Reverend John Greenwood, Martyr

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The place of public execution for Middlesex until 1783, situated at the junction of the present Oxford Street, Bayswater Road, and Edgware Road. Hence in allusive use. 1603 H. Crosse <I>Vertues Commw</I>. (1878) 138: "Many idle persons...fall into offence of lawe, and are many times eaten vp by Tiborne." (OED). </div> <div> Tyburn</div> <div> The name Tyburn came from the brook (or "bourne") which flowed through the area and into the Thames. On its way, the brook passed Hay Hill (hay was pronounced "aye"), and the combination of the two words became Tyburn. The area was first used as a place of execution in 1196, when it became the location for dispatching political prisoners. From 1571 until 1759, a permanent gallows existed at Tyburn, called <I>Tyburn Tree, Tyburn Gallows, or The Deadly Never Green</I>. </div> <bR> <div> Prisoners were marched, or carried by cart or on hurdles to Tyburn from the Tower, where the gentry were kept, or from Newgate, where the more common variety of criminals were housed. </div> <div> In earlier days, hanging was just a preliminary part of the execution. The victim would be cut down while still alive and subjected to dismemberment or disemboweling. In the earliest executions, the condemned would have to stand with his head in a noose while a fire was lit under his feet. As time went on, hanging itself was considered sufficient, with the hangman pulling on the feet of his victim to assure a speedy conclusion to the event. </div> <div> The gallows was made in the shape of a large tripod, with the noose (called the "Tyburn tippet") suspended from the base of the triangle. William Hogarth depicted an execution scene at Tyburn in his series <I>Industry and Idleness</I>, Plate XI, "The Idle Prentice Executed at Tyburn." The motion picture <I>Braveheart</I> gave a graphic portrayal of the steps used in torture and execution at the death of William Wallace at Tyburn in 1305, although the structure of Tyburn is not accurately represented. </div> <div> Traditions grew around the gallows. Upper class members on the way to Tyburn were offered a glass of sherry along the route at the George and Blue Boar, while criminals proceeding from Newgate received a bowl of ale at St. Giles in the Fields. The sexton of St. Giles would toll the bells of the church for all prisoners. A holiday atmosphere often prevailed around the gallows, complete with seating for spectators, vendors hawking their wares, and notable citizens crowding to watch the execution, or perhaps even riding in the cart with a prisoner known to them. James Boswell was often in attendance and enjoyed a good execution. </div> <div> The most famous executioner was Jack Ketch, who served from 1663-1686. He was so strongly identified with the position that, after his time, all hangmen were called "Jack Ketch" as a generic term. </div> <div> Among the famous figures who died at Tyburn was poet Robert Southwell in 1595. Others became famous for oddities occurring at Tyburn. In 1447, for instance, five men were prepared for death, stripped, and marked for dismemberment, when a last minute reprieve arrived. The law stated that the hangman became owner of the clothing of any prisoner, and he refused to relinquish his rights, causing the five freed prisoners to walk back to London quite naked. William Duell, hanged at Tyburn in 1740, was being prepared for use in an anatomy class by a servant, when the servant detected signs of life and called for a surgeon. Duell sat up and spoke to the surgeon, who bled him and sent him back to Newgate. </div> <div> The permanent gallows was dismantled in 1759 to make way for turnpike gates, and a portable gallows came into use. The last hanging on the site was November 7, 1783, when a forger took his leave at Tyburn. Today, a plaque marks the approximate location of the gallows. The exact position is not known, but Tyburn existed near the present site of the Marble Arch, where Bayswater Road, Oxford Street and Park Lane intersect at the corner of Hyde Park.</div> <bR> <div> This is the place where Reverend John Greenwood was executed in 1593.</div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="099f0f03.jpg"> <div> <I>Reverend John Greenwood, Martyr</I></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>From the Greenwood Genealogy</B></div> <div> <I>By Frederick Greenwood, East Templeton, MA - 1914</I> </div> <div> <B>THE EXECUTION OF JOHN GREENWOOD</B></div> <bR> <div> It will be of interest to every Greenwood to learn of the execution in England of John Greenwood as a Puritan. He was a graduate of Cambridge University in England, a clergyman in the Established Church, and the very first to separate from that church and found the religious doctrine known as Puritanism or Congregationalism. He labored for simplicity of religious forms. Seven years he suffered the privations of close prison confinement and finally on the sixth of April, 1593, with his co-worker, Henry Barrowe, was taken from jail and hanged. That little band of Pilgrims that landed at Plymouth, Mass., in 1620, were his followers -- they had worshipped at the church he founded -- that band of Puritans that landed in America and founded Boston were believers in the doctrine he was first to teach. The religious teachings of John Greenwood rapidly spread in England and in 1640 occurred the civil war in which the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell as leader overthrew the English church and government and established in England the right of the Puritans to existence in that country. Persecution of the Puritans ceased for a time in England after Cromwell established himself as ruler of the country. But that little band of Pilgrims at Plymouth, that band of Puritans at Boston, those followers who wended their way to Virginia and Maryland -- they brought to America the teachings