The Pirate Queen (64 page)

2. J. Hampden (ed.),
Sir Francis Drake Revived
(London, 1954), p. 91.

3. Ibid., p. 92.

4. J. Corbett,
Drake and the Tudor Navy
(Aldershot, England, 1988 Centenary reprint), p. 184. Also see J. Sugden,
Sir Francis Drake
, p. 71. Strozzi was more than a “mercenary soldier” as depicted in these texts. The family had been merchant princes for at least a hundred years, and the Strozzi were bankers to Henry III, who succeeded Charles IX as King of France. See S. Ronald,
The Sancy Blood Diamond
(New York, 2004), pp. 48, 62, 87, 88, 92, 93.

5. Kenneth Andrews,
Trade, Plunder & Settlement
(Cambridge, 1999), p. 131.

6. John Sugden,
Sir Francis Drake
, p. 72.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., p. 73.

Chapter 20.
Dr. Dee’s Nursery and the Northwest Passage

1. John Sugden,
Sir Francis Drake
(London, 1996), p. 79.

2. Sir Francis Knollys held a position of great trust with Elizabeth. Married to her beloved cousin, Catherine, he had been chosen to guard Mary, Queen of Scots, when she fled to England in 1568. His daughter, Lettice, married Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, shortly after Walter Devereux’s death. It was an open secret that Lettice, reputed to be the greatest beauty at court, and Leicester were lovers while Essex was bogged down in Ireland.

3. B. Woolley,
The Queen’s Conjurer
(New York, 2001), pp. 97–123. The entire chapter relates to Dee’s position within the adventurer community and how important his influence was.

4. The Mercator Principle is still used by NASA today.

5. N. Crane,
Mercator
(London, 2003), p. 164. Cf. R. Deacon,
John Dee Scientist, Geographer, Astrologer and Secret Agent to Elizabeth I
(London, 1968). Nicholas Crane’s
Mercator
is a marvelously good read, even for those bored by geography.

6. BL, MS Cotton Charter XIII, art. 39.

7. Ambassador de Spes had been recalled hastily in January 1570 since he had failed miserably as an “ambassador” in England. Whether this was to protect him from his reported involvement in the Ridolfi plot or not is open to interpretation.

8.
DNB
, biography on Richard Grenville. Interestingly, Grenville’s father was the master aboard the
Mary Rose
, which sank in July 1545 as she was launched in the Solent, and had been built as Henry VIII’s greatest battleship.

9. Kenneth Andrews,
Trade, Plunder & Settlement
(Cambridge, 1999),
p. 140.

10. Ibid., p. 168. Walsingham had most likely been an investor since 1562, when he married Anne Carleill, daughter of Sir George Barnes, who was one of the founding counselors in 1555, the year the Muscovy Company was founded. Anne’s first husband, Alexander Carleill, held stock in the company in his own name prior to his death, and these shares, along with any that Sir George Barnes would leave to her, would have been controlled by Walsingham.

11.
DNB
, biography of Michael Lok.

12. R. Collinson, Stefansson and McCaskill,
The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher
(London, 1938), vol. 2, pp. 215–223, Cf. State Papers E/351. Also see B. Woolley,
The Queen’s Conjurer
, pp. 102–103.

13. Kenneth Andrews,
Trade, Plunder & Settlement,
pp. 169–170.

14. Ibid., p. 171.

15. B. Woolley,
The Queen’s Conjurer
, Cf. E. G. Taylor’s
Tudor Geography
, (London, 1930), p. 97.

16. Ibid., p. 105. Cf.
Tudor Geography
(London, 1930), document ix, pp. 262–263.

17. Kenneth Andrews,
Trade, Plunder & Settlement
, p. 172. Cf. R. Collinson (ed.),
Three Voyages of Frobisher
, p. 83.

18. The passage does exist, but is iced over most of the time. In 1845, the best-equipped expedition to date set out, and all its mariners died in the attempt. It was successfully navigated only between June 13, 1903, and August 26, 1905, by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, in a small fishing boat,
The Jonah
, along with a crew of seven men.

