ged by Governor William Berkeley, to
buy out the rights of the proprietors. Apparently the proprietors were
willing to sell and set the price of L400 each for the six shares then
held in the charter. Negotiations to complete the transaction were
interrupted by the outbreak of Bacon's Rebellion, and the status of the
proprietary grant hung in suspension. Meanwhile, Thomas, Lord Culpeper
was appointed Governor of Virginia but did not arrive in the colony
until 1680. The next year Culpeper bought up the proprietary rights in
Virginia, both the rights of the other proprietors in the Northern Neck
and the rights of Lord Arlington for all of Virginia. In 1684, however,
he gave up the Arlington charter of 1673 to the crown in return for an
annual pension of L600 for twenty-one years.

Lord Culpeper retained the Northern Neck charter and made efforts to
encourage settlement of the area. But the terminal date of the
twenty-one year period stipulated in the charter of 1669 was
approaching, and he appealed for a renewal of the grant on the basis
that the amount of land intended by Charles II had not been taken up.
Considering the restriction an impracticable one, King James II issued a
new charter in 1688 with Lord Culpeper as the sole proprietor and with
no time limit specified. Through changes and additions prompted by
Culpeper's knowledge of Virginia's geography, the area of the grant
included in the Northern Neck was substantially enlarged over the
boundaries stated in the previous charters of 1649 and 1669, the
additions later being interpreted as extending Culpeper's claim beyond
the Blue Ridge Mountains to the foot of the Alleghenies. The area as
outlined in 1688 was as follows with the additions to the former
descriptions shown in italics:

All that entire tract, territory or parcel of land situate, lying
and being _in Virginia_ in America and bounded by and within the
_first_ heads or _springs_ of the rivers of Tappanhannocke alias
Rappahanocke and Quiriough alias Patawomacke Rivers, the courses of
the said rivers, _from their said first heads or springs_, as they
are commonly called and known by the inhabitants and descriptions
of those parts, and the Bay of Chesapoyocke, together with the said
rivers themselves and all the islands within the _outermost_ banks
thereof, _and the soil of all and singular the premisses_.

Soon after receiving this third charter, Lord Culpeper died on Ja