You can find much greater detail for the timeframes 1550-1700 at a new website now almost finished ... THE BUSINESS OF SLAVERY... a website book also designed to bring genealogical studies up-to-date from 1530 to the present-day... as well as questions of merchant lives and activities... Click now to... The Business of Slavery (in English history).

Merchants and Bankers
1575 - 1600

Trade - an international perspective

This Merchants and Bankers Listings website is years old and is now (from 2009) undergoing a marked identity change. Its timeline material on economic history (for 1560-1930) is being moved to a website managed by Ken Cozens and Dan Byrnes, The Merchant Networks Project. This will empty many of this website's pages which have always been in series. In due course, Merchants and Bankers Listings will carry information from the Crusades on the early development of what became “capitalism” in Europe to 1560 or so. As well as a conglomeration of data on modern developments, mostly on modern/technical industry, computing, and for the future, today's climate change problems. The editor's view is that in the context of climate change, the views of Merchants and Bankers (and Economists), the keepers of matters economic, are due for a considerable shake-up. If this website can encourage the shake-up, and help inform it reliably, well and good. -Ed

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	The history websites on this domain now have a companion website on a new domain, at Merchant Networks Project produced by Dan Byrnes and Ken Cozens (of London). This website it is hoped will become a major exercise in economic and maritime history, with some attention to Sydney, Australia.

- Dan Byrnes (otherwise indicated in these pages as -Editor)

Note: You will find even greater detail than is given here, for specific periods in American - English - Australian history, with regard to merchants, traders, bankers and financiers, as part of the website, The Blackheath Connection...

Two Portuguese renegades, Antonio Luis, a Guinea trader and Andre Homem or Gaspar Caldeira came to England in 1567 and met Sir William Winter who reported to Queen the taking of Funchal in the Canary Islands by the French. On 16 September 1567 John Hawkins wrote from the Jesus of Lubeck at anchor at Plymouth to the Queen about Luis and Homem who had told him about the gold mines on the Guinea coast: "My sovereign Lady your Highness may be advised that this day the Portingalls who should have directed this pretended enterprise have fled."

Hawkins persuaded Edward Baeshe or Bysshe, Surveyor of Victuals to the Queen's Fleet to provide sacks of dried beans for feeding the slaves; which raised the suspicions of the Spanish ambassador Guzman de Silva. De Silva went to Elizabeth for an assurance that the Spanish monopoly of the slave trade would not be affected. Elizabeth and Cecil told him the expedition was bound for Elmina to compensate for the sinking of Winter's ship Mary Fortune on the Guinea coast during the previous summer.
?: Sir William Winter had a storehouse by the Thames near what is now St. Katherine's Dock near his house on Seething Lane (later the Navy Office). Was Sir William Winter a secret Catholic? A statue of the Virgin and an old stone font were found hidden in a niche in his warehouse at Seething Lane (previously the Chapel of Berkinshaw).

Hawkins made a third voyage in 1567, backed by Queen, Sir William Cecil, Lord High Admiral Clinton, Sir William Garrard, Sir Lionel Ducket, Rowland Heyward from the City, John and William Hawkins, William Winter and Benjamin Gonson from the Navy Board.
1567-1568: Hawkins' third voyage: "The third troublesome voyage made with the Jesus of Lubeck, the Minion and four other ships to Guinea and the West Indies in 1567 and 1568 by Master John Hawkins":
The ships departed from Plymouth the 2nd day of October Anno 1567 and had reasonable weather until the 7th day, at which time 40 leagues north from Cape Finisterre there arose an extreme storm, which continued for four days, the fleet was dispersed and all our great boats lost and the Jesus our chief ship in such case as not thought able to serve the voyage whereupon in the same storm we set our course homeward, determining to give over the voyage. But the 11th day of the same month the wind changed with fair weather, whereby we were animated to follow our enterprise and so did, directing our course with the islands of the Canaries, where all our ships met at one of those islands called Gomera where we took water and departed from thence the 4th day of November toward the coast of Guinea and arrived at Cape Verde the 28th of November." ("The battle of San Juan" - John Hawkins, Hakluyt's "Voyages").

George and William Winter, the Queen's servants, were licensed to take goods valued at £7,600 out of Portuguese ships 5 February 1569 (Calendar Patent Rolls Elizabeth I, Vol. 4 No..1920). Their ship the Mary Fortune with a crew of 29 and goods valued at £7,600 was sunk near the River Sestos, Guinea in 1565 by a Portuguese Armado. Of her crew, 21 were taken captive to the castle of São Jorge de la Mina on the same coast. The Queen complained to the King of Portugal but satisfaction was refused.

1571: In 1571 the Spanish ambassador Guerau de Spes reported that William Winter sent seven-eight ships on slaving voyages. Winter sent three ships in March 1571 according to Spanish reports in the West Indies, which raided at Borburta in July and attacked St. Augustine, Florida on the return journey.

1560: (By 1997, on the Internet, many links concerning John Dee point to topics such as astrology and alchemy, not maritime history). Dee kept in touch with cartographers, such as Mercator, and wrote on calendar reform, navigation, geography and astrology. From 1555 he acted as a consultant for the Muscovy Company. Dee influenced Sebastian Cabot, and was interested in finding a North-West Passage.

1561: In 1561, Gold Coast venturers included treasurer of Navy Benjamin Gonson and secretary of Navy, Sir William Winter, who had use of four navy ships. the queen found the equipment and 500 pounds to vittles. merchants paid the crews,cargo, repairs, undertook to hand on one-third of the profits. John Lok made another voyage in 1561. A formal charter party for an African voyage by Queen's ship Minion is found in Landsdowne ms 113, ff9-17.
See
Williamson, Age of Drake, pp. 34-35.

1567: Circa: (A. L. Rowse, Elizabethan Garland, p. 99ff). Drake's father of good yeoman stock etc., and becomes a chaplain at Chatam dockyard. Drake's father left Devon "under a cloud" to become chaplain to ships of the Medway. Drake when quite young went back to Plymouth to take part in his cousin Hawkins' trading voyages as the latter opens trade with coast of Guinea, Brazil and the Caribbean.

1568: Re The Asiento silver exchange financing slave business. The kind of financier in front of or behind the scenes here could have been such as: Lazaro Grimaldi, financier of Genoa, active about 1568, known to the English Spanish Co. (See Lawrence Stone, An Elizabethan: Sir Horatio Palavicino. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956., p. 260.) Grimaldi was one of a group of Genoese financiers dealing with Prince Andrea Doria in the management of Genoese affairs and trying to keep Genoa loyal to its Spanish connections.

1573: William Winter is knighted in 1573 and holds the vice-admiralty of Somerset (united with Bristol) which his descendants held until 1628.

1574-1595: After 1574 sails from England Gilbert Horsley, Andrew Barker, John Oxenham and William Hawkins from England. By about 1595 Sir Anthony Sherley (treasurer of the Navy from 1577) moved a fleet of privateers against the Caribbean. He is a noted improver of ship design, of Plymouth Devon and St Dunstan's in the East, London. Sherley assisted Drake with efforts to control the "Darien area" about the present site of Panama Canal.

1575: In 1575 John Hawkins's father William Hawkins senior, a prominent Plymouth merchant, takes a Spanish vessel with French goods.

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1575: John Oxenham, English explorer hanged in Lima. He visited the Indians in the "Darien area" (today's Panama Canal area) in 1575.
G. R. Elton, Tudor England. Arthur Percival Newton, (Ed.), The European Nations in the West Indies, 1493-1688. London, Black, 1933.; Arthur Percival Newton, The Colonising Activities of the English Puritans: The Last Phase of the Elizabethan Struggle with Spain. New Haven, Connecticut, 1914. (Reissued, Port Washington, New York, 1966)., p. 136.

1576: Anthony Jenkinson's name appears on a commission re fitting out Frobisher for a second voyage to Cathay. He is good friends with Sir Philip Sherard of Tighe in Rutland, and dies at his house in 1611. He ceases travelling by Sept. 1572. By 1576 Jenkinson's name appears on a commission re fitting out Frobisher for second voyage to Cathay. Jenkinson is survived by a son and five daughters. From him is descended Charles Jenkinson, Earl1 Liverpool..

