![]() They bought a house in Leyden that was to serve as a meeting place. "By a joynte consent they resolved to goe into ye Low Countries where they heard was freedome of Religion for all men." In Leyden the Separatists enjoyed indeed "much sweete and delightful societie and spiritual comforte." 2 The Separatists were not persecuted in Leyden, and they even enjoyed a certain degree of prosperity. During their voyage they experienced a "fearfull storme," which they were to remember twelve years hence when they definitely thought of leaving for the New World and crossing the uncharted Atlantic. The trip in 1608 from England to Holland through the North Sea was no small matter. There were Separatists from Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire. Robinson led his flock to Leyden in Holland to escape persecution under James I. He had some university training without, however, ever graduating. The latter was their pastor Brewster was the only "gentleman" among the leaders. Among the small company at Scrooby Manor there were some of the later American Pilgrims, who became famous in the New as well as the Old World-William Brewster, William Bradford, and John Robinson. Under James I, John Smyth, a Cambridge man, founded a company of Separatists at Gainsborough. Three of their best leaders were executed as criminals in 1593, and many fled to Holland (Amsterdam) under the reign of Elizabeth I. Sandys was quoted as saying, "If our God from heaven did constitute and direct a form of government, it is that of Geneva." Nonconformists in England under Elizabeth I, and later under James I, had stood their ground and obtained notoriety by persecution and martyrdom. ![]() While the Separatists really did not believe in the union of church and state, they were definitely interested in a sound form of government, and as far as they were concerned, the Geneva type of government would do. They advocated the separation of church and state, the formation of a congregational, or separate type of independent church. As the Separatists went their own way under the leadership of Robert Browne, they were convinced that they could not in any way conform to the Anglican Church of State. They did not believe in simply "purifying" the State church from Romanism, and considered the Puritans to be as "vile" as the Anglicans and the Catholics. ![]() They differed from the Puritans in that they would not conform to the Anglican Church. The Separatists of England, with whom the crossing of the Mayflower is so closely connected, had their beginning in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Jamestown was settled by merchants and adventurers, while the Separatists, who about the same time left England for Holland, went for religious reasons. The repeat voyage of the Mayflower coincides with the celebration of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 as a result of the voyage of the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. If the seventeenth-century Pilgrims could have seen it, they would have recognized their Mayflower, except that it looked, of course, a lot better than the original. The duplicate of the Mayflower "right within a 16th of an inch" was built in Brixham harbor. Perhaps, also, it is in order to remind Americans that after all, their history has had its roots in England! It occurred to some Englishmen at this time that while the other countries had expressed their gratitude for America's contribution-such as the French who gave the Statue of Liberty-England, from whom so much had come in the past, had at most sent a few exchange professors. Captain Alan 'Villiers, the commander of the Mayflower II, reports that it was about time that the English do something to express their gratitude for the common heritage which causes Britons and Americans to see eye to eye at times in ideas and purpose. The English have built the replica of the Mayflower in a dramatic good-will gesture. Of course, everyone knows Will Rogers' wry remark that his ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower but were on the shore to welcome the Pilgrims. The memorable voyage in the fall of 1620 is part of our historic American folklore upon which many Americans look back with patriotic pride, especially if they can really prove that one of their ancestors was one of the passengers. There is hardly another ship in modern times that has aroused as much curiosity and conjecture as the Mayflower, whose sixty-six-day crossing of the Atlantic belongs to the epic past of colonial America.
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