USA > Virginia > Virginia, a history of the people > Part 16
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1 It would be lost time to notice all the misstatements on this and other passages of Virginia history. Cromwell appointed none of the Governors. He is loosely said to have "named " them, but even that rests on vague authority. He was much too busy at home to find time for these small American matters.
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sellor in Virginia." It was this former Puritan perse- cutor who was now the Commonwealth Governor.
Only once did the " old planter" and the Burgesses come into collision, and that was probably owing to the fact that William Clayborne, the restless rebel, was his Secretary of State. The incident is amusing. The practice had been to admit the Governor and Council to seats in the Burgesses ; but in 1658 the House rescinded that law and excluded them. Thereupon the worthy Matthews, after the royal fashion, dissolved them. The issue was portentous. Were the old kingly days to come back ? The Virginians promptly rebelled. They forbade their members to leave Jamestown ; declared the House still "whole and entire ; " prescribed an oatlı of secrecy as to their proceedings ; and remained in session. The issue was forced, and honest Samuel Matthews gives way so far as to say he will refer all to Cromwell. But this does not suit the Virginians. " The answer returned is unsatisfactory," they reply. They are "the representatives of the people, not dis- solvable by any power yet extant in Virginia but our own." They alone have the power to appoint or re- move Governors ; and the sheriff of James City is pe- remptorily ordered not to "execute any warrant, pre- cept or command directed to you from any other power or person than the Speaker of this Honourable House : hereof fail not as you will answer the contrary at your peril." To end, Colonel William Clayborne, "late" Secretary of State, shall surrender the public records ; and " Coll. Clayborne being sent for by the Sergeant at Arms," has to deliver thiem, and takes his receipt and discharge.
The revolution begins and ends in precisely three days.
VIRGINIA UNDER THE COMMONWEALTH. 207
On the first day of April (1658) the Burgesses are dis- solved, but refuse to disperse. On the second they de- pose the Governor, but invent a device which will please everybody. Here is the whole ingenious proceeding in the words of the actors : -
I. "We, the said Burgesses, do declare that we have in ourselves the full power of the election and appoint- ment of all officers in this country until such time as we shall have order to the contrary from the supreme power in England.
II. "That all former election of Governor and Coun- cil be void and null.
III. "That the power of Governor for the future shall be conferred on Coll. Samuel Matthews, Esq., who by us shall be invested with all the just rights and privileges belonging to the Governor and Captain Gen- eral of Virginia."
All this is done on the day after the dissolution. There is to be no misunderstanding. They, the Bur- gesses, elected Governor Matthews; they depose Gov- ernor Matthews; they reelect Governor Matthews, who "by us" shall be reinvested with.the powers of Gover- nor of Virginia. And on the third of April the "old planter and true lover of Virginia" cheerfully assented and took the oath.
The cordial relations between the old-new ruler and his parliament were not again interrupted. The blood- less three days of revolution had placed things on an intelligible basis. Governor Matthews continued to rule Virginia until the Restoration was in sight, when, as though not wishing to behold that spectacle, the old planter and deserving Commonwealth's man expired.
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IX.
THE BATTLE OF THE SEVERN.
VIRGINIA remained tranquil during the entire period of the Commonwealth with the exception of one year, which was marked by a bloody disaster. This and a still bloodier incident with which she was connected will now be related.
In the midst of profound quiet intelligence reached Jamestown (1656) that new trouble with the Indians was probably near. About seven hundred Ricahecri- ans, a tribe living beyond the Blue Ridge, had come down from the mountains, and established themselves near James River Falls, in the neighborhood of the present city of Richmond. That meant danger to the border families, possibly to the lower settlements ; and the Burgesses promptly sent a force to drive them away. The officer in command was Colonel Edward Hill, former Speaker, and called a "devil" by Mr. William Hatcher. The result of the campaign was melancholy. Colonel Hill marched on the Indians at the head of the Virginians and a hundred braves of the friendly Pamunkey tribe, commanded by their chief Totopotomoi. A battle took place near Richmond, and either by surprise or from incapacity, Hill was routed by the Ricahecrians. Totopotomoi was killed, and the whole force retreated in disorder, after which we hear no more of the Ricahccrians, who probably went back to their mountains.
