Boston martyrs
Encyclopedia
The Boston martyrs is the name given in Quaker tradition to the three English
members of the Society of Friends, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer
, and to the Friend William Leddra of Barbados
, who were condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
in 1659, 1660 and 1661. Several other Friends lay under sentence of death at Boston in the same period, but had their punishments commuted to that of being whipped out of the colony from town to town.
"The hanging of Mary Dyer on the Boston gallows in 1660 marked the beginning of the end of the Puritan theocracy
and New England independence from English rule. In 1661 King Charles II
explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism. In 1684 England revoked the Massachusetts charter, sent over a royal governor to enforce English laws in 1686, and in 1689 passed a broad Toleration act."
The settlement of Boston
was founded by Puritan
chartered colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under John Winthrop
, and acquired the name of Boston soon after the arrival of the Winthrop Fleet in 1630. It was named after Boston, Lincolnshire
in England. During the 1640s, as the English Civil War
reached its climax, the founder of English Quakerism George Fox
(1624–1691) discovered his religious vocation. Under the Puritan English Commonwealth led by Oliver Cromwell
, the Quakers in England were persecuted, and during the 1650s various parties of Quakers left England as 'Publishers of Truth'.
was an English Puritan living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Boston. In 1637 she supported Anne Hutchinson
, who believed that God 'spoke directly to individuals' and not only through the clergy. They began to organize groups for Bible study in contravention to Massachusetts Colony law, and for this 'Antinomian heresy' she and her husband William Dyer, Anne Hutchinson, and others were banished from the colony in January 1637/8. They removed to Portsmouth in the Rhode Island
colony together with the religious group they had formed.
In 1656 the Voyage of the Speedwell from England to Boston brought eight Quakers including Christopher Holder
and John Copeland. (Speedwell
was the ship which had first set out for the Americas with the Mayflower
in 1620, but was forced to return to Plymouth
having transferred her party of Pilgrims to the Mayflower.) As required by Boston law their arrival was notified, and they were brought immediately to court and imprisoned on the orders of Governor John Endecott
, under sentence of banishment. While they were in prison Mary Dyer and Anne Burden arrived in Boston and were also imprisoned. After eleven weeks Holder, Copeland and the other six Quakers of the Speedwell were deported to England, but they immediately took steps to return.
Quay, Yorkshire
, England, made land at Long Island. With encouraging intuitions, five were put ashore at the Dutch
plantation of New Amsterdam
(New York
), namely Robert Hodgson, Richard Doudney, Sarah Gibbons, Mary Weatherhead and Dorothy Waugh.
Mary Dyer, who had gone back to England with Roger Williams
and John Clarke (1609-1676)
in 1652, had there heard the ministry of George Fox and became a Friend, and she and her husband also returned to Rhode Island in 1657. Holder and Copeland returned to Massachusetts and met with and convinced other Friends in Sandwich
and other towns, but were arrested at Salem
by Endecott and imprisoned for several months. They were released, but in April 1658 were rearrested at Sandwich and whipped. In June they went to Boston and were again arrested, and Holder's right ear was cut off as a judicial penalty. Katherine Scott, Anne Hutchinson's sister, spoke up for them and was imprisoned and whipped.
in England in 1655, when he felt what he believed to be the love and presence of the living God as he followed the plough. Leaving his family to the Lord's care, he followed the divine prompting to Barbados in June 1658, and after some time there he heard of the new Massachusetts law and passed over to Rhode Island. There he met William Robinson, another Friend from the company of the Woodhouse, and in June 1659 with two others they went into the Massachusetts colony to protest at their laws. Mary Dyer went for the same purpose. The three were arrested and banished, but Robinson and Stephenson returned and were again imprisoned. Mary Dyer went back to protest at their treatment, and was also imprisoned. In October 1659, Endecott, as per the instruction of the law previously passed, pronounced sentence of death upon the three.
.
Mary Dyer
also stepped up the ladder, her face was covered and the halter put round her neck, when the cry was raised, "Stop! for she is reprieved." She was again banished, but returned in May 1660. Since her reprieve others, both colonists and visiting Friends, had brought themselves within the capital penalty, but the authorities had not ventured to enforce it. After ten days Endecott, at the bidding of the courts, sent for her, and asked her if she were the same Mary Dyer who had been there before. On her avowing this, the death sentence was passed and executed. Another Friend, William Leddra of Barbados, was executed on 14 March 1661.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
members of the Society of Friends, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer
Mary Dyer
Mary Baker Dyer was an English Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony , for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony...
