Roanoke

by Lee Miller

  19 Raleigh, The History of the World, Book v, chapter 1, part 6; Adamson and Folland, Shepherd of the Ocean, p. 115; Platter, Travels (1937), p. 152.

  20 Platter, Travels (1937), p. 151.

  21 Deacon, John Dee, p. 241.

  22 Camden, The History (1688), p. 411.

  23 Ibid., p. 410.

  24 Ibid., pp. 411,413.

  25 Van Meteren, Miraculous Victory (1600), 1, p. 604.

  26 Camden, The History (1688), p. 417.

  27 Deloney, Of the Strange and Most Cruell Whippes …

  28 Van Meteren, Miraculous Victory (1600), 1, p. 606.

  29 It was received in June 1587; Read, Walsingham, 111, p. 416.

  30 Camden, The History (1688), p. 131.

  31 Leicester died on September 4, 1588.

  32 “errors,” Raleigh, “Ocean to Scinthia,” nth book, line 367; “great treasons,” Edwards, Raleigh, 11, p. 53. Raleigh was flying too high. We know from Birch {Memoirs, 11, p. 45) that Raleigh and the Queen disagreed on the plan of attack before the Armada, Raleigh preferring to disable Spanish ships within their own ports before they could set sail, but Elizabeth would not listen to him. Perhaps she was also made aware of Raleigh’s view that all men were equal before God, and that the power of kings was beholden to the will of the people (History of the World, Book 1, ch. ix, pt. 3), an idea treasonously opposed to the monarchy’s notion of divine kingship and absolute obedience to princes. Were Raleigh’s enemies whispering in the Queen’s ear that his wings needed clipping? Four years later their efforts were given a boost when Elizabeth’s inability to stop the pillaging of a car-rack in the West Country was due to her imprisonment of Raleigh. It was only Raleigh — released from prison and brought forward under guard — who was able to stop the rioting. The question must be asked: If the Lost Colonists were Separatists who operated according to democratic principles, were they singled out as a symbol of Raleigh’s recalcitrance? It is noteworthy that the Armada attack itself was blamed on Puritan turmoil in the land; Marprelate, Mineral (1911), p. 187.

  33 Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 145. The argument that lay behind Essex’s challenge to Raleigh is unknown.

  34 Bacon, “Of Envy,” Essays (1887), p. 94.

  35 Sir Francis Allen to Anthony Bacon, in Birch, Memoirs, 1, p. 56. “There was never in court,” Allen added, “such emulation, such envy, such back-biting, as is now at this time,” p. 57.

  36 Raleigh, “Ocean to Scinthia,” nth book, lines 467, 267-8. According to Spenser, Raleigh composed this poem in 1589.

  37 Bradbrook, School of Night, pp. 3, 5.

  38 Raleigh, “Ocean to Scinthia,” nth book, line 156.

  39 Raleigh, “Who list to hear the sum of sorrow’s state.” Raleigh, in an earlier line, says that he was born “to lose his labour still.” For Shakespeare’s use of this phrase, see Chapter 15, n. 53.

  40 Spenser, Faerie Queen, introduction, Book 11. Raleigh appeared in the Faerie Queen as Timias, who — significantly — is beset by the malicious Blatant Beast (jealousy) whose weapon of destruction is slander and scandal. Timias is waylaid in the forest by three men who shoot him with barbs. The Queen revives him with plants from Virginia, but she herself inadvertently wounds him with a dart from her eye.

  41 Anon., Willobie His Avisa, preface.

  42 “all alone …” Raleigh, “As You Came from the Holy Land”; Latham, Poems, pp. 22-3. Latham (p. xxvii) described this as Raleigh’s “most naked poem.” Oakeshott {Queen and the Poet, pp. 173, 59) called this the most moving of all of Raleigh’s poems, adding that he did not seem to be writing about himself but about something more far-reaching. The difficulty has always been that although the poem seems to date to 1588, no one has been able to identify problems between Raleigh and the Court at this early date (everyone assuming that Raleigh’s marriage of 1592 was the source of the upset). Edwards {Raleigh, 1, p. 119), indeed, noted a “passing cloud” in 1589, but admitted that “we are nowhere told what it was that caused it.” Accusations regarding the failed Lost Colony and its sabotage, however, supply the necessary context for very acrid disagreements that must have begun in early 1588 when John White’s story was confirmed.

  43 “Complaints …” Raleigh, “Ocean to Scinthia,” nth book, lines 476-7; “A secret murder …” Raleigh, “Secret Murder”; “if I complain …” Raleigh, “Wounded I am.”

  44 Raleigh, “Ocean to Scinthia,” nth book, lines 145, 159.

  45 Raleigh, “Farewell to the Court.” The slander, Raleigh said, had even reached Ireland, so that he was scornfully treated there by the Lord Deputy, Sir William Fitzwilliam; Edwards, Raleigh, n, p. 51.

