CHAPTER II. THE PURITANS AND THE LADY ARBELLA
BUT before relating the adventures of the chairs found it necessary to speak of circumstances that caused the first settlement of New England. For it will soon be perceived that the story of this remarkable chair cannot be told without telling a great deal of the history of the country.
So Grandfather talked about the Puritans, {Foot Note: It is more precise to give the name of Pilgrims to those Englishmen who went to Holland and afterward to Plymouth. They were sometimes called Separatists because they separated themselves from the church of England, sometimes Brownists after the name of one of their eminent ministers. The Puritans formed a great political as well as religious party in England, and did not at first separate themselves from the church of England, though those who came to this country did so at once.} as those persons were called who thought it sinful to practise certain religious forms and ceremonies of the Church of England. These Puritans suffered so much persecuted in England that, in 1607, many of them went over to Holland, and lived ten or twelve years at Amsterdam and Leyden. But they feared that, if they continued there much longer, they should cease to be England, and should adopt all the manners, and ideas, and feelings of the Dutch. For this and other reasons, in the year 1620 they embarked on board the ship Mayflower, and crossed the ocean, to the shores of Cape Cod. There they made a settlement, and called it Plymouth, which, though now a part of Massachusetts, was for a long time a colony by itself. And thus was formed the earliest settlement of the Puritans in America.
Meantime, those of the Puritans who remained in England continued to suffer grievous persecution on account of their religious opinions. They began to look around them for some spot where they might worship God, not as the king and bishops thought fit, but according to the dictates of their own consciences. When their brethren had gone from Holland to America, they bethought themselves that they likewise might find refuge from persecution there. Several gentlemen among them purchased a tract of country on the coast of Massachusetts Bay, and obtained a charter from King Charles, which authorized them to make laws for the settlers. In the year 1628 they sent over a few people, with John Endicott at their bead, to commence a plantation at Salem. {Foot Note: The Puritans had a liking for Biblical names for their children, and they sometimes gave names out of the Bible to places, Salem means Peace. The Indian name was Naumkeag.} Peter Palfrey, Roger Conant, and one or two more had built houses there in 1626, and may be considered as the first settlers of that ancient town. Many other Puritans prepared to follow Endicott.
“And now we come to the chair, my dear children,” said Grandfather. “This chair is supposed to have been made of an oak-tree which grew in the park of the English Earl of Lincoln between two and three centuries ago. In its younger days it used, probably, to stand in the hall of the earl’s castle. Do not you see the coat of arms of the family of Lincoln carved in the open work of the back? But when his daughter, the Lady Arbella, was married to a certain Mr. Johnson, the earl gave her this valuable chair.”
“Who was Mr. Johnson?” inquired Clara.
“He was a gentleman of great wealth, who agreed with the Puritans in their religious opinions,” answered Grandfather. “And as his belief was the same as theirs, he resolved that he would live and die with them. Accordingly, in the month of April, 1630, he left his pleasant abode and all his comforts in England, and embarked, with Lady Arbella, on board of a ship bound for America.”
As Grandfather was frequently impeded by the questions and observations of his young auditors, we deem it advisable to omit all such prattle as is not essential to the story. We have taken some pains to find out exactly what Grandfather said, and here offer to our readers, as nearly as possible in his own words, the story of the Lady Arbella.
The ship in which Mr. Johnson and his lady embarked, taking Grandfather’s chair along with them, was called the Arbella, in honor of the lady herself. A fleet of ten or twelve vessels, with many hundred passengers, left England about the same time; for a multitude of people, who were discontented with the king’s government and oppressed by the bishops, were flocking over to the New World. One of the vessels in the fleet was that same Mayflower which had carried the Puritan Pilgrims to Plymouth. And now, my children, I would have you fancy yourselves in the cabin of the good ship Arbella; because, if you could behold the passengers aboard that vessel, you would feel what a blessing and honor it was for New England to have such settlers. They were the best men and women of their day.
Among the passengers was John Winthrop, who had sold the estate of his forefathers, and was going to prepare a new home for his wife and children in the wilderness. He had the king’s charter in his keeping, and was appointed the first governor of Massachusetts. Imagine him a person of grave and benevolent aspect, dressed in a black velvet suit, with a broad ruff around his neck, and a peaked beard upon his chin. {Foot Note: There is a statue representing John Winthrop in Scollay Square in Boston. He holds the charter in his hand, and a Bible is under his arm.} There was likewise a minister of the gospel whom the English bishops had forbidden to preach, but who knew that he should have liberty both to preach and pray in the forests of America. He wore a black cloak, called a Geneva cloak, and had a black velvet cap, fitting close to his head, as was the fashion of almost all the Puritan clergymen. In their company came Sir Richard Saltonstall, who had been one of the five first projectors of the new colony. He soon returned to his native country. But his descendants still remain in New England; and the good old family name is as much respected in our days as it was in those of Sir Richard.
Not only these, but several other men of wealth and pious ministers were in the cabin of the Arbella. One had banished himself forever from the old hall where his ancestors had lived for hundreds of years. Another had left his quiet parsonage, in a country town of England. Others had come from the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, where they had gained great fame for their learning. And here they all were, tossing upon the uncertain and dangerous sea, and bound for a home that was more dangerous than even the sea itself. In the cabin, likewise, sat the Lady Arbella in her chair, with a gentle and sweet expression on her face, but looking too pale and feeble to endure the hardships of the wilderness.
Every morning and evening the Lady Arbella gave up her great chair to one of the ministers, who took his place in it and read passages from the Bible to his companions. And thus, with prayers, and pious conversation, and frequent singing of hymns, which the breezes caught from their lips and scattered far over the desolate waves, they prosecuted their voyage, and sailed into the harbor of Salem in the month of June.
At that period there were but six or eight dwellings in the town; and these were miserable hovels, with roofs of straw and wooden chimneys. The passengers in the fleet either built huts with bark and branches of trees, or erected tents of cloth till they could provide themselves with better shelter. Many of them went to form a settlement at Charlestown. It was thought fit that the Lady Arbella should tarry in Salem for a time; she was probably received as a guest into the family of John Endicott. He was the chief person in the plantation, and had the only comfortable house which the newcomers had beheld since they left England. So now, children, you must imagine Grandfather’s chair in the midst of a new scene.
Suppose it a hot summer’s day, and the lattice-windows of a chamber in Mr. Endicott’s house thrown wide open. The Lady Arbella, looking paler than she did on shipboard, is sitting in her chair, and thinking mournfully of far-off England. She rises and goes to the window. There, amid patches Of garden ground and cornfield, she sees the few wretched hovels of the settlers, with the still ruder wigwams and cloth tents of the passengers who had arrived in the same fleet with herself. Far and near stretches the dismal forest of pine-trees, which throw their black shadows over the whole land, and likewise over the heart of this poor lady.
All the inhabitants of the
