When the news of Bacon’s Rebellion reached Charles II he thought it past belief that “so considerable a body of men, without the least grievance or oppression, should rise up in arms and overturn the government.”  He did not stop to consider that he himself, by giving away huge areas in the colony to favorites, was in part responsible, or that the passage of the Navigation Acts and the consequent precipitous break in the price of tobacco could be called a grievance.  As for Berkeley’s policy of rule by placemen, if he knew anything about it, he could but reflect that he himself had set the example.

But he realized that something had to be done, not only to restore order, but to remove at least some of the causes of discontent.  So he appointed Colonel Herbert Jeffreys, Sir John Berry, and Colonel Francis Moryson a committee to go to Virginia to enquire into all grievances and report back to him.  As for Berkeley, though he was to retain the title of Governor, he was ordered to return to England “with all possible speed.”  During his absence Jeffreys was to be Lieutenant Governor, with all the powers of Governor.

The King then drew up a proclamation, which he directed Jeffreys to publish in the colony, stating that he was willing to extend his royal compassion to all except Bacon who would return to their duty and obedience, and authorizing the Governor in his name to pardon all he thought “fit and convenient for our service." But he mingled force with leniency by placing a thousand well-equipped men under Jeffrey’s command.  For the second time within twenty-five years an English expedition set sail to bring the Virginians to “obedience.”  Berry and Moryson, with part of the army, arrived in the James River in January, 1677, and Jeffreys soon followed with the rest.

They found the colony in a deplorable condition.  With the people bitter and sullen, with neighbor arrayed against neighbor, with hundreds of houses and barns in ashes, with trade disrupted, there was need for unselfish and statesmanlike guidance.  There should have been an immediate restoration of the rule of law, so that no man could be made to suffer without a trial before his peers.  There should have been an election of Burgesses, in which the people could make their choices without pressure from the Governor and the Council.  There should have been an honest effort to assuage flaming resentments, to give heed to the people’s grievances, to unite all classes in binding up the wounds of war and bringing peace and some measure of prosperity to the distracted colony.

The situation was not unlike that in the South at the close of the War between the States.  And as the South, after the assassination of President Lincoln, was left a prey to vultures the so-called Carpetbaggers and Scaliwags Virginia after the collapse of Bacon’s Rebellion, was sacrificed to the vindictiveness and greed of Berkeley and his supporters.

“Two wrongs do not make a right.”  Though a loyalist may have suffered severely by the plundering of rebel bands, he was not justified in trying to make good his losses by robbing a neighbor, even though that neighbor had sided with Bacon.  But the Governor, instead of insisting that his friends seek restitution only through the courts, himself was foremost in making illegal seizures.  When he returned to Green Spring, the sight of his plundered house and barns, and the empty meadows where once hundreds of cattle and sheep had grazed drove him to fury.  He showed “a greedy determination thoroughly to heal himself before he cared to staunch the bleeding gashes of the woefully lacerated country,” by seizing men’s “estates, cattle, servants, and carrying off their tobacco." Some of the wretched men who were dragged before him he threatened with hanging unless they gave him most or all that they owned.  A certain James Barrow was imprisoned at Green Spring, where “by reason of the extremity of cold, hunger, loathsomeness of vermin,” he was forced to agree to the payment of a ruinous composition.

The King’s commissioners received a cool reception from Berkeley.  He wanted no investigation of the causes of the rebellion, he wanted no interference with his hangings and seizures.  He pointed out that he had suppressed the rebellion before the arrival of the troops, and pretended to be surprised that the King had thought it necessary to send them. When the commissioners told him that illegal seizures must stop, he flew into such a rage that they decided that future communication with him should be by writing.  This would avoid the “loud and fierce speaking” necessitated by his deafness.

But there must have been “loud and fierce speaking” indeed when the commissioners went to Green Spring and showed Berkeley the King’s proclamation of pardon, and the order that he return immediately to England.  All his life Berkeley had regarded the King’s command as sacred.  To resist his will was as wicked as it was illegal.  But now, on flimsy pretexts, he deliberately disobeyed him.  He postponed his departure for three months, declaring that the word “conveniency” gave him the right to remain as long as he wished.  He did publish the proclamation, but here again he found an excuse to balk the King’s obvious intent to pardon all save Bacon.  Issuing a proclamation of his own he “saw fit” to exempt from pardon not only a long list by name, but all persons then in prison charged with rebellion.  Since the jails were overflowing, this left scores of miserable men trembling for their lives.

So the trials and executions continued.  Gyles Bland, despite the pleading of influential friends in England, was hastened off to the gallows.  When Robert Jones showed the wounds he had received fighting for the King in the Civil War, Moryson pleaded with Lady Berkeley to intercede for him.  “I would with more easiness of mind have worn the canvas linen the rebels said they would make me glad of,” replied this proud lady. Yet she weakened, and the Governor did pardon him.  Others were not so fortunate.  Not until the Assembly requested him “to hold his hand from all other sanguinary punishment,” after a score or more had paid the extreme penalty, did he put an end to the executions.

Yet the Assembly was overwhelmingly loyalist.  If we may believe William Sherwood most of the Burgesses were Berkeley’s “own creatures and chose by his appointments before the arrival of the commissioners." In the elections intimidation and even fraud were used freely.  Jeffreys wrote that the Assembly “by reason of the unsettled condition of the country was not so legally nor freely elected." In Charles City County a petition was posted on the courthouse door demanding a new election on the grounds that there had been illegal voting.

