Roanoke

by Lee Miller

57 Hakluyt, Princip all Navigations (1589), p. 674.

  58 Edwards, Raleigh, 11, p. 6. According to the report, Pope Gregory XIII himself was raising troops to be sent into Ireland. The force didn’t arrive until the autumn of 1580, consisting of only six hundred soldiers — mostly Italian — who landed on the Irish coast at Smerwick.

  59 Camden, The History (1688), pp. 236-7.

  60 Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 19.

  61 For the hold ballasted with silver, see Rowse, Grenville, p. 155; for the Queen’s 4,700 percent return, netting a X 160,000 profit, see Williams, Elizabeth, p. 207.

  62 Brown, Genesis, 1, pp. 9-10.

  63 Wedgwood, William the Silent, pp. 268-70; Strype, Annals, 111, i, p. 131. The would-be assassin was twenty-year-old Juan Jauréguy.

  64 Stow, Survey (1908), 1, p. 266. The statue was finally repaired in 1595-6. Five years later, “our Lady was again defaced,” wrote Stow, “by plucking off her crown and almost her head, taking from her her naked child, and stabbing her in the breast, etc.”

  65 Tarbox, Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 29; Adamson and Folland, Shepherd of the Ocean, p. 78.

  66 “Your true brother …” letter of March 17, 1583 (Edwards, Raleigh, n, p. 19); for the token, see Quinn and Cheshire, Parmenius, Appendix 1, p. 205.

  67 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 695; for the voyage, see Edward Haies [Hayes], A True Report.

  68 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 695.

  69 Quinn and Cheshire, Parmenius, p. 79.

  70 For Throckmorton, see Williams, Elizabeth, pp. 263-4; for Dee, Deacon, John Dee, p. 7.

  71 Camden, The History (1688), p. 296.

  72 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), pp. 725-8. That Raleigh’s intent was to establish a privateering base on Roanoke seems clear given his preparations, which included consulting a military expert, hiring Ralph Lane, a fortifications expert, and raising a large complement of soldiers to serve under Sir Richard Grenville. See also Chapter 10, n. 7; Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 1, P-78.

  73 For the first Roanoke expedition of 1584, see Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), pp. 728-33; “well furnished …” ibid., p. 728; for the Secotan, see Appendix A. The surrender of Antwerp took place on August 7, 1585.

  74 Camden, The History (1688), p. 304.

  75 Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 15.

  76 Camden, The History (1688), p. 300.

  77 Deacon, John Dee, pp. 9-10.

  78 Lodge, Portraits, 11, p. 18; Camden, The History (1688), p. 346.

  79 Nichols, The Progresses, 11, p. 468.

  80 Deacon, John Dee, p. 75; for the effects of lead poisoning, see Handler, Aufderheide, et al, “Lead Contact and Poisoning.”

  81 Hakluyt, Discourse, chapter 19; for refugees pouring into London, see Platter, Travels (1937), p. 156, who reported the city swelled by “many thousands of families” from France and the Netherlands; Strype, Annals, 1, pt. 2, pp. 269, 290.

  82 Nichols, The Progresses, 11, pp. 478-9.

  83 Quinn {Raleigh and the British Empire, p. 99) suggests that Raleigh participated in Drake’s venture as an investor, and yet, interestingly, one of Drake’s original objectives had been to seize a base in the Indies, where Sir Philip Sidney was to command the land forces. The plan had originated in 1584 with Sidney, who had projected a scheme similar to Raleigh’s, to settle a colony there as a base. Lane knew of it (see his August 12, 1585, letter to Sidney, State Papers Colonial, 1/1, 5). Sidney, however, was double-crossed by Drake, who informed the Queen of Sidney’s plan to join the expedition, which, until that moment, had been kept secret (though Wilson, Sir Philip Sidney, p. 231, suggested that Walsingham may have known about it). The Queen forbade Sidney to go, and Walsingham’s stepson Christopher Carleill replaced him as Lieutenant General of the land forces; Quinn, Roanoke, i, p. 204, n. 5. In the end, plans for the projected base fell through and Drake arrived in the Indies only to remove Raleigh’s troops from the American base that already was established! For reports of Drake’s depredations, see Wright, Further English Voyages, pp. 16-30, 161-74; for Raleigh’s diversion to Newfoundland, see Quinn, Roanoke, 1, p. 172.

