e,
with its long sloping roof and gable end toward the road, its staircase
with twisted balusters running across the shallow entry-way, its low
ceilings with their sturdy oaken beams, its spacious chimneys, and its
narrow casements from which one might have looked out upon the anxious
march of Edward IV. from Ravenspur to the field of victory at Barnet
in days when America was unknown. Hard by, in the little parish church
which has stood for perhaps a thousand years, plain enough and bleak
enough to suit the taste of the sternest Puritan, one may read upon
the cold pavement one's own name and the names of one's friends and
neighbours in startling proximity, somewhat worn and effaced by the
countless feet that have trodden there. And yonder on the village green
one comes with bated breath upon the simple inscription which tells of
some humble hero who on that spot in the evil reign of Mary suffered
death by fire. Pursuing thus our interesting journey, we may come at
last to the quiet villages of Austerfield and Scrooby, on opposite
banks of the river Idle, and just at the corner of the three shires of
Lincoln, York, and Nottingham. It was from this point that the Puritan
exodus to America was begun. [Sidenote: Puritanism was strongest in the
eastern counties] [Sidenote: Preponderance of East Anglia in the Puritan
exodus]

It was not, however, in the main stream of Puritanism, but in one of its
obscure rivulets that this world-famous movement originated. During the
reign of Elizabeth it was not the purpose of the Puritans to separate
themselves from the established church of which the sovereign was the
head, but to remain within it and reform it according to their own
notions. For a time they were partially successful in this work,
especially in simplifying the ritual and in giving a Calvinistic tinge
to the doctrines. In doing this they showed no conscious tendency toward
freedom of thought, but rather a bigotry quite as intense as that which
animated the system against which they were fighting. The most advanced
liberalism of Elizabeth's time was not to be found among the Puritans,
but in the magnificent treatise on "Ecclesiastical Polity" by the
churchman Richard Hooker. But the liberalism of this great writer, like
that of Erasmus a century earlier, was not militant enough to meet the
sterner demands of the time. It could not then ally itself with the
democratic spirit, as Puritanism did. It has been well said that wh