Hutchinsons--a love story

© 2018 Christy K Robinson

This article is copyrighted. Copying, even to your genealogy pages, is prohibited by US and international law. You may "share" it with the URL link because it preserves the author's copyright notice and the source of the article.  
All rights reserved. This book or blog article, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

(excerpted from the book Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother, © 2018 by Christy K Robinson, Editornado Publishing)

In 1640, when Rev. John Cotton had turned against Anne and the Boston church had sent a delegation of men to Rhode Island to get Anne to recant and come under submission of the church that had banished her, the men urged William Hutchinson to force his wife Anne to bend. 

William replied, 

“I am more nearly tied to my wife than to the church. I do think her to be a dear saint and servant of God.”

A saint in biblical terms was a person set apart for a holy purpose; all the people who answered God’s call to be holy. A servant of God is one who is humble and committed to obeying the promptings in their hearts. 

Surely when William Hutchinson said that of Anne in her defense, she would have been energized and filled with love.

*****

Anne Marbury and William Hutchinson had been friends since childhood, and they married in 1612. Together, they parented 15 children through bubonic plague, a perilous voyage to New England, the potential death sentence of Anne's trials for sedition and heresy, the separation while she was incarcerated, and another pioneering journey to Rhode Island. They were hounded even there, and were forced to move to New Netherland (later New York), where William died in 1642. Anne and their younger children were slaughtered in 1643, perhaps in a murder contracted or approved by Boston leaders. If you believe in heaven, as I do, you might think that Anne and William were separated for the blink of an eye, before being united for eternity.

Now that's a love story.

See also: A Puritan Valentine?

*****

Christy K Robinson is author of these books:

We Shall Be Changed (2010)

Mary Dyer Illuminated Vol. 1 (2013)  

Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This Vol. 2 (2014)

The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport Vol. 3 (2014)  

Effigy Hunter (2015)  

Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)

And of these sites:  

Discovering Love  (inspiration and service)

Rooting for Ancestors  (history and genealogy)

William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)