In every one of them, excepting Connecticut and Rhode Island, the royal or proprietary government was represented by a governor and his staff, appointed from England, and furnishing a point of contact which was in every case and all the time a point of friction and irritation between the colony and the mother country.

The reckless laxity of the early Stuart charters, which permitted the creation of practically independent democratic republics with churches free from the English hierarchy, was succeeded, under the House of Orange, by something that looked like a statesmanlike care for the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the English church.

Throughout the colonies, at every viceregal residence, it was understood that this church, even where it was not established by law, was the favored official and court church.

But inasmuch as the royal governors were officially odious to the people, and at the same time in many cases men of despicable personal character, their influence did little more than create a little "sect of the Herodians" within the range of their patronage.

But though it gave no real advantage to the preferred church, it was effective (as in Massachusetts) in breaking down the exclusive pretensions of other organizations.
The Massachusetts theocracy, so called, fell with the revocation of the charter by James II.