The Displeasure of King James
In November, 1620, there sailed into a quiet harbor on the coast of what is now Massachusetts a ship named the Mayflower, having on board one hundred and two English Non-conformists, men and women and with them a few children. These latest colonists held a patent from the Virginia Company and have left in writing a statement of their object: "We . . . having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia--". The mental reservation is, of course, "where perchance we may serve God as we will!" In England there obtained in some quarters a suspicion that "they meant to make a free, popular State there." Free -- Popular -- Public Good! These are words that began, in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, to shine and ring. King and people had reached the verge of a great struggle. The Virginia Company was divided, as were other groups, into factions. The court party and the country party found themselves distinctly opposed. The great, crowded meetings of the Company Sessions rang with their divisions upon policies small and large. Words and phrases, comprehensive, sonorous, heavy with the future, rose and rolled beneath the roof of their great hall. There were heard amid warm discussion: Kingdom and Colony -- Spain -- Netherlands -- France -- Church and State -- Papists and Schismatics -- Duties, Tithes, Excise Petitions of Grievances -- Representation -- Right of Assembly. Several years earlier the King had cried, "Choose the Devil, but not Sir Edwyn Sandys!" Now he declared the Company "just a seminary to a seditious parliament!" All London resounded with the clash of parties and opinions. "Last week the Earl of Warwick and the Lord Cavendish fell so foul at a Virginia . . . court that the lie passed and repassed . . . . The factions . . . are grown so violent that Guelfs and Ghibellines were not more animated one against another!"
| In his work on "Joint-stock Companion", vol.II, pp. 266 ff., W. R. Scott traces the history of these acute dissensions in the Virginia Company and draws conclusions distinctly unfavorable to the management of Sandys and his party. |
Believing that the Company's sessions foreshadowed a "seditious
parliament," James Stuart set himself with obstinacy and some
cunning to the Company's undoing. The court party gave the King aid,
and circumstances favored the attempt. Captain Nathaniel Butler, who
had once been Governor of the Somers Islands and had now returned to
England by way of Virginia, published in London "The Unmasked Face
of Our Colony in Virginia", containing a savage attack upon every
item of Virginian administration.
The King's Privy Council summoned the Company, or rather the
"country" party, to answer these and other allegations. Southampton,
Sandys, and Ferrar answered with strength and cogency. But the tide
was running against them. James appointed commissioners to search
out what was wrong with Virginia. Certain men were shipped to
Virginia to get evidence there, as well as support from the Virginia
Assembly. In this attempt they signally failed. Then to England came
a Virginia member of the Virginia Council, with long letters to King
and Privy Council: the Sandys-Southampton administration had done
more than well for Virginia. The letters were letters of appeal. The
colony hoped that "the Governors sent over might not have absolute
authority, but might be restrained to the consent of the Council . .
. . But above all they made it their most humble request that they
might still retain the liberty of their General Assemblies; than
which nothing could more conduce to the publick Satisfaction and
publick Liberty."
In London another paper, drawn by Cavendish, was given to King and
Privy Council. It answered many accusations, and among others the
statement that "the Government of the companies as it then stood was
democratic and tumultuous, and ought therefore to be altered, and
reduced into the Hands of a few." It is of interest to hear these
men speak, in the year 1623, in an England that was close to
absolute monarchy, to a King who with all his house stood out for
personal rule. "However, they owned that, according to his Majesty's
Institution, their Government had some Show of a democratic Form;
which was nevertheless, in that Case, the most just and profitable,
and most conducive to the Ends and Effects aimed at thereby . . . .
Lastly, they observed that the opposite Faction cried out loudly
against Democracy, and yet called for Oligarchy; which would, as
they conceived, make the Government neither of better Form, nor more
monarchical."
But the dissolution of the Virginia Company was at hand. In October,
1623, the Privy Council stated that the King had "taken into his
princely Consideration the distressed State of the Colony of
Virginia, occasioned, as it seemed, by the ill Government of the
Company." The remedy for the ill-management lay in the reduction of
the Government into fewer hands. His Majesty had resolved therefore
upon the withdrawal of the Company's charter and the substitution,
"with due regard for continuing and preserving the Interest of all
Adventurers and private persons whatsoever," of a new order of
things. The new order proved, on examination, to be the old order of
rule by the Crown. Would the Company surrender the old charter and
accept a new one so modeled?
The Company, through the country party, strove to gain time. They
met with a succession of arbitrary measures and were finally forced
to a decision. They would not surrender their charter. Then a writ
of quo warranto was issued; trial before the King's Bench followed;
and judgment was rendered against the Company in the spring term of
1624. Thus with clangor fell the famous Virginia Company.
That was one year. The March of the next year James Stuart, King of
England, died. That young Henry who was Prince of Wales when the
Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery sailed past a cape
and named it for him Cape Henry, also had died. His younger brother
Charles, for whom was named that other and opposite cape, now
ascended the throne as King Charles the First of England.
In Virginia no more General Assemblies are held for four years. King
Charles embarks upon "personal rule." Sir Francis Wyatt, a good
Governor, is retained by commission and a Council is appointed by
the King. No longer are affairs to be conducted after a fashion
"democratic and tumultuous." Orders are transmitted from England;
the Governor, assisted by the Council, will take into cognizance
purely local needs; and when he sees some occasion he will issue a
proclamation.
Wyatt, recalled finally to England; George Yeardley again, who died
in a year's time; Francis West, that brother of Lord De La Warr and
an ancient planter -- these in quick succession sit in the
Governor's chair. Following them John Pott, doctor of medicine, has
his short term. Then the King sends out Sir John Harvey, avaricious
and arbitrary, "so haughty and furious to the Council and the best
gentlemen of the country," says Beverley, "that his tyranny grew at
last insupportable."
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