This without a smile Baltimore
promised. Articles were signed; a new Assembly composed of all manner of
Christians was called; and Maryland returned for a time to her first
allegiance.
Quiet years, on the whole, follow in Virginia under the Commonwealth. The
three Governors of this period -- Bennett, Digges, and Mathews are all chosen
by the Assembly, which, but for the Navigation Laws,* might almost forget
the Home Government. Then Oliver Cromwell dies; and, after an interval,
back to England come the Stuarts. Charles II is proclaimed King. And back
into office in Virginia is brought that staunch old monarchist, Sir
William Berkeley -- first by a royalist Assembly and presently by commission
from the new King.
* See Editor's Note on the Navigation Laws at the end of this volume.
Then Virginia had her Long Parliament or Assembly. In 1661, in the first
gush of the Restoration, there was elected a House of Burgesses so
congenial to Berkeley's mind that he wished to see it perpetuated. For
fifteen years therefore he held it in being, with adjournments from one
year into another and with sharp refusals to listen to any demand for new
elections. Yet this demand grew, and still the Governor shut the door in
the face of the people and looked imperiously forth from the window. His
temper, always fiery, now burned vindictive; his zeal for King and Church
and the high prerogatives of the Governor of Virginia became a consuming
passion.
When Berkeley first came to Virginia, and again for a moment in the flare
of the Restoration, his popularity had been real, but for long now it had
dwindled.
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