A Measure of Light

by Beth Powning

  She sat upright against the dank wall, hands on her Bible, not seeking sleep.

  Muted by the thick walls, a wolf’s quavering call.

  Then, far off, a reply.

  The marshal came for her at seven-thirty the next morning.

  “Wait one moment,” she said. She sought his eyes. “I shall be ready presently.”

  “I’ll not wait upon you, you shall wait upon me. Get up with ye.”

  She pushed herself to her feet. He propelled her before him. Down the hall, through the door.

  She stepped out into the spring morning. Salt air.

  A phalanx of drummers and soldiers waited, closed around her.

  As before, people lined the streets.

  One mile, the walk to Boston Neck.

  Drums. Hands, important on wooden sticks. Faces, pressing. Cries.

  Up. Look. Up.

  The clouds, silvery, wisping. Pulling apart and drawing together again.

  Her hands, clasped before her and the cobbles beneath her shoes.

  Up. Look. Up.

  The cobbles turned to dirt, they left behind the houses and came out onto the ridge. The town fell back and below. Beyond, to the east, was the sea. Before her, the marshes where birds burst from nests, soaring.

  She stood where she had stood with William Robinson and Marmaduke Stephenson. People called out to her. Some voices were derisive, others were kind. Reverend Wilson asked her to repent. She searched his eyes. That of God in every man … She turned from him without speaking, settled in the moment, a perfect balance. Her rage, disseminated, was in the soil, on the sea wind, in the smell of spring grass.

  She mounted the ladder. The executioner climbed the second ladder beside her. She saw the marshes darken with cloud shadow, then brighten again.

  One, grip. Another, grip. The rungs were sun-warmed.

  The executioner tied a rope around her skirt. She watched the grasses blowing, blowing. A white handkerchief came over her eyes and still she kept them open. Then nothing more happened. No hands on her skirts, no adjustment of the halter around her neck. No sound from the crowd. Only the sweet, oblivious birdcall.

  And in her head, her own voice steadily whispering George Fox’s words.

  Walk in the light, walk in the truth, with which light, that never changeth, come to see that which was in the beginning, before the world was, where there is not shadow or …

  TWENTY-SIX

  New Day - 1660

  ON THE MORNING OF JUNE SECOND, William did not go to his office but dressed in his working clothes and left the house at dawn. Sinnie could see him speaking with the men by the barn; behind them, fenceposts loomed in the white mist, like flotsam. Sun broke over the sea. She turned from the window and went through the room where every tankard and bowl and silver spoon bore a flush of red. She opened the back door. Blackbirds, robins and song sparrows trilled, whistled.

  Such wee things, to be so proud. Proud of a new day.

  The house rose around and above her, like her own ribcage and beating heart: in the bedsteads, the sleeping boys and Littlemary; in the chests of drawers, shirts and caps and breeches and William’s trousers and garters and stockings and waistcoats; in the cupboards, candles, soap, linen; in the buttery and pantry, cheeses and hams; and all of it her purview, even if Mary should come home.

  Still Jurden had not returned.

  Sinnie walked down a gravel path towards the garden. Onion sets sprouted grassy stems in neat rows, rhubarb bore flowering stalks, and asparagus thrust up fat, scaled spears. She stopped at the herb garden, walled with fieldstones. The grey-green leaves of last-year’s plants were half-buried in dead leaves. Let me care for the herb garden.

  She stopped at the wrought-iron gate.

  Where is she now?

  She was accustomed to holding Mary in her mind’s eye. She saw her small and cape-swirled on the English moors, or making purchases in London’s markets, or sitting in darkness in a jail cell, or walking through the forests, or knocking on the doors of taverns. She had pictured her sailing across Long Island Sound.

  Where is she now? Oh, my Mary.

  The sun began its swift climb. The bird chorus reached its peak, notes colliding and streaming into one sustained exuberance of sound.

  They were not little children anymore. The baby, Charles, was ten. Henry was thirteen. Littlemary had her flowers and her shifts were too tight across the bosom.

