Raleigh's Page

by Alan Armstrong

  People milled around in a great hubbub of yelling, bells, drums, and trumpets as the Roanoke men disembarked. They found their legs as wobbly on land as they’d been their first days on shipboard. Even Salt staggered.

  They were darker and rougher-looking than the eager-faced men who’d embarked a year before. Their Spanish fashions made them look strange, but given what people at home had heard from the Francis’s folks, they were prepared for anything.

  Sky was staring, wide-eyed and trembling, when Andrew took his hand. “We stay together!” Andrew said. Sky nodded and tried to smile.

  “A horse!” Andrew yelled, pointing.

  “So big!” Sky murmured.

  With Sky in tow, Andrew found his people. He knew they’d be there. He tried to speak. His heart was full; no words would come. Rebecca was rounder and even more beautiful than he’d remembered her.

  “This is my…This is Sky—the friend I wrote you about,” he stammered.

  Sky said nothing. For a moment they were all awkward together; then Andrew’s mother laughed and threw her arms around the two of them.

  “Your ear…,” she started to say. She caught herself. “You’re broader and lankier!” she went on, stepping back to look at Andrew.

  “All that food,” Andrew said, smiling through tears. He snuffed and wiped his face as his mother handed him the cloth she’d just been using.

  “We can’t stay long,” he added. He’d noticed Quinch, the messenger from Sir Walter, beckoning as he huddled with Mr. Harriot. “Sir Walter orders us to London.”

  “What about your trunks?” his father asked.

  Andrew pointed to his saddlebag. “I travel light,” he said, trying to laugh. They listened with open mouths and many exclamations as he gave a quick account of his last weeks in Virginia.

  Mr. Harriot motioned him to where he stood with Tremayne.

  “We’ll be back as soon as we report to Sir Walter,” Andrew said as he hurried off with Sky.

  “I’ve got gossip from Quinch,” Mr. Harriot said with a sour smile. “Our friends have worn out a dozen horses racing to London with news that there is no mine of gold, few pearls, no way through to the Orient, and the Indians do not love us for all we gave them goods and true religion.

  “Worse, we are rumored to have behaved like Spaniards.”

  “Sir Walter has heard all this?” Andrew asked.

  “That and more,” Mr. Harriot replied.

  “And the Queen?”

  Mr. Harriot barked a dry laugh. “I venture she got news of us before Sir Walter did.”

  A man came up with three horses.

  “We’re off,” said Mr. Harriot. “Manteo and Sky will come up later with the others.”

  “No,” said Andrew. “Sky comes with me. We’ll ride together,” he said firmly as the Indian boy stared, bewildered, first at Andrew, then at Mr. Harriot.

  The way Andrew spoke decided things. He helped Sky squeeze into the saddle with him.

  For three days they rode hard from dawn to dark, chafed and sore, changing the winded horses every twenty miles, most of the time silent. Sky looked around like one in shock. Andrew thought about all that had happened and imagined their reception at Durham House.

  He saw England through new eyes as they rode. He’d never thought before how green and settled it was, every field, hedgerow, road, and village showing the touch of generations. As they passed a school, they heard the children reciting in singsong together. Virginia was richer in its way and more full of promise for the likes of him, but it was silent and empty in its newness.

  A giddy feeling of being a stranger in a familiar place came over him like a wave of cold seawater. Suddenly, without thinking, he reached inside his shirt and touched the bear claw tied around his neck. Then he smiled and patted Sky. His friend turned a little and nodded, keeping his grip tight.

  In Virginia there was nothing like Stillwell Farm. Everything was provisional there, quickly built and just as quickly abandoned—the Indians’ villages, lodges, even their fields. Andrew had felt himself a stranger in America, but now he knew: he belonged there. He could build Stillwell in Virginia two times over, three, more—with Sky’s help and oxen and plows and pioneers. They’d bring music and new voices to the land. As they broke the soil, they’d break the silence.

  It was dark when they arrived at Durham House. William was there to greet them, cheering and waving as they dismounted. James was all smiles as he ordered torches and men to take their mounts. He lifted Sky down and propped him while the Indian tried to regain his legs. Then James and Salt led them up to Sir Walter’s turret.

