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John Lathrop (Lowthrop) Born: 20 Dec 1584, Eton, Yorkshire, England
Marr: 10 Oct 1610, Eastwell, Kent, England
Died: 8 Nov 1653, Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts
Joan Hurst
Born: abt 1594, Eastwell, Kent, England
Died: 16 Feb 1633, Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts
Father of Prophets and Presidents
11th g-grandfather of Keith M. Chandler
Forbear of Prophets, Presidents, and Others
Keith W. Perkins
On 20 December 1584 a child was born at Etton, Yorkshire, England that would become the forebear of prophets, presidents, and of a mighty posterity-John Lothropp.1 Prominent among these world leaders was the Prophet Joseph Smith. It had been predicted for thousands of years that this great prophet of the dispensation of the fulness of times would come from a rich ancestral heritage. Father Lehi in blessing his son Joseph, told him what Joseph of Egypt had predicted:Yea, Joseph truly said: Thus saith the Lord unto me: A choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins; and he shall be esteemed highly among the fruit of thy loins. And unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of thy loins, his brethren, which shall be of great worth unto them, even to the bringing of them to the knowledge of the covenants which I have made with thy fathers. (2 Nephi 3:7)
Brigham Young put it even more plainly:
It was decreed in the counsels of eternity, long before the foundations of the earth were laid, that [Joseph Smith] should be the man, in the last dispensation of this world, to bring forth the word of God to the people, and receive the fulness of the keys and power of the Priesthood of the Son of God. The Lord had his eye upon him, and upon his father, and upon his father's father, and upon their progenitors, clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, and from the flood [p.34] to Enoch and from Enoch to Adam. He had watched that family and that blood as it has circulated from its fountain to the birth of that man.2
One of these ancestors selected to be the forebear of the Prophet Joseph Smith was John Lothropp, the sixth great-grandfather of Joseph Smith. He, like his illustrious descendant, would also suffer great persecution, spending not just months in a foul prison, but two years. Who was this great forebear of the Prophet Joseph Smith and other great leaders of this nation?
Not much is known of his early life until he entered Christ Church College, Oxford University as a plebeian at age eighteen. He transferred to Queens College at Cambridge, England, received his B.A. degree at age twenty-one and his Master's of Arts degree at age twenty-five.3 Since he was eighteen when he entered college, he would have been required to take the Oath of Supremacy. This oath, originally required under Henry VIII in his quarrel with Pope Clement VII, was restored under Elizabeth I in 1559. The Act of Supremacy abolished all papal power in favor of the monarch of the British Empire and established the king as the head of the church. Another important law at the time was the Act of Uniformity, which established the Anglican Prayer Book as the only legal form of worship. This would be the act used to suppress those who broke away from the Church of England and became Independents. It was this act that Lothropp, along with others, would be asked to sign at their court hearings.
The cause of John's transfer from Oxford to Cambridge may have been the religious climate at both universities. Although Oxford had at one time taken a more liberal view toward the Puritans, by the time Lothropp arrived, the wind had shifted to a more conservative view against the Puritans. Cambridge, on the other hand, was moving forward with a more liberal view toward dissenters against the Church of England. It had become the intellectual seat of this dissension. Although he was an Anglican [p.35] minister, it may have been at Cambridge that John developed his Puritan leanings and disposition.4
When he was twenty-three, he began his church service as a deacon in the Church of England at Bennington, Hertfordshire. By age twenty-five, after receiving his master's degree, he moved his residence to Kent, where he became curate, or minister, over the parish Church at Egerton, forty-eight miles southeast of London. The record of his assignment at Egerton is documented in an original manuscript written in Latin on parchment and housed at Canterbury Cathedral: "15 August 1610-license issued to John Lathrop, Clerk, M.A. to serve the cure of Souls at Egerton, Canterbury Diocese."5 His life also took on new meaning when he married Hannah Howse, the daughter of John and Alice Howse. Hannah not only married a clergyman in the Anglican Church, but she was the daughter of one as well. John Howse was the rector of the church at Eastwell. Egerton was a curacy to Eastwell, only a few miles away.
He served eleven years as clergyman at the Church of St. James in Egerton, where he baptized over two-hundred children, married the youth, and presided over the burials. It was here he also recorded the births of four of his own children: Jane, born 29 September 1614; Anne, born 12 May 1616; John, born 22 February 1617, and Barbara, born 31 October 1619. (Another son, Thomas, was born at Eastwell 21 February 1612/3.) According to William Urry, one-time archivist at Canterbury, this part of Kent may have been a hotbed of radical Separatism and dissent. It is known that Henry Jacob, the pastor of the Independent Church in London whom John Lothropp replaced as pastor, was from Kent.
