The Paterfamilias: An Emigrant's Story

By Tom Sale

The Paterfamilias, an Emigrant 'Story, is a novel of historical fiction in which William Cran emigrates to the colony of Virginia as an indentured servant to realize his dream of owning land. Growing up in the time of the English Civil War, he is no stranger to adversity, but the New World brings even greater challenges in dealing with the gentry, slavery, and Indian warfare. Choice and conflict lead to dangerous consequences coming pell-mell into his life. Hhe confusion is illustrated in the events surrounding William Cran an his friends and their lives as salves and and servants . The Zeitgeist of 17th century England and Virginia is redolent with religious overtones challenging the morality of his choices. From the agonizing decision to go to the New World to a a romantic involvement with a gentlewoman, William Cran is involved in moral choices and conflicts beyond his control. His success in rising to the status of planter is marred by conflict with subordinates and dissension with his own family. The multifaceted character of William Cran is troubled by the mysterious death of his mother. It is the haunting mystery hanging over his life, and there is no real rest for him until the question is resolved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483593807

Book preview

38

PROLOGUE

There is no present identity of a man without continuity with his past. Only then is a man present with all the strata of his life … .

Jürgan Moltmann, The Crucified God

Thanks to the graves, we have more than one story to tell. The stories pile up one on top of the other, as in the cemeteries of old Europe where bodies were buried on top of bones crowding the burial places. The bones have decayed long since, but the stories remain a part of the fabric of the passing years. Most stories are never told in words. There is simply too much to tell, and so much lies forgotten never to be recalled. Yet the untold stories, intruding as invisible influences, move unnoticed and are taught without formality from generation to generation. Few people I know remember or care about any family members beyond their grandparents, and most people are oblivious to the influence of past generations on their lives. Even so, embedded in their lives are flecks of all that has gone on before them in their families, and the stories compound with the passing years.

From the newborn child in the nursery to the comatose one-hundred-year-old in a nursing home, each has a history. Each person has a history—long or short, complicated or simple, pretty or ugly—contributing to the story of humankind. Good or evil, the stories are there. Known or forgotten, the stories will always be told and retold as if they were new. If there are no words, if there is no one to recollect, or if the stories are generations old, they will be told. The stories will be told in actions, emotions, and attitudes learned from experiences heard, seen, felt and internalized. Today we have a saying, It is what it is, but at the same time we question why things are the way they are. We may curse the inconvenient or dangerous events in our lives but never stop to look to the graves, so full of the stories making sense of the nonsensical and explaining the inexplicable. Our stories are the backbone of history.

History is a word putting a stop sign in front of every living person. Most people think of history in terms of unrelated and irrelevant events of the past, but all stories are in some sense personal histories. And each person has a personal history defined by sets of stories from the past. Henry Ford (1863–1947) is often quoted in this regard. He said, I don’t know much about history, and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world… . History is more or less bunk. It is a tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today. Ford failed to understand the reality of continuity in life. If nothing else, our genetic codes have something to say about what we are and what we do, and in a real sense, genes are history replicated in the present. But Ford was right on target when he talked about making history. We all make history.

To tell the whole story of a family stretches the bounds of possibility, but by looking at turning points in history, new directions can be traced and entirely new stories discovered. Those turns come from choice, which sets the course both for people who make the choice and those who inherit the consequences of it. Choice in one generation is the fulcrum for the choices of following generations. And that is the rub. The idea of prior choices determining the choices of people in a later time runs counter to the way most people think about freedom. The idea that someone made a decision in the past that sets the pattern of life for one as yet unborn seems undemocratic. Any American who is second generation or beyond is here not by his or her own choice but by the choice of someone before him or her. Even Native Americans were emigrants at some point. Emigration is always a choice, but one’s place of birth is not.

Every time we make a choice, we have added another episode to our personal histories, and, however small, to the history of the world. Somehow, persons, their choices, and their stories are inseparable. The choice defines both the person and the story in such a way that a person is known by his or her choice. Just how choice calibrates the future in the context of genes and the circumstances of the environment remains an unresolved point of debate in philosophy, science, and religion. But that does not matter because most people do not act as the result of logic. Most people are feelers more than they are thinkers. Most people make choices on the basis of what they feel, not what they think. And feeling is primary to life and its stories.

In the story of the Cran family, it is Boy William Cran’s choice that makes him a paterfamilias fully as much as begetting sons who bear the name Cran. Boy William Cran does not fully understand his role as a paterfamilias. He is not the paterfamilias because he has no ancestor. Indeed, he has ancestors galore, but he has no recollection of them beyond his grandparents. He is subject to the genes, feelings, attitudes, experience, and choices of those ancestors in ways he does not know. More than thumbs on the hand and the size of the brain, the will to choose in the face of the inevitable is the one distinguishing mark of humanity. The decision to go to the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia sets Boy William with all his personal history on a new course in ways that remove him from the old family as surely as the New World separates him from the Old World. The choice of indenture is degrading and limiting, but, at the same time, it is liberating. A retrograde choice for the time, it remains a sacrifice for an unfolding future, not only for himself, but for his descendants.

The story of Boy William Cran in this novel is a paradigm of countless others who came to Virginia in the seventeenth century. The Crans and Beaufoys are fictitious characters, but their stories are formed of an admixture of people and events, some historical and some fictitious, not unlike what most people find in life. The object of fiction in the context of history is to mirror history. The Crans may not have existed, but they were like people who did live, die, and leave stories for future generations. They are like people we know. Boy William Cran’s grave sets the limits of his personal story as we imagine it, but it is also the foundation upon which the stories of subsequent generations of Crans and their ilk rest.

Give thanks for the graves and the stories they tell.

