Expeditions to this New World

Good sailors sing songs of lassies and bravery and fortune

How the sea fills their hearts with the courage to do mighty deeds

It commenced in the late 16^th century, the trickle from England to the esoteric New World. Sir Walter Raleigh was granted a charter by Queen Elizabeth in 1583; it granted him the right to establish a colony in America. In fact, it demanded he establish a colony or he would lose the right to colonization in America. He was granted the charter after his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, drowned in the Atlantic Ocean attempting to colonize America himself. His attempts to reap wealth from America resulted in his death, giving Raleigh the opportunity to claim a colony for England.

Gilbert spent his time traveling and planning maritime adventures, a headstrong man with a sense of adventure and money. He proposed the idea of a northwest passage to Japan and the oriental coast over the north section of America in 1566. The plan was to more easily acquire spices and silk, extremely valuable and rare commodities in Europe (The Ottoman Empire greatly restricted travel by land with their control of Constantinople in 14531). A single bag of these commodities would give a sailor enough money to buy a home with excess to spare. He believed that, “if England secured such a route, she would establish herself as a major commercial power and eventually come to rival Spain’s rapidly growing overseas empire.”2 This idea was not enough to convince people to invest in a voyage to discover if the passage actually existed though.

A decade later, the mid-1570’s, he used privateering as his new reason to voyage to America, this time to establish a colony that would essentially serve as a base to raid and plunder Spanish ships. Spain was a powerful nation that was gaining enormous wealth from the West Indies and Central America. This time his proposal was taken more seriously, partially because relations between Spain and England were precarious and war loomed on the horizon. In 1578 Gilbert is granted an exclusive, and temporary, patent by Queen Elizabeth to discover and colonize American lands not yet inhabited by Spain.3 He must make a discovery and plant a new colony within six years or he would lose his exclusive patent on the New World.

It is important to say that Sir Humphrey was not alone in sculpting this plan; he had strong support from his brother and two brilliant promoters of oversea ventures. Sir Walter Raleigh was a young man at the time, about twenty four at the time, and eager to aid his brother in this endeavor (He would even raise £2,000 for the Bark Raleigh in 15834, a swift ship for the expedition to America). The minds they planned the voyage with were the two Richard Hakluyt’s (they were cousins), strong proponents of oversea colonization.  

Just a few months after the patent was granted, Gilbert formed a fleet of eleven ships and 500 men to sail over the Atlantic Ocean, their exact destination unknown. Gilbert and Raleigh headed the expedition which began to unravel before it even left port, beginning with three of the ships suddenly dropping out of the expedition. Through this and the weather, the expedition was stalled two months and finally left port in November, traveling up the coast to Ireland to take on more supplies. The amount of time spent in Ireland is unknown, but the adverse winds and weather eventually forced him back to England; he was not even able to leave the coast on his first attempt. Raleigh did not return with his brother to England, he sailed and fought Spanish ships. He returned to England in 1579, having suffered heavy losses.5

As a result of this disaster, Sir Humphrey Gilbert dispatched a small frigate on a reconnaissance mission led by mariner Simon Fernandez in 1580. Fernandez was previously a Spanish trained navigator who turned rogue and lived as a pirate, he was arrested and sentence to the hangman’s noose in 1577, but was never hanged. He was released by Sir Francis Walsingham (Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster), and began working for the English crown. A year after his release he aided Gilbert on his first attempt to reach America and became an essential cog to the American expeditions across the Atlantic for the next decade.6

The voyage was a success, with Fernandez traveling along the North American coast and returning before the end of summer. This trip strengthened Gilberts resolve and he was determined to attempt to reach America before his exclusive patent expired in 1583.7 Gilbert planned to leave in the fall of 1582, but bad weather scuttled this voyage before he was ever able to leave port. It was not until the following year that a fleet of five ships successfully sailed to America; the Bark Raleigh, the Delight, the Golden Hind, the Swallow and the Squirrel. The Delight was Gilbert’s flagship and the Squirrel was the smallest in the fleet.