Whatever the circumstances surrounding his break with the church of his youth, he had decided to make the break by age thirty-nine, with the resulting trial and persecution. In the Church of England he had security and status, both financial as well as emotional. There is no indication he was forced out of the Church; his decision [p.36] to leave was apparently his own. We are not certain when he left Egerton for London, but by 1624 he had replaced Henry Jacob as the pastor of the first Independent congregation in the Southwark part of London. Henry Jacob had previously left England for a home in Virginia.
Southwark, located across the Thames River from the city of London, attracted groups of people whose ways and thoughts were not in favor within the walls of the city of London. "No wonder…it became a center of religious dissent and the birthplace of an Independent Church," states Charles Leonard Lathrop.6
Henry Jacobs laid the foundation for the Independent Church that John Lothropp built on. Jacobs was probably the first person to use the term "Congregational." 7 We can gain a feeling for what John believed and taught at this stage of his life by reviewing some of the teachings of Henry Jacobs:
This church…[is] a number of faithful people joined, by their willing consent, in a spiritual outward society or body politic, ordinarily coming together in one place; instituted by Christ in the New Testament, and having the power to exercise ecclesiastical government, and all God's other spiritual ordinances, the means of salvation, in and for itself immediately from Christ.
The distinction of the Independents [is] that "each congregation is an entire and Independent body politic, and endued with power immediately under and from Christ, as every proper church is and ought to be."8
A minister who later succeeded Henry Jacobs and John Lothropp described the first organization of this little band of Independents:
Joining together they joined both hands each with [an]other Brother and stood in a Ringwise; their intent being declared, Henry Jacob and each of the Rest made some confessions or profession of their Faith and Repentance, (some were longer, some were briefer). Then they Covenanted together to walk in God's way as he had revealed or should make known to them.9
Having organized, the Independents hoped to avoid persecution by gaining permission from the King of England for the privilege of holding worship service with government sanction. Reverend Henry Jacobs had already felt the cruel hand of persecution earlier, which caused him to flee to Holland; but having returned to England in 1616, he hoped to avoid future persecution by making the following petition to King James I:
To meet for worship in the public places with peace and protection would be in this world the greatest blessing which our hearts desire, or which could come to us. But we dare not expect, neither do we ask so great a favor at your Majesty's hand; only that in private, peaceable, we might serve God with clear and quiet consciences…we in all lowliness crave but your toleration.10
We also gain from unfriendly authors some insight into the manner of their worship and appearance. Many things were published at the time to ridicule the dissenters as a people. Certainly they were considered the peculiar people of their day. Although these descriptions were written to defame, we can gain some insight into their worship from these sources.
To show their manner of assembling or dissembling…in that house were they intend to meet, there is one appointed to keep the door for the intent to give notice if there should be an insurrection, warning may be given them. They do not flock together, but come two or three in a company; and man may be admitted thither; and all being gathered together, the man appointed to teach stands in the midst of the room and his audience gather about him. He prayeth about the space of a half hour; and part of his prayer is that those which came thither to scoff and laugh, God would be pleased to turn their hearts; by which means they think to escape undiscovered. His sermon is about the space of an hour, and then doth another stand up to make the text plain; and at the latter end he entreats them to go home severally, lest the next meeting they should be interrupted by those who are of the opinion of the wicked. They seem very steadfast in their opinions, and say rather than they will turn, they will burn.11
This simple form of worship in contrast to the pomp and ceremony of the Church of England must have seemed ridiculous to these writers. Some went beyond ridicule to physical persecution. One of Reverend John Lothropp's followers gives us a description of this persecution as he left one of their meetings:
In the heat of the bishops severities we were forced to meet very early in the morning and continue together until night…. Meeting one Lord's day on Tower Hill, as I was coming out of the meeting, several rude fellows were about the door, and many stones were flung at me which did me no hurt.12
William Kifton, an early leader of the English Baptists, was a member of the church in Southwark during the pastorate of John Lothropp; he describes some of the persecution they faced and adds details about their meetings.
I joined myself to an independent congregation, being about twenty-two years of age, with a resolution as soon as it pleased God to open a way to New England, but the Providence of God prevented me; and in a better time it pleased God to provide for me a suitable yokefellow who was with me in judgment and who was joined to the same congregation with me. Being then in the heat of the Bishop's severities we were forced to meet very early in the morning and continue together till night, and amongst them, at their desire, I improved those small abilities God was pleased to give me, and although many times our meetings were disturbed yet I was kept out of the hands of the persecutor.13
Regional Studies, British Isles, Perkins-John Lothropp, p.38-39
One of the leaders against John Lothropp and the rest of the Puritans was William Laud, the Bishop of London. Bishop Laud became one of the most zealous attackers of the Puritans and their form of worship. He did much to restore to the Anglican Church a more formal and strict form of worship. He enforced a form of worship that was in strict accord with the Book of Common Prayer and other more ritualistic forms of worship. To the rest of the Protestants, these reforms imposed by Laud were a return [p.39] to popery. Daniel Neal has given this evaluation of Bishop Laud:
He was of low stature, ruddy countenance; his natural temper was severe and uncourtly, his spirit active and restless…. His conduct was rash and precipitate, for according to Dr. Heylin, he attempted more alterations in the Church in one year, than a prudent man would have done in many….
