The Gray Champion - Nathaniel Hawthorne

We take a break from April 1759 in April 2023 to reach back to our ancestors of April 1689. Nathaniel Hawthorn tells a story of that. Maybe because Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4th [1804], he got more than his fill of those inspiring stories of defiance of the Revolutionary War. But even moreso an ancestor has a hold on Nathaniel Hawthorne. His "great-great-grandfather John Hathorne was one of the judges who oversaw the Salem witch trials." Maybe that led him to look at the shadowy ancestors who preceded those days. Maybe the mystery and darkness of these Old Testament ancestors and their presence before evil of all sorts, even of their own, fired his imagination and his curiosity. And that too is what inspires this website.

Nathaniel Hawthorne tells a story of a late afternoon into dusk in April 1689.

The opening lines deftly describes many events from 1620 to 1776.

There was once a time when New England groaned under the actual pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which brought on the Revolution. 

James 11, the bigoted successor of Charles the Voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colonies, and sent a harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away our liberties and endanger our religion. 

The administration of Sir Edmund Andros lacked scarcely a single characteristic of tyranny; a Governor and Council, holding office from the King, and wholly independent of the country ; laws made and taxes levied without concurrence of the people, immediate or by their representatives; the rights of private citizens violated, and the titles of all landed property declared void; the voice of complaint stilled by restrictions on the press; and, finally, disaffection overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on our free soil. 

For two years our ancestors were kept in sullen submission, by that filial love which had invariably secured their allegiance to the mother country, whether its head chanced to be a Parliament, Protector, or Popish Monarch.

Till these evil times, however, such allegiance had been merely nominal, and the colonists had ruled themselves, enjoying far more freedom, than is even yet the privilege of the native subjects of Great Britain.

Nathaniel Hawthorne goes on to mention William of Orange.

To summarize: a series of English Civil Wars over religion and power occurred.

Then Oliver Cromwell led as Lord Protector with Parliament.

After that fell apart, King Charles II was then restored to power.

After his death, King James II assumes power. King James II had appointed the Edmund Andros as Governor of the Dominion of New England. and got abolished the legislature there. KIng James II favors Catholicism in a country long suspicious of the Vatican. A fight over Catholic supremacy in a Protestant England ensues again.

This finally led to William of Orange being invited to invade England . King James II [the same James, Duke of York] flees to France.The Parliament then invited William to be their new King. This was the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

And now to Nathaniel Hawthorne's story:

One afternoon in April, 1689, [Note: This is the Boston Revolt April 18, 1689], Sir Edmund Andros and his favorite councillors, being warm with wine, assembled the red-coats of the Governor’s Guard, and made their appearance in the streets of Boston. The sun was near setting when the march commenced. 

The roll of the drum, at that unquiet crisis, seemed to go through the streets, less as the martial music of the soldiers, than as a muster call to the inhabitants themselves. 

A multitude, by various avenues, assembled in King Street, which was destined to be the scene, nearly a century afterwards, of another encounter between the troops of Britain, and a people struggling against her tyranny. 

[ Old Pilgrims still Alive ]
Though more than sixty years had elapsed since the Pilgrims came, this crowd of their descendants still showed the strong and sombre features of their character, perhaps more strikingly in such a stern emergency than on happier occasions. There were the sober garb, the general severity of mien, the gloomy but undismayed expression, the scriptural ioims of speech, and the confidence in Heaven’s blessing on a righteous cause, which would have marked a band of the original Puritans, when threatened by some peril of the wilderness. 

Indeed, it was not yet time for the old spirit to be extinct; since there were men in the street, that day, who had worshipped there beneath the trees, before a house was reared to the God for whom they had become 
exiles. 


Old soldiers of the Parliament [Cromwell's Parliament army]
were here, too, smiling grimly at the thought, that their aged arms might strike another blow against the house of Stuart. 


Here, also, were the veterans of King Philip’s war, 
who had burned villages and slaughtered young and old, with pious fierceness, while the godly souls throughout the land were helping them with prayer. 


Several ministers 
were scattered among the crowd, which, unlike all other mobs, regarded them with such reverence, as if there were sanctity in their very garments. These holy men exerted their influence to quiet the people, but not to disperse them. 

Meantime, the purpose of the Governor, 
in disturbing the peace of the town, at a period when the slightest commotion might throw the country into a ferment, was almost the universal subject of inquiry, and variously explained. 


[The People guess why this march? ]
“ Satan will strike his master stroke presently,” cried some, “ because he knoweth that his time is short. All our godly pastors are to be dragged to prison! We shall see them at a Smithfield fire in King Street ! ” 

Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their minister, who looked calmly upwards and assumed a more apostolic dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of his profession, the crown of martyrdom. It was actually fancied, at that period, that New England might have a John Rogers of her own, to take the place of that worthy in the 
Primer. 

“ The Pope of Rome has given orders for a new St. Bartholomew !” cried others. “We are to be massacred, man and male child !! ” 

Neither was this rumor wholly discredited, although the wiser class believed the Governor’s object somewhat less atrocious. 


