To appreciate the force of this blow we must pause for a moment and consider what it involved.  The right to the soil of North America had been hitherto regarded in England, on the strength of the discoveries of the Cabots, as an appurtenance to the crown of Henry VII.,—­as something which descended from father to son like the palace at Hampton Court or the castle at Windsor, but which the sovereign might alienate by his voluntary act just as he might sell or give away a piece of his royal domain in England.  Over this vast territory it was doubtful how far Parliament was entitled to exercise authority, and the rights of Englishmen settled there had theoretically no security save in the provisions of the various charters by which the crown had delegated its authority to individual proprietors or to private companies.  It was thus on the charter granted by Charles I. to the Company of Massachusetts Bay that not only the cherished political and ecclesiastical institutions of the colony, but even the titles of individuals to their lands and houses, were supposed to be founded.  By the abrogation of the charter, all rights and immunities that had been based upon it were at once swept away, and every rood of the soil of Massachusetts became the personal property of the Stuart king, who might, if he should possess the will and the power, turn out all the present occupants or otherwise deal with them as trespassers.  Such at least was the theory of Charles II., and to show that he meant to wreak his vengeance with no gentle hand, he appointed as his viceroy the brutal Percy Kirke,—­a man who would have no scruples about hanging a few citizens without trial, should occasion require it. [Sidenote:  Effect of annulling the charter]

But in February, 1685, just as Charles seemed to be getting everything arranged to his mind, a stroke of apoplexy carried him off the scene, and his brother ascended the throne.  Monmouth’s rebellion, and the horrible cruelties that followed, kept Colonel Kirke busy in England through the summer, and left the new king scant leisure to think about America.  Late in the autumn, having made up his mind that he could not spare such an exemplary knave as Kirke, James II. sent over Sir Edmund Andros.  In the mean time the government of Massachusetts had been administered by Dudley, who showed himself willing to profit by the misfortunes of his country.  Andros had long been one of James’s favourites.  He was the dull and dogged English officer such as one often meets, honest enough and faithful to his master, neither cruel nor rapacious, but coarse in fibre and wanting in tact.  Some years before, when governor of New York, he had a territorial dispute with Connecticut, and now cherished a grudge against the people of New England, so that, from James’s point of view, he was well fitted to be their governor.  James wished to abolish all the local governments in America, and unite them, as far as possible, under a single administration.  With Plymouth there