Primrose garlands in Coombe Wood shone with the pale gold of winter
sunshine. Violets among dry leaves peered sedately at the pageant of
spring. In the royal hunting forest of Richmond, venerable trees
unfolded from their tiny buds canopies like the fairy pavilion of
Paribanou.
Philip Armadas and Arthur Barlowe, coming up from Kingston, beheld all
this April beauty with the wistful pleasure of those who bid farewell to
a dearly beloved land. Within a fortnight Sir Walter Ralegh's two ships,
which they commanded, would be out upon the gray Atlantic. The Queen
would lie at Richmond this night, and the two young captains had been
bidden to court that she might see what manner of men they were.[1]
Armadas, though born in Hull, was the son of a Huguenot refugee. Barlowe
was English to the back-bone. Both knew more of the ways of ships than
the ways of courts. Yet for all her magnificence and her tempers
Elizabeth had a way with her in dealing with practical men. She welcomed
merchants, builders, captains and soldiers as frankly as she did Italian
scholars or French gallants. Her attention was as keen when she was
framing a letter to the Grand Turk securing trade privileges to London
or Bristol, as when she listened to the graceful flatteries of Spenser
or Lyly. In this year 1584 she had granted a patent to Ralegh for
further explorations of the lands north of Florida discovered half a
century since by Sebastian Cabot. She heaped upon it rights and
privileges which made Hatton and her other court gallants grind their
teeth. Ralegh knew well that this was no time for him to be wandering
about strange coasts. He was therefore fitting out an expedition to make
a preliminary voyage and report to him what was found.
"'T is like this," Armadas was saying with the buoyant confidence which
endeared him alike to his patron and his comrade. "North you get the
scurvy and south the fever, but midway is the climate for a new empire.
There Englishmen may have timber for their shipyards, and pasture for
their sheep and cattle, and meadows for their corn. There Flemings and
Huguenots may live and work in peace. Our sons may be lords and princes
of a new world, Arthur lad."
"Aye; but there's the Inquisition in the Indies to reckon with,"
answered Barlowe with his grim half-smile. "And if what we hear of the
barbarians be true, the men who make the first plantation may be forced
to plant and build with their left hand and keep their right for
fighting."
"Oh, the barbarians,--" Armadas began, and paused, for the chatter of
young voices broke forth in a copse.
"I tell thee salvages be hairy men with tails like monkeys. My uncle he
has seen them on the Guinea coast."
"Dick, if thou keep not off my heels in the passamezzo--"
"Be not so cholerical, Tom Poope, or the Master'll give thee a tuning.
Thou'rt not Lord of the Indies yet."
"Faith," chuckled Barlowe, "here be some little eyasses practising a
fantasy for the Queen's pleasure. Hey, lads, what's all the pother
about?"[2]
The company emerged half-shamefacedly from the shrubbery, a group of
youngsters between ten and fourteen, in fanciful costumes of silk and
brocade, or mimic armor and puffed doublets. The central figure of the
group was a handsome little lad in a sort of tunic of hairy undressed
goatskin, a feather head-dress and gilded ornaments. His dark face had a
sullen look, and he grasped his lance as if about to use it. Another
urchin, whose great arched eyebrows, rolling eyes and impish mouth
marked him as the clown of the company, made answer boldly,
"'T is Tom Poope, your lordships, who mislikes the dress he must wear,
and says if we have but a king and queen of the monkeys to welcome the
discoverers, the Queen will only laugh at us, and 'a will not stay to be
laughed at. 'T is a masque of the ventures of Captain Cabot, look you,
and Tom's the King of the salvages and makes all the long speeches."
"Upon my word, coz," laughed Armadas, "I think we have stumbled upon a
pretty conceit intended to do honor to our master. Methinks His Royal
Highness here has the right on't--the man who made that costume never
saw true Indians."
"Have you seen them, then, sir? Are you a voyager?" asked Tom Poope
eagerly, his face brightening. "And will you look on and tell us if we
do it right?"
Barlowe grinned good-humoredly, and Armadas waved a laughing assent.
