WINTHROP, JOHN
(22 January 1588, Edwardstone, England-26 March 1649, Boston, MA). Education: Studied at Trinity College, Cambridge University, 1603-5. Career: Justice of the peace and lord of Groton Manor (after 1619), Suffolk, 1609-29; lawyer, London, 1613?-29; governor, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1629-34, 1637-40, 1642-44, 1646-49.
In the strict sense of the word early New England was not a theocracy. In a theocracy the same individuals wield religious and political power. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, however, one could not be both a minister and a magistrate. The connection between church and state was strong, but it was maintained by the commonality of interest shared by ministers and magistrates, rather than by a mingling of their offices. Both sought to create a holy commonwealth, using the tools of church and state to achieve their ends. In early New England many magistrates illustrate this shared vision, but none better than John Winthrop. His religious sensibilities were as fmely tuned as those of a John Cotton* or a Thomas Shepard·. But his instrument was the governor's chair rather than the clergyman's pulpit
Winthrop was born to a pious and well-to-do family in Essex in the year of the Spanish Armada. He attended Cambridge for a time, but left before receiving a degree, in order to help his father with Groton Manor and to marry a young woman from a nearby town. Between 1605 and 1615 he fathered four children, farmed the land, and began to serve as justice of the peace. During these years he also served a sort of apprenticeship as a Puritan saint. He was properly troubled about his religious condition, seeking continually to "tame his heart" and to fix his attention on God rather than on the world. When riding to London to attend court, he tried to pray and sing psalms rather than think about fame or fortune. In 1615 he lost his first wife, remarried, and lost his second wife within a year. With each bereavement, he thought about the transitiveness of life and the immutability of God. In 1618 he married Margaret Tyndal daughter of Sir John Tyndal, a local magnate. Their letters reveal a strong human attachment and a mutual effort to transform earthly into divine love.
The Winthrops had children. John was busy with legal affairs in London. They might well have lived out their lives in England, but in 1629 a group of Puritans received a charter incorporating the Massachusetts Bay Company, and began planning a holy community in America. Winthrop was interested in their work, and because of his legal experience as well as his Puritan piety, he was invited to serve as governor of the enterprise. In 1630 he led a fleet of eleven ships to the shores of New England and chose Boston, a hilly peninsula in Massachusetts Bay, to be his home in the new land
The wilderness lay all around the Puritan settlements. During the first winter many settlers lived in tents, and two hundred died of hunger and exposure. None the less, Winthrop wrote home to his wife that he was in a "paradise." For him as for many other Puritans, nothing could be more rewarding than the opportunity America offered to create communities attuned to the will of God. During John Winthrop's twenty-year association with Massachusetts, he was elected governor sixteen times. Occasionally he took an unpopular stand, or the freemen worried about creating a hereditary ruler and Winthrop lost the governorship. But always the job returned to Winthrop. In him were mingled the qualities of piety, good humor, intelligence, and vision. And the people had the wisdom to reward him and themselves by accepting his leadership.
Winthrop is remembered particularly for some of the words he used in expressing Puritan ideas. Some typify Puritan intolerance. Asked by Anne Hutchinson* why she was condemned for her Antinomian beliefs, Winthrop answered curtly, "Say no more; the court knows wherefore and is satisfied." Others reflect the Puritan ideas on government. In a famous dispute about a militia election in Hingham in 1645, Winthrop told the general court that although he was elected by them, his authority was from God. He then told the representatives that there are two kinds of liberty in the world. The first is natural and corrupt: "By this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority." The second, and legitimate, kind of liberty he characterized as civil or moral. "This liberty is the proper end and object of authority and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives, if need be."
The most famous of all John Winthrop's pronouncements was his description of the ideal community, set forth in a sermon aboard the Arbella bound for America. Some of its assumptions would later be abandoned by Congregationalists and other Americans: he began by saying "God Almighty in His most holy and wise providence hath so disposed of the condition of mankind as in all times some must be rich, some poor; some high and eminent in power and dignity, others mean and in subjection." That aristocratic conception of government would meet opposition even in his own lifetime. Other phrases, however, were repeated again and again in Puritan New England, and echo still in our own times. "There are two rules whereby we are to walk, one towards another," Winthrop said, "justice and mercy." "We must be knit together in this work as one man .... We must delight in each other, make other's conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together." New Englanders must be so virtuous that other peoples would look upon their community as a model of Christian charity. "We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill," Winthrop said, "The eyes of all people are upon us."
