The Puritan Dilemma, The Story of John Winthrop

By: Edmund Morgan

In this accessible and enjoyable narrative text, Morgan introduces his readers to John Winthrop and outlines Winthrop’s personality and personal history, the process of settling New England and the major events of the 1630’s and 40’s. It is informative and easy to read for people unfamiliar with the time period, but I found it very useful as a comprehensive narrative that presented Puritan history in NE through a wider and inclusive lens. It helped me clarify some of the “whens” and “whys” of the early MA history. Morgan’s characterization of Winthrop is marked by generosity and understanding. He succeeds in presenting Winthrop as a mediator and compromiser and even in unattractive circumstances (like the Hutchinson affair), Winthrop’s positions are characterized as being understandable and even necessary.

Morgan begins with Winthrop’s childhood in England. Winthrop was the inheritor of Groton Manor, property his grandfather had purchased, a student at Cambridge and later, served as justice in his county. His early adulthood was characterized by religious striving and Winthrop emerged as someone experienced with the tempering of worldly pleasures with a deep and overwhelming love for God. As a result of a depression in the 1620s that hit Winthrop’s home in Suffolk hard (it was dependent of textile industry which suffered more than other industries), Winthrop sought out another job and worked as a common attorney in His Majesty’s Court of Wards and Liveries, a position which acquainted him with a new strata of English society.

Meanwhile, American colonization had become a reality and in 1628, a group of Puritan merchants, soon to become the Massachusetts Bay Company, was granted a charter for a colony in New England. In 1629, a Royal Charter was granted and Winthrop showed growing interest, which was aided by the MA Bay Co.’s active recruitment of his services. Winthrop decided to emigrate based on a number of reasons, including limited opportunity in England, English decadence and decline, influence of ministers and the predicament of his wayward son. But the most important reason was God’s will and mission. Still, Winthrop was troubled at the thought of abandoning England.

The MA Bay Co., in a tricky maneuver, transferred themselves and their charter to New England, appointing Winthrop not only as Governor of New England, but as the Governor of the Company as well. Winthrop, in turn, organizes the journey and, on the eve of their departure, makes it clear that this group was not separating from England or its Churches.

During the initial winter of starvation, Winthrop’s letters remain positive and in the spring, he set about governing by setting maximum wages for laborers. His governance was characterized pragmatic compromise and difficulties negotiating the problems presented by separatists. Meanwhile, he and the other members of the Company met in 1630 to decide on the future of government in MA. The Charter instructed the members of the Company (“freemen”) to meet 4x/yr to make laws (General Court) and in one of those meeting, to elect a governor. But Winthrop and the other members of the Company changed the meaning of “freemen” to all eligible members of the settlement who would then elect the magistrates. This was not intended to be a democracy, Morgan emphasizes, and Winthrop saw rulers (magistrates) as receiving authority from God. Also in 1630, The General Court forbade clergy from seeking public office and suffrage was limited to church members.

Dissatisfaction with Winthrop’s “leniency” was felt by some, most notably Thomas Dudley, who attacked Winthrop at a meeting in 1632 and forced him into acknowledging the charter as the basis of government. Also in 1632, geographical representation incorporated into the freemen’s elections. Two years later, Winthrop lost his position as Governor to Thomas Dudley.

In Chapters 9 and 10, Morgan narrates the crises resulting from the theology of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Williams’ uncompromising rejection of the King’s patent and the congregational structure as legitimate eventually led to his expulsion from Massachusetts. Still, Williams remained a supporter of Winthrop, who he greatly admired. In Rhode Island, Williams reached the extreme point of insistence on religious purity when he refused to take communion with all but his wife, and then “broke through,” admitting that there was absolutely no possibility for a pure Church on earth and thus preaching to anyone. Winthrop’s dealings with Anne Hutchinson, which Morgan admits were “unattractive,” were a response to Winthrop’s desire to keep the colony unified.

Once Winthrop was reelected as governor in 1637, he faced a new problem of the deputies. Winthrop viewed the deputies, who were elected, not as rulers but as the rules and refused to grant them more powers, which they were demanding. Winthrop also had to deal with increasing pressure from the ministers and from 1640-42, he again lost his position as governor. In this time, the deputies succeeded in creating the Body of Liberties, drafted by Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich, in which the rights of the magistrates was restrained and individuals were guaranteed certain liberties and civil rights.

The rest of the text describes the effect of the English Civil War and other foreign issues on the NE colonies. Beginning in 1642, when Winthrop was again reinstated as governor, his chief concern shifted from dealing with separatist to dealing with other powers. He successfully negotiated Massachusetts out of several tricky situations with French, Indian and English. The Child affair, in which Robert Child returned from England in 1645 and denounced Congregationalism in favor of a combination of Presbyterianism and Toleration, was a final challenge to Winthrop’s government. Child was indicted for sedition and returned to England. In 1648, the Cambridge platform and a new code of laws cemented a “model” of New England that could be implemented in England. In 1649, Winthrop died.