Roanoke

by Lee Miller

  5 OF POPULATION

  1 Wirtemberg, True and Faithful Narrative (1865), p. 7.

  2 Quinn, Set Fair for Roano ke, p. 17. Dekker, Seven Deadly Sins (1879), p. 31, speaks of thundering crowds moving in such a “shoal that posts are set up of purpose to strengthen the houses lest with jostling one another they should shoulder them down.”

  3 Stow, Survey of London (1908), 1, p. 252.

  4 Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 308.

  5 Ibid., p. 344.

  6 Stow, Survey of London (1908), 11, p. 72.

  7 Ibid., 11, p. 60.

  8 Ibid., 1, p. 171.

  9 Quinn and Cheshire, Parmenius, p. 101.

  10 For the changes in the countryside, see Harrison, Description of England; Stone, Crisis; Tawney, Agrarian Problem; “encroaching and joining…” Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 325. ii Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, p. 165. The wool crisis of 1586 was precipitated by a Spanish embargo on English shipping. Inflation was worsened by the tremendous influx of Spanish gold and silver subsequently captured by English privateers (Byrne, Elizabethan Life, p. 308). For vagrancy, see the Vagabond Act of 1572, 14 Eliz., c.5, s.5; also 18 Eliz., c.6; and 39 Eliz., c.4; Judges, Elizabethan Underworld, pp. xix-xlvii; Webb, English Poor Law History.

  12 Norden, Surveyor’s Dialogue; Harrison, Description of England (1807), PP-314-15, 317, 356-7.

  13 Harrison, Description of England (1807), pp. 355, 358.

  14 Ibid., p. 358.

  15 Harrison, Description of Britaine (1807), pp. 80-1.

  16 Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 371.

  6 OF RELIGION

  1 Cooper, An Admonition (1882), p. 70.

  2 For the Anglican Church, see Frere and Douglas, Puritan Manifestoes; Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, pp. 168-86; Turner, Second Course; Platter, Travels (1937), pp. 176, 209; Strype, Annals, 1; Byrne, Elizabethan Life, pp. 176-94; Williams, Elizabeth, pp. 64-77.

  3 Thomas Savile to Camden in Quinn and Cheshire, Parmenius, p. 15; for the three hundred Cambridge protesters who threw off their surplices, see Strype, Annals, 1, pt. 2, pp. 153-4; Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, pp. 195-6.

  4 Marprelate, Epistle (1911), p. 86. Turner’s dog, Marprelate said, was “full of good qualities.”

  5 Usher, Presbyterian Movement, p. 3. For Separatists, see also Cooper, An Admonition; Waddington, Congregational History; Knappen, Tudor Puritanism; Byrne, Elizabethan Life.

  6 Parker, Correspondence, p. 61.

  7 Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, p. 497; see also Bancroft, Dangerous Positions; Strype, Annals, in, pt. 1, pp. 22-4, 513; Bilson, The True Difference.

  8 Cooper, An Admonition (1882), pp. 43, 48. John Penry and Job Throckmor-ton are generally regarded as the authors of the Marprelate tracts.

  9 Marprelate, Epistle (1911), pp. 24, 26.

  10 Cooper, An Admonition (1882), pp. 30-1.

  11 Marprelate, Epistle (1911), pp. 90-1.

  12 Cooper, An Admonition (1882), p. 27.

  13 “ignorant rash” George Gifford in Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, p. 311; “new-found equality,” Cooper, An Admonition (1882), p. 54.

  14 Whitgift, Works, I, p. 372.

  15 John Field to D. Chapman, November 19, 1583, in Usher, Presbyterian Movement, p. 96; for the Cambridge protest, see Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, p. 239.

  16 Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, p. 310.

  17 “tyranny, dangerous days,” W. Teye to Richard Parker, December 22, 1587, in Usher, Presbyterian Movement, p. 82; “I see a miserable desolation …” Parker to Teye, February 1587, in ibid., p. 83. For Burghley’s condemnation, see Strype, Whitgift, 1, p. 338; Pierce, Historical Introduction, p. 86. Puritans claimed that Whitgift pursued them with “deadly hatred and extreme rage,” inflicting beatings, imprisonment, and even in-prison murder; Harleian Mss. 6848, fol. 7. See also Arber, Introductory Sketch, pp. 35-6; Pierce, Historical Introduction, pp. 92-8.

  18 Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, pp. 265-82, 310-13; Byrne, Elizabethan Life, p. 192. For the manhunt, see Marprelate, The Epitome, pp. 117-18, Hay Any Work, p. 220, Just Censure, pp. 351-9, all in Pierce, Tracts; Strype, Whitgift, 1, pp. 551-5, 601-2; “like furious …” Marprelate, The Epitome (1911), p. 151.

