On the 20th of October Cradock resigned his governorship and Winthrop was chosen in his stead. Puritan ministers were at once elected to the freedom of the company, in order that its proceedings might not want the sanction of prayer. The next year the charter crossed the wide seas, and in 1630 a court of the company was held in the wilderness at Charlestown. But a subordinate government "for financial affairs only" was maintained in London, with Cradock, the former president, at the head. This seems to have been an effectual blind, and probably the king's government did not know of the flight of the charter until the Privy Council in 1634 summoned Cradock to bring that document to the Council Board. Thomas Morton, the expelled master of Merrymount, writes of the wrath of Laud, who had been foiled by this pretty ruse: "My lord of Canterbury and my lord privy seal, having caused all Mr. Cradock's letters to be viewed and his apology for the brethren particularly heard, protested against him and Mr. Humfries that they were a couple of imposturous knaves." Laud had thought to crush the government of Massachusetts by destroying the company, whose office remained in London, with Cradock still apparently its head. The archbishop found too late that he had eagerly pounced upon a dummy. He devised many things afterward to achieve his purpose, but the charter remained over seas. XII. From the point of view of our later age, the removal of the charter government to America is the event of chief importance in this migration of Winthrop's company. The ultimate effect of this brilliant stroke was so to modify a commercial corporation that it became a colonial government as independent as possible of control from England. By the admission of a large number of the colonists to be freemen--that is, to vote as stockholders in the affairs of the company, which was now the colony itself, and a little later by the development of a second chamber--the government became representative. [Sidenote: The main purpose.]