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Authors: Robert Lacey
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put him in the
stocks and have him repeat his confession. It was not until Warbeck tried to escape yet again that the King lost patience.
On 23 November 1499 the false claimant was hanged, and a few days later the true claimant, the hapless Earl of Warwick, was
beheaded on Tower Hill.
Henry gave Warbeck’s noble widow a pension and made her lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Lady Katherine Gordon became quite a
figure at the Tudor court, marrying no fewer than three more husbands and surviving until 1537. But the King’s sharp dose
of reality in 1499 had the desired effect — no more pretenders.
FISH N’ SHIPS
1497
In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue
And found this land, land of the Free, beloved by you, beloved by me.
F OURTEEN NINETY-TWO IS THE FAMOUS DATE when Christopher Columbus is credited by history with the‘discovery’ of America. But
modern archaeologists have shown that the Vikings must have crossed the Atlantic long before him. The remains of Viking homes,
cooking pits and metal ornaments on the island of Newfoundland have been dated to around the year 1000, And there is every
reason to believe that Columbus was also preceded to the Americas by several shiploads of weather-beaten Englishmen.
The men had set sail from Bristol, heading out from the prosperous port on the River Avon in the west of England, first towards
Ireland, then further westwards into the Atlantic. They were fishermen, searching for cod that they could salt and trade for
wine, and they brought back tales of remote islands that they called‘The Isle of the Seven Cities’ and‘The Isle of Brasil’.
Late in the 1490s an English merchant called John Day reported their discoveries to the‘Grand Admiral’ of Spain — the
Almirante Major
— who may have been Columbus himself. In a letter that was misfiled for centuries in the National Archives at Simancas, Day
pointed out that the New World across the Atlantic had, in fact, already been‘found and discovered in other times by the men
of Bristol… as your Lordship knows’.
The problem with this English claim to transatlantic discovery is that these West Country fishermen had kept their find to
themselves, as cagey fishermen tend to do. Harbour records make clear that in the 1480s, if not earlier, ships from Bristol
had located the fabulously fecund Grand Banks fishing grounds that lie off New England and Newfoundland. But they did not
wish to attract competitors or poachers. Their only interest in terra firma of any sort was as a landmark to guide them to
the fishing waters. So Christopher Columbus has retained the glory for 1492 — and in any case,‘discovery’ now seems the wrong
word for landing on a continent that was already occupied by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of indigenous American
Indians.
When a contingent of Bristolians did finally set foot in America in a properly documented fashion, they did so underroyal patronage. Around 1494 an Italian navigator, Zuan Caboto, arrived at the court of King Henry VII. Like Columbus, Caboto
came from Genoa and he was a skilled propagandist for the exploding world of discovery. Brandishing charts and an impressive
globe, he persuaded Henry to grant him a charter to‘seeke out, discover and finde what soever isles, countries, regions or
provinces of heathens and infidels… which before this time have been unknown to all Christians’.
The prudent king was not about to invest any of his own money in the project. On the contrary, royal approval carried a price
tag — 20 per cent of the profits. But Zuan, now John Cabot, was granted permanent tax exemption on whatever he might bring
back from the New World for himself. So he went down to Bristol in search of investors. There he was able to fit out a small
wooden sailing ship, the
Matthew,
with a crew of eighteen, most of them’hearty Bristol sailors’.
It might seem surprising that the clannish
stocks and have him repeat his confession. It was not until Warbeck tried to escape yet again that the King lost patience.
On 23 November 1499 the false claimant was hanged, and a few days later the true claimant, the hapless Earl of Warwick, was
beheaded on Tower Hill.
Henry gave Warbeck’s noble widow a pension and made her lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Lady Katherine Gordon became quite a
figure at the Tudor court, marrying no fewer than three more husbands and surviving until 1537. But the King’s sharp dose
of reality in 1499 had the desired effect — no more pretenders.
FISH N’ SHIPS
1497
In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue
And found this land, land of the Free, beloved by you, beloved by me.
F OURTEEN NINETY-TWO IS THE FAMOUS DATE when Christopher Columbus is credited by history with the‘discovery’ of America. But
modern archaeologists have shown that the Vikings must have crossed the Atlantic long before him. The remains of Viking homes,
cooking pits and metal ornaments on the island of Newfoundland have been dated to around the year 1000, And there is every
reason to believe that Columbus was also preceded to the Americas by several shiploads of weather-beaten Englishmen.
The men had set sail from Bristol, heading out from the prosperous port on the River Avon in the west of England, first towards
Ireland, then further westwards into the Atlantic. They were fishermen, searching for cod that they could salt and trade for
wine, and they brought back tales of remote islands that they called‘The Isle of the Seven Cities’ and‘The Isle of Brasil’.
Late in the 1490s an English merchant called John Day reported their discoveries to the‘Grand Admiral’ of Spain — the
Almirante Major
— who may have been Columbus himself. In a letter that was misfiled for centuries in the National Archives at Simancas, Day
pointed out that the New World across the Atlantic had, in fact, already been‘found and discovered in other times by the men
of Bristol… as your Lordship knows’.
The problem with this English claim to transatlantic discovery is that these West Country fishermen had kept their find to
themselves, as cagey fishermen tend to do. Harbour records make clear that in the 1480s, if not earlier, ships from Bristol
had located the fabulously fecund Grand Banks fishing grounds that lie off New England and Newfoundland. But they did not
wish to attract competitors or poachers. Their only interest in terra firma of any sort was as a landmark to guide them to
the fishing waters. So Christopher Columbus has retained the glory for 1492 — and in any case,‘discovery’ now seems the wrong
word for landing on a continent that was already occupied by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of indigenous American
Indians.
When a contingent of Bristolians did finally set foot in America in a properly documented fashion, they did so underroyal patronage. Around 1494 an Italian navigator, Zuan Caboto, arrived at the court of King Henry VII. Like Columbus, Caboto
came from Genoa and he was a skilled propagandist for the exploding world of discovery. Brandishing charts and an impressive
globe, he persuaded Henry to grant him a charter to‘seeke out, discover and finde what soever isles, countries, regions or
provinces of heathens and infidels… which before this time have been unknown to all Christians’.
The prudent king was not about to invest any of his own money in the project. On the contrary, royal approval carried a price
tag — 20 per cent of the profits. But Zuan, now John Cabot, was granted permanent tax exemption on whatever he might bring
back from the New World for himself. So he went down to Bristol in search of investors. There he was able to fit out a small
wooden sailing ship, the
Matthew,
with a crew of eighteen, most of them’hearty Bristol sailors’.
It might seem surprising that the clannish
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