GEORGE CLIFFORD, EARL OF CUMBERLAND, THE
CHAMPION OF THE TILT-YARD
When a nobleman neglects his private duties to his home estates and
spends his fortune in fitting out ships to seek gold and jewels, and
to damage the trade of a country he hates, different estimates will
be formed of the honesty and nobility of the motives by which he is
prompted.
We shall see in the sketch of George Clifford's life how various
motives, good and indifferent, urged him to play the sea-king.
He was born in his father's castle at Brougham, Westmorland, in
August 1558, being fourteenth baron Clifford of Westmorland. His
family history had been distinguished, for the Fair Rosamond of Henry
II. was a Clifford, and in the wars of York and Lancaster the
Cliffords took a prominent part on the Lancastrian side. When George
was still a boy his father brought about his betrothment to the Lady
Margaret Russell, daughter of the second Earl of Bedford. He was
being educated at Battle Abbey when his father died, and later he
went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to complete his studies under
Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was then Master of
Trinity. He also proceeded to Oxford for a time, as was not unusual
in those days.
Before he was nineteen he was married to his betrothed in St. Mary
Overy's Church, Southwark: the young lady was scarce seventeen years
old. Clifford was a young man of expensive tastes. Amongst his
other qualifications for Court life he excelled all the nobles of his
time in tilting, and soon won the recognition of the Queen by his
prowess in the Westminster tilt-yard. So he was made a Knight of the
Garter, and in the twenty-eighth year of his age was appointed one of
the forty Peers by whom Mary Queen of Scots was tried at Fotheringay
Castle, in Nottinghamshire.
Was it policy, or love of adventure, or just desire for gain? The
Earl soon began to form schemes for sending ships to plunder the
Spaniards; he fitted out at his own cost the _Red Dragon_ of 260
tons, and the barque _Clifford_ of 130. Raleigh sent a pinnace to
join them, and they sailed in 1586 under the command of Robert
Withrington. They took a few merchantmen on their way to Sierra
Leone; the principle on which they acted was a mixture of courtesy
and bullying. Hakluyt says: "Our Admiral hailed their Admiral with
courteous words, willing him to strike his sails and come aboard, but
he refused; whereupon our Admiral lent him a piece of ordnance" (it
sounds so kind and friendly) "which they repaid double, so that we
grew to some little quarrel." The result was that the English
boarded the hulks and helped themselves. For they found the hulks
were laden in Lisbon with Spanish goods, and so thought them fair
game. When they reached Guinea they went ashore, and in their search
for water and wood came suddenly upon a town of negroes, who struck
up the drum, raised a yell, and shot off arrows as thick as hail.
The English returned the fire, having about thirty calivers, and
retired to their boats, "having reasonable store of fish"; "and
amongst the rest we hauled up a great foul monster, whose head and
back were so hard that no sword could enter it; but being thrust in
under the belly in divers places, much wounded, he bent a sword in
his mouth as a man would do a girdle of leather about his hand: he
was in length about nine feet, and had nothing in his belly but a
certain quantity of small stones." Later on they found another town
of about two hundred houses and "walled about with mighty great trees
and stakes, so thick that a rat could hardly get in or out." They
got in, for the negroes had fled, and found the town finely and
cleanly kept, "that it was an admiration to us all, for that neither
in the houses nor streets was so much dust to be found as would fill
an egg-shell." The English found little to take except some mats and
earthen pots; was it for this that they, on their departure, set the
town on fire? "It was burnt in a quarter of an hour, the houses
being covered with reeds and straw."
Thence they sailed across to America, having no little trouble with a
disease which they had caught ashore. They came to Buenos Ayres,
where was great store of corn, cattle, and wine; but no gold or
silver was to be had. Here they fell into some contention as to
their further course, but as food was growing scarce they sailed
northwards, till they came to Bahia, where they met a hot welcome of
balls and bullets, but took some prizes. Then came a storm, and some
of their prizes got loose and were lost. "Anon the people of the
country came down amaine upon us and beset us round, and shot at us
with their bows and arrows."
