eys of the area were allowed at
once, however, and land patents were authorized to be taken out. The act
making it a felony to go to the north side of York River was repealed.
The settlers' and speculators' victory was complete. Reasons of "policy"
and "state" proved only of sufficient power to delay the inevitable.

EXECUTION OF CHARLES I AND CAPTURE OF COLONY BY PARLIAMENTARY FORCES,
1649-1652

On January 30, 1649, King Charles I was beheaded by the Parliamentary
forces. It was a logical climax to the turmoil into which English
institutions and values had been cast by the long years of civil war
that preceded the deed. The execution of the King shocked Englishmen as
well as foreigners. The reaction of the Virginians came in the form of
Act I of the Assembly of October 1649 which hailed "the late most
excellent and now undoubtedly sainted king," denounced the perpetrators
of the deed, and declared that if any person in the colony should defend
"the late traiterous proceedings ... under any notion of law and
justice" by words or speeches, such person should be adjudged an
accessory _post factum_ to the death of the King. Anyone who expressed
doubt, by words and speeches, as to the inherent right of Charles II to
succeed his father as King of England and Virginia, was likewise to be
adjudged guilty of high treason.

The death of Charles I left the Parliamentary forces supreme in England.
Some royalists retired to the continent of Europe, and some came to
Virginia. England became a Commonwealth without a King; Oliver Cromwell
was later named Protector. The new government, after consolidating its
power in England, attempted to extend its control over the colonies,
some of which, like Virginia, continued to demonstrate their loyalty to
royal authority. On October 3, 1650, Parliament, as a punitive measure,
prohibited the trade of the colonies with foreign nations except as the
Parliamentary government should allow. "This succession to the exercise
of the kingly authority," wrote Jefferson later, "gave the first colour
for parliamentary interference with the colonies, and produced that
fatal precedent which they continued to follow after they had retired,
in other respects, within their proper functions."

The reaction of the Virginia Burgesses to this act was as violent as
their reaction to the beheading of Charles I. Their temper on both
occasions owed much to the eloquence of their Governor, and to the
admiration in