His maxims in the church were no less severe, for he sharpened the spiritual sword, and drew it against all sorts of offenders, intending…that the discipline of the church should be felt as well as spoken of. There has not been such a crowd of business in the high commission court since the reformation, nor so many large fines imposed, as under this prelates administration…
.
But with all his accomplishments, he was a cruel persecutor, as long as he was in power, and the chief incendiary in the war between the king and parliament, the calamities of which are in a great measure chargeable to him.14
Thus the scene was set for a dramatic confrontation between two strong men with equally strong religious beliefs-a confrontation that would end in very unpredictable consequences. Bishop Laud had Reverend John Lothropp arrested for his religious beliefs and confined him in prison; during Lothropp's prison stay, Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury, but was later arrested and finally beheaded for high treason.15 On the other hand, John Lothropp, imprisoned for his religious beliefs, would later be freed and go to America, where he became a great defender of his religious convictions and died of old age. But we are getting ahead of our story.
Back in the Southwark part of London, Lothropp was beginning his life as the head of the newly organized congregation of Independents. It is difficult for us this far removed from the day and time of Lothropp to determine how John and his family fared financially in London, compared to the comfortable life he enjoyed in Egerton. However, many of the Independents were of the "monied class, and others even members of the aristocracy who had Independent leanings"; thus he and his family's means [p.40] may have been adequate.16 From the High Commission proceedings when the Independents were brought to trial, members of Lothropp's congregation were identified as button makers, brewers, clerks, mariners, cobblers, weavers, grocers, joiners, tanners, upholsterers, hatters, butchers, millers, wheelwrights, and servants of the Queen.
We can best get a view of the belief and teachings of this group of Separatists from a book on the genealogy of the early Barnstable families:
They denounced Popery as the great harlot of Babylon; but they never denounced the doctrines of the church of England as anti-christian, or asserted that the parish churches were not true churches, and that the members thereof were not true christians-they warred against the forms and ceremonies that the English Church had borrowed from Rome, against its Bishops and Archbishops, its prelatical rule, and claim to bind men's consciences. They contented that the gospel should be preached in its purity, as it was in the apostolic times, before councils and synods and forged creeds, and that christians should "covenant with each other in the presence of Almighty God, to walk together in all God's ways and ordinances, according as He had already revealed, or should further make known unto them, and to forsake all false ways"; that man was not responsible to his fellow man in matters of conscience, but to God alone, and that the life is the evidence of faith, as the fruit is of the goodness of the tree."17
John was installed as the second pastor of the Independent Church in 1624. Early writers have left us no record of how he was installed. However, we may assume that he was installed as he later was at Scituate, Massachusetts, and as had been his predecessor Henry Jacob-by the election of his brethren, fasting and prayer, and by the laying on of hands.18 For eight years Reverend Lothropp served faithfully this congregation of believers. They met in various private homes in an attempt to avoid arrest and persecution. However, they were constantly under the threat of arrest, banishment, or death, as E. B. Huntington describes:
At that date the congregation of dissenters to which he ministered had no place of public worship, their worship itself being illegal. Only such as could meet the obloquy and risk the danger of worshiping God in violation of human statute, were likely to be found in that secret gathering. Yet in goodly numbers, in such places in Southwark as they could stealthily occupy, they held together and were comforted and instructed by the minister of their choice. For not less than eight years they worshiped. No threats of vengeance deterred, and no vigilance of officious ministers of the violated law detected them. More watchful grew the minions of [Bishop William] Laud. Keen-scented Church hounds traversed all the narrow ways of the city whose most secret nooks could by any possibility admit even a small company of the outlaws.19
After eight years of avoiding arrest, that fateful day arrived on 22 April, 1632. As this group of about sixty Separatists met in reverent worship of their Heavenly Father, the quiet was interrupted by a band under the leadership of Tomlinson, "the Pursuant of the Bishop of London." William Laud, becoming very concerned about the problems in his Diocese, had begun a vigorous search to ferret out their secret meetings. In 1634, in a letter to a friend, Laud describes his concern and dedication to this task. I found in my own Diocese…divers professed Separatists, with whom I shall take the best and most present Order that I can, some of them, and some of Mainstone (where much inconformity hath of late years spread) being already called into the High Commission, where, if they be proved as guilty as they are voiced to be, I shall not fail to do justice upon them.20
John Lothropp's Independents were meeting at the home of Humphery Barnet, a brewer's clerk in Blackfriars, just across the Thames River from Southwark, now on the London side of the Blackfriars Bridge. Quickly the "ruffian band" moved in, and seized and arrested forty-two of Lothropp's congregation. Only eighteen escaped. Thus 22 April 1632 was made "forever memorable to those suffering Christians, by handing them over in fetters to the [p.42] executioners of a law which was made for godly men to break."21
