In fact, it was his captains Arthur Barlowe and Philip Amadas who discovered (from a European viewpoint) what was to be called Virginia. They landed first on an island off what we know as the North Carolina coast:
After thanks given to God for our safe arrival thither we manned our boats and went to view the land next adjoining and to take possession of the same in the right of the Queen’s most excellent Majesty as rightful Queen and Princess of the same . . . This island had many goodly woods full of deer, conies, hares and fowl even in the midst of summer in incredible abundance . . . we remained by the side of this island two whole days before we saw any people of the country. The third day we espied one small boat having in it three persons.
This epistle, written by Barlowe, goes on to describe a veritable Eden – perhaps in the late sixteenth century that strip of coastline was an Eden, but it certainly is not now and we should be wary of this account. The contents might not have been quite truthful as Ralegh wanted to use Barlowe’s letter to convince Elizabeth and her court that the discovery should be followed up and money poured into the venture. It certainly worked. Ralegh could, for the moment, do no wrong. On 6 January following the voyage, he was dubbed Sir Walter and his heraldry was registered as Arms of Walter Ralegh Knight Lord and Governor of Virginia.
The following year, Ralegh wanted to lead his new venture to Virginia but the Queen insisted he stayed by her side. Sir Richard Grenville led the expedition along with Ralph Lane, whose instruction was to stay on and command the colony: 108 men were left in Virginia under his command. In April 1586, Ralegh sent Grenville back to Virginia with food and equipment for the settlement at Roanoke at the southern end of Chesapeake Bay. But Grenville went treasure-hunting among Spanish ships. It was only an unexpected visit from Sir Francis Drake, after he had sacked the Spanish holdings of San Domingo, Cartagena and Saint Augustine in the Caribbean, that saved the colonists. In fact, most of them abandoned the colony during a great storm and boarded Drake’s ships. When Drake and the settlers arrived back in Plymouth towards the end of July 1586, there was a general air of gloom: these were not men full of brave deeds and tales of a promised land. Nonetheless, English America was born and a sense of colonization had taken over from those who would simply explore for its own sake. Those who had seen Virginia had seen the future, or so they said. On 7 January 1587 a man called John White was named governor of Ralegh, Virginia, and a proper colonization was underway, with colonists including husbands, wives and children setting sail for the New World.
But not Ralegh. He remained at home in Durham House, a London house given to him by Elizabeth. He became occupied with schemes to defend his own position in the court of the Queen. This was 1587, when little was normal in royal circles. It was the year of Elizabeth’s great misery, the beheading of the Queen of Scots. Ralegh was an easy target for all the factions and the envy of others at court. He also had to contend with the latest arrival at court, Anne Boleyn’s great nephew, the nineteen-year-old Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex (1565–1601), who had caught the Queen’s attention.
Ralegh felt dejected if not rejected. His position was perhaps helped by Spain because the court was increasingly concerned that the sea war with Spain was gaining a speed of its own. Drake, rather famously, had sailed from England that spring with a truly motley crew. We should set aside images from the paintings of scruffy but well-disciplined crews and Jolly Jack Tar. Drake had mutineers, convicts, rogues and vagabonds, as well as a few good sailors, aboard his ships. When they reached Cadiz he sailed right in, raided and burned thirty Spanish ships, and sailed out again without the loss of a single man. He then sailed to Sagres in southern Portugal, sacked a church, moved on to pillage the Azores and was home in time for tea. Most importantly for England was that his singeing of the ships in Cadiz had made it impossible for the Spanish Armada to sail that year, 1587. But it would do so within twelve months. While the American colonists waited for supplies and Ralegh waited for preferment, England waited for war.
CHAPTER TWENTY
1588–1602
In 1588 Philip II envisaged a land battle with England. The Armada was simply the armed transport for the Duke of Parma’s forces. Towards the end of July 1588 the Armada appeared off the Lizard, Cornwall. In a crescent-shaped flotilla, it headed up the Channel. Drake, a yapping sea-dog, attacked the Armada from astern, but the Spanish fleet maintained its discipline and made for the French coast opposite Dover. It was supposed to make a rendezvous with the Duke of Parma’s forces from the Netherlands. The fleet anchored, but couldn’t get its ships into port. No one had worked out the depth of water against the deep draft of the vessels.
