18. New Year’s Day in the New World

Replica ship Mayflower II at the State Pier in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

Here in the UK the year 2020 will be marked by many people celebrating their freedom. They include the 51.89% of the population who voted to be free of Europe – the 48.11% who didn’t may not be so happy.

Then we have the 75^th anniversaries of VE Day and VJ Day.  I’m pretty confident  that 99.99% of people will be thankful for being free from the dictatorships of the Axis powers. Don’t ask me about the 0.01%.

Mayflower Steps Plymouth, UK Image credit: RobertBFC, Wikipedia

And then we have Mayflower 400, led by the city of Plymouth, Devon, with a smart website telling us that we have just over 8 months until 16^th September. 

That’s  the date of the sailing of the tiny ship which carried 102 passengers and its 30-strong crew across the Atlantic Ocean to a New World: a land where people – as they thought – would be free to live, think and worship, far from the tyranny of Europe.

Funny how history repeats itself.

Anyway you can read about the UK’s celebration of Mayflower 400 at https://www.mayflower400uk.org/ 

Pasadena Rose Parade 2007: First Cavalry Division Equestrian Unit, US Army, Ft. Hood Texas 

Image credit: Ucla90024  

Pasadena Rose Parade 2008: Tournament of Roses Parade float with white coat volunteer on scooter

Image credit: Noe Gold - Flickr

Obviously 2020 is bigger in the USA, so they’ve started the commemorations early. On New Year’s Day in fact, at 8.00 am.  

Above: Certificate of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Founded in 1897, The Mayflower Society, or General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD), is a non-profit organization. Membership requires proof of lineage from one of the passengers who travelled to America on the Mayflower in 1620.  Imagesource: http://www.hoggattfamily.com 

My American correspondent, a member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, tells me that a star attraction among the floats in the 2020 Rose Parade of Pasadena, California will be a replica of the 'Mayflower'. 

It will be one of a total of 40 floats, together with 17 equestrian units with over 450 horses, and 20 marching bands. 

The theme of this 131st Rose Parade is ‘Power Of Hope’. 

“I am very proud that we are participating,” she writes. “The plans began five years ago and have been progressing with funding, donations, design plans, recruiting of workers at the Arena workshops in the Pasadena Arroyo and members who will walk along the ship dressed as Pilgrims.”

You can see a video of the Rose Parade at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/258577490987879/permalink/1378887812290169/   I shared this on the Conant 400 Facebook page at 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2603367279712361/

Above: An 1815 edition of A General History of New England by William Hubbard (1621-1704), chronicler of the history of New England: a friend and admirer of Roger Conant

Roger Conant was not among that first 1620 group of Plymouth Pilgrims for whom religious freedom outside the Church of England was so important. However it was at the Plymouth colony that he stayed initially.

Image credit: Hoodinski

Historians seem to vary with regard to their views of Roger Conant’s own relationship with Plymouth: some follow the account given by William Hubbard who writes of Conant’s decision to leave the Plymouth pilgrims because of his “dislike of their principles of rigid Separation”.  

However Roger Conant's biographer Clifford K. Shipton believes that “religion was not the only, or indeed the most obvious, reason for his leaving”.

For my Budleigh Salterton readers who are following this story of Roger Conant, there’s a further reason for their interest in the 1620 Plymouth Pilgrims. 

Continued at 
https://conant400.blogspot.com/2020/01/budleigh-saltertons-link-to-mayflower.html

You can access other posts on this blog by going to the Blog Archive (under the ‘About Me’ section), and clicking on the appropriate heading.    

17. A Tale of Two Museums: how Conant 400 is starting transatlantic conversations

Todd Gray with guests at Fairlynch Museum's preview of the exhibition 'Devon's New World Explorers', 18 April 2019, including, top, Margaret Wilson who designed the exhibition with her husband Mike.  The exhibition will continue during the Museum's 2020 season

Last May, Fairlynch Museum was honoured by a visit from Exeter historian Dr Todd Gray FRHistS, MBE, who had kindly agreed to open the exhibition ‘Devon’s New World Explorers’. Naturally enough the displays included profiles of great Elizabethans like Sir Walter Ralegh and his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

Todd Gray cuts the ribbon to open  Fairlynch Museum's 'Devon's New World Explorers; right, in the background is the copy by Budleigh artist John Washington of a 16th century portrait of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Ralegh. The original painting is at Compton Castle, South Devon, home of the Gilbert family. Sir Humphrey's descendant, His Honour Judge Francis Gilbert QC, was one of the guests at the exhibition preview along  with his wife Sarah  

Todd has written and lectured on a wide variety of topics linked to the history of Devon. He seemed a most appropriate person to cut the ribbon at the museum opening, having been brought up in Massachusetts where many New World explorers had landed.