The other incident which disturbed the harmony of the Commonwealth regime was more important. A bat-
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THE BATTLE OF THE SEVERN.
tle was fought, followed by bloody executions, which decided for the time, at least, the fate of Maryland. The chief actor in this fierce business was that same William Clayborne, " the rebel," who had so harried Leonard Calvert. Calvert had now disappeared, but Governor Stone, representing Lord Baltimore, occu- pied his seat and was a King's man. So Clayborne and his brother commissioners, after receiving the surren- der of Virginia, sailed for Maryland (April, 1652) un- der the broad authority from Parliament to reduce "all the plantations within the Bay of the Chesapeake."
What followed in Maryland is a vivid picture of the times, and belongs to a history of the Virginians, since Virginia and the Virginia governors were concerned in it. The state of things was curious. The " beauty and extraordinary goodness " of this good land of Mary- land had attracted covetous eyes. She was the younger sister of Virginia, the Rachel of .the contemporary pamphlet, " Leah and Rachel," signifying Virginia and Maryland. "Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful and well favored," says the book of Genesis, "and Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee than that I should give her to another man." Who the suc- cessful wooer should be, for the hand of Rachel, was now to be decided. Church of England Virginia claimed this fair domain under her original charter. Lord Bal- timore, the Roman Catholic, claimed it by the King's patent. The Puritans who had gone thither claimed it by right of occupancy. And Clayborne, the rebel, claim- ing Kent Island as a free gift from Charles I., meant to assert his right to that, and in these days of trouble gain control of the whole country. There never liad been the least doubt in the mind of anybody who knew this
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stalwart rebel and politician what his real motives were. He wanted Maryland, caring little, it seems, for the success of this or that religious sect; and his brother Commissioners were of the same mind. "It was not religiou," says a contemporary writer, "it was not punctilios these Commissioners stood upon : it was that sweete, that rich, that large country they aimed at."
The poor Catholics were thus caught between the upper and the nether millstone. They had the Parlia- ment, the Puritans, and the Church of England men all against them ; and it would be ludicrous if it were not melancholy to see how partisan writers have distorted the facts. Certain historians can see no merit what- ever in the unlucky Roman Catholics. They are black sheep who ought of right to be fleeced by the saintly. They are always in the wrong. The duty of the Lord's anointed is to denounce their mummeries and exter- minate them. Clayborne, the Puritan leader, is always in the right when he tramples on them and puts them to the sword. They are to be allowed freedom of con- science - except as to popery. And yet they complain ! - they, the followers of the most intolerant of all churches.
The truth is that the Roman Catholics of Maryland were the only tolerant people of that frightfully intol- erant age. The Governor, it has been seen, was forced to swear that he "would not molest any person believ- ing in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion." But their toleration was accounted to them for a crime. The Puritan party were their sworn foes, and candid Mr. Bancroft says, "had neither the gratitude to re- spect the rights of the government by which they had been received and fostered, nor magnanimity to continue
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che toleration to which alone they were indebted for their residence in the colony; " for the furthest reach of their toleration when they came into power was to "confirm the freedom of conscience, provided the liberty were not extended to 'popery, prelacy, or licentiousness' of opinion !" One reads this grim piece of humor with a queer sensation. There should be perfect freedom of religion - except for Catholics, Church of England peo- ple, and others who differed with themselves in theology !
Spite of all the fatal bias of the old historians, the truth seems to be perfectly plain. The Catholics were in their right, and Clayborne and the rest were not. Neither the famous rebel, nor the Protestants of any description had any rights in Maryland save what were granted them by the Catholics. What they acquired beyond this, they acquired by force. Clayborne's claim to Kent Island had been formally repudiated by the Commissioners of Plantations, and thenceforth he was an agitator only ; nor were his Puritan or Church of England followers any better. But the times were in disorder ; the Puritan element had grown powerful ; and the hardy rebel grasped it and struck at his enemies with it.