As was to be expected, this Assembly backed Berkeley in all he had done and was doing.  They praised his wisdom, bravery, justice, and integrity.  They did their best to block the commissioners in their inquiry into the causes of the rebellion.  When the people presented their grievances they were denounced as “libellous, scandalous, and rebellious." Many former rebels were forced to make humble submission on their knees before the Governor and Council, with ropes around their necks. Some were attainted, some were banished.  To speak ill of the Governor and Council was made a high crime punishable by whipping.

The people were deeply angered by the brutality of the Governor and his puppet Assembly.  Governor Notley, of Maryland, thought that, should a leader appear who was bold enough to risk his neck, “the commons of Virginia would enmire themselves as deep in rebellion as ever they did in Bacon’s time." Many a sullen planter eyed his fusil longingly, in the hope that Lawrence might emerge from the forests to head a new mutiny. “The putrid humor of our unruly inhabitants are not so allayed, but that they do frequently vent themselves ... and were they not awed by the overruling hand of his Majesty would soon express themselves by violent acts,” wrote Secretary Nicholas Spencer. That the Assembly was not unconcerned at the danger is shown by their re-enacting in much the original form of several of Bacon’s reform laws.

Berkeley and his friends treated Jeffreys with contempt.  “A pitiful little fellow with a periwig,” Philip Ludwell called him. But it took a woman’s spite to give him the greatest insult.  When the commissioners heard that at last Berkeley was about to leave for England, they called on him at Green Spring.  On leaving they found the Governor’s coach waiting for them at the door.  They did not realize that Lady Berkeley was peeping through “a broken quarrel of glass to observe how the show looked.”  But they were horrified to learn on reaching their destination that the coachman was the “common hangman.”  “The whole country rings of ... the public odium and disgrace cast on us, as the Exchange itself shortly may,” they wrote.

It was on May 5, 1677, that Berkeley sailed for England on the Rebecca.  The passage, though quick, was a terrible one for him.  As he paced the deck, he could but reflect that the time was at hand when he must account to his royal master, not only for the failure of his administration, but for his flagrant disobedience.  By the time he reached England the “tedious passage and grief of mind” had reduced him to great weakness.  But he pleaded for an opportunity to “clear his innocency.”  If it is true, as was whispered about, that word reached his ears that the King had said that that old fool had hanged more men in that naked country than he for the murder of his father, it must have broken his heart.  He died on July 13, 1677, and was interred at Twickenham.

Berkeley’s departure did not bring peace to the distracted colony.  The loyalist faction had spread the report that Jeffreys was merely Sir William’s deputy, that he could not exercise the full powers of Governor, and would retire upon his return.  To refute these rumors Jeffreys issued a proclamation a few days before Berkeley left, formally taking over the government.  In it he declared that he had as much power as any other Governor, and warned all men against belittling his office.  And he put his finger on the very foundation of the Berkelean system when he declared that he would strive to reform, regulate, and redress “all apparent abuses, oppressions, excesses, and defects in the power, practice, and proceedings of all county courts."

But reform was just what the loyalists did not want.  They wanted the grievances of the people suppressed, the county courts to be packed with their friends; they wished to continue their illegal seizures.  The leader of this group was the colorful and vigorous Lady Berkeley.  She held such frequent meetings at her home that the loyalists became known as the Green Spring Faction.  Here came Colonel Edward Hill, “a great oppressor, of unparalleled impudence”; Philip Ludwell, Lady Berkeley’s future husband; Robert Beverley, who Jeffreys declared had risen from a “mean condition” by toadying to Berkeley; and others.

As they sat in the spacious hall where the Assembly had met after the burning of the statehouse in Jamestown, they denounced Jeffreys as a nincompoop, who was not worth a groat in England, as a liar, as a “worse rebel than Bacon.”  They would secure compensation for their losses despite all he could do.  So they planned their strategy.  Lady Berkeley was to strike terror into the people by threatening dire things when Sir William returned.  Nor did they relax their efforts when word of Berkeley’s death reached the colony.  It was known that Lord Culpeper was his successor, so Lady Berkeley gave it out that he was her close friend, and promised great favors upon his arrival.  To plead their cause in England they engaged Captain Alexander Culpeper, Lady Berkeley’s brother.

After Berkeley’s departure Jeffreys had called for the election of a new Assembly to meet October 10, 1677.  Unfortunately, at this moment, when he was most needed, he became ill.  Early in September a letter from the Privy Council to the Governor and Council had been received, making void Berkeley’s proclamation of February 10, which had excepted so many persons from the royal pardon.  Had Jeffreys been a well man he would certainly have published this letter immediately and relieved the people from their fear.  But the Council urged him to conceal it for the present, and being weak and in bed, he yielded.  This daring defiance of the King’s orders had an important effect on the election, for the people were still trembling for their lives and property, and so were bullied by the sheriffs into returning loyalist Burgesses.  Daniel Parke reported that there had been illegal elections in James City County, Kent, and elsewhere.

It was in October that Parke arrived from England and delivered to Jeffreys a letter from Secretary Coventry, telling him that Berkeley had died and that Culpeper had kissed the King’s hand as Governor.  Even then the Council was opposed to the publication of the King’s order to void Berkeley’s proclamation, protesting that it had been procured by misinformation.  But the contents leaked out, and there was bitter resentment at the delay.  Most of the Assembly demanded its publication.  At last, when Jeffreys and Parke had won over a majority of the Council to the view that it would be unwise to trifle further with the royal command, the two Ludwells flung themselves away in “a seeming passion.”  But there was great relief and widespread rejoicing among the people.

