Governor Edmund Andros tried to make legal and structural changes, but most of these were undone and the Dominion was overthrown as soon as word was received that King James II had vacated the throne in England.

One notable change was the forced introduction of the Church of England into Massachusetts, whose Puritan leaders had previously refused to allow it any foothold.

Throughout the 1660s, the English Parliament passed a number of laws to regulate the trade of the colonies, collectively called the Navigation Acts.

The Navigation Acts also outlawed some long-standing New England practices, in effect turning merchants into smugglers while significantly increasing the cost of doing business.

The territory of Maine was disputed by competing grantees and by Massachusetts, and New Hampshire was a very small, recently established crown colony.

The Massachusetts General Court authorized Boston silversmith John Hull to produce local coinage between 1652 and 1682, which the English government considered treasonous.

[1] Massachusetts had a long history of virtually theocratic rule, and they exhibited little tolerance for non-Puritans, including supporters of the Church of England (which was most important for the king).

They were now starting to develop workshops that threatened to deprive England of its lucrative colonial market for manufactured articles, such as textiles, leather goods, and ironware.

The plan, therefore, was to establish a uniform all-powerful government over the northern colonies so that the people would be diverted away from manufacturing and foreign trade.

[3] Following the revocation of the Massachusetts charter, Charles II and the Lords of Trade moved forward with plans to establish a unified administration over at least some of the New England colonies.

[10] According to Edward Randolph, the Puritan magistrates "were of opinion that God would never suffer me to land again in this country, and thereupon began in a most arbitrary manner to assert their power higher than at any time before.

[12] Dudley made a number of judicial appointments, generally favoring the political moderates who had supported accommodation of the king's wishes in the battle over the old charter.

Some variations were overlooked, understanding that certain provisions of the acts were unfair, and they suggested to the Lords of Trade that the laws be modified to ameliorate these conditions.

[18] The Lords of Trade decided on September 9, 1686 to include the colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut in the dominion, based on a petition from Dudley's council.

He then demanded keys to Samuel Willard's Third Church in 1687,[21] and services were held there under the auspices of Robert Ratcliff until 1688, when King's Chapel was built.

Many protests were made that the town meeting and tax laws were violations of the Magna Carta, which guaranteed taxation by representatives of the people.

Taylor says that they "regarded secure real estate as fundamental to their liberty, status, and prosperity", and the colonists "felt horrified by the sweeping and expensive challenge to their land titles.

[30] All of the existing land titles in Massachusetts had been granted under the now-vacated colonial charter; in essence, Andros declared them to be void and required landowners to recertify their ownership, paying fees to the dominion and becoming subject to the charge of a quit-rent.

Andros attempted to compel the certification of ownership by issuing writs of intrusion, but large landowners who owned many parcels contested these individually, rather than recertifying all of their lands.

Nicholson was an army captain and protégé of colonial secretary William Blathwayt who came to Boston in early 1687 as part of Andros' honor guard and had been promoted to his council.

Dominion governance of the Jerseys was complicated by the fact that the proprietors' charters had been revoked, yet they had retained their property and petitioned Andros for what were traditional manorial rights.

His objective was to disrupt trade between the English at Albany and the Iroquois confederation, to which the Seneca belonged, and to break the Covenant Chain, a peace that Andros had negotiated in 1677 while he was governor of New York.

[41] He returned to Boston amid further attacks on the New England frontier by Abenaki parties, who admitted that they were doing so in part because of French encouragement.

He then returned to Maine with a significant force and began the construction of additional fortifications to protect the settlers, including Fort Andross.

The religious leaders of Massachusetts, led by Cotton and Increase Mather, were opposed to the rule of Andros and organized dissent targeted to influence the court in London.

[48] He sent a letter to previous colonial governor Simon Bradstreet containing news that the charter had been illegally annulled and that the magistrates should "prepare the minds of the people for a change.

"[49] News of the revolution apparently reached some individuals as early as late March,[50] and Bradstreet is one of several possible organizers of the revolt in Boston on April 18, 1689.

In Plymouth, dominion councilor Nathaniel Clark was arrested on April 22, and previous governor Thomas Hinckley was reinstated.

This was particularly problematic in Massachusetts, whose long frontier with New France saw its defenders recalled in the aftermath of the revolt; that area was exposed to French and Indian raids after the outbreak of King William's War in 1689.

King William was informed that this would result in a return of the Puritan government, and he wanted to prevent that, so the Lords of Trade decided to solve the issue by combining the two colonies.