Christy K Robinson

OK
About Christy K Robinson
Christy K Robinson is an editor and writer, with a degree in Communications (print media), and graduate work in English. She has written the books "Mary Dyer Illuminated," "Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This," "The DYERS of London, Boston, & Newport," "Effigy Hunter," and "Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother," and writes popular history blogs with page views topping one million.
In addition to writing and editing, she administers several Facebook groups and pages with 17th-century subjects. Her passion for historical research blends fun, hard work, and very late nights.
While employed as communications director and editor with a nonprofit organization, Christy conceived, wrote, edited, and produced the devotional book "We Shall Be Changed" (published in 2010, hardcover book available on Amazon).
Christy is a skilled copy editor for historical novels, romances, inspiration/devotional books, memoirs, and nonfiction, as well as websites. Contact her at her website, http://ChristyKRobinson.com .
Customers Also Bought Items By
Are you an author?
Author Updates
-
-
Blog post©2022 Christy K Robinson
It was my second Sunday as pianist at a Baptist church.
I was wished a Happy Mothers Day several times, and presented with a carnation, which I accepted as the mother of rescue pets, the teacher of hundreds, the aunt of three, the cook and server to refugees and their precious children, the supporter of the abused, and various other roles. Some mother's child (young or adult) has my plasma and platelets strengthening them this week.
2 weeks ago Read more -
Blog post© 2022 Christy K Robinson
John Taylor's journal was published
in London in 1710.
In 2013, I did some background reading on the conversion experiences of Quakers, one of them from the public journal of a man born in the early 1630s in York, England. He actually met Mary Dyer on Shelter Island, New York, in the winter of 1659-60, a few months before she was hanged for civil disobedience. John Taylor spent the rest of his 70 years as an itinerant Quaker minister (t4 months ago Read more -
Blog post© 2022 Christy K Robinson
I've loved James Taylor's music for--yikes--more than 50 years now, and every performance is still fresh. Many of the songs he's written are wise and kind and humorous, and I imagine that they come from the heart of a human who both believes his lyrics, and practices them.
That we live in a world of
have and have-not, respectful and rude, those working for justice and those laughing because they have Teflon impun4 months ago Read more -
-
Blog postI want to know who allowed the werewolves on the left side of the image.
The woodcut is of an English christening in 1581.
© 2021 Christy K Robinson
William Dyer was born, say many genealogical sites, on Sept. 19, 1609. Well, maybe not "on this day" precisely, as he was baptized (christened) on Tuesday, Sept. 19. He might have been born up to a week earlier.
The church where William Dyer was baptized still stands in Kirkby LaThorp8 months ago Read more -
Blog post© 2021 Christy K Robinson
Sir John Harrington, 1560-1612, was my 11th great-grandfather. He and his wife, Lady Mary Rogers, had around 20 children, if we're to believe genealogy records, but I'm not sure I trust them. There were numerous branches of the Harrington family across Great Britain, and lots of cousins with common names. His oldest child, Lucy Harrington, became Countess of Bedford. I descend from his son Robert.
He was a man of learning (Eton College, and B10 months ago Read more -
Blog postRev. John Robinson and love for his flock amid great loss#OnThisDay30June1621
© 2021 Christy K Robinson
When the Mayflower made the perilous voyage from the Netherlands to Plymouth, the passengers were beset by depression (perhaps one suicide), grave illness that some think was scurvy or typhus, and starvation.
The pastor of the Pilgrim congregation that fled England and lived in Amsterdam and Leiden was John Robinson, a Cambridge University gradu11 months ago Read more -
-
Blog postCopyright 2021 by Christy K Robinson
In the spring of 2021, I was asked to write a 600-word magazine article on William Dyer and Kirkby LaThorpe, the village where he was born in 1609. The article was published in "Heckington Living," a 40-page lifestyle magazine for Lincolnshire. The magazine editor had discovered my article and photos about the Kirkby LaThorpe church, from this website.
