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Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson, declared among some in her seventeenth-century world as a religious "heretic," defied many of the most powerful men in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, including Governor Thomas Dudley, in defense of her strong beliefs. She endured a "trial by fire," without benefit of a jury of her peers, in a highly charged court where these men challenged and mocked her views on religion. Her banishment from Salem and Boston drove her to a new colony called Rhode Island, which her mentor and friend Roger Williams co-founded.

Thousands of Americans can claim the Marbury family's lineal connections to their royal and noble ancestry, from William the Conqueror through Edward I. These ancestors include John, King of England, who signed the Magna Carta in 1215 at Runnymede, as well as many of the barons who witnessed his signature on that famous document. All later kinds of Spain, Holy Roman and Austrian emperors, most later English and French kinds, all kings of Prussia and Russian czars, beginning with Alexander I, are distant cousins as well.

This volume is the second in a projected multi-volume series dealing with Americans of royal and noble ancestry. Taking the colonial period as a point of departure, it focuses on two of Reverend Francis Marbury's daughters, Anne and Katherine, who immigrated with their husbands to the New World in the 1630s. It covers the first five generations of their descendants, carrying the various lines up to and beyond the Revolutionary War, into the sixth generation. The generational layout of the work follows a modified format of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, with citations for all five generations based exclusively on vital records and approved family histories.

The book concludes with an every-name index of several thousand entries and a comprehensive bibliography. In addition, the author appended a "Lineage Society Index" with names of eligible ancestors in a number of hereditary societies, including the Colonial Clergy, Colonial Governors, Mayflower Descendants, and Revolutionary War Patriots.

See also:
Royal Families: Americans of Royal and Noble Ancestry, Volume One
Royal Families: Americans of Royal and Noble Ancestry, Volume Three