In 1641, the greatest political crisis in British history broke out. A civil war of epic proportions that killed up to a third of Britain's manfolk and spread wherever Britons lay thick on the ground. Including America.
Maine, Dorchester and Newfoundland were secular colonies, and their legislatures cared little for what denomination you were from, and thus were largely ignored by Charles I's crypto-Catholic government.
Maryland and Avalon benefited to a large extent from Charles I's 'reforms'. Both received more funding and more settlers, mostly from Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, though Anglican settlement was encouraged. Avalon remained mostly secular, as its cold climate encouraged only tough, hardy settlers who could tolerate a life on the edge of nature.
Virginia and New Haven however, found funding from England was cut, and settlers diverted to other colonies. Their Puritan ideals did not fit into Charles's view of what England and her other territories were to become. The position of the Fathers in Virginian government was cut out, and they were replaced with more manageable Anglican rulers. And Maryland was awarded a large claim area into what was traditionally Virgina. New Haven was small enough to be ignored, and was unpopular enough with its neighbours for shunning to be carried out fairly easily.
Many Puritans fled to New Netherland in this dark age of religious persecution. The Dutch benefited from this wave of immigration and was able to expand their colony to a great extent, cutting of the two blocks of British settlement.
But this was all about to change. In 1641, the English Civil War started. Precipitated by rebellion in Scotland, civil war engulfed the British Isles. And it wasn't long before it reached the shores of America.
The New England colonies formed a neutral block, though a newly aggressive New Haven to a certain extent pushed them into the Royalist camp. The Newfoundland colonies and Maryland were resolutely Royalist, while Virginia and New Haven were just as vehemently Parliamentarian.
The War in America was fought primarily along the Maryland-Virginia border. In England, the Royalists were fighting a losing battle, but in America, they went from success to success. With New England neutral, and Newfoundland secure, the Royalists were able to attack Parliamentarian colonies with impunity. The famous Avalon corsairs wer the subject of the recent film, Pirates of Avalon: For God and King.
But with the execution of the King in 1649, Cromwell and his New Model Army soon consolidated the Isles under the rule of an increasingly powerful military dictatorship. Soon, Cromwell would be sent to America, to quell the continuing war and bring peace and a new Puritan order to the colonies.
Landing in Virginia, he marched his army and the Plymouth Militia on Maryland. Tales of what happened in Maryland are told and retold today, and are the subject of continued scrutiny today. Though the massacres were certainly not on the scale of Ireland, the extent of Cromwell's violence and ruthlessness are still villified there today.
Seeing which way the war was going, New England declared on the side of Parliament, and a fleet sent north. Newfoundland turned on its sister colony and Cromwell meant to seize the dreaded Corsairs and their ill-gotten booty. The subject of conspiracy theories to this day, he never found the Corsair fleet, or a single coin of their allegedly vast treasure. It is thought that the Corsairs escaped into the icy wastes in northern French America, and there perished.
Cromwell returned to England in 1653, to find a failing administration. Using his troops to disband it, it wasn't long before he was military dictator and king in all but name. He renamed Maryland, calling it New Cambridgeshire, after his home county.