The grandeur of the Puritan scheme is apparent in phrases such as these. It is also apparent in more prosaic experiences, such as John Winthrop's night spent in a forest. One fall evening in 1631 he went for a walk near his farmhouse, taking along a gun in case he should come across a wolf. When he was about a half mile from his house, night fell, and Winthrop could not find his way home. Fortunately he came upon a native house, then empty. He built a fire outside and lay down on Indian mats. But he was unable to sleep; so he spent the night gathering wood, walking by the fire, and singing psalms. The next day Winthrop located his house, to the great relief of the servants, who had shouted and shot off their guns the night before, hoping to attract his attention. It was a small adventure, happily ended. But nothing in John Winthrop's life better typifies his piety, or the pervasive religiosity of the early Puritans, than the image of the governor of Massachusetts alone by a fire in the middle of the night-singing psalms.
Bibliography
A: James Savage, ed., The History of New England from 1630 to 1649,2 vols. (Boston, 1825-26) [Winthrop's Journal]; J. H. Twichell, Some Old Puritan Love Letters-John and Margaret Winthrop (New York, 1893); Samuel Eliot Morison, et.al., eds., Winthrop Papers, 5 vols. (Boston, 1929-47).
B: DAB 20, 408-11; DARB, 521-22; NCAB 6, 201-2; SH 12, 384-85; Robert C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop, 2 vols. (Boston, 1864-67); G. W. Robinson, John Winthrop as Attorney: Extracts from the Order Books of the Court of Wards and Liveries, 1627-1629 (Cambridge, Mass., 1930); Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (Boston, 1958); Robert G. Raymer, John Winthrop (New York, 1963); Stanley Gray, 'The Political Thought of John Winthrop," New England Quarterly, 3 (1930), 681-705; E. A. 1. Johnson, "Economic Ideas of John Winthrop," New England Quarterly, 3 (1930), 235-50; "John Winthrop, Esquire," in Samuel Eliot Morison, Builders of the Bay Colony (Boston, 1962; originally published, 1930), 51-104.
In the strict sense of the word early New England was not a theocracy. In a theocracy the same individuals wield religious and political power. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, however, one could not be both a minister and a magistrate. The connection between church and state was strong, but it was maintained by the commonality of interest shared by ministers and magistrates, rather than by a mingling of their offices. Both sought to create a holy commonwealth, using the tools of church and state to achieve their ends. In early New England many magistrates illustrate this shared vision, but none better than John Winthrop. His religious sensibilities were as fmely tuned as those of a John Cotton* or a Thomas Shepard·. But his instrument was the governor's chair rather than the clergyman's pulpit
Winthrop was born to a pious and well-to-do family in Essex in the year of the Spanish Armada. He attended Cambridge for a time, but left before receiving a degree, in order to help his father with Groton Manor and to marry a young woman from a nearby town. Between 1605 and 1615 he fathered four children, farmed the land, and began to serve as justice of the peace. During these years he also served a sort of apprenticeship as a Puritan saint. He was properly troubled about his religious condition, seeking continually to "tame his heart" and to fix his attention on God rather than on the world. When riding to London to attend court, he tried to pray and sing psalms rather than think about fame or fortune. In 1615 he lost his first wife, remarried, and lost his second wife within a year. With each bereavement, he thought about the transitiveness of life and the immutability of God. In 1618 he married Margaret Tyndal daughter of Sir John Tyndal, a local magnate. Their letters reveal a strong human attachment and a mutual effort to transform earthly into divine love.