19. Ibid., p. 173. Cf. R. Collinson (ed.),
Three Voyages of Frobisher
(London, 1867), p. 87.

20. Richard Hakluyt,
Principall Navigations
(London, 1598), vol. 7, p. 283.

Chapter 21.
Dark Days at Rathlin Island

1. C., Brady,
The Chief Governors of Ireland
(Dublin, 2004), pp. 259–260.

2. BL MS Additional 48015, f. 319–320.

3. Ibid., f. 329.

4. NA SP 63/51, f. 19, 20.

5. John Sugden,
Sir Francis Drake
(London, 1996), p. 85.

6. NA SP 63/54, f. 126.

7. When Essex died so rapidly and so violently on his return to Ireland, many whispered that Leicester had somehow perpetrated the heinous crime—just as he was alleged to have killed his first wife, Amy Robsart. Nothing was ever proven, and history has not given Essex’s death
any nefarious postmortem.

Chapter 22.
Drake’s Perfect Timing

1. Elizabeth had been deeply wounded by Leicester’s affair with Lettice Devereux, née Knollys, and had most likely heard the rumors spread at court by Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, and others, that Lettice had had two illegitimate children by Leicester during Devereux’s first term in Ireland. I haven’t been able to find that Devereux himself had made any such discovery. It is, however, significant that after the two failed French matches (with Henry III of France and his younger brother Francis), which Leicester opposed, the queen should be extremely jealous of his attentions wandering elsewhere. Lettice Devereux, Countess of Essex, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, were married in 1580, and she gave birth to Leicester’s first legitimate male heir in April 1581.

2. H. Kelsey,
Sir John Hawkins
(New Haven, 2003), pp. 150–152. Interestingly, the episode with Fitzwilliams shows how Hawkins misled the very man who had been sent to do his bidding with Philip II, giving us great insight into how loyalties in Elizabethan England were subject to the prevailing wind.

3. BL MS Lansdowne 113, no. 14, f. 45–47. The manuscript is undated, but describes repairs made in 1577.

4. H. Kelsey,
Sir John Hawkins
, p. 153.

5. V. M. Shillington and A. B. W. Chapman,
Commercial Relations of Portugal
(London, 1907), pp. 140–144.

6. Kenneth Andrews,
Trade, Plunder & Settlement
, pp. 88–89.

7.
Richard Hakluyt,
Principall Navigations
(London, 1598), vol. 5, pp. 168–169.

8. Kenneth Andrews,
Trade, Plunder & Settlement
, p. 90.

9. John Dee,
A Petty Navy Royal
(printed version from E. Arber’s
An English Garner
[London, 1903]), p. 47.

10. Ibid., p. 49.

11. Ibid.

12. Derek Wilson,
Sweet Robin
(London, 1981), p. 224.

13. John Sugden,
Sir Francis Drake
, pp. 93–94.

14. Magellan’s master gunner was English, and John Oxenham would have preceded him.

15. Derek Wilson,
Sweet Robin
, p. 94.

16. John Sugden,
Sir Francis Drake
, pp. 95-96.

17. Francis Drake,
Sir Francis Drake Revived
(London, 1954), pp. 112–
113.

Chapter 23.
The Northwest and the Company of Kathai

1. S. A. Pears (ed.),
Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney
(London, 1845), p. 144.

2. Kenneth Andrews,
Trade, Plunder & Settlement
(Cambridge, 1999), pp. 174–175.

3. It is probably significant that the names of the ships were the
Michael
and
Gabriel
, both of whom were, of course, archangels. By this time, Dr. Dee’s occult experiments had already progressed, and both names would become increasingly important to his work in the ensuing decades.

4. George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland, was affectionately referred to by Elizabeth as her “rogue.”

5. CSP—Domestic
, 1547–1580, pp. 536–538, no. 81, undated but presumed to be March or April 1577.

6. Kenneth Andrews,
Trade, Plunder & Settlement
(Cambridge, 1999), p. 175.

7. As part of local folklore, the Inuit verbally passed down from generation to generation that the Englishmen built themselves a kayak, and rowed away.