Fast forward a year or so and I found myself learning about more 17^th century New World pioneers and settlers, many of whom had been inspired by East Budleigh-born Sir Walter Ralegh and his efforts to pioneer English-speaking colonies in America in the previous century.

Roger Conant's birthplace: East Budleigh mill house

Frontispiece illustration from 'Upper Canada Sketches' by Thomas Conant  Toronto: William Briggs 1898. The mill house was demolished in the early 20th century 

By coincidence, one of  these – Roger Conant, founder of Salem Massachusetts – was born in East Budleigh a generation or so later. It’s unlikely that they met – but you never know.

Cape Ann   Image credit: Wikipedia

A second coincidence: Todd Gray turns out to be a native of Cape Ann in northeastern Massachusetts, where Conant landed nearly four centuries ago to set up a fishing station.

Todd’s research into aspects of Devon’s history is well known across the Atlantic. 'The Gloucester Times' – that is Gloucester in Massachusetts – reported on 30 November 2018 that he had been awarded the Freedom of the city of Exeter.*

Three of the ancient carved oak bench ends in All Saints' church East Budleigh: (l-r) The ship: did it inspire Sir Walter Ralegh and Roger Conant to cross the oceans?  The vandalised arms of the Ralegh family; A man depicted with a swollen tongue, or is he eating a banana?   

Among other activities Todd Gray directs the West Country Late Medieval Bench Ends project which aims to reduce the unnecessary destruction of this ancient woodwork in historic churches.

This project is the first in-depth study of this collection of carvings on the ends of seats. The region has, with its more than 5,000 bench ends, one of the two great national collections of such woodwork.

Meanwhile, thanks again to the internet, I am also in touch with Mary Ellen Lepionka, a retired publisher and author who lives in East Gloucester, on Cape Ann.    

A trustee of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, she is studying the history of the Cape from the Ice Age to around 1700 AD for a book on the subject, focusing particularly on Native American history in coastal New England, much of which she says has been lost or suppressed.

Among the records that she had studied were accounts of the abduction of Native Americans by European explorers.

In All Saints church, East Budleigh: the bench end which supposedly shows a Native American Indian. Or is it a Green Man? 

And another coincidence: she knew  that  in “East Budleigh the profile of a Native American was carved into the wooden end cap of one of the pews” although she admitted:  “There is some speculation as to the identity of that individual.”

It turned out that Mary Ellen had met Todd Gray on one of his return visits to his homeland. Seven years ago, on 17 November 2012, he was the guest speaker at Cape Ann Museum. The subject had been ‘Cape Ann Fishermen, the Pilgrims and England in 1623’.

With the approach of Mayflower 400, as today’s American descendants reflect on the troubled times in which their 17^th century ancestors embarked on the Great Puritan Migration England to America, I suspect that Todd will be very busy.    

Here’s a link to a subject on Mary Ellen’s ‘Enduring Gloucester’ blog which was inspired by his talk seven years ago in Cape Ann Museum.

https://enduringgloucester.com/2018/02/14/the-settlement-of-cape-ann-what-is-the-real-story/

Mary Ellen has kindly agreed to contribute forthcoming posts on this blog resulting from her  research into Roger Conant and Cape Ann.

* In passing, a little gripe from me. The news of Exeter UK’s award of the Freedom of the City to Dr Gray was reported in  https://www.gloucestertimes.com › news › english-city-honors-gloucesterman but when I clicked on to the link I received this message:

'451: Unavailable due to legal reasons

We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)' – “Oh Lord! That ghastly GDPR nonsense again” - 'and therefore access cannot be granted at this time'. 

What the hell is going on? Freedom of thought? This sounds more like the kind of censorship imposed by countries like China. Wake up world! Or is access to such websites going to be one of the few benefits of Brexit?

You can read the UK-published account of the award at https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_694924_en.html

You can access other posts on this blog by going to the Blog Archive (under the ‘About Me’ section), and clicking on the appropriate heading.    

16. Of cups and plate

“You have chosen wisely,” the Grail knight tells the hero in the film 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.'  Terrible things befall those who choose poorly and drink from the wrong communion cup.

And so it was during the turbulent years of religious wars brought about by the Reformation in Europe during the 16^th and 17^th centuries, when Protestant ‘Leavers’ struggled to break from what they saw as the tyranny of Rome. ‘Remainers’ fought equally hard to keep the Catholic traditions to which they were so accustomed.

