eaty of peace with
Cromwell's commissioners, elected the several governors of the colony
until the Restoration of Charles Second in 1660 took that authority
from them. The Burgesses had agreed to discontinue the use of prayers
for the King and the royal family in public services, and the General
Assembly enacted a law directing each parish to decide for itself
whether it would continue or discontinue the use of the _Book of Common
Prayer_. All questions of parish administration were left to the
several vestries. If a parish did not wish to use the old form of
worship it might use such form as it desired.

A number of ministers of Presbyterian ordination, and some openly
acknowledged Puritans thereupon came into the colony and these became
incumbent ministers of parishes. The last known one was the Rev. Andrew
Jackson, incumbent of Christ Church Parish in Lancaster County from
some years after 1680 until his death in 1711. He was a godly and
devout minister, beloved by his parishioners. Tradition says that he
"stood up to read the Psalms, but remained seated when they said the
Creed."

For twenty-five or thirty years prior to 1675, to the distress of the
Church and the people as a whole, there was a desperate lack of
ordained ministers, and inability, to get clergymen from England. Some
few, driven out of parishes in England by the Parliamentary victors,
did come to Virginia, but never in sufficient number to supply the
need. Then, after the restoration of Charles, II, in 1660 and the
return of the Anglican Church to active life, there were so many
parishes in England from which non-conforming ministers were removed
because of refusal to use the _Book of Common Prayer_, that for nearly
a decade there were almost no clergymen to send overseas. Conditions
did begin to improve, however, before the end of the decade.

The improvement increased more rapidly after a new bishop of London
came into that diocese in 1675 and manifested active interest in the
affairs of the parishes in America.

During the decade 1660-70, shortly after King Charles had been received
and crowned King of England, the General Assembly of Virginia made
earnest effort to call the attention of the Crown and the people of
England to the needs of the Church in the colony. A committee of
clergymen was sent from Jamestown to London to present the matter to
the King. The committee published a pamphlet telling of the great need
and urging a definite progr