of John Greenwood -- the separation of church and state -- and if America owes its greatness, its progress, and its achievements to one principle in government more than another it is that in America every American can kneel at the altar of his own faith, and worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. The state in America is separated from the church. American government tolerates no single form of religious worship but shelters and protects alike all. John Greenwood taught that there could be but one head to the church and that head was not the Queen but Christ, and that there could be no law for the government of the church other than what the Scriptures contained. The execution of John Greenwood was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. </div> <bR> <div> John Greenwood, born in  1556, entered Corpus Christie (or Benet) College, Cambridge, March 18, 1577-8, a theological student, he  received his Bachelor's degree 1580-1, was ordained deacon of the English Established Church by the Bishop of London and priest by the Bishop of Lincoln, and for 5 years labored in the English Church, in Norfolk County. </div> <div> What led to a change in his religious belief is unknown but he </div> <div> was deprived of his benefice and began holding secret religious services at the home of Lord Robert Rich, of Rochford,near Southend in Essex County, who was interested in his doctrine. Rev. Greenwood became the chaplin of Rochford Hall. This building is still standing.  Soon Lord Rich and a clergyman named Robert Wright, who was associated with John Greenwood, were arrested and thrown into prison. Mr. Greenwood then went to London where he formed a secret congregation at the house of one Henry Martin at St. Andrews. Here, early in October, 1586, he was arrested and lodged in the Clink prison while conducting a service. </div> <div> There had preceded Greenwood at Cambridge by a little more than 10 years a man of marked ability, by name of Henry Barrowe, third son of Thomas Barrowe, Esq., of Shipdam, Norfolk, by his second wife, Mary. He entered Cambridge Nov. 22, 1565, receiving his degree of Bachelor of Arts 1569-70, became a lawyer and practiced in Her Majesty's courts. He had become interested in the religious teachings of John Greenwood, and hearing of Greenwood's arrest he visited Greenwood on Sunday, Nov. 19, 1586, between 9 and 10 o'clock, at the Clink. Here with no pretense of legal warrant Barrowe was arrested and locked in with Greenwood. A few days later both Greenwood and Barrowe were removed to the fleet prison, where their quarters were close, and deprived of proper food, sufficient warmth and many necessities of life they were kept in confinement for 7 years. Many times during their imprisonment Greenwood and Barrowe were taken before the authorities of the English Church and questioned as to their religious belief. Such an examination of Greenwood took place first at the palace (1586) before the Bishop of London. Asked by the Bishop if he believed in baptism, Greenwood replied that he did. Asked if he did not have a son unbaptized, Greenwood replied that his son Abel, 1-1/2 years old, was unbaptized, but that he had been in prison and was unable to take his son to a reformed church where he could be baptized according to God's ordinance. Asked if he did not consider the English Church a church of God replied "No." Mr. Greenwood told the Bishop that every congregation of Christ should be governed by a pastor, teacher and elder and by no other than that Christ appoints. He would excommunicate the Prince (Queen) as well as all members of the church who disobeyed the teachings of the word of God. He would make no exception of the Prince. "The Scriptures Set down efficient laws for the worship of God and government of church which no man may add to or diminish. Her Majesty is not the supreme head of the church." </div> <div> Barrow's first examination was on the afternoon of his arrest before the Archbishop, Archdeacon and Doctor Cosin. He protested stoutly against his arrest without a warrant but to no effect. An effort was made to bind Barrowe by an oath to attend the Established Church, </div> <div> but he refused to take the oath. Eight days afterwards, 27 November, Barrowe was taken to Lambert before a synod of bishops and a dean, when a long sheet of accusations was read against him. He admitted that much of the matter was true but not all, and demanded that witnesses against him should be sworn, whereupon Whitgift (head of Corpus Christie College), losing his temper, burst out "Where is his keeper? You shall not prattle here. Away with him. Clap him up close. let no man go to him. I will make him tell another tale yer I have done with him." </div> <div> On the 9th of March 1589, Archdeacon Hutchinson visited Mr. Greenwood at the Fleet, saying he had come by virtue of a commission from her Majesty to confer. Mr. Greenwood declined to have anything to say until he could have pen and ink and a fellow prisoner as a witness of the conversation, on the ground that he had been wickedly slandered and his cause falsely reported by the bishops and specially by one Dr. Some. The pen, ink and witness being granted, the archdeacon read some questions, mainly as to whether a church made up of members who were called together by the blowing of Her Majesty's trumpet, received into the church without conversion and repentance and consisting of all sorts of profane people could be considered a true church of Christ. Very little progress was made at the interview and when the archdeacon went away he insisted on carrying with him all the notes that had been taken of what passed. He was prevailed upon to leave them in the hands of Mr. Calthop, the witness, but Mr. Greenwood says: "No sooner was I gone and locked up than the wardens were sent to the gentleman for the papers, who, declining to deliver them without our consent, the