The Assembly met at Middle Plantation, the site of Williamsburg, in the house of Captain Otho Thorp.  Despite the irregularity of the elections it showed a far greater spirit of independence than its predecessor.  It passed a law against making unreasonable compositions for injuries done during the rebellion; it imposed a penalty for the use of such terms as traitor, rebel, or rogue; it forbade the impressing of cattle, boats, or provisions without compensation; it regulated fees. But it placed a crushing burden on the prostrate colony by levying a tax of 100 pounds of tobacco per tithable.  “This, with the county and parish tax is in some counties 250 pounds, in some 300, and in some 400, which falls very heavily on the poorer people,” Parke reported.

The Thorp house rang with protests when Robert Beverley, who was clerk of the Assembly, reported that the King’s commissioners had taken their journals, orders, and acts from him by force.  In a vigorous protest to Jeffreys, they declared this a great violation of their privileges.  This seizure we “humbly suppose his Majesty would not ... command, for that they find not the same to have been practiced by any of the Kings of England.”  So they asked Jeffreys to give assurance that such a thing would not happen again.

When this was reported to Charles II he was surprised at the presumption of the Assembly in calling in question his authority.  Referring the matter to the Lords of Trade, he asked them what he should do to bring the Assembly to a sense “of their duty and submission.”  The Lords thought that the protest tended to rebellion, and that the Governor should rebuke the Assembly and punish the “authors and abettors." Charles issued the order, but later, on the earnest plea of the Virginia Council, rescinded it.  But he insisted that the protest be “razed out of the books of Virginia." It was a strange twist of fate which caused an attempt by the King to investigate the grievances of the people to result in what may be considered the opening act of the Second Stuart Despotism in Virginia.

In the meanwhile, during Jeffreys’ illness, Thomas Ludwell presided over the meetings of the Council.  So the King’s commands were ignored, and the plundering, confiscations, and banishing continued.  “Great numbers of poor men, having wives and children to maintain,” faced utter ruin. The lengths to which the Green Spring Faction was prepared to go is illustrated by a statement of Colonel Edward Hill at one of their gatherings.  One of those present remarked that William Byrd would certainly win a case pending in which he was involved because he was in England and could secure the King’s backing.  “That will not do,” said Hill, “for if the King should send in his letter, in that case we are not to take notice of it."

This is just what they did when Charles wrote in behalf of Sarah Drummond, widow of William Drummond.  This poor woman made the long voyage across the ocean to lay her case before the King.  So great was Governor Berkeley’s hatred of her husband, she said, that he had not only taken his life, but had seized his small plantation for his own use and forced her to flee with her five small children into the woods, where they might have starved had not the commissioners befriended them. Moved by her misfortunes, the King sent an especial command that her property be returned.  But when she brought an action in the General Court against Lady Berkeley, and the King’s letter was read, one of the Councillors, turning to the crowd in the courtroom, declared in a loud voice that it was based on nothing but lies.  “So they dismissed the case."

In the meanwhile, Jeffreys had sufficiently recovered his health to strike back at his enemies.  He had tried to win them over by appointing them to collectors’ places and doing them other favors, but without success.  So at last he retaliated upon Beverley by ousting him from his civil and military offices and “silenced him from pleading in the courts." When Philip Ludwell’s many insults were reported to Jeffreys he had him arrested and charged him with “scandalizing the Governor and abusing the authority of his Majesty.”  This was a serious matter indeed, for the penalty was whipping or the payment of a fine of 500 pounds of tobacco.  The jury pronounced Ludwell guilty, and asked the Council to fix the punishment.  Since most of the Council were Ludwell’s warm friends, Jeffreys appealed the case to the King.  Ludwell countered by appealing to the Assembly.  In the end it was decided that the whole case, including the matter of appeal, should be left to his Majesty.

But in the summer of 1678 Jeffreys again became ill, and the Green Spring Faction renewed the “old exactions and abuses.”  William Sherwood reported:  “The colony would be as peaceful as could be wished except for the malice of some discontented persons of the late Governor’s party, who endeavor by all the cunning contrivances that by their artifice can be brought about, to bring a contempt of Colonel Jeffreys, our present good Governor....  It is to be feared unless these fiery spirits are allayed or removed home, there will not be that settled, happy peace and unity which otherwise might be, for they are entered into a faction which is upheld by the expectation of my Lord Culpeper’s doing mighty things for them."

Jeffreys died on December 17, 1678.  A well-meaning man, who tried to rule justly, he lacked the strength of character needed to bring peace to the colony.  With an army at his command, he should have put Governor Berkeley on board ship and sent him to England when he refused to obey the King’s commands.  This would have prevented many hangings, relieved the fears of the people, and given pause to the Green Spring Faction.  But Jeffreys knew that Berkeley’s brother, Lord John Berkeley, was in high favor with the King, and he dared not offend him.

Jeffreys’ wife came from England to join him, but she was just in time to say a farewell, for he was seized with a violent sickness four hours after her arrival and died soon after. So bitter were the Green Spring Faction against him that they tried to prevent the payment to his widow of L1,200 due him for nine months’ salary, and to charge her with all the perquisites he had received.  When, as a consequence, she could not meet all his obligations, they imprisoned her for debt.  It was only by appealing to Secretary Coventry that she received the arrears due her and was able to free herself from the power of her enemies.

Upon the death of Jeffreys, Sir Henry Chicheley produced a commission as Deputy Governor given him in 1674.  Chicheley was a “most loyal, worthy person, and deservedly beloved by the whole country." He had been a Burgess, a member of the Council, had commanded the Virginia forces in the Indian war, had remained loyal to Berkeley during the rebellion, and had been imprisoned by Bacon.  But he was now “old, sickly, and crazy,” and lacked the vigor to force obedience and restore order.  During the eighteen months of his administration the old factions were not reconciled to one another.