The arrested Separatists were taken to three prisons-Clink, Newgate, and Gatehouse-where they remained until their trial. The charge against them was holding an illegal conventicle. Thirty-two years later the Conventicle Act of 1664 became law. The provisions of that law give us some idea of what the law must have been in this earlier time:
If any person of the age of sixteen or upwards, being a subject of the realm…shall be present at any assembly, conventicle, or meeting, under colour or pretence of any exercise of religion, in other manner than is allowed by the liturgy or practice of the church of England, in any place within the kingdom of England, dominion of Wales,…at which conventicle, meeting, or assembly, there shall be five persons or more assembled together, over and above those of the same household; it shall and may be lawful to, and for any two justices of the peace of the county,…shall commit every such offender, so convicted as aforesaid, to the gaol or house of correction, there to remain without bail or mainprize, for any time not exceeding the space of three months, unless such offender shall pay down to the said justices or chief magistrates, such sum of money, not exceeding five pounds.22
On 3 May 1632, the following were brought to trial by the Anglican Church High Commission Court, a high ecclesiastical court established to deal with dissenters: John Lothropp, Humphrey Barnet, Henry Dod, Samuel Easton, William Graner, Sara Jones, Sara Jacob, Pennina Howse, Sara Barbon, and Susan Wilson. The others arrested were not brought to trial until later. It appears that the court had intended to question Reverend John Lothropp first, but "Mr. Lothropp, the Minister did not appear at the first, but kept himself out of the way awhile." Humphrey Barnet, the first questioned, was asked when he last attended an Anglican Church service. He replied he was at his parish church when the rest of Lothropp's congregation was arrested. He remarked that he used to attend church regularly, but his wife would not go with him. The Bishop of York asked, "Will you suffer that in [p.43] your wife?" Without waiting for a response, the King's Advocate put forth the charges. Those arrested were in an unlawful Conventicle (church service); "I pray that they may be put to answer upon their oaths to the Articles, and that they set forth what exercises they used, and what were the words spoken by them." He then turned to Henry Dod, reminding him that he had been warned before and was released upon the promise that he would no longer engage in such seditious activity. Dod replied, "Good Mr. Advocate, spare that." Dod was asked if he attended regularly his parish church, to which he replied that he used to go, but now preferred to hear the "most powerful ministry." Bishop William Laud interceded, "And therefore you hear Mr. Lothropp. What ordination hath he?" Dod replied that he was a minister. "Did you hear him preach and pray?" asked Bishop Laud, and then continued, "Nay you yourself and the rest take upon you to preach and to be ministers." Dod gave a simple no to Laud's question. "Yes you do, and you were heard [to] preach and pray," responded William Laud. Henry Dod seemed to get more bold as Laud became more direct. "I shall be ready in this particular to confess my fault, if I am convinced to be in any." Two of the prisoners then were asked to take the oath of allegiance, but they asked to be excused at that time so that they might have more time to "consider and be informed of the oath."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, spoke next:
You shew yourselves most unthankful to God, to the King and to the Church of England, that when (God be prayed) through his Majesty's care and ours you have been preaching in every church, and men have liberty to join in prayer and participation of the Sacraments and have catechizings and all to enlighten you, and which may serve you in the way of salvation; you in an unthankful manner cast off all this yoke, and in private unlawfully assemble yourselves together, making rents and divisions in the Church. If anything be amiss, let it be known, if anything be not agreeable to the word of God, we shall be as ready to redress it as you, but whereas it is nothing but your own imaginations, and you are unlearned men that seek to make up a religion of [p.44] your own heads! I doubt no persuasion will serve [to] turn [you]. We must take this course. You are called here. Let them stand upon their bonds, and let us see what they will answer, it may be they will answer what will please us.23
Bishop Laud was quick to point out that this group of Separatists was only a small portion of those who were meeting in the city of London. In addition, he named the other areas where illegal meetings were being held. "Let these be imprisoned," he demanded. He felt they should make an example of the four standing before them. This ended the proceedings temporarily, since the rest had not been brought into the courtroom.
Reverend Lothropp, their minister, was brought in. He was asked by what authority he preached and held religious meetings. The Bishop of London, William Laud, made a far more slanderous remark against John. "How many women sat crossed-legged upon the bed, whilest you sat on one side and preached and prayed most devotedly?" John Lothropp was angered: "I keep no such evil company, they were no such women." The Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury asked him the same question, "Are you a Minister?" The Bishop of St. David's interrupted with a question about Lothropp's past involvement in the Church of England, which must have caused Rev. Lothropp some pang of conscience: "Were you not Doctor King's, the Bishop of London's Sizer in Oxford? I take it you were; and you shew your thankfulness by this."