What followed in these years, from 1652 to the end of the Commonwealth, was civil war. The restless foe of Baltimore had been checkmated often, but a new game had begun. Baltimore's friend, the King, was dead ; the Parliament was in power; and Clayborne, the emissary of this Parliament, will go and take his own again. The blow was struck at once. As soon as Berkeley was driven from Jamestown, Clayborne sailed, as we have seen, in his frigate for St. Mary's ; put the strong hand on Stone, Baltimore's Deputy Governor,
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and only permitted him to remain in nominal authority, on his promise to issue writs in the name of the "Keepers of the Liberty of England," and to obey the officers appointed by him, Clayborne (June, 1652).
But suddenly the scene changed. These Keepers of the Liberty of England, the English Parliament, were hustled out by Cromwell, and Stone rose in rebellion, declaring that the authority under which Clayborne had acted no longer existed. Thereupon the determined rebel, who had returned to Virginia, hurried back ; compelled Stone to submit ; and ended the whole busi- ness by appointing his own men to govern Maryland.
His own men were naturally Puritans, and the Puri- tan element is now fully in power. The revel at once begins, for parties two hundred years ago were no better nor worse than parties to-day. The Puritans choose an Assembly, which meets at Patuxent and disfranchises the Catholics - that is to say, everybody is to be tolerated ; but he must not be a Catholic or a Church of England man. So Maryland is at last in the hands of the Claybornites.
But Cromwell will have his say in that. The grim ruler of England interposes his fiat (January, 1654). Governor Bennett of Virginia, and those acting under his authority, are "to forbear disturbing the Lord Bal- timore or his officers or people in Maryland." Also Clayborne and the other Commissioners are " not to busy themselves about religion, but to settle the civil govern- ment; " which civil government seems to be tolerably well settled by disfranchising the Catholics. Thus, his Highness the Lord Protector does not mean to dis- own Lord Baltimore, who has recognized his authority. It is only afterwards (September, 1655) that he writes :
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* It was not at all intended by us that we should have · a stop put to the proceedings of those Commissioners," - which proceedings of those Commissioners had over- turned Lord Baltimore !
Such was the curious entanglement and vast confusion in the affairs of poor " Rachel " Maryland. But the Protector's half-disallowance of the Puritan revel is enough for Baltimore. Before this last decree is ful- minated, he writes to Governor Stone, upbraiding him for yielding ; orders him to resist in arms; and civil war begins (1654), this time to be more or less de- cisive.
Nearly all the old records of these events are by Puri- tan writers, and many historians following them have adopted their point of view, and their partisan coloring. To do so is not to write history. What seems plain is this : that in the fierce struggle which now took place between the Catholic proprietors and the Puritan and other intruders, the right, from first to last, was with the Catholics. Both parties had wrangled for a long time ; from the moment, indeed, when Clayborne's pinnace had gone out into the Potomac to fight, more than twenty years before. Now the last collision came- a good, bloody battle, which was to decide to whom Maryland belonged.
The battle was fought at the mouth of the Severn, in the vicinity of the present city of Annapolis (March 25, 1654). The Puritan settlements were chiefly on the Severn, the Patuxent, and the Isle of Kent. Anne Arundel, which they had new-named Providence, - now Annapolis, - was their headquarters. The Roman Cath- olic capital was St. Mary's, on the south coast, near the mouth of the Potomac.
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In these last days of March, when the spring was near, Stone, sailing up from St. Mary's, attacked the followers of Clayborne, and was routed utterly, with a loss of twenty killed and a considerable number wounded. This is nearly all that we know about the battle. Stone himself was " shot in many places," and the remains of his force scattered, or were captured. The old Puri tan chronicler describing the scene, exclaims joyfully, " All the place was strewed with Papist beads, where they fled." Maryland now belonged to the Puritans, and as the age was matter-of-fact, and opposition to the strongest was necessarily treason, the Catholic leaders were sentenced to death, and four of them were then and there executed .. Stone's life was only saved by the intercession of some personal friends. As to the " Jes- uit fathers," we are told that they were "hotly pur- sued and escaped to Virginia where they inhabited a mean low hut," - which seems to have been a pleasant reflection.