  19 Imprisoned Brownists themselves later petitioned to be removed to the Magdalen Islands in Canada (State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, ccxlvi, no. 56; Quinn, New American World, iv, p. 67). For Raleigh’s opposition, see Edwards, Sir Walter Raleigh, 1, p. 271. His shipping captain, Charles Leigh, was a Brownist (Quinn, Raleigh and the British Empire, p. 346). A further interesting connection was Raleigh’s 1592 marriage to Bess Throckmorton, cousin to Job Throckmorton — the anonymous writer of the Marprelate tracts (Pierce, Historical Introduction, p. 218). Lodge said that “the Queen reasoned” with Raleigh on the subject of religion, “and censured his opinions with sharpness.” Raleigh “defended the learned Puritan Udal” —John Penry’s friend — “who had libelled the hierarchy with the most virulent bitterness and, when that minister was therefore condemned for high treason, interfered successfully to save his life” (Lodge, Portraits, 11).

  20 Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, pp. 312-13; Bancroft, Dangerous Positions.

  7 THE COLONISTS

  1 Nichols, The Progresses, 11, p. 231.

  2 College of Arms, Ms. Vincent Old Grants, 157, f. 397.

  3 The seal is pictured without citation in Oakeshott, Queen and the Poet, plate 11, facing p. 28. The inscription translates as “Knight; Guardian of the Stannaries of Cornwall and Devon; Captain of the Queen’s Guard; Governor of the Island of Jersey.”

  4 Hariot, A Briefe and True Report (1589), p. 763.

  5 Information about the colonists here and below is drawn from Powell, Roanoke Colonists and Explorers: An Attempt at Identification. Among the

  24 Quinn and Cheshire, Parmenius, p. 14.

  25 Examination of David Ingram, State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, clxxv, 95. Ingram had been a member of Hawkins’s expedition attacked by Spain at San Juan de Ulloa, Mexico, in 1568. Set ashore, he and two companions walked on foot to an area southwest of Cape Breton (Canada), where they were picked up by a French ship.

  26 Ingram, Relation (1589), pp. 561-2.

  27 “dead victual” and food lists, see Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 21.

  28 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), pp. 770-1. The colonists originally numbered 117. White returned to England and George Howe was later killed, leaving 115 people on Roanoke Island.

  8 IN CERTAIN DANGER

  1 Camden, The History (1688), p. 364.

  2 For the members of Lane’s 1585-1586 expedition, see Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), pp. 736-7.

  3 Ibid. (1589), p. 769-

  4 This and all other quotes in this chapter are taken from ibid., pp. 766-9.

  9 SABOTAGE

  1 Raleigh, “Ocean to Scinthia,” nth book, lines 88-92.

  2 Brown, Genesis, 1, p. 219; 11, p. 1061.

  3 For Glande’s story, see n. 13 below.

  4 The details of the 1587 voyage and the quotes contained in this chapter, unless otherwise noted, are taken from Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), pp. 764-70-

  5 Virginia Company, Records, 111, pp. 178-89; also Anon., For the Colony in Virginea Britannia.

  6 Marmalade and butter were given to Maurice Browne at his departure for Newfoundland with Raleigh’s brother Gilbert in 1583; Quinn and Cheshire, Parmenius, Appendix 1, p. 208.

  7 Manteo first went to England in September 1584 with the return of Raleigh’s first Roanoke expedition. He came home to North America in the spring of 1585 with Raleigh’s second Roanoke expedition, and returned to England again with either Lane or Grenville in 1586.

  8 Diaz, Examination of the Masters and Pilots (1600), pp. 866-8.

  9 Ibid.

  10 Ibid.

  11 Modern Tallaboa Bay, Puerto Rico.

  12 “Darby Glande,” Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 737; “Darbie Glaven,” ibid., p. 765; “David Glavin,” Goncalo Méndez de C
anco, Report; “David Glavid,” Oré, Relación (1936), p. 49.

  13 Canco, Report, p. 155. Glande’s deposition was taken in February 1599 by Canco and forwarded to Philip III on February 8, 1600. He located Jacan at 36 degrees and said it was the place where Grenville made his fort. Roanoke, by modern measurements, is located at 35 degrees, 54 minutes, 29 seconds north latitude.

  14 Oré, Relación (1936), p. 49, says that Glande served as a galley slave until he was brought from Havana to St. Augustine, or from July 1587 to possibly sometime in the year 1594 or 1595, for in 1600 Canco reported {Report, p. 155) that Glande had been in St. Augustine for more than five years.