Of another fight which occurred shortly after, when the barque
_Clifford_ was boarded by the enemy, the merchant Sarracoll says:
"Giving a mighty shout they came all aboard together, crying,
'Entrad! Entrad!' but our men received them so hotly, with small
shot and pikes, that they killed them like dogs. And thus they
continued aboard almost a quarter of an hour, thinking to have
devoured our men, pinnace and all ... but God, who is the giver of
all victories, so blessed our small company that the enemy having
received a mighty foil was glad to rid himself from their hands:
whereas at their entrance we esteemed them to be no less than betwixt
two and three hundred men in the galley, we could scarce perceive
twenty men at their departure stand on their legs; but the greater
part of them was slain, their oars broken and the galley hanging upon
one side, as a sow that hath lost her left ear, with the number of
dead and dying that lay one upon another." While this terrible havoc
was a doing, others of the crew had gone ashore and fetched sixteen
young bullocks, "which was to our great comforts and refreshing."
After committing what havoc they could along the coast, with little
profit to themselves, the commander resolved to go home; which
resolution was "taken heavily of all the company--for very grief to
see my Lord's hopes thus deceived, and his great expenses cast away."
The Earl took part in the Armada fight on board the _Bonadventure_,
and the Queen, to mark her approbation, gave him a commission to go
the same year as General to the Court of Spain, lending him the
_Golden Lion_; this ship he victualled and furnished at his own
expense. After taking one merchant ship and weathering a storm, he
was obliged to turn.
But the Queen was his good friend and lent him the _Victory_, and
with three smaller ships and 400 men he sailed from Plymouth in 1589.
We do not hear what his Countess thought of so much wandering into
danger, but duty, or profit, called her lord to the high seas. He
made a few prizes, French and German, for he was not too scrupulous
about nationalities, and made for the Azores, where he cut out four
ships. At Flores he manned his boats and obtained food and water
from Don Antonio, a pretender to the throne of Portugal. As they
were rowing back to their ship, "the boat was pursued two miles by a
monstrous fish, whose fins many times appeared above water four or
five yards asunder, and his jaws gaping a yard and a half wide, not
without great danger of overturning the pinnace and devouring some of
the company"; they rowed at last away from the monster. They were
now joined by a ship of Raleigh's and two others.
Meanwhile the richly laden vessels of Spain were on their way home,
with orders to rendezvous at St. Helena. Some of the Earl's cruisers
sighted them, but did not dare attack the huge carracks, though
Linschoten tells us--and he was aboard one of them--that if the
English had attacked they must easily have been taken; for scurvy,
caused by bad food, was making ravages on the crews. "Every day men
who had been some days dead were discovered in the places whither
they had crept that they might lie down and die in peace." But all
the English cruisers did was to insult them with reproaches and annoy
them with musketry, and such small cannon-shot as vessels of thirty
tons could carry. As Admiral Colomb used to say, "A captain of a
man-of-war in those days could carry a cannon-ball in his coat-tail
pocket," so small and light were they.
When the Earl was told that the West Indian fleet had sailed past, he
returned to Fayal and took possession of the town, consisting then of
some five hundred well-built houses; the inhabitants had abandoned it
at his approach. He set a guard to preserve the churches and
monasteries and stayed there four days, till a ransom of 2000 ducats,
mostly in church-plate, was brought to him, with sixty butts of wine.
While taking two Brazilian ships at St. Mary's laden with sugar, the
bar detained his vessel in a position exposed to the enemy; eighty of
his men were killed, the Earl was wounded slightly in the side; "his
head also was broken with stones, so that the blood covered his face,
and both his face and legs were burnt with fire-balls."
