and simplicity. He left ready for publication his last thoughts on the question of separation, but his friends withheld it from the press for nine years, on the ground that ‘some, though not many’ of the Leyden church ‘were contrary minded to the author's judgment.’ It was at length printed in order to justify the action of some separatists who were occasional hearers of the parochial clergy. The position taken in this treatise is well described by John Shaw (manuscript ‘Advice to his Son,’ 1664, quoted in Hunter, 1854, p. 185), who says that ‘learned and pious Mr. Robinson … so far came back that he approved of communion with the church of England, in the hearing of the word and prayer (though not in sacraments and discipline), and so occasioned the rise of such as are called semists, that is semiseparatists, or independants.’ He had always been in favour of ‘private communion’ with ‘godly’ members of the church of England, herein differing from Ainsworth; and according to John Paget (d. 1640) [q. v.] he had preached the lawfulness of attending Anglican services as early as July 1617, and had tolerated such attendance on Brewster's part much earlier (Paget, Arrow against the Separation, 1618). Robert Baillie, D.D. [q. v.], a strong opponent of his ecclesiastical principles, characterises him as ‘the most learned, polished, and modest spirit that ever that sect enjoyed.’
Robinson fell ill on Saturday, 22 Feb. 1625, yet preached twice the next day. The plague was then rife at Leyden, but he did not take it. He suffered no pain, but was weakened by ague. He died on 1 March 1625 (Dutch reckoning, or present style; in the old English reckoning it was 19 Feb. 1624). No portrait or description of his person exists. His autograph signature is on the title-page of the British Museum copy (C. 45, d. 25) of John Dove's ‘Perswasion to the English Recusants,’ 1603. On 4 March he was buried under the pavement in the aisle of St. Peter's, Leyden, in a common grave, bought for seven years, at a cost of nine guilders. There is no truth in Winslow's story that his funeral was attended by the university and the city ministers. He married Bridget White (his second wife, if he were the John Robinson of Emmanuel), who survived him, and, with his children, removed in March 1629–30 to Plymouth, New England. In October 1622 his children, according to the Leyden census, were Isaac, Mercy, Fear, and James. It is doubtful whether he had a son William; Abraham Robinson, who settled in New England, was not his son, though claimed as such. His descendants, as traced by W. Allen, D.D., are given in Ashton's ‘Life’ (compare Savage's Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, 1861, iii. 549 seq.). After his death some members of his church returned to Amsterdam, and joined John Canne [q. v.], others went to New England (thirty-five in 1629, sixty more in 1630). About 1650 his house was taken down, and replaced by a row of small buildings; on one of these, in 1865, a marble slab was placed, with the inscription, ‘On this spot lived, taught, and died John Robinson, 1611–1625.’ On 24 July 1891 was publicly dedicated a bronze inscribed tablet, provided by a subscription (suggested by Dr. W. M. Dexter, d. November 1890), executed in New York, and placed on the outer wall of St. Peter's, facing the site of the dwelling. On 29 June 1896 the foundation-stone of a ‘John Robinson Memorial Church’ was laid at Gainsborough by the Hon. T. F. Bayard, ambassador from the United States, on the assumption that Gainsborough was Robinson's birthplace, and that he was a member of the ‘gathered’ church at Scrooby Manor, which is in proximity to Gainsborough.
Nothing that Robinson ever wrote reaches the level of his alleged address to the departing pilgrims; expressing confidence that ‘the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word;’ bewailing ‘the condition of the reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion,’ the Lutherans refusing to advance ‘beyond what Luther saw, while the Calvinists stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things;’ and exhorting the pilgrims to ‘study union’ with ‘the godly people of England,’ ‘rather than, in the least measure, to affect a division or separation from them.’ Neither Bradford nor Morton hints at this address. It appears first in the ‘Briefe Narration’ appended to Edward Winslow's ‘Hypocrisie Vnmasked,’ 1646, pp. 97 seq. Winslow, who is not a first-rate authority, brings it forward as a piece of evidence in disproof of the intolerance ascribed to the separatists. He had been for three years (1617–20) a member of Robinson's church, and affirms that Robinson ‘used these expressions, or to the same purpose;’ he gives no date, but it was when the pilgrims were ‘ere long’ to depart; his report is mainly in the third person. Cotton Mather, writing in 1702, turns the whole into the first person, and makes it (Magnalia, i. 14) the parting address to the pilgrims, changing ‘ere long’ into ‘quickly.’ Neal (Hist. of New England, 1720) follows Mather, but omits the closing exhortation, with its permission to ‘take another pastor,’ and treats the address as