1576: John Oxenham (with Drake in 1572-1573) works a plan to take control of Darien/Panama area. Spaniards got his ships, Oxenham a protestant is hanged by the Inquisition at Lima, Peru. Other men went into slavery in Spanish galleys.

1575: 1573-1575: Sir Richard Grenville (1542-1591) mariner and colonist, helps a group with a plan to explore the Southern Seas, an expedition to discover terra Australis and the western Pacific end of the supposed North-West Passage, but this voyage abandoned to keep peace with Spain, although it helped inspire the later Drake voyage of 1577-1578.
(Grenville's entry in Encyclopedia Britannica.)

1577-1580: Francis Drake performs the first circumnavigation of the world by an Englishman. Two plans, one secret, are involved with the exercise. One plan is public, promoted by Walsingham and other notables to create trading bases from legendary terra australis. The secret plans arises with Elizabeth for raids on Spanish bases on west coast of South America, and also a search for the western end of the legendary north-west passage. Drake on this voyage executes Thomas Doughty, whom the puritan Drake says is a "conjurer". Also on this voyage is one William Winter, of the Bristol Winter family. Drake is blown away from Winter's ship by Cape Horn and learns that Tierra del Fuego is an island. Drake sails alone by Chile and Peru and calls by California (at "New Albion") near present-day San Francisco. (A brass plate about this is discovered in 1937.) Drake crosses Pacific to the Moluccas (Spice Islands) but loses his cargo of peppers. Drake returns to Plymouth on 26 September, 1580 with a profit of about £500,000. IN 1583, Drake's first wife dies.

1577: When Sir Francis Drake sets out on his circumnavigation voyage in 1577, William Hawkins junior, son of John Hawkins's brother William, accompanied him. So does Drake's brother Thomas, a cousin John Drake (son of his uncle Robert) and his nephew John Drake who settled in Mexico; and Sir William Winter's nephew John of Dyrham. John was 26 when his father George died in 1581 and only 22-years-old when he sailed with Drake.

1577: Francis Drake (also a Plymouth man) was on William Winter's expedition and on John Hawkins's third voyage to Guinea. George Winter, commanded a squadron of three of the Queen's ships on the coast of Ireland in 1577. He had orders to cruise between the Cape of Cornwall and the River Shannon, looking for La Roche, a Frenchman reported to be preparing some private expedition against Ireland and to stay there until his provisions ran out. The squadron sailed July 20th, returning on October 18th; but there is no record of the trouble which Howard mentioned. (SP Dom. Elizabeth cxiv 60, cxvii).
Hakluyt related:

"The famous voyage of Sir Francis Drake into the south Sea and therehence about the whole globe of the earth, begun in the year of Our Lord 1577.

The 15th day of November, in the year of Our Lord 1577 Master Francis Drake, with a fleet of 5 ships and barks, and to the number of 164 men, gentlemen and sailors, departed from Plymouth, giving out his pretended voyage for Alexandria. But the wind falling contrary, he was forced the next morning to put into Falmouth Haven, in Cornwall, where such and so terrible a tempest took us as few men have seen the like, and was indeed so vehement that all our ships were like to have gone to wrack.

We set forth the second time from Plymouth and set sail the 13th day of December following.

The 25th day of the same month we fell with Cape Catin, upon the coast of Barbary; and coasting along, the 27 day we found an island called Mogador, lying one mile distant from the main. Between which island and the main we found a very good and safe harbour for our ships to ride in, as also very good entrance and void of any danger.

The 17 day of January, we arrived at Cape Blanco, where we found a ship riding at anchor, within the Cape, and but two simple mariners in her. Which ship we took and carried her further into the harbour, where we remained four days. We departed this harbour the 22 of January, carrying along with us one of the Portugal caravels, which was bound to the islands of Cape Verde for salt wherof good store is made in one of those islands.

The first day of our arrival here, our general having set things in some order, for the dispatch of our necessary business, being most careful for his two ships, which were wanting, sent forth to the southward Captain Winter in the "Elizabeth" vice admirall, himself in the admirall going forth northward into the sea to see if happily they might meet with either of them: at which time, by the good providence of God, he himself met with the "Swan", formerly lost at our departure from the river of Plate and brought her unto the same harbour the same day where, being afterwards unloaded and discharged of her freight, she was cast off and her ironwork and other necessaries being saved from the better provision of the rest of the remainder was made firewood and other implements which we wanted. But all this while of the other ship (the "Marigold") which we lost so lately in our extremity, we could have no news.

We fell with this island (Mayo) the 27th of January but the inhabitants would in no case traffic with us. Yet the next day our General sent to view the island, and the likelihoods that might be there of provision of victuals, about three score and two men under the conduct and government of Master Winter and Master Doughty,

From the first day of our departure from the islands of Cape Verde, we sailed 54 days without sight of land. And the first land that we fell with was the coast of Brazil, which we saw the fifth of April, in the height of 33 degrees towards the pole Antarctic.

The 20 June, we harboured ourselves again in a very good harborough, called by Magellan, Port St. Julian, where we found a gibbet standing upon the main; which we supposed to be the place where Magellan did execution upon some of his disobedient and rebellious company.

The two and twentieth day our General went ashore to the main and in his company John Thomas and Robert Winterhie, Oliver the gunner, John Brewer, Thomas Hood and Thomas Drake (his brother). And on land they presently met with two or three of the country people. And Robert Winterhie having in his hands a bow and arrows, went about to make a shoot of pleasure, and, in his draught, his bowstring brake; which the rude savages taking as a token of war, began to bend the force of their bows against our company, and drove them to their shifts very narrowly.
In this port our General began to enquire diligently of the actions of Master Thomas Doughty and found them not to be such as he looked for, but tending rather to contention or mutiny, or some other disorder, whereby, without redress, the success of the voyage might greatly have been hazarded. Whereupon the company was called together and made acquainted with the particulars of the cause, which were found, partly by Master Droughty's own confession and partly by the evidence of the fact, to be true. So that the cause being thoroughly heard and all things done, in good order as near as might be to the course of our laws in England, it was concluded that Master Doughty should receive punishment according to the quality of the offence".

Drake's action was strange and particularly ungrateful as it was Thomas Doughty, a lawyer and the earl of Essex's confidential secretary who recommended him to Hawkins. Drake first came to Droughty's attention at the massacre of men, women and children at of Rathlin in July 1575 when he commanded the flotilla escorting English troops to Ireland. Both Thomas and his brother John Doughty sailed with Drake. Drake had seized a Portuguese ship off Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands, captained by Nuñez da Silva which he put in charge of Thomas Doughty whom he accused of pilfering its cargo (probably wine). Doughty in turn accused Drake's brother, Thomas Drake. Doughty was then put in charge of the Pellican and finally banished to the storeship Swan (Drake's own vessel which he later scuttled at Nombre de Dios). Doughty was accused of sabotaging the voyage; he may have led a group of gentlemen adventurers against the crew of the ship captained by Chester. Drake also accused him of raising up winds and storms by witchcraft.
John Winter, vice admiral of fleet was made foreman of a jury of 40 men to try Thomas Doughty. The records of the Merchant Adventurers' Company of Bristol in the next generation lists a Doughty so Thomas may have had connections with Bristol. Winter's grandfather, another John, was a Bristol Merchant Venturer and he himself came from Dyrham in Gloucestershire. He offered to take Doughty aboard the Elizabeth and stand surety for his good conduct but Drake refused his request. Before his execution Doughty knelt by block prayed for Queen, the happy outcome of the voyage and asked to be remembered to his friends especially "that good knight, Sir William Winter" who was John's uncle. After Doughty was executed, Drake relieved John Winter and John Thomas of their commands, giving no reason saying some of those who were there deserved the same fate as Doughty but no more would die.

