Figure 4. — Heneage Finch, Earl of Xotiing- 

 ham, holding the purse in which the Great 

 Seal was carried. He was Lord High Chan- 

 cellor from 1675 to 1682 and Lord Keeper of 

 the Great Seal from 1673 to 1682. The attempt 

 of the Virginia agents to have their charter 

 passed quickly under the Great Seal in 1676 

 was frustrated. This painting, after Michael 

 Wright, is reproduced with permission of the 

 owner, the Marquis of Bath. Photo courtesy 

 of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. 



suspicious niemhers of the King's council got together 

 to resist the decision. 



A totally new situation was created, however, when 

 news of Indian troubles and rising discontent among 

 the English colonists reached England. The Vir- 

 ginia agents appealed for reconsideration. The King 

 and his cabinet council, justly worried by the bad 

 news that arrived in early August concerning Bacon's 

 actions in June, determined to allow the \'irginians 

 a new charter, which was finally issued on Octo- 

 ber 10. There can be little doubt that part of the 

 reason for the passage of this charter was to assure 

 Virginians that they did, indeed, own the land they 

 were defending against the Indians and the rebels. 

 The charter was a declaration of immediate depend- 

 ence on the Crown (barring the possibility of an 

 intermediate lord proprietor) and confirmed all land 

 titles. It is true that the final charter was less liberal 

 than that originally authorized, but it hardly deserves 

 William Waller Hening's description of it as ''a mis- 

 erable skeleton . . . containing little more than a 

 declaration of the dependence of the colony on the 



PAPER 17: THE EFFECT OF BACON's REBELLION 

 nS0673— 02 2 



crown of England." " It granted many of the original 

 demands of the colony, omitting only those which may 

 have been considered detrimental to the King's pre- 

 rogative or inexpedient in the existing circumstances. 

 .\ promise not to tax Virginia but by her own consent, 

 and a promise to consult the \'irginia authorities l)e- 

 fore any more prejudicial land grants were made, 

 might, if granted, have given the colonists the idea 

 that they could bind the King's arms by rebellion. 

 Similarly the colony's incorporation, which the Vir- 

 ginians had requested so that they could negotiate 

 the purchase of the land that had been granted to the 

 King's favorites, might have been considered an en- 

 couragement to the sort of intransigency practiced 



'8 Henry Coventry (in "Heads of dispatches for Virginia," 

 .\ugust 22, 1676, Longleat, vol. 77, folios 190, 297) notes -'My 

 Lord Chancellour to passe their Patent, according to the 

 Heads allowed at the Forcigne Committee" and "To vacate 

 the other two Patents complained of"; see also Hcning, op. cil. 

 (footnote 14), p. 519. 



143 



