Ancestor’s Spotlight

Thomas Endecott was the eldest son of John Endecott (1541-1635) 5 and the probable father of the future Governor John Endecott (1588-1665). He lived in dangerous times. When Thomas was just three years old, the great Puritan reformer, Thomas Cartwright, outlined the Puritan program which spelled out the religious and social order that should be followed by true believers. Unlike most of the Endecott family who remained loyal to the Church of England, Thomas came under the influence of these ideas and of the views of the Puritan Reverend John White of Dorchester.

This requires some elaboration.

  After King Henry VIII (1491-1547) broke the bond between the Church of England and the Pope in 1533, the English Church, while independent of Rome, took on many of the trappings of the Roman Catholic Church except the King was at its head. By the time of the King’s death in 1547, the Established Church of England was only fourteen years old. He was followed to the throne by his only 7 son, Edward VI (1537-1553) , the son of Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour (1508-1537) 8 who died in childbirth. This child ascended the throne when he was only nine years old.

  When Edward died in 1553, Mary I (1516-1558), the daughter of Henry VIII, his first wife, Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536) took the throne. Throughout her father’s life, she had never renounced her Catholicism.

  Her desire was to return the English church to the Roman Catholic faith, but her reign was only five years (1553-1558).[10] she became known as “Blood Mary” for her persecution and killing of Protestants.

Roman Catholic faith, but her reign was only five years (1553-1558). She sent over 300 of them to be burned at the stake for heresy. This led to the growth of Puritanism in England which began to take hold in the 1560s during the reign of Elizabeth I (1533-1603) who ruled from 1558 to 1603 and was a Protestant more interested in preserving her power than in moving the agenda of the Protestant reformers. 

  Uritanism began as a movement for religious reform. In England, these early Puritans felt that the Church of England’s ecclesiastical establishment was too political, too compromising, and too Catholic in its liturgy, vestments, and Episcopal hierarchy.

  They believed that the Scriptures did not sanction the setting up of bishops and churches by the state. The aim of the early Puritans was to purify the church, not to separate from it. The main bodies of Puritans were the Presbyterians who favored a central church government while the Separatists and Independents defined the church as any autonomous congregation of believers. During the 13 reign of James I (1603-1625) , the Presbyterian majority unsuccessfully attempted to impose their ideas on the Established Church of England at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604. coming out of the conference led Archbishop William Laud to begin persecution of the Puritans and they began to leave for continental Europe and America in future years.

  Reverend John White, while studying for the priesthood at Wykeman’s School, had come under the influence of early Puritans such as Thomas Cartwright and he brought those Puritan views with him when he became the Rector of Holy Trinity in Dorchester in 1605 [15] His appointment occurred only two years after the death of Elizabeth I and the ascension of James I (1566-1625)  to the throne as discussed earlier. In this atmosphere, it was only a short time after Reverend White took up his duties that he became acquainted with Thomas Endecott and his oldest son, John, and was successful in turning both against the doctrines of the Established Church of England as they were practiced at the time.

Family Associations

Roger Ludlow

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