The military links were severed by Canadian confederation at the end of the 1860s, when the governor of Bermuda, in his office of Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda, was elevated upon the removal of the British Army from Canada and the taking up by the Canadian Dominion Government of responsibility for the defence of all of the former British North American continental colonies excepting Newfoundland.

The established Church of England in Bermuda, within which the governor held office as Ordinary, remained linked to the colony of Newfoundland under the same Bishop until 1919.

The role of the governor is to act as the de facto head of state, and is responsible for appointing the premier and the 11 members of the Senate (the upper house of Bermuda's Parliament).

A carpenter by trade, Moore ensured the long-term survival of the colony by concentrating on building fortifications, including the first stone forts in the English New World, and developing St. George's Town.

By the 1630s, the Somers Isles Company had ceased sending Governors to Bermuda and had begun appointing prominent Bermudians, such as William Sayle, to the position.

Governor Daniel Tucker, formerly of Virginia, who arrived in 1616, was notorious for his harshness, having many islanders hanged, maimed, or whipped on the slightest provocation.

By the mid-seventeenth century, the Somers Isles Company had ceased sending governors from overseas, and instead appointed Bermudians such as William Sayle from this same local elite; a policy which ended after the Civil Wars, during which Bermuda tended to the Royalist side.

The Adventurers in England, many of whom were Parliamentarians, had exerted their authority over the preceding two decades 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).

All the ministers in the island, Mr. White, Mr. Goldinge, and Mr. Copeland, were Independents, and they had set up a Congregational Church, of which most gentlemen of Council were members or favourers.

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, and a proposition was made to the governor and Council by the Country (analogous to the Royalist party) 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, 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 11–22 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.

[13] Governors who were too high-handed or injudicious in the exercise of their office occasionally fell foul of the local political institutions.

The theft had been the result of a conspiracy involving powerful Bermudians, who were motivated as much by Bermuda's desperate plight, denied her primary trading partner and source of food, as by any favourable sentiments they may have had in regard to either the American colonists or their cause.

Despite this, the governors – appointed by the Crown – remained largely dependent on the Bermudian parliament to pass laws and to provide funds.

This fact often found governors pleading in vain for the required acts of parliament or money to carry out policies determined at Government House, or in London.

This was particularly noticeable in the Bermudian parliament's neglect to maintain militia, which (other than during the course of the American War of 1812), it allowed to become moribund after the build-up of the naval and military base began in 1795.

As it was not wished to leave the archipelago, seen more as a naval base and designated an Imperial fortress rather than a colony, unguarded, this could only be done if the professional soldiers were replaced with part-time Volunteer units.

Successive governors were set the task of convincing the Bermudian parliament to raise the required units, but, concerned of being saddled with the cost of maintaining the entire garrison, as well as with the possibility for social disruption that could be caused by raising either racially segregated or integrated units, the Bermudian Parliamentarians simply refused.

He was also found guilty of murdering the police commissioner, George Duckett, six months earlier on 9 September 1972, and of killing the co-owner and book-keeper of a supermarket called the Shopping Centre, Victor Rego and Mark Doe in April 1973.