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Myles was born in 1587/8 (88/9?), this date being derived from his portrait, which included the inscription of M. STANDISH in the top right hand corner and AETATIS SUAE 38 Ao 1625 in the top left. 1625 was the date of his only return to England (departing in July and returning in April, 1626), and I translate his age as “aged 38” rather than “in his 38th year”, although this could be debated, hence the two options. His departure for the Low Countries in c. 1601 means that with the earliest date he would have been 14 and with the latest date only 12, both possible. However, within a very short time he was promoted to Lieutenant by Queen Elizabeth, who died in March, 1603. We know this because the commissioning document was in the hands of his descendants in the mid-19^th century, and therefore must be believed, although it has unfortunately since disappeared. A boy-soldier of 12 is credible, but a Lieutenant at 14 less so; 1587 therefore seems the most plausible date.

Before we proceed with his life, however, we must take a time journey, whizzing backwards and forwards over four centuries. This is necessary as this is the first time that this date has ever been claimed beyond all reasonable doubt as the true date of his birth, and contradicts the date of c.1584 given in most previous biographies, and still believed in Plymouth today. We can dismiss other dates proposed -- 1565, 1585/86, 1591 - as pure speculation.

The detective story that established the history of the portrait could fill a whole book in itself!.¹ In brief, the oil-portrait on wood was bought in 1877 from an art shop in Boston by Capt. Harrison of Plymouth. It had an impeccable pedigree in the Gilbert family of Philadelphia back to pre-1812, and before that had been in the possession of the Chew family of Germantown for an undetermined length of time. This already takes us back to a period when Myles and the Pilgrim Fathers were virtually unknown outside the Plymouth area. The only purpose of a fraud would have been to sell it at a high price to a descendant of Myles, yet this idea does not seem to have occurred to either the Chews or the Gilberts. Incidentally, the Chew family was descended from John son of Joseph Chew from Billington, near Whalley, Lancashire, who married in Jamestown, Virginia in c. 1628. I presume that this will be of interest to any Chew or Whalley readers of this journal, and it may even provide a hint as to how the portrait travelled from Old to New England, although when, and why it never reached Myles’ descendants, will probably always remain a mystery.

In 1877, however, the belief in Massachusetts that Myles’ was born in 1584/5 was so fervent that the authenticity of the portrait was not only doubted but rejected on these grounds alone by a large number of learned gentlemen, some of whom got awfully shirty about this preposterous fraud, which unfortunately led to the disappearance of the portrait - again. It was last reported in 1919. What a pity, as it immediately doubled the number of portraits of Mayflower Passengers, the only authenticated one being of Edward Winslow. Maybe it will turn up again in an attic in Plymouth? How interesting it would be to see if it confirmed the red hair of “Captain Shrimpe”.

A view towards Rivington Pike, on the route between Duxbury and Rivington

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