The editor, Amy Lennox, wrote: "Thank you again for your article - th11 months ago Read more -
Blog postThis story was written by my mother, Judith Anson Robinson, as a tribute to her grandmother, Edith Hall Stone. Rather than retype it, I've taken photos of the typed article.
Article by Judith Anson Robinson, written 1974, copyright 2021.
People mentioned in this article, l to r.
Helen Stone Prebil, Mabel Rowley Hall Lattimer, Edith Hall Stone, Ruth Stone, Lois Stone Anson.
Children: Raymond Prebil, Judith Anson, Sharron Peterson.
F11 months ago Read more -
-
Blog post© 2021 Christy K Robinson
Leonard Robinson and Opal Carter were married on June 30, 1921. They were married for 54 years, until Leonard passed away in 1975.
Leonard held several jobs before he married, including as an Iowa coal miner, and a carpenter (builder) in the US Expeditionary Force based in France during World War I. Opal was a school teacher in Iowa during the nineteen-teens. She had a high school education, but probably had to pass a teaching exam t12 months ago Read more -
Blog postBuried in a news story on NPR, National Public Radio, I found a paragraph that kept me laughing for several hours. I didn't laugh about the allegation of voter fraud by a public figure who has baselessly cried "Election fraud!" against the massive evidence of audits and failed lawsuits, but because this attorney is so sure of his own perfection that he didn't proofread his own official documents submitted to a court, nor did he task a member of his law firm with checking his copy.&n1 year ago Read more
-
Blog postIn 2019, six documentary film producers were tasked with researching and filming six hour-long segments on the spread of Christianity across the world. The documentaries were pulled together by a script writer and narrated by actor Dennis Haysbert. Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) began airing the monthly episodes called “INEXPLICABLE: How Christianity Spread to the Ends of the Earth” in early 2020, but stopped at the beginning of the pandemic. They restarted the series, on a1 year ago Read more
-
-
Blog post© 2020 Christy K Robinson
For hundreds of years, religious art has portrayed the manger, an animal feeding trough, as a wooden structure, a piece of furniture in a stable. They showed the stable as a ramshackle building or a cave. But the place where Mary laid her newborn baby may have been the ground floor of a two-story house, and the manger would probably have been a hollowed-out dip in the ground where animal feed was served. The New Testament uses the word katalouma, or1 year ago Read more -
Blog postWilliam Drummond was a Scottish poet who lived at the time when William and Mary Barrett Dyer and William and Anne Marbury Hutchinson were children and adults. They would not have known Drummond, but reading his poetry shows us the type of literature to which they were exposed during their lives.
Attributed to Abraham van Blijenberch.
William Drummond of Hawthornden, 1585-1649.
Scottish National Portrait Gallery This 1623 poem is religious in nature, but surprisingly,1 year ago Read more -
-
Blog post© 2018 Christy K Robinson
Early Quakers like Mary Barrett Dyer, John Copeland, Christopher Holder, Humphrey Norton, William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson referred to their religious experience of Christ in their hearts as The Light.
They understood the words of Jesus, that while he was in the world, he was “the Light of the world.” (John 9:5)
But Jesus also said, "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a1 year ago Read more -
Blog postI was working with some of my family history records and found this little book that was given by my great-great grandmother to my grandmother when she was a baby. Then when I was a baby, my grandmother gave it to me.
The original giver was Maria Elizabeth Harper Stone, 1850-1929.
She sent the little book to her granddaughter, Lois Elizabeth Stone, 1913-1997. The photo is of Maria's daughter-in-law, Edith Hall Stone, with her firstborn, Lois, in 1913.
<1 year ago Read more -
Blog post© 2020 Christy K Robinson
This song has been one of my favorites for 35 years. It strikes me that it doesn't have to be a love song to "Only One" person, but a love song to every friend, every relative, every work associate, every church brother or sister, every person in your circle.
