All the Queen's Men (15 page)

In 1576, the Queen granted Martin Frobisher a licence to undertake a transatlantic expedition in order to try and discover a north-west passage to Cathay, as China was known at that time. He sailed with two small ships of 25 tons and one of less than half that size. When he returned to the east coast port of Harwich, Frobisher brought back with him a cargo of black pyrites thought to contain gold, together with an Eskimo – both aroused considerable excitement in England. His next voyage took place a year later when:

. . . on Whit Sunday, being the six and twentieth of May in the yeere of our Lord God 1577, Captaine Frobisher departed from Blacke Wall with one of the Queene Majesties ships called the Aide, of nine score tunnes . . . accompanied with seven score Gentlemen, souldiers and sailers, well furnished with victuals, and other provisions necessarie for one halfe yeere, on this his second voyage for the further discovering of the passage to Cathay, supposed to be on the North and North West part of America . . . by west and northwest navigations where through our merchants may have course and recourse with their merchandize . . . in much shorter time, and with much greater benefite than any others, to their no little commoditie and profite.
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Herein lay Elizabeth's interests in exploration: not a noble desire to open up hitherto uncharted waters in the manner of the idealistic Henry the Navigator, but a far more prosaic quest for wealth and alternative markets, commercial considerations which were so often to be the driving force behind the establishment of the British Empire and the efforts of the great empire builders such as Clive of India and Cecil Rhodes.

This desirable aim could have its dangerous side; it was not long before, ‘we met great islands of yce, of half a mile, some more, some lesse in compass . . . we tasted the most Boreal blasts mixt with snow and haile, in the moneths of June and July . . .'.
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When Frobisher and his men landed on the bleak, inhospitable shoreline the natives were decidedly unfriendly: ‘They fiercely assaulted our men with their bowes and arrowes, who wounded three of them with our arrowes: and perceiving themselves thus hurt, they desperately leaped off the Rocks into the Sea, and drowned themselves.'
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There was little of note to be found in this unfriendly environment which could be taken home to recoup the cost of the voyage and satisfy expectant investors. Ominously it was observed that, ‘the stones of this supposed continent with America be altogether sparkled, and glister in the sunne like golde, so likewise doth the sand in the bright water, yet they verifie the old proverb: all is not gold that glistereth'.
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Notwithstanding this laconic lower-deck assessment of the realities of the situation, as soon as Frobisher returned from this voyage, he hastened to the Court, which at that time was at Windsor, to acquaint the Queen with the success of his expedition and to inform her that plenty of gold ore had been discovered. Elizabeth was greatly pleased and Frobisher was warmly congratulated by the most eminent members of the Court while Her Majesty commended the rest of the gentlemen on the voyage for their skill and courage during this hazardous but apparently profitable adventure.

It was therefore with high hopes that a third voyage was undertaken by Frobisher towards the end of May 1578, the general and all his captains coming to the Court at Greenwich to take their leave of their Queen. Elizabeth presented Frobisher with a gold chain, as the rest of the sea captains kissed her hand and received her gracious encouragement for their forthcoming endeavours.

Back at sea Frobisher's problems mounted rapidly. First, the
Salamander
hit a whale with such force that she was stopped dead in the water. Then the 100-ton vessel
Bark Dennis
, struck a huge piece of floating ice and sank rapidly, within sight of the entire fleet. Finally, a sudden and terrible tempest blew in from the south-east and threatened to trap Frobisher's ships in the ice. His small fleet continued to be dogged by atrocious weather conditions: a foot of snow lay on the decks of the vessels, their ropes and sails were completely frozen and the mariners' clothing continually wet, conditions which caused considerable sickness throughout the fleet. Despite these appalling experiences, Frobisher's ships survived to return to England but with little to show for all their suffering. The Queen's initial enthusiasm for Frobisher's trips to the Arctic wastes rapidly cooled and he was not permitted to undertake further expeditions to this singularly inhospitable part of the world.

