A significant indication of the extent to which the public interest was considered to be involved in the Virginia project is found in the provision that was first made for the government of the two colonies. The powers of government, which is to say the ultimate right to decide and to direct, were vested in a royal council, commonly known as the Virginia Council and having its seat in London. Its membership was probably drawn exclusively from the two groups of Virginia adventurers, but the members were appointed by the king and were sworn to his special service. Among the first members were Sir Thomas Smith, chief of the London merchants; Sir William Wade, lieutenant of the London Tower; Sir Walter Cope, member of parliament for Westminster and adventurer in a variety of overseas enterprises; Sir Henry Montague, recorder of the City of London; Solicitor General John Doderidge, subsequently justice of the Kings Bench; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who later would lead a reviving interest in the settlement of New England and still later would become an enemy of the Puritans who so largely accomplished that task; Sir Francis Popham, son and heir to the Lord Chief Justice; and John Eldred of London, Thomas James of Bristol, and James Bagge of Plymouth, each of these three being described as a merchant. This assignment of the powers of government proved to be awkward, and it denied the adventurers direct control over the more important questions affecting their adventures, as in the choice of a plan of government for the colony or in the appointment of its key officers. Consequently, the adventurers secured a change in the second Virginia charter, granted in 1609. It was then specified that members of the council thereafter should be "nominated, chosen, continued, displaced, changed, altered and supplied, as death, or other several occasions shall require, out of the Company of the said Adventurers, by the voice of the greater part of the said Company and Adventurers, in their Assembly for that purpose." In language less repetitious than that used by the company's lawyer, this meant that the council now became an agent primarily of the adventurers. Even so, the king retained a veto over any choice they might make, for members of the council were still required to take a special oath administered by one of the high officers of state, and refusal to give the oath could mean disqualification for the office. The company's later history would show, whatever its legal advisor may have assumed in 1609, that this requirement was no mere formality.