Control of the Virginia Company of London in 1618-1619

 

Control of the Virginia Company of London in 1618-1619

The argument that Sir Edwin Sandys had come by the autumn of 1618 to play a predominant role in the affairs of the Virginia Company of London is a familiar one in recent works on the history of the English colony in Virginia. James Horn argued in 2018 that Sandys “took charge [of the company] in all but name in 1618” on the basis of the role he attributed to him in preparing the measures that constituted the reform programme embodied in the Great Charter and the appointment of George Yeardley as prospective Governor in Virginia. Paul Musselwhite took much the same view in an essay published in 2019 arguing that “Sandys and his allies took control of the company in the latter half of 1618”. A generation earlier in historiographical terms. Theodore Rabb had concluded that Sandys had moved into a dominant position in the company’s affairs in 1618.

But the assessments made by Horn and Musselwhite differed from that of Rabb in one crucial respect. Rabb had seen and used the account of the negotiations between Sandys and his supporters and the Rich family and its allies in Nathaniel Butler’s work, The Historye of the Bermudaes or Somer Islands, before the election of the Treasurer of the Virginia Company had to be made in the spring of 1619. Smith’s replacement as Treasurer by Sandys was agreed by the group led by the 2nd Earl of Warwick, who had just succeeded his father, subject to Nathaniel Butler being chosen as the new Governor for the settlement in Bermuda as a replacement for Daniel Tucker. Although Butler’s account was apparently composed after his term of office had expired and his return to England (via Virginia), his personal participation in and knowledge of these talks seems likely. In the event, Sandys was elected after a contest as Treasurer of the Virginia Company of London and Butler was chosen as the next Governor of the colony in Bermuda. Sir Thomas Smith, however, retained his place as Governor of the Somers Island Company to the chagrin of Sandys.

These outcomes suggest that Sandys and his allies did not fully control the Virginia Company from the autumn of 1618. Other groups including Sir Thomas Smith and his supporters still mattered as did the men around the Rich family’s interest. Some concessions had been made to the latter early in December, 1618 and John Pory had been chosen to serve as Secretary in the colony where his links to the Riches aroused the hostility and suspicions of Sandys and Yeardley. There are grounds, moreover, for suspecting that the connections between the politics of this minuscule colony and those of the company in England remain to be elucidated. Even so, the specific claims cited above need to be rigorously assessed and seriously qualified.

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