Lineage Book of Hereditary Order of Descendants of Colonial Governors

Book excerpt: This work, a verbatim transcription of the three successful charters defining the scope and authority of the Virginia Company and listing its stockholders in England and Virginia, is an important companion work to Professor Craven's booklet above. The text of the three charters is taken from a contemporary copy discovered among the Chancery Rolls of the Public Record Office in London shortly before this work's original publication. The accompanying documents serve to illustrate some of the practical issues pertaining to the administration of the colony, and, taken together, this collection may be construed as the Virginia "constitution" for the colony's first fifteen years of existence.