He was driven from Kent Island and escaped to Virginia; but Sir John Harvey refused to surrender him, and John Stevens saw the rebel when he embarked for England, where he made a strong fight before the throne for Kent Island.
Although he seemed for a while about to triumph, the lords commissioners of plantations finally decided against his claims, thus dispelling the rosy dreams of Claybourne.
In 1642, there came to Virginia as governor of the colony Sir William Berkeley, then almost forty years of age, when John Stevens was only seventeen.

Berkeley was a man of charming manners, proverbially polite, and he delighted the Virginians, who had a weakness for courtliness.

He belonged to an ancient English family, and believed in monarchy as a devotee believes in his saint, "and he brought to the little capital at Jamestown all the graces, amenities, and well-bred ways which at that time were characteristic of the cavaliers.

He was a cavalier of the cavaliers, taking the word to signify an adherent of monarchy and the established church," and thoroughly hated anything resembling republicanism.

For his king and church, this smiling gentleman, with his easy and friendly air, was going to fight like a tiger or a ruffian.
Under his glove of velvet was a hand of iron, which would fall inexorably alike on the New England Puritans and the followers of Bacon.
With the courage of his convictions, he was ready to deal out banishment for the dissenters; shot and the halter for rebels.