  Their mother had been gone most of their lives and their forbearance had been summoned so often that it had become less resentment than habitual irritation. On this evening, when they knew that Mary had ridden into the jaws of death but had not heard whether or not she would return, William did not say a word after the prayer but snapped open his napkin, took a bite of his food and sat chewing, staring over their heads. Then he set down his spoon. A muscle shifted in his cheek.

  “It would do no good for me to go,” he said, refuting an accusation that had not been made. “Better that my words reach them by a rider speedier than myself.”

  “Father?”

  “Yes, Henry.”

  “George Gawler walked all the way from his house to the schoolyard on stilts.”

  Sinnie leaned between the boys to set down a rhubarb cobbler.

  “Mind, it be hot,” she said.

  With William’s permission to speak, Henry and Charles began a debate as to the height of George Gawler’s stilts. Littlemary was not listening. She bent her head slightly sideways, a smile touching her eyes, and ran a fingertip along the rim of her bowl. Yesterday, she had confided in Sinnie. He was sixteen.

  William’s face relaxed. He told them of the stilts that had carried him over East Anglian fields.

  The peepers started up in the marsh. One frog’s shrill, then another, more and then more, insistent as tiny hands on the blanket of darkness, pulling it up, rolling the day into oblivion.

  They heard the sound of horse hoofs, coming up the lane. William went to the door. The chime of peepers augmented as he opened it. Sinnie ran up behind him, peered out. It was Jurden Cooth, riding slowly.

  EPILOGUE

  MARY DYER WAS HANGED on the morning of June first, 1660. It is commonly believed that her family was allowed to collect her body and that she was buried at Dyer Farm.

  After the death of Oliver Cromwell, support for the return of the monarchy gained strength. On May 8, 1660, Charles II was acknowledged rightful king and invited to return from his exile in France. Three days before Mary’s execution, May 29th, 1660, Charles II returned to London amidst wild rejoicing. Peaceably, the Puritan era ended.

  News of William’s, Marmaduke’s and Mary’s executions spread across the Atlantic. George Fox wrote in his journal: “When those were put to death I was in prison in Lancaster, and had a perfect sense of their sufferings as though it had been myself, and as though the halter had been put about my own neck, though we had not at that time heard of it …” (“The Journal of George Fox,” Friends United Press, 1976.)

  —

  In March 1661, a fourth Friend was hanged in Boston—William Leddra, formerly of Cornwall. Others awaited execution.

  In England, the young king declared his support for religious tolerance. Alarmed, the Massachusetts authorities sent a letter justifying their actions. New England Friends countered with a letter of their own, detailing the punishments. Their letter was delivered to the king by the English Friend Edward Burrough. The king, appalled by the report of atrocities and hangings, responded with a mandamus requiring the authorities to forbear to proceed any further against those Quakers now already imprisoned and condemned to suffer death or other corporeal punishment; such persons, he wrote, must be sent to England, where they could be tried by English laws. He gave the mandamus to Burrough, who arranged for it to be delivered.

  In Boston, two Friends, one himself banished from Massachusetts, delivered the king’s Order to Governor Endicott.

  After reading it, Endicott removed his hat before the Quakers as re
presentatives of the king, even though they retained their own hats upon their heads. He immediately sent a letter to the jailor.

  To William Salter, keeper of the prison at Boston,

  You are required, by authority and order of the General

  Court, to release and discharge the Quakers, who at present are in your custody. See that you do not neglect this.

  In 1686, the Royal Charter was withdrawn from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The settlers lost their title to the land and the colony was ruled by a British governor. In the once-Puritan stronghold, an Anglican church was built.

  William Dyer remarried four years after Mary’s death.

  In 1677, members of the Society of Friends were free to hold regular meetings in Massachusetts.

  In 1959, a bronze statue of Mary Dyer by Quaker sculptor Sylvia Shaw Judson was placed on the west lawn of the Massachusetts State House, with the inscription: My life not availeth me in comparison to the liberty of the truth.

  These Things Are True

  A Measure of Light is based on a true story; but there is much that I have invented.

