back home in order to join the legal battle against the king. Those like Anne who stayed behind wondered about the fate of the colony: Would the faithful in Massachusetts abandon the New World to fight for purity in the Old? Reports from England declared that Puritans and other dissenters had become increasingly defiant as they arrayed themselves against the king and his policies.
Ward joined Winthrop and Dudley in anxiously following the struggle. Having practiced law for ten years in London, the minister still had many friends who were in the thick of things. Thus, it was probably from Ward that Anne learned how talks between the king and Parliament had ground to a standstill.
In the spring of 1642, both the Commons and Lords announced for the last time that they would not renounce their list of grievances against Charles. They wanted to abolish the ancient feudal tax laws that Charles had revived to fund his army. They demanded that Parliament be summoned every three years and that it could not be disbanded without its own consent. Finally, they wanted the end of the hierarchical system of bishops and archbishops. The king responded by declaring that his very existence depended on his repudiation of their claims: “If I granted your demands, I should be no more than the mere phantom of a king,” he raged. 21
This stalemate was exactly what Ward sought to protect New Englanders from in his
Body of Liberties.
The old system seemed to be failing their beloved England. A full-fledged violent conflict loomed between Charles and his subjects; by the summer, both sides had put an end to negotiations and began to prepare for armed conflict. About halfway through her fifth pregnancy, Anne brooded over the future. No one knew what might happen to Massachusetts Bay. It seemed an inauspicious time to bring an infant into the world.
On July 21 Winthrop and Dudley responded to the crisis in England by calling for a fast day. Like Ward, most people in the colony still nurtured a traditional loyalty to the king even though they disapproved of many of his actions. He was the ruler and standard-bearer of the English people. How could there be an England without a monarch? Besides, it was unpleasant to consider how Charles might punish Puritans in general and Massachusetts in particular once he regained control of the government. For of course he would; after all, he was the king.
That fall, news came that New Englanders’ forebodings were coming true. Back in August, the king had fled from the capital; Parliament howled that Charles must be returned to them immediately “by battle or other way.” 22 Although at first it seemed that Charles had few supporters and could easily be cowed into submission, Royalists mustered their forces and began to march on London. The reports broke off at this point, so when Anne went into labor, she could only picture the worst: the demise of Puritanism in England and America. Happily, Anne delivered another healthy baby, little Hannah, and perhaps she derived some comfort from the new infant’s plump legs and tiny face. But while Anne suckled Hannah, more bad news sailed across the Atlantic. Guns had been fired. Englishmen had killed Englishmen. The king’s forces had trounced the Parliamentary army at Banbury on October 23. A civil war had begun.
Anne seems to have been frustrated at waiting helplessly to receive more news. No longer simply interested in her own ambition or, for that matter, in showing the world that pious women could read, write, and think for themselves, Anne’s ideas about her identity as a poet had enlarged. This elevation of purpose seems to have occurred in part because of her relationship with the politically minded Ward, but also because of her role as a “deputy husband” in Ipswich. Over the last decade, she had been increasingly pushed into public matters as a prominent citizen of the town. She longed to rattle her spear against corruption and heresy like a man,
Ward joined Winthrop and Dudley in anxiously following the struggle. Having practiced law for ten years in London, the minister still had many friends who were in the thick of things. Thus, it was probably from Ward that Anne learned how talks between the king and Parliament had ground to a standstill.
In the spring of 1642, both the Commons and Lords announced for the last time that they would not renounce their list of grievances against Charles. They wanted to abolish the ancient feudal tax laws that Charles had revived to fund his army. They demanded that Parliament be summoned every three years and that it could not be disbanded without its own consent. Finally, they wanted the end of the hierarchical system of bishops and archbishops. The king responded by declaring that his very existence depended on his repudiation of their claims: “If I granted your demands, I should be no more than the mere phantom of a king,” he raged. 21
This stalemate was exactly what Ward sought to protect New Englanders from in his
Body of Liberties.
The old system seemed to be failing their beloved England. A full-fledged violent conflict loomed between Charles and his subjects; by the summer, both sides had put an end to negotiations and began to prepare for armed conflict. About halfway through her fifth pregnancy, Anne brooded over the future. No one knew what might happen to Massachusetts Bay. It seemed an inauspicious time to bring an infant into the world.
On July 21 Winthrop and Dudley responded to the crisis in England by calling for a fast day. Like Ward, most people in the colony still nurtured a traditional loyalty to the king even though they disapproved of many of his actions. He was the ruler and standard-bearer of the English people. How could there be an England without a monarch? Besides, it was unpleasant to consider how Charles might punish Puritans in general and Massachusetts in particular once he regained control of the government. For of course he would; after all, he was the king.
That fall, news came that New Englanders’ forebodings were coming true. Back in August, the king had fled from the capital; Parliament howled that Charles must be returned to them immediately “by battle or other way.” 22 Although at first it seemed that Charles had few supporters and could easily be cowed into submission, Royalists mustered their forces and began to march on London. The reports broke off at this point, so when Anne went into labor, she could only picture the worst: the demise of Puritanism in England and America. Happily, Anne delivered another healthy baby, little Hannah, and perhaps she derived some comfort from the new infant’s plump legs and tiny face. But while Anne suckled Hannah, more bad news sailed across the Atlantic. Guns had been fired. Englishmen had killed Englishmen. The king’s forces had trounced the Parliamentary army at Banbury on October 23. A civil war had begun.
Anne seems to have been frustrated at waiting helplessly to receive more news. No longer simply interested in her own ambition or, for that matter, in showing the world that pious women could read, write, and think for themselves, Anne’s ideas about her identity as a poet had enlarged. This elevation of purpose seems to have occurred in part because of her relationship with the politically minded Ward, but also because of her role as a “deputy husband” in Ipswich. Over the last decade, she had been increasingly pushed into public matters as a prominent citizen of the town. She longed to rattle her spear against corruption and heresy like a man,
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