ABSTRACT
Writing about Anne Hutchinson's trials, one contemporary account concluded: [T]he Lord heard groan to heaven, and freed us from this great and sore affliction. Several accounts of the Hutchinson trials written in the 1640s began to reinterpret the meaning of her case as they wrestled with what her trial really proved. At a basic level, all tell the same story, but a closer look reveals differences in the interpretations and a shifting understanding of what her trials were about. A final account of Hutchinson's trials written in the 1640s, prepared by John Cotton, also dealt with abuse of authority. Like Wheelwright, Cotton was responding to attacks on himself and so his account put the Hutchinson case into a larger context. For that reason, Cotton was as eager as Wheelwright to distance himself from Hutchinson, but at the same time he was as concerned as Weld and Winthrop were with trying to explain how Hutchinson gained so much power.
