In 1661, in the first gush of the Restoration, there was elected a House of Burgesses so congenial to Berkeley's mind that he wished to see it perpetuated.

For fifteen years therefore he held it in being, with adjournments from one year into another and with sharp refusals to listen to any demand for new elections.

Yet this demand grew, and still the Governor shut the door in the face of the people and looked imperiously forth from the window.

His temper, always fiery, now burned vindictive; his zeal for King and Church and the high prerogatives of the Governor of Virginia became a consuming passion.
When Berkeley first came to Virginia, and again for a moment in the flare of the Restoration, his popularity had been real, but for long now it had dwindled.

He belonged to an earlier time, and he held fast to old ideas that were decaying at the heart.