They seated themselves upon a grassy bank and the play began.
Before half a dozen speeches had been said it was quite clear that the
dark-eyed child who played the Indian King was the heart and fire of the
piece. They were all clever children and well trained, but he alone
lived his part. His small figure moved with a grace and dignity that
even his grotesque apparel could not spoil. The costumer had evidently
built his design for the costume of an Indian chief upon legends of wild
men drawn from the history of Hanno and his gorillas, adding whatever
absurdities he had gathered from sailors of the Gold Coast and the
Caribbean Sea. Armadas, who had made a voyage to Newfoundland and seen
the stately figure of a sachem outlined against a sunset sky, thought
that the boy's instinct was truer than the costumer's tradition.
"Let me arrange thy habit, lad," he said when the first scene ended and
the clown began his dance. With a few deft touches, ripping down one
side of the tunic and wreathing a girdle of ivy and bracken, he changed
the whole outline of the figure. With the hairy tunic draped as a cloak,
and the ungainly plumed head-dress arranged as a warrior's crest, the
character which had been almost ridiculous became heroic, as the author
of the masque evidently had intended. The little King's beautiful voice
changed like the singing of a Cremona violin as he spoke his lines to
the white stranger:
"To this our wild domain we welcome thee
In honorable hospitality.
If Thou dost come as the great Lord of Life,
The Lord of bear and wolf, and stag and fox,
Leopard and ape, and rabbits of the rocks,
We are thy children, as our brothers are,--
The furry folk of forest fastnesses,
The bright-winged birds that wanton with the breeze,
The seal that sport amid the sapphire seas.
We worship gods of lightning and of thunder,
Of winds and hissing waves, the rainbow's wonder,
The fruits and grains, borne by the kindly earth,
And all the mysteries of death and birth.
Say who you are, and from what realm you hail,
White spirits that in winged peraguas sail?
If ye be angels, tell us of your heaven.
If ye be men, tell us who is your King."
It was not a long play, and had been written by a court poet especially
for the children, of whose acting the Queen was fond. There were dances
and songs--a sailor's contra-dance to the music of a horn pipe, a
stately passamezzo by the Indian court, a madrigal and an ode in
compliment to the Queen.[3] Finally the leader of the white men planted
the banner of England on the little knoll, and in the name of his
sovereign received the homage of the Indians. The last notes of the
final chorus had just died away when trumpets called from the Thames,
and the scene melted into chaos. Off ran the players, cramming costumes
and properties into their wallets as they went, to see the Queen land at
the water-gate. Amadas and Barlowe took the same direction less
hurriedly.
"I wonder now," said Armadas thoughtfully, "how much of prophecy there
may have been in that mascarado? Do you know, old lad, we may be taken
for gods ourselves in two months' time? God grant they think us not
devils before we are done!"
"We need have no fear if no Spaniards have landed on that coast before
us," said Barlowe stolidly. "If they have--no poetical speeches will
help our cause."
The Queen's great gilded barge with its crimson hangings came sweeping
up the river just as they joined the company drawn up to receive her.
The tall graceful figure of Ralegh was nearest her, and when she set
her small neat foot upon the stone step it was his hand which she
accepted to steady her in landing. She was a sovereign every inch even
in her traveling cloak, but when dinner was over, and she took her seat
in the throne-room, she dazzled the eye with the splendor of gold and
pearl network over brilliant velvets, the glitter of diamonds among the
frost-work of Flanders lace. Elizabeth knew how to stage the great Court
drama as well as any Master of the Revels.
Moreover, what the Queen did, set the fashion for all the courtiers, to
the profit and prosperity of merchants and craftsmen. Earls might
secretly writhe at the prospect of entertaining their sovereign with
suitable magnificence, but the tradesmen and purveyors rubbed their
hands. When a company of Flemings was employed for four years on the
carving of the beams and panels of the Middle Temple Hall, or noblemen
to be in the fashion built new banquet-rooms in the Italian style, with
long windows and galleries, English, Flemish and Huguenot builders
flocked to the kingdom. If she took with one hand she gave with the
other, and it was not without reason that the common folk of England
long after she was dead called their daughters after "good Queen Bess."
