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40 these narrow-minded spiritual ministers her mortal enemies. In 1637, the Rev. John Cotton, who had appeared to share Anne Hutchinson's opinions to some extent, changed his course and the way was prepared for her accusation and trial. This trial was before the Court of Magistrates, at Cambridge, November, 1637, and to quote from Jared Sparks, "It will be allowed by most readers to have been one of the most shameful proceedings recorded in the annals of Protestantism." The scene must have been an impressive one—the dignified Governor Winthrop, grave, strong, courteous, but already convinced of the culprit's guilt; Endicott, who, as Hawthorne says, "Would stand with his drawn sword at the Gate of Heaven and resist to the death all pilgrims thither except they traveled his own path"; Bradstreet, Nowell, Stoughton, Welde, all her judges and her enemies. As the biting north wind swept cold gusts through the bare room in which the assemblage sat on that November day, the defenseless woman must have felt that the cold gale that blew from the gloomy wilderness on the desolate shore was no more chilling than the hearts of her judges. She was ill and faint, but she was allowed neither food nor a seat during that long exhausting day, until she fell to the floor from weakness, while first one and then another of them plied her with questions. And, as Anne Hutchinson answered these questions clearly and sensibly, quoting passages from the Scriptures to prove that she had done nothing unlawful, nothing worthy of condemnation, perhaps she may have felt, even among her enemies and with no hand stretched out toward her, a thrill of pride in her heart that she, a woman without the influence of wealth or station, was pitting her intellect against that of the wisest men in the Colony. No matter what the issue should be the fact of her trial was an acknowledgment of her power and influence—a power and influence never before nor since equaled in this country.