The word “Puritan” brings to mind a dour person more interested in restricting liberty than creating it. But I hope to shatter that image for all time.

What were the Puritans of New England really like? And what did they believe?

They were Christians under persecution. They were dubbed “Puritans” as a form of mockery. They didn’t necessary want to leave their homes–who would–but in some cases, it was either that or the Tower. King Charles felt threatened by them. They didn’t believe that the king’s authority–though given by God–was absolute.

A master should not kill his servant, and a husband should not beat his wife. No authority on earth was absolute, and these ideas became part of civil jurisprudence in colonial New England. Jonathan Mayhew preached a sermon on this topic on the anniversary of King Charles’s execution. Undoubtedly a message in itself.

The earliest settlers of New England believed in the separation of church and state, though not in the way we would perhaps expect. They believed that the role of a magistrate was separate from the role of a minister. However, there there was early disagreement on how this worked out: Roger Williams was exiled for his insistence that the first “table” of the Ten Commandments could not be enforced by the civil magistrate. Worship, in his view, was a matter of personal conscience.

Governor John Winthrop assented to his exile, but continued corresponded with him until the day of Winthrop’s death. In my novel The Root of the Matter, my character Geneva wonders about those letters… and Winthrop himself. What kind of man was he?