Only a few days passed before the Bark Raleigh turned back because of sickness among the crew and possibly fears about its sea worthiness as well. The rest of the fleet trekked on towards Newfoundland, an opportunity for Sir Humphrey Gilbert to take on new supplies and possibly even raid some fishing ships. In only a month, he arrived at St. John’s Harbor, the largest port on the island. It was a multi-cultural town; French, Spanish, English and Portuguese vessels traded peacefully in the area. Initially Gilbert was feared to be a marauder and was not allowed in the harbor, but after some reassurance he was allowed in. He erected a tent and formally annexed the region in the name of the queen after he landed, Gilbert claimed their land was now English and under his control as a result of the grant given to him. This disregarded the fact that his patent prohibited him from claiming existing territory in the name of the queen, which thus left his claim void.

After weeks of prospecting and surveys, Gilbert planned to move on. He had a serious problem with the expedition unraveling and with himself having little ability to stop it. Diseases and sickness permeated the crew and others deserted, support for Gilbert was waning and rumors of dissention trickled though the ranks. He attempted to solve this problem by sending the Swallow loaded with the sick and unruly sailors back to England.  He then took the remaining fleet and sailed towards Cape Breton and the American cost with his three remaining ships.8

                Continuing south, the Delight ran aground off Nova Scotia. This sent eighty men to their deaths and ruined Gilbert’s maps and notes of the exploration in Newfoundland.  Supplies were precariously low and the men refused to continue on as Gilbert wished, instead they sailed the dwindling fleet back to England. Sir Humphrey Gilbert kept an optimistic spirit on the journey home, despite the fact he lost a fortune when the Delight sunk. On his way home the ships ran through a furious storm, with the Squirrel, the smallest of the fleet, sinking. This ship was the very one Gilbert now resided on, and he refused to leave when the storm was upon them. The captain of the Golden Hind, Edward Heyes, showed horror, “For in that moment, the frigate was devoured and swallowed up of the sea.”9 Gilbert was, as Queen Elizabeth notably said, “a man noted of not good hap [fortune] by seas.”10

 

Gilbert drowned in the summer of ’83, and during the fall the exclusive patent to colonize America was given to Sir Walter Raleigh. Raleigh made the decision to replace his half-brother as the forefront person in going the America and resist the growing domination by the Spanish dominion. For the next year, Raleigh turned his quarters at Durham House into a station for mariners, promoters and scholars. The Hakluyt’s, John White, Thomas Hariot, Simon Fernandez and others were recruited to draft plans for sailing to America. It was from this that the voyages for Roanoke began; navigation routes, mathematics and support for the multiple voyages and the beginning of English presence in the New World exploded from this.11

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[1] Eversley, Lord, The Turkish Empire from 1288 to 1914 (1924), p. 2

[2] Horn, James, A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony (2010) p. 8

[3] Hakluyt, Richard, Principall Navigations (1600), p. 135-37

[4] Tarbox, Increase,  Sir Walter Raleigh (1884), p. 29

[5] Quinn, David B., Voyages and Colonizing Enterprises (1967), p. 39-48

[6] Miller, Lee, Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony (2000), p. 171

[7] Quinn, David B., Set Fair for Roanoke (1985), p. 7

[8] Horn, James, A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony (2010) p. 30

[9] Hakluyt, Richard, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 296

[10] Andrews, Kenneth, Trade, Plunder and Settlement (1984), p. 194-97

[11] Quinn, David B., Set Fair for Roanoke (1985), p. 7-9, 45-46

Seperatists and Tolerance

All lies and jests

 Still a man hears 

What he wants to hear 

And disregards the rest 

    Begrimed cobblestones speckled the streets of the narrow city of London in the 16th century; they lead to a variety of experiences for the citizens of this city. It is vital to say citizens of this city, as it was claimed that “London is not said to be in England, but England to be in London”1. It was a rapidly growing city that enjoyed the glow that came from living in the Elizabethan Era, a time period lasting from 1558 to 1603. This was a time referred to as the “golden age” of England, a term C.S. Lewis used in his lectures. 