"Master Doughty then looking on Master Winter said unto him "Master Winter, will you be so good as to undertake this for me?" Then Master Winter said unto Master Drake that is he should be safe of his person and he would warrant him if he did commit him to his custody". Before his death, Doughty "remembered also there divers his good friends and Sir William Winter, praying Master John Winter to commend him to that good knight, all which he did with so cheerful a countenance as if he had gone to some great prepared banquet the which I sure think that he was fully resolved that God had provided for him.
And he seeing, no remedy but patience for himself, desired before his death to receive the communion, which he did at the hands of Master Fletcher, our minister and our General himself accompanied him in that holy action. Which being done, and the place of execution made ready, he having embraced our General and taken his leave of all the company, with prayers for the Queen's Majesty and our realm, in quiet sort laid his head to the block, where he ended his life".

On. the 11th of August Drake called the company ashore "and then turning him unto Master Winter, he said "Master Winter I do here discharge you of your captainship of the Elizabeth and you John Thomas of the Marigold and you Thomas Hood of your mastership in the "Pelican" and you William Markham of the "Elizabeth" and Nicholas Anthony of the "Marigold" and to be brief here discharged every officer of all offices whatsoever. Then Master Winter and John Thomas asked him what should move him so to displace them. He asked whether they could make any reason why he should not do so".

Drake went on to say that the Lord Treasurer should not have been told of the voyage but that Doughty had told him of it. Drake told them "Here is some again my masters not knowing how else to discredit me, say and affirm that I was set forth on this voyage by Master Hatton, some by Sir William Winter, some by Master Hawkins but this is a company of idle heads that have nothing else to talk of. But my masters I must tell you I do honour them as my very good friends but to say that they were the setters forth of this voyage or that it was by their means, I tell you it was nothing so." He went on say that he had been recommended to Walsingham by Essex as a fit man to serve against the Spaniards and that he had been sent by Walsingham to Elizabeth herself who said "Drake, so it is that I would gladly be revenged on the King of Spain, for divers injuries that I have received" ("John Cooke's Narrative").

1577: John Dee thinks again on terra australis. Queen will not permit any project to Pacific Ocean for terra australis.

1577: First Englishman to circumnavigate earth is Drake. He also plans to discover any Terra Australis Incognita. Drake sailed in late 1577 with 100-ton Golden Hind, 80-ton Elizabeth and 30-ton Marigold, plus two smaller supply ships. Drake arrives home to acclaim and a knighthood in 1580, after a three-year voyage.

1577: When Sir Francis Drake set out on his voyage of circumnavigation in 1577, William Hawkins junior, son of John Hawkins's brother William, accompanied him so did Drake's brother Thomas, a cousin John Drake (son of his uncle Robert) and his nephew John Drake who settled in Mexico and Sir William Winter's nephew John of Dyrham. John was 26 when his father George died in 1581 and was only 22 years old when he sailed with Drake. The shareholders in the enterprise included the Queen, the Lord High Admiral, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir William Winter, Surveyor of the Navy, John Hawkins and Drake. The ships that sailed were as follows: Pelican later renamed the Golden Hind, 100 tons, Captain General Francis Drake. Elizabeth 80 tons, Captain John Winter. Marigold 30 tons captain John Thomas. Swan, a fly-boat, 50 tons, Captain John Chester. Christopher a pinnace 15 tons, Captain Thomas Moone.

There were 164 able and sufficient men, gentlemen adventurers including Drake's friend Thomas Doughty, seamen, archers, musicians and others. The Pelican and Marigold had been built at the shipyards at Aldeburgh, Suffolk where a branch of the Winter family settled.
From websites on the Hawkins and Winter families cited elsewhere.

1577: Francis Drake (a Plymouth man) sails on William Winter's expedition and on John Hawkins's third voyage to Guinea.
George Winter, commands a squadron of three of the Queen's ships on the coast of Ireland in 1577. He had orders to cruise between the Cape of Cornwall and the River Shannon, looking for La Roche, a Frenchman reported to be preparing some private expedition against Ireland and to stay there until his provisions ran out. The squadron sailed July 20th, returning on October 18th; but there is no record of the trouble which Howard mentioned. (SP Dom. Elizabeth cxiv 60, cxvii).
From websites on the Hawkins and Winter families cited elsewhere.

1577: In November 1577 Hawkins appointed joint Treasurer of Navy with Gonson, who dies 10 days later - Sir William was still Surveyor, Comptroller and Clerk. Sir William, a stubborn fighter, did not approve of Hawkins's plans to re-design ships. He had powerful friends and with his fellow officers, began a campaign of wearing Hawkins down about the First Bargain and was making progress in his attempts when finally in 1583 the Privy Council set up a Commission of Inquiry.
From websites on the Hawkins and Winter families cited elsewhere.

1577-1578: Hawkins accuses Sir William Winter of "abuses in the Admiralty touching her Majesty's Navy, of inefficiency, peculation and sabotaging England's defences in return for Spanish gold". Hawkins even accused Sir William of being paid by the Spanish.

He produced a report to William Cecil, Lord Burghley about the condition of the Navy which was highly critical of Sir William Winter saying he kept records of indents for tackle and cordage in his private books and the Navy Office knows nothing about it. It went on to say there were abuses in purchasing and disposing of timber and planks which were used by private individuals.
He maintained there was fraud "for Sir William Winter's commodity" and presented details under the heading "matteres that touch Sir William Winter particularly". The Mary Fortune and the Edward were built of royal timber (probably from the Forest of Dean), also wharves (one was at Wapping). On 25.4.1573 Sir William Winter and Christopher Baker (son of Thomas Baker) bought a wharf and lands at Wapping (Close Roll 2555) and the profits were to be shared between them. A new agreement was made between Sir John Winter of Lydney (Sir William's grandson) of the one part and John, son of George Acworth of Plymouth and Richard, son of Thomas Baker of the other part.
From websites on the Hawkins and Winter families cited elsewhere.

1579: A report on the voyage dated 2 June 1579 was found in the British Museum in 1929 with the Prelude and Draft Plan of the Voyage (BM Lansdowne MSS 100 No.2) which show that William and George Winter financially backed the 1577 voyage with £750 and £500 respectively.
The documents were transcribed by Professor E. G .R. Taylor into modern English. It seems to be an abridgement of a ship's log book and was addressed by John Winter to his uncle William Winter, Surveyor of the Navy and Master of the Ordnance of the Navy and to his father George Winter, Clerk of the Queen's Ships, both shareholders in the voyage who passed it to Lord Burghley and was endorsed by him "Voyage of Mr Winter with Mr Drake to ye Strait of Magellan June 1579."
1. 19th September - At first when I came from London in great haste with one ship and furniture in the same, answerable to the greatness and length of such a voyage, thinking to have found all things ready, I found contrary to my expectations all things unready. For the ships were most untacked, most unballasted and unvictualled.
2. After putting out of Plymouth the 11th of November, by contrariety of wind, we were put into Falmouth, where the Pellican and the Marigold bring on ground, caught both leaks and were enforced both to cut their masts overboard, and so we were put back again into Plymouth for a new supply of those wants.
3. The 13th of December we put from Plymouth and arrived the 27th of this month at an island called Mogador, where we stayed five days for putting together of one of our pinnaces.
4. The 8th day of January I fell with Cape de Garr (Cape Guer). Here Francis Drake caused me to go into the pinnace with the which we took three canters (Portuguese fishing boats) for the refreshing of our victuals.
5. We fell with Cape Blanko (Blanco) the 16th of January were we stayed for the discharging of those canters which we had taken afore at Cape de Garr.

