Over the last few weeks we've been looking at some of the events which lay behind The Mayflower leaving England for America on September 6th 1620.  Over the next couple of weeks we are bringing  you a series of short biographies on some of the ship's crew members, beginning last week with Captain, Cristopher Jones. This week we will introduce you to the Mayflower's Master’s Mate and pilot, John Clarke.

​John Clarke was the Mayflower’s Master’s Mate / pilot, an important role that saw him responsible for overseeing ship operations, and navigation when the captain was not on duty. He was also responsible for steering ships in and out of berths, through hazardous conditions, and boat traffic.

Clarke remained around Jamestown for around forty days, making himself useful by piloting ships in the area carrying various stores. It was while engaged in this work however that he encountered a Spanish vessel and following a brief confrontation was taken prisoner and transported to Havana in Cuba. He would be held in Havana for around two years, then being transferred to Spain where he was in custody for five years. In 1616, he was finally freed in a prisoner exchange with England. In 1618 he was once more back on the other side of the Atlantic, piloting a ship called the Falcon, which was based in Jamestown. He returned to England in 1620 and was shortly after hired as the pilot of the Mayflower.
​
The Mayflower reached North America in November 1620 and while the crew of the Mayflower had hoped to return to England straight away, sickness meant they had to stay moored off the coast until sufficient crew were fit again. In December, the passengers of the Mayflower were shuttling in and around the shoreline of Duxbury and Plymouth, using a small shallop as transportation. On one occasion a storm came up quickly and threatened the small boat, with Clarke serving as captain. The crew spotted a small island off the coast of Duxbury and rowed for it. Back on solid ground, the Pilgrims and crew paused to give thanks for their deliverance from the storm. For his part in saving those on board, the Pilgrims named the island Clark’s Island.

Soon Clarke decided to settle in America and headed south to Virginia where he would attempt to make a home in Jamestown. Jamestown was a vastly different society to the ones the Pilgrims were trying to create in New England and relations were approaching breaking point with the local Native American tribes. Matters came to a head in 1622 when Chief Opchanacanough and his Powhatan Confederacy attempted to eliminate the English colony once and for all. On the morning of March 22nd, they attacked outlying plantations and communities up and down the James River in what became known as the Indian Massacre of 1622. More than 300 settlers were killed in the attack, about a third of the colony's English-speaking population. Jamestown was spared only through a timely warning by a Virginia Indian employee. There was not enough time to spread the word to the outposts. Of the 6,000 or so people who came to the settlement between 1608 and 1624, only 3,400 survived. Clarke was among the dead.

These scenes were built by James Pegrum and Simon Pickard as part of a series of models on the voyage of the Mayflower. Follow us on  Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see them first.

Over the last few weeks we've been looking at some of the events which lay behind The Mayflower leaving England for America on September 6th 1620.  But who was responsible for sailing her?  The number of the crew is uncertain with estimates ranging between 30 and 50.  Best estimates suggest the crew was made up of around 14 Officers, and the remainder, however many they were, were seaman.  We know little about most of the crew but a few are known to us.  Therefore over the next couple of weeks we will bring you a series of short biographies on these crew members, beginning with the Captain, Cristopher Jones.

By his mid-thirties Jones had become a somewhat prominent citizen of the town and was named as a burgess of Harwich in a new town charter granted by King James. Jones was coming into his own about this time, and with an assist from a bounty, he built a 240-ton, larger than average ship of his own which he named after his second wife – Josian. Jones used the ship for trading voyages as far south as to Bordeaux in France.

It is not until August 1609 that Jones is first recorded as master and part owner of the Mayflower. At this time the ship was chartered for a voyage from London to Drontheim (Trondheim) in Norway, and back to London. Due to bad weather, on her return the ship lost an anchor and made short delivery of her cargo of herrings. Litigation was involved and was proceeding in 1612.

In about 1611 Jones decided to leave Harwich and moved south to London, where he made his home in Rotherhithe parish, a mile downstream on the Thames from the Tower of London. Records have the Mayflower in the Thames in London in 1613 – once in July and again in October and November. Records of 1616 again state Jones' ship was in the Thames and the noting of wine on board suggests the ship had recently been on a voyage to France, Spain, Portugal, the Canaries, or some other wine country. Indeed, up until Jones was commissioned by the Pilgrims to sail to North America, the Mayflower appears to have made many trips to transport wine back from Europe, which would be exchanged for goods such as wool.

In addition to wine and wool, with Jones as captain the Mayflower transported hats, hemp, Spanish salt, hops and vinegar to Norway and he may have taken the ship whaling in the North Atlantic in the Greenland area. Jones had traveled to Mediterranean Sea ports, being then part owner with Nichols, Robert Child, Thomas Short. In 1620 Capt. Jones and Robert Child still owned their quarter shares in the ship, and it was from them that Thomas Weston chartered her in the summer of 1620 to undertake the Pilgrim voyage.

