During the great struggle in England between Charles I. and the Long Parliament (1642-1649), public sentiment in Virginia was with the king. There were but few Puritans in or about Jamestown, and they had for the most part come in from New England under Harvey's administration; their missionary labors in the conservative South were unwelcome, and they were warned "to depart the collony with all conveniencie,"--while the Papists, who had settled Maryland in 1634 under Lord Baltimore, were not tolerated in Virginia under any conditions. The execution of Charles (1649) naturally aroused deep indignation among the colonists, refugee Cavaliers from England soon joined them by thousands, and Berkeley seriously, but in vain, invited Charles II. to take up his abode among his American subjects. The extent of this sudden influx of Cavalier immigration to the colony was so great that while the population of Virginia was but fifteen thousand in 1650, it had increased to forty thousand by 1670. Sidenote: Parliamentary commissioners take possession. Parliament, however, was not disposed to allow Virginia to become a breeding-place for disloyalty to the Commonwealth, and appointed commissioners (1652), to whom the colony was surrendered possession with surprising promptness. "No sooner," wrote Lord Clarendon, "had the 'Guinea' frigate anchored in the waters of the Chesapeake than all thoughts of resistance were laid aside." The Puritan party at once took charge of the government, ruling with moderation and wisdom; and the colony, now allowed the utmost freedom in the conduct of its home affairs, prospered politically and financially under the Protectorate. Sidenote: Claiborne's quarrel with Maryland.