1578: "When first Sir Humphrey Gilbert undertook the western discovery of America and had procured from her Majesty in 1578, a very large commission to inhabit and possess at his choice, all remote and heathen lands not in the actual possession of any Christian princes, the same commission exemplified with many privileges such as in his discretion he might demand, very many gentlemen of good estimation drew unto him to associate him in so commendable an enterprise, so that the preparation was expected to grown unto a puissant fleet, able to encounter a king's power by sea.
1. The Delight alias the George of burden 120 tons, was admiral, in which went the general and William Winter, captain in her and part owner and Richard Clarke, master. 2. The bark Raleigh set forth by Master Walter Raleigh of the burden of 200 tons, was then vice-admiral, in which went Master Butler, captain Robert Davis of Bristol, master. 3. The Golden Hind of burden 40 tons, was then the rear-admiral, in which went Edward Hayes, captain and owner, and William Coxe of Limehouse, master. 4. The Swallow of burden 40 tons, in her was Captain Maurice Browne. 5. The Squirrel of burden 10 tons in which went Captain William Andrew and one Cade, master. We were in number in all about 260 men, among whom we had of every faculty good choice, as shipwrights, masons, carpenters, smiths and such like requisite to such an action; also mineral men and refiners.
From websites on the Hawkins and Winter families cited elsewhere.

1578: An anti-Spanish rear-admiral, who sails under Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Francis Drake in 1578, Sir Francis Knollys (1550-1648); he was son of the Puritan and statesman, Sir Francis Knollys (1512/14-1596) who married Catherine Carey (died 1569), daughter of William Carey and Mary Boleyn, the parents of Henry, first Baron Hunsdon.
(Hasler, The History of Parliament, pp. 408-409. GEC, Peerage, Northumberland, p. 734; Paget, fix title, p. 284. Who's Who / Shakespeare, p. 141. J. Shakespear, John Shakespear of Shadwell and his Descendants, 1619-1931. Self-published, Newcastle UK, 1931., tabulations, pp. 80ff and notes thereto.)

1578: Raleigh's half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert leads a piratical expedition against Spaniards, in company with Raleigh who is captain of Falcon. Raleigh is perhaps also with Gilbert on a 1579 expedition.
(Raleigh is cousin of Sir Richard Grenville.)

1579: 1587-1588: Shortly after John Hawkins became Treasurer of the Navy, he puts forward to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, a contracting out system known as the First Bargain which comes into force in at Michaelmas 1579. This was in two parts; the first between Elizabeth and Hawkins under which he would provide mooring and reserve cables, hawsers, cordage, old cables for conversion and other items at his expense and a lump sum of £1,200 per annum for expenditure. The Surveyor, Comptroller and Clerk were to supervise and an yearly inspection would be made by a committee of four, two named by Navy Boards officials and two by Hawkins.
The other agreement was between the Queen, Peter Pett and Matthew Baker, the master shipwrights to repair five of the largest repair ships every three years or more to stop leaks and to examine them every years and another five smaller ships every two years. All ships were to be ransacked, caulked and repaired once a year. The shipwrights had to provide spars and masts at their own expense while the ships were in harbour (except the lower masts) and yards for medium and large ships would be supplied free by the Queen. They had to provide wages, food and lodging for workers, carpenters' stores for ships at sea and everything necessary for repairing boats, cocks and skiffs out of their own pockets and would get £1,000 for expenses and the use of storehouses. Wages of shipkeepers, clerks, watchmen and the gunners at Upnor Castle, repair and maintenance of stores and wharves would be met under the old system. Dry-docking and heavy repairs would be seen to by the Navy Board.

1580: In the 1580s many of the Principal Officers of the Navy and the Navy Board were also Brethren of Trinity House of Deptford Strand - William Borough, Sir John Hawkins, the Treasurer, Sir William Winter, the Surveyor and William Holstock the Comptroller (until his death in 1589), were are all members of the Corporation. William Borough became Clerk of the Acts in 1580 and was appointed Comptroller on the death of William Holstock.
1580-1581: After many months patrolling the west of Ireland to prevent a Spanish landing, Wm Winter was again appointed on committees on the subsidy (25.1.1581), wrecks (30.1.1581), Aldgate (9.2.1581), the Love family (4.3.1581), merchant adventurers (27.8.1581), Dover harbour (4.8.1581) and Norfolk returns (9.11.1586) in his last year in Parliament.

1580: Dies George Winter, who took up navy contracting pre-Armada; he had got a fortune of 10,000 pounds when he earlier dissolved partnership with his brother.
Williamson, Age of Drake, pp. 264ff.

1580: Late 1580: Raleigh is captain of a company of foot at Munster, Ireland. Helps suppress rising of the Desmonds. Raleigh recommends assassination of Irish leaders. By 1581, Raleigh has instituted a correspondence with Walsingham in London.

1581: Elizabeth I grants charters to companies trading to Spain and Portugal, the Eastland Co. to the Baltic, later the Levant Co. to Turkey; and Raleigh is planning a company in Virginia, ending in disaster.

1582: John Hawkins was already on the Navy Board and twice elected MP when he had reversion of the post of Clerk of the Ships in 1582 when George Winter died (in 1580-1581) but William Borough, member of the Muscovy Company, navigator, surveyor and captain actually filled the position. Benjamin Gonson (Hawkins's father-in-law and Sir William Winter's business partner) was head of the navy board.

1583: Edmund Fenton of the Muscovy Company was also active by 1583, and he visited the Moluccas and the Spice Islands, although Houtman for the Dutch was the first European to exploit Sumatra successfully. Fenton made a voyage partly of discovery, partly of plunder, with the backing of the first Earl of Leicester, Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586 who was married to Frances daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham) and Secretary of State, William Cecil (1521-1598), Lord Burghley. The Muscovy Company as a body had provided a large direct investment. Fenton's supporters included Thomas Pullyson, William Towerson, Thomas Aldersey, Thomas Starkey (all Spanish Company directors) plus Sir George Barne (died 1593), a founding Spanish Company director and a co-founder of the Turkey Company.
(Barne's father was deep in the Spanish trade from the 1560s. On Barne, Governor of the Muscovy Company in 1580 and 1583: Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, pp. 18-20, p. 63. Burke's Extinct Baronetcies for Garrard, p. 214, and , p. 446. Hasler, History of Parliament, Vol. 3, p. 571 for his daughter's marriage to Walsingham. Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth. Vol. 3, Oxford University Press at the Clarendon Press., pp. 425ff. Valerie Hope, My Lord Mayor: Eight Hundred Years of London's Mayoralty. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson in association with the Corporation of the City of London, 1989.)

1583: Edmund Fenton of Muscovy Company active by 1583, and he visits the Moluccas and the Spice Islands, although Houtman for the Dutch was the first European to exploit Sumatra successfully. Fenton makes a voyage partly of discovery, partly of plunder, with the backing of the first Earl of Leicester, Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586 who was married to Frances daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham) and Secretary of State, William Cecil (1521-1598), Lord Burghley. The Muscovy Company as a body had provided a large direct investment. Fenton's supporters included Thomas Pullyson, William Towerson, Thomas Aldersey, Thomas Starkey (all Spanish Company directors) plus Sir George Barne (died 1593), a founding Spanish Company director and a co-founder of the Turkey Company.
(Barne's father was deep in the Spanish trade from the 1560s. On Barne, Governor of the Muscovy Company in 1580 and 1583: Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, pp. 18-20, p. 63. Burke's Extinct Baronetcies for Garrard, p. 214, and p. 446. Hasler, The History of Parliament, Vol. 3, p. 571 for his daughter's marriage to Walsingham. Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth. Vol. 3, Oxford University Press at the Clarendon Press., pp. 425ff. Valerie Hope, My Lord Mayor: Eight Hundred Years of London's Mayoralty. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson in association with the Corporation of the City of London, 1989.)

1583: November: Another Catholic conspiracy, the Throckmorton Plot, named after Francis and Thomas Throckmorton, sons of the Catholic Sir John Throckmorton (Mary Tudor's personal lawyer) and nephews of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the English ambassador in France and of Katherine Throckmorton, wife of Robert Winter of Huddington.
From websites on the Hawkins and Winter families cited elsewhere.

