Captain Myles Standish, His Will and Captain Cudworth

Myles Standish

Our link to the Cudworth family is not new news. The fact that someone in our family was associated with Myles Standish, whose first wife was Rose, is not new news. We knew of John Irish, Junior being mentioned in the will (see it here). Ironically, I had not thought to look more closely to see who was its executor. Again, my dad used to like to say, "If that had been a snake, it would have bit you."

It is amazing what you miss when you are looking for something else. Big as life; there it is. Captain James Cudworth as supervisor and witness of the will. The will dates from 7 March 1655. James Cudworth and his family probably arrived in Plymouth around 1634. So, they would have had two decades of work together in defending and administering many affairs in the Colony.

Standish was somewhat outlandishly portrayed in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, The Courtship of Miles Standish, which many from my generation would remember. The facts of life were far less romantic and the actions of the military types could be somewhat brutal. When it came to war, even Cudworth, who was a moderate in most things, could seem bloodthirsty by today's standards (see his incident report to Governor Winslow during the King Philip War).

That is why the following seems so poignant. However, if we realise how far from "home" they were and how desperate their plight might become if supplies should not arrive regularly from England, we can understand Standish's concerns:

I Doe by this my will make and appoint my loveing frinds mr Timothy hatherley and Capt: James Cudworth Supervissors of this my last will and that they wilbee pleased to Doe the office of Christian love to bee healpfull to my poor wife and Children by theire Christian Counsell and advisse; and if any Difference should arise which I hope will not; my will i(s) that my said Supervissors shall Determine the same and that they see that m(y) poor wife shall have as comfortable maintainance as my poor state will beare the whole time of her life which if you my loveing frinds pleasse to Doe though neither they nor I shalbee able to recompenc I Doe not Doubt but the Lord will; By mee Myles Standish

We need each other through the whole of our lives. We need people whom we can trust as our other self to care for us and ours when we can no longer care effectively. Standish died eighteen months after he signed his will. He may have died of kidney stones or bladder cancer. It would have been a painful death.

Can you be just a Yeoman with a royal ancestry?

My father used to like to say that it took an Act of Congress to make him an officer AND a gentleman. I think that there were two points being made. The first was about manners and the second was about station in life.

A gentleman in England once meant someone above a yeoman (small land holder or freeman attached to a noble) and below an esquire. A gentleman was the lowest of the gentry and often the youngest son of the youngest son of a peer. They were typically well educated for their time and sufficiently well-heeled to be able to live off the rents of their lands.

My father could not be called a gentleman on those terms. For generations, he and his forebears would have been yeomen in the Jeffersonian sense. Yet, eventually, even the land holdings disappeared. It was the education gained through the GI Bill that gave the leg up in the world to my father's generation and my own. I suspect this will be true for my nephews as well. Most of us will have served in the armed forces and, having served, will have gained a greater purchase on life.

Well, I guess that is not too far off of how the knights of old gained their wealth through war.

But, here is the irony; while my father would not fit the definition of a gentleman beyond the requisite Act of Congress, he does appear to have a royal ancestry. At this point, I have images of John Goodman in King Ralph floating through my imagination. Nothing that close; sorry. But, something very interesting nonetheless.

In fact, if I have gotten this right, and of that I am fairly certain, then, one of the lines back through my dad goes all the way back to Edward I and further. But, just as interesting, perhaps even more interesting, it goes back to a key figure in the Plymouth Colony. Well, Scituate actually. I am referring to Major (General) James Cudworth who was one of the two executors of the will of Captain Miles (Myles) Standish.

So, if you are a Hayes from Michigan whose ancestry goes back to Emmaretta C. Peper nee Bates in Buckley, then you are in for a treat.