On their way home they fell in with a Portuguese ship laden with
sugar, hides, and silver. Full of joy at their good speed they
resolved upon going home. Captain Lister was sent in the prize to
Portsmouth. He was wrecked at Helcliff, in Cornwall; all in her was
lost, and only five lives saved. The Earl was delayed so long by bad
weather that drink began to fail, and they had to collect what they
could in sheets during a storm of rain. Many licked the moist boards
and masts with their tongues, like dogs. In every corner of the ship
were heard the lamentable cries of the sick and hurt, ten or twelve
men died every night. Yet, we are told, the Earl ever encouraged his
men by his presence of mind and his example; then they spoke a vessel
which helped them with a little beer, and at last they put into
Ventre-haven on the west coast of Ireland.
On arriving in London, as if the Earl had not suffered enough
already, news was brought him that his eldest son was dead. But
shortly after came another messenger announcing the birth of a
daughter; this was the Lady Anne Clifford, who became, first,
Countess of Dorset, and then of Pembroke. In this voyage thirteen
prizes had been taken, and the profit doubled the outlay on his
adventure in spite of the loss of his richest prize. It is difficult
to realise the exceeding bitter feeling that existed between Spain
and England at that time--a bitterness sharpened by religious
differences, and kept in memory by private revenge.
For instance, Hakluyt tells us of a small English ship of about forty
tons which was captured on the seas. Her crew were put by the
Spaniards under hatches and coupled in bolts together; these men,
after they had been prisoners three or four days, were murdered by a
Spanish ensign-bearer, who had had a brother killed in the Armada
fight, and who wished to revenge his death. This man took a poniard
in his hand and went down under the hatches, where he found eight
Englishmen sitting in chains, and with the same poniard he stabbed
six of them to the heart; the remaining two clasped each other about
the middle and threw themselves into the sea and there were drowned.
It is only fair to say that this act was much disliked by the other
Spaniards, who carried the ensign-bearer a prisoner to Lisbon. The
King of Spain willed he should be sent to England, that the Queen
might treat him as she thought good; however, his friends interceded
that he might be beheaded instead. On a Good Friday, as the Cardinal
was going to Mass, captains and commanders stopped his Eminence and
entreated for the man's pardon, and in the end they got his pardon,
and his life was saved.
In 1592 the Earl of Cumberland hired the _Tiger_ of 600 tons, and
with his own ship the _Samson_, the _Golden Noble_, and two small
vessels, he set forth. Contrary winds kept him east of Plymouth so
long that it became too late to intercept the outward-bound carracks,
so the Earl transferred his command to Captain Norton and returned to
London. After some hard fighting the ships returned with a richly
laden carrack. The narrator of the voyage moralises upon the happy
finding thus: "I cannot but enter into the acknowledgment of God's
great favour towards our nation, who, by putting this purchase into
our hands, hath manifestly discovered those secret trades and Indian
riches which hitherto lay strangely hidden from us ... whereby it
should seem that the will of God for our good is to have us
communicate with them in those East Indian treasures, and by the
erection of a lawful traffic to better our means to advance true
religion and His holy service." The pious sailor then goes on to
enumerate the goods that were stored in the holds of the Spanish
carrack--from jewels and silks of China to spices and carpets of
Turkey--in all estimated to be worth £150,000. This was of course to
be divided amongst the adventurers.
But exaggerated expectations ended in general discontent, for the
Queen had one small ship at the capture of the carrack, and because
the Earl was not commanding in person his share was adjudged to
depend on her Majesty's mercy and bounty. The royal lioness "dealt
but indifferently with him." She took her share, and the other
jackals helped themselves as largely as they dared; so that the Earl
was fain to accept of £36,000 for him and his, as a pure gift. The
carrack was unloaded at Dartmouth, and being so huge and unwieldy she
was never removed from the river, "but there laid up her bones."
The spirit of adventure in the Earl was not quenched by this
disappointment, for in the latter end of 1593 he got ready two ships
royal and seven others, which set sail next spring. Off the isle of
Flores he met the Portuguese fleet and had to stand off to avoid
them, as they were too numerous to attack. He was taken ill and
would have died, had not Monson gone ashore on Corvo and stolen a
milch cow, which they brought aboard. Twelve hulks yielded him some
treasure, and he left for home after a gainful voyage.
