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JAMES CUTLER James Cutler, an Englishman, was born into a world of turmoil in 1606 the year considered the beginning of the Puritan-Cavalier conflict. It was just three years since England's "Golden Age" had ended with the death of Queen Elizabeth, and eighteen years since the defeat of the Spanish Armada. While Elizabeth reigned, she had relaxed control by the central government almost to the vanishing point; the result was the greatest spree of progress and development in England's history before or since, as private individuals tasted their new freedom to act independently. When James I became king in 1603, he attempted to reassert the power of the central government and the rights of the monarch over the people and their parliament. As religion was a matter of state policy in those days, the religious beliefs of the people were involved in the political struggle as well. Throughout James Cutler's life tension was on the rise, with the Cavaliers backing, the king on one side, and the Puritans backing the Parliament on the other. When Charles I became king in 1625, the bitterness of the conflict rose to a point where civil war was inevitable. James Cutler must have been caught up in this strife as a young man because few were immune from the controversy. As James was a Puritan, he was aware of the settlements being established in North America by Puritans escaping the pressures of the conflict. When James was born there were no white settlers in North America. Four years later there were only 210, but by 1634 when James at the age of 28 landed at Watertown, Colony of Massachusetts, North America had a population of 12,000 white colonists (and about 1,000,000 Indians.) The other major settlements nearby were Boston, Plymouth and Salem. The myth of the Twentieth Century is that they came to establish religious freedom. Actually these people were seeking a territory where they could establish their own religious monopoly and the Congregational Church became the official church of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The people were severe and single-minded; the deacons ruled the community and only persons in good church standing had the right to vote. A man who moved from one community to another had to bring a letter of good standing before he was admitted to the settlement. Why James came to Watertown is not clear. Whether it was for political reasons, religious reasons, or sheer adventure we can only guess. Almost immediately upon landing, at the age of 28, he married Anne Cakebread who had been so "tantalized and tormented for her Puritanism" in England that she and her sister had come alone and unattended to the Puritan Colonies. Her sister married Ensign Grout. Even after marrying such a strong Puritan, however, there is little evidence of James' participation in church affairs, and he never became an aggressive political participant, so it is possible that he was interested in developing an estate, as his reason for coming to this rough country. |