<P> The Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers were early European settlers of the Plymouth Colony in present - day Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States . The Pilgrims' leadership came from the religious congregations of Brownist English Dissenters who had fled the volatile political environment in England for the relative calm and tolerance of 16th--17th century Holland in the Netherlands . The Pilgrims held Puritan Calvinist religious beliefs but, unlike other Puritans, they maintained that their congregations needed to be separated from the English state church . As a separatist group, they were also concerned that they might lose their English cultural identity if they remained in the Netherlands, so they arranged with English investors to establish a new colony in North America . The colony was established in 1620 and became the second successful English settlement in North America (after the founding of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607). The Pilgrims' story became a central theme of the history and culture of the United States . </P> <P> By this time, non-English European colonization of the Americas was also underway in New Netherland, New France, Essequibo, Colonial Brazil, Barbados, the Viceroyalty of Peru, and New Spain . </P> <P> The core of the group that came to be known as the Pilgrims were brought together between 1586 and 1605 by shared theological beliefs, as expressed by Richard Clyfton, a Brownist parson at All Saints' Parish Church in Babworth, near East Retford, Nottinghamshire . This congregation held Puritan beliefs comparable to other non-conforming movements (i.e., groups not in communion with the Church of England) led by Robert Browne, John Greenwood, and Henry Barrowe . As Separatists, they also held that their differences with the Church of England were irreconcilable and that their worship should be independent of the trappings, traditions, and organization of a central church--unlike those Puritans who maintained their membership in and allegiance to the Church of England . William Brewster, a former diplomatic assistant to the Netherlands, was living in the Scrooby manor house, serving as postmaster for the village and bailiff to the Archbishop of York . He had been impressed by Clyfton's services and had begun participating in services led by John Smyth in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire . </P> <P> The Puritan Separatists had long been controversial . Under the 1559 Act of Uniformity, it was illegal not to attend official Church of England services unless the church had signed the allegiance to the Church of England, with a fine of one shilling (£ 0.05; about £ 17 today) for each missed Sunday and holy day . The penalties for conducting unofficial services included imprisonment and larger fines . Under the policy of this time, Barrowe and Greenwood were executed for sedition in 1593 . </P>

Where did the pilgrims come from in england