Herbert Jeffreys (English Army officer)

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Herbert Jeffreys (c. 1620 – 17 December 1678) was an English Army officer and colonial administrator who served as the acting governor of Virginia in the immediate aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion.[1][2][3] American historian Douglas Edward Leach described Jeffreys as a "chief troubleshooter" and "the most active and expert guardsman in the political police function of the courtier army."[4]

Sir Herbert Jeffreys
Portrait of Jeffreys, c. 1677
Acting Governor of Virginia
In office
April 27, 1677 – December 17, 1678
MonarchCharles II
Preceded bySir William Berkeley
Succeeded bySir Henry Chicheley
Personal details
Bornc. 1620 – 1625
Kirkham, North Yorkshire, England
Died17 December 1678
Jamestown, Virginia Colony, British America
SpouseSusanna Osborne
Children7

Biography

Early life and family

Jeffreys was born around 1620–1625 in Kirkham, North Yorkshire, England.[5] Available records indicate that Jeffreys married Susanna Osborne and they had seven children during the period between 1666 and 1674.[6] The Jeffreys family resided in Yorkshire and attended Saint Michael-Le-Belfry church.

Military service

Jeffreys was a longtime military officer and staunch royalist. From 1642 until 1648, he fought for King Charles I in the English Civil War. During the period following, Jeffreys was in French exile, where he served on the military staff of Charles I's second son, James, Duke of York.[7] While in Flanders, Jeffreys supported the repression of the Fronde provincial revolts between 1648 and 1653 and helped to form the Guards of Charles II. After the restoration of Charles II as King, Jeffreys served the crown as commander of Guards Garrison companies in Portsmouth, York, the Isle of Jersey, and London. He served as deputy governor of York for over eight years and assumed martial command in 1670. He attained the rank of captain and later lieutenant colonel in the English Army.[4][8]

Virginia political career

In November 1676,[9] Jeffreys was appointed by Charles II as a lieutenant governor of Virginia colony and arrived in Virginia in February 1677.[10][11] During Bacon's Rebellion, Jeffreys was commander-in-chief of the regiment of six warships carrying over 1,100 troops, tasked with quelling and pacifying the rebellion upon their arrival.[12][13] He served as leader of a three-member commission (alongside Sir John Berry and Francis Moryson)[14] to inquire into the causes of discontent and political strife in the colony.[15] The commission published a report for the King titled "A True Narrative of the Rise, Progresse, and Cessation of the late Rebellion in Virginia," which provided an official report and history of the insurrection.[16]

On 27 April 1677 and with the support of the King,[17] Jeffreys assumed the role of acting colonial governor following Bacon's Rebellion, succeeding his political rival Governor Sir William Berkeley after he was formally recalled to England and convinced to vacate the colony.[18][19][20] Shortly after Jeffreys took over as acting governor, Berkeley angrily remarked that Jeffreys had an "irresistible desire to rule this country" and that his action could not be justified. He wrote to Jeffreys, "I believe that the inhabitants of this Colony will quickly find a difference between your management and mine."[21]

As acting governor, Jeffreys was responsible for appeasing the remaining factions of resistance and reforming the colonial government to be once more under direct Crown control.[22][23]

As acting governor, Jeffreys presided over the Treaty of 1677, the formal peace treaty between the Crown and representatives from various Virginia Native American tribes that was signed on 28 May 1677.[22][24][25] In October 1677, Jeffreys persuaded the Virginia General Assembly to pass an act of amnesty for all of the participants in Bacon's Rebellion,[26] and levied fines against any citizen of the colony that called another a "traitor" or "rebel."[27] Jeffreys led efforts to rebuild and restore the state house and colonial capital of Jamestown which had been burned and looted during the rebellion.[28]

As acting governor, Jeffreys was known for suspending some of his most outspoken critics from office.[27] He was strongly opposed by the "Green Spring faction" of members of the assembly and Governor's council, who remained loyal to Berkeley. Philip Ludwell referred to Jeffreys as "a pitiful little fellow with a periwig."[29]

Death

Jeffreys died on December 17, 1678, at the age of 53–58.[30][31] He was one of the first colonial governors of Virginia to die while in office and was generally unpopular among Virginia's public at the time of his death.[32][33] He was immediately succeeded by Henry Chicheley as acting governor.[17]

