Herodias Gardner: Martyr for the Quaker cause |
A second account, written by George Bishop two years later, adds detail:
Harriet Gardner is the next - being the mother of many children, and an
inhabitant of Newport, in Rhode Island, who came, with her babe sucking
at her breast, from whence to Weymouth, a town in your colony; where
having finished what she had to do, and her testimony from the Lord, unto
which the Witness of God answered in the people, she was hurried by the
baser sort to Boston, in the 11th of the Third month, 1658, before your
governor, John Endicott, who after he had entertained her and the girl -
Mary Staunton, who came with her, to help her bear her child - with much
abusive language, he committed them both to prison, and ordered them to
be whipped with 10 lashes a-piece, which was cruelly laid on their naked
bodies with a three-fold knotted whip of cords, and then were continued
for the space of fourteen days longer in prison from their friends, who
could not visit them.
Harriet Gardner is the next - being the mother of many children, and an
inhabitant of Newport, in Rhode Island, who came, with her babe sucking
at her breast, from whence to Weymouth, a town in your colony; where
having finished what she had to do, and her testimony from the Lord, unto
which the Witness of God answered in the people, she was hurried by the
baser sort to Boston, in the 11th of the Third month, 1658, before your
governor, John Endicott, who after he had entertained her and the girl -
Mary Staunton, who came with her, to help her bear her child - with much
abusive language, he committed them both to prison, and ordered them to
be whipped with 10 lashes a-piece, which was cruelly laid on their naked
bodies with a three-fold knotted whip of cords, and then were continued
for the space of fourteen days longer in prison from their friends, who
could not visit them.
The woman came a very sore and - according to man - hardly accomplishable journey, through a wilderness, between
Rhode Island and Boston, of about 60 miles, and being kept up, after your cruel usage of their bodies, might have
died; but you had no consideration of this or of them, though the mother had of you, after the savage, inhumane and
bloody execution upon her of your cruelty aforesaid, kneeled down and prayed the Lord to forgive you; which so
reached and wrought upon a woman that stood by, that she gave glory to God, and said, “That surely she could not
have done this thing, if it had not been by the Spirit of the Lord…This cruel sentence was as barbarously inflicted, the
woman meanwhile, holding her child, and only protecting it by her sheltering arms from the lash of the executioner.
George Bishop ~ New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord ~ 1661
Horred Gardiner an inhabitant of Newport upon Rhode Island, and a mother of many children, for going to the meeting
house of Weymouth in Boston Colony, was carried to Boston, and there whipt with ten stripes, and the maid that
helped her to carry her sucking child, was whipt also, and continued in prison about fourteen days.
John Copeland ~ The Secret Workes of a Cruel People ~ London ~ 1659
Rhode Island and Boston, of about 60 miles, and being kept up, after your cruel usage of their bodies, might have
died; but you had no consideration of this or of them, though the mother had of you, after the savage, inhumane and
bloody execution upon her of your cruelty aforesaid, kneeled down and prayed the Lord to forgive you; which so
reached and wrought upon a woman that stood by, that she gave glory to God, and said, “That surely she could not
have done this thing, if it had not been by the Spirit of the Lord…This cruel sentence was as barbarously inflicted, the
woman meanwhile, holding her child, and only protecting it by her sheltering arms from the lash of the executioner.
George Bishop ~ New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord ~ 1661
Horred Gardiner an inhabitant of Newport upon Rhode Island, and a mother of many children, for going to the meeting
house of Weymouth in Boston Colony, was carried to Boston, and there whipt with ten stripes, and the maid that
helped her to carry her sucking child, was whipt also, and continued in prison about fourteen days.
John Copeland ~ The Secret Workes of a Cruel People ~ London ~ 1659
| John Endecott |