The first true Virginian - The Honourable Sir William Berkeley

by Anna Belfrage

Sometimes (quite often) you stumble over facts that pique your curiosity. This is what happened to me when I was researching the background for my book Like Chaff in the Wind. As most of the book is set in the Colony of Virginia, I read extensively about colonial life in Jamestown, spending many happy hours expanding my knowledge. To write – or read – about Jamestown in the seventeenth century without mentioning Sir William Berkeley is more or less impossible, and so one of my cameo characters was born.

Sir William, quite the dashing man.

William Berkeley is the longest serving Governor in Virginia history – an impressive thirty years of service - a complex character that alternated moments of great insight with others of sheer pigheadedness.

Born into the landed gentry in Somerset, he received a thorough education and graduated from Oxford at the age of twenty with a B.A. Some years later he received a position at court, where he became a member of “the wits”, a group of literary young men who entertained the court. William penned a number of plays, one of which was performed in the presence of Charles I and his wife Henriette Marie. Major honour, no doubt, but I’m not sure his plays have withstood the tooth of time.

The political situation in England and Scotland was unstable, and when Charles I decided to impose the Book of Common Prayer on the Scots, things turned nasty. William was called to serve as a soldier, and spent a number of years in Scotland, participating in the Bishops’ Wars. Not an experience William much liked, (but he must have done something right as his efforts earned him a knighthood) and when an opportunity came up to buy the governorship in Virginia he did just that, arriving in Jamestown in 1642.

I think it was love at first sight. From the moment William set foot in Virginia, it seems to me he pulled up his roots and transplanted them in the fertile soil of the colony. There were probably a number of reasons why William so took to colonial life, but I would bet the main reason is spelled P-O-W-E-R. At a distance of eight weeks from London, William could set about building his fiefdom just as he wanted it, and being an educated man who’d spent a number of years working within the administration of the Royal Court, I am sure he was bursting with ideas as to what to change.

A contemporary map of Virginia - note especially The Virginian Sea

William quickly concluded that Virginia was far too dependent on tobacco and, as an example, he set about diversifying the crops at his own plantation, Green Spring. Not that it made much impression on his fellow planters who preferred to cultivate a cash-crop like tobacco to such fripperies as lemons and oranges, mulberry trees and rape. Repeatedly during his long tenure, William would try to wean the colony away from tobacco – with no success whatsoever, as in this matter the planters and the distant English government were in total agreement; the planters wanted to make money, the Government wanted to tax them on it.

In 1642, William opposed the revival of the Virginia Company of London – this would have made his own position precarious. The following year he showed considerable political flair when he decided to share his powers with the General Assembly (a colonial parliament –  mostly made up of William’s peers), thereby strengthening the concept of local rule within the colony. This was a small, but important step towards future autonomy.

The 1622 Massacre, in which the Powhatan killed more than a third of the colonists Woodcut, M Merian

He also succeeded in pacifying the Powhatan, all the while balancing elegantly between the different political factions in the colony. England was on the brink of Civil War, and Virginia had its fair share of conflicts between parliamentarians and royalists.  William himself never had any doubts as to where his loyalties lay. He was the king’s man through and through, and once the parliamentarian forces had won the war “back home”, William opened the colony to royalist refugees. In 1652 he was forced to resign, but eight years later he was back as governor.

So far, William is quite the paragon of virtues, isn’t he? Foresighted, well-educated, brave and loyal – quite the example! Unfortunately, there were darker sides to William’s character. In religious matters he was a bigot, showing open hostility towards all those not belonging to the Anglican Church. Of course, in William’s case Puritans were not only religious adversaries, but also political foes, and it seems he had problems distinguishing between the issues of faith and politics.

Puritans and Quakers found it best to leave Virginia, many of them moving to Maryland instead. Papists did best in keeping their religious beliefs private, and any priest not belonging to the Anglican Church who was found proselyting in Virginia risked severe punishment.

William was also something of an elitist. He was against public education, as this would only lead to the children of lesser men being educated well above their standing in society. No, in William’s book equality was great – as long as it was restricted to the landed gentry and above.

One of William’s more interesting quirks was his strong opposition to printing presses. They were forbidden in Virginia, and printers did best not to attempt to circumvent the prohibition, as it might result in them being hounded out of the state. Given William’s love of books and literature, this seems rather strange, but to William the presses were dangerous implements that could be used to produce inflammatory pamphlets, and such he most definitely did not want circulated in “his” colony. Still, for a man so focused on progress, his opposition to education and printing is strange.

Like most of us, William was a fascinating, walking contradiction, combining a modern approach to such concepts as governance, trade and agriculture with less attractive biases when it came to religion and class. Not all that surprising as William was a product of his times, living in a society where certain barriers such as class, gender and religious beliefs were difficult – impossible at times – to breach.

William ended his days under a cloud. With advancing age, he became more authoritarian and his brutal reprisals in the wake of Bacon’s rebellion caused the king to replace him. In January of 1677 William left Virginia, bound for London where he aimed to clear his name. In July of the same year he died in his brother’s house in London. I dare say his soul lies restless under his tombstone in Twickenham. William Berkeley may have been born an Englishman, but he died a Virginian, and had he been allowed to choose, that is where he’d have wanted to be buried.

Daffodils in West Virginia (Commons.Wikimedia.org)

Today, William Berkeley's beloved Green Spring is a ruin. In spring, the ground is covered by flowering daffodils, a sea of transplanted yellow flowers (daffodils are not natural to the American flora) that can be seen as a commemoration of the Englishman who became an American. I think William would have been pleased – even if he’d grumble a bit about the land lying unproductive.

