Virginia Cavaliers (historical) - Restoration of 1660

Restoration of 1660

The Restoration of 1660 brought the exiled Stuart to the British throne as Charles II, and Berkeley again became governor of Virginia. Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, had died in 1658, and Richard, his son and successor, too weak to hold the reins of government, laid aside the heavy burden the next year and Charles soon afterward became king. Charles was not a religious enthusiast, as his father had been. He is noted for his pursuit of pleasure, which many subjects applauded after the dry years of the Protectorate.

The new sovereign was utterly without gratitude to the people of Virginia for their former loyalty, and indeed, it may be said that his accession marks the beginning of a long period of turmoil, discontent, and political strife in Virginia. Charles immediately began to appoint to the offices of the colony a swarm of worthless place hunters, and some years later he gave away to his court favorites, the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpeper, nearly all the soil of Virginia, a large portion of which was well settled and under cultivation. The Navigation Acts, enacted ten years before, was now, at the beginning of Charles' reign, reenacted with amendments and put in force. By this the colonists were forbidden to export goods in other than English vessels, or elsewhere than to England.

Imports also were to be brought from England only. The prices, therefore, of both exports and imports, were set in London, and the arrangement enabled the English merchants to grow rich at the expense of the colonists. The result was a depreciation in the price of tobacco, the circulating medium, to such a degree as to impoverish many planters and almost to bring about insurrection. And now to add to the multiplying distresses of Virginia, Governor Berkeley, who had been fairly popular during his former ten-year governship, seems to have changed decidedly for the worse. He Royalist to the core, and appeared to have lost whatever sympathy with the people he ever had. He was accused of conniving with custom-house officials in schemes of extortion and blackmail, and even of profiting by their maladministration. Popular government now suffered a long eclipse in Virginia. In 1661 Berkeley secured the election of a House of Burgesses to his liking, and he kept them in power for fifteen years, refusing to order another election.

But the people, who had been long imbibing the spirit of liberty in their forest home, at last rose in rebellion against the tyranny of their cynical old governor. The uprising is known as Bacon's Rebellion. The general causes of this rebellion were political and economic tyranny, the immediate occasion was Berkeley's Indian policy. The Indians became hostile in 1675, and for many months the massacre of men, women, and children in the outlying settlements was of almost daily occurrence. But Berkeley persistently refused to call out the militia, for the reason, it was believed, that he did not wish to disturb the fur trade, from which he was receiving a good income. In March, 1676, the assembly raised a force of five hundred men, but when they were ready to begin a campaign, Berkeley suddenly disbanded them. The people were now exasperated and ready for rebellion.