Neither Jones nor the Mayflower had completed a transatlantic voyage previously and it may have been deterirating trade conditions in Europe that pushed him towards undertaking such a task. Of course we know the voyage was a success and Jones and his entire crew remained in North America over the winter of 1620/21. Originally he had planned to return to England as soon as the Pilgrims found a settlement site, but members of his ship's crew were ravaged by the same illnesses that overcame the Mayflower passengers, and so he had to remain in Plymouth Harbor "till he saw his men began to recover".

Having married Prince Phillip of Spain in July 1554, Mary I’s priorities turned to the task of producing an heir, thus preventing the ascension of her half-sister Elizabeth to the English throne and the return of England to a Protestant state. This was going to be no easy task, especially in the 16th century when the death of mother and / or child was a fairly common results of childbirth.

However, rumours were all they were and Mary did not give birth. Mary expected to give birth in May and so preparations continued with the hiring of care workers, the preparation of a birth chamber and nursery and the creation of an intricately carved cradle. Letters announcing the birth were written, with the date and name of the child to be filled in once he or she had been delivered. The expectant couple made final preparations and moved to Hampton Court where they wanted the child to be born.

By June, with still no sign of a baby, doubts about the pregnancy began to spread. In July her abdomen receded and Spanish ambassador Giovanni Michieli joked that the pregnancy as more likely to "end in wind rather than anything else". Michieli's bad jokes aside, unfortunately for Mary the pregnancy turned out to be false. The Queen took the news badly and considered it to be to be "God's punishment" for her having "tolerated heretics" in her realm. Soon after Phillip left England to command his armies against France in Flanders and Mary was left apparently heartbroken and depressed. Michieli, demonstrating that he could do more than tell poorly timed jokes, was apparently touched by the queen's grief and wrote that she was "extraordinarily in love" with her husband, and was disconsolate at his departure.

Elizabeth remained at court until October, apparently restored to favour. In the absence of any children, Philip was concerned that one of the next claimants to the English throne after his sister-in-law was the Queen of Scots, who was betrothed to the Dauphin of France. Philip persuaded his wife that Elizabeth should marry his cousin Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, to secure the Catholic succession and preserve the Habsburg interest in England, but Elizabeth refused to comply and parliamentary consent was unlikely.

Having first attempted to make the crossing in August the Mayflower had been forced to dock due to her companionship, the Speedwell, repeatedly springing leaks. It was here that the Speedwell would be left, here condition too poor to make a successful voyage likely.

Now in September, western gales turned the North Atlantic into a dangerous place to sail, yet the Mayflower left port on what William Bradford called "a prosperous wind". They could ill afford to stay longer; provisions were already quite low when departing Southampton, and they became lower still by delays of more than a month.

Recently we went back to the events leading to the Mayflower’s voyage and looked at how the Separatists decided to leave England. The Separatists, a group of Puritan Christians who wanted to see the reformed church in England go through further reform, were having to meet in secret, which was against the law in England. This led to their persecution and a number of members from the Scrooby congregation leaving England for Holland where there was a greater level of religious tolerance. 

In 1607 the congregation from Scrooby, led by John Robinson, had travelled by foot the 60 miles to Boston and after being betrayed to the authorities by the captain of the ship they were going to escape on they spent a short time in the cells of Boston’s Guildhall.  There is however no record of any convictions of offence.  The second escape attempt wasn’t much more successful. Attempting to leave via the coastal town of Immingham in Lincolnshire, the Sepratists attempted to board a Dutch ship, Hoy. However, with the men aboard the ship the boat carrying the woman and children got stuck in the tidal mud. As they tried to free themselves a group of armed horseman came to seized them.  The captain of the Hoy panicked and fled, leaving the woman and children to be captured and sent to prison. 

Meanwhile the men on Hoy sailing to Holland were not having an easy time and were caught in a North Sea storm.  The storm was so severe that even the crew came below board, leaving the ship to its fate.  The ship was blown of course ending up near Norway. Eventually the men arrived in Holland.  Back in England the woman and children were set free following protests by the locals and they later joined the men in Holland.  William Brewster, who would become a senior colonist in North America, arrived in Holland in autumn 1608 with another future Mayflower passenger, John Robinson, following a few months later. ​

Furthermore, the religious tolerance that initially attracted them to Leiden began to trouble them. The Separatists disapproved of Leiden’s officials turning a blind eye to the presence of a small Catholic community as well as the city’s lax observance of Sabbath observations. In an attempt to counter this within their community they banned their youngsters marrying outside the congregation.  This led the authorities to ban the Separatists from carrying out their own marriages.  This led some of the Separatists to believe that they had fled one set of persecutions for another.  At the same time there was a growing threat of war recommencing with Spain as the Twelve Year Truce was due to end in 1621. 

This combination of factors led the Separatists to reconsider life in Leiden.  England was not an option and so they looked further afield to North America. The search for a ship was on. Yet despite their growing dissatisfaction with Holland, their time in Leiden would influence their ideas about their future society. For example, they bought to civil marriage to America, which was a Dutch invention brought in to allow those outside the state church to be married.