[ The appearance of old Bradstreet ]

His predecessor under the old charter, Bradstreet, a venerable companion of the first settlers, was known to be in town. There were grounds for conjecturing, that Sir Edmund Andros intended, at once, to strike terror, by a parade of military force, and to confound the opposite faction, by possessing himself of their chief. 

“ Stand firm for the old charter Governor ! " shouted the crowd, seizing upon the idea. “The good old Governor Bradstreet! ” 

While this cry was at the loudest, the people were surprised bythe well-known figure of Governor Bradstreet himself, a patriarch of nearly ninety, who appeared on the elevated steps of a door, and, with characteristic 
mildness, besought them to submit to the constituted authorities. 

“My children,” concluded this venerable person, “do nothing rashly. Cry not aloud, but pray for the welfare of New England, and expect patiently what the Lord will do in this matter !” 


[Description of the March ]
The event was soon to be decided. All this time, the roll of the drum had been approaching through Cornhill, louder and deeper, till with reverberations from house to house, and the regular tramp of martial footsteps, it burst into the street. 

A double rank of soldiers made 
their appearance, occupying the whole breadth of the passage, with shouldered matchlocks, and matches burning, so as to present a row of fires in the dusk.

Their steady march was like the progress of a machine, that 
would roll irresistibly over every thing in its way. 

Next, moving slowly, with a confused clatter of hoofs on the 
pavement, rode a party of mounted gentlemen, the central figure being Sir Edmund Andros, elderly, but erect and soldier-like. 


Those around him were his favorite councillors, 
and the bitterest foes of New England. At his right hand rode Edward Randolph, our  arch-enemy, that “ blasted wretch,” as Cotton Mather calls him, who achieved the downfall of our ancient government, and was followed with a sensible curse, through life and to his grave. On the other side was Bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he rode along. Dudley came behind, with a downcast Iftok, dreading, as well he might, to meet the indignant gaze of the people, who beheld him, their only countryman by birth, among the oppressors of his native land. The captain of a frigate in the harbor, and two or three civil officers under the Crown, were also there. 

But the figure which most attracted the public eye, and stirred up the deepest  feeling, was the Episcopal clergyman of King’s Chapel, riding haughtily amomg the magistratcs in his priestly vestments, the fitting representative of prelacy and persecution, the union of church and state, and all those abominations which had driven the Puritans to the wilderness. Another guard of soldiers, in double rank, brought up the rear. 

[A picture of New England here]
The whole scene was a picture of the condition of New England, and its moral, the deformity of any government that does not grow out of the nature of things and the character of the people. 

On one side 
the religious multitude, with their sad visages and dark attire, 

and on the other, 
the group of despotic rulers, with the high churchman in the midst, and here and there a crucifix at their bosoms, all magnificently clad, flushed 
with wine, proud of unjust authority, and scoffing at the universal groan. And the mercenary soldiers, waiting but the word to deluge the street with blood, showed the only means by which obedience could be secured. 


[A cry for help ]

“Oh Lord of Hosts,” 
cried a voice among the crowd, “ provide a Champion for thy people ! ” 

This ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as a herald’s cry, to introduce a remarkable personage. 

The crowd had rolled back, and were now huddled together nearly at the extremity of the street, while the soldiers had advanced no more than a third of its length. 

The intervening space was empty—a paved solitude, between lofty edifices, which threw almost a twilight shadow over it. 


[The Gray Champion appears ]

Suddenly, there was seen the figure of an ancient man, who seemed to have emerged from among the people, and was walking by himself along the centre of the street, to confront the armed band. 

He wore the old Puritan dress, a dark cloak and a steeple-crowned hat, in the fashion of at least fifty years before, with a heavy sword upon his thigh, but a staff in his hand to assist the tremulous gait of age. 

When at some distance from the multitude, the old man turned slowly round, displaying a face of antique majesty, rendered doubly venerable by the hoary beard that descended on his breast. He made a gesture at once of encouragement and warning, then turned again, and resumed his way. 


“Who is this gray patriarch?” asked the young men of their sires. 

“Who is this venerable brother !” asked the old men among themselves. 


But none could make reply. The fathers of the people, those of fourscore years and upwards, were disturbed, deeming it strange that they should forget one of such evident authority, whom they must have known in their early days, the associates of Winthrop, and all the old councillors, giving laws, and making prayers, and leading them against the savage. The elderly men ought to have remembered him, too, with locks as gray in their youth, as their own were now. And the young I How could he have passed so utterly from their memories—that hoary sire, the relic of long-departed times, whose awful benediction had surely been bestowed on their uncovered heads in childhood ? 


“ Whence did he come ? What is his purpose ? Who rah this old man be?” whispered the wondering crowd. 


Meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, was pursuing his solitary walk along the centre of the street. As he drew near the advancing soldiers, and as the roll of the drum came full upon his ear, the old man raised himself to a loftier mien, while the decrepitude of age 
seemed to fall from his shoulders, leaving him in gray but unbroken dignity. Now, he marched onward with a warrior’s step, keeping time to the military music. Thus the aged form advanced on one side, and the whole 
parade of soldiers and magistrates on the other, till, when scarcely twenty yards remained between, the old man grasped his staff by the middle, and held it before him like a leader’s truncheon. 