PART I

BEGINNINGS

1

The Normans are a race inured to war, and can hardly live without it, fierce in rushing against the enemy, and, where force fails of success, ready to use stratagem, or corrupt by bribery.

—William of Malmesbury

After the death of Edward the Confessor in January of 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, heard that Harold Godwinson had been crowned King of England and the Anglo-Saxons. William immediately consulted his supporters to get their advice about an armed invasion to gain the English throne. Excitement in Normandy spread through all classes at the possibility of a conquest of England. The Normans were going to war, not so much as a feudal society at the whim of the sovereign, but with the motivation of personal gain for the participants. This was a profit-sharing enterprise in which all would expect to get something for their efforts. It did not take long for William to gather his army of 8,000 or 9,000 men and collect the ships to transport them over the English Channel. Of these soldiers, perhaps 3,000 were mailed knights and men-at-arms, mounted on heavy horses. The rest were on foot, armed with bows, slings, javelins, short spears, swords and even rocks. Archers used the short bow, which was drawn to the chest, not the ear, but it was able to pierce a hauberk at fifty yards.

A young Gilbert le Cran took his place with so many black-haired, thick-shouldered men of Brittany whose Keltic ancestors had settled that part of France after having been driven from their homes in England by the Saxons. Not so long ago, they had lost goods and kindred at the hands of King Aethelred’s sailors. As time passed, some names and speech patterns melded with the surrounding French culture, but their memories reserved a definite allegiance to their Keltic past. Like so many in the Norman army, Gilbert left a Channel village close to the border with Normandy to join William. As the youngest son in a large family, he had little in the way of future prospects. Gilbert le Cran and the other adventurers had two things to inspire them against their formidable Saxon foe. One was the hope for a better life. The other was the promise of land. Confidence in the Norman ranks soared when William successfully landed his army unopposed at Pevensey on 28 September 1066.

The easy Norman landing was possible because Harold Godwinson was otherwise occupied repelling a Norwegian invasion in the vicinity of York. At the ensuing battle of Stamford Bridge, Harold Godwinson and his Anglo-Saxons destroyed the invaders under Harold Hardrada. The victory was so complete that the Norwegian threat was entirely removed, and Harold Godwinson started south to meet the Norman threat.

Harold arrived in the south with his house-carls (professional soldiers attached to powerful lords) and the fyrd (citizen levies). His first strategic moves against the Normans proved to be wise ones. Harold chose his ground on a hill close to the village of Hastings. Here, on 14 October, with a line of warriors stretching some 1000 yards, he waited for the Norman advance. Because he was small in stature, Harold Godwinson usually rode a horse in battle, but on this day he stood in the middle of the line to fight dismounted among his men, with the Golden Dragon of Wessex and his own banner, the Fighting Man, floating in the breeze. For most of the day, the line formed a phalanx that proved impenetrable to the Normans. The Saxons fought in the Old Norse style, with battle axes honed to razor sharpness, cutting through the flesh and bone of both horses and riders of the charging cavalry and anything else in the circuit of their blades. The Normans struck the line of yellow and red tough lime wood shields with arrows, swords, rocks, and spears, but the Saxon line seemed impossible to break.

The sounds at the Battle of Hastings have been described as being like the sounds of a blacksmith’s shop with clanging metal on metal. The hill and its approaches smelled as if they were a slaughterhouse of men and animals. Harold’s house-carls in the center and the fyrd on the flanks repelled repeated Norman attacks until the Bretons broke on their left, leaving the Norman center vulnerable. Contrary to orders, the Saxon line came apart as some men chased their fleeing enemy down the hill, only to be cut off and killed by the Normans as they rallied. To quash a rumor that he had been killed, Duke William pulled off his helmet and led the advance up the hill again, giving heart to his tired men. The Norman archers turned the tide of battle when they let fly at a ninety degree angle so that the arrows came straight down from above into the Saxon line. Their shields, impregnable to a direct frontal attack, offered no protection from the sky above. Harold, his two brothers already dead, took an arrow in an eye, and the Saxon line broke up. The house-carls continued to fight to the end, but the Saxon cause was lost, and William, Duke of Normandy, was henceforth known as William the Conqueror.

_____

The struggle between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French cultures did not end with the battle at Hastings. The emigrants from Normandy settled the land by force and quickly established their rule over a broken people. Change was in the air at every level, from architecture and the way the churches were constructed to the very language itself. Harold Godwinson spoke a form of English, but three hundred years would pass before another monarch would use English at court. Norman-French became the language of the upper classes, while Anglo-Saxon persisted as the common speech of the people. For centuries, two languages (three if one includes the Latin of the Church) would be spoken in England. In the end, the Norman-French language failed to trickle down to the common people, but English finally bubbled up to become the language of the land again.

But there were Saxons aplenty to defraud and despoil, properties to be occupied, and jurisdictions to establish in King William’s reorganization. For centuries, the land had received violent cultural jolts, as evidenced by invasions of Kelts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, and Danes. In the course of a few years, the Norman-French presence at high levels became pervasive throughout the British Isles, reaching even into Scotland and Ireland. Not all these lands came under the Conqueror’s direct sway, but as the Normans moved across the Irish Sea and north into Scotland, their names went with them. The prefix Fitz (son of), so prevalent in English and Irish names today, comes from the old French through the Normans. Such traditional names as Graham, Frazier, Campbell, and Bruce (de Brus), to cite a few, became additions to the registry of important families in Scotland.

