Transcriber's Note:
Research has indicated the copyright on this book was not renewed.
Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.
This e-book contains archaic spelling.
For the convenience of the reader a linked Table of Contents has been added to this e-book.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.For a complete list, please see the end of this document.
Forty-seven years have passed since this volume was first published;in that time a mass of source material has been made available to thehistorian and numerous books on early Virginia history have beenpublished. But I believe that its main theses have not been shaken.The old belief that the Virginia aristocracy had its origin in amigration of Cavaliers after the defeat of the royalists in theBritish Civil War has been relegated to the sphere of myths. It iswidely recognized that the leading Virginia families—the Carters, theLudwells, the Burwells, the Custises, the Lees, the Washingtons—wereshaped chiefly by conditions within the colony and by renewed contactwith Great Britain.
That the Virginia aristocracy was not part of the English aristocracytransplanted in the colony is supported by contemporaneous evidence.When Nathaniel Bacon, the rebel, the son of an English squire,expressed surprise when Governor Berkeley appointed him to the Councilof State, Sir William replied: "When I had the first knowledge of youI intended you and do now again all the services that are in my powerto serve, for gentlemen of your quality come very rarely into thecountry, and therefore when they do come were used by me with allrespect."
Bacon was equally frank. "Consider ... the nature and quality of themen in power ... as to their education, extraction, and learning, asto their reputation for honor and honesty, see and consider whetherhere, as in England, you can perceive men advanced for their noble