In the 1580s, he was an assistant to William Davison, secretary to Queen Elizabeth I; Davison was a party to the 1587 execution of Mary Queen of Scots. About twenty years later, Brewster was among those prominent in the early English Separatist church, emigrating to Holland in 1608 where he became Ruling Elder of the Leiden church. While in Leiden, he was hunted by English authorities in England and Holland for printing seditious tracts against the Anglican church (Church of England), forcing him to go into hiding until the Mayflower departure. wikipedia.org