American Heroes (11 page)

These precautions, as we have already seen, did not eliminate fornication, adultery, or other sexual offenses, but they doubtless reduced the number from what it would otherwise have been.

In sum, the Puritan attitude toward sex, though directed by a belief in absolute, God-given moral values, never neglected human nature. The rules of conduct that the Puritans regarded as divinely ordained had been formulated for men, not for angels and not for beasts. God had created mankind in two sexes; He had ordained marriage as desirable for all, and sexual intercourse as essential to marriage. On the other hand, He had forbidden sexual intercourse outside of marriage. These were the moral principles that the Puritans sought to enforce in New England. But in their enforcement they took cognizance of human nature. They knew well enough that human beings since the fall of Adam were incapable of obeying perfectly the laws of God. Consequently, in the endeavor to enforce those laws, they treated offenders with patience and understanding, and concentrated their efforts on prevention more than on punishment. The result was not a society in which most of us would care to live, for the methods of prevention often caused serious interference with personal liberty. It must nevertheless be admitted that in matters of sex the Puritans showed none of the blind zeal or narrow-minded bigotry that is too often supposed to have been characteristic of them. The more one learns about these people, the less do they appear to have resembled the sad and sour portraits that their modern critics have drawn of them.

—1942

I
N THE YEAR
1656
Anna Keayne was the most eligible debutante in Boston. At the age of sixteen she had been “very well and carefully educated,” and furthermore her grandfather had just left her £900 in his will. Although the good people of Boston may have looked with some bitterness upon this dowry—for Robert Keayne had become notorious by his hard bargains—Anna was nevertheless accepted as a respectable member of society. Her grandfather, in spite of his harsh business dealings, had long been a member of the church in good standing. He had attended regularly, taken notes on the sermons, and even begun to write a commentary on the Bible. At the time of his death he had completed three precious volumes of this work, which he declared he would not part with for a hundred pounds. There could be no question that, aside from his too great attention to worldly wealth, he was a good Puritan. His grandchild would be accepted even in the most exclusive and godly circles. Besides, the old merchant had in his will partially atoned for his failings. His neighbors and customers must have been somewhat softened toward Anna by the fund of £120 he had left to the poor and the £300 he had left to the town for the erection of public buildings.

Anna's parents could not bear such close scrutiny as her grandparents. Her father, Benjamin Keayne, the only son of old Robert, had made what at first seemed to be a fortunate marriage with Sarah Dudley, daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley and sister of the poetess Anne Bradstreet. But Sarah had turned out to be a shrew, and the match had proved “unhappy and uncomfortable.” Some time after Anna's birth Benjamin accused his wife of adultery, obtained a divorce, and went off to London, leaving her to marry again and to get herself in trouble with the church by “Irregular prophecying in mixt Assemblies.” Benjamin never questioned, however, that Anna was his child. Before he departed for England, he placed her in the hands of her grandparents, and they brought her up with loving care and proper discipline. Robert Keayne provided in his will that her education be continued, if necessary, in some godly family to be chosen by his executors, “where she may have hir carnall disposition most of all subdued and reformed by strict discipline.” He probably did not mean to imply that Anna was particularly susceptible to the temptations of the flesh. Like all Puritans, he assumed that every human being is endowed with a “carnal disposition” that it is part of the business of education to subdue. There is no reason to believe that Anna's character at the time of her grandfather's death was in any way questionable. In spite of her mother's shady reputation, she herself was a respectable, well-bred young lady with a fortune of £900—assuredly the best match in town.

Her grandfather, whose love for her was evident to everyone, had given some instructions in his will about her prospective husband. He had advised that she marry “some man truely fearing God,” and had instructed the overseers of his will “to provide some fitt and godly match proportionable to hir estate and condition that she may live comfortably and be fitt to doe good in hir place and not to suffer hir to be circumvented or to cast away hirselfe for want of counsell and watchfullness upon some swagering gentleman or others that will Looke more after the enjoying of what she hath, then liveing in the feare of God and true love to hir.” In order to be sure that Anna followed the instructions of her guardians, he charged her “that she would not dare to set hir affections upon any in that kind without there advice counsell and helpe.” It may seem hard that a girl should have to receive permission from her grandmother, or worse still from the overseers of her grandfather's will, before falling in love; but such was the custom in seventeenth-century Boston. Children, especially if possessed of sizable fortunes, were supposed to allow their parents or guardians to make their matches for them.

The proper man appeared a few months after her grandfather's death. Edward Lane, a London merchant reputed to be worth £1,800 (a suitor was expected to be worth at least twice as much as his future wife), thirty-six years old and single, arrived at Boston aboard the
Speedwell
on July 27, 1656. It was not long before he was making overtures to Anna's guardians, and since he seemed to be well qualified in godliness and in worldly goods, Mrs. Keayne gave him permission “to make tryall for the gayning of my Grandchilds affections as to marriage.” Thereafter, following a common custom, he sent a friend often to visit Anna and to gain her affections for him. With the friend he sent many pieces of gold for her to assure her of his own affection and at the same time, doubtless, to remind her that he was a man of wealth, worthy to be her suitor. The eloquence of the friend—or of the gold—soon prevailed, and the couple became affianced.