Controversial at the time, one historic and enduring mark of the Norman Conquest was The Domesday Book, c. 1086, containing the census information of William’s enrollment of the land’s people and resources. The very name The Domesday Book reflects the sardonic view people took of the census. In the beginning, Anglo-Saxons owned their land outright, but in the course of time most surrendered their claim of absolute ownership in exchange for the protection of wealthier and more powerful neighbors, who promised to protect them. At the time of the Conquest, it might be said that no one actually owned the land but rather that the land was held in trust by people owing allegiance to others in a hierarchy going all the way to the king, who, in turn, held it by the grace of God. In addition to the conquered people’s shock and embarrassment of conquest, The Domesday Book reflected a more structured form of feudalism bringing repression. At the very least, the Anglo-Saxons viewed the census as one more indignity to be suffered.

_____

Despite the fact that the Bretons broke at a crucial point in the Battle of Hastings, they received many lands in Kent and southeast England for their work that October day. Gilbert le Cran relished his new position of power, albeit relatively humble when compared to the station of his betters. Taking over the land of a Saxon house-carl, who had died in the battle, le Cran married his enemy’s widow and set himself up as a feudal entrepreneur learning to live above his former station. Subsequent generations of le Crans did not lift their station very much higher; rather, they did well to hang on to their few acres of land. When his first son was born, Gilbert named him William after the Conqueror. The name le Cran probably meant the crane, referring to a long-legged individual, but very early after the Conquest the le was dropped, and the name Cran suffered various spellings and pronunciations. Not long after securing the land, it became advantageous for the Crans to ally with the more powerful de Bellegago family, whose own name morphed in the course of time into Beaufoy.

As successive Beaufoys came and went, the agreements between them and the Crans blurred, and sometimes disputes occurred as to shades of meaning in contracts, but in these disagreements the Beaufoys prevailed. Where money was concerned, noblesse oblige took second place with the Beaufoys. Like most farmers, the Crans found ways to coexist with their betters and they developed symbiotic relationships when they could. Their land, always subject to the relationship with the Beaufoys, had to yield enough for their betters first and the Crans second. All too frequently, this seemed a losing cause, but the good years came, too, and the Crans and Beaufoys prospered together.

One ingrained attitude gave the Crans an inveterate pride and prejudice. Even the poorest and most misused person can usually find someone else lower in station than himself or herself. Forgetting their Breton roots, the Crans claimed Norman ancestry as a wedge to gain a social advantage. In that class-conscious society, a claim of Norman descent was enough to keep them above their Saxon neighbors in terms of reputation, if not with coins in the pocket. Upward mobility did not exist, except for those who bettered themselves by entering the Church, an option the Crans rarely exercised. As the decades passed even the Norman distinction faded and the family worked to live like everybody around them. Nonetheless, a pride of place passed from one generation of Crans to another. Kings were crowned, lived, and died from Plantagenet and heir divisions into Lancaster and York to Tudor, to Stuart; but little changed for the Crans of Kent.

:____

The William Cran who was born in 1588 grew up as a spoiled, strong-willed child. His parents doted on him and he believed he was special. There were times he wanted to shout to the world, Wake up! William Cran is here! He imbibed deeply of the spirit of the times that inspired the optimism that had been brought by the victory of England over the Spanish Armada. Francis Drake’s exploits captured his imagination as a boy, and into old age he would recite the daring deeds of that well known hero of the sea. The boy grew up in an age of religious ferment, and he saw his parents vacillate between the Catholics and Protestants. They finally decided that the Anglican Church would be the more stable of the Protestant groups, and following the example of the Beaufoys, sided with the Crown in its establishment.

William’s brothers left for other parts of England in search of common land, and his sisters married yeoman in the county or stepped down the social ladder, entering the service of the gentry. But William looked for better days by right of primogeniture, inheriting the family land. His father told him that he could afford to look around and pick his wife carefully to better the family’s status. William, tall, blond, and with deep set blue eyes, one slightly crossed just so, possessed a very determined demeanor. Many girls in the neighborhood looked at him and giggled among themselves when he passed them. At church they hoped for some sign that he noticed them, and after the service they compared notes about his looking this way or that. But few could say he looked at them.

William’s nonchalance evaporated when he met Alice Shippen at an ironmonger’s shop in Norwich in Norfolk in 1608. They met as he looked for hammer and tongs for the forge he planned to set up at the farm in Kent. She sought some cookware for her kitchen. Absorbed in their purchases, they bumped each other. Each looked at the other, and something electric took place. Alice flushed red and redder. William immediately took that bump in the shop as a stroke of good luck. With tawny hair and brown eyes, Alice smiled at William’s fumbling attempts to get acquainted. Both were smitten. For William, it was a stroke of luck, but for Alice it was an act of providence.

Alice had drunk deeply of Robert Browne’s anti-establishmentarian religious ideas and followed the lead of her father, John Shippen, openly supporting Browne in his nonconformist congregation in Norwich. John Shippen did not end up in jail, as Browne sometimes did, but neither he nor his family tried to hide their harsh feelings of distrust for the established Church. The fact that they lost some friends because of their vocal stand on religious matters only strengthened their resolve to keep their faith. A certain sharpness developed in Alice as a result of the rejection of her religious views. She felt like she was on trial in some way.

William, initially interested in the fervor of the Puritan movement had given up finding a lasting religious experience in it. Puritanism was the cause celebre of that day, capturing imagination of a generation. But William found Alice, and she was irresistible. William looked carefully again at the tenets of Puritanism, but the liturgy of the established Church called him. He loved its regal trappings and the artistic rhythm of The Book of Common Prayer. At first, Alice and William had lively religious discussions, and as plans for a marriage developed, the discussions grew more intense. Their issues turned on such things as a wedding ring or no wedding ring, and the choice of a priest or minister. The matter of a marriage service was solved when Alice agreed to be married by a dissenting minister according to the rubrics of the Church of England, leaving only one more detail remaining for them to decide—William’s gambling.

