Even in the Council the commons had one staunch friend—Colonel Philip Ludwell. This restless man, who was unable to work in harmony with any Governor save Sir William Berkeley, sympathized with his old friends of the Green Spring faction in their resistance to Effingham. As early as 1684 he had aroused the Governor's suspicion by arguing in Council "for the undutiful Address which was sent to his Majesty",[1009] and during the sessions of 1685 and 1686 it was thought that he was "an Instrument in Abbetting and formenting those Disputes & Exceptions the Assembly soe insisted on".[1010]
Soon after, the Governor's distrust was heightened by two acts of favor shown by Ludwell to leaders of the opposition in the House of Burgesses. When ordered to oust Major Allen from his surveyor's place, he gave it to "Major Swan, one altogether as troublesom as the other & that only for the use of Allen". Upon receiving information that the King had declared Major Beverley "uncapable of any public imployment ... hee presently gives his Surveyor's place, the best in the Country to his Son".[1011] In the spring of 1686 the Governor made one last attempt to win Ludwell over from the people's cause. "I did," he wrote, "on the death of Colonel Bridger ... give him a collector's place, in hopes to have gained him by it."[1012] But Ludwell, unaffected by this attempted bribery, continued his active opposition to the arbitrary and illegal conduct of the Governor. At last, during the session of Assembly of 1686, there occurred an open breach. "His Lordship flew into a great rage and told ... Ludwell he had formerly made remarks upon him, and that if he did not look the better to himself he should shortly suspend him from the Council."[1013] Early in 1687 this threat was put into effect,[1014] and the troublesome Councillor was for the second time deprived of his seat. But this persecution, which the people believed to be directed against Ludwell for his support of their cause, brought him into great popularity throughout the colony and made him the acknowledged leader of the opposition to the administration. In the elections for the Assembly of 1688 he was chosen by the freeholders of James City county to represent them in the House of Burgesses.[1015] Effingham, however, would not allow him to take his seat, producing a clause from his commission which forbade suspended Councillors to become members of the Assembly.[1016] Despite this exclusion, Ludwell could and did, by conferences with individual members, influence the actions of the House and lead them in their fight against the Governor.
The most important task that confronted the Burgesses when they assembled in 1688 was to call the Governor to account for many burdensome fees which he had imposed upon the people by executive order. First in importance was "a fee of 200 pounds of tobacco for the Seal affixed to Patents & other public instruments".[1017] This the Burgesses considered a tax imposed without the authority or consent of the Assembly, and consequently destructive of the most cherished rights of the people. Moreover, it had, they claimed, deterred many from using the seal and had greatly impeded the taking up of land. They also protested against a fee demanded by the "Master of the Escheat Office of £5 or 1000lbs tobacco", and to one of thirty pounds of tobacco required by the Secretary for recording surveys of land.[1018] "This House," they declared, "upon Examination of the many grievous Complaints ... (have) been fully convinced and made sensible that many unlawful and unwarrantable fees and other dutyes have been, under colour of his Majesty's Royal authority, unjustly imposed ... & that divers new unlawful, unpresidented & very burthensom and grievous wayes & devises have been of late made use of to the great impoverishing Vexing and utter undoeing of many of his Majesties Subjects of this his Dominion."[1019]
The Burgesses were also deeply concerned at an instance of the unwarrantable use of the royal prerogative. In 1680 an act had been passed concerning attorneys. Two years later, before the act had received the royal assent, it had been repealed by the Assembly. Later the King, by proclamation, had made void the act of 1682, and the Governor had insisted that this revived the law of 1680. Against this, the Burgesses in 1688 entered a vigorous protest. "A Law," they declared, "may as well Receive its beginning by proclamation as such revivall.... Some Governor may be sent to Govern us who under the pretense of the liberty he hath to construe prerogative and stretch it as far as he pleaseth may by proclamation Revive all the Lawes that for their great Inconveniences to the Country have been Repeal'd through forty years since."[1020]