Three of his ships he had sent to the West Indies, and they made for
the pearl fisheries at Margarita. A Spaniard treacherously showed
them where the pearls were stored in a ranckeria; they surprised it
by night with twenty-eight men and carried off £2000 worth of pearls.
Coasting along, two of them fell in with seven ships, moored
alongside head and stern, and fought all day, hammer-and-tongs. The
Spaniards got into their boats next day and made for the land,
carrying the rudders with them; the English helped themselves and
fired the ships. They then brought the chief ship of 250 tons safely
to Plymouth.
Next year the Earl set forth on his eighth voyage, and in June came
in sight of a big Indian ship whose name was _Las Cinque Llagas_
("the Five Wounds"), and she carried 1400 persons, of whom 270 were
slaves.
The Earl's _Mayflower_ was the first to get up to her, and was hotly
fired into; for the Portuguese had sworn to defend their ship to the
last, and fought with desperation. Don Rodrigo de Cordoba, having
both his legs shattered, cried out, "Sirs, I have got this in the
discharge of my duty. Be of good heart. Let no one forsake his
post; let us perish rather than be taken."
Twice did the English board, and twice were they driven out with
great loss. Downton the rear-admiral was crippled for life, and
Cave, who commanded the Earl's ship, was mortally wounded by a shot
through both legs. To make the hideous scene worse, fire was thrown
about and the _Cinque Llagas_ caught and began to burn.
A Franciscan friar, Antonio, was seen standing with a crucifix in his
hand, encouraging the crew to commit themselves to the waves and
God's mercy, rather than die in the flames, and a vast number plunged
into the sea. It is said that the English boats made no attempt to
save these unfortunates, but the English themselves were on fire and
were probably busy putting their own ships in order. But the
rear-admiral's boat picked up Nuno Velho and some others; Nuno had
been Governor of Mozambique and had been only recently shipwrecked
and rescued by the _Cinque Llagas_. There were also on board two
Portuguese ladies of high birth, Doña Isabel Pereira and her
beautiful daughter, Doña Luiza de Mello. They had been wrecked in
the _Santo Alberto_, and had since travelled through Kaffraria on
foot nearly a thousand miles. The young lady was travelling home to
take possession of her entailed property at Evora. In the confusion
and panic they could get no attention, and fear of something worse
than death urged them to fasten themselves together with a Franciscan
cord and leap into the sea. Their bodies, so bound together, were at
length cast up on the shore of the island of Fayal.
Nuno Velho and Braz Correa, captain of the _Nazareth_, were taken as
prisoners to England, where the Earl treated them hospitably for a
whole year. It was perhaps not wholly from kindly and unselfish
motives, for in the end Nuno Velho paid three thousand cruzados for
the ransom of both.
As for the _Cinque Llagas_, she burned all day and all night, but
"the next morning her powder, being sixty barrels, blew her abroad,
so that most of the ship did swim in parts above the water."
Towards the end of June they fell in with another great ship, which
they at first took for _S. Philip_, the admiral of Spain, and were
mighty cautious how they approached her guns. But seeing she was a
carrack they bestowed on her some shot and summoned her to yield,
unless she would undergo the same fate as the _Five Wounds_. But the
Portuguese captain was a brave man and replied: "I acknowledge Don
Philip, King of Spain, not the Queen of England. If the Earl of
Cumberland has been at the burning of the _Cinque Llagas_, so have I,
D. Luis Continho, been at the defeat and capture of Sir Richard
Grenville in the _Revenge_. Do what you dare, Earl, for your Queen,
and I, Luis, will do what I can for my King. My ship is homeward
bound from India, laden with riches, and with many jewels on board.
Come and take her if ye can."
