Viscounts in Virginia: A Proposal to Create American Noblemen (1619)

In 1619, the Virginia Company of London considered a proposal to create a hereditary peerage in the colony. E. M. Rose provides a transcription of the proposal, found among the company's business records. She places the proposal in the context of the desperate efforts of the company to raise funds for overseas settlement, the sale of other titles in the early Stuart period, and the attempts to establish a hereditary peerage in America.