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Sir Humphrey Gilbert | |
|---|---|
 Portrait atCompton Castle | |
| Born | c. 1539 |
| Died | 9 September 1583 (aged 43–44) waters off theAzores |
| Education | Eton College |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Spouse | Anne Aucher (1548-1631) m 1570 |
| Children | 6 sons and 1 daughter |
| Parents |
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| Signature | |
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Sir Humphrey Gilbert (c. 1539 – 9 September 1583) was an English adventurer, explorer,member of parliament and soldier who served during the reign ofQueen Elizabeth I and was a pioneer of theEnglish colonial empire in North America and thePlantations of Ireland.[1][2] He was amaternal half-brother of SirWalter Raleigh and a cousin of SirRichard Grenville.[2]
Gilbert was the 5th son of Otho Gilbert ofCompton,Greenway andGalmpton, all inDevon, by his wife Catherine Champernowne. His brothers, Sir John Gilbert and Adrian Gilbert, and hishalf-brothersCarew Raleigh andSir Walter Raleigh, were also prominent during the reigns ofQueen Elizabeth I andKing James VI and I. Catherine Champernowne was a niece ofKat Ashley, Elizabeth's governess, who introduced her young kinsmen to the court. Gilbert's uncle, SirArthur Champernowne, involved him in thePlantations of Ireland between 1566 and 1572.[3]
Gilbert's mentor was SirHenry Sidney. He was educated atEton College and theUniversity of Oxford, where he learned to speak French and Spanish and studied war and navigation. He went on to reside at theInns of Chancery in London in about 1560–1561.
Gilbert was present at the siege of Newhaven in Havre-de-Grâce (Le Havre),Normandy, where he was wounded in June 1563. By July 1566, he was serving inIreland during theTudor conquest of Ireland, under the command of Sidney (thenLord Deputy of Ireland) againstShane O'Neill. He was then sent to England later in the year with dispatches for the Queen. At that point, he took the opportunity of presenting the Queen with hisA Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Passage to Cataia (Cathay) (published in revised form in 1576),[4] treating of the exploration of aNorthwest Passage by America to China.
After the assassination of O'Neill in 1567, Gilbert was appointed governor ofUlster and served as a member of theIrish Parliament. At about this time, he petitionedWilliam Cecil, Queen Elizabeth's principal secretary, for a recall to England, citing "for the recovery of my eyes", but his ambitions still rested in Ireland and particularly in the southern province ofMunster. In April 1569, he proposed the establishment of a presidency and council for the province and pursued the notion of an extensive settlement aroundBaltimore (at the southwest tip of modernCounty Cork), which was approved by theDublin council. He was involved with Sidney and Secretary of StateThomas Smith in planning theEnterprise of Ulster, a large settlement in the east of the northernprovince ofUlster, byDevonshire gentlemen. On 1 January 1570, Gilbert was knighted for his services by Sidney.
Gilbert's actions in the south of Ireland played a part in the events that led up to the first of theDesmond Rebellions. SirPeter Carew, his Devonshire kinsman, was pursuing a claim to the inheritance of certain lands within theButler territories in southLeinster.The 3rd Earl of Ormonde, a bosom companion of Queen Elizabeth's from childhood and head of the Butler dynasty, was absent in England, and the clash of Butler's influence with the Carew claim fostered conflict. Carew seized thebarony ofIdrone (in modernCounty Carlow),[5] the residence of the Irish KingArt Óg Mac Murchadha Caomhánach.[6][7]
In the summer of 1569, Gilbert was eager to participate, pushing westward with his forces across theRiver Blackwater and joined up with his kinsman to defeat Sir Edmund Butler, the Earl of Ormond's younger brother. Violence spread in a confusion from Leinster and across the province ofMunster, when the Geraldines of Desmond, led byJames FitzMaurice FitzGerald, rose against the incursion. Gilbert was then promoted to colonel by Lord Deputy Sidney and was charged with the pursuit of FitzGerald. The Geraldines were driven out ofKilmallock but returned to lay siege to Gilbert, who drove off their force in a sally during which his horse was shot from under him and his buckler transfixed with a spear. After that initial success, he marched unopposed for three weeks throughKerry andConnello, capturing thirty to forty castles. During this campaign, Gilbert's forces showedno quarter to all Irish people they came across, including women and children. Soldier and authorThomas Churchyard described an intimidation tactic implemented by Gilbert during the campaign:
The heddes of all those (of who sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies and brought to the place where he incamped at night, and should there bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie ledying into his owne tente so that none could come into his tente for any cause but commonly he muste passe through a lane of heddes which he usedad terrorem... [It brought] greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kindsfolke, and freinds...[8]
After the campaign, Gilbert retroactively justified his policy of attacking non-combatants by arguing that "The men of war could not be maintained without their churls and calliackes, old women and those women who milked their Creaghts (cows) and provided their victuals and other necessaries. So that the killing of them by the sword was the way to kill the men of war by famine."[9] Once Ormond had returned from England and called in his brothers, the Geraldines found themselves outgunned. In December 1569, after one of the chief rebels had surrendered, Gilbert was knighted at the hands of Sidney in the ruined FitzMaurice camp, reputedly amid heaps of deadgallowglass warriors. A month after Gilbert's return to England FitzMaurice retookKilmallock with 120 soldiers, defeating the garrison and sacking the town for three days. Three years later FitzMaurice surrendered.