  84 See Chapter 19, n. 3.

  85 Williams, Elizabeth, p. 299; for Drake’s boasting, Quinn, New American World, in, p. 309. According to him, Santo Domingo was equal in size to the cities of London, Trevolentum, and Augusta combined. Yet, despite Drake’s reception, there is evidence that the Queen was angry at him for evacuating Lane’s post. A deposition by Darby Glande, recorded by Canco, stated that Drake “fell into disfavor with the Queen for having taken the people from Jacan”; Canco, Report, p. 155, in Spanish, translated by the author.

  86 Quinn, New American World, in, pp. 309-10.

  87 Bacon, “Of Prophecies,” Essays (1887), p. 378.

  16 THE PLAYERS

  1 Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), p. 674.

  2 For the following information on Leicester, see Camden, The History (1688), pp. 418-19; Lodge, Portraits, n, pp. 15-21; Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), pp. 130-2; Lloyd, Worthies, pp. 518-21; Nichols, The Progresses, 11; Winstanley, England’s Worthies, pp. 227-36.

  3 Anon., Leycesters Common-Wealth (1641), pp. 45, 59.

  4 Camden, The History (1688), p. 419.

  5 Anon., Leycesters Common-Wealth (1641), p. 45; for Queen’s love of, see Adamson and Folland, Shepherd of the Ocean, p. 87; Williams, Elizabeth, pp. 108-16.

  6 Leicester “was always beforehand with his designs,” said Lloyd, “being a declared enemy to after-games”; Worthies, p. 520.

  7 For the Antwerp delegation, see Edwards, Raleigh, 1, p. 60; for Maurice Browne, see Quinn and Cheshire, Parmenius, Appendix 1, p. 207.

  8 Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 144.

  9 Anon., Leycesters Common-Wealth (1641), p. S^; for his wealth, see ibid., p. 59.

  10 Walsingham to Leicester, March 1586, Mss. Cotton, Galba, C.ix fol. 157; Edwards, Raleigh, 1, pp. 61-2.

  11 Raleigh to Leicester, March 29, 1586, in Edwards, Raleigh, 11, p. 33.

  12 Ibid., 1, p. 62; 11, p. 33.

  13 Anon., Leycesters Common-Wealth (1641), pp. 56-7. Leicester’s ill-feelings stemmed from Lane’s suggestion to the Earl of Huntington about how he could deprive Leicester of Killingworth Castle.

  14 For the following information on Hatton, see Lodge, Portraits, n, pp. 29-32; Nicolas, Hatton; Lloyd, Worthies, pp. 521-5; Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810).

  15 Lloyd, Worthies, pp. 521-3; Camden, The History (1688), p. 401.

  16 Nicolas, Hatton, pp. 17-19.

  17 Ibid., pp. 297-8; see also pp. 275-7.

  18 Camden, The History (1688), p. 311; Dixon, Her Majesty’s Tower, p. 199.

  19 Lodge, Portraits, n, p. 30.

  20 Camden, The History (1688), p. 401.

  21 Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 142.

  22 For the following information on Burghley, see Lodge, Portraits, 11, pp. 48-51; Lloyd, Worthies, pp. 473-85; Naunton, Fragment alia Regalia (1810), pp. 133-5; Winstanley, England’s Worthies, pp. 236-46; Read, Burghley.

  23 Jenkins, Elizabeth, p. 63.

  24 Read, Burghley, p. 168.

  25 Camden, The History (1688), p. 154. Burghley once informed a friend that he loved “heartily the honest virtues” and, though “tormented with the blasts of the world” by way of slander, he trusted to his armor, which was forged by “confidence in God by a clear conscience,” Strype, Annals, 11, pt. 1, P- 33-

  26 State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, clxxx, 45, July 24, 1585; Strype, Annals, in, ii, p. 380.

  27 Elizabeth was furious at Leicester for his involvement in the proposed match between Mary Queen of Scots and the Duke of Norfolk in 1569. Burghley did not press his advantage against Leicester but, instead, did his best to placate the Queen’s anger; Read, Mr Secretary Cecil, p. 451. For other instances of the same, see ibid., p. 332.

