THE DISTINCTION WE NOW MAKE between the supernatural and the natural was not one that the Winthrops would have understood. There were no clear boundaries separating the spheres inhabited by men, angels, and devils. Like his father and like all other Englishmen of the time, William Winthrop saw the supernatural reflected in every action of every day. God’s power not only sustained the universe but also directed it. Things that later generations would explain in natural terms were seen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as attributable to supernatural forces. Though people disagreed over the proper shaping of the church, none questioned the presence of God and the devil in their midst. Lightning was fire hurled down by evil spirits that lurked everywhere. Disease was a judgment used by God to punish individuals or to test them. Sudden deaths, earthquakes, eclipses, strange lights in the night sky, and countless other phenomena were believed to be providential signs or warnings whereby the divine will was revealed. The story of a man selling his soul to the devil for power, which would be dramatized by Christopher Marlowe in Dr. Faustus, was a familiar one in Winthrop’s world.  It was a commonplace that many, denied God’s saving grace, turn to the forces of evil and sell themselves to Satan to become witches and warlocks. For the audiences of Tudor England, this was not a mere literary fancy employed by playwrights such as Shakespeare, it was a fact of life, reinforced by occasional trials, confessions, and executions.

IT IS 1628, AND JOHN WINTHROP was considering purchasing a London home. He held a much coveted position as attorney of the Court of Wards and Liveries, an office that could well make him rich were he to bow to the importunities of friends and temper his high moral standards. John had achieved far more success than he would have expected in the days when he was a young guest at Rochford Hall, but with success came new demands and new temptations. He was troubled, for he needed a larger income. Not only was he burdened with the costs of a long-running lawsuit in the nearby Court of Chancery, but his family continued to grow, and providing for his children was increasingly costly. His eldest son, John, had recently run up bills on a tour of the Levant. His son Henry was begging for parental help to rescue a struggling venture growing tobacco in Barbados. Forth Winthrop was a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and had written more than once to gently remind his father that college fees hadn’t been paid. Then there was his daughter, Mary, for whom he would have to provide a dowry.

In addition, the post he held came with expectations that he live in a manner seen as appropriate for such an official. He had been urged to give up his practice of living with his Downing or Fones kin or in his law chambers and to buy a London house where he could live and entertain during the court sessions. He and Margaret could not afford two full households and considered selling Groton and settling in London, but John knew he would be unable to sell the Suffolk estate until the Chancery case challenging his title was decided. Besides, neither John nor Margaret was eager to abandon the Stour Valley. Nevertheless, he had begun to look at London property. His brother-in-law Emmanuel Downing had already dismissed one possibility as too small. And it wasn’t only a house that people expected him to acquire. His sister Lucy Downing told him point-blank that the dinner service he was using was inappropriate and offered to help him purchase a more presentable set. Winthrop had long bemoaned the fact that in England we are grown to that height of intemperance in all excess of riot, that no man’s estate will suffice to keep sail with his equals, and he that fails in it must live in scorn and contempt.Ӕ Now he faced that dilemma himself.

He was torn between his sense of duty and his ambition. If this was a crossroads type of choice, it was a recurring one. A puritan was made not by a single decision but by a life of choosing. John recognized the temptation to pursue worldly success over the health of his soul and asked God each day for strength to resist. At the same time, he was worried that England was also in danger of turning its back on God.

JULY 28, 1629. John Winthrop and Emmanuel Downing were riding toward the Sempringham estate of the earl of Lincoln. They had left the rolling hills of Suffolk a few days before and were traversing the East Anglian fens, twelve hundred square miles of low-lying land that is a mixture of water, bog, and swamp. The underlying peat nourished grasses, sedges, rushes, and wildflowers along the fringes of the open waters. They moved along narrow causeways from village to village, each perched on high ground rising out of the marshy landscape. Some of those primitive roads dated back to the days of the Romans. In the morning the mists rising off the slow-moving, almost stagnant water obscured the path until burned off by the summer sun. In the evening there were brilliant sunsets over the flat terrain.

On this particular day, as they approached the crossing of the River Ouse near Littleport, they could see in the distance the Isle of Eels, where, many years before, Hereward the Wake had held out against the forces of William the Conqueror. On the highest point of that island, the sun was reflecting off the lantern tower of the cathedral of Ely. Riding along, they saw locals fishing for eels, abundant in the surrounding waters and a staple of the local diet.

