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Myles Standish, Born Where? The State of the Question
Written by Dr. Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs
Miles Standish
Far more attention has been given to speculation about where Myles Standish was born than to consideration of his military experiences in the Low Countries before his emigration on the "Mayflower" to New England. Yet it is rarely remarked that the answer to the unresolved question of his birthplace has no demonstrable bearing on what is known of Standish's post-natal career or of his interaction with other Pilgrims and their acquaintances. The question arose at the end of his life, when Myles in his will mentioned a lost inheritance. Myles' childhood circumstances remain obscure, however much some descendants might like to place him in one or another grandly named "hall."1 One slight aspect of his early years can be inferred – that he went to school before joining the army. The mere existence of his library indicates that someone taught him to read. That might, nonetheless, have happened at home, either in his immediate family or with help from a local clergyman. Yet what occupies the attention of numerous writers is Standish's birthplace; therefore, some comments about their contradictory theories can be offered.

Lancashire or the Isle of Man?

Two possibilities have been proposed as answers to the question of where Myles Standish was born – Lancashire and the Isle of Man. These places have been named because, in his will, dated 7 March 1655 [Old Style = 1656], Myles asserted a claim to "all my lands" in Lancashire and in the Isle of Man, to which he said he was the legitimate heir but that he had been improperly deprived of them. Myles left them by will to his son Alexander. The complete text of that section of his will is this: "I give unto my son & heire apparent Alexander Standish all my lands as heire apparent by lawfull decent in Ormskirke Borscouge Wrightington Maudsley Newburrow Crowston and in the Isle of man and given to mee as Right heire by lawfull decent but Surruptuously detained from mee My great Grandfather being a 2cond or younger brother from the house of Standish of Standish. [signed] by mee Myles Standish."2

The question begins with its own answer: Myles must have been born into the Standish family that owned those specific pieces of property in those locations. While he may have been deluded about his claim to be the rightful heir to the property, unjustly deprived, it is safe to assume that his idea of his own descent, however imprecisely expressed, was generally correct. Relatives of his must have owned those properties.

Standishes of Lancashire

The Standish family are recorded at Standish in Lancashire since the thirteenth century.3 Their home, Standish Hall, rebuilt in 1574, was demolished in 1923. This original family are the Standishes of Standish from whom Myles said he was descended. A branch descending separately since the thirteenth century lived at Duxbury Hall, Chorley, Lancashire. Apparently there was continued contact and sometimes cousins married each other. The old hall of Duxbury was replaced in 1828 by a house that in turn was demolished ca. 1950. By the late fifteenth century, other descendants of the Standish of Standish family held land in Ormskirk in Lancashire. From the Ormskirk Standishes, a branch moved around 1540 or slightly earlier to the Isle of Man, acquiring property there, particularly at Ellenbane, Lezayre parish. To assert claims to any land in the Isle of Man, Myles Standish has to have been from the Standishes who lived and owned property there.

Additionally, Myles must have felt some close connection to the Duxbury Standishes, considering that one must assume that he it is who gave the name "Duxbury" to the town in Plymouth Colony that he helped to found and to which he moved around 1629. It has been suggested, on the other hand, that Myles Standish's wife might have been a cousin from the Duxbury branch of the family, and that Myles named his new home in honor of his wife's origins. Nothing, however, is known about the origins either of his first wife, Rose, or his second wife, Barbara, — not even their last names.4