John's response to these two questions was that he was a minister, to which Laud asked, "How and by whom qualified?" John Lothropp responded pointedly in return, "I am a Minister of the gospel of Christ, and the Lord hath qualified me." He, like the others, was asked if he would lay his hand on the Bible and take the oath, but he refused.24
After the court dealt with other cases, Samuel Eaton and three women, Sara Jones, Pennina Howes, and Sara [p.45] Barbone, also members of the Independents, were questioned. The court demanded to know why they were at the forbidden church service when they should have been at approved Anglican meetings. "We were not assembled in contempt of the Magistrate," responded Eaton. "No, it was in contempt of the church of England," Bishop Laud thundered back. The bold Samuel Eaton responded, "It was in conscience to God, (May it please this Honorable Court) and, we were kept from Church for we were confined in the house together by those that beset the house, else divers would have gone to Church and many came in after the sermons were done." William Laud then brought up new charges against the group, pointing out that they had first been discovered at Lambert and then other places, until they were captured at Blackfriars. Not only were they meeting illegally, but they had in their possession books printed against the Church of England.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, continued the examination: "Where were you in the morning before you came hither to this house?" They responded that they had been with their families. Archbishop Abbot wanted to know what they did with their families that morning. Eaton responded, "We read the Scriptures and catechized our families…and may it please this honorable Court to hear us speak the truth, we will shew you what was done, and free us of the contempt of authority. We did nothing but what you will allow us to do." At this response Bishop Laud was incredulous: "Who can free you? These are dangerous men, they are scattered company sown in all the city, and about St. Michaell of The Queen, St. Austins, Old Jury, Redriff, and other remoter places. Hold them the book." But Eaton responded that he dared not swear or take the oath; "though I will not refuse it, I will consider it." Sir Henry Martin interjected, "Hear, hear, you shall swear but to answer what you know, and as far as you are bound by law. You shall have time to consider of it, and have it read over till you can say it without book if you will, when you have [p.46] first taken your oath that you will make a true answer." Still Samuel Eaton protested: "I dare not, I know not what I shall swear to." The King's Advocate tried to explain why it was necessary that he take the oath, since the charges against them were so serious. "It is to give a true answer to articles put into the Court against you, or that shall be put in touching this conventicle of yours, and divers heretical tenants, and what words, and exercises you used, and things of this nature." Once again Eaton responded, "I dare not."25
Having no more success with these individuals than all the others, William Laud turned his wrath on the three principal leaders of the group, Henry Dod, Humphrey Barnet, and the Reverend John Lothropp. "Henry Dod, you are the obstinate and perverse ringleader of these folks, you had a fair admonition the last Court day, and we have this day assigned you to answer upon your oath." "I hope we are not so impious, we stand for the truth; for taking the oath I crave your patience, I am not resolved upon it," Dod responded. Barnett reminded Bishop Laud again that he was at church when the group was arrested at his home on 22 April, "but for taking the oath I desire to be resolved." Still failing in his attempt, the determined William Laud turned to his greatest antagonist, John Lothropp. "Mr. Lothropp, hath the Lord qualified you? What authority; what order have you? The Lord hath qualified you, is that a sufficient answer? You must give a better answer before you and I part." "I do not know that I have done anything which might cause me justly to be brought before the judgment seat of man, and for this oath I do not know the nature of it," Lothropp responded.26
Those in charge of the court now get to the heart of the matter: "The manner of the oath is that you shall answer to that you are accused of, for schism," the King's Advocate charged. Their impatience at the whole proceeding became clear when the Archbishop of York threatened, "If he will not take his oath, away with him." To which Lothropp retorted, "I desire that other passage may be [p.47] remembered; I dare not take this oath." At this the court ordered that they be kept "in straight custody, especially Lothropp, for the Bishop of London said he had more to answer for that he knew of."
When it was again demanded of Samuel Eaton that he take the oath, he responded as others before, "I do not refuse it, though I do not take it, it is not out of abstinence, but as I shall answer it at the Last day, I am not satisfied whether I may take it."
Samuel Howe was called to take the oath and answer to the articles, to which he replied, "I have served the King both by sea and by land, and I [would] have been at sea if this restraint had been made upon me and do not know what this oath is." The King's Advocate replied that the king desired his service in obeying his laws.27
Then quickly in succession, twelve of those arrested at Blackfriars were brought in again to testify and take their oath. Pennian Howes, after again refusing to take the oath, was asked by Bishop Laud, "Will you trust Mr. Lothropp and believe him rather than the Church of England?" "I refer myself to the word of God, whether I may take this oath or not," she stated. The others each in turn refused to take the oath, and each remarked why they would not take the oath. Elizabeth Melborne's remark is interesting: "I do not know any such thing as a Conventicle, we did meet to pray and talk of the word of God, which is according to the law of the land." To this remark the Archbishop of York addressed the issue directly, "God will be served publicly, not in your private house."
