oxfordshire, Fenny-Compton in Warwickshire, Canons Ashby in Northamptonshire, and Fausley in the same shire. He was silenced for a time in each of these places.—Brook’s Lives of th

Chapter 8

24. MSS. in Brit. Mus. Bibl. Birch, 4274, no. 18.

-- 62 of 478 -- T owards the close of the year 1627 Lady Vere again went over to the Low Countries to rejoin Lord Vere, who was still general of the English forces in the service of the States-general. She had applied i

Chapter 9

2. Mary, married first to Sir Roger Townshend, of East Rainham in Norfolk,

Bart., who died January 1, 1636; and afterwards to Mildmay Fane, Earl of Westmorland. 3. Catherine, married first to Oliver St. John, son and heir of Sir John St. John, of Lydiard Tregose in Wilts, Knight and Bart.; and

Chapter 10

22. Ibid. vol. i. p. 306. VOL I. 5

-- 82 of 478 -- L ady Vere enjoyed the society of her daughter Anne and Fairfax with her at Hackney for some time after the marriage; but when they were about to start for the residence of Sir Ferdinando, young Fairfax

Chapter 11

1671. I went with my sister Ranelagh to visit my pious Lady Vere. Going

and coming in the coach, and whilst I was there, we had much good and profitable discourse, and I found much comfort to hear that good old disciple discourse: I returned not home till late.” 23 Though in the course of he

Chapter 12

3. After this, Charles Fairfax, who is so honourably mentioned in this letter,

returned to England, and in his ardent devotion to the cause of liberty he joined the parliament. He was colonel of a regiment of horse at the battle of Marston Moor, where he was severely wounded, July 2, 1644, and died

Chapter 13

7. Fairfax Correspondence, vol. i. p. 356, 357. This nobleman, who was

raised to the peerage in the third year of the reign of Charles I., under the title of Lord Fairfax, of Cameron, died in 1640, at the advanced age of eighty.—Ibid. vol. i. p. lxxi.

Chapter 14

12. He says “the 7th Month,” not “September.” The puritan fathers, soon

after their settlement in America, renounced the nomenclature of the Roman -- 103 of 478 -- calendar. This was done, as Johnson observes in his Wonder-working Providence (lib. i. c. 27), “of purpose, to prevent the hea

Chapter 15

14. Catharine did not remain long a widow, having married secondly John,

Lord Paulet, in the spring of 1641. Lady Brilliana Harley in a letter to her son Edward, March 19, 1640-1, says, “I am glad my Lady Vere has cause to rejoice in my cousin St. John’s second marriage.”—Brilliana Har-ley’s

Chapter 16

16. Dod lived more than two years from the date of this letter, having died

in 1645, ninety-seven years of age, and was buried at Fawsley; “with whom,” says Fuller, “the old Puritan may seem to expire, and in his grave to be interred; humble, meek, patient, hospitable, charitable, as in his cens

Chapter 17

23. Lady Warwick’s Diary, p. 163, 242.

-- 105 of 478 -- B RILLIANA CONWAY 1was the second daughter of Sir Edward Conway, afterwards Baron Conway of Ragley, in Warwickshire, Viscount Killutagh, in Ireland, and Viscount Conway, of Conway Castle, by his wife Do

Chapter 18

1. The materials of this life have been chiefly derived from Lady Brilliana’s

Letters, published for the Camden Society, 1854, from a collection of family papers in the possession of her descendant, the Lady Frances Vernon Harcourt, of Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire. A few of these letters, written

Chapter 19

16. She repeatedly obtained from Thomas Pierson, rector of Brampton

Bryan, a license “to eat flesh on fast-days, by reason of her great weakness.” One of these documents is entered in the register of that parish, and is dated March 14, 1632. It continues the license which had been grante

Chapter 20

22. He had left Oxford at the end of July, or beginning of August, 1640, and

had returned to his parents at Brampton Castle. Not long after the opening of the parliament he went to Oxford, but towards the close of December he was again in London, where his mother and friends thought it would be o