1583: Raleigh finds great favour at court and is given grant of Durham House, Strand. He also has a grant of power to grant licences to vintners, ie, pubkeepers, which he sub-leases. In 1583 Raleigh helps fund Sir Humphrey Gilbert's expedition to Newfoundland, on which Gilbert dies. Gilbert's patent goes to Raleigh in 1584. (A patent to take possession of "any remote barbarous and heathen lands not possessed by any Christian prince or people". (Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Raleigh.) Raleigh is interested in colonising Virginia and sends out Capt. Philip Amadas and Capt. Arthur Barlowe to explore. They sail by Canaries and Florida, and thence to North Carolina. The name Virginia is given to an undefined large territory. Raleigh becomes MP for Devonshire.

1584-1585: A commission is appointed consisting of Burghley, Francis Walsingham, Sir Walter Mildmay, chancellor of the Exchequer, the earl of Lincoln who was Lord Admiral, the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Hunsdon who chose a jury of sea captains: Sir Thomas Cotton, Sir William Gorges, Sir Francis Drake, Richard Bingham, Martin Frobisher, Fulke Greville, Carew and Walter Raleigh, Henry Palmer, George Beeston and Thomas Ellis. The Commission found Sir William Winter at fault.

1585: A Second (naval) Bargain was made on 1 January 1585 under which the shipwrights became crown servants and Hawkins would repair ships at sea or in dry dock, wharves and storehouses at Plymouth, Deptford, Woolwich and Chatam, pay the wages of shipkeepers, clerks, watchmen, gunners the Upnor garrison, moorings for ships in the harbour, materials, food and lodging of workmen at his own expense for which he would receive a lump sum of £4,000 per annum. The provision of armaments were still under Winter as Master of Ordnance. (Calendar of Patent Rolls Elizabeth I Vol.4 Nos..19858 & 2618).
Sir William, who was now getting old and becoming tired of the quarrel, made peace with Hawkins but the latter does not seem to have been able to abide by the bargain as the following letters show:

Spanish merchant and MP William Saltern (died 1589). Spanish Co. A trader with Spain and Portugal, he was once instructed to cease trading with Spain.
(Hasler, The House of Commons, 1558-1603, p. 334.) He married Elizabeth, daughter of George Snigge a merchant and Mayor of Bristol in 1574. Saltern in 1585 proposed a voyage to America. He was in Spanish Co. by 1583.

1585:

The families of Hawkins, Drake, Raleigh & Winter intermarried. Sir Francis Drake was kinsman of Hawkins and cousin of Robert Barrett, burnt at the stake in Seville. Drake's first wife, Mary Newman, died in January 1582 and was buried at Budeaux near Plymouth and in 1585 he married as his 2nd wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Sydenham whose second husband was Sir William Courtenay. Sir Francis Drake lived at Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire and Sir Walter Raleigh at Purton manor near Severn Bridge which crosses the river above Sharpness dock just past Lydney, Gloucestershire. Arthur, Charles & Henry Champernowne (d. 1570) of Modbury were Walter Raleigh's cousins.

1585: Edward Winter (Wynter)... Drake's fleet, which assembled at Plymouth in July/August 1585, included two ships belonging to the Queen and other armed merchantmen. His flagship is Elizabeth Bonaventure, a Navy vessel. Martin Frobisher in "Primrose" came up the Thames from Woolwich to join him.
Amongst those who sailed with Drake to Cartagena on the east of Gulf of Darien were Thomas Fenner, the Queen's cousin Francis Knollys, Sir William Winter's eldest son Edward Winter and Thomas Drake in his kinsman ship. Also sailing was the later Sir Richard Hawkins (1560-1622).

Edward Winter joined the landing party after bartering his ship for Captain Cecil's company of foot. He marched with troops commanded by Christopher Carleill but became separated from his company although he fought at Carleill's side. He was captured by the Spaniards and exchanged for Pedro Flores de Valdes who had been captured with his ship the Nuestra Señora del Rosario by Francis Drake and taken to Tor Bay. Valdes was later given a farewell banquet by the Lord Mayor of London after his ransom of £3,000 was paid.
The fleet of 25 ships, with 2,300 mariners and soldiers, sailed out of Plymouth on 14.9.1585, taking course towards Spain where they took met a fleet of 9 or 10 French ships, laden with salt. They took one (which they paid for on their return), which is renamed Drake.
Carleill, in the "Tiger", captured a Spanish ship from San Sebastian (manned by French mariners from St. Jean de Luz), laden with dried fish from Newfoundland which was distributed amongst the English fleet. A day or two afterwards they anchored at the Island of Bayona, south west of Vigo in Galicia, which they intended attacking. They were met by an English merchant John Sampson who mediated between the Spanish and the English. The Spanish governor assured Drake that there was no war between England and Spain and sent him fresh supplies. After a 3-day storm, Carliell nevertheless captured some ships off Vigo, one containing church treasures and anchored in another port above Vigo where they met the governor of Galicia.
They sailed to the Canaries and landed in Hierro where they were met by the inhabitants led by a youth who had been in England but the island was too poor to loot. On the 13.11.1585 they reached Cape Blanco where they caught fresh fish and met a French fleet. They left the same day for the Cape Verde Islands, reaching Santiago on 16.11.1585 and anchored between Playa and Santiago, landing 1,000 men under Carliell. They looted the city of Santiago for 14 days but found no treasure, only fresh food supplies. The inhabitants had murdered William Hawkins's men during a former voyage 4 or 5 years earlier. In revenge for the brutal murder of one of Drake's men, they set fire to Santiago before setting off for the West Indies.
Within a few days more than 200-300 of their men had died of disease. They reached the island of Dominica where the natives welcomed them and left for St. Kitts where they spent Christmas. They then decided to leave for Santo Domingo in the island of Hispaniola where they landed on New Year's Day 1586 and which they subsequently attacked. They went on to Cartagena de las Indias in Colombia which they also attacked, captured and where they stayed for 6 weeks whilst the sickness continued. They burned both Santo Domingo and Cartagena (for the second time). They left on the 31st of March and reached Cape St. Anthony in Cuba on 27.4.1586 but left for Matanças as no water was available. They went back to Cape St. Anthony which they left on 13.5.1586, sailing to Cape Florida where they landed on 28.5.1586 and captured Fort St. John. They sailed upriver to St. Augustine and after passing St. Helena, they went ashore and met some Englishmen who had been sent there by Sir Walter Raleigh. These men were offered a passage back to England which they accepted and the fleet sailed back home on the 18.6.1586, reaching Portsmouth on 28.7.1586. The brought back treasure worth £60,000, having lost 750 men, two thirds from sickness.
From website on Winter family

1585: Origins of career of Peter Pett, shipbuilder: Written from East Smithfield, 8 April 1585: William Winter to Burghley (SP Dom. cciv.21 signed and addressed): Re matters of reckoning between Mr Hawkyns and Peter Pett.

1585: Raleigh's first group of settlers under his cousin Sir Richard Grenville go to "Virginia", ie, Roanoke Island in North Carolina. Settlers conflict with Indians of the area.

1585-1586: The first Spanish war occurred after Drake's West Indies voyage in 15851586 when he sacked Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands (a port of call on the Africa trade route), Santo Domingo and Cartagena in the Caribbean. He followed a policy of attacking Spain by sea and capturing the Spanish plate ships bringing silver from the Americas. Philip II of Spain had long cherished the dream of invading England and bringing her back into the Catholic fold but what really made Philip determine on eventual invasion in 1586 was the execution of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots regarded by all Catholics as the real heiress to the English throne which Elizabeth had usurped.

1586: MP Edward Winter (1560-1619), anti-Spanish, first son of slaver William Winter and Mary Langton, married Lady Anne Somerset. The next generation of his family was Catholic. He once had booty worth 60,000 pounds. He takes part in Drake's 1586 voyage to West Indies.
(Hasler, The House of Commons, 1558-1603, p. 673. ) Website on Winter naval family.

1586: Grandson of Sir Wm Winter? Edward MP Winter (1560-1619), anti-Spanish, first son of slaver William Winter, and Mary Langton, marries Lady Anne Somerset. The next generation of his family was Catholic. He has booty worth 60,000 pounds. He takes part in Drake's 1586 voyage to West Indies.
(Hasler, The House of Commons, 1558-1603, p. 673. Websites on Winter naval family.)