In 1570, Gilbert returned to England, where he married Anne Ager, daughter of John Ager (alias Aucher, etc.) ofOtterden,[11] who bore him six sons and one daughter. In 1571, he was elected to theParliament of England as amember of parliament forPlymouth, Devon, and, in 1572, forQueenborough. He argued in favour of thecrown prerogative in the matter of royal licenses forpurveyance.[12] At this time he was involved with Thomas Smith and William Cecil in support of William Medley'salchemical project hoping to transmute iron into copper.[12]
By 1572, Gilbert had turned his attention to theSpanish Netherlands, where he fought an unsuccessful campaign in support of theDutch Sea beggars at the head of a force of 1,500 men, many of whom had deserted from Smith's aborted plantation in theArds of Ulster.[citation needed] In the period 1572–1578, Gilbert settled down and devoted himself to writing. In 1573, he presented the Queen with a proposal for an academy in London,[citation needed] which was eventually put into effect by SirThomas Gresham with the establishment ofGresham College. Gilbert also helped to set up theSociety of the New Art withWilliam Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley andRobert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, both of whom maintained an alchemical laboratory inLimehouse.[citation needed]
The rest of Gilbert's life was spent in a series of failed maritime expeditions, the financing of which exhausted his family fortune. After receivingletters patent on 11 June 1578,[13] Gilbert set sail in November 1578 with a fleet of seven vessels fromPlymouth in Devon for North America. The fleet was scattered by storms and forced back to port some six months later. The only vessel to have penetrated the Atlantic to any great distance was theFalcon under Raleigh's command.[citation needed]
In the summer of 1579,William Drury, Lord Deputy of Ireland, commissioned Gilbert and Raleigh to attack James FitzMaurice Fitzgerald again by sea and land and to intercept a fleet expected to arrive from Spain with aid for the Irish. At this time, Gilbert had three vessels under his command: the 250-tonAnne Ager (named after his wife), theRelief, and the 10-tonSquirrell, a small frigate notable for having completed the voyage to America and back within three months under the command of a captured Portuguese pilot.[citation needed]
Gilbert set sail in June 1579 after a spell of bad weather and promptly got lost in the fog and heavy rain offLand's End, Cornwall, an incident which caused the Queen to doubt his seafaring ability. His fleet was then driven into theBay of Biscay and the Spanish soon slipped past and sailed intoDingle harbour, where they made their rendezvous with the Irish. In October Gilbert put into the port ofCobh in Cork, where he delivered a terrible beating to a local gentleman, smashing him about the head with a sword. He then fell into a row with a local merchant, whom he murdered on the dockside.[citation needed]
Gilbert became one of the leading advocates for the then-mythicalNorthwest Passage toCathay (China), a country written up in great detail byMarco Polo in the 13th century for its abundance of riches. Gilbert made a case to counter the calls for aNortheast Passage to China.[citation needed]
During the winter of 1566 he and a personal adversary of his,Anthony Jenkinson (who had sailed to Russia and crossed that country down to theCaspian Sea), argued the pivotal question of polar routes before Queen Elizabeth. Gilbert claimed that any northeast passage was far too dangerous: "the air is so darkened with continual mists and fogs so near the pole that no man can well see either to guide his ship or direct his course".[citation needed]
By logic and reason a north-west passage was assumed to exist, andColumbus had discovered America with far less evidence; it was imperative for England to catch up, to settle in new lands, and thus to challenge the Iberian powers. Gilbert's contentions won support and money was raised, chiefly by the London merchantMichael Lok, for an expedition.Martin Frobisher was appointed captain and left England in June 1576, but the quest for a north-west passage failed: Frobisher returned with a cargo of a black stone – which was found to be worthless – and a nativeInuit.[citation needed]
It was assumed that Gilbert would be appointedpresident of Munster after the dismissal of Ormond as lord lieutenant of the province in the spring of 1581. At this time Gilbert was a member of parliament for Queenborough, Kent, but his attention was again drawn to North America, where he hoped to seize territory on behalf of the English crown.[14]
The six-year exploration license Gilbert had secured by letters patent from the crown in 1578 was on the point of expiring, when he succeeded in 1583 in raising significant sums from EnglishCatholic investors. The investors were constrained by penal laws in their own country, and loath to go into exile in hostile parts of Europe; the prospect of American settlement appealed to them, especially as Gilbert was proposing to seize some nine million acres (36,000 km2) around the riverNorumbega, to be parcelled out under his authority (although to be held ultimately bythe Crown). However, the Privy Council insisted that the investors payrecusancy fines before departing, and Catholic clergy and Spanish agents worked to dissuade them from interfering in America. Shorn of his Catholic financing, Gilbert set sail with a fleet of five vessels in June 1583. One of the vessels – Bark Raleigh, owned and commanded by SirWalter Raleigh – turned back owing to lack of victuals. Gilbert's crews were made up of misfits, criminals, and pirates, but in spite of the many problems caused by their lawlessness, the fleet reachedNewfoundland.