archbishop's servant came and took them away." </div> <div> Eight days after this, Mar. 17, 1589, the archdeacon came to see Mr. Greenwood again, bringing a witness of his own and having the doors locked upon them with no other person present except the two turnkeys of the jail, one of whom acted as scribe. On this occasion the argument was mainly upon the question whether John the Baptist received to his baptism those Pharisees and Sadducees whom he called generations of vipers, the archdeacon insisting that he did and Mr. Greenwood contending that while the vipers may have been present they took no part in the baptism, except as onlookers. </div> <div> In one interview the archdeacon had with Mr. Barrowe, the latter complained of his many years of illegal imprisonment and close confinement and was told by the archdeacon that "You should be most happy, for the solitary and contemplative I hold the most blessed life; it's the life I would choose." Mr. Barrowe meekly replied: "Could you be content, Mr. Andrews, to be kept from exercise and air for so long a time, matters so necessary to a body?" "I say not," was the answer, "that I would want air." </div> <div> In an interview, April. 13, 1589, between Greenwood and Barrowe and clergymen of the English church, the prisoners state, "Things were disorderly handled and there were manifold cavils and shifts, shameless denials of manifest truths, and most unchristian contumelies, scoffs and reproaches against our persons." It ended with Greenwood and Barrowe being required to set down in brief the reasons why they persisted in refusing to return to the Church of England, which they did in these words: </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00006600.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">That the people of the church, as they stand, are not orderly to the faith, but stand mingled together in confusion. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00006600.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The ministry set over the people is not the true ministry of the gospel which Christ has appointed. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00006600.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The administrations and worship of the church are not according to the word of God. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00006600.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The ecclesiastical government, offers and canons are not according to the testament of Christ and are anti-Christian and popish. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00006600.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">That the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper as administered in the Established Church are not true sacraments. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00006600.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">that infants ought not be baptized according to the form of baptism now in the Church of England. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00006600.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">That it is not lawful to use the Lord's prayer publicly in the church for a set form of prayer. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00006600.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">That all set and stinted prayers are merely babblings in the sight of the Lord and not to be used in public Christian assemblies. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00006600.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">That the public prayers and worship of God in England as it is done in the Established Church is false, superstitious, popish and not to be used in any Christian congregation. </div> <div> While in prison both Greenwood and Barrowe wrote several books which were produced under difficulties that would have crushed the spirit of men of weaker fiber and inferior courage. Denied proper writing material they used such scraps of paper and bits of material as was secretly brought to them by friends from the outside. When one piece of paper was written over it was taken away and another piece as secretly furnished. These pieces of paper were taken to Holland where the writing was put into print and the books published. The Holland printers had to make what they could of the writing, but on the whole they did their work fairly well. These books treated of the religious belief of Greenwood and Barrowe and contained the interviews between them and the English Church officers, and although 300 years have passed since their publication, some of these </div> <div> books are yet found. </div> <div> In the autumn of 1592, for some reason not apparent, there was a relaxation of the rigor with which Greenwood was treated and he was allowed to leave the fleet, either on bail or on his personal promise to appear when required, and he went to live with Roger Rippon, in Southwalk. Barrowe remained in jail. Rippon's house was one of those at which the members of a secret church, formed by Mr. Greenwood four or five years before had held its meetings. Mr. Greenwood, now that he was out of prison, met twitch these people, and was appointed their doctor or teacher, but the bishops were alarmed by what they heard of the spread of Separatism and on Dec. 5, 1592, Mr. Greenwood was again arrested and committed again to the Fleet with Barrowe. This time he was arrested at the home of Edward Boyse on Ludgate Hill. </div> <div> On March 23, 1593, Greenwood and Barrowe were brought to trail at the Old Bailey in London. They were charged with publishing and dispensing seditious books; the proofs of the charge were found in the writings which they had published while in prison. Their sedition consisted in denying Her Majesty's ecclesiastical supremacy and attacking the existing ecclesiastical order. On the 3d, 11th and 20th of March Barrowe had been cited before