  “My Americans returned!” Sir Walter exclaimed as they came in.

  “And Sky,” said Andrew, pushing the shivering boy forward.

  “Welcome, Sky!” boomed Sir Walter.

  The Indian stared and said nothing as Andrew led him to a bench.

  Pena’s face worked as they laughed and hugged. Sir Walter took the dog in his lap as if they were old friends.

  “Never mind what you lost,” Sir Walter said when Mr. Harriot told him about the trunk. “Tell me what you found!”

  He ordered suppers carried up and a mutton bone for Salt. Sky ate, fought sleep, then nodded off. The rest talked all night.

  “Is the soil good?” Sir Walter asked. “Is Virginia vast and rich with new things beyond reckoning?”

  “Yes,” the travelers answered to every question. “Yes!”

  “And you, Andrew,” he said with a wink, “did you find landlords and sheriffs there?”

  “No!” the boy exclaimed with a laugh.

  The more they talked, the faster Sir Walter paced, his hands in fists pumping like a man preparing to fight.

  “In their greedy ignorance, my explorers and enemies alike slander Virginia,” he exclaimed. “We must teach those mockers that the richest land is that which feeds the most!

  “Listen!” he said, spreading his arms wide. “The Spaniards haul in gold by the pound and silver by the ton—and what’s happened? Their poor go hungry. Why? Because on the flood of treasure, prices rise like moored ships at high tide. Their farmers don’t grow more food; they grow less and charge more for it, so the lesser people suffer. Pah!” he spat.

  “Tell me again how fast their corn grows with little effort. And again about their tobacco, Mr. Harriot. And their medicines! You’ve tasted it, I hear.

  “And the capture of Pemisapan? Tell me about that! And what became of Wanchese? Tell! Tell all!”

  They told of their adventures and Wanchese’s betrayal.

  “And when he figured we were as good as dead,” said Mr. Harriot, “starved and frozen on the river, he ran away. We passed him on our way down. After that we never saw him again.”

  Mr. Harriot pointed to Tremayne. “He will tell you about Pemisapan’s end. He was with the captain’s servant when that man caught the chief and took his head, Irish style.”

  As Tremayne finished his telling, he reached into his coat. “So we bring you the chief’s breastplate, sir,” he said as he hung it around Sir Walter’s neck. “You now wear wassador!”

  For a moment Sir Walter was without words. He quickly took the thing off and jiggled it in his hands like it was hot. He did not put it back on. “A sad token,” he murmured. “A reminder to do better.”

  Andrew opened the saddlebag he’d packed at Roanoke. He felt for the cap Pena had given him, then he smiled as he pulled it out and unwrapped something.

  “I brought you their pipe to drink tobacco, sir.”

  “Ha!” exclaimed Sir Walter, smiling as he took it.

  “And here is a pouch of last fall’s crop,” said Mr. Harriot. “Shall we smoke it?”

  Sir Walter shook his head in wonder. “You three are Magi, truly!”

  The men passed the pipe around. The room filled with blue smoke. The fumes inspired them.

  “We’ll go back!” Sir Walter exclaimed. “Next time on the Chesapeake, to a good harbor with folks who know what r
ich soil counts for and how to use it.

  “But first we must clear away the weeds of rumor. Bad luck did us damage: the loss of the Tyger’s cargo, the supply delayed—but for those, it would have gone better with the Indians.”

  He opened his arms wide. “I ask you: do you believe Virginia’s promise?”

  Each swore he did.

  “Then tell it!” Sir Walter roared so loud the dog jumped and Sky woke up, bewildered, gaping and staring about as he tried to remember where he was.

  “Gallant words printed will crush a thousand rumors!” Sir Walter thundered. “Be quick! Write what you’ve told me tonight. Write Virginia’s promise so vivid as to set minds afire! Empty your trunks of memory on the page. Show Virginia in her glory—her vastness, her trees, meadows, fish, game. And her people. Show them not as savages but as our friends—as they will be if we are not necessitous!

