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| Family in a Landscape, ca 1635, National Gallery, London |
Over the years that I’ve been researching the circumstances
of Mary Dyer’s life, I’ve read articles and fielded questions in the Dyer
website, wondering what kind of mother would leave her six children motherless
in Rhode Island, and run off to England for
five years? Why did Mary abandon her children for so long? Was she that
selfish?
We have no record of her thoughts about her family. No
journal. No letters between wife and husband, or mother and children. But we do
have some hints from her husband William Dyer, in his letters to the General
Court at Boston.
There are English customs that have been forgotten in the intervening
centuries. There was a war going on, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Between 1633 and 1650, Mary bore eight babies that we know
of, though it’s possible she miscarried during the years between the babies
that lived. She spent 19 years of her young adult life, bearing and raising
babies.
1633: William, baptized and buried within 3 days.1635: Samuel1637: unnamed anencephalic 7-months’ gestation girl, miscarried~1640: William1643: Maher~1647: Henry~1648: Mary1650: Charles
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| Jan Steen, The Feast of St Nicholas |
Fosterage was a British custom from at least 500BC, when the
Celts invaded the island. In the Celtic culture, people exchanged five- or
six-year-old children for relatives’ or nobles’ children, in order to teach
moral, religious, and societal values with less possibility of spoiling their
heirs. The children were reared and educated with the greatest love and respect, as well as
discipline. This strengthened clan alliances and often, children were raised
together, knowing they’d be married at puberty. When the Saxons invaded the
islands, they brought similar customs of fosterage, and it was well-known among
the Normans, who would send their boys to the guilds, knights, or the Church to
be trained as squires, cavalry, infantry, farmers, clerks, or monks or priests.
The girls learned the necessary skills of administering estates, nursing,
midwifery, seamstressing, and many other roles. Later, as professional guilds
evolved, boys of 12 or 14 were apprenticed from seven to nine years to a trade
or profession, and girls were given to convents or to other families to be
trained. Finally, from the English Reformation and well through the 18th
century, when infant and child mortality were very high, parents were told not
to love children too dearly so they wouldn’t be so broken when a child died of
illness or injury, and they farmed children out to learn skills without the
interference of doting, spoiling parents.
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| Who were Mary Dyer's parents? Most certainly NOT Arbella Stuart and William Seymour. http://bit.ly/1s0y5Tc |
William Dyer served nine years as an apprentice in London, 125 miles from
his parents’ home. We don’t know Mary’s background, but she was well-educated,
and was a skilled writer when most women could read a little but not write, and
not even every man could write. It’s possible that Mary had a private tutor, or
she was encouraged by a foster parent.
So you see, putting your children in fosterage was not
abandoning them. It was done with the best of intentions, and indeed love, to
ensure their future as useful members of society. Further, the Dyers may have taken in children of their friends.
When Mary left Rhode Island for England in early 1652, she almost surely did not expect to stay there for five years! War and God's call changed her trajectory.
Samuel (the Dyer’s eldest and the heir) would have been 16 and well into his training. Because he married Edward Hutchinson’s daughter Anne in 1660, my guess was that he trained with Edward. William (the younger), about 11 when his mother sailed, wrote that he’d trained on a ship from an early age (probably 12 or 14), but he also had some financial and royal-court influence behind him to later obtain an appointment as a royal customs inspector, so he was probably fostered or sponsored with someone well-placed in English society. Maher was 9, and Henry and Mary (unknown birth dates but presumed from later life events) were about 5 and 4. Charles was a weaned toddler when Mary left Rhode Island.
Samuel (the Dyer’s eldest and the heir) would have been 16 and well into his training. Because he married Edward Hutchinson’s daughter Anne in 1660, my guess was that he trained with Edward. William (the younger), about 11 when his mother sailed, wrote that he’d trained on a ship from an early age (probably 12 or 14), but he also had some financial and royal-court influence behind him to later obtain an appointment as a royal customs inspector, so he was probably fostered or sponsored with someone well-placed in English society. Maher was 9, and Henry and Mary (unknown birth dates but presumed from later life events) were about 5 and 4. Charles was a weaned toddler when Mary left Rhode Island.
Something else that is never mentioned: the Anglo-Dutch War
of 1652-53 had begun after Mary went to England. Though the official
battles took place in the eastern English Channel shores, the trade war was
being fought by privateers in the Caribbean and to a smaller extent, the Dutch
territories in what is now New York.
The coves of England from the Thames estuary to Hastings to the Lizard of
Cornwall housed Dutch pirates who would venture forth and assault English ships
in the channel. William Dyer was commissioned as Commander-in-Chief Upon the
Seas for New England, and there was very real danger of piracy, privateering
(government-regulated piracy), and other mayhem on America’s
shores from the Carolinas to Nova
Scotia. In 1654, a ship of refugees left Recife,
Brazil, heading to Manhattan, but they were kidnapped by pirates and taken to
the Canary Islands (off Africa) and when released after paying ransom, they
were pirated again by a French ship,
which sailed them to their destination and demanded another ransom to release
them.
It seems that even if Mary Dyer had intended to sail back to
America
within a year or two, it would have been at huge risk of life and limb. She was
better off in England,
and obviously, her four youngest children were cared for either by William (who was often out of town on legal or government business), or by
foster parents. In my biographical novels, I called it for Anne Hutchinson’s
sister Katherine Marbury Scott, who was Mary’s age, wealthy, lived in nearby Providence, and who had
young children of her own. But it could have been any one of scores of families
in Rhode Island or Massachusetts. Surely there would have been letters between parents and children, and foster parents to parents.
