and not administering the sacrament of baptism according
to the canons and order prescribed, and for not catechizing on Sunday
in the afternoon, according to the Act of Assembly." He was banished to
Massachusetts in 1648, where he remained for two years and married.
Afterward he returned to England and was given official position in the
Commonwealth under Cromwell.

In the heated atmosphere of the times the Puritan group in Virginia
took occasion to apply to the Puritan church government in
Massachusetts to send three ordained Puritan "missionaries" to their
fellow religionists in Virginia, but upon the arrival of the
missionaries their ship was met by government officials; the three
missionaries sent back to Massachusetts; and the master of the ship was
fined for bringing them to the colony. No one in official position in
Virginia could escape the conviction that the sending of Puritan
ministers to Virginia at such a time, whether upon request of the
Nansemond River group or upon suggestion from Boston, was for any
purpose other than to foment and organize Puritan opposition to the
King. For that reason Puritanism in Virginia came under suspicion, and
the Governor, Sir William Berkeley, with the full support of the
government and public opinion, treated all Puritans as enemies. He made
their situation so intolerable that the entire group accepted an
invitation from the proprietor of the Province of Maryland and migrated
to that colony. There, given land on the Severn River, they gained
control of the provincial government within a few years. The forcing of
the group out of Virginia was a political act of defense and was not
religious persecution.

The English Parliament in 1645 enacted a law abolishing the Church of
England as an active organization. The law enacted by Parliament drove
every bishop from his diocese, and forbade the use of the _Book of
Common Prayer_ in any church or chapel in England. The rectors of over
two thousand parishes were forced out and their places were filled by
Presbyterian and Independent or Baptist ministers.

The General Assembly of Virginia, upon learning the action of
Parliament, adopted an act in 1647 requiring the use of the _Prayer
Book_ in every church and chapel in Virginia each Sunday in the regular
forms prescribed in the _Prayer Book_. The Act made further provision
that in every parish in which the incumbent minister disobeyed the law
and continued disuse of the _Book of C