  46 Raleigh’s poetry has been analyzed to discover its hidden meanings, just as the works of Spenser and Shakespeare have been. See Latham, Poems; Oakeshott, Queen and the Poet; Bradbrook, School of Night.

  47 Edwards, Raleigh, 11, p. 42.

  48 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 815; Sanderson was married to Margaret Snedale, daughter of Raleigh’s sister, Mary; Brown, Genesis, 11, p. 991.

  49 Shirley, Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 149; for the Queen’s annual budget, see Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, p. 419; “I have consumed …” April 29, 1586, letter in Edwards, Raleigh, 11, p. 33; Bruce (Correspondence, p. 193) dates it to March 29, 1586.

  50 Hariot, Briefe and True Report (1589), p. 749. Hakluyt calls it treachery; see his 1587 dedicatory preface to Raleigh in Martyr, Decades of the New World, translated from Latin by Taylor, Two Richard Hakluyts, 11, p. 368.

  51 Raleigh, History of the World, preface.

  52 Walsingham died on April 16, 1590. He was active in affairs of state up to the very end; Read, Walsingham, in, p. 448.

  53 For the 1590 rescue attempt and the quotes contained therein, unless otherwise noted, see Chapter 1, n. 4.

  54 For Watts, see Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, pp. 105-9; Brown, Genesis, 1, p. 99; for the love messages to Havana’s governor Juan de Texeda, see Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, p. 166.

  55 White was presumably in London, since the ships belonging to Watts were outfitted on the Thames. He may have boarded there or even in Portsmouth, although I think Plymouth a far more likely choice. The ships left London toward February’s end and docked at Plymouth until March 20, giving White a great deal of time to gather colonists and supplies, but very little time — once the captains’ decision had been made to depart — to contact Raleigh, especially if Raleigh were in London.

  56 For the sum recalled by William Sanderson, Raleigh’s man of business, see Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 11, p. 580.

  57 Indeed, Chief Justice Popham, one of the founders of the Jamestown colony, informed Spanish agent Zúñiga that the sending of Englishmen to America was done “in order to drive out from here thieves and traitors to be drowned in the sea”; Brown, Genesis, 1, p. 46. Nonconformists, and certainly Separatists, were considered “traitors… more troublesome” than Papists; Pierce, Historical Introduction, p. 96. Walsingham ranked them second among the “inward diseases” facing the realm; Read, Walsingham, 11, p. 14.

  58 Aubrey, Brief Lives (1898), 11, p. 188. “It is certain,” Bacon admitted, “that heresies and schisms are, of all others, the greatest scandals”; “Of Unity in Religion,” Essays (1887), p. 20. “He was scandalized with Atheism,” said Aubrey, “but he was a bold man, and would venture at discourse which was unpleasant to the Church-men”; Mss. Aubrey 6, fol. 77. In 1592 Raleigh was investigated following a charge of atheism made against him in Dorset; Harleian Mss. 6849, ff. 183-90. He was kept under surveillance, his house searched, and Hariot himself came under suspicion; Morley aHariot,” p. 61. Is it possible that the charge of atheism was leveled at Raleigh to prevent an investigation of the events relating to Roanoke? Such an accusation prevented an investigation into the death of Christopher Marlowe at this same time; Haynes, Invisible Power, p. 102. Slanderers consistently linked Raleigh to Marlowe. For Parsons, see Philopatrus, Response to the Unjust and Bloody Edict; Strathmann, Sir Walter Ral
eigh, pp. 25-6. Interestingly, Parsons was friendly with Essex, dedicating a 1594 book to him about Arabella Stewart.

  59 Verstegan, A Declaration of the True Causes of the Great Troubles…

  60 Philopatrus, Response to the Unjust and Bloody Edict; Strathmann, Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 26. For the loss of life of men, see Verstegan, A Declaration, pp. 56-7; Strathmann, .Sir Walter Raleigh, pp. 25-35.

  61 Elizabeth was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Curiously, Raleigh’s own family remembered the marriage to have taken place much earlier, in 1588; Oakeshott, Queen and the Poet, p. 45. Was it then, or were they merely confusing the unpleasant events of that year with the later upset involving Raleigh’s marriage? In any case, if he were married in 1588, it would go far toward explaining the Queen’s anger, which kept him long in disgrace — following, as it did, on the heels of the slander against him.

  62 Mss. Aubrey 6, fol. 77. The child, a boy named D’amerie Raleigh, was born on March 29, 1592, but died in infancy; Adamson and Folland, Shepherd of the Ocean, p. 202.

