England, where he made a strong fight before the throne for Kent Island.
Although he seemed for a while about to triumph, the lords commissioners
of plantations finally decided against his claims, thus dispelling the
rosy dreams of Claybourne.

In 1642, there came to Virginia as governor of the colony Sir William
Berkeley, then almost forty years of age, when John Stevens was only
seventeen. Berkeley was a man of charming manners, proverbially polite,
and he delighted the Virginians, who had a weakness for courtliness. He
belonged to an ancient English family, and believed in monarchy as a
devotee believes in his saint, "and he brought to the little capital at
Jamestown all the graces, amenities, and well-bred ways which at that
time were characteristic of the cavaliers. He was a cavalier of the
cavaliers, taking the word to signify an adherent of monarchy and the
established church," and thoroughly hated anything resembling
republicanism. For his king and church, this smiling gentleman, with his
easy and friendly air, was going to fight like a tiger or a ruffian.
Under his glove of velvet was a hand of iron, which would fall
inexorably alike on the New England Puritans and the followers of Bacon.
With the courage of his convictions, he was ready to deal out banishment
for the dissenters; shot and the halter for rebels. He lived on his
estate of about a thousand acres at Greenspring, not far from Jamestown.
"Here he had plate, servants, carriages, seventy horses, fifteen hundred
apple trees, besides apricots, peaches, pears, quinces and mellicottons.
When, in the stormy times, the poor cavaliers flocked to Virginia to
find a place of refuge, he entertained them after a royal fashion in
this Greenspring Manor house. As to the Virginians, they were always
welcome, so that they did not belong to the independents, haters of the
church and king."