Robert Beverley, soon after his return from England, where he attended school, married Ursula Byrd, sixteen years old. She had, herself, been educated in England. She went to England when she was four with her sister and their governess. She did not return until just before her marriage.
William Byrd was her brother (her father was William also). Thus, two of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Virginia were united. Ursula Beverley died at the birth of her first child, William, and her husband, Robert Beverley, never remarried.
Shortly after his return from England and after his marriage, Robert Beverley started buying properties. He had inherited some property from his father in Gloucester County. A little later, his half brothers, John and Thomas, died and left him six thousand acres on the frontier of King and Queen County. This land became his seat under the name of Beverley Park. He was appointed clerk of the court there and at the same time he was Burgess from Jamestown, where he owned property. Among the properties which he had bought were a series of lots in Elizabeth City. Litigation arose over their titles and he lost the suit.
He decided to appeal the decision to the Privy Council and went to England for that purpose. He started writing letters home making satirical attacks upon the Governor and the Surveyor General of Customs. Thus he embarked on a course, laid down by his father, of being a Whig among Tories.
While he was in England, he was asked to review material on Virginia which was to be published. He thought there were so many errors in the work that he refused to allow his name to be associated with the work. He promised that he would write an improved set of material. As a consequence he wrote " The History and Present State of Virginia " which was published in 1705. This has given him his place in history including the appellation " the historian ." This was the only positive thing about his trip to England, as he lost his pleading and, because of the letters he had written home, he lost the clerk's job he had held.
The book received wide attention and was published abroad in France. In Virginia, it added fuel to the fires of invective piled on Beverley. In spite of the fact that Beverley had nothing favorable to say about the present administration in Virginia, he was first and foremost a Virginian. In fact, it was his love for Virginia that prompted him to attack others, whom he saw as desirous of taking away the liberties of the Virginians. But Beverley, who had lived many years in England, saw himself as a Virginian and not as an Englishman. When he wrote " my country ," a phrase he often used, he meant Virginia and not England.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.