by Lee Miller
Raleigh has already spent a staggering £40,000 on the Roanoke ventures: his purse drained by the purchase of ships, equipment, soldiers’ pay, and supplies. The annual cost of the Queen’s administration is less than £30,000 per year. / have consumed the best part of my fortune, he informed Leicester in 1586, hating Spain.49
Raleigh needs these merchants. The slanders raised against Roanoke after the return of Lane’s expedition have deterred other investors. Hakluyt called it treachery. There have been, Hariot affirms, diverse and variable reports, with some slanderous and shameful speeches bruited abroad by many that returned from thence. … Which reports have not done a little wrong to many that otherwise would have also favoured and adventured in the action.50 Raleigh is right when he says that it is not Truth, but Opinion, that can travel the world without a passport.51
Yet no ships are sent to Roanoke in 1589. It is not until May 1590, a month after Walsingham’s death, that John White is able to return at last.52
John Watts
February 1, 1590. Activity on the Thames grinds to a halt. There has been another Spanish scare; outbound shipping is again confined to port. There were at the time, said White, three ships absolutely determined to go for the West Indies.5^ The Hopewell, the John Evangelist, and the Little John. Their owner is John Watts, head of the great London syndicates, successful privateer, high-wheeling capitalist. Spain calls him England’s greatest pirate. Watts is a self-made man, decked out in jewels and chains of gold; immensely wealthy, propertied. His associates are his ships’ captains. Privateering experts, every one, with a style all their own. In 1591 they were reported off Havana, provoking a fight, sending an enraged Spanish governor a steady stream of love messages and tokens.54
At the time the stay was ordered, White was in London searching for a way back to Roanoke.55 Ignoring the stay, Watts’s ships head for Plymouth. Swiftly packing and gathering provisions, White entreats Raleigh to procure licence for those three ships to proceed on with their determined voyage. If a deal can be struck to force Watts to carry supplies, the people in Virginia (if it were God’s pleasure) might speedily be comforted and relieved without further charges unto him.
Raleigh is quick to act. While White rushes to Plymouth, he obtains license from the Queen, informing Watts that his ships may leave the country provided he transport John White to Roanoke. Order is taken that Watts should be bound unto Sir Walter Ralegh for the hefty sum of three thousand pounds — Raleigh’s man of business remembers it to be five — that those three ships, in consideration of their releasement, should take in and transport a convenient number of passengers, with their furnitures and necessaries, to be landed in Virginia.56
February’s end. Plans are laid amid a stir of commotion. The colonists are readied, White’s heart bursting at the anticipated reunion. And then it happens again. Despite the Queen’s license, the order set down by Raleigh is ignored and Watts’s bond never taken. But rather in contempt of the aforesaid order, I was by the owner and commanders of the ships denied to have any passengers or anything else transported in any of the said ships. Familiar faces, vessels, the harbor docks stream out of focus. Becoming grotesque. / made great suit and earnest entreaty, cries White, as well to the chief commanders as to the owner of the said ships. But they stand resolute, allowing only White aboard with a single chest, no, not so much as a boy to attend upon me.
White casts about in panic, receiving from his daily and continual petitions only cross and unkind dealing. Raleigh is far away in London, unaware of what is happening, for the scarcity of time was such that I could have no opportunity to go unto Sir Walter Ralegh with complaint.
What good is a single chest to anyone? White the painter, pathetic, bravely fighting, eyes brimming with tears. He must not now even recognize himself. What an incredible choice! White must know that if he leaves England without supplies, his arrival on Roanoke will be as good as nothing. Three years wasted; he will return in exactly the same condition as when he left. For this, he has spent agonizing years braving famine and storms, ridicule and pirate attack. He has been shot and wounded. If White boards Watts’s ship now without supplies, he will only share the colonists’ fate.