1586: Drake returns to take off the first Virginian settlers from Roanoke Island. Further English efforts to colonise North Carolina in 1586-1587.

1587: Drake hears of preparation of Spanish Armada and sails to Cadiz Harbour to attack. Drake takes carrack San Felipe worth £100,000. Drake's ravaging and Mary Stuart's execution decide Philip II to prepare an invasion of England. In 1587, with Elizabeth's connivance, Drake attacks Cadiz and Coruña.
From websites on the Hawkins and Winter families cited elsewhere.

1588: Drake is appointed vice-admiral under Howard of Effingham at Plymouth.

1588: John Hariot, "navigator", coloniser, mathematician (1560-1621). Hariot was writing by 1588, and invented astronomical instruments. He once prepared charts for a voyage to Guinana, also a manual on navigation for Raleigh. "He worked in Sion House as a pensionary of Henry Percy, Earl Northumberland.
Who's Who/ Shakespeare, p. 104.

1588: The Invincible Armada sailed on 11 May 1588 armed with 2,431 guns, 123,790 shot 10,00 pikes, 7,000 spare arquebuses, 1,000 muskets, 20 gun carriages and 40 mules. There were 8,052 sailors, 18,795 soldiers, 2,088 oarsmen, 146 gentlemen, 238 officers and 728 servants, 167 gunners, 180 priests, 6 surgeons, 6 physicians and 62 medical orderlies on board. About 4,000 of these were Portuguese, Italians, Germans and Flemings, even several hundred Irish and English.

1588: The only professional naval officers amongst those who fought the Invincible Armada were Sir William Winter (son of the Clerk of the King's Ships who became Surveyor of the Navy in 1549), William Borough, William Holstock and John Hawkins (a merchant seaman who replaced William Winter).

In a list of men fit to command ships "The Names of Sea Captains, the 5th January Anno 1585 (SP Dom. clxxxvi. 8) were Sir William Winter, knight, Edward Winter, esquire, John Winter, esquire and William Winter, gent.

Although a seaman, Drake was not in the Navy. He received all the kudos for defeating the Armada but he had been trained by the Winters who had been in the royal navy for at least two generations.

Sir William, his sons Edward and William, his brother George, his nephew John of Dyrham and his kinsman Thomas Winter of Huddington were either naval officers, privateers whose ships took part in the Battle of the Armada or volunteers in Robert Dudley's army in the Netherlands.
Make an order for payment thereof. W. BURGHLEY.

1588: Sir William did not forget his feud with Hawkins and sent a note to Lord Burghley accusing Hawkins of extravagance and inefficiency. October 8th 1588. Comparison of charges. (ccxvii 12 - Winter's autograph but not signed, endorsed in Burghley's hand). A comparison betwixt the expenses for five years afore Mr Hawkyn's bargain and of the five years since the bargain of Mr Hawkyns. Sir William Wynter's declaration.

1588: 29 July 1588: Drake plays a leading part in the English attack off Gravelines on Spanish Armada, which shattered the Armada's force.

1588: Raleigh begins to fall from court favour, being challenged by Essex.

1589: Raleigh resigns part of his colonisation patent/company of merchants and gives himself a rent plus right to one-fifth of any gold discovered. He visits poet Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queen) in Ireland. Raleigh is with expedition to Portugal which fails to raise a revolt against Phillip II.

1589: Richard Hakluyt, writer on navigation and prospects for colonisation. His Principal Navigations appeared in 1589. The Hakluyts came from the Welsh border area, Richard Senior and Junior. Richard, died 1616, married Douglas Cavendish, who by repute was a connection of mariner Thomas Cavendish above. Richard Senior was a lawyer with London City links, interested in advising major companies (Muscovy Co.) and discussing Virginia with Gilbert and Raleigh. Richard Junior was a divine at Oxford, supported by the Clothworkers Company. He became the first to lecture at Oxford on "the new geography".
Lorimer, Amazon, p. 30, Note 2. Taylor, Tudor Geography, pp. 10ff. Rowse, Elizabethans and America, p. 36.

1589: Sir William Winter is hurt by the recoil of a gun during the battle against the Spanish Armada and dies on 20 February 1589 but his sons Edward and William and his nephew John continue voyaging. In the expedition to Portugal in 1589: Foresight - Captain William Winter (State Papers Dom. Eliz.. xxiii 76 9.4.1589 & Armada Papers ii p.236 et seq. Prof. Laughton's list). In the Channel Squadron under Martin Frobisher: Antelope - John Winter, captain and vice-admiral 1st January to 13th July 1589 at 8 shillings a day .

Hakluyt related: "A fleet to the Indies, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins, Generals, wherein they ventured deeply and died in the voyage 1595: Foresight, 300 tons - William Winter 22nd July 1595 to 2nd June 1596 (Pipe Office Declared Accounts 2233).

The Voyage truly discoursed made by Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins, chiefly pretended for some special service on the islands and main of the West Indies with six of the Queen's ship and 21 other ships and barks containing 2,500 men and boys in the year 1595 in which voyage both the foresaid knights died by sickness.

1589: England: Drake commands a naval force as Sir John Norreys commands land force for attack on Lisbon. The attack fails and Drake is unemployed for five years.

1589: England: Richard Hakluyt, writer on navigation and prospects for colonisation. His Principal Navigations appeared in 1589. The Hakluyts came from the Welsh border area, Richard Senior and Junior. Richard (died 1616) married Douglas Cavendish, who by repute was a connection of mariner Thomas Cavendish above. Richard Senior was a lawyer with London City links, interested in advising major companies (Muscovy Co.) and discussing Virginia with Gilbert and Raleigh. Richard Junior was a divine at Oxford, supported by the Clothworkers Company. He became the first to lecture at Oxford on "the new geography".
Lorimer, Amazon, p. 30, Note 2. Taylor, Tudor Geography, pp. 10ff. Rowse, Elizabethans and America, p. 36.

1590, Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, outdoes the Spanish city of Seville in splendour, with temples and palaces, busy marketplaces, drugstores, canals with bridges, floating market gardens, courts for ball games, zoological and botanical collections. 200,000 people lived in a city-suburbs of five square miles, when the population of Seville was 45,000. Conquistador Bernal Diaz thought all this a dream.

Circa1590-1605AD: Burma breaks up into small states.

1590: Japan: National unification completed by Hideyoshi.

1590s-1600: Italian/Lombard Banker, CORSINI, working in London. A family operation. An early member is Filippo Corsini, a Lombard banker presumably from Central Italy. In London about 1590-1600, he wanted to shift his fortune from England to Spain, then to Italy in a way allowing him to avoid Medici influence, but he could not export bullion from England, so he invested in fine English church bells, sold them in Spain, and got his money out to Italy that way. Corsinis became princes of Sismana in Umbria, Italy, thus annoying other Tuscan families not rising above the rank of marchese.
See obituary 10-1-2001 for Italian countess Annalu Sanminiatelli Corsini, (1933-2001) in Sydney Morning Herald, this woman descended from Filippo Corsini a Lombard banker. Countess Annalu married in 1955 to Count Cosimo Sanminiatelli of a Pisan family; she had children.

1591: England: Thomas Customer Smythe (1522-1591) of Westenhanger, Kent, one of Sir William Winter's partners in the syndicate which backed Drake's slaving voyages, was second son of John Smythe, a clothier and minor land owner of Corsham, Wiltshire. Thomas Smythe married Alice, daughter of Sir Andrew Judd, city merchant and Kent landowner. Sir Andrew Judd's widow Dame Mary Mathew married secondly Thomas Langton, Sir William Winter's father-in-law. Sir Andrew Judd, alderman and lord mayor of London in 1551-8, was buried at the church of St. Helen's in Bishopsgate Ward, London. Sir Andrew had his house near Leadenhall Street in Broad Street Ward.
Source: Website on Winter family.

