• General Notes

  [elizabeth stone.FTW]
  
       BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN & JOAN STONE
       JOHN STONE, #11,264 on my lineage chart, son of Richard Stone and Isabel Girdier, was born ca. 1575 in Parrish of Croston, Lancashire, England during the reign of good Queen Bess.  Except for the religious strife, Elizabeth was extremely popular with her subjects.  She chose able and wise advisors.  Religion was her initial problem as queen.  She reverted to Protestantism after the death of Queen Mary I.  Her first Parliament had Protestant majority.  Parliament passed  between 1559 and 1563 religious legislation that became the doctrinal basis for the Church of England Catholics and Puritans were persecuted throughout her reign. 
       National confidence being restored, England was able to develop industrially and economically on a national scale.  She grew into a great maritime power after the defeat of the Spanish Armada.  Foreign trade was encouraged.  In the eyes of England "Elizabeth was England", known as the "Virgin Queen".   With the aid of the Roman  Catholics, Elizabeth's cousin, Mary Queen of Scots who she had befriended plotted to gain the throne from Elizabeth.  The plot was discovered.  Mary,Queen of Scots was executed in 1585 when Richard Stone was 10 years old.
       Elizabeth;Elizabeth's  popularity waned  at the end of her reign because of her heavy expenditures and her abuse of royal power.  Her policies had become weaker.  Her reign was disturbed by a revolt in Ireland led by Hugh O'Neill, the second earl of Essex.  He was executed in 1601.  Elizabeth died on March 23, 1603 in London. 
       John Stone married Joan at the turn of the 16th & 17th century.  They were Puritans.  They raised 6 children in England. 
       James I, son of Mary, Queen of Scots succeeded Elizabeth I to the English throne in 1603.  She was the last ruler from the House of Tudor.  James I was the first English ruler from the House of Stuart.
       From the very first, James I alienated the Puritans. However, he did have the Bible translated into the English language.  The strict Puritans were growing and disturbing England's religious peace.  They were making a commitment to stricter morality.    James I was very harsh with them.  The Puritans had grown greatly dissatisfied whit the Church of England which they felt were still too close to the Roman Catholics.  Religious unrest reached its height when William Laud became Archbishop[ of Canterbury in the 1630s.  A Roman Catholic conspiracy,  "the Gunpowder Plot" to blow up Parliament in 1605 confirmed the English's fear of Rome.
       In 1607, England began planting colonies in America.  Some of the Puritans were fleeing to Holland and then to Plymouth, New England in 1620.  James I died in 1625 and was succeeded by Charles I.  During the wars that followed, Charles I was defeated and beheaded.  Oliver Cromwell,a staunch Puritan became the ruler of England.   Cromwell had a difficult task of holding England in a Puritan course. 
       I am inclined to believe that John Stone and his family were staunch Puritans.   John Stone migrated to Virginia with 3 of his sons, William, John and Matthew in 1648.   
       John and Joan Stone's, son, WILLIAM STONE,II who married VERLINDA COTTON and became Governor of Maryland is my 11th great grandfather.
  (written by Mildred R. Jenkins, Williamstown, Ky on Mar. 9,2000)
  
  Facts about this person:
  
  Ancestral #   
  11,264
  

Details of John's family with Joan