Yet Chicheley, to the extent of his ability, ruled impartially and well.  At the election of 1679 he insisted that the people be protected from intimidation at the polls.  As a result the Assembly showed a spirit of independence and a desire to rectify the people’s grievances.  A degree of democracy was introduced into local government by an act empowering the voters of each parish to elect two men to sit in the county courts in the making of by-laws.  A limit was put to fees demanded by the collectors of customs and the clerks of the courts.  The claim of the Green Spring Faction for compensation for their losses was referred to the next session.

In May, 1680, Lord Culpeper arrived in Virginia after a tedious passage of two and a half months, in which scurvy and other diseases took a heavy toll.  Chicheley handed over the government to him and the reconstruction period came to an end.

The patriotic Virginian, as he looked back over the years from the collapse of Bacon’s Rebellion to the arrival of Culpeper must have seen in them nothing but confusion and disaster.  The colony was divided against itself, the most pressing of the people’s grievances had not been redressed, many families had been reduced to poverty, the right to vote was denied to hundreds, taxes were higher than ever, and tobacco was still a drug on the market.

Yet important changes were taking place which gave reason for hope.  During Berkeley’s administration the newly created aristocracy, the men of wealth, the leaders in their own counties the Ludwells, the Parkes, the Custises, the Coles had worked in close alliance with the Governor.  The common people, on the other hand, lacked leaders to guide them in their struggle for their rights.  But with Berkeley’s departure the aristocrats, so far from allying themselves with his successor, came into violent conflict with him.  And the Governor now assumed the rôle of the people’s friend and protector.

So engrossed were the Virginians in their own disputes that their attention was diverted from events in England, events that were to affect them profoundly.  For many years Charles II had lived in comparative peace with his Cavalier Parliament, maintaining his mistresses in luxury despite the meagerness of his revenue.  But the rise of the Whig Party under the leadership of the able Earl of Shaftesbury was now threatening to undermine his power.  All London was in terror when Titus Oates came forward with a wild story that the Catholics were plotting to bring in Irish and French troops, massacre the Protestants, and murder the King.  The Whigs were demanding the exclusion from the succession of Charles’ Roman Catholic brother James, and some actually proposed that the King divorce his Catholic wife and marry a Protestant.

Faced with the loss of his prerogatives, the indolent King struck back.  His father had tried to free himself from dependence on Parliament by illegal taxation; he by sacrificing England’s foreign interests for French gold.  In March, 1678, Charles negotiated a secret treaty with Louis XIV in return for L300,000.  Now he was in a position to thumb his nose at the Commons when they tried to control and thwart him.  It was the beginning of the Second Stuart Despotism.

The change was immediately reflected in colonial policies.  The old Council of Plantations, and its successor the Council of Trade and Plantations had done little to supervise and control the conduct of affairs in America.  But in December, 1674, after the fall of the Cabal Ministry, the direction of colonial matters was turned over to a committee of the Privy Council, presided over by the Secretary of State.  In this way the King’s most trusted ministers were brought into close touch with the colonies.  Sir Joseph Williamson, Secretary from 1674 to 1678, was a most obedient servant of the King; his fellow Secretary, Sir Henry Coventry, had defended Charles I on the field of battle, and now defended his son before the public; Sir Leoline Jenkins was called “the most faithful drudge of a Secretary that ever the Court had.”

We have no way of knowing whether these men, in their assault on liberty in the colonies, were merely carrying out the commands of Charles II and James II, or whether on their own initiative they shaped colonial policy in accord with domestic policy.  In either case it was the Second Stuart Despotism in England which was responsible for the Andros despotism in New England, and for the equally dangerous attack on liberty in Virginia.

It was prophetic of what was to come that Secretary Coventry, in January, 1678, read to the Committee on Foreign Affairs a series of proposals concerning Virginia.  Three companies of soldiers were to be left in the colony, a fort was to be erected “whereby the King may be safe from rebellions,” all laws were to be sent to England for revision.  The last proposal was an innovation of serious import. The Virginians had never questioned the right of the King to veto the acts of Assembly, but never before had he demanded the right to revise laws already on the statute books.

Of even greater significance was the initiation of bills by the King.  Charles wrote Culpeper that whereas certain laws had been recommended to him in Council of which he approved, “these bills we have caused to be under the Great Seal of England, and our will is that the same bills ... you shall cause to be considered ... in our Assembly of Virginia ... and to these bills you do give and declare our royal assent.”  One was an act of general pardon, one an act for naturalization, and the other an act for raising a public revenue.

This was accompanied by an attempt to deprive the Assembly of the right to initiate legislation.  Culpeper was commanded to send to the King a draft of such bills as he and the Council should think fit to be passed, so that he could go over them and return them in the form he thought they should be enacted in.  “Upon receipt of our commands you shall summon an Assembly and propose the said laws for their consent."

As though this were not enough, Charles demanded the sole power, heretofore exercised by the Governor, of calling sessions of the Assembly.  “It is our will and pleasure that for the future no General Assembly be called without our special directions, but that, upon occasion, you do acquaint us by letter with the necessity of calling such an Assembly, and pray our consent and directions for their meeting."

The King struck a fatal blow at the control of justice in Virginia by the people, by depriving the Assembly of its privilege of acting as the supreme court of appeals.  “Our pleasure also is that for the better and more equitable administration of justice in our said colony, appeals be allowed in cases of error from the courts ... to our Governor and our Council there, and to no other court or jurisdiction whatsoever."