, and to the Friend William Leddra of Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
, who were condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
in 1659, 1660 and 1661. Several other Friends lay under sentence of death at Boston in the same period, but had their punishments commuted to that of being whipped out of the colony from town to town.
"The hanging of Mary Dyer on the Boston gallows in 1660 marked the beginning of the end of the Puritan theocracy
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
and New England independence from English rule. In 1661 King Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism. In 1684 England revoked the Massachusetts charter, sent over a royal governor to enforce English laws in 1686, and in 1689 passed a broad Toleration act."
Boston origins
History of Boston, Massachusetts
The history of Boston plays a central role in the American history. In 1630, Puritan colonists from England founded the city, which quickly became the political, commercial, financial, religious, and educational center of the New England region. The American Revolution erupted in Boston, as the...
was founded by Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
chartered colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under John Winthrop
John Winthrop
John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of...
, and acquired the name of Boston soon after the arrival of the Winthrop Fleet in 1630. It was named after Boston, Lincolnshire
Boston, Lincolnshire
Boston is a town and small port in Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. It is the largest town of the wider Borough of Boston local government district and had a total population of 55,750 at the 2001 census...
in England. During the 1640s, as the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
reached its climax, the founder of English Quakerism George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
(1624–1691) discovered his religious vocation. Under the Puritan English Commonwealth led by Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
, the Quakers in England were persecuted, and during the 1650s various parties of Quakers left England as 'Publishers of Truth'.
Mary Dyer's early work
Mary DyerMary Dyer
Mary Baker Dyer was an English Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony , for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony...
was an English Puritan living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Boston. In 1637 she supported Anne Hutchinson
Anne Hutchinson
Anne Hutchinson was one of the most prominent women in colonial America, noted for her strong religious convictions, and for her stand against the staunch religious orthodoxy of 17th century Massachusetts...
, who believed that God 'spoke directly to individuals' and not only through the clergy. They began to organize groups for Bible study in contravention to Massachusetts Colony law, and for this 'Antinomian heresy' she and her husband William Dyer, Anne Hutchinson, and others were banished from the colony in January 1637/8. They removed to Portsmouth in the Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
colony together with the religious group they had formed.
Voyage of the Speedwell
Christopher Holder
Christopher Holder was an Anglo-American Quaker minister who was persecuted in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his beliefs.-Early life:...
and John Copeland. (Speedwell
Speedwell (ship)
The Speedwell was a 60-ton ship, the smaller of the two ships intended to carry the Pilgrim Fathers to North America...
was the ship which had first set out for the Americas with the Mayflower
Mayflower
The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, , in 1620...
in 1620, but was forced to return to Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
having transferred her party of Pilgrims to the Mayflower.) As required by Boston law their arrival was notified, and they were brought immediately to court and imprisoned on the orders of Governor John Endecott
John Endecott
John Endecott was an English colonial magistrate, soldier and the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. During all of his years in the colony but one, he held some form of civil, judicial, or military high office...
, under sentence of banishment. While they were in prison Mary Dyer and Anne Burden arrived in Boston and were also imprisoned. After eleven weeks Holder, Copeland and the other six Quakers of the Speedwell were deported to England, but they immediately took steps to return.
Voyage of the Woodhouse
In July 1657 the second party of Quakers for Massachusetts (including six that had been aboard the Speedwell), in the Voyage of the Woodhouse, undertaken by her owner Robert Fowler of BridlingtonBridlington
Bridlington is a seaside resort, minor sea fishing port and civil parish on the Holderness Coast of the North Sea, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It has a static population of over 33,000, which rises considerably during the tourist season...
Quay, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, England, made land at Long Island. With encouraging intuitions, five were put ashore at the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
plantation of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
(New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
), namely Robert Hodgson, Richard Doudney, Sarah Gibbons, Mary Weatherhead and Dorothy Waugh.
Confrontations with Governor Endecott
Roger Williams (theologian)
Roger Williams was an English Protestant theologian who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Providence Plantation, which provided a refuge for religious minorities. Williams started the first Baptist church in America,...
and John Clarke (1609-1676)
John Clarke (1609-1676)
John Clarke was a medical doctor, Baptist minister, co-founder of the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, author of its influential charter, and a leading advocate of religious freedom in the Americas....
in 1652, had there heard the ministry of George Fox and became a Friend, and she and her husband also returned to Rhode Island in 1657. Holder and Copeland returned to Massachusetts and met with and convinced other Friends in Sandwich
Sandwich, Massachusetts
Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 20,675 at the 2010 census. The Town Hall is located right next to the Dexter Grist Mill, in the historic district of town....
and other towns, but were arrested at Salem
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
by Endecott and imprisoned for several months. They were released, but in April 1658 were rearrested at Sandwich and whipped. In June they went to Boston and were again arrested, and Holder's right ear was cut off as a judicial penalty. Katherine Scott, Anne Hutchinson's sister, spoke up for them and was imprisoned and whipped.