  28 So went the story according to Robert Parsons; Hicks, “Father Robert Persons,” pp. 98-9.

  29 Read, Mr Secretary Cecil, p. 83.
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  30 Williams, Elizabeth, p. 237.

  31 Wirtemberg, True and Faithful Narrative (1865), p. 45.

  32 For the flowers that were likely to be planted there, see Bacon, “Of Gardens,” Essays (1887), PP- 442-4. Bacon was Burghley’s nephew and presumably drew his material from his uncle’s world-famous gardens; for Gerard, see Hulton, The Work of Jacques Le Moyne, 1, p. 56.

  33 Hawks, History of North Carolina, 1, p. 24.

  34 Ibid., p. 40; Irwin, That Great Lucifer, pp. 91-2. As late as 1597 Burghley enjoined Raleigh to act as a mediator to mend the differences between his son, Robert Cecil, and the Earl of Essex; Read, Burghley, p. 533. It is also interesting to note, in connection with Raleigh’s 1593 opposition to banishing Brownists, that the sect’s leader, Robert Browne, was Burghley’s relative; Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, p. 305.

  35 However, it was Burghiey who convinced Elizabeth to confiscate Spanish ships in 1569, following their attack on Hawkins, and to pocket the Genoese loan (Fräser, Mary Queen of Scots, p. 480). There is also evidence that he supported Gilbert’s and Frobisher’s voyages (Irwin, That Great Lucifer, p. 95; Read, Burghiey, p. 411; Quinn, Gilbert, 1, p. 31); some or all of Drake’s ventures (Williamson, Age of Drake, p. 171; Strype Annals, m, pt. 2, pp. 168-72); the establishing of a fortress on Terceira to intercept the returning Spanish plate fleet (Taylor, Troublesome Voyage, p. xxxix); and Raleigh’s 1595 Guiana scheme. Burghiey was also a great proponent of the new geography of his kinsman Dr. Dee (Rowse, Grenville, p. 84). Records from the Roanoke expeditions are missing — Burghiey may well have been an investor.

  36 Lodge, Portraits, 11, pp. 48-9. “He had rather tire out opposition by his moderation,” said Lloyd, “than improve by his impatience. Others were raised to balance factions; he to support the kingdom: fickle favour tossed them, constant interest secured him”; Worthies, p. 476.

  37 The information on Walsingham that follows is taken from Read, Walsing-ham; Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), pp. 136-7; Lodge, Portraits, n, pp. 25-8; Lloyd, Worthies, pp. 513-17; Winstanley, England’s Worthies, pp. 257-61.

  38 Fuller, Worthies (1840), n, p. 143; see also Read, Walsingham, 1, pp. 24-5.

  39 Evidence for the “decay of Popery” was readily available; Strype, Annals, 1, pt. 2, p. 65. Francis Bacon observed that by the time of Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85), the Vatican was no longer an aggressive power but had been put on the defensive. The Pope, he said, “is not so much carried with the desire to suppress our religion, as drawn with fear of the downfall of his own, if in time it be not upheld and restored”; State of Christendom (1862), p. 18.

  40 “extremely self-seeking…” Mendoza to Philip, March 31, 1578, Calendar of State Papers, Spain, 1568-79, p. 486; “notwithstanding that outward profession …” Harleian Mss. 290, f. 84. “They tax him,” said Fuller of Walsingham, for “oft-times borrowing a point of conscience, with full intent never to pay it again …” Worthies (1840), 11, p. 143.

  41 Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 136.

