Roanoke

by Lee Miller

  10 Ensinore clearly was not motivated by regard for Lane, but by dread. The English soldiers, he said, could not be destroyed, but were dead men who had come there to kill. This belief was very likely the Secotan equivalent to the North Algonquian man-shaped cannibal monster known as Windigo. If Gerard was correct that the Powhatan word Wintuc, recorded by Strachey as “fool,” should really be “ghoul” (“Virginia Indian Words,” p. 248. Gerard postulated a copyist’s error), then we have confirmation of the existence of the idea among the Powhatan. Ensinore’s attitude toward the English was clear: he believed, in effect, that Lane’s men were Windigo.

  11 Pemisapan supplied three guides: his brother-in-law Eracano, Tetepano, and Cossine.

  12 Taken literally, 150 river miles would place Lane in the vicinity of Halifax, some distance east of Roanoke Rapids.

  13 Identification of the Chesepians is extremely problematic. The general consensus by historians has been that they were a nation living along the southern edge of the Chesapeake Bay. Yet in 1895, the Algonquian linguist Tooker (“Chesapeake,” p. 87) demonstrated that the word Chesepioc translated to “country on a great river,” a name that had nothing at all to do with the bay, but might — Tooker proposed — have referred to the Elizabeth River. Since the Nansemond were living in this location when Jamestown was settled, the equation of this nation with the Chesepioc is clearly a question that must be determined. On the other hand, it is equally possible that a completely different river other than the Elizabeth was intended. Was White’s placement of Chesepioc on his map based on verbal report? Was there more than one “country on a great river”? Since the word Chesepioc denotes a location (k’tchi, “great” + sipi, “river” + aki, “land, country”), rather than a people themselves, it is worth considering other nations living on large waterways who would likely be allied to the Mandoag and within the Secotan sphere of influence.

  14 Is the implication here that Lane had Pemisapan’s man killed? If so, why? Had he perhaps tried to rescue Skiko? Since Lane regarded the Secotan as subject to the laws of Queen Elizabeth, they were also subject to death for the crime of treason. Is there any proof that Lane ordered an execution? Someone certainly did. Immediately after Lane’s evacuation from Roanoke, Raleigh’s relief ships put in to the abandoned fort and made the grisly discovery of two hanged bodies, one of which was Indian (see Chapter 11, n. 56). A hypothetical sequence of events may have been that Pemisapan’s man was forced to confess the plans, after which he was killed. Lane next applied to the terrorized Skiko for confirmation, threatening the boy with decapitation.

  15 In London, the decapitated heads of executed nobles were hung from London Bridge. Did Lane hang Pemisapan’s head from the fort? If so, the horror this would produce among the Secotan can scarcely be imagined.

  16 Primrose log, printed in Corbett, Spanish War, p. 27.

  17 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 748.

  18 Lane said that the vessel “was seen to be free” from the shore and “to put clear to sea.” Since this boat had “all my provisions,” its failure to return — from Lane’s standpoint — was a reprehensible action.

  19 This is the clearest evidence that Lane had not reached the Chesapeake Bay. Early historians such as Beverly, writing in 1705, believed that Lane had not yet located it; Present State of Virginia, chapter 1, C5.

  13 THE LOST COLONISTS (1587)

  1 Jeremiah 5:26.

  2 Hakluyt, Princip all Navigations (1589), p. 748.

  3 Testimony of Pedro Diaz in Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 11, p. 788.

  4 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 748; Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 11, p. 791. Pedro Diaz claimed that Grenville left eighteen men on Roanoke. This may be an error, yet the discrepancy may also have an explanation in Lane, who had departed from Roanoke in such a hurry that he left behind three men who had been sent into the interior. If so, they made their reappearance at the fort before Grenville sailed away and were conscripted to make up the number of the holding party.

  5 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), pp. 766-7. The events described in this chapter and the quotes contained therein, unless otherwise noted, are taken from John White’s account in ibid., pp. 764-71.

  6 Ibid., p. 728.

  7 Ibid., p. 729.

  8 Ibid.

  9 This is a completely irrational episode in every way: Why did only twenty-four men accompany Stafford when there were more than three times as many male colonists available to him? Were the men who agreed to fight with him colonists at all? Might Raleigh have sent over a small corps of soldiers to reinforce the holding party at the Roanoke fort, who were at Stafford’s disposal? See n. 11 below.

  10 Hakluyt’s dedicatory preface to Raleigh of Laudonniére in Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1600), in, p. 301.

