King James I granted a charter to the Virginia Company on April 10, 1606. The king appointed the board of the corporation, but was not an investor himself. The colony was thus endorsed by the king, and led by members of the English aristocracy who had weath, power, and family connections. However, Virginia was not an official government initiative. There was no official Navy escort, no soldiers on official duty accompanied the expedition, and no military command structure.
During the journey to Virginia in 1606-1607, Christopher Newport was in charge of the three ships, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. Once in Virginia, the colonists were governed by a council chosen by the board in London.
The colonists were essentially hired help working for the company, and they did not vote for the council. Membership of the council was not known during the original journey, when Christopher Newport was in charge. Once in sight of land, a sealed package listing the appointed members to the council was opened. The next decision reveals that the council operated with some independence from the board in London from the very beginning. John Smith was listed as a member of the council, but he was denied his seat initially. (Smith had been placed under restraint previously during the journey, due to his outspoken behavior.)
Since communications with London were slow and intermittent, operations in Jamestown could not be micromanaged from a distance. The council had a great deal of leeway in its management of the resources in Virginia. The community lacked a common goal, however, and individual rewards were not clear to the colonists either. Food was supplied by the company, and work could be rewarded as well as coerced, but there was no economic incentive for the colonists to work hard. Any wealth they developed belonged to the company, and not surprisingly the colonists who did not die of disease were hard to manage. John Smith was more capable of motivating and leading them, after he assumed the presidency of the council in 1608, but he returned to England in 1609.
That year, the king revised the charter and the governing structure of the colony. The London board appointed a governor, who was authorized to select the members of the council in Virginia. However, two ships carrying Thomas Dale, Thomas Gates, and the other leaders sailing to Virginia were shipwrecked in late 1609 on Bermuda. The other ships arrived in October, 1609, without the leaders and without sufficient food for the winter.
When the leaders finally arrived, they established a form of martial law. It brought more order to the colony, and John Rolfe's experiment with sweet-scented tobacco established an economic base for the settlers. The Virginia Company was still not making a profit worthy of the capital that had been ventured, however, and Sir Edwin Sandys took control of the company in 1618. His faction thought the workers in Virginia would be more productive if the had a greater voice in managing their local affairs, and started the practice of granting land to individuals who paid their costs to reach Virginia, or the costs of transporting someone else (50 acres per "headright").
Sandys sent Sir George Yeardly to be the governor of the colony. In addition to the governor's appointed council, he authorized each Virginia community to elect two representatives to a House of Burgesses. The burgesses were able to initiate and pass local laws, but the company maintained control by retaining the right to veto those laws. After King James I revoked the charter and made Virginia a crown colony (like Ireland), the assembly continued to meet. The royal governors, like the company's governors, recognized that the House of Burgesess was a useful mechanism to get the Virginians to comply with government mandates.