what is a royal colony

A royal colony was a type of colony administered by the Crown within the British Empire. The monarch was in direct control of the settlement, usually by the appointment of a governor and council, and the colony existed to generate wealth for England. The first royal colony was the Colony of Virginia, after 1624, when the Crown of the Kingdom of England revoked the royal charter it had granted to the Virginia Company and assumed control of the administration. By the time of the American Revolution, eight of the thirteen colonies were royal colonies: Virginia, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. Royal colonies were different from self-governing and proprietary colonies, which had more autonomy. In a royal colony, the governor and his council were appointed by the King, and the colony was ruled or administered by officials appointed by and responsible to the reigning sovereign of the parent state.