Because of his full accomplishment of what others essayed and only
partially accomplished, Hudson's name is the best known--excepting
only that of Columbus--of all the names of explorers by land and
sea. From Purchas's time downward it has headed the list of Arctic
discoverers; in every history of America it has a leading place; on
every map of North America it thrice is written large; here in New
York, which owes its founding to his exploring voyage, it is
uttered--as we refer to the river, the county, the city, the
street, the railroad, bearing it--a thousand times a day.
And yet, in despite of this familiarity with his name, our certain
knowledge of Hudson's life is limited to a period (April 19,
1607-June 22,1611) of little more than four years. Of that period,
during which he did the work that has made him famous, we have a
partial record--much of it under his own hand--that certainly is
authentic in its general outlines until it reaches the culminating
tragedy. At the very last, where we most want the clear truth, we
have only the one-sided account presented by his murderers: and
murderers, being at odds with moral conventions generally, are not,
as a rule, models of veracity. And so it has fallen out that what
we know about the end of Hudson's life, save that it ended foully,
is as uncertain as the facts of the earlier and larger part of his
life are obscure.
An American investigator, the late Gen. John Meredith Read, has
gone farthest in unearthing facts which enlighten this obscurity;
but with no better result than to establish certain strong
probabilities as to Hudson's ancestry and antecedents. By General
Read's showing, the Henry Hudson mentioned by Hakluyt as one of the
charter members (February 6, 1554-5) of the Muscovy Company,
possibly was our navigator's grandfather. He was a freeman of
London, a member of the Skinners Company, and sometime an alderman.
He died in December, 1555, according to Stow, "of the late hote
burning feuers, whereof died many olde persons, so that in London
died seven Aldermen in the space of tenne monthes." They gave that
departed worthy a very noble funeral! Henry Machyn, who had charge
of it, describes it in his delightful "Diary" in these terms: "The
xx day of December was bered at Sant Donstones in the Est master
Hare Herdson, altherman of London and Skynner, and on of the
masters of the gray frere in London with men and xxiiij women in
mantyl fresse [frieze?] gownes, a herse [catafalque] of wax and
hong with blake; and there was my lord mare and the swordberer in
blake, and dyvers oder althermen in blake, and the resedew of the
althermen, atys berying; and all the masters, boyth althermen and
odur, with ther gren staffes in ther hands, and all the chylders of
the gray frersse, and iiij in blake gownes bayring iiij gret
stayffes-torchys bornying, and then xxiiij men with torchys
bornying; and the morrow iij masses songe; and after to ys plasse
to dener; and ther was ij goodly whyt branches, and mony prestes
and clarkes syngying." Stow adds that the dead alderman's widow,
Barbara, caused to be set up in St. Dunstan's to his memory--and
also to that of her second husband, Sir Richard Champion, and
prospectively to her own--a monument in keeping with their worldly
condition and with the somewhat mixed facts of their triangular
case. This was a "very faire Alabaster Tombe, richly and curiously
gilded, and two ancient figures of Aldermen in scarlet kneeling,
the one at the one end of the tombe in a goodly arch, the other at
the other end in like manner, and a comely figure of a lady between
them, who was wife to them both."
The names have been preserved in legal records of three of the
sons--Thomas, John and Edward--of this eminent Londoner: who
flourished so greatly in life; who was given so handsome a send-off
into eternity; and who, presumably, retains in that final state an
undivided one-half interest in the lady whose comely figure was
sculptured upon his tomb. General Read found record of a Henry
Hudson, mentioned by Stow as a citizen of London in the year 1558,
who may also have been a son of the alderman; of a Captain Thomas
Hudson, of Limehouse, who had a leading part in an expedition set
forth "into the parts of Persia and Media" by the Muscovy Company
in the years 1577-81; of a Thomas Hudson, of Mortlake, who was a
friend of Dr. John Dee, and to whom references frequently are made
in the famous "Diary" such as the following: "March 6 [1583]. I,
and Mr. Adrian Gilbert and John Davis did mete with Mr. Alderman
Barnes, Mr. Townson, and Mr. Young, and Mr. Hudson abowt the N.W.
voyage." Concerning a Christopher Hudson--who was in the service of
the Muscovy Company as its agent and factor at Moscow from about
the year 1553 until about the year 1576--the only certainty is that
he was not a son of the Alderman. There is a record of the year
1560 that "Christopher Hudson hath written to come home ...
considering the death of his father and mother"; and, as the
Alderman died in the year 1555, and as his remarried widow was
alive in the year 1560, this is conclusive. Being come back to
England, this Christopher rose to be a person of importance in the
Company; as appears from the fact that he was one of a committee
(circa 1583) appointed to confer with "Captain Chris. Carlile ...
upon his intended discoveries and attempt into the hithermost parts
of America."
[Illustration: APPARATUS FOR CORRECTING ERRORS OF THE COMPASS.
FROM "CERTAINE ERRORS IN NAVIGATION." LONDON, 1610]
General Read thus summarized the result of his investigations: "We
have learned that London was the residence of Henry Hudson the
elder, of Henry Hudson his son, and of Christopher Hudson, and that
Captain Thomas Hudson lived at Limehouse, now a part of the
Metropolis; while Thomas Hudson, the friend of Dr. John Dee,
resided at Mortlake, then only six or seven miles from the City
... By reference to a statement made by Abakuk Prickett, in his
'Larger Discourse,' it will be found that Henry Hudson the
discoverer also was a citizen of London and had a house there."
From all of which, together with various minor corroborative facts,
he draws these conclusions: That Henry Hudson the discoverer was
the descendant, probably the grandson, of the Henry Hudson who died
while holding the office of Alderman of the City of London in the
year 1555; that he "received his early training, and imbibed the
ideas which controlled the purposes of his after life, under the
fostering care of the great Corporation [the Muscovy Company] which
his relatives had helped to found and afterwards to maintain"; that
he entered the service of that Company as an apprentice, in
accordance with the then custom, and in due course was advanced to
command rank.
That is the net result of General Read's most laboriously
painstaking investigations. The facts for which he searched so
diligently, and so longed to find, he did not find. In a foot-note
he added: "The place and date of Hudson's birth will doubtless be
accurately ascertained in the course of the examinations now being
made in England under my directions. The result of these researches
I hope to be able to present to the public at no distant day." That
note was written nearly fifty years ago, and its writer died long
since with his hope unrealized.
But while General Read failed to accomplish his main purpose, he
did, as I have said, more than any other investigator has done to
throw light on Hudson's ancestry, and on his connection with the
Muscovy Company in whose service he sailed. Our navigator may or
may not have been a grandson of the alderman who cut so fine a
figure in the City three centuries and a half ago; but beyond a
reasonable doubt he was of the family--so eminently distinguished
in the annals of discovery--to which that alderman, one of the
founders of the Muscovy Company, and Christopher Hudson, one of its
later governors, and Captain Thomas Hudson, who sailed in its
service, all belonged. And, being akin to such folk, the natural
disposition to adventure was so strong within him that it led him
on to accomplishments which have made him the most illustrious
bearer of his name.