much self-government on the Puritans.

Charles' successor, James II, a man of sterner stuff and jealous of his
authority in the colonies as well as at home, continued the policy thus
inaugurated and enlarged upon it. If he could have kept his throne, he
would have bent the Americans under a harsh rule or brought on in his
dominions a revolution like that which he precipitated at home in 1688.
He determined to unite the Northern colonies and introduce a more
efficient administration based on the pattern of the royal provinces. He
made a martinet, Sir Edmund Andros, governor of all New England, New
York, and New Jersey. The charter of Massachusetts, annulled in the last
days of his brother's reign, he continued to ignore, and that of
Connecticut would have been seized if it had not been spirited away and
hidden, according to tradition, in a hollow oak.

For several months, Andros gave the Northern colonies a taste of
ill-tempered despotism. He wrung quit rents from land owners not
accustomed to feudal dues; he abrogated titles to land where, in his
opinion, they were unlawful; he forced the Episcopal service upon the
Old South Church in Boston; and he denied the writ of _habeas corpus_ to
a preacher who denounced taxation without representation. In the middle
of his arbitrary course, however, his hand was stayed. The news came
that King James had been dethroned by his angry subjects, and the people
of Boston, kindling a fire on Beacon Hill, summoned the countryside to
dispose of Andros. The response was prompt and hearty. The hated
governor was arrested, imprisoned, and sent back across the sea under
guard.

The overthrow of James, followed by the accession of William and Mary
and by assured parliamentary supremacy, had an immediate effect in the