During the nights of 28 July and 7 August, the English sent in fire-ships – small, old vessels loaded with explosives and burning barrels on their bows. The Spanish flotilla scattered. The English fleet pounded it, sinking four ships, but damaging many more. A southwest gale drove the survivors into the North Sea, to escape as best they could around the north of Scotland.
So, the Armada was one of the most decisive battles of our history. But it did not decide the war between Spain and England. It did not, as Drake had dreamed it would, bring down the Spaniards or cut off their fleets from the riches in the Americas. And neither Catholicism nor Protestantism was any stronger for this decisive battle. The result was that here was proof, in this naval tourney, that the ambitions of one power to impose religious dogma on another could not rely on force to achieve it. That was the legacy of the engagement in the Channel in 1588.
Elizabeth was moody and she was cautious to the point of indecisiveness. Importantly, she could not shed her three great burdens: the security of her nation; the constantly emptying Treasury; and her succession. The rivalry amongst her courtiers hardly helped. In the late 1590s, Walter Ralegh and Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, were rivals, adventurers and heroes who first charmed the Queen, then didn’t. Essex was the younger, brasher one who, having been given his head, lost it – forever. Ralegh and Essex both went to fight the Spaniards at Cadiz and they were both successful, but they came home without much booty. Booty and not glory pays for victories. Nevertheless, Essex was seen as a heroic figure, which was fine for his reputation but not entirely good for his plans to woo his sovereign: the Queen feared he would become more popular than she. However, he was promoted and, with Ralegh in a subordinate position, Essex was given command of a fleet sent to fight a new Armada in the Azores. It was an ill-planned and ill-executed venture and only the weather saved Essex’s ships from defeat and all that that would have meant for England. Essex was forced to leave the court. His letters and pleas did little to restore his standing.
And then came a chance for redemption, or so he thought. The Queen wanted him to go to Ireland. Ever since Henry II, Ireland has been a complex and sometimes bloody setting for English misfortune. A popular view might be that the English should never have involved themselves in that place. At Henry II’s time that was not such an easy option and so the rarely happy relationship was made. It was no different in Elizabeth’s sixteenth century. Henry VIII had called himself King of Ireland but no English monarch really had any authority other than what he or she could impose with cutlass or gun. The Irish tribal aristocracy were given English titles, but that was never a gesture that would bring harmony for the two peoples. Moreover, largely Catholic Ireland and largely Protestant England could hardly meet without suspicion and for the English there was the persistent and justifiable suspicion that Catholic French and Catholic Spanish thrones would take Ireland’s side. It was with such support from the Spanish that the Earl of Tyrone, Hugh O’Neill, was leading yet another rebellion against English rule.
In April 1599, Essex (not Elizabeth’s first choice; she wanted Lord Mountjoy) was sent to Ireland in command of one of the largest English forces every seen in that island. Essex was not particularly bright and he may have spent too much time seeking glory (which success in Ireland was hardly likely to bring), but he knew the enormit
y of his task. His orders were to subdue Ulster and therefore Hugh O’Neill. But Essex turned south, to Leinster. He needed time to gather his forces together and for the weather to improve. His Leinster tactic was publicly criticized by his enemies in London; they said he should have confronted O’Neill. Essex was probably right in doing what he did. Apart from knocking his troops into a fighting force that was to his liking in conditions that were not, the march south allowed him to assess what was needed for the greater campaign. Foolishly, he sent his assessment to Elizabeth and added that the war would take a great deal of expensive time. He also criticized her for favouring Ralegh. The Queen was furious. Robert Cecil, the Queen’s Secretary of State who had succeeded his father William Cecil’s position of authority, was delighted. Cecil believed that Essex could usurp him in his place as Queen’s counsel. The Ireland episode would disprove this.
A furious exchange of letters shuttled across the Irish Sea between Essex and his sovereign. Rumours of Essex giving away knighthoods by the helmet-full and pocketing spoils, but not getting on with the task of subduing Tyrone, only added to the Queen’s fury. Eventually she told Essex that he had to remain in Ireland until the north was put down. But Essex’s army was in no state to take Tyrone.