  11 It is possible that Stafford was sent to Roanoke with military authority independent of White’s colonists. Hakluyt (Principall Navigations, 1589, table of contents) described the expedition as “The voyage of Edward Stafford, and John White, set out by … Sir Walter Raleigh.” If such a division existed, it might explain why, when White’s colonists left Roanoke Island, they went a very specific distance inland — fifty miles — to ensure that they were clear of the Roanoke fort’s jurisdiction.

  12 Supply ships did bypass Roanoke. According to the testimony of Alonso Ruiz, Sir George Carey (whom White called upon in 1587 as the colonists were departing) sent three ships to the Chesapeake Bay under Captain William Irish. They returned to England, having encountered no one. Wright, Further English Voyages, pp. 233-5; Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 11, pp. 499, 543, 782-4; also Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, pp. 97, 193-4.

  13 For Fernandez, see Chapter 16, n. 47. Spanish authorities referred to him as “a thorough-paced soundrel,” Calendar of State Papers, Spain, 1568-79, nos. 496, 503.

  14 In 1605 the Spaniards were still searching for the Roanoke colony. An expedition sent out under Ferdinand de Ecija that year tried, but failed, to reach the Outer Banks. In 1609 he was dispatched again and succeeded in locating the English who, by then, were established at Jamestown; Quinn, New American World, v, pp. 141-50. It is clear from his report, however, that before this discovery Spain had no idea where the colony was.

  14 RALEIGH’S RISE TO POWER

  1 Raleigh’s commendatory verses to Gascoigne’s The Steele Glas; Hawks, History of North Carolina, 1, p. 19.

  2 Raleigh’s mother was Catherine Champernoun, who married, first, Otho Gilbert, which union produced three sons and a daughter: John, Humphrey, Adrian, and Mary; and second, Walter Raleigh, to whom she bore Carew, Walter, and Margaret. Although biographers consistently refer to John, Humphrey, and Adrian Gilbert as Raleigh’s half-brothers, Raleigh himself did not make such distinctions nor, apparently, did anyone within the family This book has adopted their usage.

  3 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1600), 111, pp. 135-7. Letters Patent were issued by Queen Elizabeth under the Great Seal and conveyed authority to the recipient to pursue actions or partake of privileges and liberties encompassed within its terms. In Gilbert’s case, the Queen’s royal grant included license to discover and occupy foreign lands not possessed by any Christian prince or people, along with the right to profits from the land, giving him full authority and power over any cities or towns within it, and reserving to the Queen the fifth part of all gold and silver ore discovered and extracted there. Gilbert’s patent, however, bore the stipulation that such lands must be settled in six years or the patent would revert to the Queen.

  4 Nichols, The Progresses, 11, pp. 228-30.

  5 Ibid., p. 229.

  6 For Raleigh’s criticism of Grey, see Edwards, Raleigh, 11, pp. 3-5, 12-18; “had much the better …” Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 145.

  7 Lemnius, Touchstone (1865), PP- 78-9.

  8 Norden, Notes (1865), p. 99.

  9 “very clear,” Harrison, Description of England (1807), pp. 80, 82; “tennis courts …” Norden, Notes, p. 99; see also Nichols
, The Progresses; Strype, Annals, 11, i, pp. 580-5; Williams, Elizabeth, pp. 231-44.

  10 Aubrey, Brief Lives (1898), 11, p. 182; the average height for Elizabethan males was five-foot-three, Adamson and Folland, Shepherd of the Ocean, p. 26.

  11 Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 145.

  12 For a discussion of the social changes occurring in England, see Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy; Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses; Harrison, Description of England (1807).

  13 Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 273.

  14 More, Utopia, Second Book (1906), pp. 110-11.

  15 Camden, Remains (1674), p. 391.

  16 Bacon, “Of Nobility,” Essays (1887), p. 135.

  17 Sumptuary laws were repeatedly enacted: in 1565, 1577, and 1579 the Queen issued proclamations reinforcing the statutes (Strype, Annals, 11, pt. 2, pp. 297-8); “fine and costly …” Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 290. i8 Ibid., p. 280.

  19 Ibid., p. 281.

  20 Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses, p. Bvii.

  21 Camden, Remains (1674), p. 387.

  22 Ibid., p. 382.

  23 Stow, Survey of London (1908), 11, p. 212. According to Walker (Manifest Detection, p. 30), London residences are “not like your large country houses. Rooms… in London be straight, but yet the furniture of them be costly enough; and victuals be here at such high prices, that much money is soon consumed.” See also Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, pp. 449-50.

  24 Camden, Remains (1674), p. 389; for the interest rate, see Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, p. 539.

  25 Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 145.