Chapter 21

31. Ibid. p. 157. In the same letter she says, “Let me know how your sister

Brill pleases my Lady Vere.” Lady Vere, who was at present residing in London, had willingly taken this daughter, a girl of about twelve years of age, to live with her for some time, at the earnest desire of Lady Brillia

Chapter 22

32. Lady Harley’s zeal in the cause further appears from her anxiety to

know what her aunt Lady Vere was doing to serve it. Writing to Edward, June 24, 1642, she says, “Send me word whether my Lady Vere gives any- thing in this provision for raising of horse for the good of this poor king- d

Chapter 23

46. Sermon preached at the Funeral of Sir Robert Harley, by Thomas

Froysell, minister of Clun in Shropshire. London, 1658. Sir Robert died at Brampton Bryan, November 6, 1656, and was buried there, December 10. -- 143 of 478 -- W e shall now transport the reader to America. The next f

Chapter 24

2. In an almanac of 1617, belonging to Winthrop’s father, is the following

entry:—”On Friday, the 24th of April, 1618, my son’s third wife came first to Groton. She was married to him the 29th day of the same month, at Great Maplested, anno 1618.”—Winthrop’s Hist. of New England, note by Savage

Chapter 25

3. Winthrop’s first wife was Mary, daughter of John Forth, Esq., of Great

Stanbridge, Essex, to whom he was married April 16, 1605, when he was only seventeen years and three months old. By this wife he had three sons, John, Henry, and Forth, and three daughters, of whom the name of Mary alone

Chapter 26

24. The Arbella, in which Winthrop had embarked, was a ship of 350 tons,

and it was manned with fifty-two seamen, and twenty-eight pieces of cannon. Three other ships, namely, the Ambrose, the Jewel, and the Talbot, were riding by the side of the Arbella. Seven other vessels, intended for the

Chapter 27

33. Emmanuel Downing, who was married to Winthrop’s sister. He

afterwards emigrated to America, and resided for several years in great esteem at Salem, which he often represented in the general court. He was the father of the celebrated Sir George Downing, who graduated at Harvard C

Chapter 28

37. In these circumstances, upon the return of the vessels which had taken

out Winthrop’s company, there were not much less than 100, some thought many more, who returned, discouraged by the hardships they endured, and despairing of the prospects of the colony. Those, however, who returned, bei

Chapter 29

43. Wilson’s wife was “the daughter of the Lady Mansfield, widow of Sir

John Mansfield, Master of the Monies and the Queen’s Surveyor.”— Mather’s Hist. of New England, book iii. p. 41–45. She continued at this time unpersuadable, and Wilson went back to the colony without her. He -- 182 of

Chapter 30

54. Winthrop again married in December, 1647, viz. Martha, widow of

Thomas Coytmore, of Charlestown, a gentleman of good estate.— Winthrop’s Hist. vol. ii. p. 375–379. -- 183 of 478 -- A NNE DUDLEY, one of the most distinguished of the early matrons of New England, and celebrated for h

Chapter 31

13. The title of the volume is, “The Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in

America; or, Several Poems compiled with great variety of wit and learning, full of delight: wherein especially is contained a complete Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, Seasons

Chapter 32

18. Between three and four years after her death, Bradstreet married for his

second wife Anne, daughter of Emmanuel Downing, and widow of Captain Joseph Gardiner. She was a sister of Sir George Downing, ambassador for Cromwell and Charles II. in Holland. Their marriage is thus noted by Bradstreet

Chapter 33

20. Griswold’s Female Poets of America, p. 17.

-- 218 of 478 -- ANNE MARBURY, WIFE OF WILLIAM HUTCHINSON. Monergism Books -- 219 of 478 -- F rom the part she played on the theatre of the Massachusetts colony, the subject of this notice has obtained an imperishable

Chapter 34

11. Thomas Shepherd, minister of Cambridge, in describing these new

heresies, says, “The principal opinion and seed of all the rest was this, viz., that a Christian should not take any evidence of God’s special grace and love towards him by the sight of any graces, or conditional evangel