The replica communion cup in display in Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum is an exact copy of the 16^th century silver vessel from which both Sir Walter Ralegh and Roger Conant may have drunk during services at East Budleigh’s All Saints Church.

The cup tells the story of how a clever Queen of England steered a path between the two groups of extremists to ensure that her kingdom would not follow France’s example with its tragic Wars of Religion. 

‘The greatest and most grievous calamity that can come to any state is civil war,’ wrote Ralegh in his ‘History of the World’, published in 1614. He had had direct experience of such a calamity, having fought as a teenager on the Huguenot side in France.  

Left: A chalice with the inscription: 'My blood truly is a libation', made in 1549 for the church of St John the Baptist in Salinas, Spain.  © Victoria and Albert Museum, London; 
right: wooden communion cups, Bernisches Historisches Museum, Bern, Switzerland dated 1718  
https://www.reforc.com

Countries which broke from Rome and embraced Protestantism rejected the decorative, sometimes bejewelled chalices which were characteristic of the Catholic tradition.


In Europe, the most extreme example of the tendency to reject such Catholic practices was seen as early as April 1525 when the reformer Ulrich Zwingli celebrated Maundy Thursday with wooden rather than silver cups. 

Was such Protestant extremism seen in English parishes? 'It is hard to be sure what was happening, especially since there was such variation on the ground,' says Dr Laura Sangha, of the University of Exeter’s Department of History.

'We do know from churchwarden accounts that many parishes either sold their communion chalices during Edward VI's reign, or they had them confiscated by the authorities. There is also evidence that some parishes bought wooden cups at around the same time, so certainly they were in use in some places.'

Goldsmiths and silversmiths benefited enormously  from changes brought about by English Reformation.  Much church treasure was confiscated by Henry VIII, with plate being melted down and reworked to conform to the new Protestant liturgy.  The process was even more marked in the 1550s, which saw the seizure of most church gold and silver ornaments by officials of Edward VI’s government.  

In the West Country, up to and including the 16th century, silversmiths relied heavily upon the Church for business. Two notable Exeter craftsmen of the 16th century were John Jones and Richard Hilliard, father of Nicholas the famous miniaturist. 

One of the most productive silversmiths of his age, John Jones (d.1583-84) was a Bailiff of the city in 1567 and Churchwarden at St. Petrock's in 1570. 

A silver gilt communion cup and cover from St Petrock’s church, Exeter, made by John Jones in about 1572. The churchwarden’s account records that in 1571 Jones was paid one pound, 15 shillings and five pence for converting this piece from a Roman Catholic chalice into a Protestant communion cup. From the RAMM collection

You can see examples of communion cups made by both Jones and Hilliard on display at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter.  More than a hundred of Jones's communion cups have survived. They made his fortune.

Queen Mary I, Portrait by Antonis Mor, 1554 Museo del Prado

The brief period of Mary Tudor’s reign saw a return to Catholic practices, welcomed by those who wanted to remain with Rome.  But by 1559 when her half-sister Elizabeth ascended the throne England was ready to ready to accept compromises in matters of religion.

The new Queen evidently shared his view. “Away with those torches, for we see very well,” she is supposed to have exclaimed at her coronation, when greeted by the Abbot of Westminster and his monks.

Queen Elizabeth I. The 'Darnley' portrait 
National Portrait Gallery

Elizabeth’s apparent rejection of the Catholic practice of lighted candles, a relic from the previous reign, would have been interpreted by Protestants as a sign of her Reformist tendencies.

Equally, the queen wanted to reassure Catholics that she respected elements of the old tradition. “The coronation was a typical Elizabethan compromise with something to confuse and offend everyone,” concludes Professor Richard McCoy in an article about the ceremony, which was keenly watched by contemporaries for hints of the government’s religious policy in the new reign.

The Elizabethan Settlement deliberately encompassed a range of preferences when it came to religious worship, and this included more decoration and ceremonial that would have been tolerated during the Edwardian regime, writes Laura Sangha.  

Fairlynch Museum’s copy of the 1570s chalice made by John Jones, moderately decorated, but not too decorated,  reflects perfectly the spirit of compromise which characterized the Virgin Queen’s reign. 

Photo of the 16th century original artefact

And that Tudor rose on the paten – the lid of the chalice - told English people that London, not Rome, was in control.  

Beautifully crafted by Birmingham pewterers A.E. Williams – probably the oldest firm of its kind in the world – Fairlynch Museum's replica of one of East Budleigh’s treasures tells a fascinating story from a crucial period in British history. 

It may give a clue as to Roger Conant's East Devon background, which would form his moderate views in matters of religion. 

You can access other posts on this blog by going to the Blog Archive (under the ‘About Me’ section), and clicking on the appropriate heading.    

