Would you care to be told what took place afterwards? All kings, you should know, are not alike. Some are very mild and easy, and some are very harsh and severe. Some are willing for the people to have liberty, and some are not. The kings who gave the charters to New England were of the easy kind. But they were followed by kings of the hard kind, who thought that these people beyond the sea had too much liberty, and who wished to take away some of it. Charles II., who gave some of these charters, was one of the easy kings, and did not trouble himself about the people in the colonies. James II., who came after him, was one of the hard kings. He was somewhat of a tyrant, and wanted to make the laws himself, and to take the right to do this from the people. After trying to rob the people of England of their liberties, he thought he would do the same thing with the people of America. "Those folks across the seas are having too good a time," he thought. "They have too many rights and privileges, and I must take some of them away. I will let them know that I am their master." But they had their charters, which gave them these rights; so the wicked king thought the first thing for him to do was to take their charters away from them. Then their rights would be gone, and he could make for them a new set of laws, and force them to do everything he wished. What King James did was to send a nobleman named Sir Edmund Andros to New England to rule as royal governor. He was the agent of the king, and was to do all that the king ordered. He began by undertaking to rob the people of their charters. You see, even a tyrant king did not like to go against the charters, for a charter was a sacred pledge. Well, the new governor went about ordering the people to give him their charters. One of the places to which he went was Hartford, Connecticut, and there he told the officers of the colony that they must deliver up their charter; the king had said so, and the king's word must be obeyed. If any of you had lived in Connecticut in those days I know how you would have felt. The charter gave the people a great deal of liberty, and they did not wish to part with it. I know that you and I would have felt the same way. But what could they do? If they did not give it up peacefully, Governor Andros might come again with soldiers and take it from them by force. So the lawmakers and officials were in a great fret about what they should do.