Anne Clarke’s Heartbreaking Victory

In the heart of Puritan New England, where piety clashes with humanity, Anne Clarke stood before the stern faces of Boston's magistrates asking for divorce. None had ever been granted before in the rapidly growing colony of Massachusetts Bay. Her fate, and that of her children, would be in the hands of the court, but she was more than prepared to make her case. 

Anne Clarke makes her case in court

Anne filed for divorce from her husband on the grounds of marital abandonment and adultery. Given his calloused nature toward his wife and children, Mr. Clark gave Anne a surprising gift that would make the process easy. He wrote out a signed affidavit in which he clearly explained that he had knowingly and purposefully abandoned his wife, he had no desire to return to her, and he was now living with another woman. 

Divorce among Puritan communities was not illegal, but strongly discouraged. Adultery was the most common grounds for divorce, but desertion and cruelty were also accepted as legal cause. However, women had the greater challenge obtaining a divorce, requiring higher standards of proof for their spouse’s offences. 

Fortunately for Anne, the facts were clear. Not only was her husband open and unrepentant about his ongoing affair, but he had also fathered two children with the other woman. 

In a ruling recorded on January 5, 1643, the court noted that Denis Clarke had indeed deserted his wife, refused to return, and confessed to living in adultery, so therefore Anne Clarke “is granted to be divorced."

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“If there be any that provideth not for his own, and namely for them of his household, he denieth the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

(1 Timothy 5:8; 1599 Geneva Bible)

Churches Created by Divorce

Henry wanted a divorce. Since Queen Catherine could not bear him a son, his heart was set on the beautiful Anne Boleyn. But the Catholic Church, which regulated marriage in Western Europe, would not allow it. Therefore, on December 18, 1534, King Henry VIII severed England's ties with the Pope and declared himself Supreme Head of the newly established Church of England. Henry’s self-proclaimed religious authority provided him the freedom to divorce or marry whenever he wished, renewing his hopes for a son – a male heir who would ensure political stability for both England and Henry’s dynasty. 

Then the king soon became disenchanted with his new marriage. After several moral and criminal accusations were made against Anne, Henry had her beheaded, making way for another wife, and yet another, finally totaling six successive wives and three surviving children. His young son, Edward VI, was crowned king after Henry’s death, but when the teenager died, it opened the royal door for Henry’s militantly Catholic daughter, Mary Tudor. At Mary’s death, Henry’s last surviving child, Elizabeth I, took the throne, securing the kingdom for a more moderate style of Protestant faith – one that required less bloodshed. 

Henry could not have anticipated how his divorce and severing ties with Catholicism would lead to endless religious divisions, even within his own Church of England. It was these fractures that eventually led to the emergence of Puritans, Separatists, and Quakers, who would cross the ocean a century later, establishing new religious colonies on the American continent. 

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“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it..., So ought men to love their wives, as their own bodies: he that loveth his wife, loveth himself.... Therefore everyone of you, do ye so: let everyone love his wife, even as himself, and let the wife see that she fear her husband.” 

(Ephesians 5:25, 28, 33; 1599 Geneva Bible)