English overseas possessions in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

The vast majority of the adult population were first generation settlers and thousands returned to the British Isles to fight or involve themselves in the politics of the Commonwealth of England (1649–1660).

Although the newer, Puritan settlements in North America, most notably Massachusetts, were dominated by Parliamentarians, the older colonies sided with the Crown.

Starting with Bermuda, six colonies recognized Charles II after the regicide in 1649, including: Antigua, Barbados, Virginia, Maryland, and Newfoundland.

On 25 October 1651, a seven-ship force under Commodore George Ayscue arrived off Barbados, demanding that the island submit "for the use of the Parliament of England".

Willoughby's reply (tellingly addressed to "His Majesty's ship Rainbow") was unyielding, declaring that he knew "no supreme authority over Englishmen but the King".

In early December, with the Royalist cause defeated in England, Ayscue began a series of raids against fortifications on the island and was reinforced by a group of thirteen ships bound for Virginia.

Governor Willoughby attempted to stem the spread of Parliamentary sympathies by hanging two of the returning militia soldiers and prohibiting the reading of documents from the blockading fleet.

The Royalists held out for several more weeks until one of Willoughby's own commanders, Sir Thomas Modyford the assembly speaker, declared himself for Parliament.

Following the conquest of Scotland and Ireland by the Commonwealth, Irish prisoners, and a smaller number of Scottish and English Royalists, were sent to the islands as indentured servants and became known as Redlegs.

He sent a fleet to the West Indies under Admiral William Penn, with some 3,000 soldiers under the command of General Robert Venables, which was further reinforced in Barbados, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis.

Penn and Venables decided to lay siege to Santo Domingo but failed, because the Spanish had improved their defences in the face of Dutch attacks earlier in the century.

[citation needed] The colonies of Virginia, Bermuda, and Maryland had strong Royalist sympathies, owing to their origins and demographics.

Bermuda, or the Somers Isles (originally named "Virginiola"), 640 miles from Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, had been settled in 1609 by the wreck of the Sea Venture and officially colonised as an extension of Virginia in 1612.

As virtually all of the land in Bermuda was owned by absentee landlords in England (the "Adventurers" of the Virginia and Somers Isles Companies), with most islanders being tenants or indentured servants, there was originally no property qualification to vote for the local assembly.

With the establishment of an elected assembly, this became a legislative council, acting as both an upper house of the legislature and as a Cabinet (it is today the Senate of Bermuda).

The Adventurers in England, many of whom were Parliamentarians, exerted their authority to strangle Bermuda's emerging maritime industry, and the Bermudians' animosity towards the Adventurers in England consequently further acted to place them on the side of the Crown (the Somers Isles Company had tended towards the Royalist side in 1647, but was in the Parliamentary camp by 1649, and Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, one of the major shareholders of the Somers Isles Company, was appointed Lord High Admiral of the Parliamentary navy from 1642 to 1649, and was related to Oliver Cromwell by the marriage of his grandson and heir to Cromwell's daughter).

To end the strife in the colony, the Somers Isles Company appointed Captain Thomas Turner Governor in 1647, and Independents were removed from Government.

It also bore instructions from the Company stripping the moderate Royalist Captain Thomas Turner of the office of Governor (which had been filled by a succession of Bermudian settlers since the 1630s, in contrast to the company's earlier practice of dispatching governors to the colony) and ordering that the colony be governed by a triumvirate composed of the moderate Richard Norwood, Captain Leacraft (also spelt "Leicroft"), and Mr. Wilkinson.

News of the execution of King Charles I reached Bermuda by July,[4][5][6] and a proposition was made to the Governor and Council by "the Country" (analogous to the Royalist party in the House of Assembly) at a meeting on 5 July 1649: Wee uppon sufficient grounds reports and circumstances are convinced that our Royall Souraigne Charles the first is slaine wch horrid act wee defie and detest and unwillinge to have our conscience stained with the breach of the oath (to) our god and to avoide fallinge into a premunire, acknowledge the high-borne Charles prince of Wales to be the undobted heire apparent to the kingdomes of great Brittan ffrance and Ireland wee desire the said prince accordinge to his birthright may speedily be proclaymed 2ndly.

Wee desire that the oath of alledgeance and supremacy may be forthwith administerd to all people in these Islands who are capable thereof without exception and if any shall deny the taking of the said oathes or by any manner of practice whatsoever transgress against either the ptie or p.ties beinge Lawfully convict thereof, to be speedily punished accordinge as the Lawes of our nation hath provided in such cases 3rdly.

Wee desire these our Just demands and Requests may be putt into speedy executionThe answer of the Governor and Council to the Country's proposition was to make Bermuda the first colony to recognize Charles II as King,[7] and included: give our heartie thanks for your loyaltie to the kinge and Crown of Englande wee doe acknowledge the high-born Charles Prince of Wales to be heir to the crowne and kingdome of England Scotland ffrance and Ireland after the decease of his royal father and we doe hereby declare and utter, we detest and dissent that horrid Act of Slayinge his Majtie and by the oath wch wee have taken, wee shall beare faith and alleadgiance to the Lawfulle Kinge of England his heirss and successors.On 20 August 1649, Governor Turner ordered a proclamation to be drawn up and published (dated 21 August) requiring that, as various persons in the colony had "taken the oath of supremacy and alleadgiance vunto his matie the Lawfull kinge of England and yet neuertheles they contrarye to theire oathes doe deny conformity to the lawes and Government here established", all such persons who refused conformity to the Government in both the church and state could expect no protection by virtue of any former power or order, and would face prosecution.

On Thursday, 27 September 1649, "the Army brought downe the new Gour and he tooke his oathe in the Church according to the usuall forme and vppon ffryday they marched awaye out of the towne (of St Georges) into the mayne".

In Bermuda, tailors Thomas Walker of Paget and George Washington of Hamilton were tried at the Assizes held from the 11 to 22 November 1650, on charges of being traitors against "our Soveraigne Lord the Kinge".

Admiral Sir George Ayscue, in command of the task force sent in 1651 by Parliament to capture the Royalist colonies, received additional instructions from Whitehall (dated 13 February 1651) addressed to him and the other Commissioners, instructing "aswell to take Care for the reducemt of Bermuda's Virginia & Antego, as of the Island of Barbada's"; "In the case that (through the blessing of God upon yor endeavors) you shall be able to recover the Island of Barbada's unto its due subjection to this Comonwealth or after you have used your utmost dilligence to effect the same.

And you are to make yor attempt upon the Island of Bermuda's, wch it is informed may without much strength or difficulty be gained or upon any the other plantacons now in defection as your Intelligence and opportunity shall serve".

During this time, St. Mary's City was visited by Captain Richard Ingle, a Roundhead, who led a rebellion upon Leonard Calvert's return.

[12] What followed became known as the Plundering Time, a nearly two-year period when Ingle and his companions roamed the colony, robbing at will and taking Jesuits back to England as prisoners.

[13] Meanwhile, the Virginia colonists were battling for their survival in a war against the Powhatans (1644–1646) which saw a tenth of the colonial population killed in the initial massacre.

The issue of which side Maryland stood on was finally settled, at least in appearance, when Thomas Greene, deputy to Stone and a Roman Catholic, declared on 15 November 1649, that Charles II was the "undoubted rightfull heire to all his father's dominions".

[20] In 1642, after the English Civil War began, a sixth of the male colonists returned to England to fight for Parliament, and many stayed, since Oliver Cromwell was himself a Puritan.