15. All Saints Church and the Conant family: More on 'Leavers' and 'Remainers'

'Embarkation of the Pilgrims' (1857) by the artist Robert W. Weir, Collection of the United States Capitol, Washington DC. Protestant pilgrims are shown on the deck of the ship Speedwell before their departure for the New World from Delft Haven, Holland, on July 22, 1620.  

Roger Conant’s arrival in America, following so closely on that of the Pilgrim Fathers, might lead you to believe that he shared their religious convictions and that like them he had fled Europe because of persecution. The reality was different: Roger’s reasons for starting a new life in a distant land were mainly economic.  Yet religion played a significant part in his family's life.  

The statue of Sir Walter Ralegh (2006) in East Budleigh by Vivien Mallock, and the village pub sign. At this time of writing, so close to Halloween, you may have noticed something rather spooky about the statue’s shadow. When I took the photo in 2009 the timing was entirely by chance: Sir Walter’s ghost was telling me something. I promise no photoshopping took place 

Most visitors to East Budleigh’s parish church of All Saints are drawn there by the name of the statue which stands nearby – and of course by the pub which similarly honours Sir Walter Ralegh. It used to be called The King’s Arms.

The tomb of Joan Drake in All Saints Church 

The church has a link to another name as famous as that of Ralegh. In the centre of the nave, under a large slab of grey stone is the body of Joan Drake (1506-30). The second marriage of Joan's father John Drake (1474-1554) would lead to the birth of Sir Francis Drake. Joan Drake was the first wife of Walter Raleigh Sr (c.1496-1581), whose third marriage, to Katherine Champernowne, would result in the birth of Sir Walter Ralegh.  

A carved oak bench end in All Saints Church, East Budleigh, bears the Conant arms

The Conant name is less prominent but Roger’s family actually had the closest links with All Saints Church. 

His father Richard (c.1548-1630) and grandfather John (c.1520-96) were churchwardens, just as Raleigh’s father had been.

Portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger.  The King – a principal ‘Leaver’ who engineered England's break from the ‘tyranny’ of Rome and the Pope – sought sovereignty for 'the people of this country', infuriating 'Remainers'. Of course he had personal reasons too!

Church life in East Budleigh during Roger Conant’s childhood was calmer compared with the religious conflicts of the English Reformation during the mid-16th century that had marked village life while Raleigh was a boy.  

You could say that the break from Rome started by Henry VIII marked a struggle between ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’ more vicious than any we can think of today.

Left: The eminent Sir Walter Ralegh scholar Dr T.N. Brushfield in the library at his home The Cliff in Budleigh Salterton. The blue plaque was set up in Dr Brushfield's honour by Friends of Fairlynch Museum in 2017

Among violent changes to the building of All Saints brought about as a result of the Protestant Reformation under King Edward VI, the historian Dr T.N. Brushfield noted that the holy water stoup in the south porch had been ‘very rudely torn out of its site, leaving only a small portion behind, and the hole hastily filled in.’  He reckoned that Ralegh’s father, as a churchwarden with Protestant leanings, would have had a hand in this work. 

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I by the Exeter-born painter Nicholas Hilliard c.1547-1619

Clearly the death of the Catholic Queen Mary and the accession of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth in 1558 marked a final victory for the ‘Leavers’ over the ‘Remainers’, and brought about a welcome period of relative calm in religious affairs.    

Dr Brushfield observed that at All Saints there is no record of disturbances in church arrangements between the twelfth year of Elizabeth’s reign and 1642, the start of the English Civil War.  

But there were still those ‘Leavers’  - the Puritans - who felt that the Reformation had not gone far enough, that the break with Rome had not been sufficiently ‘hard’.  The belief had been widespread in every class of society. Queen Elizabeth I herself was a committed Anglican, but many of her advisers shared Puritan views. 

Mayflower II, a replica of the original 1620 ship at Plymouth, on Cape Cod MA. The replica was built in Devon and has been refurbished in time for the 400th anniversary celebrations in 2020

And then there were the ‘no deal’ Separatists whose views were so hard – seeking a total break not just from the Catholic but from the Anglican Church –  that they fled to exile in Holland.  In 1620 the first group left for America in the ‘Mayflower’.

A road sign at the approach to the town of Brewster MA announces that it is twinned with Budleigh Salterton. The two towns are actually quite similar in many ways

Incidentally, among them was William Brewster, born at
Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire in 1566. Some years ago, efforts were made to twin Budleigh Salterton with the Cape Cod town named after him.

