Upon the death of Berkeley, the King appointed Lord Colepeper Governor of Virginia. As he was not ready nor, possibly, inclined to go immediately to his post, the King issued a special commission to Sir Herbert Jeffries, who had been one of his emissaries to investigate Berkeley, as Lieutenant Governor in immediate charge of affairs. Jeffries ruled until his death in 1678 when he was succeeded by Sir Henry Chicheley as Deputy Governor under an old Commission issued to him as early as 1674. Colepeper did not personally take charge on Virginia's soil until 1680, and then but for a brief period, soon returning to England and remaining there over two years. It was not until December, 1682, that we again find him in Virginia.
Colepeper, it will be remembered, was not only by inheritance a part owner of the patents of 1649 and 1669 to the Northern Neck but he was coproprietor with Arlington under the grant of 1673 of all Virginia and now in his own person Governor of the Colony as well. For good measure, his cousin, Alexander Colepeper, was also an owner by inheritance of a share in the grants of 1649 and 1669. It was apparent that he was in a position at long last to turn his Virginia interests to account; but in doing so he sought to make the new dispensation as personally profitable to his rapacious self as possible. Therefore he opened negotiations with his old associates, by 1681 had succeeded in buying most of them out, and declared himself sole owner of all these grants, although his cousin still owned his one-sixth interest. But the King had become annoyed at his conduct and the stories of his rapacity and, seeking an opportunity to punish him, seized upon the pretext that he had been absent from his post without leave. On this charge he, in 1682, was deprived of his office as Governor. Two years later (1684) Colepeper sold out his rights under the so-called Arlington Charter of 1673 to the English Crown for a pension of £600 a year for twenty-one years. He tried also to sell to Virginia his rights to the Northern Neck under the Charter of 1669, but in that transaction he was unsuccessful. A curiously ironic fate seemed intent upon keeping the Northern Neck Proprietary, reward of Cavalier loyalty and devotion, as an inheritance for the still unborn sixth Lord Fairfax, scion and representative of the family of two of the most able of the Parliamentary leaders.