The New Student's Reference Work/Berkeley, Sir William

Berkeley, Sir William, colonial governor of Virginia in the time of Charles I and Charles II of England, was born near London in 1608, and died in England in 1677.  He was commissioned royal governor of Virginia in 1641, and being a monarchist and partisan of the crown, he held, for nearly thirty-five years, this colonial outpost, with the exception of the interval of the Commonwealth.  During the Cromwellian period Virginia was an asylum for many Englishmen of rank who were loyal to the crown; the colony, indeed, was among the last of the crown possessions abroad to acknowledge the Protector’s authority.  Berkeley, in his later years, grew irascible and intolerant, and behaved despotically toward those who took part in Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion (see the latter).  He was opposed to free schools, to printing and to religious liberty, and was recalled to England in 1676.