The Winthrop Woman

by Anya Seton

  "Why, thank you, Telaka—" said Elizabeth smiling. "How well you've mulled it, but I'm not thirsty."

  "Drink!" said the squaw, her one eye growing stem. "Baby cry too much." She stalked out, her blue cotton skirts swishing.

  It was true, Elizabeth thought, sipping at the beer; her milk had diminished during these days of worrying about Anne Hutchinson. She must fetch dried dill and fennel from the garret tomorrow, make a decoction of them. They always made the milk come. I should be spinning, she thought, not sitting idle, then raised her head gladly as they heard Patrick's knock.

  The Captain strode in puffing and beating his hands. "'Tis cold out. Snow in the air. 'Twill be a hard winter if November starts like this." He tossed his mantle on the chest, drew a chair up to the fire and toasted his steaming leather boots. He glanced at Robert, who had smiled a welcome before returning to his letter. "It's all over, Bess—" he said to her, quite low.

  She stiffened, looking her question.

  "Banished," said Patrick. "Banished as soon as the trails're fit to travel, imprisoned now in Welde's brother's home in Roxbury."

  "It's monstrous!" Elizabeth cried, no longer caring whether Robert heard or not. "Where can she go?"

  "Nowhere in Massachusetts, or Connecticut, that's certain," said Patrick. "Perhaps Roger Williams'll take her, being openhearted and having suffered himself."

  "But that's wilderness—" said Elizabeth, thinking of the charming comfortable home she had visited in Boston. "What has she done to be cast away like that?"

  Patrick pulled a scrap of paper from his doublet. "I wrote down the verdict for ye. These are the very words. Governor Winthrop he said:

  Mrs. Hutchinson, you hear the sentence of the court. It is that you are banished from out our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society. And you are to be imprisoned until the Court send you away.

  Then Mrs. Hutchinson said:

  I desire to know wherefore I am banished.

  Governor Winthrop answered, as haughty as a Duke:

  Say no more! The court knows wherefore, and is satisfied.

  And that was the end of it."

  "So my wise charitable uncle has won again," said Elizabeth, after a long pause.

  "Now, now wife—" interposed Robert hastily, putting down his pen, "you must get this maggot from your head, my dear. Uncle Winthrop knows what's best, and this shameless woman has been traducing the ministers, she has pretended to direct revelations from heaven, and Dan hasn't told you that she flew into a passion crying that she should be delivered from the lion's den, and your uncle and the whole colony ruined."

  Patrick cried with sudden anger, "The gentlewoman was ill and so weary she could hardly speak. Beset by all those yapping curs continually, is it wonder she talked a little wild? 'Tis a shocking business and no fit work for men. I marvel, Robert, that you seem to back it."

  Robert's pale eyes widened, his face fell to dismay. Was it contempt they both had in their eyes? Or simply anger, which was bad enough. He looked from his wife to his best friend, and the formless fear, which was never long defeated, oozed out again from hiding. His lids fluttered, and his hands trembled as he said anxiously, "I'll say no more. It is only that Uncle Winthrop and all the ministers, they are our leaders."

  "I'faith they are," said Patrick more quietly. "And I like it not. There's many more don't like it, either, as you'll soon be seeing—Well," he suddenly gave them his wide blunt-toothed grin, "I've had me bellyful o' squabbles. Bess, if ye're not drinking that fine tankard o' beer, I'll relieve ye of it."

  Anne Hutchinson was duly imprisoned at Roxbury, and her husband went south to find some place in Rhode Island where they might be sheltered. Her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, was cast from the colony immediately, despite the bitter weather. He fled farther north to Piscataqua.

  Winthrop, however, was by no means finished with his measures for subduing what he had come to look upon as a probable insurrection. Having punished the principals to the utmost limit that he dared, he now turned his implacable gaze on all Anne Hutchinson's sympathizers.

  He began by disenfranchising Captain Underhill, and removing him from office. Even Margaret was appalled when she learned of this, and seizing a bedtime moment, when John was usually more tender and open, dared to question.

  "These are matters you cannot comprehend, dear wife," Winthrop said, settling comfortably in his half of the big bed. "Underhill's name headed that Remonstrance to the Court last May and he defended Wheelwright."

