Saturday, March 28, 2020

Red/White Quilt of Historical RedWork Embroidery - Priscilla Alden

Red/White Quilt of Historical RedWork Embroidery

Priscilla Alden



Priscilla Alden (née Mullins, c. 1602 – c. 1685) was a noted member of Massachusetts's Plymouth Colony of Pilgrims and the wife of fellow colonist John Alden (c. 1599–1687). They married in 1621 in Plymouth.

She is known to literary history as the unrequited love of newly widowed Captain Miles Standish, the colony's military advisor, in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1858 poem The Courtship of Miles Standish. According to the poem, Standish asked his good friend John Alden to propose to Priscilla on his behalf, only to have Priscilla ask, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"
Longfellow was a direct descendant of John and Priscilla, and based his poem on a romanticized version of a family tradition although, until recently, there was little independent historical evidence for the account. The basic story was apparently handed down in the Alden family and published by John and Priscilla's great-great-grandson Rev. Timothy Alden in 1814.[4]
Scholars have recently confirmed the cherished place of romantic love in Pilgrim culture,[5] and have documented the Indian war described by Longfellow.[6] Circumstantial evidence of the love triangle also exists. Miles Standish and John Alden were likely roommates;[7] Priscilla Mullins was the only single woman of marriageable age.[6] The families of the alleged lovers remained close for several generations, moving together to Duxbury, Massachusetts in the late 1620s.

www.wikipedia.org

Colonial Love Triangle 
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