All the various attempts at establishing a connected genealogy that would link Myles to known possessors of those properties have failed. In 1846, I. W. R. Bromley's attempts to lay claim to Myles' Lancashire inheritance, carried out at the urging of American descendants of Myles who were dazzled by the prospect of imaginary fortunes awaiting long-lost heirs, came to nothing, because Myles Standish's name cannot be found in any of the baptismal records in Lancashire where his name should be registered if he had been born there.5 The baptismal records at Standish are preserved undamaged, but Myles' name is not included. Baptismal records are also preserved at Ormskirk, undamaged. And at Chorley, the parish where the baptisms of members of the Standishes of Duxbury could be expected, Myles is not mentioned. The story was given out by Bromley that the parish register in Chorley shows signs of having been erased on what would be the appropriate page if the claim were true in the way he was attempting to prove. No pages are missing. According to Lawrence Hill, who made a careful inspection of the relevant pages in 1984, there were no erasures or other indications of tampering. Recent photographs of the relevant pages, however, do show damage that calls Hill's report into question.6 Even though damage of the pages is shown now, that in itself has little evidentiary value. No one in the past published photographic indications of such damage, and, obviously, anyone can misleadingly have abraded the page at any time, including relatively recently, to create a spurious proof to be used to support a claim of Lancashire as opposed to Manx place of birth. More neutrally, disintegrating paper damaged innocently by moisture may have been pulverized to an unsalvageable state before conservation attempts consolidated the remaining material. Present damage or erasure does not prove that the place abraded ever did show the baptism of Myles Standish.

It has been claimed that a thorough search has been made of all possible English parish records, without finding any reference to Myles Standish.7 It should not be assumed that further research is unnecessary. For example, an Elizabethan Bishop of Peterborough reported Edward Standish of Standish as a recusant, mentioning that Standish lived principally in Lancashire but sometimes at a house named Wolfage in the parish of Brixworth in Northamptonshire. ("Recusants" were people who refused to give up Roman Catholicism when the nation became officially Protestant.) I doubt if the Brixworth parish registers have been searched for Standish information.8 Because a baptismal record might turn up in some parish distant from the expected home parishes, the present absence of information not only fails to provide an answer, it gives no nudge in either direction. Moreover, if a distant baptismal record were to be found, one would still need to demonstrate where the infant's mother ordinarily lived (assuming that such an anomalous baptism was not simply indicating the birth of a namesake instead of the Myles Standish in whom we are interested). An unexpected baptismal entry will most likely not resolve the dispute.

Ignoring the problem of accounting for the lands in the Isle of Man, Nathaniel Morton wrote in 1669 that Standish "was a gentleman, born in Lancashire, and was heir apparent unto a great estate of lands and livings, surreptitiously detained from him; his great grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standish."9 As Nathaniel Morton was personally acquainted with Standish, he might have heard from Standish about where he was born. Given the documented travel back and forth from the Isle of Man to Ormskirk (in the case of Thomas Standish mentioned below), it is quite possible that Myles Standish was born in Lancashire and also belonged to the Manx branch of the Standish family. Perhaps Myles' mother was from Lancashire and gave birth while visiting her parents. Morton's choice of words, however, closely reflects the phrases in Standish's will. As Secretary of the colony, Morton was familiar with that document (with the other court records, it was in Morton's care), and he may merely have been restating information he thought could be inferred from Standish's claim to be from the house of Standish of Standish, a place that is in Lancashire.

Standishes of the Isle of Man

Thomas Cruddas Porteus, writing in 1914 and 1920 argued for a Manx heritage.10 Myles listed "Ormskirk" first among the lands he claimed, with "Newburrow" also among them. Porteus discovered that a certain Gilbert Standish held lands at Ormskirk and Newburgh confirmed in 1502, and that Gilbert's son Robert inherited these lands.11 They were augmented by Robert's marriage to Margaret Croft who, as a widow in 1529, possessed lands specified as "Ormskirk, Bosgoghe, Croston, Mawdisley, Wryghtington, and Newburghe." These lands are those mentioned in Myles' will, but without naming the Isle of Man. From Robert and Margaret (Croft) Standish, they descended to Thomas, their eldest son. Thomas moved to and lived on the Isle of Man, but he traveled back and forth to Ormskirk in connection with land and his arranged marriage, that ended in divorce by reason of nullity, the bride having been not quite ten at the time, and the groom under nine.12 Before the divorce years later, however, the couple had had at least one son, whose status evidently became that of a bastard. It is possible that this proceeding could be the legal manoeuvering Myles Standish indicated with the word "surruptuously." "Surruptuosly" is a term referring to legal sleight-of-hand, rather than merely to something done in a hidden way; "surreptitiously" is an inadequate alteration of it, although the two words are related. What precise irregularity is meant in Myles' will is uncertain. Young emphasizes Porteus's discovery that in 1540 Thomas "transferred his Lancashire lands" to four trustees who held the land "for the use of the said Thomas for his life" and then for the use of Thomas's daughter Anne for five years, then to devolve on Thomas's brother John, "or anyone else who is next heir to Thomas," also for five years. "After the five years, they are to hold for the use of the right heir of Thomas legitimately begotten; in default for the use of John his brother and John's legitimate heirs, in default for the use of Huan, another brother of Thomas, and Huan's heirs."13 This arrangement is so full of ambiguity that later disputes seem inevitable.