William’s uncommon good luck at the gaming table was the envy of his drinking pals. Some would say, It is your fate. Even the Beaufoys marveled at his luck at cards and watched him with envy at the gaming table. The most fortunate man in the county, they would say, with nods of agreement all around. Unless one was a Puritan, gambling was not considered a vice. All the Anglican gentry gambled shamelessly. They wagered on everything at hand: cock fights, a mare’s foaling date, cards, horse races, the price of wheat a year hence, the due date of a friend’s pregnant wife, the death date of the sovereign. Nothing was too sacred or too trivial to be excluded from the vicissitudes of a wager. That gambling could become compulsive did not occur to them. These interests in gambling were shared by most men in the county, and the poorest looked for the day when luck would smile on him.

Many of the gentry stayed in perpetual debt because of gambling habits. Despite good incomes from rents, gambling debts sapped the resources of many. They would not slacken their bets to pay their debts. Because of their good incomes, in many instances they slipped deeper into gambling debt; this was in contrast to their working-class neighbors, who had so little to put on a wager in the first place. Most of the gentry managed to stay afloat and keep their reputations, but doing so was not always easy. There were no enforcers to see that the debts were collected, but all was a matter of honor. No one of them would risk dishonor by failure to pay up. The last thing a gentleman wanted was to be hauled into court for failing to pay a gambling debt, since judges usually showed little sympathy for such debtors.

The easygoing gentry took a sanguine philosophical view of the gambling habit and pronounced it a harmless recreation. At the same time, most acknowledged some mystical powers involved in the outcome of gambling, and this mystery was an admixture of religion and magic. It was said that the Beaufoy library contained a section of books devoted to magic. William Cran insisted that on a visit there, he had seen several volumes dealing with the effect of the planets and stars on marriage. But everybody acknowledged the Beaufoys’ magic library did not help them at cards. Most people believed that one’s personal life and the prospects for success in every area of life depended on luck or fate. Luck was variable and fate was set. The providence of the Christian faith was the wildcard in the games. Providence was tortuously twisted to mean a dependence on God and one’s ability to influence him in time of need, when luck or fate did not seem auspicious. Religion and the magic of luck or fate melded together in the minds of most gentlemen as one of life’s puzzles. When William met Alice, he did not thank God; instead, he thanked his lucky stars.

William’s interest in gambling turned not so much on compulsion as a need for social acceptance. Like the social drinker, he wanted to blend in with his peers and betters. Above all, he did not want to be thought puritanical. He would tender his religious obligations to God on Sunday in the parish church, and he planned to pay his debts as a matter of honor. The gentry might show tolerance to one another in forbearing gambling debts, but that courtesy did not extend to people below them on the social ladder. If not God, then luck or fate were the great levelers. If luck was not a god, at the very least it was the work of a god or goddess (Fortuna is feminine in Latin). William’s excitement grew high every time the dice tumbled across the table. Put simply, he enjoyed the excitement of the local public house called The Owl.

While working on bookshelves in the Beaufoy library, William scanned some books and learned things about the history of gambling. The practice of gambling went back centuries. The lucky bone, the origin of dice, was used as early as the sixteenth century B.C.E., and gaming artifacts had been found in the ruins of Pompeii. Those who were seriously religious had their struggles with gaming, but everybody had some curiosity about the sport. Although William said he knew the difference between this rattling in the box and the faith preached in the parish church on Sunday, he was afraid to make the choice of one over the other. He spent hours watching and trying to divine the meaning of the cubes rolling on the table. At other times, he believed Alice was right, and at some point, he knew he would have to make a choice.

But Alice rejected the practice of gambling on at least three grounds. First, there was the matter of providence. God was in charge of all things, and that meant that God, not fate, foreordained every detail in life. God worked his will out in the affairs of men and women in a personal way. Luck did not exist. Similarly, there were no coincidences. There was no such thing as happenstance. Second, gambling was immoral since it was a form of the something for nothing philosophy of the social leech. Gambling was a form of stealing. It meant a person took something from another without compensation. Never mind that the loser might be a willing accomplice; it was still something for nothing, leaving one richer and the other poorer. To gain something from another without work was deemed theft by the Puritans. Third, gambling contradicted the work ethic. What people gained in life was to come from their toil. The goods a man gained in life must be the result of honest work.

Alice said that gambling was nothing more nor less than idolatry, forbidden in the Old Testament. At last, William had to admit he was like most gamblers of his generation. He had three gods: luck, fate and the Lord God, and he trusted to them in that order. If the first two of his little pantheon failed to get him what he wanted, he always had the Lord God as the help of last resort. Repeated conversations with Alice always ended with the same answer. Gambling was out. And she made it clear that abstinence from gambling was one of the conditions for the marriage. Even before the marriage, word went around: William is henpecked, although nobody had the courage to say that to his face.

With her views on gambling so clear, it is not surprising that Alice had a reputation for being quite religious and uncompromising. She spoke fervently of her Presbyterian view of bishops, shocking the establishment loyalists in her native Norwich and later in the Cran neighborhood in Kent. She talked zealously of her personal faith in God and Christ. When William met her, he had been smitten by her good looks and bowled over by her winsome smile. His conversion to her religious beliefs lasted only a few weeks, but his devotion to her lasted a lifetime. The only part of her Calvinism he accepted was the belief that they were foreordained to be together, and he accepted that tenet without argument. And his gambling? He gave it up to get Alice. They were married in September of 1610.