See also

Notes
  1. "Governors of Virginia". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  2. "Bluebook of the Commonwealth of Virginia - Governors of Virginia". www.bluebook.virginia.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  3. Calendar of the State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, preserved in the state paper department of Her Majesty's public record office: Edited by W. Noël Sainsbury. IV. H.M. Stationery Office. 1893. p. 486.
  4. Leach, Douglas Edward (2010-06-15). Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677-1763. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-8078-9879-6.
  5. Jones, Theophilus (1809). A History of the County of Brecknock. W. & G. North.
  6. "Genealogical Notes and Queries". The William and Mary Quarterly. 19 (1): 116–119. 1939. doi:10.2307/1923070. ISSN 0043-5597. JSTOR 1923070.
  7. Webb, Stephen Saunders (2014-01-01). The Governors-General: The English Army and the Definition of the Empire, 1569-1681. UNC Press Books. p. 124. ISBN 978-1-4696-0001-7.
  8. Webb, Stephen Saunder (1995-12-01). 1676: The End of American Independence. Syracuse University Press. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-8156-0361-0.
  9. Annual Report of the American Historical Association. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1908. p. 488.
  10. "Herbert Jeffreys". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  11. Bruce, Philip Alexander; Stanard, William Glover (1914). The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Virginia Historical Society. p. 51.
  12. Robinson, W. Stitt (1958). Washburn, Wilcomb E. (ed.). "The Governor and the Rebel". The Virginia Quarterly Review. 34 (3): 463–466. ISSN 0042-675X. JSTOR 26442625.
  13. Taylor, Alan (2002-07-30). American Colonies: The Settling of North America (The Penguin History of the United States, Volume 1). Penguin. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-14-200210-0.
  14. Calendar of Transcripts: Including the Annual Report of the Department of Archives and History. Virginia State Library Archives Division. 1905. p. 572.
  15. John Berry, Francis Moryson, and Herbert Jefferys, "A True Narrative of the Rise, Progress and Cessation of the Late Rebellion in Virginia, Most Humbly and Impartially Recorded by His Majesties Commissioners, Appointed to inquire into the Affairs of the Said Colony." Ed. by Charles Andrews, in Narrative of the Insurrections 1675 to 1690, (Charles Scribner's Sons: New York, 1915)
  16. Kruer, Matthew (2022-02-08). Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and the Crisis of Colonialism in Early America. Harvard University Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-674-97617-7.
  17. "Hening's Statutes at Large". vagenweb.org. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  18. "Herbert Jeffreys". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  19. Jeffery, Reginald W. "The Project Gutenberg eBook of The History Of The Thirteen Colonies Of North America". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  20. Calendar of state papers: 1677/80. H.M. Stationery Office. 1896.
  21. The Effect of Bacon's Rebellion. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1963. p. 150.
  22. "1677: An Anglo-Dutch dynastic marriage. A Treaty in Virginia. | Just World News". justworldnews.org. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  23. Waselkov, Gregory A.; Wood, Peter H.; Hatley, M. Thomas (2006-12-01). Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-9861-3.
  24. Treaty Between Virginia And The Indians 1677 (Bay Link, 1997).
  25. Brock, Robert Alonzo; Lewis, Virgil Anson (1888). Virginia and Virginians: Eminent Virginians, Executives of the Colony of Virginia. H.H. Hardesty. p. 25.
  26. Wertenbaker, Thomas J. (2009). Bacon's Rebellion, 1676. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-8063-4798-1.
  27. "House History". history.house.virginia.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  28. Taylor, Alan (2001). American Colonies: The Settling of North America. New York: Penguin Press.
  29. McCartney, Martha W. (2000). Documentary History of Jamestown Island: Biographies of owners and residents. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. p. 193.
  30. "Jadwin - Johns". Jamestowne Society. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  31. Jameson, John Franklin (1915). Original Narratives of Early American History. Scribner. pp. 101–102.
  32. "Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  33. Norton, Mary Beth (2011-05-16). Separated by Their Sex: Women in Public and Private in the Colonial Atlantic World. Cornell University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-8014-6137-8.

References
  • The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed.
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