of Laws, Orders and Privileges" brought over by Sir George Yeardley was the expression of their views on colonial government. But the "Court Party" prevailed in the end and the charter of the Virginia Company was revoked in 1624. Charles River County presumably took its name from Charles I, who was King when it was formed. In 1642/43 when it became York, the change was made to honor James, the second son of Charles I, who in that year was created Duke of York. Warrosquyoake, an Indian word, was later Isle of Wight County since some of its most prominent residents were from the small island of that name lying off the English coast. The Parish lying in and coterminous with Isle of Wight County was called Newport from the largest city in the English island. Accomack honored the friendly tribe of Indians of that name residing on the Eastern Shore.

The bounds of these eight counties as noted in Tyler's The Cradle of the Republic were as follows:

Elizabeth City County extending on both sides of Hampton Roads, on the south side to Chuckatuck Creek and on the north side to Newport News and including a small part thereof.

Warrosquyoake County, later Isle of Wight, extending on the south side of James River from Chuckatuck Creek to Lawne's Creek.

Warwick River County extending on the north side of James River from Elizabeth City County to Skiffe's (Keith's) Creek. This is the only original shire from which no other county was formed. The name was changed to Warwick County in 1643.

James City County extending on both sides of James River, on the south side from Lawne's Creek to Upper Chippokes Creek and on the north side from Skiffe's Creek to above Sandy Point.

Charles City County also extending on both sides of James River, on the south side from Upper Chippokes Creek to Appomattox River and on the north side from Sandy Point to Turkey Island Creek.

Henrico County extending from Charles City County on both sides of James River indefinitely westward.

Charles River County, later York, lay to the north of Warwick County and adjoined Elizabeth City County on the east. Its north and west boundaries were indefinite. The colonists soon crossed the York River to establish plantations along its northern bank and settled as far west as the Pamunkey River.

Accomack, the eighth shire, like York County, showed the vitality of the colonists in pushing settlements away from the vicinity of Jamestown into uncharted wilds.

The Potomac River was the dividing line between Virginia and Maryland, and on the Eastern Shore the division was approximately in line with the mouth of this river. Settling on the Shore in 1616, the colonists moved slowly northward. The Indians were friendly, transportation easy, climate mild, and soil fertile. There was no impediment to growth.

The population of the colony is estimated to have been around 5,000 persons in 1634 as has been noted. Six years later it had increased about 50%, being 7,466 persons. One factor in this growth was the unrest in England at this time which culminated a few years later in bitter civil war.

The Colonial Courts

We have mentioned that the creation of counties with their courts had in view to render justice more accessible to all. There were by 1642, in the colony six kinds of courts for the administration of justice.

The first of these was the magistrate's court. In 1642, an Act of the Assembly empowered a magistrate or justice to try a case involving not over twenty shillings in currency or 200 pounds of tobacco in value. In 1657/58, the amount could be as much as 1,000 pounds of tobacco if two magistrates were present but only 350 pounds if but one magistrate tried the case. The appeal from the magistrate's court was to the monthly court.

The next court was the parish court. In the seventeenth century only one of these courts existed in Virginia and that only for a short time. This was the court of Bristol Parish which most likely sat in the old Merchants Hope Church, still standing and still in use. The court was discontinued before the end of the seventeenth century, and its papers passed into the custody of the Henrico County Court. A parish court was in a way a vestigial body, a relic of days when the authority of the church was preeminent in both civil and ecclesiastical matters.

The third recourse for justice was to the monthly court, developed according to Stith, from the inferior court established in 1621. The Governor named the first justices of a new county, renamed justices in the old counties and filled every vacancy as it occurred. By Act of Assembly in 1628/29, the number of justices was to be eight, but later it was increased to ten. Four constituted a quorum. Three other members of the bench associated with one member of the quorum, who had a different status from the other justices, formed a sufficient number to make a valid court. The person whose name appeared at the head of the list of those constituting the quorum probably served as presiding justice; in his absence, the one named second and so on down the list. No pay was provided for the justices.

In 1642, the Assembly ordered that at least six monthly courts be held every year and the justices were empowered to determine when extra sessions were necessary. At the same time, another Act of Assembly provided that Henrico should hold court on the first day of every month; Charles City on the third; James City on the sixth; Isle of Wight on the ninth; Upper Norfolk (later Nansemond) on the twelfth; Elizabeth City on the eighteenth; Warwick on the twenty-first; York on the twenty-fourth; and Northampton, (formerly Accomack) on the twenty-eighth. The careful spacing between these courts enabled attorneys to appear in cases in different counties with no conflict of dates.

The range of cases that could come before a monthly court was naturally wider than could come before a magistrate. As much as ten pounds sterling could be involved in a suit and there was no appeal from the decision; when larger amounts were involved, the defeated litigant could appeal to the General Court. All questions where injury to life or limb was at stake went before the General Court.

The monthly county courts had, in a general way, a jurisdiction resembling the combined jurisdiction of the English Chancery Court, King's Bench, Common Pleas, Court Exchequer, Admiralty and Ecclesiastical. The justices of the monthly courts looked after the poor and afflicted, held special orphan courts at least once a year, granted probates of wills, passed on appraisements of estates as presented to them for inspection, on inventories and estate accounts which also were presented for their scrutiny, and recorded conveyances of land.

Recordation of land conveyances is one of the two differences between the monthly court of a Virginia county and its British prototype. There conveyances were private property and retained in private ownership. Manor houses of old English estates often had a room called the "Muniment room" where deeds, inventories, rent rolls and such family papers, often including copies of wills, were kept. The name derived from a Latin word meaning to fortify or strengthen, since the deeds strengthened the validity of ownership claimed by the holder of the land. The other function of the monthly court in Virginia different from the English Shire Court was the power to probate wills. In England probate of wills was in the prerogative courts of Canterbury and York. Probably since there was no diocesan see in Virginia, Virginia being in the diocese of London, the monthly court offered the most feasible place of probate.

It has been noted that there was a limit to the powers of this court and that cases which it could not hear went before the General