______

Most of the time, William let Alice express herself and he did not oppose her, but the baptism of their first son, Edward, born in 1611, posed a new crisis of faith for Alice. The peeving point was the minister’s making the sign of the cross in the baptismal service. William told Alice, "I can’t change the minister’s commission to follow The Book of Common Prayer. I don’t have the authority to change it. This is settled custom and it is settled Anglican law. Besides, there is no nonconformist minister in the area."

Alice objected strenuously on the grounds that there was no Scriptural warrant for the practice and that it was a holdover from the Roman Catholic Church. She agreed only after William’s appeal to those passages in Scripture, which required that a wife give assent to her husband’s wishes. At last she consented, with the proviso that she should have sole control of the Christian education of their children; that is, she would teach them a Reformed catechism. William gladly conceded the point to put the carefully crafted compromise in place.

Alice considered her instruction of her sons, Edward, her firstborn, and Samuel, born in 1614, in nonconformity a matter of her own business. They were instructed in Puritan (Calvinistic) theology, with periodic warnings about the papist tendencies of the Anglican liturgy. Whatever William thought of this, he did not say, choosing to keep peace in the family. Edward and Samuel grew up with two altars in the home.

The stricter religious habits imposed on William’s public comportment contained one exception. Alice encouraged William to go to The Owl as often as he wanted. Despite the danger that he would fall into his gambling pattern, she did not object to his drinking ale with his friends and getting the latest news, political and otherwise. The broader political news interested her most. She wanted to know what the King was up to, and William’s visits to the Owl were her only way of getting that news. If William came in very tired from his work in the fields and he wanted to stay home, she often badgered him until he left the house for the Owl. When he returned home, she wanted chapter and verse about what was going on in the countryside and the nation. After getting the news, she would begin her commentary and pronouncements. William once confided to a friend at the Owl, My wife is a bit of a scold.

_____

William and Alice’s elder son, Edward, started life under the strictest of rules, which lasted until he started his tantrums at the age of ten. Nothing seemed to soften his behavior: not good humor, lectures, the occasional whipping, or the usual sanctions placed on disobedient children. By puberty he was noncompliant and in full rebellion. From that point, he lived at home but did as he pleased. Out of control, the neighbors said, but he preferred to say, I am a risk taker. Most accused him of wanton behavior. The stories included tales of drinking bouts, gambling, and frolicking with servant girls from the Beaufoy estate. It was said, He is an all-round hell-raiser. He got warnings and curfews from William. He ignored his father’s lectures and his mother’s homilies. Attempts to discipline him with work did not change his attitude. By his late teen years, corporal punishment was daring, given his size and temperament. The local priest tried his hand at bringing the boy to his senses, but afterward he said, I came away afraid for my life.

When William took the large stick he called the cudgel, which usually leaned against the front door post, from its place, Alice knew he had reached the end of his tether. He had cut the weapon from a tree in the woodlot about the time he and Alice were married. He had left enough of the thin dark bark on it to give it a red tint in spots. It always symbolized safety and justice for the family. When the boys recited the latest childish rumor of a boogeyman roaming the neighborhood, they had only to look toward the cudgel to gain reassurance. It also served as a sign of the retribution due a family member for disobedience. William said, This stick symbolizes the authority and honor of the Cran house like the mace symbolizes the authority of Parliament. Tapping it against the stone wall of the cottage, he replaced it until the time was right.

In William’s mind, the time had come to take the cudgel to Edward. All else failing, he thought he did not have a choice. Not only was his authority as a father in question, but the boy’s future rested on some disciplinary action. The matter of Edward had reached a critical point for William when George Bluitte, a bachelor neighbor, reported the theft of some coins carefully saved through time and meant to keep him in his final years. They will provide enough for me to hire help on the land from time to time, until the end comes, he once told William, who mentioned it to the family one night at supper. But George must have confided his secret to several people because the whole neighborhood knew about the money, and everybody was incensed when he reported it stolen. Neighbors scoured the countryside for Travelers (migrant Scots or Irish very much like Gypsies), rumored to be in Kent. After all, people said, they were the only ones low enough to do such a thing.

George Bluitte, a timid man who did not want to get anybody in trouble, finally admitted, when people pressed him, that he had seen Edward Cran running into the woods close to his house on the day of the incident. Word quickly spread that Edward, not the Travelers, was the thief. When William heard the news, he immediately sent Alice and Samuel to the Beaufoys’ manor, whispering to Alice that she should make up some excuse for going and should stay there until just before dark. I have to deal with Edward once and for all. As Alice and Samuel left, William took up the cudgel and twirled it in front of him like court jester. After working off some of his nervousness, he sat down on a bench at the table in front of the fireplace.

Looking around the room, William noticed the leather poke lying on the hearth. He picked it up and when he held it, a coin dropped out. It shone brightly, reflecting the fire light, and William felt it could only be one of the several coins stolen from Bluitte’s home. Quickly looking into the fireplace cavity, William saw the spot in the firebox wall where a stone had been chiseled loose. By working at the stone with a knife, William easily pulled out the loose stone, revealing the stacks of gold coins. He noted there were not many of them, and if Bluitte expected to live on that the last years of his life, his old age would be short. Taking the coins in his hands, he carried them upstairs and put them in what Alice called her jewel box.

_____

Returning from an afternoon with a serving girl at the Beaufoy estate, Edward opened the door to the Cran cottage to see his father standing with the cudgel in his hands. His eyes focused on the stick, and a distant fear from his childhood warned him of danger. He asked, almost nonchalantly, What are you going to do with that stick? But his relaxed voice belied the body language, as he moved into a defensive stance, standing with feet firmly planted on the cold stone floor and his arms folded in front of his chest. His face tightened in defiance as he stared into the misty eyes of his father.