Chief Justice Sir John Popham and Attorney General Lord Ellesmere and examined as to his opinions and his authorship of certain books. Barrowe avowed his convictions of the truth of his treatises and among other things expressed his opinion that the established government of the Church of England was unlawful and anti-christian. </div> <div> Greenwood had been examined on the 11th and 20th and confessed to his authorship of the books laid to his charge. Robert Bowle and Robert Stokes examined and testified on the 19th as to the way the books of Greenwood and Barrowe had been printed. Daniel Studley and James Forster testified to the printing also of the books. The latter, who described himself as a physician and master of arts, confessed having written some part of the Greenwood's and Barrowe's book entitled "A Brief Description of the False Church." </div> <div> The answers of Greenwood and Barrowe at the trial was a general denial of the charges brought against them but they were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. </div> <div> The next morning, March 24, 1593, preparations were made for their execution but they were reprieved. certain doctors and deans were then sent to the prisoners to confer with them but the prisoners claimed an open or public discussion, which was refused them. On the 31st of March the prisoners were conveyed to the place of execution very early and secretly, where being tied by the neck to the tree, were </div> <div> permitted to speak a few words. They declared their innocence of all malice or ill intent and exhorted the people to obey and love the Queen and magistrates but to follow their leaders no further than they followed Scripture. They were then in the act of parrying for the Queen when they were again reprieved. This time as the result of a supplication to the Lord Treasurer that "in a land where no Papist was put to death for religion, theirs should not be the first blood shed who disagreed about faith with what was professed in the country," and desired conference to be convinced of their error. But only six days was gained by this clemency. </div> <div> The law that Greenwood and Barrowe were convicted under did not well apply in their case and the prelates having introduced a bill into Parliament that would apply were much alarmed when the bill came down to the Commons with its modifications and lest the prisoners should escape execution they were secretly and early on the morning of Apr. 6, 1593, taken to Tyburn and there hanged without ceremony. </div> <div> After the death of Greenwood and Barrowe, Parliament of England enacted a law "To Retain the Queen Majesty's subjects in Their Due Obedience" which read: "That if any person over 16 years of age shall be absent from church for a month, or by writing, printing or speech shall attempt to persuade any of her Majesty's subjects to deny the Queen's ecclesiastical supremacy or shall attempt to persuade them from coming to church or shall be present at any unlawful meeting for religious worship they shall be committed to prison without bail until they conform and make submission. If for 3 months they refuse to conform they are to be banished from the realm. If they fail to leave the country or return without license they are to be hanged as felons." </div> <div> Immediately after the passage of this act most of the Separatist prisoners were released from jail and several hundred of them streamed to Holland. Among the first that fled were the members of the secret church in London of which John Greenwood had been pastor. They crossed the sea in separate companies as they were able and within three or four years most of them had settled in Amsterdam. At one time 56 members of John Greenwood's secret church, while holding a service among the sand hills at Islington, were surprised and arrested. They were "committed without neither meat, drink, fry or lodgings, nor were their friends allowed to have access to them; husbands and wives were purposely put into different prisons; some had not a penny about them, so that not only they but their poor families were in wretched cause. All was contrary to law etiquette and conscience. </div> <div> On May 22, 1593, John Penry, a graduate of Cambridge University and a member of John Greenwood's secret congregation, was hanged at</div> <div>  St. Thomas Waterings in London. Gov. Bradford, in his "Dialogue," gives these additional names of Puritans who were publicly executed -- William Dennis at Thetford, Norfolk, and John and Elias Coppin at Bury St. Edmunds. A great many Puritans who were committed to jail died in prison. Some were horse whipped, some branded with hot irons and some kept in chains. </div> <div> John Greenwood's definition of a church was: A company of faithful people separated from the unbelievers and heathen of the land, gathered in the name of Christ, whom they truly worship and readily obey as their only king, priest and prophet, joined together as members of one body, ordered and governed by such officers and laws as Christ in his will and testament hath hereunto obeyed. </div> <div> It is interesting to notice how John Greenwood and members of the church he founded struck upon some of the simple forms of religious observance that have remained characteristic of the Congregational Church to this day: One Daniel Buck, a writing master, deposed 9 March, 1593, that when he joined the company "he made ye protestation that he would walk with the rest and yet so long as they did walk in the way of the Lorde and as far as might be warranted by the word of God; that Greenwood took water and washed the faces of them that were baptized saying only in ye administration of the sacrament 'I do baptize the in ye name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and without Godfather and Godmother'; and that at the Lord's supper five white loaves or more were set upon ye table and that the pastor