“ Stand ! ” cried he. 

The eye, the face, and attitude of command; the solemn, yet warlike peal of that voice, fit either to rule a host in the battle field or be raised to God in prayer, were irresistible. 

At the old man’s word and utstretched arm, the roll of the drum was hushed at once, and the advancing line stood still. 

A tremulous enthusiasm seized upon the multitude. That stately form, combining the leader and the saint, so gray, so dimly seen, in such an ancient garb, could only belong to some old champion of the righteous cause, whom the oppressor’s drum had summoned from his grave. They raised a shout of awe and exultation, and looked for the deliverance of New England. 

The Governor, and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the hoary 
apparition. He, however, blanched not a step, but glancing his severe eye round the group, which half encompassed him, at last bent it sternly on Sir Edmund Andros. One would have thought that the dark old man was Chief ruler there, and that the Governor and Council, with soldiers at their back, representing the whole power and authority of the Crown, had no alternative but obedience. 


[The Govenor and his men challenge the old man ]
 
 
“ What docs this old fellow here ? ” cried Edward Randolph, 
fiercely. “ On Sir Edmund I Bid the soldiers forward, and give the dotard the same choice that you give all his countrymen—to stand aside or be trampled on!” 

“Nay, nay, let us show respect to the good grandsire,” said Bullivant, laughing, “ See you not, he is some old round-headed dignitary, who hath lain asleep these thirty years, and knows nothing of the change of times? 
Doubtless, he thinks to put us down with a proclamation in Old Noll’s name ! ” 

“Are you mad, old man?” demanded Sir Edmund Andros, in loud and harsh tones. “ How dare you stay the march of King James’s Governor?” 



“ 1 have stayed the march of a King himself, ere now,” 
replied the gray figure, with stern composure. 

“ I am here. Sir Governor, because the cry of an oppressed 
people hath disturbed me in my secret place; and beseeching this favor earnestly of the Lord, it was vouchsafed me to appear once again on earth, in the good old cause of his saints. 

And what speak ye of James? 

There is no longer a Popish tyrant on the throne of England, 

and by to-morrow noon, his name shall be a byword in this very street, where ye would make it a word of terror. 

Back, thou that wast a Governor, back! With this night thy power is ended—to-morrow the prison !—  

back lest I foretell the scaffold ! ”

After that, the Governor and his council and his Church of England and his soldiers and their matchlocks retreat.


[The Mob becomes determined ]

The people had been drawing nearer and nearer, and drinking in the words of their champion, who spoke in accents long disused, like one unaccustomed to converse, except with the dead of many years ago. But his 
voiee stirred their souls. 

They confronted the soldiers, not wholly without arms, and ready to convert the very stones of the street into deadly weapons. 

Sir Edmund Andros looked at the old man ; then he cast his hard and cruel eye over the multitude, and beheld them burning with that lurid wrath, so difficult to kindle or to quench ; and again he fixed his gaze on the aged form, which stood obscurely in an open space, where neither friend nor foe had thrust himself. What were his thoughts, he uttered no word which might discover. 

But whether the oppressor were overawed by the Gray Champion’s look, or perceived his peril in the threatening attitude of the people, it is certain that he gave back, and ordered his soldiers to commence a slow and guarded retreat. 

Before another sunset, the Governor,and all that rode so proudly with him, were prisoners, and long ere it was known that James had abdicated. King William  [of William and Mary fame] proclaimed throughout New England. 


But where was the Gray Champion ? 

Some reported, that when the troops had gone fioni King Street, and the people were thronging luinultuously in their rear. Bradstreet, the aged Governor, was seen to embrace a form more aged than his own. Others soberly affirmed, that while they marvelled at the venerable grandeur of his aspect, the old man had faded from their eyes, melting slowly into the hues of twilight, till, where he stood, there was an empty space. But all agreed, that the hoary shape was gone. The men of that generation watched for his reappearance, in sunshine and in twilight, but never saw him more, nor knew when his funeral passed, nor where his gravestone was. 


And who was the Gray Champion?

Perhaps his name might be found in the records of that stern Court of Justice, which passed a sentence, too mighty for the age, but glorious in all after times, for its humbling lesson to the monarch and its high example to the subject. 


[Repeat Performances?]
I Have heard, that whenever the descendants of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their sires, the old man appears again. 

When eighty years had passed, he walked once more in King Street. 

Five years later, in the twilight of an April morning, he stood on the green, beside the meeting house, at Lexington, where now the obelisk of granite, with a slab of slate inlaid, commemorates the first fallen of the Revolution. 

And when our fathers were toiling at the breastwork on Bunker’s Hill, all through that night the old warrior walked his rounds. 

Long, long may it be, ere he comes again 1 His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril. 

But should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader’s step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come; for he is the type of New England’s hereditary spirit: and his shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever be the pledge, that New England’s sons will vindicate their ancestry.