ABSTRACT
The related problems of human authority and antiauthoritarianism dominated the two trials of Anne Hutchinson in 1637–38. Her first civil trial before the General Court began shortly after John Wheelwright was sentenced. Conducted before the assistants and the deputies, sitting without a jury, the hearing bore some resemblance to the prosecution of an English peer, and some to a typical trial of some minor crime before the colonial courts. The first day of trial offered several perspectives on authority, scriptural and human. More practically, as Anne Hutchinson, like Peter Buscott and James Smith, Jr., before her, refused to accept the considered opinions of her judges, it raised questions about authority's ability to render judgment. Yet John Winthrop referred to none of this when he opened the second day of the trial. There had been, he reminded those present, "diverse things laid to charge" the first day of trial. As a result of this disagreement, Winthrop shifted position once again.