did break ye bread and then deliver it unto some of them and the deacons delivered to the rest, some of sd. congregation sitting and some standing about the table and that the pastor delivered the cup unto one and he unto another till they had all drank using the words at ye delivery thereof according as is set down in the eleventh of Cor. ye 24 verse." </div> <div> Henry Barrowe was unmarried and a man of some property, which he willed to the Puritan Church at his death. His money paid for the printing of the religious works he and Mr. Greenwood wrote in prison. </div> <div> The execution of John Greenwood at Tyborn is recorded on the records of Corpus Christie College, Cambridge, Eng., and the offense is given as "writing against the Book of Common Prayer." </div> <bR> <bR> <div> More Notes on Reverend John Greenwood</div> <bR> <div> The events leading up to the execution of Reverend John Greenwood in 1593 have been documented many times. The preceding essay speaks volumes.</div> <bR> <div> By 1607, many Separatists had been imprisoned, tortured and killed. It was this very same year that the High Commission of the Church Court issued a citation against William Brewster. He and his little band of dissenters in Scrooby were followers of the ideas put forth by Reverend Greenwood and others. This persecution, in turn, sent the Pilgrims out of England to Holland, and from there, to Plymouth in New England. The seed had been planted long ago from the man who was our ancestor, the man who was hung on the Tyburn Tree in London .</div> <bR> <div> Additional notes on Rev. Greenwood.</div> <bR> <div> From "The Saga of the Pilgrims"</div> <bR> <div> Books on Rev. Browne's teachings were being printed and distributed throughout England. Two men, Elias Thacker, a humble tailor and John Copping a shoemaker were thrown into prison for "dispersing of Browne's books". The books were seized and burned, Copping and Thacker hanged. The irony of their deaths in Bury St. Edmunds, was close by the town's old abbey, where the barons of England had drawn up their petition for freedoms that led to the Magna Charta.</div> <bR> <div> The bishops did not get all Rev. Browne's books, but they did get the Star Chamber to buttress their control over printing to establish, with still more dreadful penalties, regulations governing the licensing of press and printing. This capture helped to net two more nonconformists, Henry Barrowe, a lawyer from Grey's Inn, and the Rev. John Greenwood. </div> <bR> <bR> <div> In Middleburg, Holland at this time was Rev. Francis Johnson, another Cambridge University man like Rev. Greenwood, Barrowe and Browne. He was pastor of the English Church in Middleburg. To please the English Ambassador, he helped to track down and burn some of the nonconformist books secretly published by the prisoners. William Bradford tells how Rev. Johnson withheld two of these treatises from the flames in order to peruse them. </div> <bR> <div> After reading them, Rev. Johnsons was chastened and converted, whereupon he hastened back across the North Sea to the Fleet Prison in London to visit Barrowe and Rev. Greenwood, who were once again jailed for holding illegal religious gatherings. Shortly after, London's Ancient Separatist Church in Southwark was formed. This was 1592. Rev. Johnson became it's pastor and Rev. John Greenwood it's teacher. Associated with them was Rev. John Penry, one of William Brewster's classmates at Cambridge University. They were all arrested while conducting services in the  Fleet Street lodgings of a London haberdasher. Many more were subsequently imprisoned, and thrown into the infamous stinking prisons, the Clink, Newgate and Fleet. And thus began the last days of Rev. Greenwood. After his death, some members of the Greenwood family fled to Holland.</div> <bR> <div> Reverend Greenwood is also mentioned in the book "Saints and Strangers" by George F. Willison.</div> <bR> <div> From the book "The Home of the Pilgrims" comes the following:</div> <bR> <div>      "Lastly, one may recall another fact bearing on every aspect of seventeenth-century life in New England the preponderance of Cambridge graduates among the early settlers, for that is yet a further link to East Anglia. Not only were the founders of the Congregational Church - Browne, Harrison, Greenwood, Barrowe,John Smyth, Johnson and Penry- all Cambridge men, but so was William Brewster of the Mayflower and Plymouth, and Rev. John Cotton,the Vicar of Boston in Lincolnshire, England who followed his parishioners to their new township overseas in 1633. John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts and Rev. John Harvard were Cambridge men as well. Rev. Harvard's will of 1638 left half his estate £ 780 and three hundred books to the newly founded `seminary in the wilderness" which was named for him. It was established in Cambridge, MA that same year. Seventy of the leading men of New England Colony were also Cambridge graduates."</div> <bR> <div> The John Greenwood Story</div> <div> 1593</div> <bR> <div>      Seven years he suffered the privations of close prison confinement and finally on the sixth of April, 1593, with his co-worker, Henry Barrowe, was taken from jail and hanged. That little band of Pilgrims that landed at Plymouth, Mass., in 1620, were his followers -- they had worshipped at the church he founded -- that band of Puritans that landed in America and founded Boston were believers in the doctrine he was first to teach. </div> <bR> <div>      The religious teachings of John Greenwood rapidly spread in England and in 1640 occurred the civil war in which the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell as leader overthrew the English church and government and established in England the right of the Puritans to existence in that country. Persecution of the Puritans ceased for a time in England after Cromwell established himself as ruler of the country. But