Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason, both claiming that the Massachusetts 
Bay patent infringed upon previous grants from the Council of New 
England. 279 When no action followed a favorable hearing before a committee 
of the Council on this complaint, Gorges turned for aid to Archbishop Laud, 
who was intent upon repressing dissent in the plantations. 280 Following a 1634 
inquiry by the Privy Council under Laud's guidance into its nature and origin, 
the 1629 patent was allegedly declared void. 281 The first coherent attempt at 
imperial control followed as a natural successor to the previous Committees 
for New England and for Foreign Plantations. 282 In April, 1634, Charles I, 
by commission, named certain members of the Privy Council to handle matters 
for Foreign Plantations. The instrument conveyed broad powers of hearing 
complaints and seemingly also appeals. 283 In addition, proposed restorations 
of a company form of government for Virginia recognized the principle of 
recourse to the Privy Council by appeal or otherwise from decisions of the 
governing body of the company. 284 
In the decade preceding the domestic disturbances of the 1640's intervention 
of the Privy Council in colonial matters was most frequent in the affairs of 
Virginia. This intervention in some instances took the form of directive ex 
parte orders that justice and right be done certain petitioners, 285 or more 
definite orders were sometimes issued upon complaints reported on by ancillary 
conciliar bodies. 288 Closer to appeals in nature was the ordering of rehearings 
in the colony of both civil 287 and criminal causes 288 following ex- 
279 1 Sir Ferdinando Gorges and His Province 
of Maine (Prince Soc. Pub., 1890, ed. J. P. 
Baxter), 158-60. 
280 Ibid., 161-63; 3 Osgood, op. cit., 59-62; 1 
APC, Col, #302, 306. 
281 The New English Canaan, 61. 
282 See 1 APC, Col, #313, 330. 
283 This is the body generally known as the 
"Laud Commission." A quorum of five was 
sufficient "to hear and determine all complaints, 
at the entrance and suit of the party 
grieved, whether it be against the whole 
colonies themselves or any governor or officer 
of the same, or whether complaint touching 
wrongs exhibited and depending, either between 
the whole bodies of the colonies, or any 
private member thereof, and to summon the 
persons before you, and they or their procurators 
or agents being on both sides heard, finally 
to determine thereof, according to justice" (1 
Hutchinson, Hist. Col. and Prop. Mass. Bay, 
420). Whether appeals would lie from the 
colonial courts depended on the interpretation 
given by the commission to the power to 
establish courts, etc., wherein the patentees 
were given power to constitute and ordain 
"manner of process and appeals from and to 
the said courts" (ibid., 419). 
284 Authority granted to the President and 
Council was to be under the control of the 
King and the Privy Council, "particularly of 
the Lords and other Commissioners for forraigne 
Plantations, upon Appeale or other information" 
(1 APC, Col., #403). 
285 Ibid., #167, 274. 
286 Ibid., #190. As to one aspect of the cause 
the Council ordered that in case any proceedings 
were had against the petitioner during his 
absence, no final judgment should be passed 
until the proceedings were transmitted to the 
Board and further order given therein. 
287 In the case of Laurence Evans it appeared 
that petitioner's agent had been negligent in 
prosecuting the cause in the Virginia courts 
and that evidence and instructions forwarded 
to the agent had not reached him (ibid., 
#432). A cause between Samuel Mathews and 
John Woodhall was ordered reheard by the 
Governor and Council; all the councilors were 
to attend the hearing, and no parties to the