The Mayflower by Rebecca Fraser

Author:Rebecca Fraser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER XIII

Republican England

In New England, as a commissioner for the United Colonies, a former governor at Plymouth and a founder of Marshfield, Edward was a person of importance with a large estate. In London he had to re-establish himself. Life in London was always beset with problems for New Englanders because of a lack of cash, but discomfort had never put him off before – and neither had his pride. The same trust in God buoyed him up as it had all his life. He said of Gorton, ‘He can act no more than God hath determined’. The belief that everything was in God’s hands led to a wonderful confidence.

England was almost unrecognisable after four years of war, polarised as never before. Brothers had fought against brothers. Parliament had taken over all Charles I’s functions. Quite unthinkably the monarch was a prisoner of the Scots. About 100,000 people had died, amongst them Archbishop William Laud, the chief reason so many colonists had left for New England, who had been executed on Tower Hill in 1645. Many survivors suffered from terrible injuries. The countryside had been ravaged, and the agrarian poor were starving. Most Royalist land was in the process of being confiscated. Many of the more ordinary gentlemen from old families were penniless. The landscape was transformed by officious Parliamentary soldiers who occupied county towns as garrisons. Edward had serious worries about the condition of his sister Magdalen and her family.

The ancient Dorset family she had married into had suddenly found their world turned upside down. In the great upheaval Anglican clergy were expelled from their vicarages in counties controlled by the Parliamentary armies. The Wake family were one such casualty. Edward’s brother-in-law, a parson with a robust temperament, was as Royalist in his sympathies as Edward was Parliamentarian. Despite their religious differences Edward had strong family feelings, and his brother-in-law was a fine man.

Although Edward’s purpose was to lobby Westminster and make sure New England was not interfered with, he was also determined to find his sister. He had written to her at the charming, pale stone vicarage in Wareham on the coast. It was no longer her home.

Magdalen and her family had suffered horribly during the war. Her Royalist husband had been singled out for punishment. The Reverend Wake’s preaching made him a man of huge influence in the surrounding area. He was accounted the reason for the town all being ‘dreadful malignants’. When a Parliamentary local declared he had the authority to fortify the town, the fiery Wake challenged him in the marketplace. He was shot twice in the head and carried home by members of his flock (one of his loyal workers in the vicarage’s fields challenged the Parliamentary soldiers with her spade). Wake was imprisoned for a year in Dorchester, in agony from his wounds.

Magdalen and her three children were turned out of doors. All their possessions had been looted in front of them. Wake’s assets were seized and his estate was forfeit for being a rebel.

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