Although Thomas Culpeper had been too young to fight in the Civil War, he donned a suit of armor with breastplate, shoulderpieces, and brassarts, to have his portrait painted.  But the face is not that of a warrior.  It is draped by the flowing hair of the Cavalier, has a prominent nose and a weak mouth with the trace of a sneer.  Culpeper had followed Charles into exile, and with the Restoration had expected compensation for his losses.  But since there was not enough to go round among all the hungry Cavaliers, the King repaid him at the expense of his subjects in Virginia, first with the Arlington-Culpeper grant, and then by making him Governor of Virginia.

The outlook for the colony was gloomy.  The King was determined to override the people’s rights and make himself absolute.  Culpeper was interested in filling his pockets.  The Green Spring Faction were still seeking to make good their losses at the expense of the rebels.  The common people were suffering from the high taxes and the low price of tobacco.

The King had as much trouble in getting Culpeper to sail for Virginia as he had had in making Berkeley come back to England.  My Lord had no desire to exchange London for the forests of Virginia; he had little interest in carrying out his instructions.  All he wanted was his salary and anything he could make out of the Northern Neck.  At last, after two years of dillydallying, the King told him that unless he sailed at once he would remove him as Governor.  So in February, 1680, he left the Downs with the tobacco fleet.

On his arrival at Jamestown, the members of the Council and other leading planters flocked around him, eager to give their version of the troubles in the colony and to secure his support.  When the Council met, Culpeper was assured that the King had been misinformed on many points by Moryson and Berry.  Philip Ludwell was a loyal, honest servant of the King, and should be restored to his place in the Council.  Injustice had been done to Colonel Hill, and they begged the new Governor to intercede for him.

As for the King’s rebuke to the Assembly for questioning his right to seize their records, the Council advised Culpeper not to present it.  To do so would “unravel and disturb the good and cheerful settlement we are now in by your Excellency’s great prudence and conduct." So they induced him to suspend the rebuke until the King should order to the contrary.

Culpeper seems to have brought a degree of peace to the contending factions.  The act of pardon ended the plundering of the estates of the former rebels, and the aggrieved loyalists were encouraged to seek redress through the Assembly.  Colonel Spencer wrote that the “late different interests” had been “perfectly united to the general satisfaction of all.”

United the people had to be to defend their liberties.  When the wealthy landholder and the humble owner of but fifty acres, the loyalist and the former rebel alike realized that Charles was bent on reducing both Council and Assembly to impotence, their domestic quarrels seemed unimportant compared to the public danger.

Since the statehouse at Jamestown was still in ashes, the Assembly of June, 1680, crowded into the house of Mrs. Susanne Fisher.  Some of the Burgesses had come on horseback from their James City or Charles City plantations, others by shallops from the Upper James, still others from the far-off Eastern Shore.  A sturdy, stubborn group they were, like other Burgesses before and after them, determined to uphold the rights of the people.

They were dismayed, then, when Governor Culpeper placed before them the three bills prepared and signed by the King.  What right has he or the Privy Council to introduce bills in this Assembly? they asked.  And they were especially concerned over the King’s demand for a perpetual revenue.

There had existed since 1661 a law for laying a duty of two shillings for every hogshead of tobacco exported from the colony.  But the revenue was to be disposed of by the Assembly.  It was they who decided whether it should be used to pay the Governor’s salary, or to defend the colony against the Indians, or for repairing the statehouse, or for paying the salaries of the Burgesses.  Now the Privy Council took it upon themselves to draw up a similar act, but differing from the old one in one all-important respect it specified that the returns should go, not to the Assembly, but “to the King’s most excellent Majesty, his heirs and successors forever.”

The debate which followed was long and bitter.  Every man in the Assembly, whether Burgess or Councillor, knew that the King was demanding the surrender of their birthright. So they replied to the Governor:  “The House do most humbly desire to be excused if they do not give their approbation to his Majesty’s bill." And when the matter was brought again before them by the Governor, they refused even to resume the debate.

But Culpeper knew that he would be severely blamed by Charles if he did not succeed in forcing this bill through.  Returning to the attack he pointed out that the King claimed the right of disposing of all revenues.  Moreover, they were in no position to defy him, for he had it in his power to ruin most of them by demanding all arrears of quit rents.  We do not know how many lucrative jobs Culpeper handed out to bring the reluctant Burgesses around, but he himself tells us that he won over one influential member by the promise of a seat in the Council.

In the end the King had his way.  The Burgesses made two minor amendments, and then passed the bill.  When it came before Charles again, he vetoed one of these amendments, and allowed the other.  A quarter of a century later, when the Board of Trade asked Attorney General Simon Harcourt and Solicitor General James Montague to pass on the validity of the act, they reported that it had been put through irregularly.  “It would be wise,” they said, “if any part of her Majesty’s revenue depends on this act, to have another in its place."

Yet the act was permitted to stand, and the cause of self-government in colonial Virginia suffered its greatest reverse.  No longer could the Assembly force the Governor to sign this bill or that by refusing to vote his salary.  No longer did they hold a sword over the heads of the Council.  It is true that they still retained in part their grip upon the purse, since the export duty together with the quit rents seldom met even the ordinary needs of the government, and were entirely inadequate in times of emergency.  It is this which explains why such notable gains for liberty were made during the colonial wars.  Yet from this time until the Declaration of Independence the Virginia Assembly had to fight the royal prerogative with one hand tied behind its back.

Having secured the passage of the King’s three laws, Culpeper rested on his laurels.  He seems to have yielded to the plea of the Council not to deliver the King’s rebuke to the Assembly.  If he ever told the Council of his instruction to initiate bills with their advice and secure the King’s approval before sending them to the House, they must have argued that it was impractical.  They had no desire to have representative government in the colony made a mockery.  Were the Burgesses to have the right of amending bills? they must have asked.  If so, would the amended bills have to go back to England for the King’s approval?  Under such conditions, it might take years to enact the simplest laws.  So this instruction was ignored.

