Our
Mayflower Line: The Fullers, Lathrops, Bonhams, and Lippingtons
Redenhall
Parish Church, oldest portion dating to 1319
Having already
noted that Thomas South’s wife Dorothy
Lippinton/Lippington (1683-aft.1757)6xggm is our link to the Mayflower
Passengers Edward and Samuel Fuller, I will start to trace her lines back.
Julia Griffin covered much of this territory very well in her Thanksgiving
document, so bear with me as I travel over some of that ground again.
Robert Fuller (1543-1613) 11xggf was born in Redenhall Parish, Norfolk,
England, and there is a baptismal record for Oct.6 of that year. His father was
John Fuller (~1510-1559) and although his mother has been suggested as Ann
Collinge, there is not agreement among researchers on that. Parish records show
that Robert married Sarah Dunkhorne
(1551-1584) 11xggm in nearby Starston Parish on January 29, 1572. Robert is
recorded as a yeoman and a butcher. He and Sarah had seven children before
Sarah passed in 1584, and he then married Frances (possibly Blackwell) and had
four children with her. There are church baptismal records for all eleven
children, but it is his second son Edward and grandson Samuel who will take our
line to America. His will of May 19, 1614, proved later that month on his
death, demonstrates that he was prosperous and owned considerable property. The
will mentions wife Frances; living sons Thomas, Edward, and Samuel, and several
daughters. Thomas and Edward are left both money and property, with Samuel only
inheriting money, leading researchers to conclude that Thomas and Edward were
living locally, while Samuel was perhaps living elsewhere [Leiden?]. It is not
known if Robert was a Separatist or Puritan, but the county of Norfolk and the
area of East Anglia were known as strongholds for Puritanism. Robert was on a
list of donors for a church bell in the Redenhall church tower, but that is the
only indication, along with baptismal records for each child, that indicates
anything about his religion.
There is a
researcher at Portland State University, David Evans, with a well-documented
and interesting website devoted to his family genealogy, and we have the good
fortune to share his descent from the Fullers of Redenhall and to be able to
share his work on them. He asserts that the Fullers had “probably” lived in
Redenhall Parish for several centuries and works Redenhall history back to various
Celtic tribes, the Angles (think Anglo-Saxon Germanic tribes) in post-Roman
times, the Viking invaders of the 9th and 10th centuries,
with peace finally settling in East Anglia in the 11th century,
allowing Redenhall to become the one of the chief sources of wool for England
and much of Europe. Redenhall, a small parish about 4 miles wide and 1.25 miles
long, is near the Waveney River and the small city of Harleston. Redenhall’s name
derives from Rada, owner of a tract of about 700 acres including Redenhall recorded
in the 1086 Domesday or Doomsday Book, an amazingly thorough
survey of England commissioned by William the Conqueror.
Evans, relying
on William Hyslop Fuller’s 1908 Genealogy
of Some Descendants of Edward Fuller of the Mayflower and other sources, takes the Fullers back through a
number of Johns and Williams to around 1427, all in the Redenhall parish.
Evans also
provides a concise overview of the Reformation and the history that led to the
Pilgrims leaving England for Holland, and then Holland for America. I will summarize:
England
became nominally Protestant under the Tudor King Henry VIII, whose motivations
for establishing the Church of England were personal, so he could marry Anne
Boleyn, and political, to take away the power of the Pope and seize the assets
of monasteries and clerical properties within England, but do not appear to
have been theological. However, Protestant sympathizers in the realm were
likely heartened and hoped to “purify” the new Church of England back to the
faith of the New Testament without what they saw as Catholic distortions. Henry’s son Edward VI did begin to make some
changes in ritual, but when his sister Mary, a Catholic, ascended the throne on
his death, the authority of the Pope was restored for a brief time before
Elizabeth I came to the throne and allowed many Protestants who had fled
England to return. She wanted an outward uniformity and developed the 39
Articles, making the Church of England more of a nationalistic, political
compromise. Extreme Protestants who were under the influence of John Calvin and
other reformers during their exile were not satisfied with her compromises, and
soon conflict developed within the Church of England between those glad to see
a calm status quo and those who wanted more “purification.” During Elizabeth’s
long reign there was tolerance for a variety of conflicting beliefs, but all
had to belong to the Church of England. After James I became King on
Elizabeth’s death, there was much less tolerance and for differences.
Puritanism gained support unless the reformers formed their own congregations
outside the official Church; that could result in penalties as harsh as
imprisonment and execution. In 1606 some
Puritan Separatists from Scrooby in Nottinghamshire who were meeting outside
the Church began to feel the scrutiny of authorities and decided to leave the
country, illegal without permission of the King’s Privy Council. Betrayed by the seamen on their first attempt
to flee to Holland, and imprisoned for a short time, they finally succeeded in
1608 and reached Amsterdam; many Separatists followed. In 1609 John Robinson
led a group of about one hundred to Leiden.
Charles Edward
Banks in his 1962 book The English
ancestry and homes of the Pilgrim Fathers who came to Plymouth on the “Mayflower
in 1620, the “Fortune” in 1621, and the “Anne” and the “Little James” in 1623 (available
online from the Hathitrust), says that the Dutch records show that the group in
Leiden/Leyden eventually was around 300, and that many of them were single
people who did not start families until their time in Holland; forty-five
marriages took place during the Separatists’ time in Holland. He also emphasizes
that most were from the yeoman or working class, as were the Fullers, sons of a
butcher, although Robert’s older son Samuel, who also traveled on the Mayflower, was educated as a doctor. Something
unusual Banks relates is that beginning in 1618, the English made a clear
effort at population control by sending children without families to America. Only
seven minors onboard the Mayflower
were not the children of passengers, accepted by adult passengers as servants
or wards, but two hundred English orphan children had already been sent to
Virginia before 1620. (Banks 1-7)
Evans continues
his explanation of how the Mayflower voyage
came about:
They
lived there [Holland] in peace for about a decade and were joined by others, [one
of whom, sometime after 1614, was Edward
Fuller (1575-1621) (10xggf)]. By
1617 many began to consider a move elsewhere, since Holland was densely
populated and most found themselves in worse economic circumstances than in
England because it was difficult for foreigners to join the trade guilds. They
worried about preserving English for their children, and found the Dutch not
just tolerant of religious differences, but as the years passed, too much of an
influence on their children. They began to make negotiations with Thomas Weston
of London, an agent for a group of investors who wanted settlements in America
for profits. Under the Virginia Company of Plymouth, a royal chartered stock
company, they agreed to work for seven years to pay off the debts they would
incur to the “Merchant Adventurers.” Two ships, the Mayflower under Christopher Jones, and a smaller ship, the Speedwell, were purchased and outfitted
in Holland, and the Speedwell departed
for Southampton in July. Between troubles negotiating last-minute terms and
troubles with the Speedwell leaking, some
left and returned to Holland. This created a need for more settlers, and people
were found to join the group, most of whom were not “saints” as the Puritan
Separatists referred to themselves in later documents, but were “strangers” who
likely joined the group to make their fortunes in a new land. The Mayflower did not get off until
September, a delay that thrust them into fall Atlantic storms and put them in
Plymouth Colony (not Virginia as planned) in wintry December.
Replica
of the Mayflower, Mayflower II
Resources
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000007062395;view=1up;seq=65 Banks’ book online
http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/redenhall.html
Website with many pictures of Redenhall church
http://web.pdx.edu/~davide/gene/Fuller_Edward.htm Part of the Evans workTo be continued...
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