CHARLES I 1600-49

Colonies created by this monarch became havens for persecuted Puritans

After the union of the crowns brought England, Ireland and Scotland under the Stuarts’ personal rule in 1603, Charles I continued the work of his father, James I, to expand his three kingdoms into a global power.

Once the Pilgrim Fathers had established the Plymouth colony as a place of refuge for Puritans in 1620, the Massachusetts Bay Colony soon followed in 1630. Carolina, not yet divided into North and South, was settled and named after the king and Maryland, which was intended as a place of sanctity for Catholics, followed in 1634. The colonisation of the Caribbean also picked up pace. Among others, St Kitts, Barbados and Nevis were all quickly settled.

What made the colonies more successful than early the Elizabethan attempts was the amount of ordinary people motivated to make the journey. The political situation in England was becoming increasingly acrimonious with civil war looming and there were also great plagues that were devastating the country. A new life in a faraway continent where there was more than enough land to go around seemed a welcome retreat.