William Granger, from St. Margarett's in Westminster and apparently one of the more affluent members of the group, was asked by Bishop Laud, "Granger! You look like a man of fashion, will you take your oath to answer to the articles according to your knowledge, and as far as you are bound by law?" Like many of the others, he begged for time. This was the second time most has been required to take their oath, and they still asked for more time. "I would not have any of the standers-by think that [p.48] you or any of these have not had time to consider of this, you rent and tear the Church and will not submit yourself to the trial of law. You must know the justice of this Court is limited and you may be driven to adjure the Realm [driven into exile] for your offense," Bishop William Laud responded impatiently.
Robert Reignolds, when asked to take the oath, expressed his concern for others besides himself. "If I have done anything against the law, let me be accused by the course of the law, if I thought this oath might be taken with a good conscience, I would take it, and I do for the present desire you, though you do not pity me, yet to pity my poor wife and small children." "Pity your wife and children yourself, and lay your obstinacy to your conscience," replied the Archbishop of York.28
Abigail Delemar, the wife of a Frenchman, "proved to be a spirited, fractious and sharp tongued witness, giving the Court in lip as much as she got in the form of admonishment, argument, and lectures in doctrine."29 When required to take the oath, she asked if it was the oath of allegiance. When informed by the King's Advocate that it was to answer the truth of the charges against her, she responded, "I neither dare nor will take this oath till I am informed of it, that I may with a good conscience."
Bishop Laud informed the court that this was no ordinary, rebellious Separatist, since her husband was the Queen's servant and a strict Roman Catholic, but "she is a deep Familist and Brownist, and one of the Conventiclers taken at Blackfriars." He complained to the court that just last week the group had held a fast in prison "that they might be delivered out of prison." Because Abigail was expecting she was carried to a tavern, and her husband was sent for, but thought they were joking when he was told she was in prison.
Abigail was asked if she would go next Sunday to church, "No, but I will go in the afternoon," she replied. When asked why she would not attend in the forenoon she [p.49] expressed her true feeling about certain Anglican doctrine. "Because then I shall hear popish doctrine. I was once in the Whore's bosom, and these horns thrust me in, but God hath delivered me." "What horns?" the Archbishop of Canterbury asked. "The horns of the beast," Abigail notified him. "Whores do make horns indeed," Bishop Laud pointedly remarked.
Archbishop Abbott asked Abigail if she had ever been a "papist." "Yes, I was once in the whore's lap, and seeing that I am escaped out of it I shall, God willing, take heed how I am thrust in again." "I see you are an obstinate woman," the Archbishop of Canterbury complained, "as all the rest of your company are."
"You persecute us without a cause. You have sent 26 of us to prison, but since we were imprisoned what course have you taken to inform us? Which of you have sent any man to us, or taken any pains to inform us?" Abigail protested. Bishop Laud explained to her that they had set aside a day for the accused to be heard at the Consistory of St. Paul's, "but they have the last Sunday petitioned his Majesty, shewing that it is not out of obstinacy, but they decline the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction altogether."30
"No," Abigail objected, "this oath is condemned by the law of the land, and I refuse it as an accursed oath, and appeal to the King." Perhaps because of her husband's relationship with the Queen she was able to take certain legal actions that others could not, for one of the justices of the court explained.
I heard that the Sabbath day after this Court she delivered a petition to the King, in the name of all the rest, shewing that they refused not this oath obstinately, but that they were afraid it was against the subjects just liberty, to be compelled to take this oath, and shewed they would willingly be tried by his Majesty's laws, or by his Majesty or any of his Lords and Nobles.31
The Court of High Commission continued with the hearing, declaring that several of Lothropp's congregation were no longer in custody. Sara Barbone, it was reported, [p.50] had escaped and was in hiding, so her bond was to be forfeited. In addition, it was related that seven or eight others "of those that were best able to bear it" had been let out of prison in error or by friendly jail keepers. The recommendation was that no more be put in the new prison until those who were gone were recaptured. The keeper of the prison apologized and promised that he would endeavor to find them again, but Bishop Laud would not take any chances. "Let these women therefore for the honor of the Court be sent to other prisons, and the rest to be removed some to one prison and some to another."32
Another group had also been arrested at a Conventicle in the woods near Newington in Surrey and were also asked to take their oath with the same results-refusal. Remarks at their trial shows again the concern of the leaders of the Church of England over the spreading of the Separatists doctrine.