At the Lagan River, the two men, Essex and Tyrone, met. A fortnight’s truce was agreed. It gave Tyrone fourteen days to regroup and Essex thought that, with this agreement, he was free to return to London. He was desperate to get back there because he knew that only his personal pleading would satisfy his Queen that he was her champion and her loyal subject. However, Essex was doomed. He was tried before the Council, found guilty of desertion and confined to his house. Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, was given the task of subduing Tyrone. In 1601 Essex was executed for treason, having marched on London in an attempt to force an audience with Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Cecil could get on with his work preparing for the succession and his private belief that only James VI of Scotland should succeed Elizabeth as monarch of England. This was court politics. On the streets and in the countryside, the people had a more everyday worry: poverty.
There was increased wealth in late Elizabethan England, but the beneficiaries were the middle men, the merchants. It’s been estimated that as many as 40 per cent of the population survived at below subsistence level; thousands of families were ‘on the Parish’, that is, in need of support. And there was starvation, especially in the remoter parts of the country. As early as 1536 Poor Laws had been introduced. They offered relief, but with an insistence that the so-called ‘sturdy’ beggars should be made to work and whipped to do so. There was genuine pity but also a very real fear of beggars: ‘Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town’, warned the rhyme. Some made begging their profession. In larger places, notably Ipswich and London, a sixteenth-century workless traveller might be better off living on handouts than looking for work.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1603–25
On 24 March 1603, before dawn, Elizabeth I died by the banks of the Thames at Richmond Castle. James VI of Scotland was to become James I of England. It was the end of the Tudor dynasty. But people don’t go to bed as Elizabethans and wake up as Stuarts in the sense that their circumstances are any different. The larder was just as full or empty as it was the night before. Society evolves. It does not suddenly change. A nation wears the same clothes, washes the same dishes and cheers the new monarch from the same rooftops as the ones from which it mourned the last. So why was a Scottish King now King of England?
James I was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and her second husband, Lord Darnley. He became James I of England as a result of the Treaty of Berwick, which he and Elizabeth had signed in 1586, after almost four years of plot, counter-plot and rebellion. The two monarchs agreed that they would respect each other’s religions, be allies, help if the other were to be invaded and, more importantly from Elizabeth’s point of view, neither side would help anyone who threatened the other. So Elizabeth signed the treaty because it meant that Scotland would no longer help France, which was of immense importance to England. James got £4,000 a year out of it from the English, plus an understanding that Elizabeth would block any move in the English Parliament to oppose James’s claim to the English throne, as long as he waited until after her death. If Elizabeth had chosen to, she could have easily, and with considerable support, broken that understanding but she didn’t. James did nothing to spoil the arrangement. Even the year following the treaty’s signing, when his mother was executed by Elizabeth, he said nothing. Nothing, as Cecil knew, had to be left to chance.
The first true indication throughout the kingdom that Elizabeth I was nearing death was when Cecil gave orders that all dissidents should be arrested, that the capital should have its guards doubled and that the strategically important cities of England should have their soldiery put on high alert. For three weeks in March 1603 England stood on its guard. Some stood nervously; after all, the woman they had honoured was their patron. On her death, they would be friendless where it mattered most – their offices, status and even their estates would be forfeited. One who worried for his future was her kinsman, Sir Robert Carey.25
At forty-two, Carey was the Lord Warden of the Middle Marches, the border with Scotland. He would weep at Elizabeth’s passing. Prudently, he would contrive to be the messenger of her death and be first to bend in homage to James VI of Scotland – unless Cecil could stop him, which he most certainly would attempt to do.