The answer to the question came from the scowl forming on William’s face. The stick could mean only one thing. Edward’s theft had been discovered. His eyes darted to the fireplace, where he had carefully hidden the coins. He had reasoned that as the weather turned colder, a bigger fire would burn there almost continuously, and he would keep the secret until spring when people would forget the theft. He had not reckoned on William’s quick eye and suspicious nature. Edward’s next thought was about the location of the coins, and he quickly looked at the fireplace again. As his eyes swept the room, he saw that a stone in the fireplace was ever so slightly misaligned.

Edward flashed with the anger of the guilty as he said again, What are you doing with that stick? And this time he added derisive words, Old man.

William spoke in deep guttural tones, For the first time you are going to get punishment that will teach you something. It is late in coming, but come it must.

Before William could step forward and raise the cudgel to administer justice, his son lunged at him, knocking him off balance. Edward followed by aiming at his chin, but William inadvertently shifted, and the strike landed on his father’s shoulder. It had the effect of a surprise that stunned William and left him hesitating long enough for Edward to get off a blow to William’s midsection, and he followed that with a hit in the face that sounded like a ripe apple landing on the ground. A grunt and groan escaped William’s lips as he doubled over from the blows. The stick had fallen from his hands at the first blow, and it lay on the floor at his feet. Edward kicked it beyond the older man’s reach, and then Edward brought both hands over his father’s ears with a terrible clap. William toppled to the floor in a heap, barely able to groan.

Edward left the room smiling and well satisfied. The king is dead! Long live the king! he shouted as he slammed the door of the cottage. Looking back he shouted, Now, don’t be spending my money. I’ll be back for it later.

_____

When Alice and Samuel returned, the stick was in place and William sat at the table, quietly looking into the space defined by their common room. Nothing was said, and William left his wife and younger son to imagine what had happened between himself and Edward. He feared that Edward would come in soused and boast about his fists laying his father on the floor. If that happens, he thought, I will deny it all and live with the lie. It will be his word against mine in the end. Instinctively, his hand went to his swollen eye and he knew his version of the story would not hold water.

William felt sore all over and sick to his stomach, but later that night he slipped out of his cottage and left the money on Bluitte’s doorstep. For days Bluitte talked of nothing but the miracle of his returned money, and he swore to God he would not miss Morning Prayer at the parish church so long as he was able to walk there.

_____

Things came to a head when the Beaufoys complained. Something had to be done. A servant girl to Eleanor, a Beaufoy daughter, had become pregnant. A big kerfuffle took place at the manor house one night between the servant girl and Eleanor, and word leaked out among the servants that the father of the child was Edward Cran. Eleanor was angry, since she was involved with Edward as well. The servant girl was subsequently packed off to a private place in London. The offense against the Beaufoys, however, was the last straw. In their eyes, the real offense was not that the servant girl was in a tight spot but that the situation made Eleanor look bad. In the Beaufoys’ minds, Eleanor looked as if she were taking second place to a servant girl in the affections game.

As a way out for Edward, Eleanor father, Sir Thomas Beaufoy, put forward a solution which he said was an opportunity or Edward to improve himself.  The Beaufoys proposed emigration to Virginia. Since Edward had no money for the trip, indentured servitude would be his fate. When Edward protested, he got the standard success story of the day from Sir Thomas, who recited it in practiced tones. John Rolfe an emigrant entrepreneur did quite well there. He even married an Indian princess. When he returned to England, his wife was the toast of the land. In a few years, Virginia has become a desirable place to live.

But Edward had heard other things about the Chesapeake and the Jamestown Colony. An Indian uprising had caused much death and suffering. Emigration had fallen off, resulting in a desperate need for new emigrant labor. In so-called good times, the death rate among indentured servants was so high that a constant flow of replacement labor was needed to keep the colony viable. Stories of the Indian Chief Opechancanough sent chills down the spines of blowhards at the Owl. Parents would invoke his name to frighten their children into obedience for years to come. When Edward tried a recitation of these facts, Sir Thomas Beaufoy cut him short and said, You have a choice. I suggest you think about it: the Chesapeake or the tollbooth.

Alice argued against Edward’s indenture, but her pleas came to no avail. What William failed to do with his cudgel, Sir Thomas Beaufoy did by arranging indentured servitude. Eventually, Edward signed the papers, tore off his copy, boarded the Sea Serpent in London, and settled in for the trip across the Atlantic.

_____

Alice wrote these words in the family Bible. Edward Cran died 14 March 1620. Alice grieved alone for the loss of her son.

2

It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it.

—The Book of Common Prayer

Mary Cage, twenty-two years old when she had come into Beaufoy service, hailed from Norwich, where her father was a tanner. People held their noses when she told them about his tanning business, but he did well enough financially. Mary’s mother had died giving birth to her. Harry Cage the tanner did not remarry, but devoted his life to his business and to Mary. He tutored her in reading, and she collected a small library. She read her Bible and set up her devotional life on the pattern of Daniel, the Old Testament worthy, praying three times daily. This regimen she kept without fail. A Puritan who moved toward separatism, Harry plied his daughter with theology of an austere Calvinistic bent. Harry Cage was rigid and an unyielding man, not unkind, but he was a formidable debater. He did not hold his views back for the sake of friendship or business. He was an avid Brownist in church affairs.

When Harry fell ill with smallpox, he made some quick contacts with an old friend, in the hope of placing his daughter in the service of a prominent family in Kent. As his health started to sink, Harry talked hopefully about the possibility of finding a place with someone he termed an old acquaintance. A curious Mary saw some subtle distinction between the words old friend and old acquaintance. She questioned him about the arrangements, but he replied that the arrangements had been instituted a long time ago, and she should not worry. He told her, Sir Thomas will be good to you and take care of you. Repeating this over and over quieted him, and contentment came for a few hours. Mary did not ask any more questions.

