Sir Walter Raleigh was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion in Ireland, helped defend England against the Spanish Armada and held political positions under Elizabeth I.
John White was an English colonial governor, explorer, artist, and cartographer. White was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville in the first attempt to colonize Roanoke Island in 1585, acting as artist and mapmaker to the expedition. He would most famously briefly serve as the governor of the second attempt to found Roanoke Colony on the same island in 1587 and discover the colonists had mysteriously vanished.
Roanoke Island is an island in Dare County, bordered by the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was named after the historical Roanoke, a Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the area in the 16th century at the time of English colonization.
The establishment of the Roanoke Colony was an attempt by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in America. The colony was founded in 1585, but it was visited by a ship in 1590 and the crew found that the colonists had disappeared under unknown circumstances. It has come to be known as the Lost Colony, and the fate of the 112 to 121 colonists remains unknown to this day.
Sir Thomas Cavendish was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and return by circumnavigating the globe. Magellan's, Loaisa's, Drake's, and Loyola's expeditions had preceded Cavendish in circumnavigating the globe. His first trip and successful circumnavigation made him rich from captured Spanish gold, silk and treasure from the Pacific and the Philippines. His richest prize was the captured 600-ton sailing ship the Manila Galleon Santa Ana. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I of England after his return. He later set out for a second raiding and circumnavigation trip but was not as fortunate and died at sea at the age of 31.
Richard Hakluyt was an English writer. He is known for promoting the English colonization of North America through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) and The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589–1600).
Sir Ralph Lane was an English explorer of the Elizabethan era. He helped colonise the Kingdom of Ireland in 1583 and was sheriff of County Kerry, Ireland, from 1583 to 1585. He was part of the unsuccessful attempt in 1585 to colonise Roanoke Island, North Carolina. He was knighted by the Queen in 1593.
Ananias Dare was a colonist of the Roanoke Colony of 1587. He was the husband of Eleanor White, whom he married at St Bride's Church in London, and the father of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America. The details of Dare's death are still unknown.
Sir Hugh Willoughby was an English soldier and an early Arctic voyager. He served in the court of Henry VIII and fought in the Scottish campaign where he was knighted for his valour. In 1553, he was selected by a company of London merchants to lead a fleet of three vessels in search of a Northeast Passage.
The Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands was an early joint stock association, which began with private exploration and enterprise, and was to have been incorporated by King Edward VI in 1553, but received its full royal charter in 1555. It led to the commencement of English trade with Russia, Persia and elsewhere, and became known informally, and later formally, as the Muscovy Company.
Events from the 1580s in England.
Manteo was a Croatan Native American, and was a member of the local tribe that befriended the English explorers who landed at Roanoke Island in 1584. Though many stories claim he was a chief, it is understood that his mother was actually the principal leader of the tribe. This leadership would not have automatically passed down to her children as many English at the time may have assumed.
Sir William Garrard (1518–1571), also Garrett, Gerrarde, etc., was a Tudor magnate of London, a merchant citizen in the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, who became alderman, Sheriff (1552–1553) and Lord Mayor of London (1555–1556) and was returned as an MP for the City of London. He was a senior founding officer of the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands in 1554/55, having been involved in its enterprises since the beginnings in King Edward VI's time, and for the last decade of his life was one of its permanent governors. He worked hard and invested largely to expand English overseas trade not only to Russia and the Levant but also to the Barbary Coast and to West Africa and Guinea.
The Secotans were one of several groups of Native Americans dominant in the Carolina sound region, between 1584 and 1590, with which English colonists had varying degrees of contact. Secotan villages included the Secotan, Aquascogoc, Dasamongueponke, Pomeiock (Pamlico) and Roanoac. Other local groups included the Chowanoke, Weapemeoc, Chesapeake, Ponouike, Neusiok, and Mangoak (Tuscarora), and all resided along the banks of the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds. They spoke Carolina Algonquian language, an Eastern Algonquian language.
Robert Baker, was an English voyager to Guinea.
Simon Fernandes was a 16th-century Portuguese-born navigator and sometimes pirate who piloted the 1585 and 1587 English expeditions to found colonies on Roanoke island, part of modern-day North Carolina but then known as Virginia. Fernandes trained as a navigator in Spain at the famed Casa de Contratación in Seville, but later took up arms against the Spanish empire, preying upon Spanish shipping along with fellow pirate John Callis. Charged with piracy in 1577, he was saved from the hangman's noose by Sir Francis Walsingham, becoming a Protestant and a subject of the Queen of England. In 1578 Fernandes entered the service of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and later Sir Walter Raleigh, piloting the failed 1587 expedition to Roanoke, known to history as the "Lost Colony".
Wanchese was the last known ruler of the Roanoke Native American tribe encountered by English colonists of the Roanoke Colony in the late sixteenth century. Along with Chief Manteo, he travelled to London in 1584, where the two men created a sensation in the royal court. Hosted at Durham House by the explorer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh, he and Manteo assisted the scientist Thomas Harriot with the job of deciphering and learning the Carolina Algonquian language. Unlike Manteo, Wanchese evinced little interest in learning English, and did not befriend his hosts, remaining suspicious of English motives in the New World. In April 1586, having returned to Roanoke, he finally ended his good relations with the English, leaving Manteo as the colonists' sole native ally.
Eyton is a village and parish in Herefordshire, England. It is 2 miles (3 km) north west of Leominster and 15 miles (24 km) north of Hereford. The village church is Norman and dedicated to All Saints. The parish had a population of 124 at the time of the 2011 census.
Sir William Chester was one of the leading English Merchants of the Staple and Merchant Adventurers of the mid-16th century, five times Master of the Worshipful Company of Drapers, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1560–61 and Member of Parliament for the City of London. He should not be confused with his contemporary, William Chester, merchant of Bristol, M.P.