Porteus's discovery clearly points to the lands mentioned by Myles Standish. Only through some connection with these sixteenth-century events could Myles Standish have imagined he had any claim to those particular lands. Of notable significance is Myles' claim not only to lands in Lancashire, but also in the Isle of Man. Clearly he thought he was related to, and one of the descendants of, the family of Thomas Standish of Ormskirk and the Isle of Man, from whom all the Standishes on the Isle of Man descended.

The records now preserved on the Isle of Man are inadequate for the construction of genealogical charts showing exactly what line of descent Myles believed gave him rights to claim regarding this property. There are no baptismal records that early, no marriage or burial records from the time, and land records are both fragmentary and, when present, not conceived for the purpose of proving genealogical descent. Myles Standish's claim to be descended from a great-grandfather who was a "second or younger brother" suggests that his immediate ancestors might not appear among the heirs of property for two or three generations. Nonetheless, in 1984, George V. C. Young revisited Porteus's arguments, summarizing them as the basis for an attempt to fill in the gaps with syllogistic demonstrations for proposing a particular genealogical connection that Young found compellingly reasonable. Young's syllogisms fully accounted for the documents he presented. Presuming all evidence was accounted for, the implications Young drew were believable. He had shown that Myles Standish might fit into an identifiable gap in knowledge of the family, but this possibility provides no certainty. Young's syllogisms do not constitute proof of historical events, only an indication of a possibility. For his proposal to remain possible, additional new evidence that might be found would need to be capable of being incorporated without contradicting the argument. Even if new evidence could be considered consistent with the argument, the demonstration would still indicate nothing more than a possibility. Young, like Porteus, concluded that Myles must have been a descendant of Huan, Thomas Standish's younger brother. Through Huan's son John, Young traced a possible line to Myles, whom he considered to have been an eldest grandson.14

Arguing in this fashion, and attempting to explain why Myles did not inherit when another grandson named William did, Young (a gifted lawyer) stretched the Leiden hospital records that mention an invalided English soldier recorded as "Myls Stansen," beyond what they mean, to use them as terms within his syllogism.15 Young also relied on onomastic assumptions (i.e. suppositions related to patterns of name-giving) that could be demolished easily, and were, by Reginald Kissack.16 Kissack stressed that in all Manx records no one named Miles (or the spelling variant, Myles) is found, and that Young had sought a far-fetched possible Anglicization of a Celtic first name (Maolmhuire), that itself does not show up in Manx documents. Kissack stressed that the Standishes of the Isle of Man consistently, as far as the record indicates, called their sons Edwin, Reginald, Peter, Huan, Gilbert, John, or William. As Kissack says, "There may be no baptismal registers in the Island till 1596, but land records list scores of names of individuals (chiefly male), and never once is the name Myles found."17 Kissack then pronounces in conclusion, "It is quite inconceivable that any Manx family would have christened a son Myles in 1584. And Standishes least of any." Kissack has nothing beyond this onomasticism to prove that "Myles" could not have been born on the Isle of Man and that the Standishes were the least likely of any to name a child "Myles." He rejects Young's theory that Myles was a forgotten older brother of William, regarding the inheritance.