Mary did what she could for her father and encouraged him as he had encouraged her those times she lay sick as a child. Then, he told her stories of the plight, of princesses and young knights who always came to their rescue. He told her all the things that children want to believe. As Harry lay dying with pustules all over his body, Mary knew that stories of princesses and knights would not do. She read to him from the Bible, especially the Psalms and at times quoted many from memory. This lifted his spirits some, but she knew he had no hope of recovery. In his delirium, he talked and shouted his fears for Mary’s future. Harry Cage died two days before Mary received word that she had been accepted as a milkmaid in the service of Sir Thomas Beaufoy on his estate of Brentwood in Kent.

What inheritance Mary might have received from her father evaporated in the face of debts, avaricious friends, and greedy business associates. Of course, the friends and associates all claimed to have her best interests at heart, and they told her in detail about the claims against the estate. Daniel Buckworth was the lawyer hired by the creditors to handle their claims, and Mary challenged him to his face. Buckworth patiently but firmly explained that the estate was exhausted because of wasteful debts Harry had run up. Mary flushed with anger and the words rolled off her tongue like water poured from a pitcher. My father hated debt. He took quite literally Proverbs 22:7 ‘… the borrower is slave to the lender.’ He taught me to read and write, and I can cipher, too. I know what is going on. You, sir, are a thief and you shall be judged at the last day for what you are doing to me.

But her angry words did not change Buckworth, who insisted there was nothing left of the Cage estate. Mary could not win, no matter how hard she accused Buckworth and the others. She was still arguing her case as she climbed into the cart headed for Kent, but Buckworth chuckled and assured her no one listened to a girl. He waved a cheery goodbye as the cart disappeared down the road to the south. Mary did not look back, but whispered, God’s will!

_____

To his son John, Sir Thomas Beaufoy described Mary Cage as comely, and she did look attractive. A brunette, she wore her maid’s cap tightly pinned so that her exposed hair formed a band from ear to ear about the back of her neck. But black eyes set deeply in her face suggested both disappointment and at the same time a hope. An irrepressible smile made anyone who saw her want to smile in return. Primping did not improve her looks, and, consistent with her Puritan views, simplicity suited her best. In reality, this simplicity complimented the natural attractiveness that came with the combination of bearing, spiritual values, and those eyes. She chose to make the best of all things as the new chapter in her life began.

New places bring a certain emotional discomfort in natural fears of the unknown, and Brentwood was no exception. But for Mary Cage, the discomfort was spiritual as well as emotional. The turmoil in her soul started her first week with the announcement by the matron in charge of the milkmaids that Mary would be required to attend the service of the Anglican parish church. Previously always in a church of the Dissenters, she never imagined being in another kind of worship setting on a Sunday morning. She grew more agitated as Sunday approached. Saturday night, she thought of feigning illness, which did not stray far from the truth. On Sunday morning, she was, in fact, physically ill with vomiting and diarrhea. The next week, day after day, she fretted over her crisis of conscience. When she thought about the next Sunday, her chest tightened, and she felt a thump in her eyes like her heart was in them.

As the bell at the parish church summoned the staff of Brentwood to the service of worship the next Sunday, Mary hid in the barn and watched the maids dutifully filing out to the place of worship. Her truancy was not noticed, and she managed to blend into the crowd as it returned. She looked the milkmaids over to see if one looked friendly enough to share a confidence. They all looked friendly enough, but when she screwed up her courage to express a fear that a new church was not what she expected at Brentwood, the supposed confidant was visibly disturbed. When Mary ventured into a conversation with someone who looked more sympathetic, talk of her concern for her soul’s salvation brought a snicker. One of the girls said later, You will have to get used to it; this is the way things are done, and you don’t need to expect any changes.

Another matter of personal faith troubled Mary: honesty. To keep her reservations of troubled faith a private matter was intolerable. This was a moral failure on two grounds. She felt committed to bear witness to Christ. She felt it was incumbent on her to proclaim her faith no matter how much ridicule she endured. To hide skulking in the barn on the Sabbath while the others were in church seemed to be a denial of the Christ she professed to serve. And the eighth commandment pressed her hard. She believed she was lying when she did not tell people about her rejection of their religion all the while they thought she approved of it. Such was the state of her tender conscience. Going through the rituals of kneeling, saying rote prayers, and listening to preaching with which she disagreed—all with mental reservations—was a lie. It burdened her conscience to the breaking point.

The issue itself spawned a new crisis, a crisis within a crisis. To follow her conscience, Mary would have to speak to Sir Thomas Beaufoy and register her objection to the rule of compulsory attendance upon public worship at the Anglican service in the parish church. A meeting with the lord of the manor struck fear in her heart. It was fear such as she felt when ranters at the meeting house in Norwich described the last judgment and the plight of sinners in the presence of God. What could she say to so powerful a man? Sir Thomas was one whom her father respected and who had done her a good turn by taking her into his service. He gave her work and provided her with a living when her only other option was the streets of Norwich.

In the end, she did the only thing she could do; she asked the person in charge of the maids to set up an audience with Sir Thomas Beaufoy. Helen Cockrum took the position of one who was standing as a screener for Sir Thomas when she said, To see him requires some convincing reason. One does not simply ask for an audience with the lord of the manor and expect to have it granted as a matter of course. There must be good and sufficient reason for such an extraordinary thing. Finally using the last ploy at her disposal, Mary cried. The tears came without effort and washed down her face.

After the tears started, Helen asked, Is this about John?