  63 Edwards, Raleigh, 11, pp. 50-1. Significantly, Anthony Bacon wrote to Anthony Standen in February, saying that Raleigh had “been almost a year in disgrace for several occasions, as I think you have heard” (ital. added); Birch, Memoirs, 1, p. 93. Standen was a Walsingham agent who operated under the name of Pompeo Pellegrini. Bacon’s letter implies that Raleigh’s imprisonment, and the lengthy banishment to follow, was not owing simply to his marriage, as historians have supposed, but to several causes. Raleigh spoke of “errors made” (in 1588) and of “disgraces” (in 1592); Edwards, Raleigh, 11, p. 50. “I am tumbled down the hill,” he said, “by every practice,” ibid., p. 79.

  64 Raleigh, “The Lie”; Hawks, History, 1, pp. 57-8; Latham, Poems, pp. 45-7.

  65 Hakluyt, Principan Navigations (1600), 111, pp. 287-8.

  66 Raleigh, quoting Seneca, in The History of the World, Book v, chapter 1, pt. 6. Latin translation by Hadow, Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 205. Why did White settle in Ireland? Did he have family there? One interesting possibility is that since 1585 Ireland had become a refuge for religious dissidents of all kinds: Catholics, Brownists, Separatists, and Puritans; Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, p. 339. 67 Powell, “Roanoke Colonists,” p. 226.

  20 RALEIGH’S SEARCH

  1 Raleigh, The History of the World, preface.

  2 Canco, Report, p. 156.

  3 Richard Hawkins and fourteen of his crew in the Dainty were captured off the Peruvian coast in 1594. In 1597 they were shipped to Spain. Glande, however, said that he met them on a visit to Havana in 1599 — presumably during their transport. Quinn (Roanoke Voyages, 11, p. 386, n. 5) believes that Glande was mistaken in the date and that he saw them when they came through Havana in 1597.

  4 Brereton, A Briefe and True Relation, p. 14.

  5 Ibid.

  6 British Museum, Additional Mss. 6788, fol. 417.

  7 Brereton, A Briefe and True Relation, p. 14. See Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, p. 408, for an identification of the botanical products laded.

  8 For details of the two voyages, see Brereton, A Briefe and True Relation.

  9 Camden, Remains (1674), p. 524.

  10 Irwin, Great Lucifer, p. 160. Elizabeth “was but ill-attended in her last sickness,” James Welwood said, “and near her death, forsaken by all but three or four persons, everybody making haste to adore the Rising Sun”; Material Transactions, p. 18. Raleigh was among those who remained loyal; Robert Cecil, Burghley’s son and Walsingham’s successor as Secretary of State, was among the first to rush to King James.

  11 From the diary of John Manningham of the Middle Temple, Mss. Harleian 5333, £ 83; Aubrey, Brief Lives (1898), 11, p. 182.

  12 Ibid., p. 186.

  13 Attributed to Essex. Chetham Mss. 8012, p. 107.

  14 Dixon, Her Majesty’s Tower, pp. 224-5.

  15 Hawks, History, 1, pp. 36-7; Philip Raleigh, A Relation of the Cadiz Action.

  16 Raleigh, History of the World, preface.

  17 For the trial account, see Shirley, Raleigh; Hawks, History, 1; Jardine, Criminal Trials.

  18 Hawks, History, 1, pp. 47-9; Shirley, Raleigh, pp. 87, 132, 153; Jardine, Criminal Trials, 1, pp. 407, 410, 444.

  19 Jardine, Criminal Trials, 1, pp. 450-1; Shirley, Raleigh, pp. 164-5. The jury deliberated for only fifteen minutes; ibid., p. 162.

  20 Hawks, History, 1, p. 50.

  21 Ibid.

  22 Jardine, Criminal Trials, I, p. 466.

  23 Lansdowne Mss. 142, f. 396. It was said that the Scots themselves cried out against King James’s injustice; Shirley, Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 173.

  24 Eastward Hoe, Act II, Scene 1; Act III, Scene 2; Brown, Genesis, 1, pp. 29, 30. The original text reads “bred of those that were left there in ‘79.” The date has been corrected to 1587. No voyages were made to Virginia before 1584.

  21 JAMESTOWN

  1 Raleigh, “Petition to the Queen,” lines 7-9.

  2 Barbour {Jamestown, 1, p. 14) speculates that John Popham and Robert Cecil were aided in their draft of the Virginia Company charter by Sir Edward Coke and John Doddridge, Solicitor General.

  3 Virginia Company, Records, 111, p. 34.

  4 “but the town …” Brown, Genesis, 1, pp. 113-14; for Jacobopolis and James-Fort, ibid.; “murmured at our planting …” Percy, Observations (1907), p. 18.