When Mary did go back to America, she sailed from Bristol
with another Quaker woman whom she’d known two decades before in Boston. They left at
about New Year, in 1657, and sailed well north of the risky, pirate-ridden
Caribbean for eight to ten weeks—but the sea ice and severe storms of the worst years of the Little
Ice Age drove them right past Cape Cod and down the coast to Barbados, where
there were Quakers with whom they could take refuge. Finally, the worst winter
storms abating, they left Barbados
and arrived in Boston
Harbor in the third week
of March. They were promptly arrested and imprisoned until her husband learned
of it and rescued Mary. Over the next three years, we only know of a few short
periods where she appears outside of Rhode
Island, with the Quakers, so she must have been at
home most of the time, caring for the younger children, Maher, Henry, Mary, and Charles.
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| Pieter de Hooch, Woman with a Baby in her Lap, and a Small Child |
Now about William’s hints about Mary. From his letters to
the hostile Boston
court in 1659 and 1660, he mentions Mary with tenderness and bewilderment that
she would choose death for her principles, over safety with her husband and
children. He implores them with tears (he says) not to deprive his children of
their mother. And he’s angry with Endecott, Bellingham, Bradstreet, and others at the
harsh treatment of Mary:
“Had you no
commiseration of a tender soul that
being wett to the skin, you cause her to thrust into a room whereon was nothing
to sitt or lye down upon but dust .. had your dogg been wett you would have
offered it the liberty of a chimney corner to dry itself, or had your hoggs
been pend in a sty, you would have offered them some dry straw, or else you
would have wanted mercy to your beast, but alas Christians now with you are
used worse [than] hoggs or doggs ... oh merciless cruelties… I have written
thus plainly to you, being exceedingly sensible of the unjust molestations and
detaining of my deare yokefellow, mine
and my familyes want of her will crye loud in yo' eares together with her
sufferings of your part but I questions not mercy favor and comfort from the
most high of her owne soule, that at present my self and family bea by you deprived of the comfort and refreshment
we might have enjoyed by her [presence].”
In May 1660, William wrote:
“… extend your mercy and favor once again to
me and my children…. yourselves have been and are or may be husbands to wife
or wives, so am I: yea to one most
dearly beloved: oh do not you
deprive me of her, but I pray give her me once again and I shall be so much
obliged for ever, that I shall endeavor continually to utter my thanks and
render you Love and Honor most renowned. Pity
me, I beg it with tears…”
If Mary had been a bad wife or mother, or had abandoned her
family to run off and “find herself,” William Dyer would not have begged for
her life, or submitted to Boston’s
authorities in tears. I suspect that when Mary spent that last winter at Shelter Island,
William arranged it so she could be safe and it would be difficult for her to
go back to Boston
as she felt compelled by God to do. William had had dealings with Nathaniel Sylvester, the owner of Shelter Island, whose wife was the sister of
Governor Coddington’s young wife.
But, you say, at the end, she left her six children to go to an
unnecessary death. She chose to make a political statement rather than raise her
children to maturity. However, in the Quaker mindset, they were leaving their families in better than human hands--they went out into the world as God's call moved them, knowing that God would be a better Parent and provide for them through the fellowship of believers. They believed that they must be willing to leave "father, mother, brothers and sisters" --and children if necessary-- to take up the Cross. "He
that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me. And he
that loveth son, or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me." Matthew 10:37 Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible was the version that Puritans studied and memorized, rather than the King James Version of 1611.
But, you say, at the end, she left her six children to go to an
unnecessary death. She chose to make a political statement rather than raise her
children to maturity. However, in the Quaker mindset, they were leaving their families in better than human hands--they went out into the world as God's call moved them, knowing that God would be a better Parent and provide for them through the fellowship of believers. They believed that they must be willing to leave "father, mother, brothers and sisters" --and children if necessary-- to take up the Cross. "He
that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me. And he
that loveth son, or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me." Matthew 10:37 Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible was the version that Puritans studied and memorized, rather than the King James Version of 1611.
When Mary accomplished the mission she believed God called
her to do, supporting the persecuted and imprisoned who were there to testify
of God’s revelations to them, and giving her life to shock the theocratic government
and its people, she exhibited a love for all people, even those she didn’t
know. Her sacrifice gave life and liberty to countless millions of people
since.
And whether or not she is your ancestor by DNA, she is your mother by virtue of her gift of selfless love. You have liberty of conscience. You have the freedom to practice and believe what you think is best, without interference or control of a government. In that sense, Mary Dyer is a mother to all of us.
And whether or not she is your ancestor by DNA, she is your mother by virtue of her gift of selfless love. You have liberty of conscience. You have the freedom to practice and believe what you think is best, without interference or control of a government. In that sense, Mary Dyer is a mother to all of us.
**********
Christy K Robinson is author of these sites:
- Discovering Love (inspiration)
- Rooting for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
- William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)
and of these books:
· We Shall Be Changed (2010)
· Mary Dyer Illuminated (2013)
· Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (2014)
· The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (2014)
· Effigy Hunter (2015)
· Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)- Discovering Love (inspiration)
