Massachusetts Bay Company Charter (first) is issued in London.

(OS-3/4) Granted by Charles I, the royal charter, like the Rosewall Patent the year before, it gives the company rights to the territory from three miles north of the Merrimack River to three miles south of the Charles River “from sea to sea.” It calls for freemen or stockholders to meet four times a year as a General Court, and the election of a governor, deputy governor, and 18-member Court of Assistants every spring. It also declares, “It shall be their responsibility to winne and incite the natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind and the christian faith, which is . . . the principall end of this plantation.” The charter continues in effect until 1686.*