Chapter 35

22. Mather’s Magnalia.

-- 238 of 478 -- T his synodical assembly had done little if anything in the way of pouring oil upon the troubled waters. During its sittings Mrs. Hutchinson continued to hold her meetings, in which she inculcated her o

Chapter 36

15. This child remained a prisoner with the Indians four years, when she

was rescued and restored to her friends by the Dutch governor at New York. He generously sent a vessel into Connecticut river, where its captain, having contrived to get several Pequots on board, secured them as prisoner

Chapter 37

18. American Biog. new series, vol. xvi. p. 348–370.

-- 260 of 478 -- T he subject of this sketch was a confessor and martyr for Quaker principles in New England, and her name and story are embalmed with honour in the annals of the sect to which she belonged. It is painfu

Chapter 38

15. Decline and Fall, chap. liv.

-- 283 of 478 -- A NNE VERE, as we have already seen, was the fourth daughter of Horatio Lord Vere, by his wife Mary Tracey. Of the first period of her life little is known, save that she was brought up for some time in

Chapter 39

20. Miss Strickland’s Queens of England, vol. viii. p. 161. Bradshaw’s wife

showed a similar sympathy for the unhappy monarch. “On the morning of the fourth and last day, the day of condemnation, she rushed into her husband’s chamber at Westminster, where he had been lodged for safety and conven

Chapter 40

30. Some alleged, but the allegation may have had no foundation, “that my

Lady Vere made the match, and went purposely with four ministers in a coach with her into Yorkshire, to persuade you [Lord Fairfax] to it.”— -- 315 of 478 -- Letter to Lord Fairfax by an unknown person, in Thurloe’s St

Chapter 41

33. He “had in his prosperity £25,000 a year in England and Ireland. Mr.

Traylman, that was surveyor-general, and his servant, told me so. June, 1653.”—Extract from one of Richard Symonds’s pocket-books, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British museum, no. 991; quoted in Gentleman’s M

Chapter 42

34. De Grammont styles her a “short, fat body;” and the old Lady de

Longuevelle, who lived to be near 100 years old, and who had seen her in her youth, “describes her,” says Bishop Percy in his MS. notes to Lang- baine, “as a little round crumpled woman, very fond of finery. She re- memb

Chapter 43

46. Fairfax Corresp. vol. iv. p. 240.

-- 317 of 478 -- E LIZABETH STEWARD, or STUART, was the daughter of William Steward, Esq., in Ely, a man of wealth, who farmed the church tithes and lands around that city, and who was descended from the same stock with

Chapter 44

1810. His mother as well as his wife and sisters were no doubt often present

at these conventicles. In the year 1631 Mrs. Cromwell, to enable Oliver to engage in farming operations on a somewhat extended scale, concurred with him in the sale of certain houses, lands, and tithes which had belonged

Chapter 45

3. Sir Henry, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in the year 1563, was

the eldest son and heir of Sir Richard Cromwell, Knight, whose father’s name was Morgan Williams,.a Welsh gentleman of respectable property, and whose mother was a sister of the famous Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the

Chapter 46

5. The records of Robert Cromwell’s purchase of the brewery and of its

management are still in existence. The house continued to stand till 1810, when, to make way for extensive improvements, it was demolished. Previously to that date the chamber in which the Protector was born, which had r

Chapter 47

10. The following is a list of her daughters:— 1. Joan, baptized Sept. 24,

1592; died 1600. 2. Elizabeth, baptized Oct. 14, 1593; died unmarried, it is supposed in 1672, at Ely. 3. Catharine, baptized Feb. 7, 1596-7; married first to Roger Whetstone, a parliamentary officer, next to Colonel Joh

Chapter 48

11. The various properties specified in the deed of sale, which is dated May

7, 1631, and which are represented as now or lately in the possession of “Elizabeth Cromwell, widow,” or her son Oliver Cromwell, are “the capital messuage called the Augustine Friars, within the borough or town of Hunti

Chapter 49

16. Noble, writing 1784, describes a portrait of Mrs. Cromwell at

Hinchinbrook House, which, if we may judge of the qualities of the mind from physiognomy, confirms what history records of her worth. It represents her in the middle of life. The countenance is engaging and unassuming, w

