COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 1616 



COVENANTERS 



the life of the Pilgrim Fathers in the first New 

 England colony. Three persons stand out 

 prominently in the tale Captain Miles Stand- 

 ish, a valiant warrior, John Alden, his trusted 

 friend and sharer of his home, and Priscilla 

 Mullins, "the Mayflower of Plymouth." Dur- 

 ing the first hard winter in the new colony, 

 Rose Standish, wife of Miles, died, and in his 



JOHN ALDEN' S COURTSHIP 

 Drawn from the statuette designed by John 

 Rogers. 



loneliness the bereaved Captain thought long- 

 ingly of the beautiful Priscilla. She likewise 

 was grieving for loved ones, for among the 

 pathetic group of mounds in the little Plym- 

 outh cemetery were the graves of her father, 

 mother and brother. 



The Captain, though fearless in battle, was 

 weak of heart when it came to a matter of 

 wooing. Said he to his friend John 



I can march up to a fortress and summon the 



place to surrender, 

 But march up to a woman with such a proposal, 



I dare not. 

 I'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the 



mouth of a cannon, 

 But of a thundering 'No !' point-blank from the 



mouth of a woman, 

 That I confess I'm afraid of, nor am I ashamed 



to confess it. 



So he persuaded young Alden, the hand- 

 somest man in the colony, to go to the damsel 



Priscilla and tell her that "a blunt old Captain 

 offered her the hand and heart of a soldier." 

 It happened that Alden himself loved Priscilla, 

 and it was with a sorrowful heart that he 

 opened the door of her home and beheld her 



Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like 



a snowdrift 

 Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the 



ravenous spindle. 



Eloquently and bravely he pleaded the cause 

 of his friend, but Priscilla, knowing what was 

 in his heart 



* smiled, and, with eyes overrunning with 



laughter. 

 Said, in a tremulous voice, "Why don't you speak 



for yourself, John?" 



The story of the Captain's courtship is based 

 on a well-founded tradition, and a prose ver- 

 sion of the tale was published by one of the 

 descendants of John Alden in 1812-1814. This 

 narrative states briefly that John soon visited 

 Priscilla again on his own behalf, and that in 

 due time they were happily married. As for 

 the Captain, it is said that "he never forgave 

 his friend to the day of his death." Long- 

 fellow, however, has given the story an added 

 touch of romance, for we read in his poem 

 that the Captain was called away to fight the 

 Indians, but that he returned on the wedding 

 day in time to renew the old ties of friendship 

 and to wish the bride "joy of her wedding." 

 See ALDEN, JOHN ; STANDISH, MILES. B.M.W. 



COVENANTERS, kuv'enanturz, a name 

 applied to a group of people in Scotland, the 

 members of which bound themselves by a 

 series of covenants to uphold the Presbyterian 

 forms and doctrines of faith. The mpst im- 

 portant of the early covenants was drawn up 

 in 1581, at a time when a serious effort was 

 being made to regain Scotland for the Roman 

 Catholic Church. The National Covenant of 

 1638, which was a revival of the covenant of 

 1581, was adopted and signed at Edinburgh as 

 a result of the efforts of Charles I and Arch- 

 bishop Laud to force English forms of wor- 

 ship on the Scottish people. The Solemn 

 League and Covenant, entered into by the 

 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 

 and commissioners of the English Parliament 

 in 1643, was practically a treaty between Eng- 

 land and Scotland providing for the establish- 

 ment of the Presbyterian Church in England, 

 Scotland and Ireland. Both of these cove- 

 nants were repudiated by Charles II after he 

 was restored to the throne. 



