That the government of Charles I. should view with a hostile eye the growth of a Puritan state in New England is not at all surprising. (1.  From the king, who prepares to attack the infant colony but is fueled by dissensions at home.) The only fit ground for wonder would seem to be that Charles should have been willing at the outset to grant a charter to the able and influential Puritans who organized the Company of Massachusetts Bay.  Probably, however, the king thought at first that it would relieve him at home if a few dozen of the Puritan leaders could be allowed to concentrate their minds upon a project of colonization in America.  It might divert attention for a moment from his own despotic schemes.  Very likely the scheme would prove a failure and the Massachusetts colony incur a fate like that of Roanoke Island; and at all events the wealth of the Puritans might better be sunk in a remote and perilous enterprise than employed at home in organizing resistance to the crown.  Such, very likely, may have been the king’s motive in granting the Massachusetts charter two days after turning his Parliament out of doors.  But the events of the last half-dozen years had come to present the case in a new light.  The young colony was not languishing.  It was full of sturdy life; it had wrought mischief to the schemes of Gorges; and what was more, it had begun to take unheard-of liberties with things ecclesiastical and political.  Its example was getting to be a dangerous one.  It was evidently worth while to put a strong curb upon Massachusetts.  Any promise made to his subjects Charles regarded as a promise made under duress which he was quite justified in breaking whenever it suited his purpose to do so.  Enemies of Massachusetts were busy in England.  Schismatics from Salem and revellers from Merrymount were ready with their tales of woe, and now Gorges and Mason were vigorously pressing their territorial claims.  They bargained with the king.  In February, 1635, the moribund Council for New England surrendered its charter and all its corporate rights in America, on condition that the king should disregard all the various grants by which these rights had from time to time been alienated, and should divide up the territory of New England in severalty among the members of the Council.  In pursuance of this scheme Gorges and Mason, together with half a dozen noblemen, were allowed to parcel out New England among themselves as they should see fit.  In this way the influence of the Marquis of Hamilton, with the Earls of Arundel, Surrey, Carlisle, and Stirling, might be actively enlisted against the Massachusetts Company.  A writ of quo warranto was brought against it; and it was proposed to send Sir Ferdinando to govern New England with viceregal powers like those afterward exercised by Andros.