  "But, dearest," said Margaret. "To dismiss Captain Underhill like that, and disarm him, and take away his franchise! Why, he fought nobly in the Pequot war, and he has been your captain since you landed."

  "He is a wicked and lecherous man," said Winthrop, blowing out the candle. "I like not speaking of these things to you, but several women have made complaint of his lewdness, and when caught the other day behind locked doors with the cooper's wife, he impudently said he was praying with her, and in any case, he had the effrontery to say that since he was sealed by the Covenant of Grace, it was impossible for him to do wrong. You see, how libertine and Antinomian he is."

  "I see," she said unhappily, and did not speak again, but her heart was heavy, and she knew that her beloved husband was not as he used to be. Harsh he had always been at times, though not to her, but now the justice and mercy he had used to show seemed to have faded away, leaving only self-righteousness. Margaret's sad thoughts drifted back to the golden days at Groton, as they often did.

  Underhill's humiliation was only the first of many, and a cataclysmic edict in late November rocked the Bay. All the signers of the Remonstrance, also seventeen alleged Antinomians from other towns, were to be disarmed. Seventy-five men were thus ordered to bring in their muskets, their fowling pieces, their swords and their carbines and surrender these to the sergeant. They were not only treated as naughty children, but they felt themselves emasculated by the loss of their weapons, and their rage was such that it nearly touched off the insurrection Winthrop had thought to subdue. He doubled the guards, alerted all those whom he knew to be loyal, and enforced his law.

  A few of these disgruntled men, like the Reverend Mr. Cotton before them, suddenly saw the errors they had committed and the invidious heresies they had been beguiled into. They wrote abject letters of apology and were forgiven. The rest, including Air. Coggeshall, Mr. Aspinwall, and eventually Mr. Coddington, decided that they had had enough of Bay tyranny forever. They departed for Rhode Island, and exile. The Governor was triumphant, and the ministers saw therein God's cherishing providence for his elected saints.

  There remained but one anticlimactic detail, which was duly scheduled for the following March of 1638—Anne Hutchinson's formal excommunication from the Church and her actual departure from the colony. Nobody had much doubt as to what the result of Anne's church trial would be, though the ministers had been laboring with her, and some said she showed signs of repentance. "She may repent till she's blue i' the face, poor mortal—" said Patrick, "and who could blame her, imprisoned and bedeviled like that all winter, deserted by Cotton, and seeing everything she worked so hard for in Boston taken from her. But they'll boot her out on some flummery no matter what she says."

  "I don't believe she repents her teachings," said Elizabeth. "I pray she does not, for I think them to be true. And I'm going to Boston to see her."

  Patrick looked at her with sympathy, but he shook his head. "Keep out of it, Bess. Ye'll do no good and get yourself and Robert into trouble."

  Elizabeth longed to cry out that she didn't care, that loyalty and indignant pity for a friend outweighed the thought of any personal dangers, but she could not honestly do so. Robert's spirits had lately been good, he was happily anticipating the arrival of his nephew, Toby Feake, and Toby's sister Judith was coming too. Robert had enlarged his house in Watertown, so as to accommodate his nephew and niece, and was moreover very much pleased that he had again been elected a Watertown deputy to the Gene
ral Court. Then there was their children's welfare to consider, the three little girls, and a new one, for Elizabeth had just discovered herself to be pregnant again.

  "I shall be most discreet—" she said at last and with some shame to Patrick. "Nor let my uncle guess my true feelings, but I pray for a chance to say some word to Mrs. Hutchinson before she is banished."

  "Your heart does ye credit, lovey," said Patrick gloomily. "If ye are going to Boston, an' ye see a ripe moment, put in a word for me wi' your uncle. I've not had me bounty money that was promised for the Pequot war, nor the grants o' lands neither. If 'twasn't for this money owing me, and that Anneke's so content here, I'd show a pair o' heels to this wretched colony meself. I vow I envy Underhill despite the shocking treatment he got!"

  Elizabeth nodded. "Aye," she said with a tremble in her voice. "Soon he'll be in England."

  Her friend put his arm around her shoulders, and gave her one of his quick hugs. "Would ye like to be, Bess?"