The Burgesses drew up a long paper, setting forth their many grievances, with the intention of presenting it to the Governor. They first, however, requested the Council to join them in their demand for redress. This the Council with some sharpness, refused to do. We are apprehensive, they replied, that the grievances "proceed from petulent tempers of private persons and that which inclines us the rather so to take them is from the bitterness of the Expressions".[1021] Judging the Governor's temper from this reply of the Councillors, the Burgesses relinquished hope of redress from the executive and determined to petition the King himself. An humble address was drawn up, entrusted to Colonel Philip Ludwell and delivered by him at Windsor, in September, 1688, into the hands of James II. Before it could be considered, however, William of Orange had landed in England and King James had been overthrown.[1022]
In the meanwhile a crisis in Virginia had been approaching rapidly. The people felt that their religion, as well as their liberties, was menaced by the rule of James II. In 1685, the King had directed Effingham "to permit a Liberty of Conscience to all persons", that would "bee contented with a quiet and peaceable enjoyment of it, not giving offence or scandal".[1023] The people of Virginia understood well enough that this order was dictated, not by considerations of liberality, but by James' determination to favor the Catholic church. The feeling of uneasiness was increased when, in 1688, Effingham, declaring it no longer necessary for the Burgesses to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, admitted a Catholic to the Assembly.[1024]
In October, 1688, James sent word to the Governor of the impending invasion of the Prince of Orange and commanded him to place Virginia in a posture of defense.[1025] Immediately the colony was thrown into the wildest excitement, and, for a time, it seemed probable that the people would attempt the expulsion of Effingham. "Unruly and unorderly spiritts," the Governor afterwards testified, "laying hold of the motion of affairs, and that under the pretext of religion,... betook themselves to arms."[1026] Wild rumors spread through the colony that the Papists of Maryland were conspiring with the Senecas to fall upon Virginia and cut off all Protestants in a new Saint Bartholomew's Eve.[1027] The frontiersmen along the upper courses of the Rappahannock and the Potomac "drawing themselves into parties upon their defense", were "ready to fly in the face of ye government. Soe that matters were ... tending to a Rebellion." However, the news of William's easy victory and the flight of James restored quiet to the colony. On February the nineteenth, 1689, the Privy Council wrote the Governor that William and Mary had ascended the throne of England,[1028] and a few weeks later their Majesties were proclaimed at Jamestown with solemnity and thanksgiving.[1029]
The Glorious Revolution was a victory for liberty even more important to Virginia than to England. It brought to an end those attacks of the English government upon the representative institutions of the colony that had marked the past ten years. It confirmed to the people the rights that had been guaranteed them, through a long series of patents dating back as far as 1606, and rendered impossible for all time the illegal oppressions of such men as Harvey, Berkeley, Culpeper and Effingham. Other Governors of despotic disposition were yet to rule Virginia—Nicholson, Andros, Dunmore—but it was impossible for them to resort to the tyrannical methods of some of their predecessors. The English Revolution had weakened permanently the control of the British government over the colony, and consequently the power of the Governor.
The advance of liberalism which was so greatly accelerated both in England and in America by the events of 1688 was halted in the mother country in the middle of the eighteenth century. But Virginia and the other colonies were not greatly affected by the reaction upon the other side of the Atlantic. Here the power of the people grew apace, encountering no serious check, until it came into conflict with the sullen Toryism of George III. Then it was that England sought to stifle the liberalism of the colonies, and revolution and independence resulted.
The changed attitude of the Privy Council towards Virginia was made immediately apparent by the careful consideration given the petition of the Burgesses. Had James remained upon the throne it is probable that it, like the address of 1684, would have been treated with neglect and scorn. But William received Ludwell graciously, listened to his plea "on behalf of the Commons of Virginia", and directed the Committee of Trade and Plantations to investigate the matter and to see justice done.[1030]