Editing Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) (section)

===Leiden===

[[File:Brewster COE Treatise.png|thumb|Title page of a pamphlet published by William Brewster in Leiden]]
[[File:Leiden - Jan van Hout- toestemming aan de pilgrims om zich in Leiden te vestigen 12 feb 1609 20200815.jpg|thumb|Permission from the city council of [[Leiden]], allowing the Pilgrims to settle there, dated February 12, 1609.]]
The Pilgrims moved to the Netherlands around 1607–08 and lived in [[Leiden]], Holland, a city of 30,000 inhabitants.<ref>John (1895). The Pilgrim Fathers of New England and their Puritan Successors. Reprinted: 1970. Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications. pp. 118.</ref> Leiden was a thriving industrial center,<ref>{{cite web|url= http://eh.net/encyclopedia/articleHarreld.Dutch|title=The Dutch Economy in the Golden Age (16th–17th Centuries)|last=Harreld|first=Donald|publisher=Economic History Services|access-date=2008-11-11|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930165043/http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Harreld.Dutch|archive-date=2007-09-30}}</ref>
and many members were able to support themselves working at [[Leiden University]] or in the textile, printing, and brewing trades. Others were less able to bring in sufficient income, hampered by their rural backgrounds and the language barrier; for those, accommodation was constructed on an estate bought by Robinson and three partners.<ref>{{cite web|title=Contract of Sale, De Groene Poort|url=http://www.pilgrimarchives.nl/html/pilgrims/regestenen/152.htm|work=Leiden Pilgrim Archives|access-date=2008-11-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013140858/http://pilgrimarchives.nl/html/pilgrims/regestenen/152.htm|archive-date=2007-10-13}}</ref> Bradford wrote of their years in Leiden:
<blockquote>
For these & other reasons they removed to Leyden, a fair & bewtifull citie, and of a sweete situation, but made more famous by ye universitie wherwith it is adorned, in which of late had been so many learned man. But wanting that traffike by sea which Amerstdam injoyes, it was not so beneficiall for their outward means of living & estats. But being now hear pitchet they fell to such trads & imployments as they best could; valewing peace & their spirituall comforte above any other riches whatsoever. And at length they came to raise a competente & comforteable living, but with hard and continuall labor.<ref name="bradford_1_3">{{harvnb|Bradford|(1898)|loc=Book 1, Chapter 3.|Ref=Bradford_1898}}</ref>
</blockquote>

William Brewster had been teaching English at the university, and Robinson enrolled in 1615 to pursue his doctorate. There he participated in a series of debates, particularly regarding the contentious issue of [[Calvinism]] versus [[Arminianism]] (siding with the Calvinists against the [[Remonstrants]]).<ref>See the [[Synod of Dort]].</ref>
Brewster acquired [[typesetting]] equipment about 1616 in a venture financed by Thomas Brewer, and began publishing the debates through a local press.<ref>{{harvnb|Griffis|(1899)|pp=[http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnewe%2Fnewe0025%2F&tif=00569.TIF&view=50 561–562].|Ref=Griffis_1899}}</ref>
[[File:Jabez Howland House in Plymouth MA.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Jabez Howland House]] in Plymouth, Massachusetts is the only house in which one of the Pilgrims lived that still stands.  The house was built by Jabez Howland.  His parents, Pilgrims [[John Howland]] and his wife, [[Elizabeth Tilley Howland]], lived with Jabez and his family in this house in their senior years.  The house is now a museum.]]

The Netherlands, however, was a land whose culture and language were strange and difficult for the English congregation to understand or learn. They found the Dutch political situation to be unstable, and their children were becoming more and more Dutch as the years passed.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dutchreview.com/culture/history/the-pilgrims-in-leiden/|title=The pilgrims in Leiden: Where were the pilgrims before they sailed to America?|website=DutchReview.com|access-date=November 19, 2021}}</ref> The congregation came to believe that they faced eventual extinction if they remained there.<ref>Bradford writes: "so as it was not only probably thought, but apparently seen, that within a few years more they would be in danger to scatter, by necessities pressing them, or sinke under their burdens, or both." (''Of Plimoth Plantation'', chapt. 4)</ref>