  42 Winstanley, Worthies, p. 258.

  43 Haynes, Invisible Power, p. 13.

  44 Camden, The History (1688), p. 444.

  45 For the spy system and how it operated, see Haynes, Invisible Power; Meyer, England and the Catholic Church, pp. 170-1; Camden, The History (1688), pp. 294-5; State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, ccxxxii, 12, May [7], 1590. For evidence that Walsingham planted spies on Leicester and Burghiey, see nn. 72-73 and Chapter 18, n. 31.

  46 For RadcHffe, Strype, Annals, 11, pt. 2, p. 130; Camden, The History (1688), pp. 225-6; Read, Walsingham, 1, p. 409, n. 1. For Gifford, Read, ibid., in, pp. 1-2. For Mawde, Pollen, Mary Queen of Scots, p. lxxxv. For Fernandez,

  Quinn, England and the Discovery, p. 249. For other examples, see Read, Walsingham, 11, p. 321.

  47 For Fernandez, see Quinn, aA Portuguese Pilot,” England and the Discovery, pp. 246-63.

  48 Ibid., p. 249.

  49 “Walsingham’s man,” according to Rev. Richard Madox, Taylor, Troublesome Voyage, p. xxxiii; also State Papers Colonial, 1/1,2. For Spanish restrictions on the sharing of navigational information of American waters and the banning of foreigners from Spanish vessels, see Lowery, Spanish Settlements, 11, pp. 7-8.

  50 November 7, 1574, Calendar of State Papers, Spain, 1568-79,11, no. 404, p. 487; Read, Walsingham, 1, p. 312. Walsingham, said Lodge, was “practiced and even hackneyed in a sort of treachery legalised by the fatal necessity of states,” Portraits, 11.

  51 Winstanley, Worthies, p. 258.

  52 Welwood, Material Transactions, pp. 10-11.

  53 Ibid., p. 9.

  54 Read, Walsingham, 1, pp. 319, 322-5, 334-5, 370-1; n, 141-2, 144-7-

  55 January 15, 1574/5, State Papers, Scotland, xxxvi, 66.

  56 Welwood, Material Transactions, p. 12.

  57 Read, Walsingham, 11, pp. 290, n. 1, 340-1, contends that Walsingham’s accusers were wrong, and that there is “practically no evidence” that he plotted against Elizabeth’s life. Haynes (Invisible Power, p. 35) notes that plots were often imagined or contrived by the government to bring about desired ends.

  58 Robert Parsons (aka Andrea Philopatrus), Response to the Unjust and Bloody Edict of Elizabeth against the Catholics (1592); Read, Walsingham, 11, pp. 267-8, n. 4.

  59 Read, Walsingham, 1, p. 324.

  60 Ibid., p. 335.

  61 Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, 1578-9: 473, 510, 519, 538. Naunton reported that in June 1583 the Earl of Sussex’s last words on his deathbed were to Hatton, “Beware of the Gypsy [meaning Leicester] for he will be too hard on you all, you know not the Beast so well as I do”; Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 132. Yet could Naunton, reporting years after the fact, have misunderstood this cryptic message? Sussex disliked Leicester, but he also had every reason to dislike Walsingham as well. Sussex’s brother was none other than Egremont Radcliffe, who was executed for attempting to murder Don John of Austria under Walsingham’s orders — Walsingham denying all involvement in the affair. Walsingham’s nickname was “the Moor” (Jenkins, Elizabeth, p. 224), and the terms Moor, gypsy, and Egyptian were then synonymous. Walsingham himself, in a letter to Burghley, referred to Ethiopia as “my native soil,” Digges, Compleat Ambassador, p. 426. See also n. 74. Sussex might well warn Hatton to beware of his friendship with Walsingham, who, in 1583, was beginning to surpass even Burghley in power.

  62 Winstanley, Worthies, p. 259.

  63 Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (1810), p. 137.

  64 Nicolas, Hatton, pp. 75-6; Read, Walsingham, 1, pp. 418, 422.

  65 Read, Walsingham, 11, pp. 85-6; Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, 1581-2:

  314; 1583- 715-

  66 Jenkins, Elizabeth, p. 258. In 1578 Mendoza informed Philip II that Walsingham and Leicester were scheming on a project in which only the Queen was privy — although other members of the Privy Council believed that they were deceiving Elizabeth herself; Kendall, Robert Dudley, p. 173.

