Humphrey Gilbert

English explorer

• Born: c. 1539
• Birthplace: Greenway, Devonshire, England
• Died: September 9, 1583
• Place of death: At sea, near the Azores

One of the great Elizabethan explorers, Gilbert annexed Newfoundland and claimed it for the English crown. His efforts inspired the English to continue to explore and colonize the northeastern coast of North America, which also helped launch the British Empire in the west.

Early Life

Humphrey Gilbert was the third child and second son of Otho Gilbert, a wealthy landowner, and his wife Katherine, the daughter of a Kentish knight. After Otho died in 1547, Katherine Gilbert married Walter Ralegh, another Devonshire landowner. By him she had three children, one of whom would become the famous English courtier, explorer, and poet Sir Walter Ralegh. Although they have been pictured sharing tales of adventure during their boyhood, the age gap between Humphrey and Walter meant that they probably saw little of each other until their adult years.

Humphrey was educated at Eton and then Oxford University, where it is said he focused on military subjects and on navigation. When he was fifteen, he entered the service of Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth I . An appointment as page likely had been obtained for Humphrey by his mother’s aunt, at one time Elizabeth’s governess and then an important member of her court at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. Gilbert’s devotion to Elizabeth became the ruling force of his life, and she never wavered in her appreciation of his loyalty.

After Elizabeth became queen, Gilbert moved to London and lived in one of the Inns of Court. His military career began when he was twenty-three; he joined the English troops sent to hold Havre-de-Grâce, or New Haven, a French seaport town under siege by the Catholics. In 1567, Gilbert was sent to Ireland, where he was ruthless in helping to suppress an uprising. In 1570, he was knighted for his services. Returning to England, Gilbert married Anne Aucher, a Kentish heiress. They would have six sons and one daughter. The following year, Gilbert was elected a member of Parliament, representing Plymouth. In 1572, he again saw military service, commanding a large force of English volunteers sent to aid the Dutch in their revolt against the Spanish and their occupation of the Netherlands. Though he was an adequate military officer, Gilbert came to realize that his real interests lay elsewhere.

Life’s Work

For some time, Gilbert had been interested in a possible water passage through North America to China, and in 1565, he had petitioned the queen for permission to search for such a route. The following year, he completed A Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Passage to Cataia (1576). During his stay in Ireland, Gilbert was involved in a project that sought to establish colonies of English Protestants in Ulster and Munster. When that idea did not bear fruit, he turned his attention once again to North America, this time to England’s rivalry with Spain.

In 1577, he approached the queen with a plan for taking Spanish-occupied Santo Domingo and Cuba, seizing the numerous foreign fishing vessels that were based in Newfoundland and converting them into privateers, and then using them to intercept silver-laden Spanish ships headed east across the Atlantic.

After this plan failed to win approval at court, Gilbert came up with a proposal that had more success. On June 11, 1578, the queen granted him the right to find and occupy a site for a colony, so long as the land was not already held by Christians. Though Gilbert now had the queen’s permission to pursue his dream, he knew that his time was limited, for the charter would expire at the end of six years. Moreover, he would have to raise the considerable sum of money for the expedition; undoubtedly, he intended to recoup his expenses by seizing Spanish ships. The men with his expedition, however, were undisciplined, and many of them were pirates. Provisions were inadequate, and several of the ships that left England on November 18 had to turn back almost immediately because they were unseaworthy. A second attempt in February, 1579, was no more successful than the first. The venture had cost Gilbert most of his fortune.

Gilbert was able to gather enough financial support, though, so that by June 11, 1583, he could again set sail from Plymouth. Although the expedition began with five ships, one of them, the Ralegh, which was owned and commanded by Gilbert’s half brother Walter Ralegh, had to turn back almost immediately. The remaining four included the Delight, which was the flagship of the general; the Golden Hind, owned and commanded by Edward Haies, or Hayes, who would later write the definitive account of the expedition; the Swallow; and a small frigate, the Squirrel. On August 2, the ships arrived at St. John’s, Newfoundland, and on August 5, Gilbert formally claimed Newfoundland for the Crown and proceeded to explore the area, taking mineral samples, which his expert said included silver ore. Since Gilbert had sent the Swallow back to England with the sailors who were sick and those who were incorrigible troublemakers, he had just three ships left when he began to move southward along the coast.

On August 29, the Delight ran aground and sank. Only fifteen men were rescued; the ore samples and the mineral expert went down with the ship. After this misfortune, it was evident that the two remaining ships should return to England. Edward Haies urged Gilbert to join him on the larger ship for the journey home; however, Gilbert insisted on remaining on the Squirrel, which he had found useful for explorations along the coast. On September 9, after the frigate had survived heavy seas, Haies reports seeing Gilbert near the stern of the ship with a book in his hand. Whenever his friends on the Golden Hind were near enough to hear him, he would call out “We are as neare to Heaven by sea as by land,” which scholars point out is a paraphrase of a passage in Sir Thomas More’s De optimo reipublicae statu, deque nova insula utopia (1516; better known as Utopia; English translation, 1551). Late that night the lights of the Squirrel vanished, and the ship disappeared into the ocean.

Significance

Although Gilbert failed to find a northwest passage to China and did not establish a settlement in North America, he proved to be one of the most important men of his time. His annexation of Newfoundland did more than provide England with a foothold in North America. His expedition also focused attention on the fishing industry, which the English found would be profitable. This prospect for profit supported Gilbert’s arguments for establishing colonies on the eastern seaboard. His possible discovery of valuable minerals, reported by the survivors of his final expedition, also convinced England that North America was worth their attention.

Inspired by Gilbert’s Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Passage to Cataia, several later explorers went in search of the Northwest Passage he believed existed, and though they, too, were unsuccessful, their accounts of a great, rich, unpopulated wilderness that was just waiting to be claimed further stimulated interest in colonizing North America. Not many years after Gilbert’s death, his vision would become a reality, with British colonies in place from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to Maine, Maryland, and Virginia.

Four hundred years after the annexation, a celebration in Gilbert’s honor was held at St. John’s, Newfoundland. One of those present, a former premier, named Gilbert’s most important achievement: His vision helped launch the British Empire.

Bibliography

Cell, Gillian T. English Enterprise in Newfoundland, 1577-1660. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1969. Explains how the efforts of Gilbert and his associates were motivated by England’s political and commercial interests.

Gosling, William Gilbert. The Life of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, England’s First Empire Builder. 1911. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970. The standard biography. Illustrated.

Hart, Jonathan. Representing the New World: The English and French Uses of the Example of Spain. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Demonstrates how explorers and colonizers such as Gilbert often imitated Spain even as they sought to expel that nation from North America.

Levin, Carole. The Reign of Elizabeth I. New York: Palgrave, 2002. Includes a brief but useful account of Gilbert’s participation in Elizabeth’s attempts to colonize Ireland.

Miller, Shannon. Invested with Meaning: The Raleigh Circle in the New World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. An analysis of the system of patronage. The author’s comments on Gilbert’s relationships with the queen and with her other clients are particularly revealing.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Northern Voyages, A.D. 500-1600. Vol. 1 in The European Discovery of America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Contains an excellent account of Gilbert’s life, his “glorious failure” in Newfoundland, and his influence. Copiously illustrated.

Quinn, David Beers, ed. The Voyages and Colonising Enterprises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. 2 vols. London: Hakluyt Society, 1940. A collection of the documentary sources often quoted by biographers.