19-From Gainsborough to Amsterdam

In the year 1575, Scrooby Manor House in Nottinghamshire became the
home of a young man by the name of William Brewster, when it served as
the ‘tied-cottage’ in connection with his father’s work as a steward or
manager on the Scrooby estate. Ironically, in the light of events – for God
has a sense of humour (Ps. 2:4) – the Manor House had been lived in by
Cardinal Wolsey, seventy years before. Indeed, it was from that very house
that he had written to his king, Henry VIII, advising him to ‘depress this
new pernicious sect called Lutherans’. But it was not the Reformed faith
which was to be ‘depressed’; Wolsey himself was to be broken. He had
risen to the supreme position in effect in both State and Church when he
was made papal legate in 1518, but in the aftermath of Henry’s break with
Rome, Wolsey was ruined. Only his premature death in 1530 saved him
from execution