e the seat of the University and was to be developed as a group
of tenant farms with the college buildings in the center. So great was
the interest throughout England in the plan that the King as the
temporal head of the Church presented the matter to the whole people of
England. In 1617 he wrote the Archbishops of Canterbury and York:

Most Reverend Father in God: Right trustie and well beloved
Counsellor, we greet you well: You have heard ere this of
the attempt of divers worthy men, our subjects, to plant in
Virginia, under the warrant of our letters of patent, people
of this Kingdom, as well as for the enlarging of our
dominions as for the propogation of the Gospel amongst
infidells; wherein there is good progress made, and hope of
further increase: so as the undertakers of that plantation
are now in hand with the erection of some churches and
schools for the education of the children of these
barbarians, which cannot but be to them a very great charge,
and above the expense which for the civil plantation doth
come to them, in which we doubt not but that you and all
others who wish well to the increase of Christian religion
will be willing to give all assistance and furtherance you
may, and therein to make experience of the zeal and devotion
of our well minded subjects; especially those of the clergy.

Wherefore we do require you, and hereby authorize you to
write your letters to the several bishops of the dioceses in
your province, that they do give order to the ministers and
other zealous men of their dioceses, both by their own
example in contribution and by exhortation to others, to
move our people within their several charges to contribute
to so good a work in as liberal a manner as they may.

Under instructions from the King offerings were to be taken in every
parish four times a year for two years, the money collected to be sent
to the bishops and by them forwarded to the treasurer of the London
Company. The treasurer reported later that more than fifteen hundred
pounds sterling had been sent to him, and later he reported additional
amounts. In that period three bequests aggregating more than a thousand
pounds sterling were reported for the Christianizing of the Indians.
Other gifts included a "communion cup with cover and a plate of silver
guilt for the bread" with communion silk and lin