A Pilgrim Becomes a Shakespearean Star

In 1609, a fleet of English ships set out to rescue the dying colony of Jamestown, but a hurricane interrupted their journey. The Sea Venture, one of the ships, ran aground on Bermuda's jagged beach after three days of struggling to stay afloat. All the other ships made it to the shores of Virginia, except for one. A smaller ship disappeared into the ocean, carrying all its crew down with it. 

The ship's 150 passengers and crew survived and built two smaller boats to reach Jamestown, where Thomas Gates was to become the new governor. However, Stephen Hopkins, one of the passengers, challenged Gates' authority, triggering a power struggle that lasted for months, with Hopkins nearly executed for mutiny. Eventually, the survivors constructed two seaworthy vessels and made it to Jamestown, surviving over nine months on the isolated island paradise. 

Two years later, Shakespeare's play, “The Tempest”, premiered in London on November 1, 1611. The play's plot involves a shipwreck on an island and a power struggle between the leader and his subjects, including one crewmember named Stephano. The similarities between the play and the real-life story of Stephen Hopkins are not coincidental. After the Sea Venture passengers reached Jamestown, William Strachey wrote a letter detailing their ordeal, including the power struggle between Gates and Hopkins. Shakespeare likely read Strachey's account, leading many scholars to believe that Hopkins inadvertently inspired the character of Stephano in “The Tempest”, creating an unusual connection between Shakespeare and the Pilgrims of Plymouth.

*****

“Deliver me out of the mire, that I sink not: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.”

(Psalm 69:14; 1599 Geneva Bible)

The Blustery Quest for a Home

On November 27th, 1620, the Pilgrims of the Mayflower sent over thirty colonists and sailors on a third expedition for a settlement site. Led by Shipmaster Christopher Jones, they piled into the newly repaired shallop (their small expedition boat). The winds lashed their faces as they clutched their coats tight against the chill.

As evening came, Master Jones, his bones aching from an endless march through snowy dunes, ordered the men to stop and make camp, though a few settlers wanted to keep searching. A few blasts from their muskets, and the famished men, who had not eaten all day, satisfied their rumbling bellies with three geese and six ducks before they bedded down beneath the pines. After a night huddled on the freezing shore, they awoke to six inches of snow. 

They soon found even more buried corn, and two abandoned wetus – native houses made from bent saplings and covered with bark. Recognizing some were too ill to continue, Jones headed back with the corn and sick men as the others pressed on. The explorers knew the corn was stored by the native people, but in their desperation, they considered it a blessing of God. Now that winter was already upon them, planting their own crops was impossible, and they promised themselves that they would repay the land’s residents at a later date. 

When they finally returned to the ship, the men found that some of their party had already died in the frigid cold of Cape Cod.

* * * * * 

“He giveth snow like wool, and scattereth the hoary frost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can abide the cold thereof?” 

(Psalms 147:16-17, 1599 Geneva Bible)

“When they wandered in the desert and wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.” 

(Psalms 107:4-5, 1599 Geneva Bible)