Hasler, The House of Commons, 1558-1603, Vol. 1, p. 283 for Sir Rowland Hayward; pp. 403-407.) Who's Who in Shakspeare, p. 231. GEC, Peerage, Strangford, p. 358. Brenner, p. 63.
Alice Judd, 1563, 21 Jun 1563, daughter of colonist and London Lord Mayor Andrew Judd, and Joan Mirfyn. Alice is wife of Londoner Sir Thomas Smythe, a co-founder of Jamestown and the Virginia Co. (See Thomas Smythe in Rowse, Elizabethans, p. 77. See also: Holden Furber, John Company at Work. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1948., p. 3. Hasler, The House of Commons, 1558-1603. GEC, Peerage, Strangford, p. 358.

1591: England: James Lancaster sails to the east in 1591-1594, Benjamin Wood in 1596 reached the East Indies but it was Houtman who got to Sumatra usefully.

1591: English plan for expedition to Azores. Raleigh is interested but is replaced by his cousin Sir Richard Grenville.

1592-1598AD: Korea succeeds in beating off Japanese invasions.

1592: England: Thomas Cavendish, mariner, privateer, MP (died 1592).
Lorimer, Amazon, p. 30, Note 2. GEC, Peerage, Northumberland, p. 727. K. Andrews, Elizabethan Privateers, p. 68. Gwenyth Dyke, `The Finance of a Sixteenth Century Navigator, Thomas Cavendish of Trimley in Suffolk', Mariner's Mirror, Vol. 44, 1958., pp. 108-115. Who's Who /Shakespeare, p. 42.

1592: Raleigh provides funds for an expedition at sea to "intercept" Spanish trade, takes booty from carrack Madre de Dios, but is recalled by Elizabeth I who is annoyed he has seduced one of her maids, Elizabeth Throgmorton/Throckmorton. On his return, Raleigh placed in the Tower. His wife has a son in 1593.

1595: Drake and Hawkins sail with 27 ships to attack Spanish possessions in Caribbean as in 1585. Hawkins is killed off Puerto Rico. Drake dies off Porto Bello on 27 January, 1596, buried at sea.

1595: Raleigh sails on a voyage of exploration of coast of South America. He is influenced by tales of El Dorado, a source of gold. Raleigh is now very unpopular in England due to his greed and atheism.

1596: Raleigh takes part in English capture of Cadiz. His booty means he regains some court favour.

1596: On 8 November 1596, there was a double wedding at Essex House on the Strand, once the property of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester and then of his step-son Robert Devereaux, earl of Essex, which Edmund Spenser the Elizabethan poet often visited.
The brides were the ladies Elizabeth and Catherine Somerset, daughters of the Earl of Worcester who married Henry Guilford and William Petre. Edmund Spenser wrote his Prothalamion in their honour, each verse of which ended Sweet Thames! run softly till I end my song. In the next reign, another earl of Worcester's daughter, Anne Somerset married Sir John Winter of Lydney, Sir William's grandson and on 4 June 1610 took the part of the river Wye in a masque called Tethys' Festival or The Queen's Wake. Sir William and his family had connections with the Severn, the Wye and especially the Thames so Spencer's refrain could well accompany his life and career.

1597: Raleigh and Essex go on an expedition to the Azores. Their quarrel is renewed. Poet John Donne (according to his entry in Encyclopedia Britannica), went on Essex' Cadiz expedition of 1596 and on the Islands voyage of 1597. This shows in the "poetical journalism" of The Storm and The Calm.

1598: Catherine Carey (died 1602) the wife of Charles Howard (1536-1624) second Baron Howard of Effingham. He maintained a set of stage players (in Shakespeare's world of theatre) and jointly commanded English moves against the Spanish Armada.
(Who's Who /Shakespear, p. 123, p. 140. Hasler, History of Parliament, Vol. 2, p. 344, and p. 422. GEC, Peerage, Norfolk, tabulations; St John, p. 335; Nottingham, p. 782; Effingham, p. 10; Kildare, p. 240; Monson of Bellinguard, p. 68; Mordaunt, p. 200; St John, p. 335; Tyrconnell, p. 113; Northumberland, p. 726; Willoughby, p. 692; Galloway, p. 604.)
Howard had licences to export woolen cloths and in 1598 to trade with Guinea. His titles became extinct. Charles' father, the first Baron Howard of Effingham, William (1510-1572/73), Lord High Admiral (1553-1557) is said to have been greatly instrumental in Elizabeth I gaining her throne.
(Who's Who /Shakespeare, p. 224. GEC, Peerage, Dudley, p. 482; Effingham, p. 9. Bath, p. 19. Nottingham, p. 782. Information on an earlier period can be found in Gordon Connell-Smith, Forerunners of Drake: A Study of the English Trade with Spain in the early Tudor Period. London, Longmans Green and Co., 1954.)

Follows in rough chronological order a list of noted Spanish traders, or, members of "the Spanish Company". It will be seen that most of them were unconnected with the preoccupations of the Winters and the Hawkins' - how to meld expanding commerce in foreign areas, Thames-side shipbuilding, ship redesign and associated business, and managing a growing navy. It is noticeable that Sir William Winter's name is not included as a Spanish trader by historians of business life.
As well, even mere notes on these Spanish traders indicate the dangers of defining any individual merchant by merely one set of his associations (which applies also to the Hawkins'). One of the secrets of the enlargement of English trade was that men became skilled in managing multiple memberships, multiple sets of commodity-handling, multiple trade/industry associations, and multiple investment portfolios; the latter helping them spread their risks. (It is said at times that a merchant might be "founder" of a given trading company; it is far better to regard them as co-founders.)
(It will be seen from the citations that apart from Brenner's book, information on merchants is still to be gained from sources which are still disparate.)

Grocer Thomas (The Elder) Gore (1526-1597). Spanish Co. Son of Thomas Gore. Other family, not known.
(Willan, Elizabethan Foreign Trade, p. 202.)

William Marsham a founder of the Spanish Co. Active by 1577.
(Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 18.)

Coloniser Henry Ostrich. Active by 1551. Spanish Co. He married a daughter of Sebastien Cabot. He was related to William Ostrich a Spanish trader and a Gov. of the Andalusia Co.
(Willan, Studies in Elizabethan Trade, p. 97. Williamson, Age of Drake, pp. 14ff.)

Spanish merchant and MP William Saltern (died 1589). Spanish Co. A trader with Spain and Portugal, once instructed to cease trading with Spain.
(Hasler, The House of Commons, 1558-1603, p. 334.) He married Elizabeth, daughter of George Snigge, merchant and mayor of Bristol in 1574. Saltern in 1585 proposed a voyage to America. He was in the Spanish Co. by 1583.

Lord Mayor Sir George (George II) Barne (died 1593), of Spanish Co. A Darienite. Founder, Muscovy Co. Lord Mayor in 1586. Wool trader, of Woolwich. Son of Lord Mayor George I Barne, and Alice Brooke. George II was a founding director of Spanish Co when chartered in 1577; his father was in deep in Spanish trade from the 1560s on. George II married Anne Garrard.
Hamel, England and Russia, pp. 25-29, p. 109, pp. 151-157 says this man with [Wm Garrard?] from 1553 helped finance a voyage to Guinea, with vessels loaned by the king and on this voyage Capt Thomas Wyndham failed Garrard.

