In January of 1649, nearly 600 years of civil continuity to the English monarchy was ended. Charles I was beheaded; parliament abolished the office of the King; Charles II was sent into exile. The Commonwealth had deposed the Crown.
The effects of this cataclysmic disruption in royal authority were acutely felt in the English colonies, especially Virginia, where William Berkeley governed. Berkeley was a staunch royalist, and when Parliament informed him of the execution and ordered his obedience to Parliament’s authority, he resisted with a passionate fervor and loyalty to the crown.
Berkeley was no fan of the person of Charles I, but to the office and to his majesty, he defended without hesitation, believing that a recognition of the authority of the Commonwealth would have serious negative constitutional repercussions.
Berkeley worked actively and clandestinely to support Charles II’s rightful rule, and overtly to demonstrate Virginia’s loyalty to the office of the English monarch. He worked with the General Assembly in 1649 to enact legislation that judged any who defended the regicide “an accessory post factum, to the death of the aforesaid King.”
Parliament, realizing that Berkeley would not yield to their authority, punished the colony of Virginia by forbidding foreign trade – blocking foreign vessels from entering the ports of Virginia without a special license. This infuriated Berkeley and the Virginia colonists.
On March 17, 1651, in a speech to the House of Burgesses that sounds more like Patrick Henry or Samuel Adams, Berkeley issued a scathing condemnation of Parliament and their actions, accusing them of tyranny and holding Virginians under slavery – lamenting the loss of liberty and free trade with foreign nations.
He likened the Roundheads to worse than savages, declaring “we can onlely feare the Londoners, who would faine bring us to the same poverty [as the Indians would]… would take away the liberty of our consciences, and tongues, and our right of giving and selling our goods to whom we please.”
Berkeley’s speech to the General Assembly is a reminder that the American spirit of Liberty is not a case of abiogenesis or spontaneous generation, but rather is borne out of England’s long-standing commitment to constitutional freedoms.
Berkeley’s entire speech is worth reading, and is reproduced below (orthography retained):
The speech of the Honourable
Sr William Berkeley
Gouvernour and Capt: Generall of
Virginea, to the Burgesses in the Grand
Assembly at James Towne on the 17. Of
March 1650/1
Together with a Declaration of the whole Country, occasioned upon the sight of a printed paper from England, Intituled An Act, &c.
Gentlemen you perceave by the DECLARATION that the men of Westminster have set out, which I belieeve you have all seene, how they meane to deale with you hereafter, who in the time of their wooing and courting you propound such hard Conditions to be performed on your parts, & on their owne nothing but a benigne acceptance of your duties to them.
Indeed me thinks they might have proposed something to us which might have strengthened us to beare those heavy chaines they are making ready for us, though it were but an assurance that we shall eat the bread for which our owne Oxen plow, and with our owne sweat we reape; but this assurance (it seemes) were a franchise beyond the Condition they have resolv’d on the Question we ought to be in.
For the reason why they talk Magisterially to us is this, we are forsooth their worships slaves, bought with their money and by consequence ought not to buy, or sell, but with those they shall Authorize with a few trifles to Coszen [cheat] us of all for which we toile and labour.
If the whole Current of their reasoning were not as ridiculous, as their actions have been Tyrannical 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, posses’d his Manner house where you used to pay your rents, therefore now tender[ ]your respects to the same house you once reverenced: I call my Conscience to witnes, I lie not, I cannot in all their Declaration perceive a stronger argument for what they would impose on us, then this which I have now told you: 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 onlely aske, was it theirs?
They who in the beginning of this warr were so poor, & indigent, that the wealth and rapines of three Kingdomes & their Churches too, cannot yet make rich, but are faine to seeke out new Territories and impositions to sustaine their Luxury amongst themselves.
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, & those on my life are the heaviest they either can or will send us.
‘Tis true with us they have long threatened the Barbados, yet not a ship goes thither but to beg trade, nor will they do to us, if we dare Honourably resist their Imperious Ordinance.
Assuredly Gentlemen you have heard under what heavy burthens, the afflicted English Nation now groanes, and calls to heaven for reliefe: how new and formerly unheard of impositions make the wifes pray for barrennes and their husbands deafnes to exclude the cryes of their succourles, starving children: And I am confident you do believe, none would long endure this slavery, if the sword at their throats did not Compell them to Languis under the misery they howrely suffer. Looke on their sufferings with the Eyes of understanding, and that will prevent all your teares but those of Compassion.
Consider your selves how happy your [sic] are and have been, how the Gates of wealth and Honour are shut on no man, and that there is not here an arbitrary hand that dares to touch the substance of either poore or rich: But that which I would have you chiefly to consider with thankfullnes is: That God hat seperated you from the guilt of the crying bloud of our Pious Souveraigne [Charles I] of every blessed memory: But mistake not Gentlemen part of it will yet staine your garments if you willingly submit to those murtherers hands that shed it.
I tremble to thinke how the oaths they will impose will make those guilty of it, that have long abhor’d the traiterousnesse of the act: But I confesse having had so frequent testimonies of your truths and courages, I cannot have a reasonable suspition of any cowardly falling of from the former resolutions, and have onely mentioned this last, as part of my duty and care of you, nor of my real doubts and feares: or id with untryed men we were to engage on this subject, what is it can be hope 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 & 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 securety 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 onlely feare the Londoners, who would faine bring us to the same poverty, wherein the Dutch found and releived 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 for my loyalty, and your security.
Andrew Schwartz is a Bearing Drift contributor.