that little band of Pilgrims at Plymouth, that band of Puritans at Boston, those followers who wended their way to Virginia and Maryland -- they brought to America the teachings of John Greenwood -- the separation of church and state -- and if America owes its greatness, its progress, and its achievements to one principle in government more than another it is that in America every American can kneel at the altar of his own faith, and worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. The state in America is separated from the church. American government tolerates no single form of religious worship but shelters and protects alike all. John Greenwood taught that there could be but one head to the church and that head was not the Queen but Christ, and that there could be no law for the government of the church other than what the Scriptures contained. </div> <bR> <div>      </div> <div>      The execution of John Greenwood was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. John Greenwood, b. 1556, entered Corpus Christie (or Benet) College, Cambridge, Mar. 18, 1577-8, a theological student, received his Bachelor's degree 1580-1, was ordained deacon of the English Established Church by the Bishop of London and priest by the Bishop of Lincoln, and for 5 years labored in the English Church, in Norfolk County. What led to a change in his religious belief is unknown but he was deprived of his benefice and began holding secret religious services at the home of Lord Robert Rich, of Rockford, Essex County, who was interested in his doctrine. Soon Lord Rich and a clergyman named Robert Wright, who was associated with John Greenwood, were arrested and thrown into prison. Mr. Greenwood then went to London where he formed a secret congregation at the house of one Henry Martin at St. Andrews. Here, early in October, 1586, he was arrested and lodged in the Clink prison while conducting a service. There had preceded Greenwood at Cambridge by a little more than 10 years a man of marked ability, by name of Henry Barrowe, third son of Thomas Barrowe, Esq., of Shipdam, Norfolk, by his second wife, Mary. He entered Cambridge Nov. 22, 1565, receiving his degree of Bachelor of Arts 1569-70, became a lawyer and practiced in Her Majesty's courts. He had become interested in the religious teachings of John Greenwood, and hearing of Greenwood's arrest he visited Greenwood on Sunday, Nov. 19, 1586, between 9 and 10 o'clock, at the Clink. Here with no pretense of legal warrant Barrowe was arrested and locked in with Greenwood. A few days later both Greenwood and Barrowe were removed to the fleet prison, where their quarters were close, and deprived of proper food, sufficient warmth and many necessities of life they were kept in confinement for 7 years. Many times during their imprisonment Greenwood and Barrowe were taken before the authorities of the English Church and questioned as to their religious belief. Such an examination of Greenwood took place first at the palace (1586) before the Bishop of London. Asked by the Bishop if he believed in baptism, Greenwood replied that he did. Asked if he did not have a son unbaptized, Greenwood replied that his son Abel, 1-1/2 years old, was unbaptized, but that he had been in prison and was unable to take his son to a reformed church where he could be baptized according to God's ordinance. Asked if he did not consider the English Church a church of God replied "No." Mr. Greenwood told the Bishop that every congregation of Christ should be governed by a pastor, teacher and elder and by no other than that Christ appoints. He would excommunicate the Prince (Queen) as well as all members of the church who disobeyed the teachings of the word of God. He would make no exception of the Prince. "The Scriptures Set down efficient laws for the worship of God and government of church which no man may add to or diminish. Her Majesty is not the supreme head of the church." </div> <bR> <div>      Barrow's first examination was on the afternoon of his arrest before the Archbishop, Archdeacon and Doctor Cosin. He protested stoutly against his arrest without a warrant but to no effect. An effort was made to bind Barrowe by an oath to attend the Established Church, but he refused to take the oath. Eight days afterwards, 27 November, Barrowe was taken to Lambert before a synod of bishops and a dean, when a long sheet of accusations was read against him. He admitted that much of the matter was true but not all, and demanded that witnesses against him should be sworn, whereupon Whitgift (head of Corpus Christie College), losing his temper, burst out "Where is his keeper? You shall not prattle here. Away with him. Clap him up close, let no man go to him. I will make him tell another tale yer I have done with him."</div> <bR> <div>       On the 9th of March 1589, Archdeacon Hutchinson visited Mr. Greenwood at the Fleet, saying he had come by virtue of a commission from her Majesty to confer. Mr. Greenwood declined to have anything to say until he could have pen and ink and a fellow prisoner as a witness of the conversation, on the ground that he had been wickedly slandered and his cause falsely reported by the bishops and specially by one Dr. Some. The pen, ink and witness being granted, the archdeacon read some questions, mainly as to whether a church made up of members who were called together by the blowing of Her Majesty's trumpet, received into the church without conversion and repentance and consisting of all sorts of profane people could be considered a true church of Christ. Very little progress was made at the interview and when the archdeacon went away he insisted on carrying with him all the notes that had been taken of what passed. He was prevailed upon to leave them in the hands of Mr. Calthop, the witness, but Mr. Greenwood says: "No sooner was I gone and locked up than the wardens were sent to the gentleman for the papers, who, declining