James Cudworth (colonist)
[23] Lady Wroth had been present at Dr Cudworth's deathbed (1624)[13] and, at the time of her father's death (1598), their minister at Leigh, Essex (England), had been William Noyes[24] (whose son, James Noyes,[25] and nephew, Thomas Parker,[26][27] migrated (1634) and had important roles in the settlement and ministry of Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts Bay Colony).
His correspondence with Sir Thomas Wroth was intercepted by government agents and was the subject of an official inquiry (in which both men escaped serious consequences).
[44] The removal of some part of the Scituate population to a new plantation at Barnstable was advocated to the Governor, Thomas Prence (then in his second term), in two letters by John Lothropp (1638–39).
Cudworth served as Assistant Governor (1656–8), during a time which saw the end of William Bradford's last term of office (June 3, 1657) and the commencement of the third and lengthy administration of Thomas Prence (1657–73).
[52] In December (tenth month, Old Style) 1658, he wrote a long letter (to a person in England), in which he provided details of the brutally harsh and (as he considered) illegal laws and punishments meted out to the Quakers (and others) who the Puritan monopoly in the colonial legislature wished to purge.
[56] Cudworth's uncle, Israel Stoughton (d.1644), had worked with Endecott during the period of the Antinomian Controversy surrounding Anne Hutchinson, but had returned to England.
It was the voyage from England of the Speedwell in 1656 (which brought eight Quakers who were immediately imprisoned and expelled),[57] and of the Woodhouse in 1657, and the subsequent renewal of their attempts to enter the Massachusetts Bay Colony from Rhode Island or Barbados, which now aroused the Puritan hostility.
[56] At the time of the petitions against Cudworth (March 1657/58),[59] the Rhode Island Assembly (upholding their principle of freedom of consciences) rebuked the United Colonies Commissioners for their demand concerning preventing the admission of Quakers, and warned that any subsequent civil troubles should be referred to "The Supream Authority of England".
[60] Cudworth's letter, written weeks after the death of Oliver Cromwell (September 3, 1658), naming the relevant members of the legislature and accusing them of arbitrary legislation outside the principles of English law,[61] may reflect this intention.
[63] Charged with disaffection to authority (on the evidence of a copy of his letter), he was ordered to appear before the Court (March 1660) on a bond of £500, and was sentenced (6 June 1660) to be disfranchised of his freedom of Plymouth Colony, having been found a "manifest opposer of the laws of government".
[68] The first volume (1661) of Bishop's work included the first publication of Cudworth's letter:[69] it was this, therefore, which may have been influential in causing Charles II (following the Restoration of the English Monarchy (1660)), to issue "The King's Missive" (9 September 1661), which required that any Quakers held by them under sentence of death or other corporeal punishment should forthwith not be proceeded against, but should be returned (at once) to England where the charges against them might be considered according to English law.
[70] Before this, in March 1660/61, Cudworth's elder daughter, Mary, had married the Quaker, Robert Whitcomb, and had been fined for disorderly marriage and for choosing each other without parental consent.
They were, however, permitted to marry in orderly fashion (the principal objection being to Mr Henry Hobson, who had derided their authority by the counterfeit solemnization).
In June 1666, a majority of the Scituate militia had elected Cudworth as their commander, but this choice was nullified on account of his support for Quakers and his writing against the rulers.
"[73] Governor Winslow adopted a more lenient policy towards the Quakers and, among his first actions, released Cudworth and Robinson from prison (where they had been held as sympathizers).
[74] Colony records show that "Captain Cudworth, by a full and clear vote, is accepted and reestablished in the association and body of this Commonwealth."
However, in declining this invitation, he addressed a very thoughtful letter to Governor Winslow, objecting that his wife (then aged 67) who was in poor health would be unlikely to survive during his absence, and that he lacked the capabilities demanded by such an undertaking.
He emphasised that he was not motivated, in his refusal, by discontent arising from any former difference: he explained that he had formerly bent his mind and thoughts to military work and other public concerns, but was discharged from them: "and therein I took vox populi to be vox Dei, and that God did thereby call and design me to sit still and be sequestered from all publick transactions, which condition suits me so well that I have received more satisfaction and contentment therein, than ever I did in sustaining any publick place.
[77] In December 1675, Governor Winslow became commander-in-chief of the United Colonies forces, and planned a campaign of attacks against the Indians during King Philip's War (1675–76).
[79] Major Cudworth was appointed, with two others (Cornet Robert Stetson and Isaac Chittenden), by the Plymouth War Council as press masters (December 6)[80] to obtain enough fit and able Scituate men for an expedition against the Native Americans.
On December 30, the council further ordered that any person pressed into the colony's service who refused to serve would pay a fine (and if his financial reseources were insufficient, he would be sent to prison for a term not to exceed six months).
