t of Richard II. Among the churches non-conformity
began more decidedly to assume the form of secession. The key-note of
the conflict was struck at Scrooby. Staunch Puritan as he was, Brewster
had not hitherto favoured the extreme measures of the Separatists. Now
he withdrew from the church, and gathered together a company of men and
women who met on Sundays for divine service in his own drawing-room at
Scrooby Manor. In organizing this independent Congregationalist
society, Brewster was powerfully aided by John Robinson, a native of
Lincolnshire. Robinson was then thirty years of age, and had taken his
master's degree at Cambridge in 1600. He was a man of great learning and
rare sweetness of temper, and was moreover distinguished for a broad and
tolerant habit of mind too seldom found among the Puritans of that day.
Friendly and unfriendly writers alike bear witness to his spirit of
Christian charity and the comparatively slight value which he attached
to orthodoxy in points of doctrine; and we can hardly be wrong in
supposing that the comparatively tolerant behaviour of the Plymouth
colonists, whereby they were contrasted with the settlers of
Massachusetts, was in some measure due to the abiding influence of the
teachings of this admirable man. Another important member of the Scrooby
congregation was William Bradford, of the neighbouring village of
Austerfield, then a lad of seventeen years, but already remarkable for
maturity of intelligence and weight of character. Afterward governor of
Plymouth for nearly thirty years, he became the historian of his colony;
and to his picturesque chronicle, written in pure and vigorous English,
we are indebted for most that we know of the migration that started
from Scrooby and ended in Plymouth. [Sidenote: The congregation of
Separatists at Scrooby]

It was in 1606--two years after King James's truculent threat--that
this independent church of Scrooby was organized. Another year had not
elapsed before its members had suffered so much at the hands of officers
of the law, that they began to think of following the example of former
heretics and escaping to Holland. After an unsuccessful attempt in
the autumn of 1607, they at length succeeded a few months later in
accomplishing their flight to Amsterdam, where they hoped to find a
home. But here they found the English exiles who had preceded them so
fiercely involved in doctrinal controversies, that they decided to
go further in searc