Boston martyrs

The Boston martyrs is the name given in Quaker tradition[1] to the three English members of the Society of Friends, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer, and to the Barbadian Friend William Leddra, who were condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1659, 1660 and 1661.

"The hanging of Mary Dyer on the Boston gallows in 1660 marked the beginning of the end of the Puritan theocracy and New England independence from English rule.

In 1684 England revoked the Massachusetts charter, sent over a royal governor to enforce English laws in 1686, and in 1689 passed a broad Toleration act.

Leaving England on 30 May, the Speedwell under captain Robert Locke arrived at Boston on 27 July 1656, having on board eight Quakers including Christopher Holder, John Copeland and William Brend.

[6] In July 1657 an additional party of Quakers for Massachusetts (including six of those from the Speedwell), set out on the Woodhouse, undertaken by her owner Robert Fowler of Bridlington Quay, Yorkshire, England.

Five were set ashore at the Dutch plantation of New Amsterdam (New York): Robert Hodgson, Richard Doudney, Sarah Gibbons, Mary Weatherhead, and Dorothy Waugh.

[7] Mary Dyer, who had returned to England with Roger Williams and John Clarke in 1652, heard the ministry of George Fox and became a Friend.

[10] Marmaduke Stephenson had been a ploughman in Yorkshire in England in 1655, when (as he wrote), "as I walked after the plough, I was filled with the love and presence of the living God, which did ravish my heart".

Leaving his family to the Lord's care, he followed the divine prompting to Barbados in June 1658, and after some time there he heard of the new Massachusetts law and passed over to Rhode Island.

There he met William Robinson (a merchant of London), another Friend from the company of the Woodhouse, and in June 1659 with two others they went into the Massachusetts colony to protest at their laws.

[11] During their imprisonment and trial, the ministers Zechariah Symmes and John Norton were instructed to attend them "with religious conversation fitted for their condition".

[15] Mary Dyer also stepped up the ladder, her face was covered and the halter put round her neck, when the cry was raised, "Stop!