When this came to Lucy's ears, she thought it necessary to return everything he had given her. So she, with her mother and brother, together with her uncle, Philip Ludwell, Junior, went to Williamsburg with them. But Nicholson, hearing of their mission, "slipt out in the morning." The little group retired to the nearby Wren building, and waited there until six o'clock in the evening. Then they went back to Nicholson's house, where Ludwell went in to the "public room" and left the gifts on the table.
Late that night, after he had retired, Ludwell was aroused by two messengers sent by the Governor, one bringing the gifts, and the other a summons in the Queen's name for him to come to Nicholson immediately. Ludwell told the man that he "could not apprehend the Queen had any occasion for his services" just at that moment, and so went back to bed.
But the next morning he went to the Governor's house, taking the gifts with him. He found Nicholson in a towering rage.
"I wonder how you dare come into my house yesterday when I was abroad to offer me such an insult?" he said.
"Sir, I never offered your Excellency an affront in my life that I know of," Ludwell replied.
"Yes you have, several, like the base villain and rascal that you are."
Ludwell bowed and thanked him for this "civil usage." But Nicholson began again to storm, calling him "rogue, lying villain, base rascal, and coward," and declaring that he would teach him his duty. Finally he told him to get out of his house and not return until he was sent for. This Ludwell did with alacrity. But he took good care to leave the gifts. At first this escaped Nicholson's notice, but while Ludwell was putting on his boots he rushed up to him, "calling him all the names the Devil could invent" and commanding him to take the things.[30]
When Ludwell had mounted his horse and started to ride away, the Governor ran out "stark mad," and catching hold of his coat tried to pull him from his horse. Failing in this, he snatched his whip from his hand, and ordered him in the Queen's name to dismount. When he had done so, he shook the whip over his head, and swore that he had a mind to slash him soundly. Ludwell told him that as he was Governor of Virginia he had to take all his ill usage, but if he were in another place he would not dare treat him so. A few days later Nicholson challenged Ludwell to a duel. But Ludwell declined. He had not so much love for the gallows, he said. "But I always wear a sword with which to defend myself, and I am always easily found."
When one reads the long recital of Nicholson's misdeeds, one is apt to forget that he conferred one lasting benefit on the colony, a benefit which today is shared by millions of Americans from all parts of the country. He was the founder of Williamsburg. It was on October 21, 1698, that a fire broke out in the statehouse at Jamestown which in a few hours laid the building in ashes. So the old question of moving the capital away from the mosquito-infested town on the banks of the James was again debated. Nicholson favored Middle Plantation. The college was located there, there was ample room for a town, there were several springs of pure water, and the place was healthful. The Assembly voted that a city be laid out there, which, in honor of the "most gracious and glorious King William," was to be named Williamsburg.
Nicholson busied himself with planning the streets, which at first he hoped to lay out in the form of the letters W and M in honor of King William and Queen Mary. When this proved too complicated, he decided to run a central avenue from the college to the site of the Capitol, to be named Duke of Gloucester Street, paralleled by two side streets, one of which was to be called Nicholson and the other Francis. To aid him in designing the Capitol, he called in the ablest architect and builder in the colony, Henry Cary, and day after day the pair pored over the drawings. What book of designs they had before them from which to draw their inspiration we do not know, but it must have been of recent publication, for the building was typical of the late seventeenth-century English houses.