Archbishop Abbott was just as displeased with the response of this group of Separatists as he had been with those arrested at Blackfriars, so he lectured them just as strongly:
You do shew yourselves the most ungrateful to God and to his Majesty the King and to us the Fathers of the Church. If you have any knowledge of God, it hath come through and by us, or some of our predecessors. We have taken care, under God, to give milk to the babes and younglings and strong meat for the men of understanding. You have the word of God to feed you, the Sacrament to strengthen you, and we support you by prayer. For all this what despite do you return us. You call us abominable men, to be hated of all, that we carry the mark of the beast, that we are his members. We do bear this patiently, not because we have no law to right us, but because of your abstinence. But for your dishonoring of God and disobeying the King, it is not to be endured. When you have reading, preaching, singing, teaching, you are your own ministers, the blind lead the blind, whereas his Majesty is God's vicegerent in the Church, the Church is nothing with you, and his ministers not to be regarded, and you run into woods, as if you lived in persecution, such an one you make the King, to whom we are so much bond for his great care for the truth to be preserved among us, and you would have men believe that he is a tyrant. This [p.51] besides your wickedness, unthankfulness, and ungraciousness towards the Fathers of the Church. Therefore let these men be put 2 and 2 in several prisons.33
This concluded the hearings before the Court of High Commission as they are recorded in this remarkable document. However, we find in other sources a little more concerning the hearings. One of the most valuable sources is the George Gould manuscript, which states that the prisoners were held in several prisons, "ye space of some two years, some only under Bail, some in Hold."34 It is difficult to determine these many years later the suffering of all of Lothropp's followers. It appears that some of the jailers were sympathetic, and some were even converted. The Gould manuscript states that some of the Separists were allowed to hold religious services in jail "by their Keepers…to come to them and they edified and comforted one another on the Lord's Days, breaking bread, etc." Their jailers also "found them so sure in their promises that they had freedom to go home or about their trades, or businesses when soever they desired."35 Some of the prisoners were even allowed to write. Most prominent among them was Sara Jones, who wrote The Answers of Mrs. Sara Jones and Some others before the Court of High Commission, Petitions to the King, Mrs. Jones Chronicle of God's remarkable Judgments that Year (1632), and Mrs. Jones' Grievances.36 From these documents we learn that the women in John Lothropp's congregation played a major and aggressive role, not only in the court proceedings but in the development of the Separatist's doctrine.
This favorable treatment received by some of the Blackfriars group was not received by John Lothropp. E. B. Huntington informs us of the tragic events surrounding the death of John's wife, Hannah. While John was confined to prison, "a fatal sickness was preying upon his wife, and bringing her fast toward her end." Huntington continues this sad tell by quoting the New England Memorial, by Nathaniel Morton, published in 1669; "and [p.52] then near enough the date of the incidents given to be a credible witness, gives us these touching incidents of that imprisonment":
His wife fell sick…of which sickness she died. He procured liberty of the bishop [William Laud] (who was the Archbishop) to visit his wife before her death, and commended her to God by prayer, who soon gave up the ghost. At his return to prison, his poor children, being many, repaired to the bishop at Lambeth, and made known unto him their miserable condition, by reason of their good father's being continued in close durance, who commiserated their condition so far as to grant him liberty, who soon after came over to New England.37
By the spring of 1634 all the prisoners taken in the 23 April 1632 raid at Blackfriars, with the exception of John Lothropp, were released from prison. It is hard for us to imagine conditions inside the jail as we view our modern places of confinement, but we do have some vivid descriptions of conditions in prisons of the time. The following is a contemporary narrative of a Jesuit priest, F. Laithwaite, being confined in prison in 1604 when he refused to take the oath of supremacy:
Eighty men and women were huddled together in one filthy dungeon, where they were all chained by the feet to an iron ring in such a manner that they could only just change their position by sitting standing or lying down. They were eaten up by vermin, and surrounded by filth, which they had no means of removing, and the Jesuit's hands feet and face were so much swollen that he could not sleep for pain, whilst the stench made food loathsome.38
Conditions were no better in other jails. Another description is of Robert Southwell, whose father, a favorite of the Court, visited his son in the Gatehouse Prison at Westminster. He found his son "covered with filth, swarming with vermin, with maggots crawling in his sores, his face blistered, and his bones almost protruding through his skin from want of food and nourishment."39
Not only the prisoners suffered the results of gaol (jail) fever, but sometimes even those present in courts which [p.53] were held over jails. One account describes how when a prisoner was removed from the courtroom, "a blast of fetid air from the dungeons beneath poisoned the Court, and infected all who were present." The narrative claims that in one day 600 persons became ill and 510 had died within the next five weeks, including two judges, five magistrates, and most of the jury.40 Jury duty was very dangerous in those days. This same account describes that adjoining the Old Bailey Court were two small rooms about twelve feet square and seven feet high. In these rooms more than one hundred prisoners were crammed together awaiting their trials.41
Finally, the hard heart of Bishop William Laud, now the Archbishop of Canterbury, was softened with the pleadings of John Lothropp's almost orphaned children, ages twenty to eight. At their pleadings John Lothropp was allowed to be released from jail on 24 April 1634 on his giving bond. From the Public Record Office in London the following is recorded under the date 24 April 1634:
The Lord's Court (that is, the Lord Archbishops and Bishops) against John Lathropp. This day the said Lathropp was ordered to be enlarged (set free) upon entering Bond to appear Premmum Trinitatem prox (next Trinity term) and not to be present at any private Conventicle.42
It appears that he delayed his departure long enough to reorganize the meetings of his congregation and try to settle a crisis over the form and age of baptism. From the Henry Jessey Memoranda, as copied in the Gould manuscript, we obtain a contemporary account (from the pastor who succeeded John as the minister of this Separatist congregation) of the final days of John Lothropp with his congregation.
