The core of the group called "the Pilgrims" was brought together around 1605 when they quit the Church of England to form Separatist congregations in Nottinghamshire, England, led by John Robinson, Richard Clyfton, and John Smyth. Their congregations held Brownist beliefs—that true churches were voluntary democratic congregations, not whole Christian nations—as taught by Robert Browne, John Greenwood, and Henry Barrow. As Separatists, they 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.