    People from every walk of life and all corners of the country bounded into London because of the greatness and opportunity that flowed out of it, “…you shall see walking the knight, the gull, the gallant, the upstart, the gentleman…the scholar, the beggar, the doctor, the idiot, the ruffian, the cheater, the Puritan, the cutthroat.”2 The plausible reason for this was it was right next to the royal palace and probably emitted a sense of security and wealth during a time of foreign uncertainty. English historian John Stow has this to say about the role of the court, “…As for retailers, therefore, and handycraftsmen, it is no marvel if they abandon country towns, and resorts to London; for not only the court, which is now-a-days much greater and more gallant then in former times…is now for the most part either abiding at London, or else so near unto it, that the provision of things most fit for it may easily be fetched from thence.”3

    With a new queen, stability was in place once again. Systematic religious persecution seemed to be at an end and a new church was established as well; the English Protestant church, or the Church of England. Catholicism still existed, but was not the dominate religion it formerly was. Still, this new Church and Elizabeth’s attitude of tolerance (her motto was “I see, and say nothing”) lead to religious schisms and feuds during her reign. For example, the separatists who attempted to distance themselves from the new Church of England and the crucial Martin Marprelate pamphlets that challenged the Church. 

     Now, we need to take a moment to expound the Martin Marprelate controversy. The religious atmosphere of the time was divided among the people; the queen supported the Protestant church and a separatist group was splitting away that followed the teachings of the French theologian, John Calvin. An unknown man utilizes the printing press to create tracts as an attempt to acquaint the people of England with the Puritan criticisms of the Catholic episcopacy. His identity is not officially known and he constantly moved from place to place to avoid detection. One location he was later discovered to be at was East Molesey, a town connected to London. He produced seven tracts in 1588 and 89, creating a controversy that greatly upset the government and Church. While religion had more freedom during this era, Puritan, or separatists, writings were illegal and controversial to the government. This controversy is part of the reason the Puritans traveled on the Mayflower a handful of decades afterwards. 

    Through his writings Marprelate would attack the bishop in a fluent and understandable way for the common person. In his first tract, “The Epistle”, he complained, “Our lord bishops…that swinish rabble, are petty antichrists, petty popes, proud prelates, intolerable withstanders of reformation, enemies of the gospel, and most covetous wretched priests.”4 These tracts continued and the Church lacked the ability to stop it. This resulted in the government using professional authors to write tracts in an attempt to counteract the damage already done by Martin Marprelate. While the actual Martin Marprelate was never discovered, the man who pressed and released the tracts was, John Penry. He was arrested and hung for rebellion in 1593, becoming an early puritan martyr. 

    This was not the end of the influence Marprelate had on England, he is considered one of the greatest prose satirists of the period.5 To augment his influence, one of the young writers hired to counteract him, Thomas Nashe, was greatly influenced and more accepted in the English literary world afterword. He and countless others owed much to the Marprelate tracts, a forerunner to other great satires and literature as a whole.

    Additionally, the fact Martin Marprelate remained unknown ignited conversation, prose and debate over who actually wrote the tracts. While John Penry was discovered as the owner of the printing press, he refused to be named as Marprelate. Then again, claiming to write illegal and seditious tracts against the Church of England is not always something one would want to take the credit for. William Pierce attempted to clear Penry’s name in his biography of Penry, concluding:

     “That Penry was not Marprelate is obvious enough to those who are familiar with their respective writings. Their styles are as distinct as the poetic styles of Tennyson and Browning. It is very clear that Penry is only an instrument in the hands of Marprelate.”6

   The story surrounding Martin Marprelate was fascinating, he responded to the disagreement he had with the Church of England and did it in a way that was new and effective. He printed challenges to the church, probably viewing himself as a modern Martin Luther; a man brave enough to challenge the status quo and emphatically agitate the Church in the process. The public response to his expositions on the Church seemed mixed, many people supporting his challenges and others believing he went too far. Even the separatist he aligned himself with did not fully support the controversy he stirred up, but they could not deny the importance and impact he had during this “golden age” of England. 

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[1] Platter, Travels (1937), p. 226.

[2] Dekker, Dead Tearme, p. D4.

[3] Stow, Survey (1908), I, p. 211-212

[4] Marprelate, "The Epistle" (1588), p. 10.

[5] Cambridge History of English Literature, III, p. 450.

[6] Pierce, John Penry: His Life, Times, and Writings (1923), p. 222