At last…there being no hopes that Mr. Lathrop should do them any further Services in ye Church, he having many motives to go to new England if it might be granted after the death of his wife, he earnestly [p.54] desiring ye Church would release him of that office which (to his grief) he could in no way perform & that he might have their consent to go to new England, after serious consideration had about it, it was freely granted to him.43
This delay in reorganizing his congregation became a serious threat to his being arrested again, since he was in violation of his parole. The following quotes come from the "Calendary of State Papers, Domestic, Charles I, Volumes covering 1633-34 and 1634-35." We find this entry on 12 June 1634.
The Lord's Court against John Lathrop of Lambeth Marsh in County Surrey, Dr. Ryves (Dr. Thomas Rives, the King's Advocate): He (Lathrop) is to appear by bond. Preconizatus. (The matter was proclaimed) Noncomparuit. (He did not appear) Where upon his bond was ordered to be certified and he attached, unless he appear here the next Court Day.44
The same note appeared on 19 June 1634. The court met again on 9 October 1634, not only on John Lothropp but also Samuel Eaton.45 Once more they were "proclaimed" and did not appear so the court decision was Unde domini decreverunt eos attachiand et Carceri committend. (Wherefore the Lords decreed them to be attached and committed to prison) And their bonds were decreed to be certified."46
The final entry pertaining to John Lothropp is dated 19 February 1635, when it is noted that the defendants failed to appear, and therefore they should be committed again to prison. However, all their searching for John Lothropp and demanding that he be committed to prison again was in vain, for he had set sail for the American colonies, where there was "A Church without a bishop And a State without a King."47 He arrived in Boston on 18 September 1634 on the ship Griffin.
He, like the Puritans before and after him, had come to a land of promise, one that had been promised by the Book of Mormon Prophets for many generations. These Puritans felt they were under the direction and hand of [p.55] God, but little did they know how involved the Lord was in there immigration to the New World. About 600 years before the coming of Christ, the Prophet Nephi, in a great vision of the future of this nation, had predicted the coming of people like John Lothropp and his followers.
And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.
And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten.
And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain.
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them. (1 Nephi 13:13-16)
It was on the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean that, according to one account, John Lothropp was reading his Bible and fell asleep when a spark from his candle fell upon the open page and burned a hole through several leaves. He patched the damaged pages and then, according to family tradition, supplied the missing texts from memory, since no other Bible was accessible to him. Today, that same Bible is proudly on display in the Sturgis Library in Barnstable, Massachusetts.48
Thirty of John's original congregation in London immigrated with him to America. They first settled at Scituate, Massachusetts and then moved to Barnstable on Cape Cod. Here John Lothropp married his second wife, Ana. Some of Lothropp's biographers give her last name was Hammond. Charles Lathrop speculates that this was the Mrs. Hammond who came from England on the ship Griffin with John.49 One author pays this high tribute to Lothropp:
The remarkable thing about Lothrop-and the highest tribute to his character as a pastor-is the way in which his church followed him from point to point throughout his wanderings. Many of his original London congregation had sat under him in Scituate, and with him left Scituate for Barnstable. History can show few more perfect examples of the Shepherd and his flock. It is not without reason that the present Congregational Church in West Barnstable, which is the same organization that Lothrop brought down with him three hundred years ago, assert that their church has the longest uninterrupted history of any church of that denomination in the world.50
John Lothropp became a highly regarded religious and community leader in New England. [Expand this] Many prominent leaders in the United States and in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claim him as their forebear. It is significant that Orson Pratt, in a letter to his brother Parley, stated, "You will recollect that Joseph [Smith] had a vision and saw that our families and his all sprang from the same man a few generations ago."51 Truly, "The Lord had his eye upon him, and upon his father, and upon their progenitors, clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, and from the flood to Enoch and from Enoch to Adam." It appears John Lothropp was included within that group.