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Show Introduction Exile is not only the portrait of a pilgrim forefather, John Lathrop, but is an insight: into the conditions that precipitated the exodus of thousands of oppressed men and women from England to America. In 1629, when John Lathrop was 45 years old, Catholics and Puritans, having already endured imprisonment, torture, and death for holding to their religious views, began to suffer even more under the oppressive h;jnd of William Laud. Laud was the newly appointed Bishop of London who would later become the Archbishop of Canterbury. Laud's effort to achieve what his predecessors had been unable to accomplish--the exclusive dominion of the Anglican church over religious affairs in England--resulted in the revival from medieval times of the most brutal atrocities to silence once and for all the voices of Papist and Puritan and to bring about conformity. However, like a tremendous steel coil, compressed too long and too tight, the Puritan movement could not be constrained and thrust forth such men as John Lathrop to champion its cause. As for John Lathrop, he hadn't, always been a |>unt;tn. For sixteen years he, himself, had been a |
