of promoting a second massacre.

What really set off the revolt against Harvey, however, was the injection of the hottest issue of the day into the controversy: whether Harvey was "soft" on Catholicism. This issue was brought to a head because of the grant of a portion of Virginia's original territory to George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore. Harvey had extended a helping hand to Baltimore's colonists. Although his actions in this regard were specifically required of him by the King, and although he received especially warm commendation from the English government for doing so, the Virginia colonists objected. The King's grant, for one thing, had been carved out of the Virginia Company's old bounds which had been left undisturbed when the Company lost its right to govern the area. Already Virginians were beginning to eye the benefits of settlement in the northern reaches of Chesapeake Bay. One, Colonel William Claiborne, Secretary of the colony, had obtained a royal commission to trade in the area and had established a settlement on Kent Island, opposite the present Annapolis, far up Chesapeake Bay. By acting on the King's instructions and supporting Baltimore's authority in the area against Claiborne's claims, Harvey turned the second most important man in the colony against him.

Harvey at first backed the Virginia Council's assertion that Kent Island was a part of Virginia, and not part of the supposedly uncultivated wilderness granted to Baltimore by the King. But in the face of Charles's obvious desire to take the area away from Virginia, and because Claiborne's patent authorized trade rather than settlement, Harvey soon accepted Lord Baltimore's position that Claiborne's trading post lay within the limits of Baltimore's jurisdiction. Irritation between the two men increased when Harvey attempted jointly with the Maryland authorities to conduct an examination of charges that Claiborne was stirring up Maryland's Indians against the new settlers. Claiborne was accused of telling the local Indians that the new settlers were not Englishmen but Spaniards. The investigation which ensued was hampered at every turn by Claiborne and his friends on the Virginia Council.

The Virginians were most concerned not by the apparent violation of Virginia's territorial integrity, but by the fact that the new settlement was being established and settled by Roman Catholics. The Virginians were less tolerant than the King in wishing success to Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, and his fellow religionists, in establishing a colony on their northern border. The Virginia Council wrote Charles in 1629 thanking him for "the freedome of our Religion which wee have enjoyed," and asserting proudly that "noe papists have beene suffered to settle amongst us." They insisted upon tendering the oaths of supremacy and allegiance to Lord Baltimore when he arrived in Virginia in October 1629 to consider a possible settlement, and reported to the King that he had refused to take those oaths. Charles I had married a Catholic, Henrietta Maria of France, and, like his father, James I, was not disposed to allow too rigorous penalties against those who professed religious allegiance to Rome. But the Parliament, and the people in general, feared and hated Catholics, believing their religious beliefs to be incompatible with loyalty to a Protestant state.

By means of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy Catholics were required to recognize the English sovereign as their rightful ruler in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical as well as temporal, to repudiate the papal claim to depose heretical princes, to promise to fight for the King in case of rebellion caused by a papal sentence of deposition, and to denounce the doctrine that princes, being excommunicated, could be deposed or murdered, or that subjects could be absolved from their oath of allegiance. The oaths were based on a real fear which identified Roman Catholicism with treason. Protestants felt that Catholics owed their highest allegiance to a foreign power, and hence were not good Englishmen. The problem was a complicated one, and much debated at the time and since. Now it is generally accepted that one can owe spiritual allegiance to Rome while remaining a faithful subject of a non-Catholic state. In England in the seventeenth century, however, the Church of Rome was too closely identified with England's mortal enemies to allow her freely to tolerate Catholics in her midst. For a long period England had feared Spain as the greatest threat to her existence. Even after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 this fear persisted and to a certain extent was transferred to France, another Catholic power. The measures taken against the Catholics in England were similar to those taken against Communists in this country today, and they were taken for the same reason: the fear that the followers of a universal ideology would turn against their local allegiance if the two ever came in conflict.

Eventually Charles's easy attitude towards Catholics helped bring about his downfall. In a similar way Harvey's compliance with the King's instructions to aid and respect Baltimore's colonists weakened his popularity in Virginia.

As the locus of power in England shifted from the King and his lords towards the Parliament and the people, a stronger Protestant and democratic policy became necessary. The eventual result of this shift in power became evident with the beheading of Charles I in 1649 and, later, with the Glorious Revolution of 1689 and the crowning of William and Mary as constitutional symbols of the power of the English nation.

So great was the popular feeling in Virginia against the "Papists" in Maryland that many, in casual conversation, exclaimed that they would rather knock their cattle on the head than sell them to Maryland. To accommodate the needs of the new settlers in Maryland, Harvey sent them some cows of his own and did his best to ease their early struggles, in accordance with the King's commands. He could not do all he wished, however, because he was frequently outvoted at the Council meetings on anything that had to do with Maryland.

The deposition of Governor Harvey had its origin on April 27, 1635, in a mutinous gathering held in the York River area, Virginia's first frontier settlement outside the James River. The ring-leader seems to have been Francis Pott, brother of Doctor Pott, who harangued the meeting about the alleged injustice of Governor Harvey, and about the Governor's toleration for Indians, which he said would bring on another massacre. Francis Pott had formerly been commander of the fort at Point Comfort but had a short time before been discharged by Harvey for misbehavior.

Harvey ordered the principals in the York meeting arrested, and called the Council together to consider what action should be taken against them. The Council opposed Harvey's desire to proceed against them by martial law, and began to excuse the dissidents on the grounds of the many complaints the people had about the government. Harvey thereupon demanded opinions in writing on what should be done with the mutineers. George Menefie, the first Councilor of whom Harvey demanded such a written statement, said he was but a young lawyer and dared not give a sudden opinion. A violent debate ensued. The rest of the Council also refused to put their opinions in writing. At the next meeting of the Council, Menefie began to recount the grievances of the country, naming Harvey's detention of the Assembly's letter to the King as the principal one. The original of this letter, refusing the King's propositions concerning a tobacco contract, Harvey had retained, as likely to infuriate the monarch and do the country no good. Instead he had sent a copy of the letter to the Secretary of State. At Menefie's words, Harvey, in a rage, brought his hand down sharply