The colonists were accustomed in England to specific ranks and orders of society. In America, while there were from the first sharp social distinctions, the fact that the great body of the settlers began life in the wilderness side by side, on an equal basis, was favorable to a democratic sentiment. Nobility was connected, in English minds, with great landed estates, of which there were few in America outside of Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, and New York. Under Locke's constitution it was attempted by the proprietaries formally to divide Carolina society into groups, with hereditary titles; but the project could not be carried out. Nevertheless, Southern society was in the main as distinctly stratified, after the introduction of slavery, as though titles had existed. New England life was calculated strongly to foster the spirit of independence; and the slave class was not large enough materially to affect social conditions. Still, there was an acknowledged and respected aristocracy, founded on ancestry, education, commercial success, and individual merit, but lacking staying qualities; for it had neither large estates nor primogeniture to back it. The scheme of Lord Brooke, Lord Say and Sele, and others, to introduce hereditary rank in Massachusetts (1636) fortunately failed to receive popular approval. Sidenote: Colonial governors. Used as they were to the exercise of the royal prerogative, the colonists accepted the free exercise by the governors of the privileges of appointment and veto, whether those officials were selected by the Crown or by proprietaries. In addition to these privileges, the governor of a royal colony was the bearer of royal instructions and the medium of royal directions; he was the executive officer, the granter of pardons (except in capital cases), the commander of the military and naval forces, the head of the established church, and the chief of the judiciary; and he could summon, prorogue, and dissolve the assembly. The assembly held the purse-strings, however, and the actual power of the governor was consequently in a great degree curtailed. The record of colonial politics is largely made up of disputes between the representatives and the executive, in which the assembly usually won by withholding supplies until the governor came to its terms. Sidenote: The judiciary.