The rapid modifications of royal charters to the Virginia Company of London (1606, 1609, 1611/12) included increasingly liberal governmental powers for the Virginia colony—which grew to include the Bermuda Islands. The 1606 charter held all governmental power in a superior council in England that was subject to direct instruction form the crown. The 1609 charter specified that stockholders must vote to fill positions on the superior council as well as colonial officials. The 1611/12 charter endowed the stockholders of the company all governmental powers for the colony, including the ability to make laws and select government officials, which by 1619 had been extended to free colonists themselves through a representative assembly known as the House of Burgesses.