Kissack next examines the possibilities of constructing a genealogical chart that would account for known land documents and produce a candidate about whom one might assume that he left the island and changed his name in later life to Myles. Kissack comes tantalizingly close, then retreats from some suggestions. Concentrating on a grandson named John, who for this theory needs to have been older brother to a William, Kissack points out that documents published by Young show that this John was this William's younger brother. That eliminates the hypothetical possibility that the John under scrutiny had somehow changed his name to Myles. Kissack successfully demolishes his own straw man. But in this part of his rhetoric, Kissack chooses to overlook what he had previously noted — the glaring absence of complete records of baptisms (as well as of marriages, and burials), not to mention the imprecision for genealogical purposes of the records associated with land transfers, which themselves seem far from complete, not providing a record of all uncontested transfers and succession of title. In the absence of baptismal records, there is insufficient information to support a dogmatic announcement that the name "Myles" was inconceivable in late-sixteenth century English-Manx society. Therefore, while neither Kissack nor Young can provide a genealogical network that would incorporate Myles Standish into an account covering the known Standishes on the Isle of Man, this says no more than that with incomplete records such a demonstration has been impossible. It does not prove that no such relationship existed or could have existed.

That the name "Myles" is unknown in Manx records implies to Kissack that Myles Standish could not have been born on the Isle of Man, unless he had changed his name. Here, however, it is Kissack who pushes beyond the available evidence, because onomastics proves nothing about possibilities for future change. Onomastics describes existing patterns and cannot exclude the possibility that parents in naming a child might diverge from past habitual custom. Name-giving was shifting under Protestant, especially Puritan, influence in the later sixteenth century. The list of names with explanations of their meanings, appended to the 1560 Geneva translation of the Bible, clearly influenced parents to experiment with previously uncommon or effectively unknown names. Moreover, the emphasis on virtues rather than medieval saints also produced new first names, such as Faith, Prudence, Charity, Hope, and Fear (of the Lord). "Miles" can be imagined as a reference to the Christian Knight (Miles Christianus). Not merely the famous book by Erasmus, Enchiridion Militis Christiani (1501), but also Sir Philip Sidney, as the embodiment of the Puritans' ideal Christian knight, could have inspired parents to use a new name for their infant.18 The onomasticator can only look at a new name and observe that it had not been used in this or that family previously. He cannot credibly pretend to make such a pronouncement as Kissack's, that "It is quite inconceivable that any Manx family would have christened a son Myles in 1584. And Standishes least of any."

Both Young and Kissack mention that the documentary record in the Isle of Man is incomplete, particularly noting the absence of baptismal records from the period when Myles Standish must have been born. Instead of resting in that guaranty of ignorance, however, both authors attempt to create genealogical trees that would, without inconsistencies, account for all the scattered documentation that is preserved, with which they are familiar. Both then draw conclusions from their own efforts, as if the record had been complete, forgetting that the reality of people and events must have been greater than what is indicated by the fragmentary record. Doing so, they overlook that Myles Standish's origins can, on the one hand, be described as not proven with genealogical exactness by the existing documentation, and, on the other hand, still be considered to be suggested fairly certainly as Manx, from Ormskirk, ultimately from Standish, by the list of properties in Myles Standish's will, including the claim of inheritance rights to land in the Isle of Man and the explicit statement of descent from the house of Standish of Standish.

Myles Standish's birth is not documented on the Isle of Man. One cannot, however, conclude on that basis that he was not born there, as the extension of the reasoning would be that no one was born there in the time, considering no one's birth there is registered in that period. The absence of Myles' name from baptismal records in Lancashire that are preserved for the same period, and that include the members of the Lancashire Standishes, is more problematic. That should be conclusive evidence that Myles was not born in those branches of the family, except for the possibilities, however slight, that not all births were recorded or that Myles' mother might have given birth away from home — while visiting friends or relatives at some distance, for example. This last hypothesis, however, merely exemplifies the cautious admission that exceptional circumstances can be imagined that obligate one to stop short of dogmatic pronouncements based on absence of expected evidence.

