Under the tyranny of the Stuart Kings, John Winthrop and many other
noted Puritans had emigrated to Massachusetts and other parts of New
England. During the Commonwealth the case was reversed, and numbers
of Royalists fled to Virginia. Among them were John Washington, the
great-grandfather of George Washington, and the ancestors of
Jefferson, Patrick Henry, the Lees, Randolphs, and other prominent
families, destined in time to take part in founding a republic in the
New World much more democractic than anything the Old World had ever
seen.