====Decision to leave Holland====
By 1617, the congregation was stable and relatively secure, but there were ongoing issues which needed to be resolved. Bradford noted that many members of the congregation were showing signs of early aging, compounding the difficulties which some had in supporting themselves. A few had spent their savings and given up and returned to England, and the leaders feared that more would follow and that the congregation would become unsustainable. The employment issues made it unattractive for others to come to Leiden, and younger members had begun leaving to find employment and adventure elsewhere. Also compelling was the possibility of missionary work in some distant land, an opportunity that rarely arose in a Protestant stronghold.<ref name="bradford_1_4">{{harvnb|Bradford|(1898)|loc=Book 1, Chapter 4.|Ref=Bradford_1898}}</ref>

Bradford lists some of the reasons for which the Pilgrims felt that they had to leave, including the discouragements that they faced in the Netherlands and the hope of attracting others by finding "a better, and easier place of living", the children of the group being "drawn away by evil examples into extravagance and dangerous courses", and the "great hope, for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world."<!-- Direct quote; please do not change spelling. --><ref name="bradford_1_4" /> [[Edward Winslow]]'s list was similar. In addition to the economic worries and missionary possibilities, he stressed that it was important for the people to retain their English identity, culture, and language. They also believed that the English Church in Leiden could do little to benefit the larger community there.<ref>{{harvnb|Winslow|(2003)|pp=[http://static.squarespace.com/static/50a02efce4b046b42952af27/t/50a86ec2e4b0ea694c52fade/1353215682312/HypocrisyUnmasked.pdf#page=62 62–63].|Ref=none}}</ref>

At the same time, there were many uncertainties about moving to such a place as America, as stories had come back about failed colonies. There were fears that the native people would be violent, that there would be no source of food or water, that they might be exposed to unknown diseases, and that travel by sea was always hazardous. Balancing all this was a local political situation which was in danger of becoming unstable. The truce was faltering in the [[Eighty Years' War]], and there was fear over what the attitudes of Spain might be toward them.<ref name="bradford_1_4" />

Possible destinations included [[The Guianas|Guiana]] on the northeast coast of South America where the Dutch had established [[Essequibo (colony)|Essequibo]] colony, or another site near the [[Colony of Virginia|Virginia]] settlements. Virginia was an attractive destination because the presence of the older colony might offer better security and trade opportunities; however, they also felt that they should not settle too near, since that might inadvertently duplicate the political environment back in England. The [[London Company]] administered a territory of considerable size in the region, and the intended settlement location was at the mouth of the [[Hudson River]] (which instead became the Dutch colony of [[New Netherland]]). This plan allayed their concerns of social, political, and religious conflicts, but still promised the military and economic benefits of being close to an established colony.<ref>Brown, John (1970). The Pilgrim Fathers of New England and their Puritan Successors. Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications. pp. 194.</ref>

[[Robert Cushman]] and [[John Carver (Mayflower passenger)|John Carver]] were sent to England to solicit a land patent. Their negotiations were delayed because of conflicts internal to the London Company, but ultimately a patent was secured in the name of John Wincob on June 9 ([[Old Style]])/June 19 (New Style), 1619.<ref>{{cite book
|editor-last=Kingsbury
|editor-first=Susan Myra
|title=The Records of the Virginia Company of London
|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mtj8&fileName=mtj8pagevc01.db&recNum=231
|access-date=November 11, 2008
|volume=1
|year=1906
|publisher=[[United States Government Printing Office]]
|location=Washington, D.C.
|page=228
}}</ref>
The charter was granted with the king's condition that the Leiden group's religion would not receive official recognition.<ref name="bradford_1_5">{{harvnb|Bradford|(1898)|loc=Book 1, Chapter 5.|Ref=Bradford_1898}}</ref>

Preparations then stalled because of the continued problems within the London Company, and competing Dutch companies approached the congregation with the possibility of settling in the Hudson River area.<ref name="bradford_1_5" /> David Baeckelandt suggests that the Leiden group was approached by Englishman Matthew Slade, son-in-law of Petrus Placius, a cartographer for the Dutch East India Company. Slade was also a spy for the English Ambassador, and the Pilgrims' plans were therefore known both at court and among influential investors in the Virginia Company's colony at Jamestown. Negotiations were broken off with the Dutch, however, at the encouragement of English merchant [[Thomas Weston (merchant adventurer)|Thomas Weston]], who assured them that he could resolve the London Company delays.<ref name="bradford_1_6">{{harvnb|Bradford|(1898)|loc=Book 1, Chapter 6.|Ref=Bradford_1898}}</ref> The London Company intended to claim the area explored by Hudson before the Dutch could become fully established, and the first Dutch settlers did not arrive in the area until 1624.

