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John Winthrop ( 12 January 1587/8– 26 March 1649) was elected governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 and on 8 April 1630 he led a large party from England for the New World.
He was born in Edwardstone, Suffolk, England, the son of Adam Winthrop (1548–1623) and his wife, Anne Browne. Winthrop briefly attended Trinity College, Cambridge, then studied law at Gray's InnGray's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in around the Royal Courts of Justice in London, England to which barristers belong and where they are called to the bar. The others are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Lincoln's Inn. It is situated in Holborn,, and in the 1620sCenturies: 16th century 17th century 18th century Decades: 1570s 1580s 1590s 1600s 1610s 1620s 1630s 1640s 1650s 1660s 1670s Years: 1620 1621 1622 1623 1624 1625 1626 1627 1628 1629 Events and Trends Permanent Dutch settlement of New York Bay and the Huds became an attorney at the Court of Wards in LondonLondon is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England, and with over seven million inhabitants in the Greater London area, is the second-most populous conurbation in Europe (after Moscow). From being Londinium the capital of the Roman province of Bri.
Winthrop was extremely religious and ascribed fervently to the Puritan belief that the Anglican Church had to be cleansed of CatholicGeneral meaning Catholic means universal or whole''. With respect to the Christian Church, the early Christians used the term to refer to the whole undivided church. It is in that sense that all Christians today claim ownership of the term, including Prot ritual. Winthrop was convinced that God would punish England for its heresy, and believed that English Puritans needed a shelter away from England where they could remain safe during the time of God's wrath.
Other Puritans who believed likewise obtained a royal charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company. Charles I of EnglandCharles I ( 19 November 1600 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625, until his death. He famously engaged in a struggle for power with Parliament; he was an advocate of the divine right of kings, but his foes in Parl was apparently unaware that the colony was to be anything other than a commercial venture to America. However, on March 4, 1629, he signed the Cambridge agreement with his wealthier Puritan friends, essentially pledging that they would embark on the next voyage and found a new Puritan colony in New England.
In the Spring of 1630, Winthrop led a fleet of eleven vessels and seven hundred passengers — The Winthrop Fleet of 1630 — to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the New World, the greatest ever assembled to carry Englishmen overseas to a new homeland.
Winthrop had been elected governor of the colony prior to departure, in 1629, and was re-elected many times. As governor he was one of the least radical of the puritans trying to keep the number of executions for heresy to a minimum and working to prevent the implementation of such innovations as veiling women, which many Puritans supported.
He is most famous for his " City on a Hill" sermon, in which he declared that the Puritan colonists emigrating to the New World were members of a special pact with God to create a holy community. This speech is often seen as a forerunner to the concept of American Exceptionalism. The speech is also well known for arguing that the wealthy had a holy duty to look after the poor. Recent history has shown, however, that the speech was not given much attention at the time of its delivery. Rather than coin these concepts Winthrop was merely repeating what were widely held Puritan beliefs in his day.
The Town of Winthrop, Massachusetts is named after him.