This was the end of the Maryland business. Clay- borne the rebel, the real head and front of everything, had at last succeeded in his twenty years' struggle. But the battle of the Severn was indecisive in the long run. The whirligig of time was to bring round its revenges. The unlucky Catholics were under the ban for years ; and Cromwell would do nothing for them, - in fact, he had promptly declared, after the Severn defeat, that the proceedings of " those Commissioners " were not to stop. But still, there was his friend Baltimore, and he would not " settle the country, by declaring his determinate will," as he was besought to do.
But the day of trouble came for him, too, at last. The year 1658 arrived, and the Great Protector was about
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to drop the sceptre. The Commonwealth of England was not the Commonwealth of the first ardent years. Englishmen were growing weary of it, and coming events cast long shadows. The Restoration was at hand, and Cromwell's life near its end. The Puritans of Maryland could look for no more support from him, and then tolerance became the fashion again. It was a real tolerance now, and the Catholics once more raised their heads. In March, 1658, the Catholics of St. Mary's and the Puritans of St. Leonard's consulted, and the province was surrendered to Lord Baltimore. In the autumn of the same year the great Lord Protector passed away ; in 1660 Charles II. resumed authority, and the province returned to its old allegiance; and the long civil convulsion was followed by profound repose.
Of this curious civil war, William Clayborne, the Virginian, was as much the controlling spirit as Crom- well was the controlling spirit of the revolution in Eng- land. His character must appear from the narrative. He was a man of strong will ; a politician of the first ability ; haughty, implacable, " faithful to his friends, and faithful to his enemies," as was said of another person ; and whether a conscientious Puritan or not, had the acumen to see the political importance of that element at the time, and the skill to use it as a weap- on. By the aid of it he aimed to achieve his ends - the redress of his personal grievances, the overthrow of his adversaries, and the control of the province of Mary- land. All these objects he attained. The ground crumbled under his feet at last, and the King's-men at the Restoration promptly turned him out of his place in the Virginia Council even ; power had already escaped from his grasp in Maryland. . But he fought his ene-
216 VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
mies to the last, this "execrable incendiary and felon- convict " of the historical imagination. Among the tall figures of the epoch in which he lived, he is one of the tallest and the haughtiest.
THE KING'S-MEN UP AGAIN.
SUDDENLY, with the coming of the spring of 1660, all things changed in Virginia. The King was returning to his own again. The Cavaliers, who had been sulking for years under the mild rule of the Commonwealth, threw up their hats and cheered, and indulged in out- bursts of joyous enthusiasm, from Flower de Hundred to the Capes on the ocean.
It was rather grotesque. One might have supposed that for all these eight years past they had labored un- der dire oppression ; that they had dodged here and there to escape persecution ; and that they saw in the smiling young man of thirty, with his silk coat 1 and curling periwig, who was returning to London in the midst of shouting crowds, their deliverer from all this despotism. The smiling young man cared very little about them. He was thinking a great deal more about taking his ease with his mistresses, than of regulating the affairs of his good subjects of Virginia. When he did give them his attention it was to cripple their com- merce, and grant the richest lands in the colony to his favorites.
This was yet in the future. The sentiment of the Virginians in favor of royalty was strong and confiding.
1 The tradition was that Charles II. wore at his coronation a coat or robe of Virginia silk.
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THE KING'S-MEN UP AGAIN.
Then they had achieved their main point. The repre- sentatives, in the colony, of the psalm-singing fanatics of England with their nasal cant and hateful dissent would go now. Silk, and lace, and curling hair would be once more the fashion ; the close-cropped wretches in black coats and round hats would fade into the background ; and the good old Cavaliers, like the King, would have their own again.
There is no doubt that in Virginia the feeling of joy at tlie Restoration was enormous. The King's-men suddenly became prominent again. The plantations resounded with revelry. Men, women, and children hailed the new era with immense joy ; and Berkeley waiting at Greenspring, as Charles II. had waited at the Hague, returned in triumph, by a vote of the Bur- gesses, to his place of Governor.