Most people, if they're not psychologically damaged, understand that our capacity to love stretches and grows. We're not given a fixed amount of love to apportion to2 years ago Read more -
-
Blog postThough I've had a copy on Kindle for a year or so, I ordered a hard copy of Vol 1 of an 1851 book called The Works of John Robinson, Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, an anthology of his books, tracts, correspondence, and a memoir collected by Robbert Ashton. I've written several times in my history blogs that Rev. John Robinson was my 9th great-grandfather (12 generations). He lived from 1675 to 1625, passing after a short respiratory infection at age 49.
One2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2020 Christy K Robinson My third-great-aunt, Louisa Salyers, married at age 12.75 in 1847, had a baby son at age 14.5, and died at age 14.75. Her husband was only 19 when they married, so at least he wasn't an old lecher, but obviously, such an early marriage and childbirth didn't go well for the girl. The husband remarried, had more children, and died at age 50. The baby lived to 76 years old.
Woman holding dead baby, 1850s.
Photo: Evergreen College
2 years ago Read more -
-
Blog postI grew up in a teetotal home and religious denomination, so I can't say I've walked into a bar, unless you count English pubs where I could order a nice pasty (meat pie) or a bowl of chicken and leek soup. Still, I recognize a good opening line to a joke!
2001--A pub in Cork, Ireland, with my name on it. I didn't walk into this bar, either!
• An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking ciga2 years ago Read more -
Blog postIf you’re a descendant or admirer of the people mentioned in this chapter, you’re already primed to appreciate the historical research and writing expertise that went into this biographical novel: Mary Barrett Dyer Lawrence and Cassandra SouthwickNathaniel SylvesterJohn Endecott
And in the preceding chapter, you’d find: Katherine Marbury ScottIsaac RobinsonWilliam DyerSir Henry VaneGiles SlocumWilliam Brenton
There’s a lot of real, historical names and characterizations in my Mary Dy2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2020 Christy K Robinson
Another piano video, Love Medley, is here:
<https://www.facebook.com/christy.k.robinson/videos/10221806668096498/>
Hope you are blessed by the music. COVID-19 home quarantine isn't for the faint of heart, especially if you live alone. Even more so when you love and miss the fellowship of like-minded people at your house of worship. I play keyboards for several churches, and while those churches are closed to "flatten the2 years ago Read more -
-
Blog post© 2018 Christy K Robinson
In September 2018, I published a new, contemporary biography (nonfiction) on the life and legacy of Anne Marbury Hutchinson, 1591-1643. Its research, presentation, style, images, sources, and conclusions are unlike any other book written on Hutchinson.
The following article is part of a chapter introducing Anne Hutchinson to readers in the 21stcentury.
One of the interesting things about Anne is that she was a deeply spiritual woman all h2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2020 Christy K Robinson
After Trump, in an attempt to be a wartime President ahead of the 2020 election, assassinated the Iranian general, Solemani, the "prosperity gospel" televangelists are blowing the trumpets to carry the United States into another endless war, with countless deaths including women and children, families torn apart, and economic ruin for all but a handful of war profiteers.
Trump and White“Both Mike Pompeo [Secretary of State] and Mike Pen2 years ago Read more -
-
Blog postA script commissioned by Julie Esker Dishman
© 2019 Christy K Robinson
If you’ve heard of Mary Barrett Dyer, who lived in the mid-1600s, it’s probably as a Quaker woman who was hanged because of her religious beliefs. But historical research shows that Mary Dyer—married in an Anglican service, emigrated to Boston in 1635 as a Puritan, banished as an Antinomian heretic, co-founded Rhode Island as a non-conformist, possibly worshiped with Baptists, became a Quaker in Engla2 years ago Read more -
Blog post"Judeo-Christian" roots of America—NOT supported by fact
© 2020 Christy K Robinson
In the more than 20 years I've been researching and writing about Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer and their relation to religious liberty, my published articles have often received comments saying, essentially, "Pish-posh! Judeo-Christian beliefs form the basis of American life."
With various politicians, attorneys, and religious leaders preaching the glories2 years ago Read more -
Blog postAspiring poets and literary editors: A few "hard returns" and white space, and verbal poop becomes art.
The book is not real, but Trump's words are real,
word salad served up in Florida on December 21, 2019.