Equally impractical was it to secure the King’s permission before calling an Assembly.  In case of a sudden emergency it might be fatal to wait until the Governor had written to Secretary Coventry, until he had taken the matter up with his Majesty, until some vessel sailed and had made the tedious voyage to Virginia.  If the need were the outbreak of war with the Indians, half the colony might be scalped before the Assembly could meet to raise men and money for arms and forts.  So Culpeper ignored this instruction also.

As for the instruction to forbid appeals from the General Court to the Assembly, the Governor kept it to himself.  Three years later, at an inquiry held on his neglect of his office, he explained:  “Having some thoughts of getting a revenue bill to pass, I was unwilling actually to repeal the laws relating thereunto till the next session of Assembly should be over, well knowing how infinitely it would trouble them."

As soon as the Assembly had been dismissed Culpeper made ready to return to England, after having been in Virginia only a few weeks.  Yet for his supposed services he had been receiving L2,000 a year from the revenues of the colony ever since the death of Berkeley. Not content with this, he contrived to rob the English soldiers who had remained in Virginia after Bacon’s Rebellion of more than L1,000.  These men had received no pay for many months, and were discontented and mutinous. So the Privy Council gave Culpeper money to satisfy them and the families on whom they had been quartered.  On his arrival he bought up all the worn Spanish pieces of eight he could find, arbitrarily proclaimed them legal tender at six shillings, which was a shilling more than they were worth, and then paid the soldiers and landlords.  But before his salary became due, he restored the ratio to five to one.

In 1682 news reached England of a series of tobacco-cutting riots in Virginia.  The glut of tobacco in the English warehouses and its consequent low price had convinced the people that a restriction on the output was necessary.  It was to be a kind of soil bank, though without the subsidy.  When this failed because Maryland refused to join in, angry mobs went from plantation to plantation, cutting down the tender plants.  Fearing that this might be the beginning of a new rebellion, the Privy Council ordered the reluctant Culpeper to go back at once to suppress the riots and punish the ringleaders.

Culpeper arrived in December, 1682.  Finding that the riots were over, he contented himself with hanging two of the most notorious of the plant cutters, and then hastened back to England.  By this time Charles had lost patience with him for his neglect of his government, the Attorney General was ordered to take action against him, and his commission as Governor of Virginia was declared void.  In September, 1683, Lord Howard of Effingham was made Governor in his place.

Effingham was well fitted to carry out the King’s attack on liberty in Virginia.  Deceitful, persistent, unscrupulous, he would have ridden roughshod over the people’s rights had he not encountered the determined resistance of the House of Burgesses.  No sooner had he arrived than the struggle began.

When the Assembly met in April, 1684, he put on his peer’s coronet and velvet and ermine robes, and told the Burgesses that he intended to enforce the King’s order to prohibit appeals to the Assembly.  This was received with dismay.  They appealed to Effingham and the Council to join them in an address to the King imploring him to restore a privilege enjoyed from the earliest times.  But in vain.  “It is what I can in no part admit of,” was Effingham’s curt reply.  Since this made the General Court the last court of appeals in Virginia, the structure of justice became aristocratic rather than democratic.

Future Governors had reason to regret this change, for it added greatly to the influence of the Council, and the day was not distant when the Council was to become so powerful as to threaten to make the Governor a mere figurehead.  It was the Council which was to be responsible for the dismissal of Andros and Nicholson.  Governor Spotswood, in his bitter quarrels with the Councillors tried to undermine their power by striking at their judicial privileges, but he failed, and he too was forced out of office by their influence.

Even more alarming to the people than the ending of appeals to the Assembly was an order from the King that certain causes arising in the courts be referred to England for decision.  The Burgesses protested.  Such a thing would be “grievous and ruinous,” they said, and would involve delays and great expense.  Moreover, they could not find that appeals to England had been allowed “from the first settling of the colony.”  When Effingham and the Council refused to join them, they sent their petition to the King as the protest of the Lower House alone.

But James II, who had succeeded to the throne on the death of Charles in February, received their appeal with contempt.  In the new instructions to Effingham drawn up in October, 1685, he wrote:  “Whereas ... our Committee of Trade and Plantations ... have received from some unknown persons a paper entitled An Address and Supplication of the General Assembly of Virginia to the late King ... which you have refused to recommend as being unfit ... we cannot but approve of your proceedings....  And we do further direct you to discountenance such undue practices for the future, as also the contrivers and promoters thereof."

At this dark hour, when American liberty hung in the balance, the Burgesses were quick to repel any attempt to tax the people without their consent.  In May, 1688, they stated that they had received “many grievous complaints” that unlawful fees had “under color of his Majesty’s royal authority” been unjustly imposed upon the people.  They protested especially against a fee of 200 pounds of tobacco for affixing the great seal of the colony, a fee of 30 pounds of tobacco for recording surveys of land, and a fee of L5 for escheats.

And they were adamant in refusing repeated demands for permission for the Governor and Council by themselves to levy a tax even though a very small one.  “Your Lordships will ... find their total denial that the Governor and Council should have any power to lay the least levy to ease the necessity for so frequent Assemblys,” Effingham wrote the Committee of Trade and Plantations in February, 1686.  “This was propounded by me to them before his Majesty’s instructions came to hand ... but nothing would prevail, nor I believe will, unless his Majesty’s special command therein."

