First Founders: American Puritans and Puritanism in an Atlantic World

The Troubled Keaynes

The TrouBled Keaynes of all the first-generation merchants whose efforts contributed to the prosperity of Massachusetts, the most famous is robert Keayne. It might be more accurate to say that he is the most notorious, because his story has attracted historians largely due to his clashes with his fellow colonists, a number of whom accused him of shady business practices. His story is one that demonstrates the difficulties puritan merchants faced, caught between the puritan communal social ethic and emerging entrepreneurial principles. It is a tragic story because Keayne was himself torn between these conflicting values. A different type of notoriety was achieved by his daughter-in-law, sarah dudley Keayne, who became a sexually promiscuous street preacher in Civil War London. Their compelling stories point to yet other dimensions of puritanism in the Atlantic world. r oBert keayne was the son of a butcher in Windsor, Berkshire, England. He was born in 1595 and when he was about ten his father apprenticed him to a member of the London Merchant Taylor’s Company, one of the city’s foremost guilds. After completing his apprenticeship robert was admitted as a freeman of that company and set up his own business. By 1617 he had married Anne Mansfield, the daughter of a former master of mines and surveyor to Queen Elizabeth. The match attests to the fact that he had already achieved considerable prosperity. It also connected him to John Wilson, the future Boston minister, who was married to Anne’s sister Elizabeth. Keayne continued to prosper. He was admitted to the freedom of the City (meaning that he could vote), was being addressed as a gentleman , and in 1623 was admitted to the Honorable Artillery Company of London. This was a group that taught and exercised men who would 100 First Founders command the London Trained Bands, the citizen militia who provided the backbone of the nation’s military in time of war. Membership also signified one as a member of the elite, and enabled one to mingle with the city’s mayor and civic leaders at public functions. We don’t know if Keayne was raised as a puritan or was influenced in that direction during his apprenticeship, but it is at least clear that he was a zealous puritan by the time he set himself up as a London merchant. The Cornhill district in which he lived had a reputation for clergy and laymen who promoted further reform of the church. Keayne purchased numerous religious treatises written in English. He travelled around the city to attend sermons delivered by prominent preachers, taking copious notes of the sermons for his later review. In a volume containing notes on sermons he heard between June 1627 and June 1628, he recorded over sixty sermons by a variety of London clergy that included richard sibbes, William Gouge, John davenport, and Thomas Taylor, as well as visiting preachers such as his “brother Wilson” and John Cotton of Boston. It was common for him to hear two sermons on a sunday— such as on July 15, 1627, when he heard davenport at st. stephen’s and then walked to the Cornhill district to hear “Mr. Malthouse”—and on at least two occasions he found a way to hear and take notes on three sermons. Keayne also acquired numerous printed and manuscript religious writings, including a “little thin pocket book” that he copied, “a treatise on the sacrament of the Lord’s supper” by the Lincolnshire separatist roger Brereley, which he claimed to “have read over, I think, 100 and 100 times.” Brereley was one of those suspected of antinomian views to whom Thomas shepard had briefly been drawn. It is likely during his years in London that Keayne also began to compile three large manuscript books in which he sought to copy down expositions of each chapter of the entire Bible. Later, in Boston, he would begin a similar volume in which he collected interpretations of the prophetic books of daniel, Hosea, and revelations. Keayne’s religious sentiments may have influenced his investment in the Pilgrim’s migration in 1620. And it likely was why he invested in the Massachusetts Bay Company in the early 1630s. He also acted for that company in 1634 in the purchase of armaments for the colony. In July The Keaynes 101 1635 he, together with his wife and their son Benjamin, embarked for New England...