follow. Sir William Berkley, as has been before
mentioned, was not elected by a tumultuary assemblage of the people, but
by the assembly; the royal standard was not raised upon the occasion,
nor was the king proclaimed. The bulk of the Virginia planters
undoubtedly retained their habitual attachment to monarchy and to the
Established Church; and some royalist refugees had been driven hither
by the civil war. Yet, as the colonists had formerly been greatly
dissatisfied with some acts of the government during the reign of
Charles the First, they certainly had much reason to approve of the
wise, and liberal, and magnanimous policy of Cromwell. Besides this, a
good many republicans and Puritans had found their way to Virginia. The
predominant feeling, however, in Virginia as in England, was in favor of
the restoration of Charles the Second. Sir William Berkley, in his
speech addressed to the assembly on their proffer of the place of
governor, said: "I do, therefore, in the presence of God and you, make
this safe protestation for us all, that if any supreme settled power
appears, I will immediately 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 shewed I have done." In his address to the
house of burgesses, he alludes to the late king, as "my most gracious
master, King Charles, of ever blessed memory," and as "my ever honored
master, who was put to a violent death." The Berkleys were staunch
adherents of Charles the First, and extreme royalists. Referring in his
address to the surrender of the colony, Sir William said, that the
parliament "sent a small power to force my submission, which, finding me
defenceless, was quietly (God pardon me) effected." Of the several
parliaments and the protectorate he remarked: "And I believe, Mr.
Speaker, (Theodorick Bland,) you think, if my voice had been prevalent
in most of their elections, I would not voluntarily have made choice of
them for my supremes. But, Mr. Speaker, all this I have said, is only to
make this truth apparent to you, that in and under all these mutable
governments of divers natures and constitutions, I have lived most
resignedly submissive. But, Mr. Speaker, it is one duty to live obedient
to a government, and another of a very different nature, to command
under it." It thus appears that Sir William accepted the place hoping
for the restoration of Charles the Second; but with an e