For Readers

The stories I've crafted tell of fictional people who lived through actual, historical events. The locations you'll visit in my stories are real, and so are many of the secondary characters.

You may argue the nobility and rightness of their actions, but the fact remains: that they left their homeland to worship as their conscience dictated, created a governing document that was a model for the American Constitution, and thrived for many generations to come, matters to us today.

It's worth it to us to know their true story.

Most of the group we now call Pilgrims began their journey in a rural town in northern England called Scrooby. It's located south of Bawtry on this map, in the county of Nottinghamshire.

Photo Credit:http://www.histarch.illinois.edu/plymouth/Maysource.html

Exiled for separating from the Church of England, they sought asylum in a city known for it's religious tolerance: Leiden (Leyden), Holland.
 

Photo credit: fotoportal.poznan.p

Though they were indeed free to worship, life was difficult for the near-penniless immigrants. They worked hard in the wool industry (Leiden was a center for the textile trade in the 17th Century). After ten years of living and working in Leiden, the children were being worn down, and "many were being drawn away by the lures of the world around them" (p. 109, The Light and the Glory).

The reality of this struggle is important in the life of my main character

Believing America to be the place God intended for them, they financed the cost of the voyage for about forty passengers, and departed Holland on board the Speedwell in late July 1620.

They met with the Mayflower off the southern coast of England, and the rest is history.