Gorton refused to answer a summons following the complaints of two Indian sachems about being unfairly treated in a land transaction.

After being released, Gorton and two of his associates sailed to England where they obtained an official order of protection for his colony from the Earl of Warwick.

He became part of the very civil authority which he had previously rejected, serving as an assistant, commissioner, deputy, and president of the two towns of Providence and Warwick.

In more recent times, some historians and writers have looked upon him more favorably, and some now consider him to be one of the great colonial leaders of Rhode Island.

[5] Gorton's belief was that the Holy Spirit was present in all human beings, giving each person a divinity and obscuring any distinction between a saint and sinner.

His ideology of anti-authoritarianism was based on his belief in the equality of all men, and he felt that both civil and religious hierarchical systems "denied the true priesthood of all believers.

"[3] Another biographer noted that "Gorton was one of the noble spirits who esteemed liberty more than life, and, counting no sacrifice too great for the maintenance of principal, could not dwell at ease in a land where the inalienable rights of humanity were not acknowledged or were mocked at.

[12] He soon went to Plymouth Colony where he rented part of a house, becoming active in the community by volunteering during the Pequot War, as did his older brother Thomas.

In court, Gorton "carried himself so mutinously and seditiously" towards both magistrates and ministers that he was sentenced to find sureties for his good behavior during the remainder of his tenure in Plymouth, and given 14 days to be gone from the colony.

[15] Here he became a resident, and on the last day of April 1639 he and 28 others signed a compact calling themselves subjects of King Charles and forming a "civil body politick.

[14] Trouble continued to follow Gorton to Providence, where his democratic ideas concerning church and state led to a division of sentiment in this town.

[14] On 8 March 1641, Roger Williams wrote to Massachusetts magistrate John Winthrop, "Master Gorton having abused high and low at Aquidneck, is now bewitching and bemadding poor Providence, both with his unclean and his foul censures of all the ministers of this country (for which myself in Christ's name have withstood him) and also denying all visible and external ordinances in depth of Familism.

"[14] With no formal government established in the area, these Pawtuxet settlers put themselves under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in an arrangement that lasted 16 years.

[19] In January 1643, Gorton and 11 others bought a large tract of land south of Pawtuxet from Narragansett tribal chief Miantonomi for 144 fathoms of wampum (864 feet or 263 meters), and they called the place Shawomet, using its Indian name.

[14] Here the settlers felt safe from the Massachusetts authorities and sent them at least two letters that were "filled with invective," presenting religious views that were anathema to the Puritan orthodoxy held by the Bay colony.

[20] Gorton and others of Shawomet were summoned to the Boston court to answer complaints filed by two minor Indian sachems concerning some "unjust and injurious dealing" towards them.

[14] He would be sentenced to death, upon a conviction by a jury trial, if he were to break confinement or to maintain any of the "blasphemies or abominable heresies wherewith he hath been charged".

[14] Gorton and his associates were restricted from their own lands, so they went instead to Rhode Island and were warmly greeted by a faction of residents who were opposed to Governor Coddington.

[25] The Commissioner of Plantations, responsible for overseeing the activities of the colonies, issued an order to Massachusetts to allow the residents of Shawomet and other nearby lands to "freely and quietly live and plant" without being disquieted by external pressures.

[25] Gorton remained in England while Holden returned to the American colonies in 1646 and presented the order to the Massachusetts authorities,[26] who found it unacceptable.

[27] During his time in England, Gorton had become a prominent part of the Puritan underground, centered mostly around London, where divergent sectarian views were being shared and embraced.

"[29] One of Gorton's extreme positions was in crossing traditional gender lines, and he likely preached at the conventicle of a woman who has only been identified as Sister Stag.

It was clear that he viewed women with "a spiritual and social equality unusual for that time", as did other Puritan radicals, a position that was later embraced by the Quakers.

Massachusetts Bay authorities ordered his arrest, but he had a letter of protection from Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick which saw him safely back to his family.

[41] More than a century later, however, Rhode Island Secretary of State Samuel Eddy wrote, "In the case of Gorton... no one of the first settlers has received more unmerited reproach, nor any one suffered so much injustice.

The turbulence of his earlier history was the result of a disregard for existing law, because it was not based upon what he held to be the only legitimate source of power—the assent of the supreme authority in England.

His astuteness of mind and his Biblical learning made him a formidable opponent of the Puritan hierarchy, while his ardent love of liberty, when it was once guaranteed, caused him to embrace with fervor the principles that gave origin to Rhode Island.

[43] One of his biographers wrote that, after Roger Williams, no man was more instrumental in establishing the foundation of equal civil rights and liberty in Rhode Island.

[47] Gorton's final published work was Antidote Against Pharisaical Teachers (1656), though he left behind an unpublished manuscript of several hundred pages entitled Exposition upon the Lord's Prayer.

Mary was the granddaughter of the Reverend John Mayplet, Rector of Great Leighs Parish in Essex, Vicar of Northolt in Middlesex, and a writer on the topics of natural history and astrology.