with full powers of
government. As this application was a deliberate defiance of Gorges and
the New England Council, it has always been a matter of surprise that
the associates were able to gain the support of the Crown in this effort
to oust Gorges and his son from lands that were legally theirs. No
satisfactory explanation has ever been advanced, but it is worthy of
note that at this juncture Gorges was in France in the service of the
King, whereas on the side of the associates and their friends was the
Earl of Warwick, himself deeply interested in colonizing projects and
one of the most powerful men in England. The charter was obtained March
4, 1629--how, we do not know. It created a corporation of twenty-six
members, Anglicans and Nonconformists, known as the Massachusetts Bay
Company.

But if the original purpose of this company was to engage in a business
enterprise for the sake of profit, it soon underwent a noteworthy
transformation. In 1629, control passed into the hands of those members
of the company in whom a religious motive was uppermost. How far the
charter was planned at first as a Puritan contrivance to be used in case
of need will never be known. It is equally uncertain whether the
particular form of charter, with the place of the company's residence
omitted, was selected to facilitate a possible removal of the company
from England to America; but it is likely that removal was early in the
minds of the Puritan members of the company. At this time a great many
people felt as did the Reverend John White, who expressed the hope that
God's people should turn with eyes of longing to the free and open
spaces of the New World, whither they might flee to be at peace. But,
when the charter was granted, the Puritans were not in control of the
company, which remained in England for a year after it was incorporated,
superintending the management of its colony just as other trading
companies had done.

But events were moving rapidly in England. Between March, 1629, and
March, 1630, Parliament was dissolved under circumstances of great
excitement, parliamentary privileges were set aside, parliamentary
leaders were sent to the Tower, and the period of royal rule without
Parliament began. The heavy hand of an autocratic government fell on all
those within reach who upheld the Puritan cause, among whom was John
Winthrop, a country squire, forty-one years of age, who was deprived of
his office as attorney in the Court