Crown Law.

Royal colonies were those that in the absence or revocation of a private or proprietary charter came under the direct, everyday governmental control of the English monarchy. It is important to emphasize that the Crown and not Parliament held sovereignty over royal colonies. In theory their purpose, from the royal perspective, was in some ways similar to that of a medieval fiefdom. That is, the foremost function of a royal colony was to benefit the English Crown. Although most colonies started out as private or proprietary ventures, the majority became royal usually through revoked or time-limited charters well before the Revolutionary era. By the mid eighteenth century eight of the thirteen mainland colonies were royal: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Of these, only New Hampshire actually started out as a royal province and...