  "Nay," she said, thinking of Martha. "There's naught to go back to. And yet—'tis not this kind of life I had in mind when I came over. I was a foolish, green girl then, no doubt, but I thought I'd find freedom—and true love," she added in a whisper to herself. She thought of Jack, whom she had not seen in months, his residence was still mostly at Ipswich; but she knew that he traveled all over the New England coast promoting various enterprises and investigating mineral deposits.

  "Aye—" said Patrick who had also been thinking. "We all have many a dream that doesn't come true. But there's something about ye, Bess—something smothered an' held in. Ye got fire an' ye got beauty, seems wrong to me to see you pressed down into a little Watertown housewife, but that's the way it is."

  "That's the way it is," she said turning away.

  On the day before Anne Hutchinson's trial ended, Elizabeth took one of the men and the saddle horse and rode to Boston, knowing that Margaret would welcome her for any reason, but nevertheless furnished with an excuse for the visit, as a large shipment of silks and linens had just arrived from England and were for sale at Mr. Coggin's warehouse. Robert had given Elizabeth three pounds to outlay on dress materials for herself and the older girls.

  Margaret welcomed her warmly, and the two ladies spent a pleasant afternoon at the warehouse handling the rich velvets and taffetas, which were more costly than Elizabeth expected, but Margaret helped out with a generous gift, and they returned to the Winthrop mansion, followed by a servant bearing lengths of yellow and rose and blue.

  Margaret was full of joy over the birth of a son to Jack a fortnight ago, and insisted that they stop by the younger Winthrops' to admire the baby who was called Fitz-John. Elizabeth concealed her usual reluctance to see Jack's wife, who was extremely pleased with herself and her son. She admired the baby, learned that Jack had been there for the birth but had now gone into Connecticut, and finished the entirely feminine afternoon by sitting in the Winthrop parlor with Margaret sipping raspberry cordial and eating honey cakes. It was only then that Elizabeth brought up the subject which was on her mind.

  "Aunt Margaret," she said casually, "Mrs. Hutchinson is on trial in the meetinghouse tomorrow, isn't she?"

  "Oh, don't mention that dreadful woman!" cried Margaret. "The whole matter is so distressing. I vow your uncle's not had a moment's peace in months. Tell me instead how little Joan is doing with her letters, and the precious Lisbet; that child looks so delicate, and yet I know, dear, that you tend and physic her skillfully, you have so much knowledge of those things." She gave Elizabeth a loving smile, "And how does baby Hannah do? I see you must have weaned her, or you could not leave like this; does that horrid-looking squaw of yours take good care of the children?"

  "Aye," said Elizabeth. "Very good, and I had to wean Hannah, because—" She shrugged, smiling at Margaret and wondering how to turn the topic back to Anne Hutchinson.

  "You mean another babe?" cried Margaret, delighted. "This time for sure 'twill be a son."

  "I hope so," said Elizabeth, and plunged in. "Could I go to the trial tomorrow? I mean, I have curiosity about that woman, even in Watertown we've heard so much about her."

  "Why, I suppose so," said Margaret frowning, "though you're not a Boston Church member; still your uncle wants me to go, and the boys. If you've a desire to see that Jezebel overthrown, I presume he'll make no objection."

  "Aunt Margaret—" said Elizabeth after a moment. "Aren't you at all sorry for her? 'Tis unlike you to speak so stern."

  "No, dear. I'm not sorry for her," said Margaret. "She is an instrument of Satan, sent by him to ruin our colony. I didn't understand at first, but your uncle very tenderly exhorted me until I did." Her brown eyes widened and she leaned forward, whispering, "And you don't know, Bess, what is being said about her—what Mr. Welde thinks—"

  "Nothing good, I'm sure," said Elizabeth, startled to see that Margaret's gentle face suddenly showed actual fear, that she moistened her lips and looked over her shoulder before going on in a nervous little whisper, "He thinks she has commerce with the Devil, carnal—you know what I mean—and that the child she carries—is—" Margaret stopped; she shut her eyes and her lips moved in prayer.

  "No," said Elizabeth, after an appalled moment. "Not witchcraft! That's a cruel lie, and what possible reason has he!"