  26 Fuller, Worthies (1840), 1, p. 419.

  27 Camden, Remains (1674), p. 388.

  28 Bacon, “Of Great Place,” Essays (1887), p. 104.

  29 Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 289.

  30 Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses, p. Dvii.

  31 For Elizabeth’s dress, see Williams, Elizabeth, pp. 226-7; “such is our mutability …” Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 289.

  32 Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 289. Englishmen, Harrison says, are laughed at for bestowing “most cost upon our arses” merely “to bear out their bums and make their attire to fit plum round”; “no less monstrous …” Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses, p. Eii.

  33 Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 330.

  34 Aubrey, Brief Lives (1898), 11, pp. 183, 190.

  35 Shirley, Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 242.

  36 Edwards, Raleigh, 1, p. 52.

  37 Aubrey, Brief Lives (1898), 11, p. 182.

  38 “Shepherd of the Ocean,” Adamson and Folland, Shepherd of the Ocean, p. 91; Oakeshott, Queen and the Poet, p. 82, n. 3.

  39 Quinn and Cheshire, Parmenius, Appendix 1, p. 205.

  40 For Raleigh’s rooms and his good conduct, see ibid.; “He was such a person (every way)…” Aubrey, Brief Lives (1898), 11, p. 186.

  41 Edwards, Raleigh, 1, p. 67.

  42 Lodge, Portraits, 11, p. 10.

  43 The anonymous Leycesters Common-Wealth [1584] was published in France and distributed — illegally — throughout England.

  44 “when Jacks went up …” Bacon, Works, p. 475; “Jack of an upstart,” Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1813-20), 11, p. 235.

  45 Elizabeth was famous for playing factions; see Edwards, Raleigh, 1, p. 62; Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, pp. 256-7, 482; Read, Mr Secretary Cecil, pp. 331-2; “The principal note …” Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 124.

  46 Anon, Leycesters Common-Wealth (1641), p. 71; Lodge, Portraits, 11, p. 17.

  47 Ibid., pp. 21-8, 34-5; Lodge, Portraits, 11, p. 17.

  48 Williams, Elizabeth, p. 211.

  49 “men seeking to please …” Nicolas, Hatton, pp. 389-90; for false imprisonment, murder, see Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 141; Morris, The Troubles, 11, pp. 108-9, ln> P- x75i Haynes, Invisible Power, xiii.

  50 State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, xcviii, August 2, 3, 1574.

  51 Sir Anthony Bagot in Adamson and Folland, Shepherd of the Ocean, p. 104.

  15 POLITICAL TURMOIL

  1 Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 6*

  2 Hawkins, Third and Troublesome Voyage, pp. 521-5; Camden, The History (1688), p. 108.

  3 Hawkins, Third and Troublesome Voyage.

  4 Camden, The History (1688), p. 108.

  5 Spain controlled — directly or indirectly — most of western Europe including the Netherlands, Sicily, Naples, Sardinia, the Duchy of Milan, and provinces in Belgium and Germany. Both the Holy Roman Empire and the Vatican were under its sway. Philip was titular King of England, France, and Jerusalem, Portugal (after 1580), half of America — and all of the Americas after 1580 — along with the East Indies and Portuguese Africa. Read, Wal-singham, m, p. 227; Wright, Further English Voyages, xvii; Motley, Dutch Republic, 1, p. 101.

  6 Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 6. By 1595 2,000 million ducats of gold and silver had been brought into Spain from the Americas; Lowery, Spanish Settlements, 11, p. 5.

  7 “proud, hateful Spaniards,” Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 7; “servitude …” Lane to Walsingham, August 12, 1585, State Papers Colonial, 1/1, 3. England perceived Philip’s Spain and the machinery of the Inquisition in much the same way as the twentieth century regarded its totalitarian regimes. Hakluyt spoke in horror of their “monstrous … cruelties,” and of the multitudes “done to death” in Europe and the Indies, where “there are dead more than fifteen millions of souls”; Discourse, chapter 11.

  8 Ibid., chapter 6.

  9 State Papers Colonial, 1/1, 3.

  10 Schiller, History of the Revolt, p. 200.

  11 Camden, The History (1688), p. 120.

  12 Schiller, History of the Revolt, pp. 285-311.

  13 Ibid., p. 290. Motley, Dutch Republic, 11, p. 129, states that 3 million people in the Netherlands were sentenced to be hanged. For a particularly vivid — and gory — eyewitness account, see Strype, Annals, 11, pt. 2, pp. 1-6.

