resigning from his post as minister to devote himself entirely to the job.
Ward wanted his code to protect the colony from potential oppression by the General Court, but he also wanted to uphold the traditions of English common law in the New World. Each event back home directly impinged on his thinking as he sat up late into the night, researching and writing the
Body of Liberties.
New England, unlike old, should be bound by God’s Scripture, Ward believed. In his introduction to the
Body,
he wrote that no law should exist that could “be proved to bee morallie sinfull by the word of God.” 17
Given the intrinsic loneliness of such an endeavor, it must have been sustaining to have an intelligent young acolyte who hung on his every word and seemed as obsessed as he was with the creation of a godly New England. Notwithstanding his questionable attitudes about women, Ward even defended wives against abuse from their husbands. Perhaps his relationship with Anne was teaching him to reconsider some of his entrenched ideas as he added the crucial sentence, “Everie marryed woeman shall be free from bodilie correction or stripes by her husband, unlesse it be in his own defense upon her assault.” Although it was typical of Ward to imagine women as the aggressors, still he called for a decisive split with English common law, which had allowed men to punish their wives with a “reasonable instrument” for hundreds of years. 18
Ward penned his laws with painstaking care, and by 1641 the court had adopted a version of his work as the colony’s order of governance. This document was of profound importance for the settlement; now it had its own principles that would, they hoped, prevent the mistakes of the Old World. Suddenly Massachusetts Bay seemed more separate than ever before, with its own legal system, like any distinct national entity.
Meanwhile Charles raced on, brandishing his sword at the Scots, collecting money however he could without a Parliament-sanctioned tax (for example, by slapping people like Theophilus in jail for protesting), and thereby alienating his subjects even more. At last, in 1640, a year before Ward finished his legal code, the war-hungry king ran out of money and was forced to reconvene Parliament so that they could levy taxes to fund his ambitions. As the Puritans saw it, Charles had received his comeuppance and it was time to pay him back for curtailing the rights of the legislature and for mistreatment of the people. Everyone in New England, including Anne and Ward, must have realized what Charles did not, that calling Parliament back into session after a ten-year hiatus was like lighting the tail of a bomb. Charles flatly refused to compromise and would not “offer reprisals” for his past actions. In response, Parliamentary leaders became even more intransigent. 19 The incendiary relationship between the king and his Puritan subjects had flared to a truly dangerous point.
Anne and her neighbors immediately felt the ramifications of this stalemate between Charles and his government. As soon as the confrontation began, the steady stream of pilgrims fleeing England stopped. English Puritans felt that at last there was hope and rallied to fight the restrictions they had been laboring under since Charles had acceded to the throne. By 1642 it was clear that the Great Migration was over and New Englanders would have to learn to fend for themselves, economically speaking. Crops were soon worth “little more than half what they had been, and cattle were down from twenty or twenty-five pounds a head to eight, seven, or even six.” No one was sure how the colonists would survive without the built-in market of new arrivals rushing off their ships and purchasing the settlers’ old tools and furniture; their cows, pigs, and food supplies; and even their warm clothing for the winter. 20
During this suspenseful time, some pious New Englanders reversed the migration process and caught the next vessels
Ward wanted his code to protect the colony from potential oppression by the General Court, but he also wanted to uphold the traditions of English common law in the New World. Each event back home directly impinged on his thinking as he sat up late into the night, researching and writing the
Body of Liberties.
New England, unlike old, should be bound by God’s Scripture, Ward believed. In his introduction to the
Body,
he wrote that no law should exist that could “be proved to bee morallie sinfull by the word of God.” 17
Given the intrinsic loneliness of such an endeavor, it must have been sustaining to have an intelligent young acolyte who hung on his every word and seemed as obsessed as he was with the creation of a godly New England. Notwithstanding his questionable attitudes about women, Ward even defended wives against abuse from their husbands. Perhaps his relationship with Anne was teaching him to reconsider some of his entrenched ideas as he added the crucial sentence, “Everie marryed woeman shall be free from bodilie correction or stripes by her husband, unlesse it be in his own defense upon her assault.” Although it was typical of Ward to imagine women as the aggressors, still he called for a decisive split with English common law, which had allowed men to punish their wives with a “reasonable instrument” for hundreds of years. 18
Ward penned his laws with painstaking care, and by 1641 the court had adopted a version of his work as the colony’s order of governance. This document was of profound importance for the settlement; now it had its own principles that would, they hoped, prevent the mistakes of the Old World. Suddenly Massachusetts Bay seemed more separate than ever before, with its own legal system, like any distinct national entity.
Meanwhile Charles raced on, brandishing his sword at the Scots, collecting money however he could without a Parliament-sanctioned tax (for example, by slapping people like Theophilus in jail for protesting), and thereby alienating his subjects even more. At last, in 1640, a year before Ward finished his legal code, the war-hungry king ran out of money and was forced to reconvene Parliament so that they could levy taxes to fund his ambitions. As the Puritans saw it, Charles had received his comeuppance and it was time to pay him back for curtailing the rights of the legislature and for mistreatment of the people. Everyone in New England, including Anne and Ward, must have realized what Charles did not, that calling Parliament back into session after a ten-year hiatus was like lighting the tail of a bomb. Charles flatly refused to compromise and would not “offer reprisals” for his past actions. In response, Parliamentary leaders became even more intransigent. 19 The incendiary relationship between the king and his Puritan subjects had flared to a truly dangerous point.
Anne and her neighbors immediately felt the ramifications of this stalemate between Charles and his government. As soon as the confrontation began, the steady stream of pilgrims fleeing England stopped. English Puritans felt that at last there was hope and rallied to fight the restrictions they had been laboring under since Charles had acceded to the throne. By 1642 it was clear that the Great Migration was over and New Englanders would have to learn to fend for themselves, economically speaking. Crops were soon worth “little more than half what they had been, and cattle were down from twenty or twenty-five pounds a head to eight, seven, or even six.” No one was sure how the colonists would survive without the built-in market of new arrivals rushing off their ships and purchasing the settlers’ old tools and furniture; their cows, pigs, and food supplies; and even their warm clothing for the winter. 20
During this suspenseful time, some pious New Englanders reversed the migration process and caught the next vessels
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