Chapter 50

21. See the warrant and the list of the names of the persons, amounting to

twenty-one, whose corpses were ordered to be disinterred, in Collectanea Topographica Britannica, vol. viii. p. 152. In the list, besides Mrs. Elizabeth Cromwell, are “Sir William Constable, Mrs. Desborough, Anne Fleetwo

Chapter 51

1620. At their marriage Elizabeth was about twenty-four years of age, and

Cromwell upwards of twenty-one. She is said to have brought him a considerable fortune, and three days after the marriage he entered into a defeasance of statute staple to Thomas Morley, 1 citizen and leather seller, Lon

Chapter 52

1654. This day the bedchamber, and the rest of the lodgings and rooms

appointed for the lord-protector in Whitehall, were prepared, for his highness to remove from the Cockpit, on the morrow.”— “His highness the lord-protector, with his lady and family, this day (April 14), dined at Whiteh

Chapter 53

30. Echard’s Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 803. “This,” says Echard, “came

from the mouth of the Duchess of Lauderdale, who told the same to a person, of whose credit and reputation I can make no question.” The truth of this anecdote is confirmed by what Bamfield, one of Cromwell’s spies, write

Chapter 54

43. Her daughters, after Cromwell was declared Protector, “resided chiefly

in apartments in one of the palaces, and such attention was paid to them by foreign princes and states, that their ambassadors constantly paid their compliments to these ladies, both when they came into or left the kingd

Chapter 55

47. Mr. Hancock (Broderick) in a letter to Sir Edward Hyde, dated

December, 1659, says, “Vane, with a rude compliment, commended Mrs. Lambert’s piety, asking her (who, during her husband’s friendship to him, was of his congregation), whether she was yet arrived at that state of grace

Chapter 56

49. Clarendon’s State Papers, vol. iii. p. 329.

-- 360 of 478 -- D uring the course of the year 1658, a series of domestic trials came upon the Protectress in rapid succession. That terrible messenger, which enters every palace as it does every cottage, entered her r

Chapter 57

3. This detail is given in “A Collection of several Passages concerning

Oliver Cromwell’s sickness, by one who was the Groom of his Bedchamber. London, 1659.” The author was not Maidstone, steward of Cromwell’s household, as some have asserted, but Underwood. Thurloe, in a letter to Henry Cr

Chapter 58

19. Entitled, “The Case is altered, or Dreadful News from Hell. In a

Discourse between the Ghost of this grand traitor and tyrant Oliver Cromwell, and Sir Reverence my Lady Joan his wife, at their late meeting near the scaffold on Tower-hill. With his Epitaph written in Hell on all the gr

Chapter 59

22. Noble’s Memoirs, &c. vol. i. p. 151–163.

-- 380 of 478 -- M ARY LOVE does not appear on the page of history until her husband became obnoxious to the parliament from his complicity in a plot for the restoration of Charles II. Hitherto she had quietly adorned t

Chapter 60

6. Love’s Name Lives, p. 1. This work was printed at London in 1651. The

name neither of printer nor publisher is given. The publisher in an address “To the Reader,” says, “There are several letters published entitled ‘Love’s Letters,’ pretended to have passed between Mr. Love and his wife; w

Chapter 61

17. It has been affirmed by some historians that Cromwell, in answer to the

parliament, despatched a letter recommending that Love should be re- prieved for a considerable time, and, upon security of future good behaviour from him and his party, at last pardoned, lest the English Presbyterians s

Chapter 62

28. Reliquæ Baxterianæ, part i. p. 67.

-- 404 of 478 -- B RIDGET CROMWELL was the sixth child and eldest daughter of Oliver Cromwell, by his wife Elizabeth Bourchier. She was baptized at St. John’s church in Huntingdon, August 5, 1624. Like her sisters and b