  5 Ibid., p. 17.

  6 Ibid., pp. 20, 22; Smith, General Historie, p. 163.

  7 Smith, True Relation, B4V. This version of Smith’s book, now in the British Museum, was annotated in a hand that has not been identified, but has been dated with relative certainty to the latter part of Smith’s life. The notes may have been made by Samuel Purchas, though whether his information was accurate is unknown, Barbour, The Complete Works, 1, pp. 6-7. In any case, above Smith’s line stating that men were clothed at a place called Ocanaho-nan, are written the words: “6 days’ journey beyond Ocanahonan.”

  8 Smith, True Relation, C2r.

  9 Ibid., C4r.

  10 The original is in the Archivo General de Simancas, M.P.D., IV-66, XIX-153; reproduced in Brown, Genesis, 1, Map LVII, facing p. 184; Barbour, Jamestown, 1, facing p. 238.

  11 Smith, General Historie, p. 66.

  12 Ibid., pp. 70-1.

  13 Ibid., p. 71.

  14 Ibid.

  15 Smith, Advertisements, pp. 4-5, 21.

  16 Ibid., p. 21.

  17 Smith’s account does not mention the Werraskoyack leader by name. However, Strachey’s 1610 roster of Powhatan leaders records Tackonekintaco as “an old Weroance of Warraskoyack”; Historie of Travaile, Book 1, chapter 4. Presumably, then, he was the leader in 1608.

  18 Smith, Proceedings, p. 57.

  19 Brown, Genesis, 1, p. 78; see also Smith, Proceedings, p. 45.

  20 Smith, General Historie, p. 87; Proceedings, p. 90.

  21 Smith, Proceedings, p. 90.

  22 Smith, A Map of Virginia, p. 9.

  23 Smith, Proceedings, p. 90.

  22 WAR ON THE POWHATAN

  1 Bacon, “Of Plantations,” Essays (1887), p. 356.

  2 Aubrey, Brief Lives (1898), 1, p. 285; for evidence of the meeting, see Hak-luyt’s dedicatory epistle to Virginia Richly Valued (1846).

  3 Virginia Company, Records, 111, p. 17.

  4 Brown, Genesis, 1, p. 324.

  5 “The allowance …” Johnson, Tragical Relation (1907), pp. 422-3; “unnaturally …” Vaughan, American Genesis, p. 66.

  6 “looked like anatomies …” Percy, A Trewe Relacyon (1921-2), p. 269; “so lamentable …”Johnson, Tragical Relation, p. 423.

  7 Virginia Company, Records, in, p. 18.

  8 Archer, A Relatyon (1910), p. xliv.

  9 Virginia Company, Records, 111, pp. 19, 14-15.

  10 Brown, Genesis, 1, p. 247. War was declared by then Virginia governor, Lord De la Warr; Rountree, Pocahontas’s People, pp. 54-5.

  11 “throwing them overboard …” Percy, A Trewe Relacyon (1921-2), p. 27
2; for the attack on the Namsemond, see ibid., p. 263. For an excellent overview of this first Jamestown war, see Fauz, “Abundance of Bloodshed.”

  12 “cunning and coloured …” William Crashaw in Brown, Genesis, 11, p. 613; “our invasion …” Johnson, Nova Britannia.

  13 Virginia Company, Records, 111, p. 22.

  14 Johnson, Nova Britannia.

  15 “Many good religious …” Smith, Advertisements, p. 10; “vulgar opinion …” Virginia Company, A True Declaration.

  16 Johnson, Nova Britannia.

  17 Smith, Advertisements, p. 10.

  18 Virginia Company, A True Declaration.

  19 For Strachey’s biography, see Barbour, Complete Works, 11, p. 27. Strachey’s Historie of Travaile was essentially a promotional tract and apology for colonization.

  23 REQUIEM

  1 Strachey, Historie of Travaile (1849), p. 50.

  2 Ibid., pp. 85-6.

  3 Purchas, Pilgrimes (1905-7), xvili, p. 527. Smith, however, declared that he was the “first Christian” that Wahunsonacock or his attendants had ever seen; General Historie, p. 121. Nor was there evidence of miscegenation. The anonymous 1607 Brief Description of the People noted that the hair of the Powhatan people was black and “I found not a grey eye among them all.”

  4 Smith, General Historie, p. 49. When Pocahontas visited England in 1616, Smith wrote on her behalf to Queen Anne, asserting that he had received “exceeding great courtesie” from her father. (This letter was later published and inserted within Smith’s story of his near-execution at their hands! General Historie, p. 121.) For its apocryphal nature, see Rountree, Pocahontas ‘s People, pp. 38-9. Smith, even in his own day, was accused of lying by Edward Maria Wingfield, President of Jamestown in 1607; Barbour, Jamestown, 1, p. 220.

  5 Anon., For the Colony in Virginea Britannia.

  6 Smith, True Travels, p. 42.

  7 Shirley, Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 234.

  8 State Papers Domestic, James I, xcix, 77, September 28, 1618.

  9 Cayley, Life of Ralegh, 11, pp. 161-3.