Hayes Barton
This year celebrates the 400th anniversary of the arrival in 1607 of Captain John Smith's English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled to participate in the ceremonies at Jamestown commemorating the event. It is significant to note the first Queen Elizabeth was the English monarch to issue the first letters of patent needed to establish English settlements in the New World.
But, before there was Jamestowne, there was Sir Walter Raleigh, his half brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and Raleigh's cousin, Sir Richard Grenville and the Roanoke Hundred. Roanoke Hundred? Not a rock group, though; just the first hundred men -- actually one hundred and eight to be exact -- adventurers who made a voyage in 1585 led by Raleigh's cousin, the Sir RIchard Grenville, in the attempt to plant the first English Colony in the New World. But circumstances prevailed against Grenville's venture and the attempt lasted only for a short time. Roanoke Island, the name of the attempted seat, was located in present day North Carolina on an inlet just west of present day Nags Head on North Carolina's Outer Banks. A replica of a type of ship used to make those first voyages to Roanoke Island -- for there were three -- sits along side the pier in present day Manteo and you are struck about how small it is.
Walter Raleigh financed much of the expedition and raised additional money. Unable to lead the expedition himself, chose Sir Richard Grenville to lead the expedition to claim the patent and seat the English colony.
Hayes Barton, featured in the above photograph, was the house where Sir Walter was born. Called a longhouse, from there he made his way into the highest eschelons of English power -- the Queen's inner circle -- where, until he fell in love and married one of the ladies of the Queen's court, he was the Queen's favorite. After that, not so much, when the Queen banished him from court and imprisoned him in the Tower.
Today Hayes Barton still stands as a working farm and is located in England's West County in the county of Devon in East Budleigh on the English Channel. The original part of the house is believed to have been built about 1450, constructed of cob with an arch-braced collar beam thatched roof. The Devon porch was probably added during the time of Raleigh to form the letter "E" in honour of the Queen, a common practice at the time. Sir Walter's father was a tenant at Hayes Barton and a Church Warden at East Budleigh where the family crest on the bench end and his step-mother's tomb can be seen today.
Raleigh's room looks out on Hayes Wood through an upstairs window. The house sits on a slight hill and the land at the back of the house continues its incline to meet the horizon. The day I saw this lovely place was a glorius day and a farmer on a tractor was tilling the land, moving back and forth horizonally near the top of the hill, of which the picture shows how much had already been turned over. Too bad I did not capture a picture of him on the tractor. I tried to visualize how it all may have looked in Raleigh's time but the only thing certain was that the farmer would not have been driving the tractor. The narrow road leading left, away from the entrance, runs through a dense growth of ancient trees and their branches are entangled overhead to form a canopy above the lane.
From Hayes Barton to the Court of Elizabeth I, while not a straight line, nevertheless came to pass when Raleigh was about twenty eight years old and 20 years the Queen's junior. At court he cultivated associations and opportunities and in time accumulated much wealth and influence. But, also a hardworking servant of the Crown, he was elected a Member of Parliament for Devon and appointed Vice Admiral of the West, Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall and Lord Warden of the Stanneries (the mining towns of The West Country).
In the early 1580s he tried to buy Hayes Barton, but was unsuccessful in persuading its owner, Richard Duke, to sell the estate. His consolation may have the grant he received of twelve thousand acres in Ireland and, later, forty-two thousand acres including the castles of Lismore and Waterford.
As a young man he was very much interested in the expeditions to the New World of his half brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/humfrey.htm
and in 1583, Raleigh helped pay for what would be Gilbert's final expedition. Sir Humphrey reached Newfoundland, but on his return trip to England, he died aboard his ship, The Squirrel, when it sank near the Azores. Gilbert's aim had been to establish English colonies in North America which he tried to do 1578 and again in 1580 and Raleigh, not forgetting the aim, was able to acquire his half-brother's patent to explore and colonize the east coast of North America. And, while Raleigh never traveled to North America, himself, shortly after gaining the patent, he sent three expeditions, the first, in 1584.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/raleigh.htm
It was chiefly a mission to better obtain a clearer view of what a plan of colonization would entail. The second expedition, in 1585, the above mentioned Roanoke Hundred, created a short lived attempt for further exploration into the hinterlands and on the third and final expedition, in 1587, colonists established what was meant to be a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island. The colony failed, and the fate of the colonists, through the centuries, has remained a mystery. Today that lost settlement is known as "The Lost Colony."
The 1585 expedition led by Sir Richard Grenville and set sail from Portsmouth on 9th April 1585 with five ships and two pinnaces. Grenville sailed on the Tyger with Simon Fernandez as the pilot. Most of the adventurers, like Grenville, were from Devon, officers and seamen, alike. A pinnace sank in a storm off Portugal; and though the fleet was scattered, it came together again off Puerto Rico and all the vessels continued together to the tiny island west of the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina opposite Nags Head on the present day Outer Banks.
Once there, Sir Richard began the attempt at exploration and when the settlement began to take form, set off on a return voyage to England for needed supplies leaving Sir Richard Lane in charge in his absence. On the return voyage to England, he captured a Spanish ship, the Santa Maria, filled with gold, silver, pearls, sugar and spices and much of the Spanish crew to be held for ransom and when he reached England he was greeted triumphantly on the success of the voyage.
Detained on his return voyage to Roanoke, the colonists he had left, having become heavily dependent on their Native American hosts for food and needed supplies as they continued to wait for Grenville's return led to serious disputes, that when Sir Francis Drake unexpectedly sailed into shore, the adventurers took the advantage of Drake's arrival to return to England with him. Shortly after Drake set sail, Sir Richard arrived back at Roanoke Island and found all of his settlement gone, except three men inadvertantly left on the island in the midst of Drake's departure, who then returned to England with Grenville.
The third attempt in 1587, the Lost Colony, was the last attempt at settlement by the English in North America in that century, when all their available resources being mustered in their fight against Spain precluded their resupplying and reinforcing the settlement until after the war's conclusion and it was not until 1607 when a new company, the Virginia Company, was finally able, after much duress and travail for the latest adventurers, to establish a permanent settlement at Jamestown in present day Virginia.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/states/va01.htm
Raleigh introduced the use of tobacco into England and until the last half of the twentieth century, when tobacco use had become scientifically known as detrimental to health, tobacco played a leading role in the econony of both Virginia and North Carolina. In 1727 "Tobacco notes" became Legal Tender in Virginia. Tobacco Notes attesting to quality and quantity of one's tobacco kept in public warehouses were authorized as legal tender in Virginia. Used as units of monetary exchange throughout 18th Century, the notes were more convenient than the acutal leaf, which had been in use as money for over a century prior to 1727. Seventeeth and eighteenth century records show most all of the monetary transactions were exchanged in tobacco.
So when the current Queen Elizabeth visits Jamestown, it should be remembered that the first Queen Elizabeth made it all possible.
