Colonial governor; born near
London about 1610; was brother of
Lord John Berkeley, one of the early English proprietors of
New Jersey.
Appointed governor of
Virginia, he arrived there in February, 1642.
Berkeley was a fine specimen of a young English courtier.
He was then thirty-two years of age. well educated at
Oxford, handsome in person, polished by foreign travel, and possessing exquisite taste in dress.
He was one of the most accomplished cavaliers of the day. He adopted some salutary measures in
Virginia which made him popular; and at his mansion at
Green Spring, not far from
Jamestown, he dispensed generous hospitality for many years.
Berkeley was a stanch but not a bigoted royalist at first; and during the civil war in
England he managed public affairs in
Virginia with so much prudence that a greater proportion of the colonists were in sympathy with him.
In religious matters there was soon perceived the spirit of persecution in the character of the governor.
The Puritans were then not only tolerated in
Virginia, but had been invited to settle there.
The civil war drew a line of clear demarcation between churchmen and non-conformists.
A large majority of the people of
Virginia were attached to the
Church of
England; so was the governor.
In
England the Puritans were identified with the republicans, and
Berkeley thought it to be his duty to suppress them in his colony as enemies to royalty.
So he first decreed that no
Puritan minister should preach except in conformity to the rules of the
Church of
England and, finally, all nonconformists were banished from
Virginia.
In the war with the Indians in 1644, in which
Opechancanough (q. v.) led the savages, the governor behaved with promptness and efficiency, and soon crushed the invaders.
Then the colonists had peace and prosperity for some years.
In 1648 they numbered 20,000. “The cottages were filled with children, as the ports with ships and emigrants.”
The people were loyal to the
King; and when the latter lost his head, and royalty was abolished in
England, they opened wide their arms to receive the cavaliers (many of them of the gentry, nobility, and clergy of the realm) who fled in horror from the wrath of republicans.
They brought refinement in manners and intellectual culture to
Virginia, and strengthened the loyalty of the colonists.
When the
King was slain they recognized his exiled son as their sovereign, and
Berkeley proclaimed him
King of
Virginia.
Sir William administered the government tinder a commission sent by Charles from his place of exile (Breda, in
Flanders).
Virginia was the last territory belonging to
England that submitted to the government of the republicans on the downfall of monarchy.
This persistent attachment to the Stuarts offended the republican Parliament, and they sent
Sir George Ayscue with a strong fleet, early in the spring of 1652, to reduce the Virginians to submission.
The fleet bore commissioners authorized to use harsh or conciliatory measures — to make a compromise, or to declare the freedom of the slaves of the royalists, put arms in their
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hands, and make war. The commissioners were met with firmness by
Berkeley.
Astonished by the boldness of the governor and his adherents, they deemed it more prudent to compromise than to attempt coercion.
The result was, the political freedom of the colonists was guaranteed.
Berkeley regarding those whom the commissioners represented as usurpers, he would make no stipulations with them for himself, and he withdrew from the governorship and lived in retirement on his plantation at
Green Spring until the restoration of monarchy in
England in 1660, when the loyalty of the Virginians was not forgotten by the new monarch.
The people elected
Richard Bennett governor; and he was succeeded by two others —
Edward Diggs (1655) and
Samuel Matthews (1656), the latter appointed by
Oliver Cromwell.
At his death (1660) the people elected
Berkeley, but he refused to serve excepting under a royal commission, and he went to
England to congratulate Charles II.
on his restoration to the throne.
Charles gave
Berkeley a commission, and he returned to
Virginia to execute his master's will with vigor.
He enforced various oppressive laws, for he was less tolerant than when he was younger and politically weaker, and, with the cavaliers around him, he hated everything that marked the character of the Puritans.
These cavaliers despised the “common people” of
New England, and opposed the ideas of popular education.
Berkeley wrote to his government in 1665. “I thank God there are no free schools nor printing in
Virginia, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought heresy and disobedience and sects into the world, and printing hath divulged them, and libels against the best government; God keep us from both!”
Oppression of the people finally produced civil war in 1676, the events of which soured
Berkeley, who had then grown old (see
Bacon, Nathaniel); and after it was over, and he was firmly seated in power, he treated the principal abettors of the insurrection with harshness and cruelty.
His
King had proclaimed
Bacon (the leader of the insurrection) a traitor, and sent an armament under
Sir John Berry to assist in crushing the rebellion.
This was the first time royal troops were sent to
America to suppress the aspirations of the people for freedom.
Feeling strong,
Berkeley pursued the adherents of
Bacon with malignant severity until twenty-two of them were hanged.
The first martyr was
Thomas Hanford, a gallant young native of
Virginia.
Standing before the governor, he boldly avowed his republicanism: and when sentenced to be hanged, he said, “I ask no favor but that I may be shot like a soldier, and not hanged like a dong.”
At the gallows he said.
“Take notice that I die a loyal subject and a lover of my country.”
Edmund Cheeseman, when arraigned before the governor, was asked why he engaged in the wicked rebellion, and before he could answer his young wife stepped forward and said, “My provocations made my husband join in the cause for which
Bacon contended; but for me, he had never done what he has done.
Since what is done,” she said, as she knelt before the governor, with her bowed head covered with her hands, “was done by my means.
I am most guilty; let me bear the punishment; let me be hanged; let my husband be pardoned.”
The governor cried out, angrily, “Away with you!”
The poor young wife swooned, and her husband was led to the gallows.
When the brave
Drummond was brought before the governor,
Berkeley, with wicked satire, made a low bow and said, “You are very welcome; I am more glad to see you than any man in
Virginia; you shall be hanged in half an hour.”
Drummond replied, with dignity.
“I expect no mercy from you. I have followed the lead of my conscience, and done what I might to free my country from oppression.”
He was condemned at one o'clock and hanged at four; and his brave wife, Sarah, was denounced as a “traitor” and banished, with her children, to the wilderness, there to subsist on the bounty of friends.
When these things were brought to the notice of the profligate monarch, even
he was disgusted with
Berkeley's cruelties, and said, “The old fool has taken more lives in that naked country than I have taken for the murder of my father;” and
Berkeley was ordered to desist.
But he continued to fine and imprison the followers of
Bacon until he was recalled in the spring of 1677, and went to
England with the returning
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fleet of
Sir John Berry.
The colonists fired great guns and lighted bonfires in token of their joy at his departure.
In
England his cruelties were severely censured, and he died (July 13, 1677) of grief and mortified pride before he had a chance to stand before his
King.