I never understood wind.
You know, I know
windmills very much.
I have studied it
better than anybody
else. It’s very expensive.
They are made in China
and Germany mostly.
—Ve2 years ago Read more -
Blog postWhy our ancestors didn’t celebrate the holiday
© 2019 Christy K Robinson
Even as I finish out my 50th year as a church musician, playing keyboards for church preludes and choir parties, and accompanying vocalists and congregations during Advent and Christmas, I remember how our ancestors responded to holiday events in the 17th century.
Brueghel the Younger: Adoration of the Magi, late 16th century.For a thousand years, European ancestors had celebrated Christ’s “birth”2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2019 Christy K Robinson
Anne Marbury (m. William Hutchinson of Alford) is the ancestor of millions of people over the last 400 years. She's also a pioneer of religious liberty in America, which makes her an honored "founding mother" to much of Western society.
Her father, Francis Marbury, was vicar of Alford's St. Wilfrid church (in northeastern Lincolnshire) in the late 1500s, and when he was silenced for his non-conforming preaching, he taught2 years ago Read more -
Blog postYou know that I've written four books on the Dyers and Hutchinsons, and that I regularly post up-to-date research in my history websites that have enlightened you about the lives of those families, as well as their friends, foes, and culture.
If you've already read the five-star-reviewed books, may I ask that you purchase copies for your relatives and friends as gifts? They're available on Amazon at <https://bit.ly/RobinsonAuthor>
Thank you for your support, which is muc2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2019 Christy K Robinson
May this season bring all the things that you not only receive from others, but that you have the power to share: love, health, peace, joy, prosperity.
You can share:
a compliment to a stranger,
listening without advising,
giving from your abundance,
giving your last two cents,
writing a business letter for a friend,
lending your muscles,
donating goods to charity,
he2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2019 Christy K Robinson
On 16 September 1620, the ship Mayflower departed Plymouth, England for the New World, carrying 102 passengers. Two months earlier, the Speedwell had left Leiden, where the English separatists had lived for more than 10 years. The Speedwell took on water and had to be taken out of service, so its passengers and cargo were transferred to the Mayflower.
The Mayflower Compact, signed on 11 November 1620 by the Pilgrims at Cape Cod, set3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2019 Christy K Robinson
Whoa, horsey! Artist A.B. Frost, "Whoa, there!" 1904
I've apparently reached the age where my friends' parents are passing away, my late parents' friends are passing away, and people in my age range are passing from illnesses. Maybe this has happened all along, for years or forever, or maybe I just notice it because I see the posts in Facebook, where the spouse or adult child of a friend writes to say that their loved one passed a3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2019 Christy K Robinson
William Dyer and his father by the same name had nothing to do with the Gunpowder Plot discovered on 5 November 1605. Indeed, William the son would not be born for another four years, and William the father was a young farmer whose first son would be born in 1607 in the village of Kirkby LaThorpe, Lincolnshire, located 100 miles north of all the action in London.
If you're a descendant of William and Anne Marbury Hutchinson, th3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2019 Christy K Robinson
Perhaps because Mary Dyer had countless descendants in North America, her sacrifice for religious liberty is better known than the Quakers who were hanged as she stood nearby with a noose around her neck. Even in this website that features the friends and enemies and culture surrounding William and Mary Dyer, there’s been scant mention of the two innocent young men who went to the gallows on Oct. 27, 1659.
Photo: Lancashire Telegraph
William Robi3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2019 Christy K Robinson
The episode where I record my first video for the Dyer website.
On the 26th of October, 1659, Mary Barrett Dyer was kept in solitary confinement in a Boston prison cell, condemned to die by hanging because she had repeatedly defied the banishment-on-pain-of-death orders from the Boston theocracy headed by Gov. John Endecott, Gov. Richard Bellingham, Rev. John Norton and Rev. John Wilson of Boston First Church, colonial secretary Edward Rawson, an3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2019 Christy K Robinson
“She is to be forthwith executed.”
It was a fix.
