During the year, 1548, when English sailors had successfully defeated the Spanish Armada, John Winthrop was born. Winthrop was the son of a London cloth merchant, Adam Winthrop. John grew up in the country side of England at a confiscated monastery that his grandfather, Adam Winthrop I, had purchased and named it Groton Manor. The manor was a wonderful place for a child to go up and have many adventures at. Groton was surrounded by wheat and rye fields, and dotted with dark woods. However, unknowingly to John Winthrop his greatest adventures would be found outside the seemingly safety of Groton Manor.
             The first of Winthrop's adventures was laid at his feet during the year of 1603. In March, of that year, Winthrop would be sent off to his father's alma mater Trinity College, in Cambridge. He was fifteen when he left home and little is known of how college life affected Winthrop. All that is known is what he wrote home about, writing among other things, that he had fallen into a lingering fever that seemed to take his comfort of his life (Morgan p.6). Winthrop's home sickness did not last long, for he was back at home, in Groton, within two years. During this time period it was customary for sons of gentlemen to not stay at college long enough to receive a degree of any kind.
             Upon his return home, Winthrop's next opportunity for adventure came quickly. This adventure appeared in the form of marriage. Within a week of his arriving home Mr. John Forth, of neighboring Great Stambridge, called upon John's father Adam. The two men discussed the union of their children, Mary Forth and John Winthrop. The practice of prearranged marriages was normal for this time period. On March 28, 1605 John and his father traveled to Great Stambridge, where a contracted for the union of John and Mary was held. A contract was a ceremony that is similar to an engagement in today's society. E
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