The fight was renewed, but the English, having already many officers
killed and wounded, and by reason of the "murmuring of some
disordered and cowardly companions," sailed away for England, having
done much harm to the enemy and little good to themselves.
So the Earl returned to England, and at once set about building a
ship big enough to lie alongside any of the Spanish vessels; she was
900 tons, the largest ship ever yet built by a British subject. The
Queen was so pleased by the Earl's spirit that she, at the launching
of the big ship, gave it the name of the _Scourge of Malice_.
Her first voyage in 1595 was not a success, for as they reached
Plymouth a command was received from her Majesty that the Earl should
return. So he sent Captain Langton on, who took three Dutch ships
that were carrying ammunition and provisions for the King of Spain,
and returned to England.
The ninth expedition in 1596, led by the Earl in his new ship, with
the _Dreadnought_ of the Royal Navy, was also a failure; for a
violent storm split the Earl's mainmast and he had to return home.
In 1597 the Earl obtained letters-patent authorising him to levy sea
and land forces, and he began to prepare the largest expedition which
had ever been undertaken by a private individual without royal help;
it consisted of eighteen sail, and the Earl took the command in
person.
His design was, first, to impoverish the King of Spain; secondly, to
catch the outward-bound fleet as it sailed from the Tagus. If this
failed, then thirdly, to seize some town or island that would yield
him riches.
They set out on the 6th of March, but in a few hours the masts of the
_Scourge of Malice_ began to show weakness, and she had to put in
near Lisbon and be repaired. They worked night and day, fearing to
be discovered, while the other vessels kept out at sea. On rejoining
his fleet he heard that a ship from England with Spaniards on board
had sailed into the Tagus and warned the Indian fleet. The carracks
remained therefore under cover of the fort's guns, and the Earl
sailed for the Canaries, where he landed on Lancerota, "borrowed some
necessaries," as the looting was described, and found his men had got
drunk and were mutinous. So the Earl preached them a sermon and
threatened to hang the sinners on the next offence. Hence they
sailed across the Atlantic to Dominica, where the inhabitants
welcomed them, as they too hated the Spaniards; here they found a hot
spring at the north-west end of the island. "The bath is as hot as
the King's bath in the city of Bath." Here their sick men disported
themselves and found "good refreshing." They were enchanted with the
beauty of the valleys and trees and rivers and gathered new strength.
Then they went on to Puerto Rico, the key of all the Indies, and the
Earl assured his men that the island was rich, and they must take the
town. "The Indian soldiers," he said, "live too pleasantly to
venture their lives. They will make a great show, and perhaps endure
one brunt, but if they do any more, tear me to pieces!"
So they landed on a beach four leagues from the town and marched on
the hot sand, now and again paddling in the cool waves like merry
children. A negro was compelled to lead them, and they had to
clamber over rough rocks till they came to an entrance of an arm of
the sea and saw that the town was set upon a little island. Then
were they at their wits' ends how to cross over, but as they had seen
some horsemen, the Earl thought there must be a passage. By dint of
bullying the negro they made him show a path "through the most
wickedest wood that ever I was in in all my life." By sunset they
came to a long and narrow causeway leading to a drawbridge which
linked the little island with the greater one. But the bridge was
up, and they asked the negro if it were possible to ford the passage:
"Yes, at ebb-tide, massa," he replied. So they lay down and slept,
being very tired. Two hours before day the alarm was quietly given,
"for we needed not but to shake our ears." As they advanced along
the rugged causeway the Earl's shield-bearer stumbled and fell
against his master, knocking him into the sea, where, being by reason
of his heavy armour unable to rise, he was in great danger of
drowning. He swallowed so much salt-water that he was extremely
sick, and had to lie down whilst the assault was going on. But the
Spaniards resisted stoutly, the tide too came up, and the English had
to retire with a loss of fifty men.