Boston law against Quakers
At the end of 1658 the Massachusetts legislature, by a bare majority, enacted a law that every member of the sect of Quakers who was not an inhabitant of the colony but was found within its jurisdiction should be apprehended without warrant by any constable and imprisoned, and on conviction as a Quaker, should be banished upon pain of death, and that every inhabitant of the colony convicted of being a Quaker should be imprisoned for a month, and if obstinate in opinion should be banished on pain of death. Some Friends were arrested and expelled under this law.Stephenson and Robinson
Marmaduke Stephenson had been a ploughman in YorkshireYorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
in England in 1655, when he felt what he believed to be the love and presence of the living God as he followed the plough. Leaving his family to the Lord's care, he followed the divine prompting to Barbados in June 1658, and after some time there he heard of the new Massachusetts law and passed over to Rhode Island. There he met William Robinson, another Friend from the company of the Woodhouse, and in June 1659 with two others they went into the Massachusetts colony to protest at their laws. Mary Dyer went for the same purpose. The three were arrested and banished, but Robinson and Stephenson returned and were again imprisoned. Mary Dyer went back to protest at their treatment, and was also imprisoned. In October 1659, Endecott, as per the instruction of the law previously passed, pronounced sentence of death upon the three.
Executions at Boston Common
The execution day was Thursday 27 October (the usual weekly meeting day for the Church in Boston) 1659, and the gallows stood on Boston Common. They spoke as they were led there, but their words were drowned out by the sound of drums. After they had taken leave of one another, William Robinson first ascended the ladder. He told the people it was their day of visitation, and desired them to mind the light within them, the light of Christ, his testimony for which he was going to seal with his blood. At this the Puritan minister shouted "Hold thy tongue, thou art going to die with a lie in thy mouth." The rope was adjusted, and, as the executioner turned the condemned man off, he said with his dying breath, "I suffer for Christ, in whom I live and for whom I die." Then Marmaduke Stephenson stepped up the ladder and said "Be it known unto all this day that we suffer not as evil-doers, but for conscience sake." He was turned off the gallows, saying "This day shall we be at rest with the Lord." In memory of this, October 27 is now International Religious Freedom Day to recognize the importance of Freedom of religionFreedom of religion
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...
.
Mary Dyer's and William Leddra's executions
Mary Dyer
Mary Baker Dyer was an English Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony , for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony...
also stepped up the ladder, her face was covered and the halter put round her neck, when the cry was raised, "Stop! for she is reprieved." She was again banished, but returned in May 1660. Since her reprieve others, both colonists and visiting Friends, had brought themselves within the capital penalty, but the authorities had not ventured to enforce it. After ten days Endecott, at the bidding of the courts, sent for her, and asked her if she were the same Mary Dyer who had been there before. On her avowing this, the death sentence was passed and executed. Another Friend, William Leddra of Barbados, was executed on 14 March 1661.
The King's Missive, and Wenlock Christison's words
Others lay in prison awaiting sentence but were set at liberty, and a new law was passed substituting whipping out of the colony from town to town. Shortly after, the 'King's Missive' reached Boston and showed the royal disapproval of the policy of persecution. When the last Friend to be condemned to death (Wenlock Christison, afterwards released) had received his sentence, he had said:
Do not think to weary out the living God by taking away the lives of his servants. What do you gain by it? For the last man you put to death, here are five come in his room. And if you have power to take my life from me God can raise up the same principle of life in ten of His servants and send them among you in my room.
External links
- WomensNews biography of Mary Dyer
- Mary Dyer: A Quaker Martyr
- Trials without Justice: Mary Dyer
- http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=r36UlDFwaqwC&dq=plimpton+%22mary+dyer%22&pg=PP1&ots=2PNi7T4TWw&sig=ei7qbWwglUJhno9fxOlH33rRGYg&prev=http://www.google.co.uk/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dplimpton%2B%2522mary%2Bdyer%2522%26meta%3D&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPP1,M1Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker by Ruth Talbot Plimpton (1994) (GoogleBooks, accessed 27 November 2007)]