Many books and articles have been written that say that Mary Dyer was to be executed by hanging on the 27th of October, 1659. That’s what she believed, and that’s what her husband William believed. When their son, William Dyer the younger, perhaps 18 or 19 years old at the time, arrived with a reprieve at the moment Mary stood on the gallows ladder, it was a moment of dramatic theater.3 years ago Read more -
Blog postToday's lesson in punctuation, boys and girls, is on the subject of colons:
Well, actually, according to The Punctuation Guide, The colon is used to introduce a list of items, for emphasis, or between independent clauses.
The colon is used to separate two independent clauses when the second explains or illustrates the first. In such usage, the colon functions in much the same way as the semicolon. As with the semicolon, do not capitalize the first word after the col3 years ago Read more -
Blog postMusic for the Mayflower
A guest post by Tamsin Lewis
I direct the early music group Passamezzo [www.passamezzo.co.uk], an established ensemble known for their ability to bring historical events to life through their engaging performances and programming. We specialize in English Elizabethan and Jacobean repertoire.
2020 marks the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower from the Netherlands and England to Plymouth Colony, and so it seems appropriate to record a CD o3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© 2019 Christy K Robinson
Upon discovering that his wife Mary was imprisoned in Boston in August 1659, William Dyer wrote a two-page letter to the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony, asking for her release on the grounds that she had broken no laws, and that they had treated her inhumanely—worse than they’d treat their domestic animals.
Prison conditions:
see Boston’s prison during the Dyer years
Assuming that it could take two days (by special messenge3 years ago Read more -
Blog postThe Cambridge Agreement that propelled 700 to 1,000 colonists to New England in 1630 was completed and signed between August 26 and 29, 1629. Several versions of the compact were collated and combined by John Winthrop, who would become the most famous governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The Cambridge Agreement was signed at Queen's College, Cambridge University in England, and it preceded the charter the signers bought from King Charles I. Winthrop was perhaps the most fierce defe3 years ago Read more
Titles By Christy K Robinson
Mary Barrett Dyer gets all the ink when it comes to fame for the brilliant couple from London, who emigrated to Boston in 1635 and co-founded Portsmouth and Newport, Rhode Island in 1638 and 1639. Mary had the monster baby, and she was martyred for committing civil disobedience to the Massachusetts theocratic government. Her husband William was the first attorney general in America, co-founded the first democracy in America, and was a trusted member of Rhode Island's government, who made his mark in the 1663 charter of liberties which became a model for the United States Constitution 130 years later. The "Wall" of New York's Wall Street was raised because of him. William and Anne Marbury Hutchinson were mentors and intimate friends of the Dyers. The Dyers' descendants became governors and senators in New England--and a President or two can claim them as ancestors.
In this nonfiction companion book to the biographical novels "Mary Dyer Illuminated" and "Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This," you'll learn --in short, fascinating, illustrated chapters-- the culture and events that shaped Mary and William Dyer, and the history that they shaped for us. Who were their friends and enemies? Who were their parents, and was Mary the secret child of the royal Stuart and Seymour lines? What did they eat, and how did they treat illnesses and injuries? What was their everyday life between the big events? What did they look like and how did they dress? What did they do for fun? What were the fashions in clothing, music, and literature? What was the religious belief behind the labels assigned to them by later historians? What commonly-held myths about the Dyers should be blown to smithereens?
Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643) was despised for her quick mind. She was unflinching, though she had a premonition of danger to come. She lived four-fifths of her life in her native England, but is world famous for her years in early colonial America. She was a heretic Jezebel and a living saint whose behavior and character were impeccable. She spoke as men’s equal and was silenced for it.
You’ll glimpse the events that made primitive America great through the eyes of eyewitnesses and journalists of the time, some who hated Mistress Hutchinson, and some who admired her, and some who suspected that the massacre of 1643 that took Hutchinson’s and 16 other lives was set in motion by the theocratic government that banished her.
You’ll see why godly people risked their lives to form a secular government, to build and maintain a wall of separation that promotes peace and rejects oppression.
