The course of the colonial authorities speedily jeopardized the charter which they obtained so readily from the king.  Upon the arrival in England, in 1631, of Morton, Gardiner, and other victims of the court of assistants, they communicated with Gorges (now powerfully assisted by John Mason); and he gladly seized upon their complaints to accuse the ministers and people of Massachusetts of railing against the state and church of England, and of an evident purpose of casting off their allegiance at the first favorable opportunity.  The complaint was referred, in December, 1632, to a committee of the council,[15] before whom the friends of the company in London—­Cradock, Saltonstall, and Humphrey—­filed a written answer.  Affairs bore a bad appearance for the colonists, but the unexpected happened.  Powerful influences at court were brought to bear upon the members of the committee, and to the astonishment of every one they reported, January 19, 1633, against any interference until “further inquiry” could be made.[16] King Charles not only approved this report, but volunteered the remark that “he would have them severely punished who did abuse his governor and the plantation."[17]

Though the danger for the present was avoided, it was not wholly removed.  In August, 1633, Laud was made archbishop of Canterbury, and his accession to authority was distinguished by a more rigorous enforcement of the laws against Nonconformists.  The effect was to cause the lagging emigration to New England to assume immense volume.  There was no longer concealment of the purposes of the emigrants, for the Puritan preachers began everywhere to speak openly of the corruptions of the English church.[18] In September, 1633, the theocracy of Massachusetts were reinforced by three eminent ministers, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and Thomas Shepard; and so many other persons accompanied and followed them that by the end of 1634 the population was not far short of four thousand.  The clergy, now thirteen or fourteen in number, were nearly all graduates of Oxford or Cambridge.

This exodus of so many of the best, “both ministers and Christians,"[19] aroused the king and Archbishop Laud to the danger threatened by the Massachusetts colony.  Gorges, Mason, and the rest renewed the attack, and in February, 1634, an order was obtained from the Privy Council for the detention of ten vessels bound for Massachusetts.  At the same time Cradock, the ex-governor of the company, was commanded by the Privy Council to hand in the Massachusetts charter.[20] Soon after, the king announced his intention of “giving order for a general governor” for New England; and in April, 1634, he appointed a new commission for the government of the colonies, called “The Commission for Foreign Plantations,” with William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, at the head.  Mr. Cradock transmitted a copy of the order of council, requiring a production of the charter, to Boston, where it was received by Governor Dudley in July, 1634.