Nevertheless, the authority of the court of assistants, for several reasons, continued to be very great. In the first place, unlike the Council of Virginia, which could only amend or reject the action of the lower house, the assistants had the right of originating laws. Then the custom at the annual elections of first putting the names of the incumbents to the vote made the tenure of its members a pretty constant affair. Next, as a court, it exercised for years a vast amount of discretionary power. Not till 1641 was the first code, called the _Body of Liberties_, adopted, and this code itself permitted the assistants to supply any defect in the law by the "word of God," a phrase which to the followers of Calvin had especial reference to the fierce legislation of the Old Testament. 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.