There was consternation in the Assembly when they learned that the King was attempting to build up a revenue independent of the Burgesses by increasing the returns from the quit rents.  This tax on land, for such it really was, had always been paid in tobacco.  In 1662 the Assembly had fixed the rate of payment at twopence a pound, which at that time approximated the current price.  But the decline in the value of the leaf had greatly lessened the value of the returns.  So in 1684 the King ordered Effingham to accept only specie, “that is to say in money and not in tobacco or in any other commodity." Since tobacco was then selling at a halfpenny a pound, this would have quadrupled the value of the quit rents, imposed a heavy burden on the impoverished country, and strengthened the authority of the Governor.

The controversy over this matter led to another and a more serious encroachment on the rights of the people, for when the Assembly refused to repeal the law of 1662, the King voided it by proclamation.  Having heard that “persons go about ... imposing bad tobacco upon our collectors at the rate of 2d per pound, under pretence of an act of Assembly ... we have thought fit to repeal the said act." Upon receipt of this order Effingham sent for the Burgesses to meet him in the Council Chamber.  When they filed in he soon found that they were in no mood to yield.  Not only did they again refuse to repeal the law of 1662, but they “rudely and boldly disputed the King’s authority in repealing laws by proclamation." Moreover, they pointed out, it was impossible to pay in pounds or shillings since there were not enough in the entire colony.  This argument was unanswerable, and in the end the Governor was forced to assent to a compromise by which the tax was to be paid in tobacco, but at the rate of one penny per pound instead of two.

The difference in the theories of government held by Charles and James on the one hand, and the people of the colony on the other was brought into focus by a dispute over the King’s right to revive a law by repealing a law which had repealed it.  When James revived a law of 1680 concerning attorneys by annulling the repealing law of 1682, the Burgesses rose as one man in angry protest.  “A law may as well receive its beginning by proclamation as such a revival,” they said.  “Some Governor may be sent to govern us who under the pretence of the liberty he hath to construe prerogative and stretch it as far as he pleaseth, may by proclamation revive all the laws that for their great inconveniences to the country have been repealed through forty years since."

The Councillors as well as the Burgesses must have been startled when Effingham in reply told them that the King had the right to nullify or revive what laws he pleased, since the only authority the Assembly had to legislate at all rested on a grant from the Throne.  They had been under the impression that the right of the people to make laws through their representatives was inherent in all Englishmen.  If it were a grant from the King, which the King might at will withdraw, liberty in America rested on a shaky basis indeed.  In an address to Effingham they stated that they did not dare “to say what is prerogative and what is not," but they made it clear that when prerogative was stretched so far that it threatened to enslave them, they would resist by every means within their power.

Despots throughout the years have feared a free press, and have either prohibited printing or controlled it for their own purposes.  So it was in keeping with the spirit of the Second Stuart Despotism that Charles and James would allow no press in Virginia.  It was in 1682 that John Buckner, a prominent merchant and landowner of Gloucester County, and a member of the House of Burgesses, employed William Nuthead to set up a printing establishment at Jamestown.  But they had picked an inauspicious time for their venture.  Nuthead was ordered to appear before the Council “to answer for his presumption in printing the acts of Assembly ... and several other papers without licence.”  The Council ordered that “for prevention of all troubles and inconveniences that may be occasioned through the liberty of a press ...  Mr. John Buckner and William Nuthead the printer enter into bond for one hundred pounds sterling ... that from and after the date hereof nothing be printed by either of them ... in this colony until the signification of his Majesty’s pleasure shall be known."

His Majesty’s pleasure therein was a foregone conclusion.  “Whereas we have taken notice of the inconvenience that may arise by the liberty of printing in Virginia,” stated Charles in his instructions to Effingham, “no person is to be permitted to use any press for printing upon any occasion whatsoever." So Nuthead took the press to Maryland and for nearly half a century Virginia was without a printer.

The quartering of troops upon the people has been a serious grievance wherever it has been practiced.  People object to having rough soldiers thrust into their homes, to disrupt their daily life, or perhaps to create disorders.  When the British troops sent over to suppress Bacon’s Rebellion were quartered on the people, there were bitter complaints.  “Instead of being a guard and safety” to us as was intended, “they have by their long stay and ill behavior not only been totally useless, but dangerous,” and the greatest of our terrors. To make matters worse, complaints came in to the Assembly from Isle of Wight, York, James City, and Nansemond Counties that payments for quarters were in arrears by six months or more.  So it was with thanksgiving that the people received the announcement that the money to pay for the quarters had arrived from England together with orders to disband the troops.

Effingham was even more brazen than Berkeley in using the patronage openly to force obedience to the King.  Berkeley ruled chiefly by rewarding those who did as he told them; Effingham by punishing all who opposed him.  To acquiesce in everything he proposed was the only way for one to retain one’s job.  William Sherwood and Colonel Thomas Milner, for forwarding an address of the Burgesses to the Privy Council, were dismissed from office.  Mr. Arthur Allen was “turned out of all employment, civil and military” to his great loss, “he being a surveyor of land at that time." Effingham himself explains why.  He was “a great promoter of those differences between me and the Assembly concerning the King’s negative voice ... as not thinking it fit that those who are peevishly opposite to his Majesty’s interest should have any advantage by his favor."

Another prominent member of the House of Burgesses, Mr. Charles Scarburgh, was “turned out of all employment, and as a mark of his Lordship’s displeasure, a command was sent to the clerk of the county to raze his name out of the records as a justice of peace." Mr. William Anderson, Scarburgh’s colleague from Accomac County, must have been even more active in opposing the Governor, for when the session of 1688 was over he had him “put in the common jail,” where he was “detained seven months without trial, though often prayed for....  Nor could he obtain the benefit of habeas corpus."