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Anna Belfrage is the author of A Rip in the Veil  and Like Chaff in the Wind. The Third book in The Graham Saga, The Prodigal Son, has just been released as an e-book and will be available as a paperback from July 1st, 2013. Set in seventeenth century Scotland and Virginia, the books tell the story of Matthew and Alex, two people who should never have met – not when she was born three hundred years after him.

Tudor Superstitions: The 'Witching Time of Night'

‘Tis now the very witching time of night - Hamlet

Tudor superstitions were an expression of total belief. And when you consider how the Tudors experienced the hours of darkness, that is hardly surprising. Despite the growth of London, the streets would remain unlit until 1684. Just like their country cousins, Londoners would wake in the middle of the night, in the pitch-dark. Imagine a mini-Halloween every night, in a city made of creaking timber, where criminals and outlawed religions conducted their secret meetings. Add into that a medieval psychology that absolutely believed the ghosts of the dead walked the earth.

The night was a time when witches flew and communed with their familiars. Decent folk stayed abed until dawn, and said their prayers to ward off spirits from their curtained beds.

Witchcraft was a fact of life, not something only a few believed in. If your milk soured, a witch's curse was to blame. If your pregnancy miscarried, your elderly female neighbour was behind it, especially if she lived alone and knew how to heal the sick. Witches were hanged in England, burnt in Europe. But they were not the only bugbears of the Tudor imagination. Suicides were still buried at crossroads to confuse their way back from the land of the dead, stakes were put though their hearts to pin them to the ground. What the modern mind sees as psychological, the Tudor perceived as real exterior force. Sin was a living thing, and sin-eaters would be employed to consume food that had been passed over the corpse of a dead person.

If you could imagine it, it existed, however evil and perverted, and you needed to protect yourself against it.

The very dreams that disturbed you were the product of the night – mare, an evil spirit entering your head, and the things that you saw on waking, or heard in the night, really were right there with you.

In response to this supernatural assault, the Tudor mind devised rituals and charms to protect the disturbed soul. Fire, iron and salt were protectors. Tudor entrepreneurial skill created a thriving business where people could buy charms to ward off evil and vermin, change luck, prevent drunkenness, encourage children to sleep, even put out fires – all of which were deemed to be under the control of outside forces. This was part of everyday life, not seen as evil, and apparently compatible with religious belief of the day.

That is until things went wrong, and an accusation of witchcraft was made. Then all their belief in supernatural forces was turned onto the outside world with a vengeance.

Victoria Lamb is the author of Witchstruck, first in the Tudor Witch series with Random House, set during Princess Elizabeth's imprisonment at Woodstock Palace.

She is also the author of The Queen's Secret, a novel of the Tudor court, also with Random House.

Religious Upheaval during 17th Century England

by Katherine Pym

Many centuries plod along with not much happening. But when you come into the 17^th Century, it is a minefield of tempestuous action--all due to religion.

From the initial fear James Stuart was Catholic to Charles I being a Protestant but too popish, the century jogged at a furious pace into religious revolt. Churches were gutted of their musical pieces, their gilded altars, and their stained-glass windows.

The country dived into three civil wars, and a king’s beheading, then settled for a quiet moment into the staid, dark Commonwealth years. 

Color all but disappeared. Men, women and children wore black with no lace or ribbons. Mayday was no longer sanctioned. Bartholomew’s Fair or bear baiting could not be stopped, but drama, song, and dance were. Theatres were closed and the Globe pulled down.

Under the Commonwealth, the Book of Common Prayer was outlawed as being too popish. Ministers in the Church of England lost their vocations. Many ended up in debtor’s prison.

Religious intolerance sidestepped for a moment when King Charles II returned from exile. He wiped the slate clean with the Declaration of Breda, and people in all faiths breathed a sigh of relief. The king would bring a state of sensibility to England.

They were misguided.

Within months of King Charles II coronation, new laws were put into place that switched the tide from Anglican suppression to Presbyterian suppression. A group of restrictive statutes called the Clarendon Code, (which Clarendon did not author), took effect during the years of 1661-1665 that intended to strengthen the power of the Church of England.

Within these five years, the Cavalier Parliament rejected the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, and quelled all nonconformist activity. To hold office, you had to prove you supported the Church of England and take Holy Communion.

By mid 1662, the Act of Uniformity installed the Book of Common Prayer back into church services. Those Presbyterian clergy who refused were cast out of their vocations. Considered the Great Ejection, two thousand Presbyterian ministers walked away from their pulpits. Many ended up in debtor’s prison as their Anglican counterparts before them.

In 1664, the Conventicle Act disallowed more than five Presbyters to meet at one time for unauthorized worship. In 1665, the Five Mile Act forbade nonconformist ministers to come within five miles of any incorporated town, nor were they allowed to teach in schools.

While London burned during a conflagration in September 1666, Frenchmen were accused of being papists and setting the town afire. Several were hanged from lampposts throughout the city. The king and his brother had to ride out amidst people burned out of their homes to reassure them the French did not start the fire. God’s hand did it.

In 1678, Titus Oates set forth an early version of McCarthyism with the Popish Plot where, in a fit of frenzy, innocent men and women accused of being Catholic were imprisoned and/or executed.

King Charles II did not let slip he converted to Catholicism, but King James II broadcast it the width and breadth of England. After the Glorious Revolution, James was drummed out of the country, and finally, after so much angst and shedding of tears, his daughter and son-in-law--avowed Protestants--were brought to England as joint ruling monarchs.

England finally set a calmer course toward religion.

For more information on Anglican ministers going to debtor's prison, please see my historical novel, Viola A Woeful Tale of Marriage; for Catholics in London, please see TWINS, a 2012 EPIC finalist, and for more on the Act of Uniformity, you can read it in Of Carrion Feathers, all set in London during the 1660's . 

You'll find them at www.wings-press.com or www.amazon.com and the NOOK.