A second attempt with a vessel was more successful and the Spaniards
were driven from their fort. When the Earl's men entered the town
they found only women and old men. The men had retired to another
fort and refused to yield; so two batteries were brought up and
"began to speak very loud."
During the siege the Earl had to punish a good soldier of his "for
over-violent spoiling a gentlewoman of her jewels." The man was
hanged in the market-place in the presence of many Spaniards. A
sailor too, who had defaced a church, was condemned to die. Twice he
was taken to the gallows, and twice he was removed in obedience to
the clamours for his pardon. In a few days the Spaniards demanded a
parley and surrendered, carrying their arms.
But the climate of the island began to tell on the health of the
English. Books had their glued backs melted by the heat, candied
fruits lost their crust, and English comfits grew liquid. In July
more than 200 died, and twice as many were sick of a flux and hot
ague, with the limbs cold and weak. So the Earl made haste to store
the hides, ginger, and sugar, also the town's guns and ammunition.
He put on board, too, specimens of the sensitive plant, of which the
chaplain said: "It hath a property confounding my understanding, for
if you lay a finger upon the leaves of it, the leaves will contract
and wither and disdainfully withdraw themselves, as if they would
slip themselves rather than be touched."
The Earl soon sailed for the Azores, hoping to catch the Mexican
fleet; but he found that the homeward-bound carracks had already
passed and the Mexican fleet was not expected, so in disappointment
they sailed home. Seven hundred out of the thousand men who had
landed at Puerto Rico had died, and the Spaniards had, knowing this,
refused to ransom the city. So this grand expedition became a very
serious loss to the Earl, but it was the cause of a greater loss to
Spain, by preventing the carracks from going to or returning from the
Indies. This was the Earl of Cumberland's last venture. Fuller
eulogises him as "a person wholly composed of true honour and
valour." But when we reflect that prodigal expenditure at Court,
display at the tilting-field, and losses in horse-racing were amongst
the incentives to these rash exploits, we must place him a little
lower than old Fuller does. However, the Earl compares to advantage
with our modern spendthrifts, most of whom will make no effort to
retrieve their ruined fortunes, and expect their kind relations to
support them in idleness. The Earl of Cumberland played a man's
part, and was not above serving his country as well as his personal
interests. There was something heroic about him even in his actions
at Court.
For they say that on one of these occasions the Queen dropped her
glove, either by accident, or from some coquettish fancy natural to
her. The Earl picked it up, and on his knee presented the glove to
her. "My Lord, an it please thee, keep it in my memory," she
murmured. The courtier put the glove into his bosom and bowed low.
Another would have hidden it in a cabinet, labelled and dated, but
the Earl sent the glove to his jeweller, and had it emblazoned with
diamonds. It was then set in front of his hat and worn at all public
assemblies when he was likely to appear before the Queen.
In his youth the Earl had fallen in love with the daughter of Sir
William Hollis, a lovely and beautiful girl. But her father rejected
the proposal of the Earl, much to his discontent--"My daughter shall
marry a good gentleman with whom I can enjoy society and friendship,
and I will not have a son-in-law before whom I must stand cap in
hand." He next paid his addresses to Lady Margaret Russell, daughter
of Francis, Earl of Bedford, and was accepted. She bore him two
sons, both of whom died in infancy, and a daughter, to whom he left
£15,000--a young lady who inherited the common sense of her mother
and the high spirit of both parents.
This charming girl, Lady Anne, married first Sackville, Earl of
Dorset, and afterwards Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and
Montgomery. She seems to have been one of the last in England to
support the old baronial dignity of feudal times. She had the honour
of erecting a monument to the poet Spenser, founded two hospitals,
and repaired or built seven churches and six castles--no bad record
for one lady of noble blood.
It is said that one of her friends advised her to be more sparing in
building churches and castles now the Lord Protector Cromwell was in
power; for he might take it in hand to demolish them.
"Let him destroy them if he will," she replied proudly; "he shall
surely find, as often as he does so, I will rebuild them while he
leaves me a shilling in my pocket."