In March 1603, Carey, believing the border country to be secure and quiet, felt it safe to leave the security of the wild country in the hands of his deputies. He was fearful that he would lose his position when Elizabeth died. Just as many would rush to James’s side to renew or gain patronage, so at this point others rode to Richmond Palace in case final and lasting favour might be gained from the dying monarch. Carey also travelled to the court. He left a note of those final hours and his determination to take the news to James VI in Scotland and so secure his patronage:
On Wednesday, 23 March, she grew speechless. That afternoon, by signs, she called for her [Privy] Council: and by putting her hand to her head, when the king of Scots was named to succeed her, they all knew he was the man she desired should reign after her. At about six at night, she made signs for the Archbishop [Whitgift] and her Chaplains to come to her. At which time, I went in with them; and sat upon my knees full of tears to see that heavy sight. Her Majesty lay upon her back; with one hand in the bed, and the other without.
The end was hours away. Those left with their monarch prayed for this life and for the next. Archbishop Whitgift told her that her time had come and examined her in faith. She answered by blinking. Also there was Carey’s sister, Eleanor (called Philadelphia in some documents at the time), married to Lord Scrope. Lady Scrope was a key actor in the drama that was to immediately follow Elizabeth’s death. After prayers had been exhausted, Elizabeth was left with her ladies-in-waiting. Carey went to his lodging and gave orders to someone in the Coffer’s Chamber to call him if Elizabeth’s end looked close. He gave the porter an angel (a gold coin) to let him back in at any time.
In the early moments of Thursday 24 March, Elizabeth turned her face to the wall and died. There was blessed relief, but work to be done. The Privy Council had given orders that no one should be allowed in or out of Richmond Palace without a Council Warrant. Fortunately for the story, one of the Council, Sir Edward Wotton, met Carey and took him inside the Palace.
The word had got about that Carey intended to ride north and the Council, under Cecil’s instructions, told him not to move without permission. He was trapped inside. Cecil did not want him spreading the news, especially to James. However, Carey’s brother, George, Lord Hunsdon, was in the Palace and he bluffed his way out, with Carey at his side. There were factions within the Council and more importantly, in spite of Cecil’s authority, there was for certain individuals and families much to lose and gain by following their own instincts for survival and posi
tion. Carey escaped Richmond, found a horse from the royal stable and turned for London.
I took horse between nine and ten o’clock and that night rode to Doncaster [162 miles from London and 235 miles from Edinburgh].
The Friday night [26 March] I came to my own house at Widdrington [99 miles from Edinburgh] and took order with my Deputies [of the Middle Marches] to see the Borders kept in quiet and that the next morning the king of Scotland should be proclaimed king of England at Widdrington, Morpeth and Alnwick.
Very early on Saturday [27 March 1603] I took horse for Edinburgh and came to Norham about twelve noon, so that I might well have been with the king at supper time; but I got a great fall by the way and my horse with one of his heels gave me a great blow on the head, that made me shed much blood. It made me so weak that I was forced to ride a soft pace after: so that the king was newly gone to bed by the time I knocked at the gate.
I kneeled by him and saluted him by his title ‘England, Scotland, France and Ireland’. He gave me his hand to kiss; and bade me welcome.
After he had long discoursed of the manner of the Queen’s sickness, and of her death, he asked, what letters I had from the [Privy] Council. I told him None and acquainted him how narrowly I had escaped from them. And yet I brought him a blue ring from a Lady that I hoped would give him assurance of the truth I reported. He took it, and looked upon it and said ‘It is enough. I know by this you are a true messenger.’
This is the famous story of the secret ring. It is sometimes said that the ring was taken from Elizabeth’s dead finger and given to Carey. Documents in the Carey papers suggest that James had kept a long correspondence with Lady Scrope, Carey’s sister. In this source, it is said that the ring was not on Elizabeth’s finger but that James had sent Lady Scrope a sapphire ring with instructions to return it to him as a sign that Elizabeth was dead. It is said that she threw the sapphire to her brother from a window at the Palace and so began his journey. Was it worthwhile to Carey in his effort to maintain his titles and offices? At first, yes it was. James was naturally grateful. He looked after Carey and gave him into the care of Lord Home (an ancestor of Alec Douglas-Home, the twentieth-century Foreign Secretary and Conservative Prime Minister) and announced that he would carefully consider any reward Carey thought reasonable for his effort. Carey knew exactly what he wanted and so James gave Carey the title of Gentleman of the Bedchamber.
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