On arriving at the port ofSt. John's, Gilbert was blockaded by the fishing fleet under the organisation of the port admiral (an Englishman) on account of piracy committed against a Portuguese vessel in 1582 by one of Gilbert's commanders. Once this resistance was overcome, Gilbert took possession of Newfoundland (including the lands 200 leagues to the north and south) for the English Crown on 5 August 1583.[2] This involved the cutting of turf to symbolise the transfer of possession of the soil, according to the common law of England. The locals presented him with a dog, which he named Stella after theNorth Star. He claimed authority over the fish stations at St. John's and levied a tax on the fishermen from several countries who worked this rich sea near theGrand Banks of Newfoundland.
On 20 August his fleet departed for the river Norumbega region on the American mainland.[2] During this voyage, Gilbert sailed onEnglish ship Squirrel.[2] He ordered a controversial change of course for the fleet. Owing to his obstinacy and disregard for the views of superior mariners, the shipDelight ran aground and sank with the loss of all but sixteen of its crew on one of the sandbars ofSable Island.[15]Delight had been the largest remaining ship in the squadron (an unwise choice to lead in uncharted coastal waters) and contained most of the remaining supplies.
After discussions with Edward Hayes and William Cox, captain and master ofGolden Hind respectively,[16] Gilbert decided on 31 August to return to England.[2] The fleet made good speed, clearingCape Race after two days, and was soon clear of land. At some point in the voyage, asea monster was sighted, said to have resembled a lion with glaring eyes.[17] Gilbert had stepped on a nail on theSquirrel and on 2 September went aboardGolden Hind to have his foot bandaged and to discuss means of keeping the two little ships together on their Atlantic crossing.[2] Gilbert refused to leaveSquirrel and after a strong storm they had a spell of clear weather and made fair progress. Gilbert went aboardGolden Hind again, visited with Hayes and insisted once more on returning toSquirrel, even though Hayes insisted she was over-gunned and unsafe for sailing.[2] Nearly 900 miles (1,400 km) away from Cape Race, near theAzores, they encountered high waves of heavy seas, "breaking short and high Pyramid wise", said Hayes.[2]
On 9 September,Squirrel was nearly overwhelmed but recovered.[2] Despite the persuasions of others, who wished him to take to the larger vessel, Gilbert stayed put and was observed sitting in the stern of his frigate, reading a book. WhenGolden Hind came within hailing distance, the crew heard Gilbert cry out repeatedly, "We are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!" as he lifted his palm to the skies to illustrate his point.[2][18] At midnight the frigate's lights were extinguished and the watch onGolden Hind cried out "the Generall was cast away".[2]Squirrel had gone down with all hands. It is thought Gilbert's reading material was theUtopia of SirThomas More, which contains the following passage: "He that hathe no grave is covered with the skye: and, the way to heaven out of all places is of like length and distance."[2]
Gilbert was part of a prominent generation of Devonshire men, who combined the roles of adventurer, writer, soldier and mariner.A. L. Rowse writes of him as,
an interesting psychological case, with the symptoms of disturbed personality that often go with men of mark, not at all the simple Elizabethan seaman ofFroude's Victorian view. He was passionate and impulsive, a nature liable to violence and cruelty – as came out in his savage repression of rebels in Ireland – but also intellectual and visionary, a questing and original mind, with the personal magnetism that went with it. People were apt to be both attracted and repelled by him, to follow his leadership and yet be mistrustful of him.[19]
He was outstanding for his initiative and originality, if not for his successes, but it was in his efforts at colonisation that he had the most influence. In Ireland, Ulster and Munster were forcibly colonised by the English, and the American venture did eventually flourish. The formality of his annexation of Newfoundland eventually achieved reality in 1610. Perhaps of more significance was the issuance of aroyal charter to Raleigh in 1584,[20] based in part from Gilbert's earlier patent; with this backing, he undertook theRoanoke expeditions, the first sustained attempt by the English crown to establishcolonies in North America.
Gilbert was the father of Ralegh Gilbert, who was to become second in command of the failedPopham Colony inMaine.Gilbert Sound nearGreenland was named after him byJohn Davis.[21]
Certain contemporaries speculated that he was apederast.Sir Thomas Smith remarked that the only way to soothe his temper was to send a boy to him.[22][23]