  Mary Barrett did, indeed, marry William Dyer in the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in 1633, and she did have a brother. William and Mary did lose their first son, and they did travel to Boston. Mary did bear a severely deformed stillborn child, delivered by Anne Hutchinson; and she did rise and walk from the trial at Anne’s side. Mary and William did establish a farm in Newport, and Mary did go to England by herself; as did William, to dispute the charter, during the time that Mary was there. Whether or not he encountered her, while in England, is unknown. But Mary did, in fact, stop in Barbados, on her way home; and it is true that she returned to New England as a newly converted Quaker and was incarcerated for her belief on numerous occasions (including the incident with Patience Scott). It is true that she stayed at Sylvester Manor; and she did, famously, travel alone to Boston, one last time.

  Nothing is known of Mary’s childhood: nor why she left Newport to go to England, leaving her children behind; nor why she stayed away for so long; nor what she did there. Thus I was free to create Mary’s early life in Yorkshire, as well as her married years in London. Sinnie stepped into my mind and onto the page. I invented everything that happened to Mary when she returned to England, including her companion, Dafeny.

  Of course, throughout the book, my imaginings of Mary’s life, both outer and inner, are lifted and eased through the warp threads of history. George Fox is real, as are his companions and many of the other Quakers I mention during Mary’s time in England. Fox’s sermons, too, are real, as are the atrocities visited upon those early English Friends. As well, the two letters that Mary wrote to the Boston Court of Assistants on this page and this page are real, as is William’s letter on this page-this page to the same magistrates. Mary’s writ of incarceration on this page, beginning “To the Keeper of the Prison,” is also real, as is the letter to the jailor on this page. These are in the public domain. I invented all the others.

  Here are some facts and incidents that are either based on reality, or slightly altered, as well as definitions of some words that may be difficult for the reader to find.

  – The incident with the martyrs in the opening scene is inspired by an historical account. On June 30, 1637, Puritans William Prynne, Henry Burton and John Bastwick were put in a pillory and had their ears sliced off. I have changed a few details, setting the scene in winter, adding the slit nostrils, and not describing the fact that William Prynne also had the letters “S” and “L” (seditious libeller) branded on his cheeks. www.historytoday.com/richard-hughes/ears-william-prynne

  – this page, “quintain”—an object hung or mounted on a pole used as a target during jousting training.

  – The descriptions of the New World on this page and this page are based on Wood’s New England’s Prospect, by William Wood, published 1634,written to inform prospective English colonists (on-line e-book); and John Josselyn, Colonial Traveler, an account of two voyages to New England in 1638 and 1663 (published 1675—I used the University Press of New England edition, 1988, ed. Paul J. Lindholt).

  – “The lecturer” referred to on this page, this page and this page is the real John Everard, reader at St. Martin-in-the-Fields during the years Mary Dyer lived in London, and these words were taken from a collection of his sermons which can be found on-line (“Some Gospel Treasures Opened,” published 1653). archive.org/details/somegospeltreasu00ever

  – I found the hymn on this page in the Bay Psalm Book. archive.org/stream/baypsalmbookbein00eame#page/n277/mode/2up

  – Many of Reverend Cotton’s comments (including about how babies are born “sprawling in wickedness”) came from his writings, which can be found on-line. www.digitalpuritan.net/johncotton.html

  – this page, “gurnipper”—from John Josselyn, Colonial Traveler, this page: “There is another sort of fly called a Gurnipper that are like our horse-flyes, and will bite desperately, making the bloud to spurt out in great quantity …”

  – this page, “eft”—a small lizard.

  – Wheelwright’s famous sermon, with his admonitions to the Boston clergymen, makes fascinating reading and is far, far longer than the bits I quote on this page and this page. See Google Books, “John Wheelwright: His Writings, Including His Fast-Day Sermon, Volume 9.”

  – The admonition to Anne Hutchinson on this page, determining her meetings to be “disorderly,” is taken verbatim from “The Journal of John Winthrop” (ed. Dunn and Yeandle), this page, in which Winthrop tells about “questions debated and resolved” at the General Assembly.

  – this page, this page, this page—“Nookick” is corn, baked and ground to powder.

  – Anne Hutchinson’s trial came from my perusal of various sources, both Eve LaPlante’s American Jezebel and David D. Hall’s The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History. (see below)

  – this page—“kersey” is a coarse, woollen cloth.