Chapter 63

13. Evelyn, the ultra-royalist, in his Memoirs (vol. ii. p. 48), has given a full

account of the solemnity, beginning thus: “March 6. Saw the magnificent funeral of that arch-rebel Ireton carried in pomp from Somerset House to Westminster.” A magnificent tomb, adorned with the effigies of Ireton and h

Chapter 64

18. Cromwell succeeded by a well-contrived ruse in divesting Lambert of

his place as Lord-deputy of Ireland. His own commission as Lord-lieu- tenant of Ireland, dated June 23, 1649, which extended only to three years, being on the point of expiring, he opposed in parliament its renewal, de-

Chapter 65

34. Baxter’s MSS. quoted in Orme’s Life of Baxter, p. 153. Yet too much

ought not to be made of these censures. It must ever be kept in mind that the disorders and scandals, the licentiousness and impiety which have so often disgraced courts, had no place in the court of Cromwell. The stan d

Chapter 66

38. The reference here is to a petition addressed to the parliament, signed by

many officers of the army. It was agreed upon at London by the officers of that brigade commanded by Colonel Lambert, and then sent down to Derby to obtain signatures, after which it was to be returned to London, as if i

Chapter 67

39. Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 293, 294.

40. “Mr. Nathaniel Carter of Yearmouth, and Mrs. Mary Fleetwood, married Feb. 21, 1677–8.”—Register of parish of Newington, quoted in Lysons’ Environs of London, vol. iii. p. 299. Noble supposes that Mary Fleetwood was a

Chapter 68

43. Ibid. vol. iii. p. 299.

-- 431 of 478 -- E LIZABETH CROMWELL, the second daughter of Oliver Cromwell by his wife, Elizabeth Bourchier, was baptized July 2, 1629, at St. John’s Church in Huntingdon. She was married in 1646 in the seventeenth ye

Chapter 69

3. Memorials, p. 675. “There is a medal in silver of Lady Claypole,” says

Noble; “it shows the profile of a very handsome woman, with a commanding, yet obliging countenance, such as bespeaks a great and affable person; it is highly relieved, and in a fine taste; the medal is become very scarce

Chapter 70

6. The allusion here is to the now obsolete rustic customs of Whitsun ales

and May games, once very popular in England. Whitsun ales were the feasts held upon the holidays at Whitsuntide, accompanied with athletic games, dances, minstrelsy, and such sports and diversions as were common in those

Chapter 71

37. Elenchus Motuum Nuperorum, p. 327. Other historians have

paraphrased or improved upon Clarendon and Bates’s account. Heath’s version in his Flagellum (p. 186), a work written in the bitterest spirit of hostility to Cromwell, is, that the execution of Slingsby and Dr. Hewett “s

Chapter 72

38. Whitelocke and Ludlow are entirely silent as to these alleged

accusations of Cromwell by his daughter Lady Claypole when on her deathbed. From this some have concluded that the assertion that she uttered them has no foundation in truth (Oliver Cromwell’s Memoirs of the Protector, p

Chapter 73

48. Dart, in his Hist. of St. Peter’s Westminster (vol. ii. p. 144), asserts that

after the restoration of Charles II., her remains were disinterred and removed from Henry VII.’s Chapel. Her name, however, does not appear in the list of the names of those buried in the Abbey during the interregnum, th

Chapter 74

50. Lysons’ Environs of London, vol. iv. p. 224.

-- 469 of 478 -- N o. I.—(p. 6). Letter of Lady Bacon to Lord Burghley, praying that the Puritans might be allowed to show their Reasons before her Majesty or the Lords of Council. “Feb. 26, 1584. “I KNOW well, mine esp

Chapter 75

5. This letter, which bears internal evidence of being a forgery, and which

we give nearly entire, is printed in a tract, entitled A True and Faithful Narrative of Oliver Cromwell’s compact with the Devil, &c., p. 9-12; and it is said to be “faithfully copied from the original found in the Lord

Chapter 76

6. The reference here is to a story invented by the cavaliers, and told at

length in the tract mentioned in the preceding foot-note, to the effect, that on September 3, 1651, Cromwell entered into compact with the devil for fourteen years, as he himself alleged, but only for seven years as the