To Armadas and Barlowe it was a novel and splendid pageant. After they
were presented to the Queen, and expressed their modest thanks for the
honor of being sent upon her service, they withdrew to a window-recess
to watch the company. The gentlemen pensioners in gold-embroidered suits
and lace-edged ruffs, the dignified councilors in richer if darker
robes, the maids of honor, bright as damask roses moving in the wind,
all circled around one pale woman with keen gray-blue eyes that never
betrayed her. A little apart, speaking now and then to some courtier or
councilor, stood the Spanish Ambassador in somber black and gold, like a
watchful spider in a garden of rich flowers. Ralegh, careless and
debonair, gave him a frank salutation as he came to speak to his
captains.
"You may repent of the venture and wish to stay at Court," he said
smiling. "The Queen thinks well of ye."
"Not I," growled Barlowe, and Armadas laughed, "My Lord, do you think so
ill of us as to deem us weathercocks in the wind?"
"You must take care to avoid the clutches of the Inquisition," Ralegh
added, not lowering his voice noticeably, yet not speaking loud enough
to be heard by others. "I have hastened the fitting out of the ships and
delayed your coming to Court lest Philip's ferrets be set on you. The
life of Kings and Queens is like to a game of chess."
"Of primero rather, it seems to me," said Armadas, "or the game the
Spanish call ombre. Chess is brain against brain, fair play. In the
other one may win the game by the fall of the cards--or by cheatery."[4]
"A good simile, Philip," said Ralegh, with shining eyes. "'T is all very
well to say, as some do, that if old King Harry were alive he'd have our
Englishmen out of Spanish prisons. But in his day Spain had hardly begun
her conquests over seas, and the Inquisition had not tasted English
blood. It was Philip that taught our men primero--and the best player is
he who can bluff, so playing his hand that his enemy guesses not the
truth. And the stake in this game is--Empire."
Ralegh's head lifted as if he saw visions. In silence the three
joined the company now assembling to see the masque of the children.
Bravely it went, nimbly the dancers footed it, sweetly rang the
choruses, and well did the little chief and captain play their parts. At
the end the Queen, saying in merry courtesy that she could do no less
for him who had found her a kingdom and him who freely gave it,
presented a ring set with a carnelian heart to Hal Kempe who played
Cabot, but about the neck of Tom Poope she hung a golden chain, for if
he had to wear her fetters, she said, they should at least be golden.
And so the play came to an end, and work began.
[Illustration: "IF HE HAD TO WEAR HER FETTERS, THEY SHOULD AT LEAST BE
GOLDEN."--_Page_ 245]
On April 27, with a fair wind, the two ships of Ralegh's venture went
down to the Channel and out upon the western ocean. They had good
fortune, for not a Spaniard crossed their course. Nine weeks later they
sighted the coast which the French had once called Carolina. Before they
were near enough to see it well they caught the scent of a wilderness of
flowering vines and trees blown seaward, and as they neared the shore
they saw tall cedars and goodly cypresses, pines and oaks and many other
trees, some of them quite unknown to English soil. It is written in
Armadas's journal that the wild grapes were so abundant near the sea
that sometimes the waves washed over them; and the sands were yellow as
gold. The first time that an arquebus was fired, great flocks of birds
rose from the trees, screaming all together like the shouting of an
army, but there seemed to be no fierce beasts nor indeed any large
animals.
"With kine, sheep, cattle, and poultry, and such herbs and grain as can
be brought from England," said Armadas, "this land would sure be a
paradise on earth."
"You forget the serpent," returned Barlowe, who had been reared by a
Puritan grandfather and knew his Bible.
"I am not likely to forget our great enemy while the name of Ribault or
Coligny remains unforgotten," said the other. "All the more reason why
this land should be kept for the Religion."
Indeed when they landed they found little in the country or the people
to recall Adam's doom. They set up their English standard upon an island
and took possession of the domain in the name of Elizabeth of England.
