Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/30

 XXll INTRODUCTION.

rframmar school, where he studied until the death of his father, when he was fourteen years old, made it necessary for him to leave. Two or three years after this he was taken into the family of the Earl of Lincoln, where he was under the care of Dudley. He remained there, until, at the suggestion of Dr. Preston, who had been the Earl's tutor, he was sent by the Earl to Emmanuel College, in the capacity of governor to Lord Rich, son of the Earl of Warwick. As the young lord gave up the idea of acquiring an education at the University, Bradstreet continued there only a year ; having had, as he himself wrote, a very pleasant but un- profitable time, in the society of the Earl of Lincoln's brother, and of other companions. Notwithstanding, he took his bachelor's degree in 1620, and his master's four years later.* On the removal of Dudley to Boston, Brad- street succeeded to his place as steward. He afterwards became steward of the Countess of Warwick, and was in that position at the time of his marriage, f

Under Bancroft, as Archbishop of Canterbury, the Non- conformists had suffered severely, many of the ministers being silenced and deprived of their livings, while others were driven into exile. The effect of this harsh treatment was to strengthen the sufferers in their belief, and to bind them more closely together by the common tie of affliction. The succession of the austere Abbot, who had much of the Puritan in his creed and manners, gave them some respite ; although the canons requiring the due observance of those forms and ceremonies in worship to which the Noncon- formists most strongly objected, were as rigidly enforced as

t Mather's Magnalia, Bk. ii. p. 19.
 * Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts. Boston : 1846. p. 125, note,

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