This was a particularly chaotic and violent era in British history. From the era of Henry VIII onward, the monarchs fought to bring the nation out of the last holds of the “Dark Ages” by dissolving the archaic feudal system, which would enable them to gain central control over its lands and resources. The institution of the Catholic Church had arrived in much of Northern Europe, and subsequently, the British Isles, with Charlemagne and his conquests during the 800′s as a result of his creation of the Holy Roman Empire.
In conjunction with the use of military force and coercion, the Emperor utilized the Catholic Church’s message of Christian brotherhood, conformity and cohesion to bring order to a region populated by small scattered, tribal communities . Those who accepted this romanized Christian message did so either as an act of self-preservation from hunger and pain in suffering, or to fulfill a deep seated need to serve something perceived greater than themselves; one motivation submitted them to the political machinery of the Roman Empire, the other into obedience of the authoritative self-proclaimed voice of God.
Social and civil order within the region was established by the efforts of this powerful marriage. Communication , cooperation, infrastructure and most importantly, commerce, was greatly enhanced. With the establishment of law, an educational system became a requirement, therefore universities of classical learning were created. Those who were permitted to attend were trained generally either in the field of law as administrators and magistrates to perpetuate the political ideals of the Roman Empire or in religion as monks and ecclesiastes to propagate the religious philosophy of the Catholic Church.
Disease, caused primarily by the serious lack of scientific understanding of personal and communal hygiene, spread via the commerce trade routes and quickly ravaged Europe. This, in effect, killed the power structure of the Roman Empire, leaving in its wake a vacuum to be filled by the Catholic Church. Throughout most of Europe, religion had quickly become the battlefield on which conflicting concepts were fought, so Britain’s goal was accomplished in part by declaring their independent sovereignty from the well established Roman Catholic Church for the influence of its people. In turn, the monarchy declared themselves the sole mediator between their subjects and God. But tragically, as is often the case with attempts for exclusive audience with God, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people perished in war, disease, persecution and poverty over the course of the next few centuries.
“Protestantism” is a Bible-based form of Christianity which had developed from Martin Luther‘s “95 Thesis” that challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic Papacy. As a young monk, he didn’t set out to revolutionize the world’s most powerful force; he simply defied the Church’s unspoken rule and meditated for himself the message of Jesus Christ as stated within the Bible. Upon doing so, he contemplated the obvious contradictions between what he personally perceived as truth and that which was propagated through the Catholic doctrine and rituals. He was compelled to confess his findings to the Church he loved by posting them upon the door . His statements, however, were officially regarded as heresy by the church authorities, but they did little to dissuade him for they saw little wisdom in making “much ado about nothing”, and prayed that “this too shall pass”.
This held true for a long time, as his ideas circulated only in quiet whispers within a small sequestered community, but as with any spark, it smoldered until it found adequate fuel and open air. Luther’s posits remained relatively unknown until the arrival of John Calvin a generation later. Calvin not only understood and agreed with Luther’s findings, but through his sermons at universities and chapels Luther’s intimations were about to manifest among the scholars as revolutionary philosophical proposals. But these changes were slow to trickle-down to the common lay-person, as the religiously disenchanted portion of the population was fearful of retribution from both the throne and from God.
The fear of “God’s Wrath” was reasonably dissolved when King Henry VIII openly defied the Roman Catholic Church by disassociating himself and, therefore, all of England, by creating the Anglican Church (The Church of England), however, they were not yet free to openly rejoice in their new found freedom. They were quick to realize through the merciless actions of those who remained in regional power and of the continuous cold-hearted treatment from much of the unwavering and intolerant population, that nothing so ancient and ingrained is effortlessly overcome. This was proven especially true when a member of new family of an opposing philosophy and religious perspective ascended to the throne and the official religion was subsequently reversed. In these violent times, those who were openly disobedient to the authority of the thrown were condemned persecuted, tortured and even put to death as religious heretics and political treasoners.
Another revolution of sorts was in its very infancy during this age of enlightenment and of classic learning. A frail and devout Roman Catholic frenchmen turned his attention inward in an effort to justify the teachings of the Church, and in doing so inadvertently established a logical system of thought considered by the Church hierarchy as blasphemous. Renes Descartes developed what is referred to today as “scientific methodology”. He cleared the path for logical investigation into the phenomenon of the physical and natural sciences, that “netherworld” which until then was expressed in terms of spirits, ghosts and the divine by the Christian and pagan cultures alike. The formulation of new ideas, concepts, tools and technology were no longer the brainchildren of the insane or divinely inspired, but of intelligent pragmatic men, such as Isaac Newton, who sought to overcome long term obstacles to progress, and it was with the moveable type printing press of Johann Gutenburg a century earlier that these ideas could easily be communicated.