Military Service Records?

The question might be approached from another angle, for example, Myles' military service in the Low Countries. Unfortunately, no solution comes from that direction, because no detailed records of military recruitment were kept that would give a place of birth. Instead, we are left with the information that recruitment for the regiment of Sir Horatio Vere, to serve in the Low Countries, was carried out at about the same time, by the same officers, both in Lancashire and on the Isle of Man. No other recruitment for service in the Low Countries is known to have taken place in either region (and there were no other English regiments serving in the Low Countries than Vere's. 19 In 1898, E. Irving Carlyle wrote (in the Dictionary of National Biography) that "before 1603 Standish obtained a lieutenant's commission in the English forces serving under the Veres in the Netherlands, and took an active part in the war against the Spaniards."20 Carlyle cites no specific source for this information; no such document has been discovered in archival research in the United States, England, or The Netherlands. Bromley reported having seen it; no one else has.21 The missing document was said to have mentioned Standish's age, from which his birth-date was calculated as 1584. Moreover, it is sometimes claimed that the commission was signed by Queen Elizabeth herself. No similar commissions exist, a circumstance that suggests this is a spurious detail from some nineteenth-century romance.

Was Standish a Member of the Pilgrim Congregation?

Yet another avenue has been pursued — Standish's religious leanings. As just mentioned, the Lancashire Standishes of Standish were suspected recusants.22The branch of the Standishes on the Isle of Man, however, became Anglicans, as evidently did the Standishes of Duxbury Hall, or at least many of them. Therefore, it becomes potentially significant to determine what the religious affiliation of Myles Standish was. (Even so, one cannot discount the possibility of individual conversion. Myles might have grown up in a Catholic family and nonetheless have become a Protestant; or vice-versa.)

Support for the idea that Standish was from Lancashire is found in the belief that he was not a member of the Pilgrim Separatist congregation. Expanding on this presumption, sometimes it has been said that Myles Standish was a Catholic, and, with more than a little circularity, that this proves that he came from Lancashire.23 But in contrast to this assumption of Catholicism, it is unlikely that a Catholic would first have fought in the Dutch Wars on the Spanish side against the Protestants and then join the extremely Protestant Pilgrims to emigrate. On the other hand, it is very unlikely that an English Catholic would have been found among the soldiers fighting on the Dutch side in an effort to protect both the Protestant Netherlands and Protestant England against a Catholic conquest. Furthermore, that the Pilgrims would hire a Catholic to organize the defense of their Protestant colony not only against potential Indian enemies but also against French and Spanish Catholics underestimates Protestants' reaction to news of the Guy Fawkes plot and their consequent distrust of Catholics and Catholic goals of international dominance. The idea that Myles Standish was Catholic is, moreover, inconsistent with the contents of his library. The inventory of his estate drawn up on 2 December 1656 includes three "old bibles," a (New) Testament, a Psalm book, and around fifteen works of Protestant theology, including Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion — hardly likely as the possessions of a Roman Catholic!24 The only "Catholic" author is Eusebius, who lived long before the Reformation.

The Pilgrims' minister in Leiden, John Robinson, was evidently well acquainted with Standish, referring to him, in a letter Robinson sent from Leiden to William Bradford in America, as "your captain, whom I love and am persuaded the Lord in great mercie and for much good hath sent you him, if you use him aright. He is a man humble and meek amongst you, and towards all in ordinarie course."25 This evidence of obviously personal acquaintance alone is enough to indicate that the Pilgrims' contact with Standish began in Leiden, but in addition there is a silver cup inscribed, apparently authentically, as a gift from Robinson to Standish; and there is the final circumstance that Standish left a legacy to John Robinson's grandaughter "marcye Robenson whome I tenderly love for her Grandfathers sacke."26 Only in Leiden could Robinson have met Standish; and only in Leiden could Standish have formed such an attachment to Robinson.

