Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/71

 COLONIAL PRESIDENTS AND GOVERNORS

51

before they could attack the invaders. This action occasioned much discontent and was the direct cause of Bacon's rebelHon.

During this troublous time Chicheley ad- hered to the govenior and suffered very much in consequence. His estate was greatly dam- aged and he endured a severe imprisonment. When the civil war subsided, he was ap- pointed to the council November 16. 1676. and became its president, and on the death of Governor Jeffreys he produced his commis- sion as deputy governor. He remained the colony executive till Lord Culpeper was sworn into office May 10, 1680. becoming, how-ever, the chief executive again when Lord Cul- peper left \'irginia in August, three months later. He served till Culpeper's return in De- cember, 1682, during which interval there was unusual distress on account of the low price of tobacco. On the petition of the sufTering people. Chicheley called an assembly which met in April, 1682, but in obedience to orders from England to await Lord Culpeper's arrival he adjourned it before it could adopt a law for a cessation of planting, whereupon many planters in Gloucester. New Kent and Middle- sex assembled together and going from place to place riotously cut up the tobacco plants. Chicheley called out the militia and promptly suppressed the disturbances, but issued a gen- eral pardon to all who would behave peace- ably. Major Robert Beverley was deemed, however, the real sinner, as he was prominent in urging the cessation of planting. Therefore. Chicheley had him arrested, and confined him on shipboaid and kept him a prisoner for seven months, finally releasing him under heavy bond to appear w'hen summoned. Cul- peper returned in December, 1682. and though he bore instructions to proceed rigorously against the plant cutters, whose action had

entailed a heavy loss of English revenue, he imitated Chicheley's clemency by issuing a similar proclamation of amnesty. To placate iiis masters in England, however, he executed two of the most violent of the ringleaders and threw the blame of his not executing more upon Sir Henry Chicheley, who had fore- stalled him. Sir Henry had become at this time very old and feeble, and his death occur- red not long after Culpeper's arrival. He died at Rosegill, on the Rappahannock, Eebruary 5, 1682, and was interred at old Christ Church, ^liddlesex comity. He left no issue.

Culpeper, Thomas, Lord, governor of Vir- ignia from May 10, 1680, to August 10, 1680, and from December 17, 1682, to May 28, 1683. was the eldest son of John Lord Cul- peper, whom he succeeded as Baron of Thor- seway on the death of the latter in 1660. Lord John Culpeper was one of the most eminent friends of Charles I. in the civil war in Eng- land, and one of the first acts of Charles II., after the execution of his father, was to grant to him and Henry Bennett, Earl of Arlington, and several other great favorites the Northern Neck of Virginia, lying between the Poto- mac and Rappahannock rivers. This grant, after lying dormant during the commonwealth, was revived on the restoration of the king and ultimately became vested by purchase in Sir Thomas Culpeper, who in 1674 received in company with Lord Arlington the benefit of another grant of all Virginia for thirty-one years. Though neither of these grants were intended to interfere with the political govern- ment of the colony as it then existed, their provisions, especially those of the latter grant, were so extensive that had they been com- pletely executed little but the shadow of power would have been left to the central authoritv.