“Anne Marbury Hutchinson is a woefully unsung giant in the creation of secular democracy. Christy K Robinson's book goes a very long way toward refreshing the historical record of genuine religious freedom in America. She does so in a style both scholarly and eminently readable. It took 350 years for Hutchinson to be pardoned for her ‘crimes’ which amounted only to defying theological orthodoxy and the authority of male clerics. Through this work, Robinson makes it abundantly clear that people make real social change through the lessons of the very lives they live. Best we remember that today.”
Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Former Executive Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
“The tone is perfect and is the way that history should be written. The author’s voice speaks directly to the reader with humor, real content with wise use of original documents, and access to the personalities through those documents. She masterfully weaves the documents together with 21st-century English.”
Rose A. Doherty, President Emerita, The Partnership of the Historic Bostons
“An impressive accomplishment. Christy Robinson’s exhaustively researched account gives Anne Hutchinson her due as a martyr for religious freedom. Too many Americans today don’t know Anne’s story; this book will go a long way to correct that.”
Rob Boston, Editor, Church & State magazine
“There are people who can research, and people who can write, and people who can break down the barriers of historical distance. Then there are those that allow us into hearts and minds from the past. Christy Robinson does all of those things. You’ll love coming to know Mother Anne and her times through this penetrating work.”
Devin D. Marks, Founding Trustee, The Anne Marbury Hutchinson Foundation; Founder and President, My TED Talks
“A carefully researched accessible account of Anne Hutchinson’s remarkable life. Christy’s beautiful conversational style helps bring Anne’s story alive and makes early ‘Puritan’ theological differences much clearer. This book will make so many more people aware of her importance here in England.”
Rev. Ros Latham, Vicar, St. Wilfrid’s Church of England, Alford, Lincolnshire
In Mary Dyer Illuminated, follow William and Mary Dyer from the plague streets and royal courts of London to the wilderness of America where they co-founded the first democracy of the New World 135 years before the Declaration of Independence. They were only getting started.
In the second of two volumes, Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This, the Dyers return to war-torn England and lay a foundation for liberty that resonates in the 21st century. Why did beautiful, wealthy Mary Dyer deliberately give up her six children, husband, and privileged lifestyle to suffer prison and death on the gallows?
The two novels are compelling, provocative, and brilliantly written, blending historical fact and fiction to produce a thoroughly beautiful work you won't want to put down. The author has reconstructed a forgotten world by researching the culture, religions, and politics of England and America, personal relationships, enemies, and even the events of nature, to discover who they were.
“Mary Barrett Dyer is one of very few 17th-century women who are remembered today. She is usually described as a Quaker hanged in the cause of religious freedom, but genealogists and historians know there is much more to her. Christy K Robinson brings the Dyers to vivid life for the rest of us, weaving superb fiction with what is known into a penetrating novel. Robinson’s research is flawless, and her engaging characters invite you into their brilliantly imagined world. Brava!” – Jo Ann Butler, author of Rebel Puritan trilogy.
Christy K Robinson's two novels on the Dyers are compelling, provocative, and brilliantly written, blending a wealth of historical fact--and creating conversations, correspondence, and motives (fiction)--to produce a thoroughly beautiful work you won't want to put down. The author has reconstructed a forgotten world by researching the culture, religions, and politics of England and America, personal relationships, enemies, and even the events of nature, to discover who these people, the founders of America, were. If you thought you knew Mary Dyer by previous books, Wiki articles, or genealogy pages--think again. New research and brilliant deductions have dispelled myths and mistakes that have been accepted as truth since Mary Dyer's time!
Make this pair of Dyer novels the subject of your book club discussions, or add them to a reading list for high school and college classes in early-modern English and American history, women's studies, and religious liberty and religious history.
Key words: Mary Barrett Dyer, Anne Hutchinson, John Winthrop, John Endecott, Puritan, Quaker, civil disobedience, Great Migration, 17th century, William Dyre, Boston, Rhode Island, England, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, Raby Castle, Henry Vane, Roger Williams, John Clarke