  15 Canco, Report, p. 156; in Spanish, author’s translation. The phrase in question is tubo orden de huyrse.

  16 The original text reads “pines.”

  17 Original text reads “plántanos.”

  18 Captain John Smith hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “it seems Simon Ferdinando did what he could to bring this voyage to confusion …” General History, p. 13. Hulton and Quinn (American Drawings, 1, p. 17), on the other hand, question White’s claim that Fernandez was deliberately sabotaging the expedition. They suggest that because no piratical attacks had been made on Spanish shipping on the way out due to the presence of the colonists, an unhappy Fernandez took revenge on White. They suggest alternatively that Fernandez may have been protecting the company from “hostile” Indian nations on the Chesapeake Bay. Yet thanks to Ralph Lane, there was assured hostility on Roanoke Island, and Fernandez certainly knew through Stafford that the local Indian leaders had failed to respond to White’s peace overtures.

  19 “Our water did smell so vividly,” wrote Jamestown colonist George Percy upon reaching the Caribbean, “that none of our men were able to endure it,” Observations (1907), p. 8. The Jamestown ships, however, were able to take on fresh supplies, whereas White’s were not.

  20 Edwards, Raleigh, 11, pp. lxii-iii.

  21 Nichols, The Progresses, ii, p. 231.

  22 Fernandez made the round-trip reconnaissance for Gilbert in three months, or roughly half the sailing time of Raleigh’s Roanoke voyages; State Papers Colonial, 1/1, 2; “not without almost…” Taylor, Two Richard Hakluyts, 11, p. 367.

  23 White steadfastly calls this entry Hatorask, rejecting the English name of Port Ferdinando.

  24 The anonymous gentleman acted at the instigation of Simon Fernandez.

  25 If White’s colonists were Separatists, they may have known that there was little chance of being admitted back into the realm. The Jamestown colonists, even without this stigma, were refused readmission in 1614. Their petition to return was refused by King James I, “with the suggestion,” reported Spanish agent Gondomar, “that it was well to preserve that place, altho’ it be good for nothing more than to kill people”; Brown, Genesis, n, p. 681. Overpopulation was reaching epidemic proportions.

  26 White lists a Thomas Smith among the dead. One of his colonists bore the same name, though they were probably different men, since White mentions only himself as returning to England.

  27 Hakluyt, Princip all Navigations (1600), 111, p. 301. Despite the May 1587 date on Hakluyt’s document, the material was not published until at least October 1587, after Stafford’s return; Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, n, p. 552, n. 6.

  28 Quinn (Set Fair, p. 279) notes that even Stafford did not protest about Fernandez’s actions and suggests that White may have been secretly pleased with the arrangement to remain on Roanoke Island, since it had been “a happy place for him.”

  10 THE SECOND ROANOKE EXPEDITION! GRENVILLE AND THE SECOTAN (1585)

  1 Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 7.

  2 Manteo was from Croatoan Island; Wanchese’s hometown was unknown, although since he later served as an adviser to Wingina and was numbered among the Dasamonquepeuc survivors, it may be safe to assume that he was from Roanoke Island or the adjacent mainland. For their dress, see the testimony of Lupold von Wedel in Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 1, p. 116, n. 6.

  3 State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, ccxv, 89, [August?] 1588.

  4 Camden, The History (1688), p. 312.

  5 Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 7.

  6 Hakluyt, The Honourable Voyage unto Cadiz (1600), in.

  7 The Spaniards feared a North American English settlement for precisely this reason. Drake’s 1586 raid on St. Augustine and his carrying away of so many supplies led to Spanish fears that Drake himself would establish a base on the coast from which to attack the fleets; Quinn, New American World, v, 44. In 1581 Walsingham, Leicester, and Burghley drew up plans for a fortress on Terceira to intercept the returning Spanish plate fleet; Taylor, Troublesome Voyage, p. xxxix. That Raleigh’s intention was to establish a similar military base on Roanoke, see Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, pp. 191, 193. Hakluyt recommended such a plan in his Discourse, chapter 5. Spain also recognized the significance of the Outer Banks, positioned so close to Bermuda, as a base for attack; Wright, Further English Voyages, xxii, n. 3; 44, p. 185. This was still uppermost in their mind when Jamestown was settled in 1607. Pirates will be sent to Virginia, Pedro de Zúñiga warned the King, and the “thing is so perfect — according to what they say … that Y. M. will not be able to get the silver from the Indies …” Brown, Genesis, 1, p. 244.

  8 Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 11.

