The Winthrop Woman
The Winthrop Woman (1958) is one of Anya Seton's most exciting novels! It tells the story of a real woman, Elizabeth Winthrop (1610 - 1673). Her life was as closely packed with adventures as that of Angélique or Milady, but, unlike those fictional characters, she really lived and all her incredible adventures were true! Anya Seton had to confess in her Author's Note that she hardly needed to invent anything more exciting than actual life.
Well, Elizabeth was a niece of that very John Winthrop who left England on April 10, 1630 to become a founder and the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in America. As all the rest of the family, the beautiful, sensuous and spirited Bess has to obey the patriarch in everything, and that galls her. She falls in love with her cousin Jack (Winthrop's eldest son), but her love seems unrequited; so, out of spite and passion, she marries Jack's brother, the rash and reckless Harry. That causes a scandal in the family, while greater and more fatal calamities threaten the England of Charles I. In the end, John Winthrop, a staunch Protestant, has to leave England for the lands overseas. Elizabeth, with all the family, follows. A new, dangerous life in America opens for her... and that is only a beginning! Elizabeth's life will be full of losses, hardships, enormous tests of courage and endurance. She is to be married three times; to find her only love at last and fight for it; to fight against everything - her uncle, the rigid norms of the Puritan society, the unpredictable Indians, the hunger and cold, and finally, herself, her own doubts and weaknesses.
There is a little bit of everything here: humour, adventure, heart-wrenching scenes and even horrifying ones (I confess one episode scared me nearly out of my wits... bravo Anya Seton, I didn't expect it of you!).
Even though the novel is focused on a beautiful woman, it is not a romance, but high quality historical fiction. One of Seton's aims was to recreate Elizabeth's life truthfully and exonerate her from some unjust prejudice. As for life in Old England and New England, it is recreated by a wealth of descriptions, witty dialogues, contemporary songs and poems being quoted. I love the way Anya Seton gives her readers knowledge of the period. For instance, while she could plainly tell us about New Englanders' customs, she chooses to introduce them through a dialogue between father and son at the dinner table:
"Oh Father, please, sir, do I have to go to church twice today as well as on Sundays?"
"You do, sir!" said Winthrop. He had spent many hours praying for Deane and for guidance in subduing him. (...) "Also", continued Winthrop, "is it necessary to remind you again that here we say 'meetinghouse', and 'Sabbath', not those Popish terms you used?"
"They were saying in London that New Englanders've changed the names of everythig to suit themselves - seasons, months, days, churches and taverns-" said Deane not quite pertly. "I don't like calling this good old January 'Eleven month', and why can't I call today 'Friday'?"
"Deane!" interrupted Margaret. "Stop fretting your father! You've been told why. We don't use pagan names or Papist ones, and anyway 'tis not for you to question. Eat your cornmeal!"
And even plain descriptions are well-written, not overlong and fun - like that of New Amsterdam, if we keep in mind what 'New Amsterdam' is now! :)
[in 1642] New Amsterdam was a quaint, colourful town, dominted by the peculiar many-angled earthen Fort and a windmill. Strung along the shore, outside the Fort, were fifty little bouweries, plots of land each with a house, topped by a steep-pitched roof sparkling with red tiles. The houses were enclosed by picket fences and gardens already bright with daffodils and early tulips. In every window there were starched white curtains. Despite the noisy chickens and pigs rooting in the swill which had been dumped in the dusty streets, the little town gave an impression of cleanliness and gaiety.
For the author, both 'big' and 'small' history is interesting and important, so, from this novel, we can learn not only about great political changes and royal decrees, but also about peopla's households, how their women made soap, candle wax, preserves; how Elizabeth (who had skills of a medicine woman) prepared her cures and grew her plants. I was amused to read how she bought English plants with her to be used in America, and that 'her most flourishing import of all' were... the dandelions! She had a whole bed of them.
On the greater scale, the whole book tells about the forming of the American nation. In a way, it continues and expands the themes already touched upon in The Hearth and Eagle. In The Winthrop Woman, we 'meet' Arbella Johnson again and witness her sad fate. The same idea prevails: the New World is only for the brave and strong. It accepts no weakness, but demands the best of people.
"Bess, don't cry... Don't you see - you must always be strong. It's such as you who'll go on, and endure, and found this land. To your children it will be home".
"And to yours", said Elizabeth violently.
Martha shook her head. "I am made of cobweb that tears at a touch. But you, Bess, have fibre like the great seines that seldom break, no matter their burden, yet if they do they can be mended again and again".
So all the adventures, tragedies, and hardships that befall Elizabeth only prove indirectly that she is worthy of the New World, that she is of the stuff of survivors. And yet one cannot help thinking at times if life was not too cruel to her. Here we come to what seems to me the main topic of the book: the soul's eternal search for truth. It can be irritating or interesting, depending on the reader; but it is there.
It turns out that the novel is not about 'Elizabeth and her love', but 'Elizabeth and God' or rather "Elizabeth versus God'.
The book starts with an unpleasant episode: five-year-old Bess commits a childish crime and is whipped by her stern uncle in front of all the family. That humiliation affects her whole life afterwards: she comes to see God as a cruel, merciless something that can only punish her for her sins, creating God by the image of her own uncle! (That relationship of uncle and niece is unusual and complex, but Anya Seton handles it well.) Elizabeth fears, hates and resents John's autocracy, but she respects him as well and nearly worships him in a strange way. So is God to her. She is glad to defy God and her uncle by small mischief, in her feminine ways, but in her heart she suffers from deep discontent. Such is Bess at the beginning.
An important event is her meeting with Mrs Hutchinson. The tragic life of that extraordinary woman is an essential and natural part of the book. The way Anne Hutchinson, 'the false prophet' and heretic, sees God, shocks Elizabeth, as it is totaly new to her.
"I've never heard God's voice", said Elizabeth. "Or felt Him near. The ministers say one can't. They say He revealed Himself once and for all in Scriptures, and that is all we can ever know of Him".
"They said that -", said Anne, "because they are blind, and still bound by Old Adam's Covenant of Works. They will not listen when The Comforter comes into their hearts."
"I don't understand this..." said Elizabeth sadly.
Anne's treadle stopped: she turned from the wheel and bent towards Elizabeth. "But Paul hath said it: He is the God of all comfort, Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God".
"That is beautiful as you speak it", Elizabeth said. "But how if God is wroth and will not send comfort?"
Anne put her head on one side, considering, and then she smiled. "I do not believe He is ever wroth with those who love enough, for God is Love".
All the subsequent events seemingly prove Anne Hutchinson terribly wrong. The pages where Anya Seton describes her process are hard to turn and yet greatly moving. Witnessing the injustice that befell that courageous woman, Bess herself is far away from finding God. It is notable that even when her life is relatively stable and settled, she feels unrest, which her husband tries to soothe:
"One mustn't blame God for all human miseries. Oh, I know your Uncle Winthrop and his ilk think so, but I do not. A peevish Jehovah with a long beard isn't what I call God."
"What is, then...?" she said, her hand lying limp in his.
"I can't say it", said Will, frowning. "I can't find words, though perhaps Herbert did -
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack...
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
if I lacked anything."
And only when Bess finds out for herself that 'Religion is not a melancholy. The Spirit of God is not a dampe' (in the words of John Donne, who is briefly mentioned in this wonderful book, too), only then she can find happiness. Such is the book's philosophy, like it or not!