Anne Bradstreet and Her Time | Page 3

of his character. As his belief changed, and the necessity
for free speech was laid upon him, he ceased to disguise his real
feelings and became even too out-spoken, the tendency strengthening
year by year, and doing much to diminish his popularity, though his
qualities were too sterling to allow any lessening of real honor and
respect. But he was still the courtier, and untitled as he was, prestige
enough came with him to make his marriage to "a gentlewoman whose
Extract and Estate were Considerable," a very easy matter, and though
we know her only as Dorothy Dudley, no record of her maiden name
having been preserved, the love borne her by both husband and
daughter is sufficient evidence of her character and influence.

Puritanism was not yet an established fact, but the seed had been sown
which later became a tree so mighty that thousands gathered under its
shadow. The reign of Elizabeth had brought not only power but peace
to England, and national unity had no further peril of existence to dread.
With peace, trade established itself on sure foundations and increased
with every year. Wealth flowed into the country and the great
merchants of London whose growth amazed and troubled the royal
Council, founded hospitals, "brought the New River from its springs at
Chadwell and Amwell to supply the city with pure water," and in many
ways gave of their increase for the benefit of all who found it less easy
to earn. The smaller land-owners came into a social power never owned
before, and "boasted as long a rent-roll and wielded as great an
influence as many of the older nobles.... In wealth as in political
consequence the merchants and country gentlemen who formed the
bulk of the House of Commons, stood far above the mass of the peers."
Character had changed no less than outward circumstances. "The nation
which gave itself to the rule of the Stewarts was another nation from
the panic-struck people that gave itself in the crash of social and
religious order to the guidance of the Tudors." English aims had passed
beyond the bounds of England, and every English "squire who crossed
the Channel to flesh his maiden sword at Ivry or Ostend, brought back
to English soil, the daring temper, the sense of inexhaustable resources,
which had bourn him on through storm and battle field." Such forces
were not likely to settle into a passive existence at home. Action had
become a necessity. Thoughts had been stirred and awakened once for
all. Consciously for the few, unconsciously for the many, "for a
hundred years past, men had been living in the midst of a spiritual
revolution. Not only the world about them, but the world within every
breast had been utterly transformed. The work of the sixteenth century
had wrecked that tradition of religion, of knowledge, of political and
social order, which had been accepted without question by the Middle
Ages. The sudden freedom of the mind from these older bonds brought
a consciousness of power such as had never been felt before; and the
restless energy, the universal activity of the Renaissance were but outer
expressions of the pride, the joy, the amazing self-confidence, with
which man welcomed this revelation of the energies which had lain

slumbering within him."
This was the first stage, but another quickly and naturally followed, and
dread took the place of confidence. With the deepening sense of human
individuality, came a deepening conviction of the boundless capacities
of the human soul. Not as a theological dogma, but as a human fact
man knew himself to be an all but infinite power, whether for good or
for ill. The drama towered into sublimity as it painted the strife of
mighty forces within the breasts of Othello or Macbeth. Poets passed
into metaphysicians as they strove to unravel the workings of
conscience within the soul. From that hour one dominant influence told
on human action; and all the various energies that had been called into
life by the age that was passing away were seized, concentrated and
steadied to a definite aim by the spirit of religion. Among the myriads
upon whom this change had come, Thomas Dudley was naturally
numbered, and the ardent preaching of the well-known Puritan
ministers, Dodd and Hildersham, soon made him a Non-conformist and
later an even more vigorous dissenter from ancient and established
forms. As thinking England was of much the same mind, his new belief
did not for a time interfere with his advancement, for, some years after
his marriage he became steward of the estate of the Earl of Lincoln, and
continued so for more than ten years. Plunged in debt as the estate had
been by the excesses of Thomas, Earl of Lincoln, who left the property
to