March 20, 1590. The Hopewell, John Evangelist, and Little John put to sea from Plymouth harbor. Defying the Queen’s order, they sail without colonists or supplies. Was Walsingham behind it? The decision might well have been made before his death. Essex? Burghley’s son Robert Cecil, perhaps? Then edging into their camp. Or was White himself so condemned that he could expect no more than cross and unkind dealing”? If the colonists were Separatists, were they held in such contempt that no one cared?57 March 20, 1590. The Hopewell, John Evangelist, and Little John put to sea from Plymouth harbor. John White is on board.
Raleigh Condemned
We already know the story. White reaches Roanoke to find the settlement abandoned and the houses gone. The colonists, he learns, are safe at Croatoan, though a storm prevents his finding out for sure. He is forced back to England. We will not hear of John White again for three whole years.
Meanwhile, the slander so well sown against Raleigh in 1589 continues to sprout and flourish even after Walsingham’s death. February 1592: Jesuit Robert Parsons charges Raleigh, enemy of Spain, with atheism. The gossip-mongers have a field day. ‘Twas basely said of Sir W.R., mused Aubrey, to talk of the anagram ofDog.5S
A rash of publications follows, decrying the True Causes of the Great Troubles besetting England.59 Raleigh, significantly, is accused of the loss of life of voyagers and mariners, and of damaging England while enriching himself through militarism and ambition. What would happen, Parsons demands, if Raleigh were made a member of the Privy Council? He would persecute those opposed to his libertine views!60 An epicurean. A freethinker. Separatist sympathizer. A loose cannon.
Following on the heels of this scandal is a rumor that Raleigh is betrothed to Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen’s maids of honor. Others say they are already married.61 Idle tongues pounce on the gossip. Nay sweet Sir Walter! his sweetheart exclaimed. Sweet Sir Walter! Sir Walter! At last, as the danger and the pleasure at the same time grew higher, she cried in the ecstasy, Swisser Swatter, Swisser Swatter! She proved with child, and I doubt not but this Hero took care of them both, as also that the Product was more than an ordinary mortal.61
July 1592. Queen Elizabeth, in a rage, hurls the lovers in the Tower. Raleigh’s disgraces leave him fair game for his enemies, like a fish cast on dry land, gasping for breathe In prison, he writes “The Lie.”
Go soul the body’s guest
upon a thankless errand,
Fear not to touch the best
the truth shall be thy warrant:
Go since I needs must die,
and give the world the lie.
Say to the Court it glows,
and shines like rotten wood.
Say to the Church it shows
what’s good, and doth no good.
If Church and Court reply,
then give them both the lie.
… Tell men of high condition,
that manage the estate
Their purpose is ambition,
their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
then give them all the lie.
… Tell fortune of her blindness,
tell nature of decay,
Tell friendship ofunkindness,
Tell justice of delay.
And if they will reply,
then give them all the lie.64
October. Raleigh is released from the Tower but banned from Court. Four months later, a strange letter is sent to Richard Hakluyt postmarked Ireland. Signed by John White, it details the sad events of his failed 1590 voyage to Roanoke Island, and commits his colonists to the merciful help of the Almighty.65 The tone is resigned. The wording bears an odd stamp of finality. And then John White is gone.
White was never heard from again. No paintings made after his voyage to
Roanoke are known to survive. There may not have been any. No other letters have ever been found. Perhaps his sorrow was too profound— light griefs find utterance, deep griefs are dumb.66 Perhaps his accusations against Simon Fernandez were extended to Walsingham, the most powerful man in Elizabeth’s government. Perhaps he paid for that. There is always the chance, of course, that White found a way back to Roanoke, though we have no proof of this. In any case, White is gone.
Spring 1594. Attorneys liquidate the estate of Ananias Dare.67 Absent from England seven years, he is presumed dead.
PART FOUR
WHO ARE THE MANDOAG?
20 RALEIGH’S SEARCH
It is true that I never travailed after men's opinions. …
Sir Walter Raleigh1
Mace and Gilbert
The Queen’s anger could not last forever. In May 1597, after five years of banishment, Raleigh leaves the countryside for London and resumes office at Court. Once there, he renews his efforts to retrieve White’s colony.