  – Although it seems probable that large wolf packs would have been kept from the Shawmut Peninsula by guards at Boston Neck, I have taken the liberty of imagining that a few may have slipped through.

  – Alice Tilly was a prominent Boston midwife. The story that Ann Burden (also a real person) tells Mary is true.

  – this page, “metheglin”—“A strong, sweet drink made from fermented honey and water, and flavoured with aromatic herbs.” Glossary, this page, The English Housewife, originally published in 1615, Gervase Markham. (see below)

  – The library books in Uncle Colyn’s study were such as would have been found in a gentleman’s library. My source was Fire from Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century, David Underdown. (see below)

  – Somewhere in my readings I came across a description of early Friends crossing a moor, carrying bodies. It stuck in my mind, although I can no longer find the source.

  – Here’s where I found George Fox’s sermons. www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=category&cid=410

  – this page, “cheat rye bread.” “Bread of middle grade, made of sour dough.” Again, from The English Housewife, this page, with detailed instructions.

  – Dyota’s life in the stable is based on a true story, which I found in Alison Plowden’s In a Free Republic; Life in Cromwell’s England, this page, describing the “squatter problem” at Whitehall, when it was discovered that aged grooms and widows of former royal servants of Charles I were living over the stables.

  – this page, “walkmill powder.” A walkmill was a fulling mill where cloth was thickened by beating with mallets. The resulting powder was mixed with egg white and wheat flour; the paste was laid on cloth, and applied to stanch blood.

  – this page, “To the keeper of the Prison”—I am indebted to Johan Winsser for this letter. In his manuscript, he states: “Dyer’s writ of incarceration survives,” footnoted “Copeland, Secret Works, 1659, 19-20.”

  – William Robinson’s words to the court and
Endicott’s response exist in many of the records of the period, as do Mary’s words to the court at both of her trials.

  – Some Quakers owned slaves until as late as 1784, when Quaker opinion turned decisively against slavery, and Quaker reformers united in condemning it (The Quakers in America, Thomas D. Hamm, Columbia University Press, 2003, this page). Slave ownership is a dark and shameful irony in the history of Quakerism, deserving of further exploration (see Linda Spalding’s 2012 novel, The Purchase). I decided to include the presence of slaves in Mary’s world without exploring the moral dilemma they may (or may not) have caused over a century before the condemnation, leaving the stage clear for Mary’s own considerable personal struggles. However, I believe that Mary would have been opposed to slavery on principle, no matter how well a slave may have been treated, as reflected in the letter that I imagined her writing to Aunt Urith about the Pequot slaves brought into Boston.

  Here are some of the books and resources I used (a complete bibliography can be found on my website, www.powning.com/beth).

  Mary Dyer:

  Manuscript biography of Mary Dyer by Johan Winsser, unpublished; Mary Dyer, Ruth Talbot Plimpton, Brandon Publishing, 1994; Mary Dyer of Rhode Island, Horatio Rogers, General Books, compiled, original pub. date various 17th century

  England:

  English Costume of the Seventeenth Century, Iris Brooke, A & C Black, 1934; English Society, 1580-1680, Keith Wrightson, Rutgers University Press, 1995; English Women’s Voices, 1540-1700, ed. Charlotte F. Otten, Florida International University Press, 1992; Fire from Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century, David Underdown, Fontana Press, 1993; In a Free Republic, Life in Cromwell’s England, Alison Plowden, Sutton Publishing, 2006; John Evelyn’s Diary, 1620-1706, ed. Philip Francis, Folio Society, London, 1963; Stuart England, ed. Blair Worden, Phaidon Press Ltd., 1986; The English Housewife, by Gervase Markham, ed. Michael R. Best, McGill-Queen’s University Press, first publication 1615, this edition 2008; The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, J. M. Dent and Sons, 1914; The Seven Deadly Sinnes of London, Thomas Dekker 1606, ed. H. F. B. Brett-Smith, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1922; The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution, Christopher Hill, Peregrine Books, 1988; Women in England, 1500-1760: A Social History, Anne Laurence, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995