To the decisions of the chief-justices Massachusetts must needs submit. The Gorges claim led to more serious results. Under Cromwell's rule in 1652--the same year in which she began coining money--Massachusetts had extended her sway over Maine. In 1665 Colonel Nichols and his commissioners, acting upon the express instructions of Charles II., took it away from her. In 1668, after the commissioners had gone home, Massachusetts coolly took possession again. In 1677 the chief-justices decided that the claim of the Gorges family, being based on a grant from James I., was valid. Then the young Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of the first proprietor, offered to sell the province to the king, who had now taken it into his head that he would like to bestow it upon the Duke of Monmouth, his favourite son by Lucy Walters. Before Charles had responded, Governor Leverett had struck a bargain with Gorges, who ceded to Massachusetts all his rights over Maine for L1250 in hard cash. When the king heard of this transaction he was furious. He sent a letter to Boston, commanding the General Court to surrender the province again on repayment of this sum of L1250, and expressing his indignation that the people should thus dare to dispose of an important claim off-hand without consulting his wishes. In the same letter the colony was enjoined to put in force the royal orders of seventeen years before, concerning the oath of allegiance, the restriction of the suffrage, and the prohibition of the Episcopal form of worship. [Sidenote: The Gorges claim]