  9 Ibid., chapter 7.

  10 Raleigh, “Ocean to Scinthia,” nth Book, line 61. n Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 7.

  12 Calendar of State Papers, Spain, 1580-6, p. 536. Bernardino de Mendoza, the ousted Spanish ambassador who was reporting from Paris via agents still in England, believed that the ships were headed for Norumbega on the American North Atlantic coast.

  13 Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 1, pp. 119-20, 130-9, 173, n. 5; see Wright, Further English Voyages, p. 15, for the deposition of Enrique Lopez, who said that three hundred Englishmen were landed in North America to build Lane’s fort. Hakluyt recommended utilizing soldiers returned from the wars who were “idle” and “hurtful” to the realm (Discourse, chapter 20, item 21, and Principall Navigations [1600], 111, p. 303). A number of Lane’s men were Irish, and at least one, Edward Nugent, had served under him in Kerry (ibid. [1589], p. 746; Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 1, p. 195, n. 3).

  14 Lane’s mother was a cousin to Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII; Brown, Genesis, 11, p. 936.

  15 Holinshed, Chronicles (1807), iv, p. 598.

  16 For Grenville’s officers and specialists, see Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 1, pp. 158-9, 196, n. 1. For the total complement of men involved, see State Papers Colonial, 1/1, 3; Rowse, Grenville, p. 204.

  17 Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, p. 3.

  18 Calendar of State Papers, Spain, 1580-6, p. 651.

  19 Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, pp. 3, 32-3; Strype, Annals, 111, part 1, pp. 422-4.

  20 Hentzner, Travels (1865), p. no.

  21 For the ships’ names listed here and below, see index in Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, pp. 289-94; for the London merchants, see ibid., pp. 34, 75, 118-19.

  22 Rowse, Expansion, p. 297; see also Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, pp. 14, 129, who estimates (p. 133) that in the two-year period between 1589 and 1591, £100,000 of sugar was taken by English privateers from Spanish vessels.

  23 State Papers Domestic, James, xcix, 77, September 28, 1618.

  24 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 733. For details of Grenville’s expedition, see ibid., pp. 733-6.

  25 Holinshed, Chronicles (1807), iv, p. 599.

  26 For Hernando de Altamirano, see Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 11, pp. 740-3; for White’s paintings, see Hulton, America, 1585; Hulton and Quinn, American Drawings.

  27 Wright, Further English Voyages, doc. 9, p. 12.

  28 Lane to Burghley, January 7, 1591/2, Lansdowne Mss. 69, fol. 29-29% British Museum.

  29 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 734.

  30 Lane to Walsingham, September 8, 1585, State Papers Colonial, 1/1, 6.

  31 Committee decision mak
ing, of course, was the old way of doing things aboard ship. Drake was the first to break with this tradition during his circumnavigation of the world. Times had changed; sea battles with Spain made split-second decisions necessary, and the councils of war increasingly assumed a more advisory role; Williamson, Age of Drake, pp. 180-1.

  32 Lane to Walsingham, September 8, 1585, State Papers Colonial, 1/1,6.

  33 Lane to Walsingham, August 12, 1585, State Papers Colonial, 1/1,3.

  34 Ibid.

  35 Ibid.

  36 Holinshed, Chronicles (1807), iv, p. 599.

  37 Lane to Walsingham, August 12, 1585, State Papers Colonial, 1/1,3.

  38 For Butler’s very confused account, see Quinn, New American World, in, pp. 329-31. Thirty men from the missing Lion had already been retrieved from Croatoan Island, where they had been living for three weeks. This can only have been a great burden on the people of Croatoan, since their own population probably did not exceed one hundred; Haag, Archeology, p. 15.

  39 “sent word …” Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 735; “the King,” ibid., p. 729.

  40 Wanchese clearly did not look favorably upon England. Lane later accused him of inciting Wingina against his soldiers, ibid. (1589), p. 744.

  41 Ibid. (1589), p. 736.

  42 Lane to Walsingham, August 12, 1585, State Papers Colonial, 1/1, 3. This region was later known as the Little Dismal Swamp, or the Alligator Dismal. Tragically, most of the swamp is now drained and the magnificent trees have been cut down.

  43 “They are a people …” Hariot, Briefe and True Report (1589), p. 759; “and to confess …” De Bry, America, 1, p. xxiii.

  44 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 793.

  45 De Bry, America, 1, plate xix.

  46 Ibid., plate ii. “Babies” were baby dolls.

  47 “multitude … ample vent…” Hakluyt, Inducements (1602), p. 25 (D). For Mr. Ashley, see Rowse, Expansion, p. 187; Quinn, Gilbert, p. 243; “Looking glasses…” Peckham, True Report (1589), p. 706.