tuart blunder for which the
Duke of York (afterwards James II), Lord Jeffreys (not yet Lord
Chancellor), and other ministers were responsible. Kirke, Jeffreys, and
the Duke of York may well have seemed to Cotton Mather "Wild Beasts of
the Field," dangerous to be entrusted with the shaping of the affairs of
a Puritan commonwealth.

The death of Charles II in February, 1685, postponed action in England,
and in Massachusetts the government went on as usual, the elections
taking place and deputies meeting, though with manifest
half-heartedness. Randolph was able to prevent the sending of Kirke,
and finally succeeded in persuading the authorities that it would be a
good plan to set up a temporary government, while they were making up
their minds whom to appoint as a permanent governor-general of the new
dominion. He obtained a commission as President for Joseph Dudley, son
of the former Governor, an ambitious man, with little sympathy for the
old faction and friendly to the idea of broadening the life of the
colony by fostering closer relations with England. Randolph himself
received an appointment as register and secretary of the colony, and for
once in his life seemed riding to fortune on the high tide of
prosperity. In 1685, he obtained nearly L500 for his services and for
his losses up to that date; and when the following January he started on
his fifth voyage to New England, he bore with him not only the judgment
against the charter, the commission to Dudley as President, and two
writs of _quo warranto_ against Connecticut and Rhode Island, but also a
sheaf of offices for himself--secretary, postmaster, collector of
customs. He was later to become deputy-auditor and surveyor of the
woods. With him went also the Reverend Robert Ratcliffe, rector of the
first Anglican church set up in Boston. Just a week after the arrival
of Randolph and Ratcliffe in Boston, the old assembly met for the last
time, and on May 21, 1686, voted its adjournment with the pious hope,
destined to be unfulfilled, that it would meet again the following
October. The Massachusetts leaders seem almost to have believed in a
miraculous intervention of Providence to thwart the purposes of their
enemy.

The preliminary government lasted but six months and altered the life of
the people but little. For "Governor and Company" was substituted
"President and Council," a more modish name, as some one said, but not
necessarily one that savored of despotism. B