The reaction of the Virginia Burgesses to this act was as violent as their reaction to the beheading of Charles I. Their temper on both occasions owed much to the eloquence of their Governor, and to the admiration in which he was held by the people. In March 1651 they met to consider the Parliamentary threat to their beliefs and to their livelihood. Sir William Berkeley spoke to them on the subject of Parliament's claim to speak for the English nation. Said the Governor:
If the whole current of their reasoning were not as ridiculous, as their actions have been tyrannicall and bloudy, we might wonder with what browes they could sustaine such impertinent assertions: For if you looke into it, the strength of their argument runs onely thus: we have laid violent hands on your land-lord, possessed his manner house where you used to pay your rents, therfore now tender your respects to the same house you once reverenced.... They talke indeed of money laid out on this country in its infancy: I will not say how little, nor how centuply repaid, but will onely aske, was it theirs?... Surely Gentlemen we are more slaves by nature, then their power can make us if we suffer our selves to be shaken with these paper bulletts, and those on my life are the heaviest they either can or will send us.
Berkeley was confident that if Virginia put up a determined resistance, the new English rulers would beg the colony to trade with them. He compared the state of England with the state of Virginia, to the disadvantage of the former. The Parliamentary government of England, he asserted, did not represent the will of the people who would not endure their "slavery, if the sword at their throats did not compell them to languish under the misery they howrely suffer." As for Virginia, "there is not here an arbitrary hand that dares to touch the substance of either poore or rich." Berkeley called on the Burgesses to support his stand against the act, asking:
What is it can be hoped for in a change, which we have not allready? Is it liberty? The sun looks not on a people more free then we are from all oppression. Is it wealth? Hundreds of examples shew us that industry and thrift in a short time may bring us to as high a degree of it, as the country and our conditions are yet capable of: Is it securely to enjoy this wealth when gotten? With out blushing I will speake it, I am confident theare lives not that person can accuse me of attempting the least act against any mans property. Is it peace? The Indians, God be blessed round about us are subdued; we can onely feare the Londoners, who would faine bring us to the same poverty, wherein the Dutch found and relieved us; would take away the liberty of our consciences, and tongues, and our right of giving and selling our goods to whom we please. But Gentlemen by the Grace of God we will not so tamely part with our King, and all these blessings we enjoy under him; and if they oppose us, do but follow me, I will either lead you to victory, or loose a life which I cannot more gloriously sacrifice then for my loyalty, and your security.
The speech being ended the House of Burgesses, unanimously with the Governor and Council, agreed to reject the Parliamentary act of October 3, 1650, as illegal, and to continue in allegiance to King Charles II, always praying for his restoration to the throne and for the repentance of those who, "to the hazard of their soules" opposed him. The Assembly proclaimed that they would continue to trade freely with all persons of whatever nation who came to trade with them, not excluding the Londoners.
This assertion of Virginia's traditional freedom and rights was, of course, a direct challenge to the Parliamentary government. In the fall of 1651 that government determined to chastise the rebellious colony and subject it by force. A fleet was dispatched in October to conquer Virginia and Barbados, another rebellious colony. Robert Dennis, Richard Bennett, Thomas Stegge, and William Claiborne were chosen commissioners to take over the government of Virginia once it had been conquered. Bennett and Claiborne were living in Virginia at the time.
Part of the fleet arrived in Virginia waters in January 1652. Berkeley called upon the people to prepare for resistance. One thousand troops, it is said, gathered in James City for the purpose. Five hundred Indian allies of the colony promised their aid. Berkeley denounced the leaders of the Parliamentary expedition as bloody tyrants, pirates, and robbers. He warned the Virginians that, if they did not repel the attack, their land titles would be thrown into doubt and they would be brought under a company of merchants who would order them at their pleasure and keep them from trade with all others. To counteract the Governor's influence, the Parliamentary commissioners circulated letters and declarations throughout the country denying any such evil intentions. Finally, on January 19, they sent a summons to the Governor and Council to surrender, and set sail from the lower reaches of the James to Jamestown. A milder answer than expected was returned, setting forth various demands and privileges desired by the Virginians.
The commissioners' reply to these proposals was favorable enough to cause Berkeley to call an Assembly, and negotiations were entered into between the Governor, Council, and Burgesses on the one hand, and the Parliamentary commissioners on the other. Articles of submission were agreed upon which were honorable to both sides, Virginia receiving guarantees of the privileges of freeborn people of England, authority for the Grand Assembly to continue to function, guarantees of immunity for acts or words done or spoken in opposition to Parliament, guarantees of the bounds of Virginia, of the fifty-acre headright privilege, and of the right to "free trade as the people of England do enjoy to all places and with all nations according to the lawes of that commonwealth." Special provisions were made which allowed the Governor and Council to refrain from taking any oath to the Commonwealth for one year and guaranteed them for one year from censure for speaking well of the King in their private houses. Berkeley and the Council were given leave to sell their estates and quit Virginia, either for England or Holland. No penalties were to be imposed on those who had served the King.
The commissioners of Parliament considered that they had been lucky to reduce the colony without bloodshed, even though forced to agree to such mild terms. At the same time the event suggests that the bitterness which existed in England between Roundheads and Cavaliers was not quite so extreme in the colonies, where little blood had been shed for the cause of either. The colonies had interests of their own which ran counter to those of the mother country, whether in the hands of King or Parliament. Governor, Council, and Burgesses in Virginia were closer to each other economically and politically than they were to their respective counterparts in England. What held the colonies to the mother country was not self-interest but ties of historical tradition and racial patriotism. The execution of Charles I and seizure of the colony by the Parliamentary fleet loosened these ties. The Crown, symbol of continuity with past ages of English subjects and of unity among all the King's realms, was now not only removed but denounced by those who had done the deed.
Virginia never showed sympathy for those who had killed the King, and the Assembly took to heart Governor Berkeley's warning of 1651 that the blood of Charles I "will yet staine your garments if you willingly submit to those murtherers hands that shed it." It is true that following the surrender the Parliamentary commissioners agreed with the representatives of the people on a provisional government for Virginia, but the bonds that held Virginia to England had lost much of the cement of love and tradition. Local and self-interest were now to dominate to a great extent Virginia's actions. Such motives had always been latent, and indeed active. But under royal government, the Governor could often exert a countervailing force to prevent such interests from overriding the interests of nation and morality.