  “Go now!” Sir Walter ordered.

  He rang his bell.

  “James! Get them fed, then take this one to Mistress Witkens,” he said, putting his arm around Sky. “I can’t have my newest page going around looking like a Spaniard,” he laughed.

  “I’ll take him,” Andrew said. To Sky he whispered, “I’ll stay with you. Don’t be afraid.”

  When the four travelers finally left the turret, there were layers of yellow, rose, and peach along the line of sunrise.

  The following days went by in a blur as they wrote to redeem Virginia. It was like writing the appeal to the Queen, only now there was no imagining. Instead of gold and dreams, they told what they had found—deep soil and broad rivers, iron and tobacco, medicines, fish in plenty, crabs, oysters, sturgeon seven feet long, sunflowers a foot across, nuts, berries, corn, potatoes, peanuts, silk grass, groves of giant oak to build ships with, stands of pine for masts. They wrote about the tree that blooms tulips and the vast clumps of blueberries and strawberries they’d found. And the Indians: Mr. Harriot told their ways and their religion.

  They dedicated their “Brief and True Report” to “the Adventurers, Favorers, and Well-Wishers of the enterprise for the inhabiting and planting in Virginia.” They filled it with their sharpest rememberings. They made nothing up.

  “Take Sky and go home for a week,” Sir Walter told Andrew when they delivered the book. “When you return, you’ll be my secretary.”

  “And Sky?” Andrew asked.

  “He and Pena are great friends already. He’ll teach Pena how the Indians grow their foods.”

  The report spread the truth about Virginia. Within months it was being read all over Europe. When Sir Walter announced his offer of five hundred acres to every settler, planters came forward with their families. Investors came forward too—foreigners, merchants, and courtiers, even the Queen herself, some said—but as before, Sir Walter would have to pay the most to get things started.

  “Virginia empties my pockets,” he mused one chilly morning as he worked with Andrew in the turret, ordering provisions for the expedition to settle. “But I will live to see England in America, lad, and you’ll be part of it!”

  “Yes,” said Andrew, breathing deep. “Yes!”

  God speed you well and send you fair weather And that again we may meet together.

  —Thomas Harriot,

  the ending of “The Three Sea Marriages,” 1595(?)

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Raleigh’s Page is a fiction. Walter Raleigh (Ralegh is how it was spelled in his time) had pages, and Thomas Harriot had a secretary, but Andrew is an invention, as are Tremayne, Pena, and Sky. The larger historical events are roughly accurate (except I have Doctor Dee fleeing to Bohemia a year after he actually left). The major figures are pretty much as documents of the time presented them.

  The 1585 expedition was sent to explore and gather facts about Virginia, not to settle. The push to settle came much later, although a first group of families went out in 1587. Preparations to fight the Spanish Armada in 1588 disrupted the crucial resupply shipments, and the colony failed. No survivor was ever found. Not until 1607 did the reconstituted Virginia Company attempt another colony, that time at Jamestown.

  A note on sources: the best are what the participants themselves wrote about their experiences. For Andrew’s story we have three. The first is Raleigh’s appeal to the Queen for permission to go, which he composed with Richard Hakluyt: A Discourse on Western Planting. It was written as a state paper for the Queen and seen by few others. It remained pretty much unknown until it was found in Boston in 1877. An excellent modern edition is Discourse of Western Planting, edited by David B. and Alison M. Quinn (London: Hakluyt Society, 1993), which includes photographs of the original so you can see the copyists’ work.

  The next important contemporary source is Captain Ralph Lane’s letter to Sir Walter describing the expedition: “Account of the particularities of the imployments of the English men left in Virginia by Richard Grenvill under the charge of Master Ralph Lane Generall of the same, from the 17 of August 1585, until the 18 of June 1586, at which time they departed the Countrey; sent and directed to Sir Walter Ralegh.” Lane’s letter can be found in The First Colonists, edited by A. L. Rowse (London: Folio Society, 1986).