We know very little about these rescue attempts. There are no surviving records of any of the expeditions. In 1599 Florida Governor Gongalo Méndez de Cango dredged up an unlikely hero in the form of our old friend Darby Glande, now a soldier in the St. Augustine garrison, who said that White’s colony was still alive; that two relief boats went to Roanoke with planters, clothing, supplies, and tools in 1594.2 He had got the story from Richard Hawkins’s men, captive in Havana.3 True or not, we have no way of telling.
What we do know is that by 1602 there had been five rescue attempts — and all five had failed. Raleigh hath sent relief expeditions, John Brereton declared, five several times at his own charges. The parties by him set forth performed nothing; some of them following their own profit elsewhere; others returning with frivolous allegations. It was a Herculean effort to send them out anyway, in days when an expedition to North America was tantamout to a voyage to the moon, with a price tag to match.
March 1602. Raleigh outfits yet another expedition to find those people which were left there in the year 1587. This one will be different. At this last time, says Brereton, to avoid all excuse, he bought a bark, and hired all the company for wages by the month.5 To entirely eliminate privateering. Samuel Mace of Weymouth will head the expedition. Hariot briefs him, preparing a Secotan vocabulary and a list of copper items recommended as trade for sassafras. Sale of the aromatic wood in Europe is expected to offset the exorbitant cost of the voyage. Kecow hit tarnen? Hariot remembers. What is this? A useful phrase.
Nothing comes of all the planning. Who was Mace’s pilot? Perhaps he had never been to the Outer Banks, for he missed the mark entirely. The ship reached the coast a full 120 miles southwest of Hatorask. Mace spent a month encamped in the sand, lading sassafras and sarsaparilla, spicebush, and a bark that tasted like cinnamon. By July it was reported that the inevitable summer storms were upon them, so that when they came along the coast to seek the people, both in the islands and upon the main, in diverse appointed places, they did it not, pretending that the extremity of weather, and loss of some principal ground-tackle, forced and feared them from searching the Port of Hatarask, to which they were sent.7
May 1603. Raleigh sends out two more vessels.8 The first, under Bartholomew Gilbert, departs for the Chesapeake Bay. Gilbert is killed on shore; the expedition finds nothing. The second bark is captained by Mace. He, too, is unsuccessful. Not finding the missing colonists, he returns to an England in which everything had changed.
Long Live the King!
March 24, 1603. Richmond Palace shrouds itself in the blackest mourning. For the first time in forty-five years no joyful bells peal; no bonfires light up London’s streets. Anguish is written on every face. Queen Elizabeth is dead at seventy. It is the end of an era.
The Queen was brought by water to White-hall,
At every stroke the oars did tears let fall.
I think the barge-men might with easier thighs,
Have rowed her thither in her people’s eyes.
For howso ‘ere, thus much my thoughts have scanned,
She’d come by water, had she come by land.9
May 7. King James arrives in London to a muted fanfare. The Queen can no longer protect her beloved Raleigh. Enemies — now including Burghley’s son, the politically ambitious Robert Cecil — warn James to beware of his power.10 At a palace party for Elizabeth the previous December, a friend had spoofed Raleigh’s name. Raw Ly, he quipped, the foe to the stomach, and the word of disgrace, shows the gentleman’s name with the bold face.11 Now, as King James turns a jaundiced eye toward Raleigh, the first words from his lips are / have heard Raw-ly of thee.12
Go echo of the mind,
A careless truth protest;
Make answer that rude Rawly
No stomach can digest.13
Arrested for What Thou Art
July 1603. While Gilbert fatally steps ashore on North American soil, equally fatal steps are being taken against Raleigh in England. It falls out suddenly. On the trumped-up charges of high treason, James orders Raleigh arrested and thrown in the Tower. His many offices and privileges are revoked … including rights to Roanoke Island. No evidence is produced against him until months later; all is withdrawn before the trial.14
In Spain, Philip II is dead. His successor, Philip III, offers reconciliation to King James provided Raleigh is eliminated. His list of offenses is long: he opposed Spain in Ireland, France, and the Netherlands.15 He was a key player in the defeat of the Armada. His spectacular 1596 raid on Cadiz wiped out fifty-seven men-of-war in their own harbor and was regarded as the most humiliating defeat at the hands of the English. More so than the Armada. A year later Raleigh successfully attacked the Azores. He opposed Spain in Parliament and in counsel to the Queen. He invaded the Americas with intent to kill. Roanoke was more than a dire threat: it was a direct challenge to the empire and kept Spanish patrols frantic for years. Raleigh is a war criminal. An Elizabethan, from a bygone era. Grenville, Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, the old sea dogs are dead. It is another England altogether.
