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Showing posts from August, 2015

Orphans on the Mayflower: When Morals Go Wrong

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The story of the four More children, Ellen, Jasper, Richard, and Mary, is a tragic one.  They were all baptized in the parish of Shipton, Shropshire, England to Samuel and Katherine More, cousins from a wealthy and prominent family that had had their marriage prearranged.  It was not a happy marriage, and Katherine had a longstanding but secret extramarital affair with a neighbor by the name of Jacob Blakeway.  Samuel began working in London as secretary to Lord Edward Zouche, privy councillor, diplomat and courtier. Over the next four years, Katherine bore four children. At some point, Samuel More began to notice a resemblance between "his" children, and Jacob Blakeway whom he had come to suspect was with his wife.  When he realized his four children were not actually "his", but were bastards, he and his wife engaged in a bitter divorce in 1616 and Samuel ended up getting custody of the children he claimed were not his.  By a deed dated 20 April 1616, Samuel cu