  Then there’s Thomas Harriot’s advertisement for Virginia, which I have his imagined secretary, Andrew, help him compose: A Briefe and True Report of the new found land of Virginia (London, 1588). The First Colonists has this too.

  Richard Hakluyt, principal author of A Discourse on Western Planting, also compiled a collection of exploration narratives that gives vivid pictures of the English explorers’ hopes and difficulties: The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics, and Discoveries of the English Nation, Made by Sea or over Land to the Remote and farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth at Any Time within the Compass of These 1500 Years (London, 1589). A good selection is The Portable Hakluyt’s Voyages, edited by Irwin R. Blacker (New York: Viking Press, 1965).

  What about contemporary images? A painter named John White accompanied the 1585 expedition and made a number of pictures. Although many were lost in the frenzy to leave that saw Mr. Harriot’s trunk dumped overboard, some survived. While a few are reproduced in The First Colonists, the best source is America, 1585: The Complete Drawings of John White, compiled by Paul Hulton (London: British Museum Publications, 1984).

  You’ll find excellent, compact biographical sketches of the principal participants in the English Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, or the DNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)—some of the best history writing I know.

  For general background, see J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). In addition, I relied on the DNB; A. L. Rowse, The Elizabethans and America (London: Macmillan, 1959); Life in Shakespeare’s England, edited by John Dover Wilson (Cambridge: University Press, 1911); Liza Picard, Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London (London: Weidenfield & Nicholson, 2003); and Giles Milton, Big Chief Elizabeth: How England’s Adventurers Gambled and Won the New World (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2000).

  For information about the Indians, I used Thomas Harriot’s Briefe and True Report; John Lawson, The History of Carolina (London: 1706); Mark Catesby, “Of the Aborigines of America,” in his Natural History of Carolina (London: 1771, Vol. I); Helen C. Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989); Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Indians and English (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000); and Roger Owen, James J. F. Deetz, and Anthony D. Fisher, The North American Indians (New York: Macmillan, 1967).

  For Sir Walter Raleigh: the DNB; [John] Aubrey’s Brief Lives, edited by Oliver Lawson Dick (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1957); J. H. Adamson and H. F. Folland, The Shepherd of the Ocean (Boston: Gambit, 1969); Martin A. Hume, Sir Walter Raleigh: The British Dominion of the West (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926); Margaret Irwin, That Great Lucifer (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1960); David B. Quinn, Raleigh and the B
ritish Empire (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1947); and George Garrett, Death of the Fox (New York: Doubleday, 1971)—an inspired book.

  For Queen Elizabeth: J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1934), and her own The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth, edited by Frederick Chamberlin (London: The Bodley Head, 1923). Quotations attributed to the Queen are hers; the context is mine.

  For Thomas Harriot: the DNB and Muriel Rukeyser, The Traces of Thomas Harriot (New York: Random House, 1971).

  For Doctor Dee, I relied on the DNB. He is one of the most interesting and appealing figures of his time (1527–1608), half medieval, half modern in outlook—half magician, half scientist as he attempted to make gold from lesser metals, experimented with numbers, codes, and chemicals, and spoke with his “angels” and lesser spirits through a globe of smoky crystal and a black mirror of coal he kept in a leather case (it can be seen at the British Museum). Queen Elizabeth consulted him about her toothaches and had him perform an astrological calculation to select her coronation day. She came more than once to his home at Mortlake to learn some of his secrets. He was suspected of treason and heresy, and many in his time took him to be a conjuror—an agent of the devil—a reputation he got early on when he arranged a trick that sent an actor flying up from the stage (probably on ropes the audience couldn’t see). “They call me a companion of the hellhounds, and a caller, and a conjuror of wicked and damned spirits,” he lamented late in life, protesting that all his marvelous feats were naturally contrived. His lectures were so popular, folks crowded outside at the windows to hear. He charmed Andrew; he charms me.

  Specific notes:

  Chapter 1, the scholar Richard Eden (1521?–1576): I have Andrew’s teacher, Tremayne, telling his students about Eden; translations of Spanish accounts of the New World were published in 1577 as The History of Travel in the East and West Indies. Eden was one of the early instigators of English colonization.