  67 Taylor, Troublesome Voyage, p. 197.

  68 Williams, Elizabeth, p. 200. On the proposed match with Alencon, see ibid., pp. 185, 189, 193-213; Camden, The History (1688), pp. 131-6.

  69 Read, Walsingham, 11, pp. 20, 22, 27. As a result of Walsingham’s interest in the affair, he was banished from Court and remained in disgrace for two months.

  70 January 30, 1585, State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, clxxvi, 19.

  71 Read, Walsingham, in, pp. 116-19; Strype, Annals, III, i, pp. 502-3; 11, pp. 379-83. Burghley, greatly upset, told a friend that if his “conscience did not ascertain me of God’s favour and protection against these satanical and fanatical spirits, I should think myself in a most wretched state”; Strype, Annals. Significantly, in 1587, the year of the Roanoke sabotage, further libels came out against Burghley, weakening his position and — possibly — distracting him from helping Raleigh; ibid., in, i, p. 725.

  72 State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, clxxvi, 19.

  73 January 30, 1585, State Papers, ibid., 20; for Herllie, see Read, Walsingham, in, p. 11
7; Read, Burghley, pp. 315-16; Strype, Annals, 111, ii, pp. 379-82. If Herllie were acting as Walsingham’s agent here, might Walsingham have been his employer that same year, when Herllie’s “anonymous” note was sent to the Queen regarding Grenville’s cheating Roanoke investors of profits? (see Chapter 11, n. 39).

  74 For the particulars of the Babington plot, see Calendar of State Papers, Scotland; Camden, The History (1688), pp. 336-45; Fräser, Mary Queen of Scots; Pollen, Mary Queen of Scots; Morris, Troubles, ii; Read, Walsingham, in. Lodge remarked that Walsingham’s “designs to entrap” Mary “savoured more of a natural taste for deception than of zeal for the public service”; Portraits, 11. Did Walsingham merely uncover Babington’s conspiracy, or did he orchestrate it from start to finish? Walsingham’s secretary, Thomas Harrison, said it was Walsingham’s creation. In a 1587 confession he admitted “that the plot and conspiracy… was drawn, plotted and done by Sir Francis Walsingham,” with the assistance of people employed by him; Calendar of State Papers, Scotland, ix, 429, p. 530. That it was conceived as early as 1583 is suggested by an entry in the diary of Dr. Dee. Dee’s assistant had received a vision of a woman’s hand being chopped off by a tall, black man. During a séance, Dee learned that the dream signified the death of the Queen of Scots by beheading; Fell-Smith, John Dee, p. 95; Deacon, John Dee, p. 172. The tall black man may have been a euphemism for Walsing-ham: Elizabeth called him her Moor, and he referred to himself as Ethiopian.

  75 Camden, The History (1688), p. 337.

  76 Ibid., p. 340.

  77 Read, Walsingham, m, p. 30; Morris, Sir Amias Poulet, pp. 209-12.

  78 Camden, The History (1688), p. 342.

  79 Weston’s memoirs in Morris, Troubles, 11, p. 184. Ballard was arrested on August 4, 1586.

  80 Camden, The History (1688), pp. 342-3.

  81 “city testifying their public joy …” ibid., p. 343; “for joy of the taking …” Nichols, The Progresses, 11, p. 481.

  82 Camden, The History (1688), p. 343.

  83 Ibid., p. 371.

  84 Ibid., p. 362. On September 10, 1586, four days after his confession, Nau wrote to Elizabeth, denying all charges against Mary; State Papers, Scotland, xix, no. 98. In 1605 Nau wrote an Apology to King James, testifying that he had proclaimed Mary innocent and claiming that he had been threatened by Walsingham; ibid., p. 362; Read, Walsingham, 111, p. 55, n. 3. For the pressure Walsingham put on Curie, see Camden, The History (1688), p. 345. Both secretaries had been threatened; Read, Walsingham, in, p. 37 and n. 2; Fräser, Mary Queen of Scots, p. 593.