This island the Indians called Wocoken, and the inlet where the ships
lay, Ocracoke. They went inland as the guests of the native chiefs, and
on the island of Roanoke they were entertained by the people of Wingina
the king, most kindly and hospitably. The sea remained smooth and
pleasant and the air neither very hot nor very cold, but sweet and
wholesome. Manteo and Wanchese, two of the Indian warriors, chose to
sail away with the white men, and in good time the ships returning
reached Plymouth harbor, early in September of that year. Manteo was
made Lord of Roanoke, the first and the last of the American Indians to
bear an English title to his wild estate. The new province was named
Virginia, with the play upon words favored in that day, for it was a
virgin country, and its sovereign was the Virgin Queen.
When the two captains came again to London they found the air full of
the intriguings of Spain. In that year Santa Cruz had organized a plot
against the Queen's life, discovered almost by chance; in that year it
became clear that Philip's long chafing against the growing sea-power of
England and his hatred of such rangers as Drake and Hawkins must sooner
or later blaze up in war. And by chance also Armadas learned how narrow
had been their own escape from a Spanish prison.
He had been the guest of a friend at the acting of Master Lyly's new
masque by the Children of the Chapel at Gray's Inn. Little Tom Poope
sang Apelles's song and ruffled it afterward among the ladies of the
court, as lightly as Essex himself. Armadas came out into the dank
Thames air humming over the dainty verses,--
"'At last he staked her all his arrows.
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows--'"
A small hand slid into his own and pulled him toward a byway.
"Why, how is it with thee, Master Poope? Didst play thy part bravely,
lad."
"Come," said the boy in a low breathless voice. "I have somewhat to tell
thee. In here," and he drew Armadas toward a doorway. "'T is my mother's
lodging--there is nothing to fear."
A woman let them in as if she had been watching for them, opened the
door into a small plainly furnished private room and vanished.
"Art not going on any more voyages to the Virginias?" asked the boy, his
eager eyes on the Captain's face.
"Not for the present, my boy. Why? Wouldst like to sail with us, and
learn more of the ways of Indian Princes?"
"Nay, I have no time for fooling--they'll miss me," said the youngster
impatiently. "The Spanish Ambassador has his spies upon thee, and thou
must leave a false scent for them to smell out. He sent his report on
thee, eight months ago."
"Before we sailed to Roanoke?" queried Armadas with lifted brows.
"Before thou went to Richmond that day. His Excellency quizzed me after
the masque and asked me did I know when the ships sailed and whither
they were bound, believing me to be cozened by his gold. I told him they
were for Florida to find the fountain of youth for the Queen, and would
sail on May-day!"
A grin of pure delight widened the boy's face, and he wriggled in
gleeful remembrance where he perched, on a tall oaken chair. "Oh, they
will swallow any bait, those gudgeons, and some day their folly will be
the end of them. I would not have them catch thee if they could be
fooled, and well did I fool them, I tell thee!"
"For--heaven's--sake!" stammered Armadas in amazement. "Little friend,"
he added gently, "it seems to me that we owe thee life and honor. But
why didst do it?"
"Why?" The boy's fine dark brows bent in a quick frown. "What a pox
right had they to be tempting me to be false to the salt that I and they
had eaten? I hate all Spaniards. I'd ha' done it any way," he added
shyly, "for to win our game, but I did it for love o' thee because thou
took my part about the mascarado."
"I think," said Armadas as he took from his wallet a bracelet of Indian
shell-work hung with baroque pearls, "that all our fine plans would ha'
come to naught but for thy wise head, young 'un. These be pearls from
the Virginias, and if you find 'em scorched, that's only because the
heathen know no other way of opening the oyster-shell but by fire. The
beads are such as they use for money and call roanoke. The gold of the
Spanish mines can buy men maybe, but it does not buy such loyalty as
thine, that's sure. I have no gold to give, lad,--but wear this for a
love-token. And I think that could the truth be known, the Queen herself
would freely name thee Lord of Roanoke."