I know that I lost the love of many, for my fidelity towards Her, Raleigh said of Elizabeth, whom I must still honour in the dust; though further than the defence of Her excellent person, I never persecuted any man.16
Tried Out of His Life
Thursday, November 17, 1603. Without evidence or witnesses, denied legal counsel, Raleigh is tried by the King’s Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke. His enemies sit as jurors to convict him — Robert Cecil among them. It is judicial murder.17
Thou art a monster! Coke rasps. A viper! The most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived! After he condemns Raleigh as a Spider of Hell, even the court intervenes, ordering Coke to restrain himself.
I want words sufficient, blasts Coke, to express thy viperous treasons.
I think you want words indeed, Raleigh calmly replies, for you have spoken one thing half a dozen times.
Thou art an odious fellow, Coke breathes, thy name is hateful to all the realm of England for thy pride!
It will go near, Raleigh rejoins, to prove a measuring cast between you and me, Mr. Attorney.18
At the end of the day the verdict comes in: Raleigh will die. This would never have happened, Lord Chief Justice Sir John Popham thundered at him, if you had… not suffered your own wit to have entrapped yourself… It is best for man not to seek to climb too high lest he fall… You have been taxed by the world with the defence of the most heathenish, blasphemous, atheistical, and profane opinions, a too eager ambition and a corrupt covetousness.19
The courtroom is stunned. The brutality of Coke’s conduct has alienated even his staunchest supporters. Raleigh behaved himself so worthily, so wisely, so temperately, said an eyewitness, that in half a day the mind of all the company was changed from the extremest hate to the extremest pity.20Lord Hay had the audacity to inform the King that whereas he would have walked a hundred miles to see Raleigh hanged, he would now walk a thousand to save his life.
21 Were it not for an ill-name, half hanged in the opinion of all men, admitted Sir Dudley Carleton, he had been acquitted.12Later, one of Raleigh’s judges, Sir Francis Gawdy, swore upon his deathbed that the justice of England was never so depraved and injured as in the condemnation of Sir Walter RaleighP King James, in fact, does not dare execute Raleigh, but condemns him to the Tower for life, banished — like the Lost Colonists — from the world.
Nothing but a Joke
With Raleigh out of the way, interest in Virginia soars, even as White’s Lost Colonists become the stuff of comedy. The 1605 play Eastward Hoe by George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston features an ostentatious Sir Petronel Flash in need of money for a voyage with Captain Seagull and comrades — the fool and his friends.
Quicksilver: Well, dad, let him have money; all he could anyway get is bestowed on a ship, now bound for Virginia….
Security: Now, a frank gale of wind go with him, Master Frank! We have too few such knight adventures. Who would not sell away competent certainties to purchase (with any danger) excellent uncertainties? Your true knight venturer ever does it….
Seagull: Come, boys, Virginia longs till we share the rest of her maidenhead.
Spendall: Why, is she inhabited already with any English?
Seagull: A whole country of English is there, man, bred of those that were left there in ‘8y; they have married with the Indians, and make ‘hem bring forth as beautiful faces as any we have in England.24