Hamel says by 1557 there were 140 Russia Co. investors/merchants in London including John Dimmock a member of Drapers' Co. Hamel (p. 109) names founders after 1554 of Russia Co. as six nobles including Wm Howard Lord High Admiral and Earl of Effingham, Sebastian Cabot, Sir Henry Sidney, Sir William Cecil, Sir William Peter, Sir George Barne(s), William Gerard, Thomas Offley the elder, John Dymock, and since they had been in Russia, Richard Chancellor, Stephen Burrough, John Buckland, Arthur Edwards, George Burton, Thomas Banister, John Sparke. Hamel, p. 211, says Sparke was one of four men going to Persia with Arthur Edwards). Burke's Extinct Baronetcies for Garrard of Lamer. On merchant genealogy, see also R. G. Lang, `Social Origins and Social Aspirations of Jacobean London Merchants', Economic History Review, 2, V, 27, 1974., pp. 28-47. Barne here was Gov. Muscovy Co. in 1580 and 1583. He had eight sons including William, also of Muscovy Co., who inherited trade and government links and had a brother-in-law Walsingham. In 1577 the Privy Council sought George Barne's opinion on setting up a company to pursue Spanish trade. He was sometimes called on to valued prize ships.
(Hasler, The House of Commons, 1558-1603, p. 367). Hasler p. 571 for his daughter's marriage to Walsingham; Hasler, p. 295 for his daughter's marriage to MP George Rivers. (Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth. Vol. 3, Oxford University Press at the Clarendon Press., Vol. 3, pp. 425ff.; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, pp. 18-20, p. 63. (See Burke's Landed Gentry; Burke's Extinct Baronetcies for Garrard, p. 214.)

London Lord Mayor Sir Richard Saltonstall (died 1601), Founder, Spanish Co. Active 1577. EICo, Governor, Merchant Adventurers. Son of Gilbert Saltonstall of Yorkshire, mother not known. Married to Susan Poyntz. He had a natural daughter, Abigail Baker. Of Company the Skinners. He helped finance a war of 1594-1595. He is an original subscriber to EICo. He had earlier with his own family lived in Netherlands.
(Hasler, Hasler, The House of Commons, 1558-1603, p. 335.) His daughter is noted in Burke's Extinct Baronetcies, p. 106. (Andrews, Elizabethan Privateers, pp. 114ff.) Saltonstall was London Lord Mayor 1597-1598. He was knighted as "Richard Saltingstall". (Newton, Colonising Puritans, pp. 78ff, p. 177.; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 18. Burke's Extinct Baronetcies for Wyche.) He seems to be grandfather of writer Wye Saltonstall, son of Sir Samuel Saltonstall. One Charles Saltonstall was for many years a mariner. Their father's (?) cousin sailed in 1630 with undertakers of the plantation of Massachusetts Bay where a son and grandson went after him to America.

Richard Staper (died 1608), Cloth trade, Company Clothworkers, founder Spanish Co., also member of the Turkey Co. Active about 1577. Married Denise Hewitt; had sons, Hewitt, Rowland and Richard. Staper had a brother James who is left his debts. His family in given in Willan, Studies in Elizabethan Foreign Trade, p. 192. Staper and Osborne send out "trade researchers" Fitch and Newbury who are treated below. He became second governor of Levant Co. in 1592, a founder of Levant Co. and a key figure in establishment of EICo. Also co-founder of Turkey Co.
Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 18, pp. 114ff.)

Thomas Cordell (died 1612), Mercers Co., EICo, Venice trade, Morocco trade. Spanish Co., Also London alderman and Privateer. He is in Morocco trade by 1560s. (Willan, Studies in Elizabethan Foreign Trade, p. 11.) This man in 1583 an associate of William Garroway (Simon Garroway worked for Henry Farrington and Co. at Marseilles) and sends ship Royal Merchant trading to Brazil. (Theodore K. Rabb, Enterprise and Empire: Merchant and Gentry Investment in the Expansion of England, 1575-1630. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1967., p. 111.) This man is "master of Mercers Company, a director of Spanish, East India and Levant cos., an investor in privateering, in Ireland and Virginia; a backer of Drake and Fenton", and "a pioneer of sugar refining in England". (Andrews, Elizabethan Privateers, pp. 76ff.) This man had links with ships Royal Exchange of 300 tons, owned by himself, William Holliday and William Garraway, leasing it to George Clifford third Earl Cumberland for privateering in 1594.
(Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 18.)

When Drake returned there was harsh criticism about the seizure of the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion (called Cacafuego) from Burghley's party who were for peace with Spain and the merchants who traded with Spain, amongst whom was Sir William Winter, later accused by Hawkins of being a Spanish spy although the Spaniards had sunk his ship the Mary Fortune in which his brother may have died and he had attacked Tenerife. The Queen was delighted and took a large share of the treasure hijacked from the Cacafuego. This was considerable and no one who has seen the pure silver altar, the gold and silver chalices and monstrances in Seville cathedral made from gold and silver from the Americas, would say accounts of it were exaggerated. In addition Drake ransacked several ships and a town.
"Our General weighed anchor and set sail towards the coast of Chile. And drawing towards it, we met near to the shore an Indian in a canoa who, thinking us to have been Spaniards, came to us and told us, that at a place called Santiago there was a great Spanish ship laden from the kingdom of Peru for which good news our General gave him divers trifles. Whereof he was glad and went along with us and brought us to the place, which is called the port of Valparaiso. When we came thither we found the ship riding at anchor. They of the town, being not above nine households, present fled away and abandoned the town. Our General manned his boat and the Spanish ship's boat and went to the town and, being come to it, we rifled it and came to a small chapel which we entered and found therein a silver chalice, two cruets and one altar-cloth, the spoil whereof our General gave to Master Fletcher, his minister. We found also in this town a warehouse stored with wine of Chile and many boards of cedar-wood, all which wine we brought away with us and certain of the boards to burn for firewood. When we were are sea our General rifled the ship and found in her good store of the wine of Chile and 25,000 pesos of very pure and fine gold of Valdivia, amounting in value of 37,000 ducats of Spanish money and above. So going on our course we arrived next at a place called Coquimbo. From whence we went to a certain port called Tarapaca, where, being landed, we found by the sea side a Spaniard lying asleep, who had lying by him thirteen bars of silver which weighed 4,000 ducats Spanish. We took the silver and left the man. Not far from hence, going inland for fresh water, we met with a Spaniard and an Indian boy driving eight llamas or sheep of Peru which are as big as asses; every of which sheep had on his back two bags of leather, each bag containing 50 lb weight of fine silver. So that, bringing both the sheep and their burthen to the ships, we found in all the bags eight hundred weigh(t) of silver."

The Hawkins story, continued:

By 1564, John Hawkins' patron's included Lord Robert Dudley, Earl Leicester, Earl of Pembroke. He had backers including Alderman Duckett, Sir Thos Lodge and Sir William Winter, his own father-in-law Benjamin Gonson.
(Fox-Bourne, Merchants: Memoirs, pp. 200ff.)

There arose ideas Hawkins could become the first English "concessionaire" for the West India slave trade.
(A relevant title is: J. Williamson. Sir John Hawkins. Oxford, 1927. See also: James A. Williamson, Maritime Enterprise, 1485-1558. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1913.; James A. Williamson, The Age of Drake. London, Adam and Charles Black, 1938.; James Williamson, The Caribee Islands under the Proprietary Patents. Oxford, 1926. (As cited in Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, Notes, p. 13).; James A. Williamson, The English Channel: A History. New York, World Publishing Co., 1959.)

Some backers of John Hawkins besides Gonson were: Sir Lionel Ducket and Sir Thomas Lodge. Backers of privateer names included Fenners, Gonsons, Sir William Winter, surveyor of the queen's navy. Fighting captains included Thomas Wyndham ("died in action on the Gold Coast") and Martin Frobisher.
Who's Who /Shakespeare, p. 152. GEC, Peerage, Lincoln, p. 690, Tailboys, pp. 602ff; Chandos, pp. 126ff; Bedford, p. 78; Willoughby, p. 703.)

date ? So soon, John Hawkins proposed he go to Florida, backed by naval men Sir William Winter and Gonson, London merchant Edward Castlyn, plus Sir William Garrard and Sir William Chester along with Sir William Cecil, Clinton the Lord Admiral, the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Robert Dudley (Earl Leicester from 1564). The queen contributed the use of a 700-ton ship, Jesus of Lubeck: the "fleet" officially belonged to the English state. With Hawkins was one John Sparke, who wrote on their adventures. Hawkins was now slaving in more earnest. When he found Florida he thought the area over-rated, then sailed to Newfoundland, thence home.

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