But new humiliation awaited him. The next morning Bacon entered the House of Burgesses with an armed guard, demanding that certain persons active in obeying the Governor's orders should be deprived of all offices, and that recent letters to the King denouncing him as a rebel should be publicly contradicted. When Berkeley heard of these demands, he swore he would rather suffer death than submit to them. But the Burgesses, who thought it not unlikely that they might soon have their throats cut, advised him to grant whatever was demanded.[603] So a letter was written to the King, and signed by the Governor, the Council and the Burgesses, expressing confidence in Bacon's loyalty and justifying his past actions.[604] Several of Berkeley's friends were committed to prison. Blank commissions for officers to command under Bacon in the Indian war were presented for signature. The Governor granted all, "as long as they concerned not life and limb", being "willing to be ridd of him". The Assembly finished its session, and thinking to appease the rebels, sent their laws out to be read before them. But they rose up like a swarm of bees, and swore they would have no laws.[605] Yet the legislation of this session was exceedingly liberal. The elections had been held at a time when the people were bitterly angry with the Governor and disgusted with the old régime. In several counties popular candidates, men bent upon reform, had been elected over Berkeley's friends.[606] These men, aided by the menacing attitude of the people, had initiated a series of bills designed to restrict the Governor's power and to restore to the commons their rightful share in local government. But it was probably the presence of Bacon with his ragged troops at Jamestown that brought about the final passage of the bills. The Governor and the Council would hardly have given their consent, had they not been forced to do so at the sword's point.
Indeed these laws aimed a telling blow at the aristocratic cliques that had so long controlled all local government. It was to be illegal in the future, for any man to serve as sheriff for two consecutive terms.[607] Surveyors, escheators, clerks of the court and sheriffs should hold only one office at a time.[608] The self-perpetuating vestries which had long controlled the parishes and levied church taxes, were to give place to bodies elected tri-annually by the freemen.[609] An act was passed restricting the power of the county courts. For the future the people were to elect representatives, equal in number with the justices, to sit with them, and have a voice "in laying the countie assessments, and of making wholesome lawes".[610] Councillors were no longer to be exempt from taxation. The act of 1670, restricting the right to vote for Burgesses to freeholders was abolished, and the franchise extended to all freemen.[611] And since "the frequent false returns" of elections had "caused great disturbances", it was enacted that any sheriff found guilty of this crime should be fined twenty thousand pounds of tobacco.[612]