to deliver them without our consent, the archbishop's servant came and took them away." </div> <bR> <div>      Eight days after this, Mar. 17, 1589, the archdeacon came to see Mr. Greenwood again, bringing a witness of his own and having the doors locked upon them with no other person present except the two turnkeys of the jail, one of whom acted as scribe. On this occasion the argument was mainly upon the question whether John the Baptist received to his baptism those Pharisees and Sadducees whom he called generations of vipers, the archdeacon insisting that he did and Mr. Greenwood contending that while the vipers may have been present they took no part in the baptism, except as onlookers. </div> <bR> <div>      In one interview the archdeacon had with Mr. Barrowe, the latter complained of his many years of illegal imprisonment and close confinement and was told by the archdeacon that "You should be most happy, for the solitary and contemplative I hold the most blessed life; it's the life I would choose." Mr. Barrowe meekly replied: "Could you be content, Mr. Andrews, to be kept from exercise and air for so long a time, matters so necessary to a body?" "I say not," was the answer, "that I would want air." </div> <bR> <div>      In an interview, April. 13, 1589, between Greenwood and Barrowe and clergymen of the English church, the prisoners state, "Things were disorderly handled and there were manifold cavils and shifts, shameless denials of manifest truths, and most unchristian contumelies, scoffs and reproaches against our persons." It ended with Greenwood and Barrowe being required to set down in brief the reasons why they persisted in refusing to return to the Church of England, which they did in these words:</div> <bR> <div> That the people of the church, as they stand, are not orderly to the faith, but stand mingled together in confusion. The ministry set over the people is not the true ministry of the gospel which Christ has appointed. The administrations and worship of the church are not according to the word of God. The ecclesiastical government, offers and canons are not according to the testament of Christ and are anti-Christian and popish. That the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper as administered in the Established Church are not true sacraments. That infants ought not be baptized according to the form of baptism now in the Church of England. That it is not lawful to use the Lord's prayer publicly in the church for a set form of prayer. That all set and stinted prayers are merely babblings in the sight of the Lord and not to be used in public Christian assemblies. That the public prayers and worship of God in England as it is done in the Established Church is false, superstitious, popish and not to be used in any Christian congregation. </div> <bR> <div>      While in prison both Greenwood and Barrowe wrote several books which were produced under difficulties that would have crushed the spirit of men of weaker fiber and inferior courage. Denied proper writing material they used such scraps of paper and bits of material as was secretly brought to them by friends from the outside. When one piece of paper was written over it was taken away and another piece as secretly furnished. These pieces of paper were taken to Holland where the writing was put into print and the books published. The Holland printers had to make what they could of the writing, but on the whole they did their work fairly well. These books treated of the religious belief of Greenwood and Barrowe and contained the interviews between them and the English Church officers, and although 300 years have passed since their publication, some of these books are yet found. </div> <bR> <div>      In the autumn of 1592, for some reason not apparent, there was a relaxation of the rigor with which Greenwood was treated and he was allowed to leave the Fleet, either on bail or on his personal promise to appear when required, and he went to live with Roger Rippon, in Southwalk. Barrowe remained in jail. Rippon's house was one of those at which the members of a secret church, formed by Mr. Greenwood four or five years before had held its meetings. Mr. Greenwood, now that he was out of prison, met with these people, and was appointed their doctor or teacher, but the bishops were alarmed by what they heard of the spread of Separatism and on Dec. 5, 1592, Mr. Greenwood was again arrested and committed again to the Fleet with Barrowe. </div> <bR> <div>      This time he was arrested at the home of Edward Boyse on Ludgate Hill. </div> <div> On March 23, 1593, Greenwood and Barrowe were brought to trial at the Old Bailey in London. They were charged with publishing and dispensing seditious books; the proofs of the charge were found in the writings which they had published while in prison. Their sedition consisted in denying Her Majesty's ecclesiastical supremacy and attacking the existing ecclesiastical order. On the 3rd, 11th and 20th of March, Barrowe had been cited before Chief Justice Sir John Popham and Attorney General Lord Ellesmere and examined as to his opinions and his authorship of certain books. Barrowe avowed his convictions of the truth of his treatises and among other things expressed his opinion that the established government of the Church of England was unlawful and anti-christian.      Greenwood had been examined on the 11th and 20th and confessed to his authorship of the books laid to his charge. Robert Bowle and Robert Stokes examined and testified on the 19th as to the way the books of Greenwood and Barrowe had been printed. Daniel Studley and James Forster testified to the printing also of the books. The latter, who described himself as a physician and master of arts, confessed having written some part of the Greenwood's and Barrowe's book entitled "A Brief Description of the False Church." </div> <bR> <div>      The answers of Greenwood and Barrowe at the trial were a general denial of the charges brought against them but they were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. The next morning, March 24, 1593, preparations were made for their execution but they were reprieved. Certain doctors and deans were then sent to the prisoners to confer with them but the prisoners claimed an open or public discussion, which was refused them.