But much is made of the idea that Standish never joined the Plymouth church, and that this is proven by the fact that his name is not among those of people who joined the Plymouth congregation, whose names are listed in that church's records. As George F. Willison puts it, "Alone of the Pilgrim leaders, he never joined the church at Plymouth. His name is conspicuously absent from its records and rolls. Nowhere is he listed among the communicants."27 A couple of reasons could account for the absence of Standish's name in the Plymouth church records, without proving he was not a member. The first is fairly simple: there are no lists of communicants. Standish moved to Duxbury about forty years before the Plymouth church records in fact begin. He died eleven years before the first entries. Although the Plymouth church records include excerpts from William Bradford's journal "Of Plymouth Plantation" and his "Dialogue" to cover the early years, these were copied by Nathaniel Morton to provide a general introduction before the beginning of the records, in 1667. Even then, the records do not list communicants.28 Bradford's information does not constitute "church records"; and it does not include lists of anyone joining the church in Plymouth. In other words, had Standish joined the congregation in Plymouth before moving to Duxbury, his name would not be in the records, because they were not yet being kept. Even if he had been alive when record-keeping started, communicants were not listed. Although the pertinent sources have long been in print, many people remain satisfied instead with Willison's forthright formulation, "Nowhere is he listed among the communicants." As for the Duxbury church records, they also do not exist for the period before Standish died. Neither of these observations about the records proves that Standish was a member. They do, however, provide reasons for understanding why his name cannot be found in the church records of Plymouth and Duxbury, if he was a member.

Other Plymouth colonists who did not move away from Plymouth were members of the congregation and are not recorded in the Plymouth church records as having joined. In point of fact, everyone from the Leiden congregation who moved to Plymouth continued as a member of the church without any of them having to "join" and be recorded as doing so. The Plymouth group was not considered a separate church from the original Leiden congregation. Nor was it a congregation without a pastor in its first years. Robinson was its pastor, and he was in Leiden hoping to join them soon. No letters of transfer were necessary, nor was a new covenant necessary.29 Because no records are preserved from the Leiden congregation as a whole (i.e. specific church records, such as entries of baptisms and lists of communicants), there is no church-book record of any individual member's participation, despite identification in other records of William Brewster in the office of Elder, and of John Carver and others as deacons. If Myles Standish was an ordinary member of the Leiden congregation, he would not have "joined" the church in Plymouth or in Duxbury.

What is the origin of the idea that Standish was not a member of the Leiden congregation or its branch in Plymouth? This belief arose in the nineteenth century, when William Hubbard's manuscript history of New England, written in 1680, was finally published (1815).30 In his book Pilgrim Colony, Eugene Aubrey Stratton remarks that Alexander Young, who wrote about Standish in 1841, drew from Hubbard: "Young […] gives an excerpt from Hubbard that 'Captain Standish had been bred a soldier in the Low Countries, and never entered the school of our Saviour Christ, or of John Baptist, his harbinger,' and this is the evidence that Myles Standish never joined the Separatist Church."31 William Hubbard (1621-1704) was a Congregationalist minister at Ipswich, Massachusetts. He was an observer of New England's development, especially from a religious point of view; and he wrote one of the histories of King Philip's War. He represented New England orthodoxy in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and his language reflects his position within society, grudgingly accepting the Separatists because they, in his view, eventually became good Puritan Congregationalists, while violently denouncing Familists, Antinomians, Baptists, and Quakers. His descriptive terms regarding Standish (whom he did not apparently know personally) are peculiar. The second comment on Standish's church relations indicates that Standish did not become a Baptist, but it is not immediately clear what is meant by the statement that Standish "never entered the school of our Saviour Christ." The unusual phrase "school of our Saviour Christ" has pietist origins. It seems unnecessarily coy, if merely intended to indicate that Standish did not join a local congregation. Arch metaphors frequently inflate Hubbard's prose. Conceivably the phrase is parallel with what follows it about the Baptists. It could refer either to Antinomians, perhaps, or to pietist Quakers, who were notably gentle in their relations with the Indians, unlike Standish. Hubbard's f