Robinson, JOHN

Robinson, JOHN, pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, was born, probably in Lincolnshire, about 1575, was a Fellow of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, and ministered to a church near Norwich, until he was suspended for his Puritan tendencies. In 1604 he resigned his fellowship and all connection with the Church of England, and gathered a congregation of dissenters at Gainsborough. He was afterwards a minister at Scrooby, but in 1608 he and his flock escaped to Amsterdam; in 1609 he passed to Leyden, and there in 1611 he established a church, and in 1613 met Episcopius, Arminius' successor, in debate. In 1620, after a memorable sermon, he saw the younger members of his congregation set sail in the Speedwell (which vessel they afterwards changed for the Mayflower). He himself intended to, and his son in 1631 did, follow them to Massachusetts. He died at Leyden in March 1625. His works, with a memoir by R. Ashton, were collected in 3 vols. (Lond. and Boston) in 1851. In 1891 a large bronze tablet to his memory was placed by the American Congregational churches on the outer wall of St Peter's, Leyden, in one of whose vaults he is buried.