The quest to discover the elusive north-west passage to Cathay also fascinated Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the Devon-born half-brother of Sir Walter Ralegh. Gilbert was a well-educated man who had studied at Eton and Oxford University and had been part of Elizabeth's household before she ascended the throne. He later became a soldier and served under Sir Henry Sidney in Ireland where Walter Ralegh had also campaigned before coming to Court. Gilbert had previously written a book entitled
A Discourse of a Discoverie for a new Passage to Cataia
, while vigorously petitioning the Queen to be granted a licence to seek this north-west passage which he was fully convinced would give access to the Orient. However, Elizabeth had awarded this doubtful privilege to the more experienced Martin Frobisher. The Queen did later grant Gilbert a charter in 1578 to undertake a voyage for the purpose of establishing a colony in the New World:

Elizabeth by the grace of God, Queen of England . . . to all persons whom these presents shall come, greeting. Know ye that . . . we have given and granted and by these presents for us our heirs and successors, do give and grant to our trusty and well beloved servant Humphrey Gilbert of Compton in our County of Devon, knight, and to his heirs and assigns for ever, free liberty and license from time to time and at all times for ever hereafter to discover, search, find out and view such remote heathen and barbarous lands, countries and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people, as to him, his heirs and assigns . . . shall seem good, and the same to have, hold, occupy and enjoy to him, his heirs and assigns forever, with all commodities, jurisdiction and royalties both by sea and land. . .
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Sir Humphrey Gilbert was one of the first people in England to appreciate the potential of establishing settlements overseas in order to provide fresh opportunities for the nation's rapidly expanding population and at the same time develop new markets abroad for English merchants. His was a visionary concept that anticipated the English colonies that were later to be founded in New England on America's Atlantic coastline. However, like so many visionaries, Gilbert was not very practical, and his expedition ended in failure, being poorly planned and underfunded. The disconsolate Gilbert returned to England heavily in debt much to the Queen's amusement, who laughingly exclaimed that Sir Humphrey appeared to be ‘not of good hap at sea'. Elizabeth liked her men to be successful, and failure of any sort received little sympathy from either the Queen or her courtiers.

Undeterred, the energetic Sir Humphrey set forth once more with the Queen's authority on a venture financed by members of the Court and the City of London, in an attempt to fulfil his vision of establishing a colony across the Atlantic Ocean for his beloved Queen. Gilbert was a brave and resourceful man, but not a particularly experienced sailor. Although he possessed great intellect and considerable imagination, he was obstinate and self-opinionated, being impetuous, overbearing and reluctant to seek assistance or listen to advice from more capable navigators than himself. After he had airily brushed aside the judgement of Master Cox, his chief pilot, as to the correct course to adopt, Gilbert's largest vessel, the 120-ton
Delight
, foundered off the treacherous coast of Newfoundland. ‘This was a heavy and grievous event, to lose at one blowe our chiefe shippe freighted with great provision . . . but more was the losse of our men, which perished to the number almost of a hundred soules',
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noted Edward Haye aboard the
Golden Hind
, one of Gilbert's other ships. As they were now perilously short of provisions, Gilbert reluctantly decided to abandon the expedition yet foolishly remained determined to take the homeward voyage in a small vessel named
The Squirrel
, which he had been using to explore various creeks and inlets impassable to a larger ship. Edward Haye considered that Gilbert's rash decision to risk his life undertaking a transatlantic voyage using a craft of a mere 10 tons was motivated by overhearing a derisory comment that he was afraid of the sea. Gilbert's daring gesture proved fatal:

The same Monday night, about twelve of the clocke, or not long after, the frigat being ahead of us in the Golden Hinde, suddenly her lights were out, whereof as it were in a moment, we lost the sight, and withall our watch cryed out, the general was cast away, which was too true. For in a moment, the Frigat was devoured and swallowed up of the Sea.
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It was a brave yet foolhardy and unnecessary death, Sir Humphrey Gilbert's undoubted courage proving insufficient to compensate for his numerous shortcomings as a leader. Gilbert's expeditions were poorly conceived and executed, under-financed and hopelessly lacking sufficient resources. He simply did not have the necessary maritime experience to achieve success in so hazardous adventure. Perhaps Gilbert saw death by drowning preferable to facing the ignominy and ridicule that he would encounter when he returned to Elizabeth's Court after yet another failure: ‘All the men tired with the tediousnes of so unprofitable a voiage to their seeming . . . much toyle and labour, hard diet and continuall hazard of life was unrecompensed.'
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The Gilbert family still live at Compton Castle, the South Devon home of Sir Humphrey during the Elizabethan era. A young member of the family born in 1983, the 400th anniversary of Gilbert's last voyage, is named Walter Ralegh Gilbert.