  "Not only he," whispered Margaret. "There've been rumors, I don't like to think on them, but Mrs. Hutchinson's friend Mary Dyer, the milliner's wife—they say that she last fall brought forth a—monstrous birth, and that the midwife—Goody Hawkins—the very one I had for my poor Sarah—God help us and forfend it had naught to do with my babe's death—this Goody Hawkins, my John thinks she may be a witch."

  "And if she is!" cried Elizabeth. "What has this folderol to do with Mrs. Hutchinson?"

  Margaret drew herself up and said with more reproof than Elizabeth had ever heard from her, "Mrs. Dyer and Goody Hawkins have both been infected with Mrs. Hutchinson's fiendish heresies, and I marvel at the lax way you speak, Bess!"

  Even Aunt Margaret! Bess thought with dismay and some fear. Can I be wrong about Anne Hutchinson? Did I imagine the beauty of those moments with her, could I have been beglamoured by evil unbeknownst?

  "I'm sorry," she said slowly, coloring a little. "I didn't mean to speak lax."

  "I know, dear," Margaret patted her niece's hand. "Now let's forget the whole shocking topic."

  The next day Elizabeth accompanied Margaret to the meetinghouse for the trial, and sat as before in the left front pew. John Winthrop and his elder boys were in the Governor's pew across the aisle. No longer was the congregation pro-Hutchinson; her party had long ago fled, been banished, or recanted. Two guards led the accused down the aisle where Wilson and Cotton together sternly received her by the pulpit.

  Elizabeth could not forbear a gasp when she saw Anne, standing there, her head drooping, swaying a little and reaching back against the pulpit for support. Anne's hair was now as white as the cap which partly covered it, her rough brown prisoner's robe hung loose over a wasted body that yet showed the clumsy thickening at the middle which confirmed her condition. She looked old, and when the trial began she seemed confused. She kept putting her hand to her forehead and shaking her head as though to clear it, while Wilson, his face aglow with the long-postponed revenge and triumph, thundered out yet once more the articles of her indictment. Once or twice she tried to speak, but Wilson drowned her out, until at the end he cried, "Now, Mrs. Hutchinson, what say you?"

  Cotton stepped forward, and looking coldly on his former pupil, said, "I have labored much with her, I think she is subdued, and will acknowledge that she hath greatly erred. Tell us, Madam!"

  Anne swayed again, her skin turned a sickly green, she looked up at the pastor she had followed here from Lincolnshire, and faltered, "I feel ill, forgive me. May I have a seat?"

  "See how she doth pretend a bodily infirmity!" said Winthrop audibly, but Cotton brought her a stool. She sat on it, and drawing a paper from her bosom began to read in a
low choked voice an apology and statement of repentance, confessing that she had often spoken rashly, unadvisedly, and out of heat of spirit, and had cause to be sorry for anything she might have said to slight the magistrates or the ministers.

  "And what do you confess to be the root of all your gross and fundamental errors?" asked Cotton as she stopped speaking and stared at the floor.

  She lifted her head and gazing towards the window said in a dead voice, "The root of all was the height and pride of my spirit."

  Ah, she is truly abased, Elizabeth thought, in poignant sorrow. Yet with Anne thus humiliated, and beaten, at least now they must be satisfied, and desist from further harrying of this obviously sick woman.

  But they did not. The ministers closed around her, Shepard, Wilson, Cotton, Welde and Eliot; they shouted accusations which were not intelligible to Elizabeth, except that she saw that they were trapping Anne into contradictions, into, as Shepard cried out, "gross and monstrous lies." He accused her again of "traducing the ministers, of slighting the Scriptures, of teaching devilish falsehood."

  Whereupon Anne stood up, and with a remnant of her old force, said to Mr. Shepard in a measured and dignified voice:

  "I do NOT allow the slighting of ministers, or the scriptures, nor anything that is set up, by God; and if Mr. Shepard doth conceive that I had any of these things in my mind then he is deceived; and my judgment is not altered though my expression alters."

  A long sigh of relief came from her pursuers, Elizabeth with a shudder saw the gloating in their faces, for Anne had again condemned herself.