Hitherto Lane had remained pretty much in the background. Now he stepped prominently into the picture. Mrs. Keayne, thankful for the prospect of having a man in the family once more, decided to hand over to him the job of executing her late husband's will, for she had scarcely begun the task of carrying out the manifold orders contained in that lengthy document. Since Anna was still underage and since her dowry had to be paid from the estate, Lane was easily persuaded of “the great benefitt it would bee vnto me in respect of the securitie of my wiues portion” to take over the task. After he had agreed to do so, however, he discovered that, according to the terms of the will, he would lose a part of his wife's portion if she should die before reaching the age of eighteen. Because of this and other dubious provisions of the will, Lane thought it advisable to have an express agreement drawn up concerning the exact amount due to Mrs. Keayne as the widow, so that the remainder, minus all bequests and legacies, might be entirely his.

For so grave a matter the assistance of an impartial tribunal was necessary. Accordingly Lane and Mrs. Keayne each chose two friends to meet together as an arbitrating committee and decide “what they shall judge just and equal to be payd and receiued by one or other.” A week later, after perusing the 158 pages of Robert Keayne's will, this committee drew up an agreement to which Lane and the widow set their signatures: Mrs. Keayne was to receive a house and land, an annuity of £40, plus £400 in money; Lane was to have everything else, and he gave bond for £1,000 to pay all the bequests and other debts owed by the estate. In addition Mrs. Keayne left all preparations for the coming wedding up to the bridegroom. She agreed to “allow unto the said Edward Lane, the summe of fifty pounds for the more contentfull and comely apparrelling of Anna Keayne the younger [Mrs. Keayne's name was Anna, too] his intended wife together with what he sees meet to lay out for the marriage solemnity that so the said Anna the elder may be freed from all troubles in making provision for the same….” With these preliminaries out of the way, the stage was at last set for the wedding, which took place on December 11, 1657, under the direction of Governor John Endecott. Since church weddings were not allowed, Anna had no chance to display her “contentfull and comely” apparel to an admiring congregation; but if she and her husband followed colonial custom, they invited their friends to a feast after the ceremony. Here Anna was able to show off her new gown, while friends toasted her with “sack-posset” and rum. Perhaps, if the authorities had not been displaying too much strictness lately, there might even have been dancing.

Had Edward Lane been a normal man, the story might have ended here, with the couple living happily ever after. But an ugly rumor soon began to be heard in Boston, and fifteen months after the wedding popular suspicion was confirmed by a petition that Mrs. Lane presented to the Court of Assistants.

Upon receipt of this document the court sent for Lane and asked him if his wife's charge were true. “After a considerable pause his answer was that he must speake the truth he could not say he had performed the office of a husband.” Accordingly, after due deliberation, the magistrates declared the marriage to be dissolved.

It soon appeared, however, that Anna was not the only one who had been deceived. The bequests and debts owed by the estate of Robert Keayne amounted to much more than the value of the estate itself. By the terms of the agreement that he had signed, Edward Lane was a loser by more than £500. He, too, now sought relief in court, pointing out that he had assumed the executorship because of the marriage. The marriage having been dissolved, he ought therefore to be relieved of the burden and reimbursed for the expenditures he had made. The court's first reaction was to appoint a committee empowered to examine all the evidence and instructed “to make a loving and amicable agreement, if it may be, to mutual satisfaction of the sajd Mr. Lane and Mrs. Anna Keajne, thereby to prevent further trouble to this court.”

The court did not escape further trouble so easily. The widow Keayne had made a bargain, and like her husband she meant to see that it was kept. She refused to listen to any compromise and presented an answer to Lane's petition in which she pointed out that Lane had entered the agreement with his eyes open. If the court were to release him from his obligations, she said, it would be plain “to the world that no man or woman of what condition soeuer of sound mind or theire friends so being can make any bargaine, but the Court may vndoe it which I hope will not be asserted, much lesse practised.” Mrs. Keayne was saying that business is business, but the court had heard that plea before from the lips of her late husband. To him they had replied, in a fine of £200, that business may be business, but it is not justice. They now returned the same answer to her: they discharged Lane from the executorship and ordered the overseers of the will to reimburse him with £650, plus two years' rent from most of the houses and lands in possession of the estate.

Anna Lane now began to regret her action, for it was plain that she was not so desirable a match as she had at first appeared to be. Lane told her that because of deficiencies in her grandfather's estate her dowry “must fall Short more then twoe therdes.” Furthermore, he was slow about returning her personal property, which he may have been keeping as a pledge until his £650 were paid. Lane was naturally somewhat piqued at Anna's exposure of his infirmity, especially since he knew that “the phycitians that have administred vnto mee can finde no naturall Defect in mee as they have Declared and are still ready to Declare.” He continued to take treatments and after a time became convinced that his weakness had ceased. Friends now tried to patch things up, and because of Anna's uncertainty about her estate she was the more willing to listen to them. Her grandmother later related, “I have severall times found my Daughter in a roome with Mr. Lane and Mr. Cooke to my great greif and have been angry with Mr. Cooke about it; And he hath Led me out and said lett them alone I would have her try him for he is a man; And to Convince me told mee some thing that was so Immodest I cannot write it.”

The result of these meetings was that on December 12, 1659, two years after their first marriage and nine months after the annulment, the couple went once more to the governor and asked to be married again. The episode and its sequel were later recalled by Edward Hutchinson: