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Key Figures
KING JAMES I
Born on June 19, 1566, in Edinburgh Castle, Scotland, James was the only son of Mary, queen of Scots, and her second husband, Lord Darnley. When Mary was forced to abdicate in 1567, he was proclaimed king of Scotland. A succession of regents ruled the kingdom until 1576, when James became nominal ruler. The boy king was little more than a puppet in the hands of political intriguers until 1581. In that year, with the aid of his favorites, James Stuart, earl of Arran (fl. 1579–95), and Esmé Stuart, duke of Lennox (1542?–83), James assumed actual rule of Scotland. Scotland was at that time divided domestically by conflict between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, and in foreign affairs by those favoring an alliance with France and those supporting England. In 1582 James was kidnapped by a group of Protestant nobles headed by William Ruthven, earl of Gowrie (1541?–84), and was held virtual prisoner until he escaped the next year.
In 1586, by the Treaty of Berwick, James formed an alliance with his cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England, and the following year, after the execution of his mother, he succeeded in reducing the power of the great Roman Catholic nobles. His marriage to Anne of Denmark (1574–1619) in 1589 brought him for a time into close relationship with the Protestants. After the Gowrie conspiracy of 1600, James repressed the Protestants as strongly as he had the Catholics. He replaced the feudal power of the nobility with a strong central government, and maintaining the divine right of kings, he enforced the superiority of the state over the church.
In 1603 Queen Elizabeth died childless, and James succeeded her as James I, the first Stuart king of England. In 1604 he ended England's war with Spain, but his tactless attitude toward Parliament, based on his belief in divine right, led to prolonged conflict with that body. James convoked the Hampton Court Conference (1604), at which he authorized a new translation of the Bible, generally called the King James Version. His undue severity toward Roman Catholics, however, led to the abortive GUNPOWDER PLOT, (q.v.) in 1605. James tried unsuccessfully to advance the cause of religious peace in Europe, giving his daughter Elizabeth in marriage to the elector of the Palatinate, Frederick V (1596–1632), the leader of the German Protestants. He also sought to end the conflict by attempting to arrange a marriage between his son, Charles, and the infanta of Spain, then the principal Catholic power. When he was rebuffed, he formed an alliance with France and declared war on Spain, thus contributing to the flames he had tried to quench. James I died at the Theobalds in Hertfordshire on March 27, 1625, and was succeeded to the throne by his son, Charles I.
WILLIAM BRADFORD
(1590–1657), American colonial governor, one of the Pilgrim Fathers and historian, born in Austerfield, Yorkshire, England. In 1606 he joined the Brownists, a dissident Protestant sect, and three years later, in search of freedom of worship, went with them to Holland, where he became an apprentice to a silk manufacturer. He sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, and after his arrival in the New World he helped found Plymouth Colony. In April 1621 he succeeded Gov. John Carver as chief executive of Plymouth Colony. Except for five years, Bradford served as governor almost continuously from 1621 through 1656, having been reelected 30 times. In 1621 he negotiated a treaty with Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoag Indians. Under the treaty, which was vital to the maintenance and growth of the colony, Massasoit disavowed Indian claims to the Plymouth area and pledged peace with the colonists. Bradford was a delegate on four occasions to the New England Confederation, of which he was twice elected president. His History of Plimouth Plantation (1856) is the primary source of information about the Pilgrims.
EDWARD WINSLOW
(1595-1655), American colonist, one of the Pilgrims, born in Droitwich, Worcestershire, England. He went to America in 1620 on the Mayflower and was a founder of Plymouth Colony, in the present-day state of Massachusetts. In 1621 he negotiated a treaty of friendship with the local Wampanoag Indians, and he was one of the first settlers to explore the New England coast and establish trading relations with the Indian tribes of that area. Between 1624 and 1646 he served on the governor’s council of Plymouth Colony, and he was elected governor in 1633, 1636, and 1644. In 1635, while visiting England as an agent for the colony, he was imprisoned for several months by the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, on charges that he had committed offenses against the Anglican church. Winslow returned to England during the English Revolution, and after the triumph of the Puritan cause, he served the Commonwealth government of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. In 1655 Cromwell sent him on a campaign against the Spanish West Indies; he died during the return trip to England. Among his writings are several works valued by historians of the New England colonies, notably Good Newes from New England (1625), Hypocrisie Unmasked (1646), and Glorious Progress of the Gospel Among the Indians (1649).
WILLIAM BREWSTER
(1567–1644), leader of the Pilgrim Fathers and a founder of the Plymouth Colony, born probably in Scrooby, England. He studied briefly at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. From 1584 to 1587 he was in the service of an English ambassador, William Davison (1541?–1608), and after 1590 he was bailiff and postmaster in Scrooby. There he organized a group of religious dissenters, often called the Pilgrims, who in 1606 separated from the Church of England. Two years later Brewster and some Pilgrims, to avoid persecution, moved to the Netherlands, settling in Leiden. He was the ruling elder of the sect, and he supported himself by teaching and by publishing religious books that had been banned by the English government. With another Pilgrim leader, William Bradford, he returned to England in 1619 and secured a patent from the Virginia Co. for a tract of land in America. Brewster remained in England until Sept. 16, 1620, when he boarded the Mayflower for the trip to America. He was a signer of the Mayflower Compact and of the constitution of Plymouth Colony, and he continued as a leader of the colony. Until 1629, when an ordained minister was appointed, Brewster was the only church officer at the Plymouth Colony.
MYLES STANDISH
(1584?–1656), American colonist, born in Lancashire, England. In 1620 he joined the PILGRIM FATHERS, and sailed with them in the Mayflower to found the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. Standish became a leader of the new colony and succeeded in establishing peaceful relations with the Indians. In 1625 he made a successful trip to England to negotiate for supplies and for the right of the colony to own its own land. A few years later he and his fellow colonist John Alden founded the town of Duxbury, Mass., named for the Standish ancestral home in Lancashire. Standish was a magistrate in Duxbury for the rest of his life and also served (1644–49) as the colony's treasurer and on its governing council for 29 years. He was the subject of the famous but fictional poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow entitled The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), in which Standish, reluctant to ask Priscilla Mullens (1602?–85?) for her hand, sends John Alden to act as intermediary.
WAMPANOAGS
North American Indian tribe of the Algonquian-Ritwan language family and of the Eastern Woodlands culture area. They formerly occupied the territory between the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic coast, including the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. In 1620 the Wampanoag were said to be settled in about 30 villages. Their chief, Massasoit, signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrim Fathers in 1621, the earliest recorded in New England. Some decades later Massasoit’s son, Philip, led the tribe in an unsuccessful uprising known as King Philip’s War (1675–76). In 1990, 2175 people claimed to be of Wampanoag descent. According to the 2000 census, Wampanoag descendants numbered 2336 (Wampanoag descent alone) people and 4594 (Wampanoag in combination with more than one tribe or race).
MASSASSOIT OSEMEQUAN
(1580?–1661), American Indian chief, born in what is now Massachusetts. He was chief of the Wampanoag and ruled over the greater part of Massachusetts. The treaty he made with the Pilgrims in 1621 was the earliest recorded in New England. Massasoit's second son, Philip, succeeded his brother as chief sachem, and in 1675 led his warriors against the settlers in the conflict now known as King Philip's War.
SQUANTO
(1585?–1622), American Indian of the Wampanoag tribe of what is now Massachusetts. Also known as Tisquantum, he proved an invaluable friend to white settlers in New England in the early 17th century. Early in his life he was captured and sold as a slave in Spain but eventually escaped and went to England. When he returned to New England in 1619 as pilot for an English sea captain, he escaped and discovered that his people had been destroyed by a plague. Two years later he helped the starving Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony to survive by teaching them both fishing and the planting of corn. He developed a friendship with the Massachusetts settlers and acted as interpreter at the Treaty of Plymouth, signed in 1621 between the Indian chief Massasoit and Gov. William Bradford. While guiding a party under Bradford around Cape Cod in 1622, he became ill and died.
An article from Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2006 World Almanac Education Group. A WRC Media Company. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by written agreement, uses of the work inconsistent with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright and related laws are prohibited.
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