Confused, Mary managed a No, and tried to explain that it was a matter of her conscience. She didn’t want to explain the details of religion to the woman, not after her conversations with the other maids. She pleaded as passionately and, with a few more tears, convinced Helen that she had some vitally important and personal matter to discuss with Sir Thomas. Later that day, Helen talked to Lady Margaret, who approached her husband and asked her own questions. Who is this maid Mary Cage? Why should she want to see you?

When asked, Sir Thomas shrugged his shoulders, but agreed to see Mary.

_____

Two afternoons later, Boothby, the manservant to Sir Thomas Beaufoy, advised him that a milkmaid wanted to speak to him.

Who is it? he asked stiffly, but when he heard that her name was Mary Cage, his face twisted strangely, and he said, I shall see her. Oh, but what does she want?

She says it is a matter of conscience, Sir Thomas. Something about the compulsory attendance at the parish church on Sundays.

Dressed in her servant’s blue and with her stomach churning, Mary had waited while the important man rearranged some papers on his desk. These farmers, he mumbled absentmindedly. When Sir Thomas looked up, Mary Cage curtsied with dipped head and raised herself only after a grunt from the man seated behind a large red cherry partner’s desk. Aware of the smell of leather, Mary raised her head to speak, only to be intimidated by the books stacked row on row on shelves of red cherry wood matching the desk. Encased in glass, books reached the top of the tall ceiling. The top shelves were accessible by a sliding ladder.

Sir Thomas nodded an acknowledgement, which Mary took as a signal to begin her speech. The corner of her mouth twitched twice, and she hoped he did not notice. Sir, she began, and then she shook her head slightly as she cleared her throat. Sir, I am here on a matter of conscience. I am well aware of the requirement of this estate that each member of the staff attend the service of worship at the parish church, but—

Sir Thomas Beaufoy interrupted, Yes, that is the rule of the manor.

My father raised me to have a will that reflects conscience. I told the matron in charge of the dairymaids that I am a person convinced of my beliefs. To attend an Anglican service as a matter of course troubles my conscience. I was told that I must take the matter up with you personally. I do apologize for the interruption of your day, but this is a matter of great importance to me. She again cleared her throat and paused, waiting for some word of approval, but Sir Thomas tossed his hand for her to go on. I grew up in a family that taught me certain values, which are a matter of conscience, and I cannot go against conscience. That is not safe. She tried to remember how many times she repeated the word conscience. She flushed with fear that she had fumbled her case.

Each took the measure of the other in the light of their respective faiths.

Sir Thomas motioned for her to take a seat. Never before had she realized how demeaning it was to ask something of another of a higher class. Several times she had stood in the presence of the gentry, but never before did she feel so uncomfortable and helpless. At least with Buckworth, she felt his equal. The man behind the desk had not so much as looked directly at her, but continued to pull at a hard knot of string around a sheaf of letters on his desk. After several seconds of silence, he stopped fussing with the knot, embarrassed that he had not untied it. She realized for him to ask her to sit in his presence was extraordinary.

Sir Thomas spoke with indulgence. As to the requirement to attend the service at the parish church on the Sabbath, I am afraid I cannot relax the rule in my own good conscience, especially not for one person. It would not be fair to the others on the staff. Everybody must be subject to the same rules.

She waited a few seconds, hoping for some sign of sympathy, but none came. Aware the setting resembled what she imagined the Inquisition had been like, Mary noticed an open law book on the desk and wanted to ask if he served as a judge in the local court, but she let the idle curiosity pass without asking. Any diversion could be considered impertinence.

Sir Thomas stood up and carelessly tossed a letter opener on his desk to demonstrate nonchalance. Instinctively Mary stood up, thinking that the interview was over, but he waived her back to her seat. Clearly he was not used to being crossed with something unpleasant, such as a servant disagreeing with a rule of religion. Why is this girl asking this question? he thought. A long-forgotten feeling crept into his consciousness. Traveling in France as a young man, he had met a Muslim and had later he encountered some Jews in Canterbury. These people had kept a very low profile. So had the Catholics he had known at Oxford. Their certainty of bearing left him uneasy. Even the Puritans he knew attended their parish churches. Many Dissenting pastors serviced parishes of the Church of England. Everybody he knew on a social basis professed to being a Protestant Christian and loyal to the establishment. He had never talked to a Dissenter about faith and religion. He knew about Dissenters’ views only from his wide reading and discussions with members of the clergy of the Church of England. To be anything other than an Anglican would be unchristian and unpatriotic. To be English was to be a member of the establishment. The king was the head of the Church of England and when he spoke, it was as head of the state and the church. With all this whirling in his mind, he heard her say, I wish to be excused from worship in the parish church on Sundays by reason of conscience.

Unheard of! Sir Thomas said dismissively, but then he sat down and looked at her. He picked up the bundle of letters again and began to pry at the knot. He stopped and started to say something.

Before he could go on, Mary said, "Sir! This is a matter of conscience with me. My people are Puritans, Brownists, and it is important that we be honest with all people in all things. It is on a matter of honest conscience that I came to you. Since I was a child, I have known no religious service except one of the Puritan form. We believe the Anglican service has many, uh, remnants of the Popish religion in it, and we prefer a simpler form found in the New Testament, uh, after the example of the apostles. Such innovations as kneeling and placing the communion table in the east end of the building, facing the rising sun in reciting the creed, hearing sermons read, and watching a cleric wearing priestly vestments are inimical to the teachings of the true Reformed faith. Priests do not replicate the ministry of the New Testament, and the vocabulary of Anglican churches retains so many suggestions of past popery that it should be done away with ‘root and branch.’ The Anglicans’ claim that the king is the