One of Sir William's worst traits, his greed, grew on him with the years. "Though ambition commonly leaves old age, covetousness does not," he wrote Lord Arlington. It may have been this which made him marry Frances Culpeper, the widow of Captain Samuel Stephens, who brought him a large estate. Though there was nothing wrong in this, it was whispered through the colony that it was the marrying of a young wife which was responsible for Berkeley's "old follyage." Frances seems to have been loyal to him amid the troubles which soon followed, even though she may have cast tender eyes on Philip Ludwell, whom she married after Sir William's death.
Whatever is the explanation of the change in Berkeley's character, it obviously was the Civil War in England, the execution of Charles I, and the turmoil of the Commonwealth period which intensified his distrust of republican institutions. They had been tried and the experiment had ended in disastrous failure. True, he had been a witness of the success of self-government in Virginia, but this did not change his views. Monarchy was the form of government ordained by God. In Virginia it was he, as the King's representative, who should rule. So he was determined that there should be no more republicanism in the colony than his instructions required.
Berkeley did not attempt the barefaced disregard of law practiced by Harvey. His methods were more subtile. He sought to make men obedient to his will by holding out to them offices of profit or honor. The people of Charles City County complained that Sir William, "aspiring to a sole and absolute power over us ... greatly neglecting the Council ... did take upon him the sole naming and appointing of other persons in their room and place such as himself best liked and thought fittest for his purposes."[2] The men who sat around the Council table with him might perhaps venture an opinion now and then, but they dared not arouse his brittle temper by opposing him when once he had made up his mind. To do so might lose one a collector's place, or a colonelship in the militia, or even one's seat on the Council.
The situation in the House of Burgesses was similar. Berkeley was shameless in corrupting the representatives of the people by handing out jobs. It was testified that he took on himself the sole appointment of all officers, military as well as civil. Offices were created merely "to increase the number of his party ... all which offices he bestowed on such persons, how unfit or unskilful soever, he conceived would be most for his designs." Thus, by a skilful use of the patronage, he so gained upon and obliged all or the greatest number of men of parts and estates "as to ... do whatsoever he pleased."[3]