Now when we consider these things; when we find Robertson, on the authority of _Beverley_ and _Chalmers_, saying that "as Sir William Berkeley refused to act under an usurped authority, they (the assembly) boldly erected the royal standard, and acknowledging Charles II to be their lawful sovereign, proclaimed him with all his titles;" we may doubt the accuracy of the statement, _in extenso_, but we cannot agree that even _that_ statement shall be stigmatized as a fiction.
Mr. Hening tells us (1 Sts. p. 513) that Beverley was near the scene of action, and wonders that he should have _misunderstood_ or _misrepresented_. Wonderful indeed it _would_ have been; for in March 1662, we find him clerk to the House of Burgesses. See 2 Hen. Sts. p. 162. We find too, in the same volume, p. 544, that Berkeley refused to act without the advice of the council; that on receiving this he agreed to act, and that "HIS _declaration_ TO BE governor (not the act electing him) were PROCLAIMED by order of the assembly." Berkeley (be it remembered) was the last royal governor, and his commission had never been revoked, his election is not for any specific term, and the act is accompanied with a condition that he shall call an assembly at least once in _every two years_. How is this, if he was only elected to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Mathews, who, just one year before, had been elected _to serve two years_. Is not Berkeley in of his old commission?
But of the loyalty of Virginia there can be no doubt. That this was in no wise abated by the fall of Charles I, and the exile of his son, is equally certain. The act, passed immediately after, making it high treason to justify the murder of the one, or to deny the title of the other, puts that out of dispute. They certainly did not stand out, when the battle of Dunbar and the fall of Montrose had left the loyal party without hope either in England or Scotland. But look at the very act of surrender. Study its terms, and see the temper displayed there. Do they acknowledge the _authority_ of parliament or protector? No: they do but _submit_ to power. There is no profession of allegiance, nor was any oath of allegiance ever administered during the commonwealth. They engage indeed so to administer their power as not to contravene "the government of the commonwealth of England, and the lawes there established." But this was a proceeding which a respect for _private rights_ required. They stipulate moreover, that Virginia shall enjoy as free a trade as England herself, and put an end to all the authority of commissions from England. It was by such commissions that the king had governed. That "government by commissions and instructions" is declared to be for the future "null and void." The usurper had clutched the sceptre of the king of _England_. That of the king of _Virginia_ he was not allowed to touch. Accordingly no more commissions came from England. We hear no more of them until the election of Berkeley. We are then told that the government is provisional, and only to endure until a _lawful commission_ shall appear. What commission? Whose? The protector's? The parliament's? No. The act of surrender (1 Hen. St. p. 363) had abolished them. But it had not abolished the rights of the king; and the power of the assembly and governor is thus made to wait on them.