A month later, April 10, 1606, a charter was obtained from King James for the incorporation of two companies, one consisting of “certain knights, gentlemen, merchants” in and about London, and the other of “sundry knights, gentlemen, merchants” in and about Plymouth.  The chief patron of the London Company was Sir Robert Cecil, the secretary of state; and the chief patron of the Plymouth Company was Sir John Popham, chief-justice of the Queen’s Bench, who presided at the trial of Raleigh in 1603.

The charter claimed for England all the North American continent between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees north latitude, but gave to each company only a tract fronting one hundred miles on the sea and extending one hundred miles inland.  The London Company was authorized to locate a plantation called the First Colony in some fit and convenient place between thirty-four and forty-one degrees, and the Plymouth Company a Second Colony somewhere between thirty-eight and forty-five degrees, but neither was to plant within one hundred miles of the other.

The charter contained “not one ray of popular rights,” and neither the company nor the colonists had any share in the government.  The company must financier the enterprise, but could receive only such rewards as those intrusted with the management by the home government could win for them in directing trade, opening mines, and disposing of lands.  As for the emigrants, while they were declared entitled “to all liberties, franchises, and immunities of British subjects,” they were to enjoy merely such privileges as officers not subject to them in any way might allow them.  The management of both sections of Virginia, including the very limited grants to the companies, was conferred upon one royal council, which was to name a local council for each of the colonies in America; and both superior and subordinate councils were to govern according to “laws, ordinances, and instructions” to be given them by the king.[5]

Two days after the date of the charter these promised “laws,” etc., were issued, and, though not preserved in their original form, they were probably very similar to the articles published during the following November.[6] According to these last, the superior council, resident in England, was permitted to name the colonial councils, which were to have power to pass ordinances not repugnant to the orders of the king and superior council; to elect or remove their presidents, to remove any of their members, to supply their own vacancies; and to decide all cases occurring in the colony, civil as well as criminal, not affecting life or limb.  Capital offences were to be tried by a jury of twelve persons, and while to all intents and purposes the condition of the colonists did not differ from soldiers subject to martial law, it is to the honor of King James that he limited the death penalty to tumults, rebellion, conspiracy, mutiny, sedition, murder, incest, rape, and adultery, and did not include in the number of crimes either witchcraft or heresy.  The articles also provided that all property of the two companies should be held in a “joint stock” for five years after the landing.[7]