</div> <bR> <div>       On the 31st of March the prisoners were conveyed to the place of execution very early and secretly, where being tied by the neck to the tree, were permitted to speak a few words. They declared their innocence of all malice or ill intent and exhorted the people to obey and love the Queen and magistrates but to follow their leaders no further than they followed Scripture. They were then in the act of praying  for the Queen when they were again reprieved. This time as the result of a supplication to the Lord Treasurer that "in a land where no Papist was put to death for religion, theirs should not be the first blood shed who disagreed about faith with what was professed in the country," and desired conference to be convinced of their error. But only six days was gained by this clemency. </div> <bR> <div>      The law that Greenwood and Barrowe were convicted under did not well apply in their case and the prelates having introduced a bill into Parliament that would apply were much alarmed when the bill came down to the Commons with its modifications and lest the prisoners should escape execution they were secretly and early on the morning of April 6, 1593, taken to Tyburn and there hanged without ceremony. </div> <div>      </div> <div>      After the death of Greenwood and Barrowe, Parliament of England enacted a law "To Retain the Queen Majesty's subjects in Their Due Obedience" which read: "That if any person over 16 years of age shall be absent from church for a month, or by writing, printing or speech shall attempt to persuade any of her Majesty's subjects to deny the Queen's ecclesiastical supremacy or shall attempt to persuade them from coming to church or shall be present at any unlawful meeting for religious worship they shall be committed to prison without bail until they conform and make submission. If for 3 months they refuse to conform they are to be banished from the realm. If they fail to leave the country or return without license they are to be hanged as felons." </div> <bR> <div>      Immediately after the passage of this act most of the Separatist prisoners were released from jail and several hundred of them streamed to Holland. Among the first that fled were the members of the secret church in London of which John Greenwood had been pastor. They crossed the sea in separate companies as they were able and within three or four years most of them had settled in Amsterdam. At one time 56 members of John Greenwood's secret church, while holding a service among the sand hills at Islington, were surprised and arrested. They were "committed without neither meat, drink, fry or lodgings, nor were their friends allowed to have access to them; husbands and wives were purposely put into different prisons; some had not a penny about them, so that not only they but their poor families were in wretched cause. All was contrary to law etiquette and conscience. </div> <bR> <div>      On May 22, 1593, John Penry, a graduate of Cambridge University and a member of John Greenwood's secret congregation, was hanged at St. Thomas Waterings in London. Gov. Bradford, in his "Dialogue," gives these additional names of Puritans who were publicly executed -- William Dennis at Thetford, Norfolk, and John and Elias Coppin at Bury St. Edmunds. A great many Puritans who were committed to jail died in prison. Some were horse whipped, some branded with hot irons and some kept in chains.</div> <bR> <div>  John Greenwood's definition of a church was: A company of faithful people separated from the unbelievers and heathen of the land, gathered in the name of Christ, whom they truly worship and readily obey as their only king, priest and prophet, joined together as members of one body, ordered and governed by such officers and laws as Christ in his will and testament hath hereunto obeyed. </div> <div> It is interesting to notice how John Greenwood and members of the church he founded struck upon some of the simple forms of religious observance that have remained characteristic of the Congregational Church to this day.</div> <bR> <div>       One Daniel Buck, a writing master, deposed 9 March, 1593, that when he joined the company "he made ye protestation that he would walk with the rest and yet so long as they did walk in the way of the Lorde and as far as might be warranted by the word of God; that Greenwood took water and washed the faces of them that were baptized saying only in ye administration of the sacrament 'I do baptize the in ye name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and without Godfather and Godmother'; and that at the Lord's supper five white loaves or more were set upon ye table and that the pastor did break ye bread and then deliver it unto some of them and the deacons delivered to the rest, some of sd. congregation sitting and some standing about the table and that the pastor delivered the cup unto one and he unto another till they had all drank using the words at ye delivery thereof according as is set down in the eleventh of Cor. ye 24 verse." </div> <bR> <bR> <div> Henry Barrowe was unmarried and a man of some property, which he willed to the Puritan Church at his death. His money paid for the printing of the religious works he and Mr. Greenwood wrote in prison.</div> <bR> <div>      The execution of John Greenwood at Tyburn is recorded on the records of Corpus Christie College, Cambridge, Eng., and the offense is given as "writing against the Book of Common Prayer."   </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>