The events of this time have much exercised the his- torians. Some maintain that the Virginians were good Commonwealth's-men, who submitted to the new regime with reluctant growls. Others will have it that they were all King's-men and " proclaimed " the royal dar- ling of their hearts two years before the English Res- toration. Neither statement has any foundation. The great body of the Virginia population was unquestiona- bly Cavalier, and the restoration of the royal authority in England was accompanied by its restoration in Vir- ginia ; but the latter did not precede the former. There is no doubt whatever that if the Virginians could have restored the King earlier they would have done so ; and Berkeley, who is known to have been in close commu- nication and consultation with the leading Cavaliers, had sent word to Charles II. in Holland, toward the end of the Commonwealth, that he would raise his flag in Vir-
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ginia if there was a prospect of success. This incident has been called in question. It is testified to by William Lee, Sheriff of London, and a cousin of Richard Lee, Berkeley's emissary, as a fact within his knowledge. Charles declined the offer, but was always grateful to the Virginians. The country is said to have derived from the incident its name of the " Old Dominion," where the King was King, or might have been, before he was King in England; and the motto of the old Virginia shield, " En dat Virginia quartam," in allusion to England, Scotland, Ireland, and Virginia, is supposed to have also originated at this time.
As to the "proclamation," in any sense, of the King about 1658, that is not established and is improbable. Berkeley did not even "proclaim " him when he returned to power in March, 1660. The facts are clearly shown by the records and may be briefly stated.
Cromwell died in September, 1658, and Richard Crom- well, his successor, resigned the government in April of the next year. There was thus an interregnum during which no settled authority of any description existed in England ; and Governor Matthews having died in the same year (1659), there was none in Virginia. During this period of suspense and quasi chaos, the General Assembly was the only depositary of authority. This was recognized and prompt action taken. There was nothing to do but elect a Governor, and the only question was, a Commonwealth's Governor or a royal Governor ? There was no Commonwealth, or it had no head ; the Cavalier sentiment in Virginia was overpowering ; and the Virginians did what might have been expected : they elected Berkeley, who, in 1650, had received a new commission as Governor from Charles II., then at Breda.
THE KING'S-MEN UP AGAIN. 219
It is only necessary to glance at the old records to see the whole process of the business. In March, 1660, the planters assemble at Jamestown, and their first Act de- fines the whole situation : " Whereas by reason of the late distractions (which God in his mercy putt a sud- daine period to), there being in England noe resident absolute and gen'll confessed power, - be it enacted and confirmed : That the supreame power of the Govern- ment of this country shall be resident in the Assembly, and that all writts issue in the name of the Grand Assembly of Virginia until such a command or commission come out of England, as shall be by the Assembly adjudged lawfull." And the second act declares, " that the hon- ourable Sir William Berkeley bee Governour and Cap- tain Gen'll of Virginia." He is to govern according to English and Virginia law ; to call an Assembly once in two years, or oftener if he sees cause ; is not to dissolve the Assembly without the consent of a majority of the members ; and all writs are to issue "in the name of the Grand Assembly of Virginia," - not in the King's.
Thus Berkeley resumed office, as what he called him- self, "the servant of the Assembly." In the absence of orders from some " resident absolute and general con- fessed power " in England, the Assembly was the only source of authority. Berkeley therefore accepted his authority from it, not from the King ; and said in his address before the House : "I do therefore in the pres- ence of God and you, make this safe protestation for us all, that if any supreme settled power appears I will im- mediately lay down my commission ; but will live most submissively obedient to any power God shall set over me, as the experience of eight years has showed I have done."
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All this would seem to be quite plain - that Berke- ley was invested with power as " Governor and Cap- tain General of Virginia " by the Burgesses of Virginia, and held his office from them. It is true that it was nearly the same as holding it from the King. The Assembly was full Cavalier, and a single word in their assertion of authority revealed their thought. They assumed the government of Virginia in the absence of any "resident" confessed power in England. The non-resident confessed power was Charles II., then on the Continent, and they thus acknowledged him. When he came to his throne again in May following this March, he sent Berkeley a new commission; and in October of the same year (1660), the ruler of Vir- ginia is again " the Right Honourable Sir William Berkeley, his Majesties Governor."
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