This was a momentous crisis in the history of the colony.  The governor and assistants made answer to Mr. Cradock that the charter could not be returned except by command of the general court, not then in session.  At the same time orders were given for fortifying Castle Island, Dorchester, and Charlestown.  In this moment of excitement the figure of Endicott again dramatically crosses the stage of history.  Conceiving an intense dislike to the cross in the English flag, he denounced it as antichrist, and cut it out with his own hands from the ensign borne by the company at Salem.  Endicott was censured by the general court for the act, but soon the cross was left out of all the flags except that of the fort at Castle Island, in Boston Harbor.[21]

Massachusetts, while taking these bold measures at home, did not neglect the protection of her interests in England.  The government of Plymouth, in July, 1634, sent Edward Winslow to England, and Governor Dudley and his council engaged him to present an humble petition in their behalf.[22] Winslow was a shrewd diplomat, but was so far from succeeding with his suit that upon his appearance before the lords commissioners in 1635 he was, through Laud’s “vehement importunity,” committed to Fleet Prison, where he lay seventeen weeks.[23]

Gorges and Mason lost no time in improving their victory.  February 3, 1635, they secured a redivision of the coast of New England by the Council for New England, into twelve parts, which were assigned to as many persons.  Sir William Alexander received the country from the river St. Croix to Pemaquid; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the province of Maine from Penobscot to Piscataqua; Captain John Mason, New Hampshire and part of Massachusetts as far as Cape Ann, while the coast from Cape Ann to Narragansett Bay fell to Lord Edward Gorges, and the portion from Narragansett Bay to the Connecticut River to the marquis of Hamilton.[24]

April 25, 1635, the Council for New England issued a formal declaration of their reasons for resigning the great charter to the king, chief among which was their inability to rectify the complaints of their servants in America against the Massachusetts Company, who had “surreptitiously” obtained a charter for lands “justly passed to Captain Robert Gorges long before."[25] June 7 the charter was surrendered to the king, who appointed Sir Ferdinando Gorges “general governor.”  The expiring company further appointed Thomas Morton as their lawyer to ask for a quo warranto against the charter of the Massachusetts Company.

In September, 1635, judgment was given in Westminster Hall that “the franchises of the Massachusetts Company be taken and seized into the king’s hands."[26] But, as Winthrop said, the Lord “frustrated their designs.”  King Charles was trying to rule without a Parliament, and had no money to spend against New England.  Therefore, the cost of carrying out the orders of the government devolved upon Mason and Gorges, who set to work to build a ship to convey the latter to America, but it fell and broke in the launching,[27] and about November, 1635, Captain John Mason died.