The Romantic Story of the Mayflower Pilgrims, and Its Place in the Life of To-day

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Addison Albert Christopher. The Romantic Story of the Mayflower Pilgrims, and Its Place in the Life of To-day

I. OLD WORLD HOMES AND PILGRIM SHRINES

II. THE ARREST AT BOSTON AND FLIGHT TO HOLLAND

III. LIFE IN LEYDEN – ADIEU TO PLYMOUTH – THE VOYAGE TO THE WEST

IV "INTO A WORLD UNKNOWN" – TRIALS AND TRIUMPH

V. THE PILGRIM ROLL CALL – FATE AND FORTUNES OF THE FATHERS

VI. NEW WORLD PILGRIMS TO OLD WORLD SHRINES

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Lincolnshire stands pre-eminent among the English shires for inspiriting records of trials borne and conflicts waged for conscience' sake. The whole country, from the lazy Trent to the booming eastern sea, teems moreover with religious interest. To read what happened between the births of two famous Lincolnshire men – Archbishop Langton in the twelfth century; and Methodist John Wesley in the seventeenth – is like reading the history of English nonconformity. The age of miracles was long since past; yet Stephen Langton, Primate of England and Cardinal of Rome, was a champion of the national liberties. He aided, nay instigated, the wresting of Magna Charta from King John. That was not the result of his education; 'twas the Lincolnshire blood in his veins. For the outrage on the Romish traditions the Archbishop was suspended by the Pope. Probably he would have been hanged if they could have got at him.

But we can go back farther even than Langton's time. Not many miles from Gainsborough is the Danish settlement of Torksey, rich in ecclesiastical lore. Here Paulinus baptised the Lindissians on the sandy shore of the Trent, in the presence of Edwin, King of Northumbria. Hereabout, they say, King Alfred the Great was married to the daughter of Etheldred, and the old wives of Gainsborough used to recite tales of Wickliffe hiding on the spot where once stood the dwelling-place of Sweyn and of Canute.

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Robinson was a Lincolnshire man. Gainsborough claims him, and on Gainsborough his first solid memorial has been raised. Many are familiar with Gainsborough who have never seen the town. Up the Trent sailed Sweyn, the sanguinary Dane, to conquest; and his son Canute – he that ordered back the rising tide, and got a wetting for his pains – was at Gainsborough when he succeeded him as King of England.

Gainsborough is the St. Ogg's of "The Mill on the Floss," and the Trent is the Floss, along which Tom and Maggie Tulliver "wandered with a sense of travel, to see the rushing spring-tide, the awful Ægir, come up like a hungry monster" – the inrush of the first wave of the tide, a phenomenon peculiar at that time to both the Trent and the Witham.

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