  14 Schiller, History of the Revolt, p. 294.

  15 Ibid., p. 150.

  16 Ibid., p. 295. Motley, Dutch Republic, 11, p. 118, puts the number of dead at eighty-four.

  17 Guzman de Silva to Philip, January 3, 1568. Calandar of State Papers, Spain, 1568-79, 1, p. 1.

  18 Camden, The History (1688), p. 331.

  19 Calendar of State Papers, Spain, 1568-79, 88, p. 133.

  20 Camden, The History (1688), p. 121.

  21 Ibid., p. 121.

  22 Ibid., pp. 121, 123.

  23 For Ireland, see Canny, Elizabethan Conquest; Rowse, Expansion of Elizabethan England.

  24 For Scotland, see Camden, The History (1688), pp. 108-32; Fräser, Mary, Queen of Scots; Calendar of State Papers, Scotland, 1547-1603.

  25 Camden, The History (1688), pp. 133-6; Strype, Annals, 1, pt. 2, pp. 312-28; Dixon, Her Majesty’s Tower, p. 179.

  26 Deacon, John Dee, p. 73; for Dee being a spy, see ibid., pp. 64, 259; Fell-Smith, John Dee, p. 168. The idea was first suggested in the seventeenth century by Elias Ashmole, and reported by Robert Hooke in “An Ingenious Cryptographical System,” Gwydir Papers, Manuscript Collection, Ash-molean Museum. See also Dee, A True and faithful relation of what passed for many years between Dr. J. Dee & some spirits: tending, had it succeeded, to a general alteration of most states & kingdoms in the world, 1659.

  27 Camden, The History (1688), p. 134.

  28 Antonio de Guaras to Zayas, August 1, 1570, Calendar of State Papers, Spain, 1568-79, 199, p. 263.

  29 For nationalism as a result, see Meyer, England and the Catholic Church, p. 84; “the great Bull and certain calves …” Daye, A Disclosing of the Great Bull.

  30 For details of the plot, see Dixon, Her Majesty’s Tower, pp. 181-8.

  31 Ibid., p. 184.

  32 Ibid., pp. 193-4; Williams, Elizabeth, p. 175; Read, Burghley, p. 44; Camden, The History (1688), pp. 134-6.

  33 Guerau de Spes to Philip, Calendar of State Papers, Spain, 1568-79, 301, p.

 
364.

  34 Adamson and Folland, Shepherd of the Ocean, p. 29.

  35 Harrison, Description of England (1807), p. 333.

  36 The slaughter began on Sunday night and continued for two days, not even sparing babies in cradles, The streets were “paved with bodies cut and hewed in pieces,” and the River Seine was awash with blood; Strype, Annals, 11, pt. 1, pp. 235-6. See Chapter 3, n. 17, above.

  37 Lodge, Portraits, in; Welwood, Material Transactions, p. 12.

  38 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 595.

  39 Rowse, Grenville, p. 81.

  40 Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, p. 243; Strype, Annals, 11, i, pp. 426-7, asserted that Hawkins was killed in the fray; Lansdowne Mss. 17, art. 88.

  41 Gascoigne’s introduction to Gilbert, Discourse of a Discoverie.

  42 “Quid non?” Frontispiece of ibid.; “is not worthy to live at all…” ibid., chapter 10.

  43 For Frobisher, see Collinson, The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher.

  44 Gascoigne’s introduction to Gilbert, Discourse of a Discoverie.

  45 For Hariot, see Morley, “Thomas Hariot”; Aubrey, Brief Lives, 1.

  46 Johnson, Astronomical Thought, p. 135.

  47 Deacon, John Dee, pp. 80-1.

  48 Ibid., pp. 38-9; for the mechanical devices, see ibid., p. 43.

  49 For Dee’s library, see Johnson, Astronomical Thought, pp. 138-9; “gotten as in a manner …” Fell-Smith, John Dee, pp. 30, 240, 253.

  50 Taylor, Two Richard Hakluyts, 11, p. 365.

  51 Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, p. 161; Lowery, Spanish Settlements, 11, p. 12.

  52 Gilbert, A Discourse How Hir Majesty … no. 12 (ii).

  53 Ibid., no. 12 (i). Shakespeare, using Gilbert’s own words, later parodies Raleigh’s failed Roanoke venture and rupture with the Queen as Love’s Labours Lost.

  54 Fell-Smith, John Dee, p. 19; Deacon, John Dee, p. 97.

  55 Hakluyt, Princip all Navigations (1589), pp. 677-9.

  56 Mendoza to Philip, June 3, 1578, Calendar of State Papers, Spain, 1568-79, no. 503.