Those Scrooby people were tough! Where did they get their grit from?
http://www.lincs-reformed-church.com/pilgrims.html
In September 1607 the Scrooby congregation sold all their belongings and travelled overland to Boston, 60 miles to the south east. They hired a ship to take them to Holland, but downstream from Boston at Scotia Creek “the captain betrayed them … Bailiffs put them into open boats and there rifled and ransacked them, searching them to their shirts for money … even the women. They carried them back to Boston and made them a spectacle in front of the multitude that came flocking on all sides.”
They were held in Boston Guildhall cells whilst a waiting trial in the court room above, following which they were tried in Lincoln. After a month in prison most were sent back to their own parishes, bur seven, including Clyfton, Robinson and Brewster were kept in prison longer. They too were released under pressure from local sympathisers, and all returned penniless to the Scrooby area for the winter.
In the spring of 1608 another Dutch ship owner was contacted in Hull. He agreed to pick up the Scrooby Separatists on a remote stretch of coast north of Grimsby near Killingholme.
The men walked the 40 miles from Scrooby and about 30 women and small children together with their baggage travelled by barge from Scrooby, along the River Idle to the tidal River Trent, and from there north to the Humber Estuary and the rendezvous. The barge arrived early, and the seasick women begged to land. The barge was grounded in the muddy Killingholme Creek at low tide when the Dutch ship arrived.
The captain saw the party of men ashore and began to ferry them out to the ship. William Bradford and most of the men got aboard but when the captain saw a large armed crowd coming to capture the illegal emigrants, he set sail as once to keep himself and his ship out of trouble, leaving the women and children on the shore. There was a fearful storm at sea and the ship was driven up the treacherous North Sea as far as Norway before it could turn south and head for Amsterdam.