The Winthrops had children. John was busy with legal affairs in London. They might well have lived out their lives in England, but in 1629 a group of Puritans received a charter incorporating the Massachusetts Bay Company, and began planning a holy community in America. Winthrop was interested in their work, and because of his legal experience as well as his Puritan piety, he was invited to serve as governor of the enterprise. In 1630 he led a fleet of eleven ships to the shores of New England and chose Boston, a hilly peninsula in Massachusetts Bay, to be his home in the new land
The wilderness lay all around the Puritan settlements. During the first winter many settlers lived in tents, and two hundred died of hunger and exposure. None the less, Winthrop wrote home to his wife that he was in a "paradise." For him as for many other Puritans, nothing could be more rewarding than the opportunity America offered to create communities attuned to the will of God. During John Winthrop's twenty-year association with Massachusetts, he was elected governor sixteen times. Occasionally he took an unpopular stand, or the freemen worried about creating a hereditary ruler and Winthrop lost the governorship. But always the job returned to Winthrop. In him were mingled the qualities of piety, good humor, intelligence, and vision. And the people had the wisdom to reward him and themselves by accepting his leadership.
Winthrop is remembered particularly for some of the words he used in expressing Puritan ideas. Some typify Puritan intolerance. Asked by Anne Hutchinson* why she was condemned for her Antinomian beliefs, Winthrop answered curtly, "Say no more; the court knows wherefore and is satisfied." Others reflect the Puritan ideas on government. In a famous dispute about a militia election in Hingham in 1645, Winthrop told the general court that although he was elected by them, his authority was from God. He then told the representatives that there are two kinds of liberty in the world. The first is natural and corrupt: "By this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority." The second, and legitimate, kind of liberty he characterized as civil or moral. "This liberty is the proper end and object of authority and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives, if need be."
The most famous of all John Winthrop's pronouncements was his description of the ideal community, set forth in a sermon aboard the Arbella bound for America. Some of its assumptions would later be abandoned by Congregationalists and other Americans: he began by saying "God Almighty in His most holy and wise providence hath so disposed of the condition of mankind as in all times some must be rich, some poor; some high and eminent in power and dignity, others mean and in subjection." That aristocratic conception of government would meet opposition even in his own lifetime. Other phrases, however, were repeated again and again in Puritan New England, and echo still in our own times. "There are two rules whereby we are to walk, one towards another," Winthrop said, "justice and mercy." "We must be knit together in this work as one man .... We must delight in each other, make other's conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together." New Englanders must be so virtuous that other peoples would look upon their community as a model of Christian charity. "We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill," Winthrop said, "The eyes of all people are upon us."
The grandeur of the Puritan scheme is apparent in phrases such as these. It is also apparent in more prosaic experiences, such as John Winthrop's night spent in a forest. One fall evening in 1631 he went for a walk near his farmhouse, taking along a gun in case he should come across a wolf. When he was about a half mile from his house, night fell, and Winthrop could not find his way home. Fortunately he came upon a native house, then empty. He built a fire outside and lay down on Indian mats. But he was unable to sleep; so he spent the night gathering wood, walking by the fire, and singing psalms. The next day Winthrop located his house, to the great relief of the servants, who had shouted and shot off their guns the night before, hoping to attract his attention. It was a small adventure, happily ended. But nothing in John Winthrop's life better typifies his piety, or the pervasive religiosity of the early Puritans, than the image of the governor of Massachusetts alone by a fire in the middle of the night-singing psalms.
Bibliography
A: James Savage, ed., The History of New England from 1630 to 1649,2 vols. (Boston, 1825-26) [Winthrop's Journal]; J. H. Twichell, Some Old Puritan Love Letters-John and Margaret Winthrop (New York, 1893); Samuel Eliot Morison, et.al., eds., Winthrop Papers, 5 vols. (Boston, 1929-47).
B: DAB 20, 408-11; DARB, 521-22; NCAB 6, 201-2; SH 12, 384-85; Robert C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop, 2 vols. (Boston, 1864-67); G. W. Robinson, John Winthrop as Attorney: Extracts from the Order Books of the Court of Wards and Liveries, 1627-1629 (Cambridge, Mass., 1930); Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (Boston, 1958); Robert G. Raymer, John Winthrop (New York, 1963); Stanley Gray, 'The Political Thought of John Winthrop," New England Quarterly, 3 (1930), 681-705; E. A. 1. Johnson, "Economic Ideas of John Winthrop," New England Quarterly, 3 (1930), 235-50; "John Winthrop, Esquire," in Samuel Eliot Morison, Builders of the Bay Colony (Boston, 1962; originally published, 1930), 51-104.