part explicitly, in part tacitly. The king had no direct relation with
their proceedings, beyond the general and vague claims of royal
prerogative; and it was an open question whether Parliament had the power
to override the authority of the patentees.

It will be seen that this charter was in no respect inharmonious with the
system of self-government which had grown up among the Plymouth colonists;
it was a more complete and definite formulation of principles which must
ever be supported by men who wish so to live as to obtain the highest
social and religious welfare. It was the stately flowering of a seed
already obscurely planted, and though it was to be now and again checked
in its development, would finally bear the fruit of the Tree of Life.



CHAPTER THIRD

THE SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS


Among the characteristic figures of this age, none shows stronger
lineaments than that of John Endicott. He was, at the time of his coming
to Massachusetts, not yet forty years of age; he remained there till his
death at six-and-seventy. He was repeatedly elected governor, and died in
the governor's chair. In 1645 he was made Major-general of the Colonial
troops; nine years before he had headed a campaign against the Pequot
Indians. His character illustrated the full measure of Puritan sternness;
he was an inflexible persecutor of the Quakers, and was instrumental in
causing four of them to be executed in Boston. In his career is found no
feeble passage; he was always Endicott. He was a man grown before he