Weston did come with a substantial change, telling the Leiden group that parties in England had obtained a land grant north of the existing Virginia territory to be called [[New England]]. This was only partially true; the new grant did come to pass, but not until late in 1620 when the [[Plymouth Council for New England]] received its charter. It was expected that this area could be fished profitably, and it was not under the control of the existing Virginia government.<ref name="bradford_1_6" /><ref name="necharter">{{cite web
| url         = http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass01.asp
| title       = The Charter of New England: 1620
| access-date  = November 11, 2008
| work        = The Avalon Project
| date = December 18, 1998
| publisher   = Yale Law School
| location    = New Haven
}}</ref>

A second change was known only to parties in England who did not inform the larger group. New investors had been brought into the venture who wanted the terms altered so that half of the settled land and property would revert to the investors at the end of the seven-year contract. Also, there had been a provision in the original agreement that allowed each settler to have two days per week to work on personal business, but this provision was dropped from the final agreement without the knowledge of the Pilgrims.<ref name="bradford_1_6" />

Amid these negotiations, William Brewster found himself involved with religious unrest emerging in Scotland. In 1618, King James had promulgated the [[Five Articles of Perth]] which were seen in Scotland as an attempt to encroach on their Presbyterian tradition. Brewster published several pamphlets that were critical of this law, and they were smuggled into Scotland by April 1619. These pamphlets were traced back to Leiden, and the English authorities unsuccessfully attempted to arrest Brewster. English ambassador [[Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester|Dudley Carleton]] became aware of the situation and began pressuring the Dutch government to extradite Brewster, and the Dutch responded by arresting Thomas Brewer the financier in September. Brewster's whereabouts remain unknown between then and the colonists' departure, but the Dutch authorities did seize the typesetting materials which he had used to print his pamphlets. Meanwhile, Brewer was sent to England for questioning, where he stonewalled government officials until well into 1620. He was ultimately convicted in England for his continued religious publication activities and sentenced in 1626 to a 14-year prison term.<ref>{{harvnb|Griffis|(1899)|p=[http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnewe%2Fnewe0025%2F&tif=00583.TIF&view=50 575].|Ref=Griffis_1899}}</ref>

====Preparations====
Not all of the congregation were able to depart on the first trip. Many members were not able to settle their affairs within the time constraints, and the budget was limited for travel and supplies; also, the group decided that the initial settlement should be undertaken primarily by younger and stronger members. The remainder agreed to follow if and when they could. Robinson would remain in Leiden with the larger portion of the congregation, and Brewster was to lead the American congregation.<ref>{{Cite web |last=dayspring |date=2022-08-08 |title=The Real Story of the Pilgrims – America's Sacred Story: The True Story of the Pilgrims |url=https://www.dayspringchristian.com/blog/americas-sacred-story-the-true-story-of-the-pilgrims/ |access-date=2022-11-01 |website=Dayspring Christian Academy in Lancaster County, PA |language=en-US}}</ref> The church in America would be run independently, but it was agreed that membership would automatically be granted in either congregation to members who moved between the continents.

With personal and business matters agreed upon, the Pilgrims procured supplies and a small ship. ''[[Speedwell (1577 ship)|Speedwell]]'' was to bring some passengers from the Netherlands to England, then on to America where it would be kept for the fishing business, with a crew hired for support services during the first year. The larger ship ''[[Mayflower]]'' was leased for transport and exploration services.<ref name="bradford_1_6" /><ref name="bradford_1_7">{{harvnb|Bradford|(1898)|loc=Book 1, Chapter 7.|Ref=Bradford_1898}}</ref>