The other colonies followed the example of Massachusetts, and miniature revolutions took place in Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, where the Andros commissions offered few obstacles to the renewal of the old forms. In a majority of cases the old officials were at hand, ready to take up their former duties. Plymouth, having no charter, simply returned to her old way of life, precarious and uncertain as it was; but Rhode Island and Connecticut took the position that as their charters had not been vacated by law, they were still valid and had not been impaired by the brief intermission in the governments provided by them. In this opinion the colonies were upheld by the law officers in England. Before the middle of the summer, practically all traces of the Andros régime had disappeared, except for the prisoners in confinement at Boston and the bitterness which still rankled in the hearts of the people of Massachusetts. There was no such intensity of feeling in the other colonies, where the loss of the assembly was the main grievance, though in Connecticut the resumption of authority by the old leaders roused the animosity of a small but energetic faction which said that the charter was dead and could not be revived, and demanded a closer dependence on the Crown. Henceforth, that colony had to reckon with a hostile group within its own borders, one that deemed the institutions and laws of the colony oppressive and unjust, and that for a time resisted the authority of what its leaders called a "pretended" government. During the years that followed, these men made many efforts to break down the independence of the corporate government, and to this extent the rule of Andros left a permanent mark upon the colony.
But the future of the New England colonies was to be decided in England and not in America. If the orthodox leaders in the colony thought that the new King had levelling sympathies or would thrust aside the policy already adopted by the English authorities for the defense of the colonies and the maintenance of the acts of trade, they greatly misjudged the situation. King William, though a Protestant, was no lover of revolution, and, though he had himself engaged in one, he could assert the dignity of the prerogative with as much vigor as any Stuart. He was not a politician, but a soldier, and he was quite as likely to see the necessity of organizing New England for defense against the enemy as he was to listen favorably to appeals from Massachusetts for a restoration of her charter.