of Charles the First. Almost from the moment that that ill-fated
monarch ascended the throne he began quarreling with Parliament;
and when he decided to dismiss its members and make himself the
supreme ruler of the land, he practically forced his subjects into
a revolution. Twelve feverish years followed--years of discontent,
indignation and passion--which arrayed the Cavaliers, who supported
the King, against the Roundheads, who upheld Parliament, and finally
flung them at each other's throats to drench the soil of England
with their blood.

Meanwhile, the gathering storm of civil war caused many a resident
of the British Isles to seek peace and security across the seas,
and among those who turned toward America were Mathew Grant and
Richard Lee. It is not probable that either of these men had ever
heard of the other, for they came from widely separated parts of
the kingdom and were even more effectually divided by the walls of
caste. There is no positive proof that Mathew Grant (whose people
probably came from Scotland) was a Roundhead, but he was a man of
humble origin who would naturally have favored the Parliamentary
or popular party, while Richard Lee, whose ancestors had fought
at Hastings and in the Crusades, is known to have been an ardent
Cavalier, devoted to the King. But whether their opinions on
politics differed or agreed, it was apparently the conflict between
the King and Parliament that drove them from England. In any event
they arrived in America at almost the same moment; Grant reaching
Massachusetts in 1630, the year after King Charles dismissed his
Parliament, and Lee visiting Virginia about this time to prepare
for his permanent residence in the Dominion which began when actual
hostilities opened in the mother land.