The fact should seem to be that he had the _certaminis gaudia_—the joy of disputation; common to intellectual gladiators. Occasionally this got the better of his prudence; and when it did, like a skilful rider, he soon recovered the reins of his caution and made glad amends. On this occasion, he confessed his penitence for the ill which had arisen from the unfortunate polemic, and offered to burn the manuscript if the authorities chose to countenance the bon-fire.[841] Roger Williams next pronounced himself upon an exciting local question. It was then a mooted point at Salem whether women were commanded to appear at church veiled.[842] Singularly enough, the radical Williams said Yes, and the conservative Cotton said No; the historic opponents for once changed places; and Cotton, going to Salem, handled the subject so convincingly in his morning sermon, that the ladies came to church in the afternoon unveiled; upon which “Williams, though unconvinced, desisted from opposition.”[843] Behind these frivolities were graver issues. In 1633, trouble seemed brewing between England and the Pilgrim colonists. Charles, Laud, and Strafford, had hinted at a “commission” for the regulation of the non-conforming American plantations; and the Privy Council had commanded Cradock to order the colonial charter home, to be “regulated.” The ex-president of the Massachusetts Company did write for it in 1634, and in 1635 “quo warranto”[844] was issued. But the provisional authorities, while answering Cradock’s missive, declined to return the charter.[845] Affairs looked black indeed. Resistance was seriously contemplated; what was called the “freeman’s oath,” which bound the colonists to allegiance to the colony rather than to the king, was ordered to be subscribed throughout Massachusetts Bay; and at the same time it was decided to “avoid and protract.”[846] Nothing prevented England from launching her cohorts upon the plantations but the presence of those home troubles which now began to press the royalist party as closely as the serpents enveloped Laocöon. It was a time of general anxiety, and men cried Hush! and held their breath to see what should next occur. But “Williams could not keep quiet in this seething world,” affirms Elliot; “nor could Endicott. Both of them saw the inevitable tendencies of the Roman church; and feeling that such a church was dangerous to their infant liberties, they decided that the symbol under which the pope and Laud marched should not be their symbol: so Endicott cut the cross out of the king’s colors. At such a crisis, when the aim was to ‘avoid and protract,’ this audacious act of course made trouble; and Endicott, at the next court, was ‘sadly admonished,’ and disabled from office for a year.[847] Williams held peculiar views respecting oaths, and cited the Scripture command—‘swear not at all.’ And as the freeman’s oath clashed with the oath to the king, he also spoke against that, and dissuaded some from taking it.”[848]