When his life shall have been adequately written, as it
never has been, he will be recognized as one of the very noblest figures
in American history. From early youth he had that same power of
winning confidence and commanding respect for which Washington was so
remarkable; and when he was selected as the Moses of the great Puritan
exodus, there was a wide-spread feeling that extraordinary results were
likely to come of such an enterprise.
In marked contrast to Winthrop stands the figure of the man associated
with him as deputy-governor. Thomas Dudley came of an ancient family,
the history of which, alike in the old and in the new England, has not
been altogether creditable. He represented the elder branch of that
Norman family, to the younger branch of which belonged the unfortunate
husband of Lady Jane Grey and the unscrupulous husband of Amy Robsart.
There was, however, very little likeness to Elizabeth's gay lover
in grim Thomas Dudley. His Puritanism was bleak and stern, and for
Christian charity he was not eminent. He had a foible for making verses,
and at his death there was found in his pocket a poem of his, containing
a quatrain wherein the intolerance of that age is neatly summed up:--
"Let men of God in courts and churches watch O'er such as do a
Toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice To poison
all with heresy and vice.
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