To gain grassroots support for his Lygonia, Cleeve sent his longtime partner, Richard Tucker, from town to town, drumming up support. However, there was great resistance to Cleeve’s assumption of power. When he conducted his first court at Casco in 1644, it was vigorously resisted with threats, leading to arrests.
In spite of his impressive title and thoroughly respectable backer in England, Cleeve still had to contend with Richard Vines, who administered what remained of Gorges’ Maine. Though Parliament had recognized Lygonia, it could not guarantee the province the respect of its neighbors still under Gorges’s umbrella.
“Furthermore, the outbreak of civil war in England proved an obstacle to Cleeve’s easy assumption of authority. The powerful men who claimed New England property and who had influence within the English legal system could not spare the time to mediate among their deputies abroad. Between 1644 and 1645, while Oliver Cromwell’s armies routed King Charles’s forces, Gorges fled London, and Rigby served as one of Cromwell’s colonels” (Farber, 2009, pp.506-507)
The ongoing civil war in England meant that Cleeve and Vines could not look to England for judgment. Instead, they asked the leadership of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to issue them a temporary ruling until they could get a resolution from England. This willingness to “abide by a decision from Massachusetts would set an important precedent for the relationships among the governments of Maine, Lygonia, and Massachusetts” (Farber, 2009, p. 507). However, the magistrates in Massachusetts could not come to a decision, and they closed the case with an exhortation for “the parties to live in peace, etc., till the matter might be determined by authority out of England. (Burrage, 1914, p.p. 338-339)
Royalist fortunes fall
On March 9, 1642, Robert Trelawny, owner of Richmond Island and vicinity, was tried by the House of Commons for his royalist sympathies and expelled. He was removed from Parliament for saying ”that the House could not appoint a guard for themselves without the king’s consent, under pain of high treason” (Burrage, 1914, p. 344). England was now on the brink of civil war, “and suspicions not only were rife on the part of combatants on either side, but they were influential and too often decisive.” Robert Trelawny was subsequently imprisoned at Winchester House and died soon after.
Throughout Trelawny’s trial and imprisonment, John Winter continued to care for his interests, but the business at the island, once so prosperous, greatly declined, and after Trelawny’s death, fell even more. Winter would die in 1645, and while the business at Richmond Island would continue, it never regained its early glory.
Sir Ferdinando’s fortunes also dropped precipitously during the English Civil War. While never imprisoned, by the time Oliver Cromwell’s Puritans took control of Parliament in 1645, Sir Ferdinando. being a lifelong royalist, no longer welded any influence. He was in his seventies, was almost broke and confined to his country estates by Cromwell.
In Maine, Cleeve, to further discredit Gorges’s authority: Spread a rumor that he had died attempting a “flight into Walles,” while Vines countered by claiming to have a letter “which … import[ ed] Sir Fferd: Gorges his good health, with the restauracion of his possessions again.” With no word forthcoming from Gorges, however, Vines-who depended on Gorges far more than Cleeve depended on Rigby-could no longer maintain his authority, and in 1645 he left Maine for Barbados. Sir Ferdinando Gorges died fewer than two years later and was buried on 14 May 1647. Cleeve petitioned Cromwell’s government to confirm his authority over the province, and in March 1646, the Puritan Parliament acknowledged Rigby’s Province of Lygonia. (Farber, 2009, p. 505).
The pinnacle of Cleeve’s power
After he gained the approval of Crowell’s government for his Lygonia, Cleeve “assumed undisputed sway in the whole province of Lygonia, extending from Cape Porpus to Cape Elizabeth.” (Willis, 1865, p. 81). Under this government were the settlements at Cape Porpus, Winter Harbor, Saco, Black and Blue Points, Spurwink, Richmond’s Island, and Casco.
Cleeve immediately commenced making grants in his newly-acquired territory; as early as May, 1647, he granted to Richard Moore four hundred acres in Cape Porpus, and in September of the same year, he conveyed to John Bush a tract “in the village of Cape Porpus;” he also made grants in Scarborough and Falmouth, all of them as the agent of Col. Alexander Rigby, president and proprietor of the province of Lygonia.
Illustration: Oliver Cromwell statue outside the Palace of Westminster
Bibliography:
Burrage, H. S. (1914). The beginnings of colonial Maine 1602-1658. Marks Printing House.
Farber, H. (2009) The rise and fall of the Province of Lygonia, 1643-1658. The New England Quarterly 82: 490-513
Turmoil in Dawnland 