The Exeter Martyrs Memorial on the corner of Barnfield Road and Denmark Road. Do go and contemplate this largely unknown Exeter monument. The Protestant Agnes Prest was burnt at the stake at Southernhay in 1557, when 'Remainers' during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary were in the ascendancy. Sir Walter Ralegh's mother is said to have visited the poor woman the night before her death, and to have been impressed by the strength of Agnes' Protestant faith  

Puritanism was especially  strong in East Devon, being an important aspect of  Exeter’s social and political history during the late 16^th and  early 17^th centuries. It influenced the thinking of most members of the Conant family. 

Roger’s elder brother John Conant (1586-1653), also brought up in East Budleigh, was instituted Rector of Lymington, near Ilchester, Somerset, in 1619.   The living was in the gift of the Sir Henry Rosewell, a known Puritan.

The Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, as painted by John Rogers Herbert (1810-1890)

On 23 July 1643, John Conant was one of the so-called Westminster Assembly of Divines who preached a celebrated sermon before the House of Commons, calling for it to reform the Church of England because he and his fellow-Puritans believed that the break with Rome had not been ‘hard’ enough. 

In fact the ‘Leavers’ had become so suspicious of the King, believing him to be a secret ‘Remainer’ that Civil War had broken out between the groups in the previous year.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Portrait by Samuel Cooper (d.1672).  

An increasingly savage conflict raged, with the ‘Leavers’ led to victory by Oliver Cromwell, who had always refused any deal.  The rather foolish and stubborn King Charles I was tried as a traitor and executed on 30 January 1649.  Puritans and ‘Leavers’ had triumphed!  

A 19th-century representation by Henry Edward Doyle of the massacre at Drogheda, 1649. First published in 1868    

There were still plenty of 'Remainers' in Ireland of course. Cromwell's brutal treatment of them is still remembered by their descendants. But for this 'Arch-Leaver' the fate of the Irish Catholics was, as he put it, 'a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches'. 

Irish sources in the 1660s claimed that 4,000 civilians had been put to the sword by Cromwell's soldiers, denouncing the sack of the town as 'unparalleled savagery and treachery beyond any slaughterhouse' 

Irritated by what he saw as the 'immoral principles & practices' of the English Parliament he closed it down in 1653 and ruled as a dictator! 'Ye are grown odious to the whole nation', he is said to have told the MPs.  Sounds familiar?

Portrait of the Revd Dr John Conant by an unknown artist

Another noted clergyman from Roger’s family was his nephew John Conant (1608-1694), born at Yettington, a mile north of East Budleigh.  In 1649 he was appointed Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, proving a popular choice with students and with Oliver Cromwell

For his advanced students John Conant led a study of biblical prophecy, inspired by the writings of the New England nonconformist minister Thomas Parker (1595–1677),  who in 1634 had embarked for America, where he founded the township of Newbury, in Massachusetts. Parker's best known work was 'The Visions and Prophecies of Daniel Expounded' (1646), which asserted that the Pope was the Antichrist.  

Oliver Cromwell obviously appreciated John Conant’s strong Puritan beliefs, awarding him income from the rectory at Abergele, Denbighshire, and Cromwell's son Richard 

appointed him as vice-chancellor of Oxford University. 

Sadly for Richard Cromwell, or 'Tumbledown Dick' as he was later known, the ebb and flow of political life meant that by 1660 the British people were finding life under the hard ‘Leavers’ and extreme Puritans rather boring.

Portrait of King Charles II (1630-85) by John Michael Wright. Was the King a secret 'Remainer'?  His brother James, who succeeded him as King James II, was a devout Catholic. 

Jolly times returned with the Restoration and coronation of Merry Monarch King Charles II, accused by some of being a closet Catholic. 

All Saints Church, East Budleigh, with a list of its vicars

Richard Conant (1621-1688) was another of Roger’s nephews from the East Budleigh area who was a clergyman with Puritan sympathies.  

Following the Restoration he found it difficult to obtain a living, and was listed  as one of Devon’s nonconformist ministers.  He finally became East Budleigh’s vicar  in 1672, being later described as ‘a hardworking, painstaking and exemplary clergyman’.

As most people know, the conflict between Catholics and Protestants would continue for some centuries, and not just within the British Isles.  

But East Devon seems to have been distinctly a land of ‘Leavers’. Colyton, the town which was home to Roger Conant’s mother, is famous for being known as ‘the Most Rebellious Town in Devon’ because of its part in the 1685 uprising against the Catholic King James II.  

You can read about the Monmouth Rebellion at https://www.colytonhistory.co.uk/colyton-history-rebel.php 

You can access other posts on this blog by going to the Blog Archive (under the ‘About Me’ section), and clicking on the appropriate heading.