c.1603-1683, clergyman, advocate of religious freedom, founder of Rhode Island b. London. A protégé of Sir Edward Coke, he graduated from Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1627 and took Anglican orders. He early espoused Puritanism and emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1631. Williams became teacher and, after a stay at Plymouth, minister of the Salem church. However, his radical religious beliefs and political theories-he denied the validity of the Massachusetts charter, challenged the Puritans to acknowledge they had separated from ....