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Bermuda's role in Royal Charters between Britain and Virginia

How this colony became an outpost of British North America

By Keith Archibald Forbes (see About Us) exclusively for Bermuda Online

To refer to this web file, please use "bermuda-online.org/RoyalCharters.htm" as your Subject.

The Royal Charters of Virginia

They were how the London Company of Virginia obtained legal right or royal permission from their sovereign to plant a Colony in Virginia. The initial Charters were issued by King Henry VIII of England. They were valiant but unsuccessful attempts to get colonists to explore and settle in the New World. His daughter, Queen Elizabeth 1, issued a famous but ill fated Charter on March 25, 1584, to Sir Walter Raleigh. His Lost Colony of Roanoke ended all hopes in Tudor times of establishing an English permanent settlement in Virginia.

Then came the series of three royal Charters, or letters patent, dated 1606, 1609 and 1612, when in all three cases, James VI of Scotland and I of England was king.

Charter of April 10, 1606

Please note the participants Only three years after he became King, James I of England and VI of Scotland issued a Charter for the exploration and settlement of what is now the eastern seaboard of the United States. This royal grant was made to two closely allied groups of investors and included all the land from what became northern Maine south to about the region of present day Wilmington, North Carolina. The two groups who received the Charter were the Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the First Colony in Virginia, and the Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of Bristol for the Second Colony in Virginia. The Second Colony also included investors from Exeter, Plymouth and area. It was under this Charter that the London Company sent out its first settlers to Virginia. What is particularly significant and interesting is that it was in this document, not a later one, that the names of Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers are first mentioned - and rather prominently, as leaders.

The earliest Jamestown residents had all the rights and privileges of free Englishmen at home. However, the London Company did not own the land it parceled out to the colonists. That land remained the property of the King, with the London Company as tenant and the colonists as sub tenants. The government of the Colony was exercised by a Council resident in London. The Company's responsibilities consisted of recruiting settlers, transporting and supplying them, conducting trade, and handling financial matters.

Charter of May 23, 1609

Please note the participants.

This Charter came about because it did not take too long for the government in London to realize that a Company formed from among the landed gentry in England could stir business imagination, investment, or early settlement in Virginia. Settlement was of the utmost importance to England, to keep part of the New World and the Atlantic shipping lanes from the sole possession of Spain and Portugal.

It was decided that in addition to the gentlemen interested in the Virginia Company, it would be of great advantage to the government if the business community of the City were invited to subscribe to and invest in the Company as a means of profit. The Merchants' Association comprised the English merchants who owned the ships needed to sail the Atlantic. They could afford to carry on the day to day business of the enterprise to the benefit of all Englishmen at home and abroad and to the detriment of Spain.

Thus, the rules were set. One share of stock was priced at 12 pounds 10 shillings. Both individuals and merchant guilds (livery companies) were encouraged to subscribe. The investors were incorporated. The rights of ownership of land was conferred upon the London Company. The old royal council was abolished and the government of the Colony was placed in the hands of the Treasurer and council of the Company. Local government at Jamestown was the responsibility of the Governor and an advisory council. Listed in this Charter are the names of those who subscribed as individuals as well as the numerous livery companies of the City of London.

Despite all the improvements of the 1609 Charter, the Company failed to yield profits. A high proportion of settlers had died of starvation and disease. Many ships were wrecked off the American southeast coast. The stockholders became disenchanted. It was not known until much later that the Bermuda castaways of 1609 had not perished as first thought, but made it to Virginia in 1610. In an attempt to solve some of these problems - and with the very positive accounts of the Bermuda settlers from 1609 to say how mild the winters were and how there were no Indians and lots of food - another Charter was granted in 1612

Charter of March 25, 1612

Please note the participants.

This extended the territorial boundaries of Virginia to include the Bermuda Islands, often written in the documents of the time as The bermoodies or as Shakespeare referred to them, The Bermoothes. This particular Charter reduced the control of the London Company Treasurer and his council and gave much more power to the ordinary stockholder with regard to the affairs of both the London Company itself and to the government in the Colony. The Charter provided for the establishment of a lottery to create a permanent fund to support the future needs of Virginia. Also, this Charter introduced a democratic element that allowed the reorganization of the Virginia Colony government in 1618. Under this reorganization, the first American representative assembly outside England's House of Parliament came into being when the Burgesses gathered at Jamestown July 30, 1619. It was not, as some claim, the first overseas British representative assembly because Bermuda had one several years earlier. This new American system of colonial representation became the model of all future English colonies in the New World and the basis of the democratic institutions in the future United States of America. The London Company continued to operate under the modified Charter of 1612 until Virginia - like Bermuda - became one of the King's Royal Colonies in 1624.

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