Although the Stuarts had been deposed in England and the younger Charles forced to fly to the Continent, he was still King in Virginia with loyal and devoted subjects. It was under such conditions that Charles, actuated not only by a desire to reward certain of his Cavalier adherents who were sharing his exile, but also to create a refuge for others of his followers from the ire and oppression of the triumphant Roundheads, granted by charter dated the 18th day of September, 1649, the whole domain between the Rappahannock and Potomac to seven of his faithful lieges who, during the Civil War, had fought valiantly in the Stuart cause. These men were described in the charter, still preserved in the British Museum, as Ralph Lord Hopton, Baron of Stratton; Henry Lord Jermyn, Baron of St. Edmund's Bury; John Lord Colepeper, Baron of Thoresway; Sir John Berkeley, Sir William Morton, Sir Dudley Wyatt and Thomas Colepeper Esq. And thus, says Fairfax Harrison, "the proprietary of the Northern Neck of Virginia came into existence." He notes that of the patentees Lord Jermyn, after the Restoration, became Earl of St. Albans and Sir John Berkeley, Baron Berkeley of Stratton. "The only conditions" quotes Head "attached to the conveyance of the domain, the equivalent of a principality, were that one-fifth of all the gold and one-tenth of all the silver, discovered within its limits should be reserved for the royal use and that a nominal rent of a few pounds sterling should be paid into the treasury at Jamestown each year." But to receive a grant of this splendid Proprietary from a fugitive and powerless King was one thing and to reduce it to actual possession was another and very different one. Charles might and did consider himself King in both England and Virginia and the ruling Virginians might and did consider themselves his very loyal and obedient subjects; but unfortunately for the seven Cavalier patentees of the Northern Neck, the Parliament and Cromwell took a radically different view of the matter and, even more unfortunately, were in a position to enforce that view. No sooner had the representatives of the new Proprietors come to Virginia and were duly welcomed by the royalist Governor Sir William Berkeley, than a Parliamentary fleet of warships arrived from England, deposed the Governor, set up the rule of Parliament in 1652 and abruptly ended, for the time being, the patentees' hopes of gaining possession of their new grant.