In the mean time, important events were happening in England.  John Oldham, having Thomas Morton in custody, landed at Plymouth, England, not long after Endicott left for America.  Morton posed as a martyr to religious persecution, and Oldham, who remembered his own troubles with the Plymouth settlers, soon fraternized with him.  They acted in connection with Ferdinando Gorges and his son John Gorges, who, instead of punishing Morton for illicit trading, made use of him and Oldham to dispute the title of the grant to Endicott and his associates.  Robert Gorges was then dead, and his brother John was heir to his patent for the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay.

Accordingly, John Gorges, in January, 1629, executed two deeds—­one to John Oldham and the other to Sir William Brereton—­for two tracts of land out of the original grant to Robert Gorges.  Oldham planted himself on his new rights, and tried to make his patent the means to obtain from the Massachusetts Company in England the exclusive management of the colony’s fur trade, or the recognition of his rights as an independent trader.  But the company had already set aside the profits of the fur trade as a fund for the defence of the colony and the support of the public worship, and they would make no concession.[9] Instead, they took the best means to strengthen their title and suppress such disturbers as Oldham.

A royal charter was solicited, and March 4, 1629, one of liberal powers passed the seals, chiefly through the influence of the earl of Warwick.[10] It created a corporation by the name of the “Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England,” and confirmed to them all the territory given by the patent from the Council for New England.  The administration of its affairs was intrusted to a governor, deputy, and eighteen assistants, who were annually, on the last Wednesday of Easter term, to be elected by the freemen or members of the corporation, and to meet once a month or oftener “for despatching such business as concerned the company or plantation.”  Four times a year the governor, assistants, and all the freemen were to be summoned to “a greate generall, and solemne assemblie,” and these “greate and generall courts” were invested with full power to choose and admit into the company so many as they should think fit, to elect and constitute all requisite subordinate officers, and to make laws and ordinances for the welfare of the company and for the government of the plantation.

The company was given the power to transport to its American territory all persons who should go willingly, but the corporate body alone was to decide what liberties, if any, the emigrants should enjoy.  In fact, the only restrictions in the charter upon the company and its court of assistants were that they should license no man “to rob or spoil,” hinder no one from fishing upon the coast of New England, and pass “no law contrary or repugnant to the lawes and statutes of England.”  Matthew Cradock was named in the charter the governor of the company.