With the Geneva Bible in hand, the frustrated English proponents of Calvinism had begun to splinter in the early 17th century and form two basic, separate and distinct religious communities; the Puritans and the Separatists. The Puritans accepted the established ecclesiastic authority and maintained its association with the Church of England, however they sought to “purify” it of the political corruption and the remaining vestiges of Catholicism. The Separatist “pilgrims“, on the other hand, were deemed radical by the mainstream English population, as they sought to create an entirely new Christian Church separate from both the King’s Church of England and the Catholic Church. King Charles I was increasingly frustrated by the conflicts stemming from the cultural changes these ‘fanatic’ religious communities brought to his country and cunningly realized the advantage of permitting them both to pursue their dreams to emigrate to the wilds of the North American continent for the sole purpose of religious liberty.
The Protestants would export back to mother England the fruit of their labor as repayment for their new found religious freedom in the New World.My earliest known Wing ancestor is Matthew Wynge, a prosperous tailor within the growing influential merchant class of English society, however, it is with his son, John Winge, that our lineage is heralded. Born in Banbury England in 1584 and educated at the Queen’s College of Oxford University, John became a clergyman of the established Anglican church at the age of 19. Shortly after accepting a full-time ministerial position, he married Deborah Bachiler, daughter of the controversial ex-Vicar of Wherwell, Reverend Stephen Bachiler. Harboring Protestant ideals during England’s tumultuous times, he was eventually offered the prestigious post of Reverend at the Hague Cathedral in the Netherlands and stood before Europe’s most influential aristocrats and intellects of that era, including an audience of “The Queen Of Hearts” Elisabeth Of Bohemia, daughter of England’s ruling Stuart King, James I. The King, Frederick V, & Queen Of Bohemia, along with two of their eight children, were forced into exile in 1622 by the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximillian, as a result of losing key military battles early in the Thirty Years War between the Protestants and Catholics which ravaged much of Europe.
Almost serendipitously, the eldest daughter of Frederick and Elisabeth, named Elisabeth of Palatine, remained with her grandmother as a child, and later as an adult, grew to become the one of the first women recognized as a philosopher. She maintained an amicable 40 year relationship with Renes Descartes, primarily through personal letters, as his intellectual adversary. In later years she is known to have befriended George Fox and advocated his philosophy; the relevance of which we will come to appreciate later on. The proximity to Fredrick V brought Rev John Winge under the close scrutiny of the Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud and became cause for official international correspondence between the diplomats of England and Holland. A few of Rev John Winge’s sermons, undoubtedly heard by the banished royal family, were published as a set of five books considered by many as being controversial for the day. One of the books is currently held at John Adams Library of the Boston Museum. Three others are currently held by The British Museum, and the fifth, “The Crown Conjugal“, which was published in 1620, is an often quoted revolutionary Puritan tract advocating the spiritual equality of women. It was gratefully received from a private collector by the “Wing Family Of America” genealogical society during its 2008 annual National Family Reunion held at its ancestral home in Sandwich, Massachusetts. I not only had the distinct privilege of seeing first-hand the only existing 390 year-old original copy, but have since acquired possession of a facsimile copied from that 70+ page original.
The Separatists were the first of the religiously motivated, followed by the Puritans, to arrive in the Americas armed with little more than faith in their convictions, limited provisions and the aid of different investors and land charters. These charters, legally binding contracts, were agreed upon by the investor group, the King, and the “Planters”, and they dictated the financial terms , the geographical boundaries of their particular proposed settlement, and established ground rules of governance. The Separatist “pilgrims“, with Richard Warren and young Resolved White among them, were anxious to set afoot on land as they realized that should they settle along Cape Cod where their vessel had stalled, their original patent and its trade agreements which specified their settling along the northern coast of Virginia would no longer apply; therefore, in 1620, they illegally drafted a civil contract while still aboard ship that would later be popularly (but mistakenly) referred to as the beginning of Democracy in America, “The Mayflower Compact“.
Many of England’s Protestant landed gentry class were in support of Frederick, King of Bohemia, and his fight against the oppression of the Holy Roman Empire. One such person was Theodiphilus Clinton, the fourth Earl of Lincoln in Sempringham, who in 1625, sought the advice of his estate steward and personal secretary, Thomas Dudley, on the feasibility of sending mercenary troops into the German region to fight in support of the exhiled King and his Puritan cause. Clinton, the one-time financially beleaguered Earl, once again heeded Dudley’s thoughtful advice, however, and chose not to become financially and politically entangled in the hopeless and brutal “world war”. The philanthropic Earl did eventually find historical prominence when, beginning in 1627, he informally hosted within his estate, a one-time monastery, the convening of liberal minded Puritans such as Roger Williams, Rev John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and others, to discuss the future of Puritanism and the potential for religious liberty to flourish within the wilds of America.