The first Walter Ralegh, who had been one of the investors in Gilbert's enterprises, took up the challenge to colonize the New World and established the first English colony outside Europe two years later in 1585 on Roanoke Island, christening it ‘Virginia' in honour of Queen Elizabeth. The colony was not to last long and a few dispirited survivors were rescued by Francis Drake some years later, yet these faltering efforts of Gilbert and Ralegh initiated the long process which eventually led to a British Empire which at its peak covered more than a quarter of the entire globe.

Ralegh was also a Devonian, born near Budleigh Salterton around 1552, into a family of impoverished country gentry who also were devout Protestants. He was totally obsessed by the sea from a very early age and as a boy constantly sought the company of fishermen and retired sailors. Millais's rather sentimental painting
The Boyhood of Ralegh
shows him on the beach near Budleigh listening intently as an old salt regales Ralegh and a young friend with highly exaggerated tales of adventure on the high seas. Ralegh was enthralled and determined to taste the ventures of life afloat for himself. He was to take part in Gilbert's first voyage to Newfoundland in 1578, and financed Gilbert's second expedition in 1583 which eventually led to the foundation of the colony of Virginia, sending two ships under the command of Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe. They reached Roanoke Island in midsummer, to discover a very different land to that encountered by Frobisher and Gilbert much further to the north:

This island had many goodly woods full of Deere, Conies, Hares, and Fowle: even in the midst of summer in incredible abundance . . . the woods are the highest and reddest cedars of the world . . . beyond this Island there is the maine lande, and over against this island falleth into this spacious water, the great river called Occam . . . we brought home also two of the Savages being lustie men, whose names were Wanchese and Manteo.
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The Queen's interest in all these stirring adventures was entirely mercenary – not for her a spirit of pioneering, she was only interested in profit. Elizabeth regarded exploration purely as a potential source of much-needed additional revenue for her cash-starved kingdom and therefore encouraged adventurers such as Frobisher, Gilbert, Jenkinson, Davis, Hawkins, Ralegh and Drake to pursue their dreams in the hope that fanciful tales of untold treasure in far-away places might indeed turn out to be true and benefit her accordingly. Pizarro had discovered a mountain of gold in Peru and Cortés unearthed incredible riches in Mexico – perhaps some of her fearless Englishmen might do the same. It was well worth trying, and there was little risk in her encouraging these activities, as eager members of her Court or enterprising City merchants could usually be persuaded to underwrite the cost of these voyages, an early example of the public purse being assisted by private enterprise.

In this manner, the pace of Elizabethan exploration gathered momentum. Yet again, the Queen had men around her ready, willing and able to rise to the occasion. They wished to impress their sovereign and needed her stamp of approval to undertake the great adventures that could lead them to fame and fortune:

With a good large winde the twentieth of September, we came to Padstow in Cornewall, God be thanked in saftey, with a losse of twenty persons in all the voyage, and with great profit to the venturers of the said voyage, as also to the whole realm, in bringing home both golde, silver, pearles, and other jewels great store. His name therefore be praised for evermore. Amen'
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Without the necessary official documents to prove conclusively that they were on the Queen's bona fide business, these daring explorers ran a strong risk of being accused of piracy, subsequently to be executed, left to rot in some distant tropical dungeon or condemned to the life of a galley slave, never to be seen again. Wily seafarers such as Drake and Hawkins, invariably sailing close to the wind in pursuit of profit by any appropriate means, were always careful to carry the Queen's authorization when voyaging out of their home port of Plymouth to the coast of Africa or the Spanish Main. In return, Elizabeth expected to collect a share of the proceeds on their safe return to port. It was an excellent arrangement for both Elizabeth and her explorers, one which the Queen was to exploit to the full throughout her reign: ‘The 8 day being Friday, about 12 of the clocke we wayed at Detford, and set saile all three of us, and bare downe by the Court, where we shotte off our ordinance . . . Her Majestie beholding the same commended it, and bade us farewell, with shaking her hand at us out of the window.'
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