“From whence the people conclude these severities are inflicted rather as a terror to others than for any personal crimes of their own,” it was said, “and is of such ruinous consequence that either the public or particular interests must fall, for if none oppose, the country must languish under the severity of the government, or fly into mutiny to save themselves from starving.  If any do appear more zealous in prosecuting the country’s complaints they know what to expect.  It being observable that none has been thus punished but those who were forward in the Assembly to oppose the encroachments on the people, and promote the complaint to England, being out of hope of relief on the place."

In Virginia, as in England, there was much dissatisfaction at the accession of the Roman Catholic James II.  Many would have preferred Charles’ illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth.  When news came that he had raised the standard of revolt, had landed in Dorset, had gathered an army of rustics, and was marching on London, some did not hesitate to express their sympathy.  Effingham wrote that “so many took liberty of speech upon the rebellion ... that I was fearful it would have produced the same here." But when he issued a proclamation forbidding “false, seditious, and factious discourse and rumors,” and made “some examples,” quiet was restored.  The defeat of the rebels at Sedgemoor, the bloody revenge taken by James, and the execution of Monmouth ended all hope for the time being.

But Effingham’s proclamation could not prevent news of what was happening in England from reaching the people.  In Ireland James was recruiting a Catholic army under a Catholic general.  At home he was replacing civil and military officers by Catholics.  To remove all restrictions on Catholics he issued declarations of indulgence, giving freedom of worship to dissenters and Catholics.  He converted two Oxford colleges into Catholic seminaries, and ousted the Fellows of Magdalen to make room for Catholic successors.

These events were soon reflected in Virginia.  It was noted that when important offices in the government became vacant, Effingham filled them with Catholics.  Both of his appointees to the Council were members of the Roman Catholic Church Colonel Isaac Allerton and Colonel John Armistead.  That several justices of the peace refused to take the oath of allegiance “through scruple of conscience” in 1691, after James had been deposed, shows that the Governor tried also to pack the county courts with Catholics.

The people watched these developments with resentment, mixed with fear.  The shudder of horror which had gone through England a few years before, when Titus Oates accused the Jesuits of a “hellish plot” to fire London, conquer the country with Irish and French armies, and massacre the Protestants, was still fresh in men’s minds.  Perhaps his story is not false after all, it was whispered.  Perhaps the plan may still be carried out.  Think of what has just happened in France, where thousands of men and women, for refusing to give up their faith were driven into exile or thrown into loathsome prisons with criminals, starved, and beaten.  Are we sure that it will not be our turn next?

The Assembly which met in April, 1688, reflected the ugly mood of the people.  They were determined to redress the grievances which poured in from one county after another.  The Governor’s appeal for aid for New York and for a bill to prohibit the exportation of loose tobacco received scant consideration.  “Debates of grievances jostled out most other matters,” reported Nicholas Spencer. When the Council requested a conference on the tobacco bill, the House countered with a proposal for a conference on the people’s wrongs.  But their message was couched in such bitter terms that the Council thought “no success could be expected from a conference agitated with heat and resolvedness."

Nor would the Council join the Burgesses in an address to Effingham for redress of “the many grievous oppressions this poor country at present groans under.”  Thereupon the House drew up a petition to the King which they entrusted to Philip Ludwell to deliver.  Before James could reply, he was forced to flee from England, and it was only in February, 1689, that the petition came before the Council of State.

Such was the situation when Effingham left Virginia “for recovery of his health by change of air.”  He may have realized also that the air of Virginia was becoming unhealthful for him in more sense than one, for had he not left it is possible that the people might have risen in arms and sent him home.  Several years later, when Francis Nicholson asked the Council whether “if his Excellency my Lord Effingham had stayed” the country would not have been in trouble? they replied in the affirmative.  “The country were in great dissatisfaction ...and there was great cause to doubt that some disturbance would have been."

But it was only in the spring of 1689, some months after his departure, that an uprising actually occurred.  Then it was touched off by a weird story told by a stray Indian to some of the settlers on the northern frontier of a plot by Jesuits and Indians to attack Virginia and Maryland.  No less than 10,000 Sénecas and 9,000 Nanticocks were under arms, he said, ready to cut off all the Protestants.  As the report spread from plantation to plantation, the outlying families fled in terror, while men gathered volunteers by beat of drum.  We must defend ourselves in arms, they said, since no reliance can be placed on the Council or even on the county magistrates, for most of them are Catholics.

The Council thought the story of the Catholic plot “only a gloss to their rebellious purposes.”  In October, 1688, James had sent word to Effingham that William of Orange was preparing to invade England, and had ordered him to place the colony in a posture of defence. It was to seize this opportunity to rise against the government, rather than the imaginary Indian plot, that had made them take up arms, the Council thought.  Preferring not to take sides in a matter which could be settled only in England, they arrested some of the ringleaders. But when, apparently on the same day, a letter came to hand from the Privy Council, announcing that William and Mary had been proclaimed joint monarchs of England, order was instantly restored.  On April 26, 1688, their Majesties were proclaimed before the courthouse door at Jamestown.

There were two things which the colonial Virginians dreaded despotism and the tomahawk.  And it is significant that both were factors in the two uprisings of the seventeenth century.  In Bacon’s Rebellion the people demanded, not only protection from the savages, but an end to Berkeley’s misgovernment.  If the Council was right in their interpretation of the disorders of 1688, they, like the ousting of Andros in New England, were a part of the Glorious Revolution.  The Council afterwards took great credit for suppressing the disorders, but one can only surmise whether the people would have remained quiet had not James been overthrown.  We must not permit the Indian terror to blind us to the fact that the rebellions of 1676 and 1688 were both in defense of liberty.