8. Dr. Burchet is a figure of some mystery. His name is spelled in very different ways—even for Elizabethans—and some believe that he may not have even existed.

9.
Richard Hakluyt,
Principall Navigations
(London, 1598), vol. 7, 284–286. Also see E 164/35.

10. Ibid., vol. 7, p. 334.

11. Ibid., vol. 7, p. 336. Frobisher had been accused at the time of never reaching the coast of North America. The remnants of the Frobisher expeditions were found in the 1861–2 expedition of American explorer Charles Francis Hall, though the artifacts Hall found have since vanished. Hall also documented an Inuit legend handed down from generation to generation that the five lost Englishmen built themselves a boat, and sailed away. See Kenneth Andrews,
Trade, Plunder & Settlement
, p. 177, note 26.

12. G. Beste,
A True Discourse of the Late Voyages of Martin Frobisher
…(London, 1578), p. 236.

13.
CSP—Colonial
, p. xii.

14. Ibid., p. 58, no. 142.

Chapter 24.
In the Shadow of Magellan

1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
More Light on Drake
(London, 1907), p. 150, report of Robert Winter, June 2, 1579.

2. N. A. M. Rodger,
Safeguard of the Sea
(London, 2004), p. 322.

3. J. Calvar Gross,
La Batalla del Mar Oceáno
(Madrid, 1988), I, p. 155.

4. John Sugden,
Sir Francis Drake
(London, 1996), p 104. C.f. W.S.W Vaux,
The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake
(London, 1854), p. 173.

5. Trumpeters had special functions aboard ships. All ships that Drake was on had a drum, fife, and at least one trumpeter. The trumpeter “should have a silver trumpet, and himself and his noise to have banners of silk of the admiral’s colours. His place is to keep the poop, to attend to the general’s going ashore and coming aboard, and all other strangers or boats, and to sound as an entertainment to them, as also when they hail a ship, or when they charge, board or enter her…” Cf. William Mason,
Sir William Monson’s Tracts,
vol. 4, p. 57.

6. John Sugden,
Sir Francis Drake
, p. 104.

7. Ibid., Cf. W. S. W. Vaux,
The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake
(London, 1854), p. 199.

8. Ibid., p. 110.

9. Ibid., pp. 113–114.

Chapter 25.
Into the Jaws of Death

1. Francis Drake’s account in
The World Encompassed
(London, 1628), p. 150.

2. Ibid. The hind was in the family crest of the Hatton family. There is an interesting aside I would like to make here. The beautiful portrait of Elizabeth known as
The Pelican Portrait
was painted c. 1576. It is possible, according to the Liverpool Museum of Art, that this was painted the following year. If this is, in fact, the case, then I would argue that the queen—the greatest lover of symbolism of her age—had this portrait painted as a symbol of purity, while she had sent Drake forth in the
Pelican
to plunder the King of Spain.

3. Ibid., p. 152.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. John Sugden,
Sir Francis Drake
(London, 1996). It was the fastest time through the straits that century. Loyasa took four months, Thomas Cavendish forty-nine days, and Richard Hawkins forty-six days.

8. Ibid., pp. 116–117.

9. It was William Cornelius Shouten Van Hoorn who would name Cape Horn in 1616.

Chapter 26.
The Famous Voyage

1. J. Calvar Gross,
La Batalla del Mar Oceáno
(Madrid, 1988), vol. 1, pp. 319–320. During this same period, on his voyage of circumnavigation alone, Drake took a minimum of eleven ships by the time he plundered the
Cacafuego
. It is difficult to estimate the exact number, since in the harbor of Callao there were between nine and thirty ships, depending on which account you read. For the purposes of simplicity, I am counting
all
the ships in Callao harbor and Paita harbor as one ship in each of those ports. This, of course, means that the original State Paper source from Spain clearly underestimates Drake’s depredations and any possible undocumented English piracies in the Channel.