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John Nicolaus Rulice, a German minister who fled to England, wrote to John Cotton on 29 November 1628, talking about patronage he hoped to get:
“If I should ^stay^ in England, I thincke Kent were the place, God calleth me to: The people being very earnest, their necessity great, & my heart no (as it was) against, but if God should make way, for it. They were unwilling to let me to goe; but that they hope, my goeinge over may be a meanes of settling me amongst them. Two of their Knights, Maideston Burgesses, dwelling in the towne, great with the Arch Bishop have their sonnes in our Kings court at the Hage; & by their & Mr Wings (Cha{playne} to the queene of Bohemiah; ^&^ well Knowne to some of Maidestone) meanes, with a letter from an Ambassadour now in the Hage (; to whom I was first commended at my coming over, who is very great with the Archbishop) to the Arch Bishop; & specially Gods blessing they hope it may easily be brought about, that I be settled amongst them as a lecturer; without subscription”
(Sargent Bush, Jr., The Correspondence of John Cotton [2001], p. 130).
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John Winthrop, a renowned lawyer, accepted invitation to Sempringham explicitly to meet with Isaac Johnson, the future benefactor to “Winthrop’s Fleet” and husband of The Lady Arbella, Theodiphilus Clinton’s sister. It is quite probable this all initially occurred with the strong encouragement of, and with arrangements implemented by, Thomas Dudley. These meetings, held over the course of the next two years, resulted in the formation of the Massachusetts Bay Company charter. Penned by Dudley and Winthrop and signed by ten other men, including William Vassal, on August 29, 1629, it formally expressed their desired intention of establishing a New England colony founded in Puritanism, post haste, with Matthew Craddock as its Governor and John Humphrey as Deputy Governor. Oddly, none of the signers were clergy, but in fact, administrators, capitalists and lawyers. After much political financial and legal wrangling while still in England, the Massachusetts Bay Company, comprising of 127 investors representing approximately 300 families and led by John Winthrop, began settling the Boston Bay area in 1630 as a corporate colony.
Wisely foreseeing the need for labor and specialized craft and trade skills for the building of their new home in America, the Puritans and their investors permitted additional passage aboard their ships for select people not of the particular community or Church in exchange for basic but essential services needed to secure the success of the venture and the community. Those who had the means to invest hard-earned currency in such very high risk ventures were led to believe that they were in effect purchasing entitlements that they may not have otherwise enjoyed in England once landing upon dry land, but the political arrangements which secretly transpired aboard the “Lady Arbella” while in transit were such that their purchased liberties were all but ignored. They had become excluded from the decision making process in an intentionally altered theocracy, and under the narrowly interpreted Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company, the immigrants were coerced into strictly adhering to the authority of its Governor, lawyer John Winthrop, who had ascended to the position following Matthew Craddock’s abrupt resignation due to conflicting philosophical differences just prior to embarking.With powerful supporters conveniently remaining in England, the corporation, in its political prowess, quickly and masterfully organized and began implementing many new laws, agencies and trade arrangements, so that by the 1650′s the Massachusetts Bay Colony became a wholly successful and nearly autonomous political entity.
Rev John Winge had recently returned to England, but died in London at the age of 45 from a long term illness, which he alluded to in his letters, the very same year the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter was signed.
“…no hand but Gods should have withholden myne; but such was the infirmity of myne owne body, that for divers days I could not write at all, and such is the sorrowful distraction of a sick family, that (as yet) I am neither able to write soe advisedly of my self as I would, nor goe abroad [word marked out] to sift out…Thus your Lo[rdshi]p hath the first f…ts of my recovered frailty, I am yet but feeble, and unfit for this, and unable to doe more, till God shall give me strength to travayle; which…”
[Letter written on Sept. 28 1624 to Britain’s Ambassador To Holland, Sir Dudley Carleton, in reply to the Ambassador’s inquiry into Rev John Winge’s knowledge of the "Amboyna Massacre"]
The circumstances precipitating the return of Rev. John Winge and his family to England are not specifically understood or well documented, however, it may be safe to assume that the ambitions of the family patriarch, Rev Stephen Bachiler, could have played a significant role in the decision; as even our forebear’s untimely death did not seem to dissuade the determined Bachiler from acting upon his political and religious desires. How incredibly frustrating it must have been, then, for the aging Rev Bachiler, a political maverick who in earlier years helped quietly spawn the Puritan revolution in England, to witness in irony the successful formation of companies led by men seemingly less inspired than his protégé.
One today can only imagine the dreams held in Rev Bachiler’s heart or dare conceive the political plans craftily conspired in his mind. Yet, as fanciful as they may seem to be, our playful ponderings would be neither unfounded nor unwarranted, because in London less than a year after the demise of Rev John Winge, the Rev Bachiler is documented as becoming instrumental in the financing for a colonizing company comprised mostly of businessmen and merchants believed to be even more philosophically liberal than those men who formed the Massachusetts Bay Company, known as the “Company of Husbandmen“.
Perhaps the only shortfall in the company’s dealings was in the establishment of sound political backing. Unlike the the Massachusetts Bay Company who had established a long-standing relationship with the Earl of Lincoln over the course of several years, they opportunistically sought the attention of feudal capitalist and fervent supporter of the throne, Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Gorges' sworn disdain for Puritanism placed him on the wrong side of a swelling political tide, however, his nearly 40 years experiments in colonization with his patents for Jamestown and Popham colonies must have undoubtedly been cautiously considered by the anxious Reverend and his "Company of Husbandmen".
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