Fauquier reckoned without the tenacity of the clergy led by the Rev. John Camm, a William and Mary college professor and parish pastor. Camm, whom Fauquier called "a Man of Abilities but a Turbulent Man who Delights to live in a Flame", later became President of the college, rector of Bruton Parish Church, and a member of the council.
In 1759 he was determined to receive what he believed was his guaranteed salary. Camm believed the law unconstitutional on two grounds: the assembly had passed a law repealing one already approved by the king, and Fauquier had permitted the law to go into effect without the suspending clause period taking place. At the behest of many Anglican clergy, Camm went to England. Presenting the parsons' case to the Bishop of London, who in turn forwarded the case to the Privy Council, Camm succeeded. The king declared the law unconstitutional.
Virginians were outraged. Unlike the Pistole Fee, which touched most directly the larger planters and the burgesses, the Parsons' Cause enflamed the entire populace. Camm and a number of clergymen sued in county courts for back salary. They received little satisfaction. Several county courts went so far as to declare the Two-Penny Act legal despite the king's disallowance.
Hanover County Court took a different tack. There the Rev. James Maury, Jefferson's field school teacher and hard-pressed father of 11 children, sued the vestry of Fredericksville Parish for his salary. The county court upheld his right to sue for claims and called for a jury trial to set the damages. Ironically, one of the clergymen who would benefit from a favorable verdict for Maury was the Rev. Patrick Henry. Presiding over the county court on December 1, 1763, was his brother, John Henry. Defending the parish vestry was his nephew and namesake, and the son of the justice, Patrick Henry. Hanover County was a center of Presbyterianism and in the jury box undoubtedly sat men who already had a dislike for Anglican clergymen whose salaries they were compelled to pay but whose churches they did not attend.
Young Patrick Henry, in his first prominent trial, launched immediately into a scathing attack on the established clergy, calling them "rapacious harpies", men who would "snatch from the hearth of their honest parishioners his last hoe-cake, from the widow and her orphan children their last milch cow; the last bed, nay, the last blanket from the lyin-in woman". Having stunned his audience into silence, Henry turned his invective upon the king. Although the constitutionality of the law was not an issue, because the county court had already decided it was constitutional, Henry proceeded to excoriate the king himself for violating the English constitution. His biographer, Robert Meade, notes:
Henry insisted on the relationship and reciprocal duties of the King and his subjects. Advancing the doctrine of John Locke as popularized by Richard Bland and other colonial leaders, he contended that government is a conditional compact, composed of mutually dependent agreements 'of which the violation by one party discharged the other'. He bravely argued that the disregard of the pressing wants of the colony was 'an instance of royal misrule', which had thus far dissolved the political compact, and left the people at liberty to consult their own safety.[9 ]
The jury retired, and then returned with its verdict—one penny damages for Parson Maury. Henry had lost the legal case, he had won the battle for their minds and hearts.
Out of the Parsons' Cause in 1763 came four important developments: the Anglican clergy suffered an irreparable setback and loss of status; the House of Burgesses now closely scrutinized the instructions from king to governor; the suspending clause was seen as a direct challenge to colonial legislative rights; and Patrick Henry burst forth as the popular spokesman for Virginia rights, winning a seat in the 1765 election to the House of Burgesses. In 1763 few people were willing to accept his premise that the king had been guilty of "royal misrule". In a dozen years they would.
Thus, by 1763 the fundamental political principles which would bring Virginia to independence already had been proclaimed. They were not developed in response to British actions, but Virginia experiences. They awaited only the specific challenges before they would be transformed into inalienable rights. Within a few months those challenges tumbled forth from Britain.