But the landscape only occasionally drew their attention. They were talking about the commencement at Cambridge earlier in the month. There the gathered clergy had discussed the plan Dorchester’s Reverend John White had been promoting for a puritan settlement in New England. White and his friend and parishioner John Humfry had been members of the Dorchester Company of Adventurers, a West Country effort to establish colonial fisheries. Out of the ashes of that venture had arisen the Massachusetts Bay Company, combining some of the original members with new investors from London and East Anglia. An advance party of colonists had been sent out under the leadership of John Endecott and established an outpost at Naumkeag, which they had renamed Salem. Winthrop had been urged by Isaac Johnson and other members of the new company to join the enterprise, and he and Downing were traveling to attend a meeting of the company leadership being hosted by the earl of Lincoln. Though the earl was hosting the meeting, this enterprise was led for the most part by gentry and clergy rather than aristocrats. On the agenda was the suggestion that leaders of the company should migrate to the new England themselves rather than governing its affairs from London or elsewhere in England.

Preoccupied, perhaps, by their discussion, Winthrop was inattentive. His horse stumbled, slipped, and fell into a bog. John found himself immersed in water up to his waist in a life-threatening accident. He struggled to right himself in the foul-smelling fen waters. The footing was treacherous, and he was tangled with his horse. But, as he later wrote, the Lord preserved me from further danger. Blessed be his name.Ӕ Once again God had shown him special favor. What did this mean? What message was God sending him?

THE SALT SMELL OF THE OCEAN was in the room as John Winthrop stood to address those gathered in the Church of the Holy Rood in the port of Southampton on a day in late March 1630. Much had happened since his elevation as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company the previous October. As calculated by Englishmen, a new year had just begun, and now the new venture of colonizing New England was to be launched. Preparations for the voyage were nearly complete. The fleet of ships was assembled in the port. Soon, God’s winds being willing, the Arbella and her sister ships would set their sails, raise their anchors, and depart for the New World.

In anticipation of the departure, those who were set to embark, along with many supporters who were to remain in Englandincluding Matthew Craddock and other company officersחhad gathered in the Holy Rood to mark the occasion and seek God’s blessing on the enterprise. John Cotton had accompanied members of his Lincolnshire flock who would be sailing with Winthrop. He presided over the service at Southampton and earlier in the day had preached on God’s Promise to His Plantation. Then it was Winthrop’s turn to speak. We do not know how often he had been able to prophesy as a lay preacher in the Stour Valley, though it is safe to say that he did, since such efforts were not uncommon in puritan gatherings, and we know that he would assume that responsibility on many occasions in the New World, fulfilling in a minor way the ministerial role that he had reluctantly put aside when he abandoned his studies at Cambridge. Rising in Southampton to address those who were placing their lives and fortunes in his hands, as well as speaking to those who wished them well, he took as his subject the importance of Christian charity. Never before had he commanded a greater stage. Never before had so much been required of him.

As Winthrop rose to speak, those assembled in the nave of the church saw a man of average height and solemn demeanor. His head was of an oval shape, its length accentuated by a long nose and a beard stretching from the line of his mustache and nestling in the ruff. His dark brown hair, parted in the middle, fell to just below his ears. His eyes, also brown, were emphasized by the thick arching eyebrows that framed them. The portrait painted of him at this time of his life shows a man who dressed well, as befitted his station. His upper garment, a silk doublet, was blacka sign not of puritanism but of wealth, since it was a difficult and thus expensive color to achieve with natural dyes. It was accented with an elaborate linen ruff trimmed with lace and with linen cuffs, both the ruff and cuffs likely made from lawn, a particularly fine and expensive form of linen. In his one hand he is holding a silk glove. His overall demeanor seems to be that of a man who is comfortable with who he is and confident in the course he has chosen.

UNFORTUNATELY, THIS VIGNETTE represents only a guess at the exact time and place of Winthrop’s sermon. We are told by three different sources that Cotton preached to the departing colonists, though none mentions the exact date or location.

John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father. Contributors: Francis J. Bremer - author. Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2003.