Read Online Great Tales from English History, Book 2 by Robert Lacey - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Lacey
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West-Countrymen should team up with an Italian, an outsider, but there was a fraternity
among those who risked their lives on the mysterious western ocean. Cabot was skilled in the latest navigational techniques
using the stars, and he needed a crew who would not lose their nerve when out of sight of land for four weeks or more.
In the event, the journey took five. On 24 June 1497, thirty-five days after leaving England, the
Matthew
sighted land and dropped anchor somewhere off the coast of modern Newfoundland, Labrador or Nova Scotia. Cautiously,Cabot and his landing party rowed ashore, where they found the remains of a fire, some snares set for game, a needle for making
nets and a trail that headed inland. Obviously, there were humans around; but Cabot was not keen to meet them.’Since he was
with just a few people,’John Day later explained in his letter to the Spanish Grand Admiral,‘he did not dare advance inland
beyond the shooting distance of a crossbow.’
The landing party planted four banners: the arms of St George, on behalf of King Henry VII; a papal banner on behalf of the
Pope; the flag of Venice, since Cabot had taken Venetian citizenship; and a cross intended for the local’heathens and infidels’.
Then the English mariners set off down the coast in pursuit of their great passion — the waters were‘swarming with fish’,
Cabot later boasted to the Milanese Ambassador, and there was no need of a net to catch them: they could just lean over the
ship’s rail and‘let down baskets with a stone’.
Heading for home around the middle of July, captain and crew used the same method that had got them there — the so-called‘dead
reckoning’. This involved fixing on one particular angle to the stars and preserving that angle as they sailed, effectively
staying on one line of latitude as they moved around the curve of the globe. Contrary to received wisdom, fifteenth-century
sailors did not believe the world was flat. Indeed, its roundness was the basis of their adventurous navigation techniques.
By 23 August, Cabot was back in London, reporting on his finds to the King who, never careless with his money,doled out an immediate ten pounds — about four times the average annual wage at the time. Henry also granted the mariner an
annual pension of twenty pounds for life, to be paid by the port of Bristol out of its customs receipts. But John Cabot did
not live to claim it. The next year he set out on another expedition westwards where, as the Tudor historian Polydore Vergil
heartlessly put it, the‘newe founde lande’ he discovered was‘nowhere but on the very bottom of the ocean. Cabot and his ship
vanished without trace.
But his death did not discourage other adventurers. In 1501 Henry VII commissioned six more Bristolians to head westwards,
and they returned with Arctic hunting falcons — perhaps the King gave them to Lambert Simnel to train — along with a few of
the native inhabitants that Cabot had been careful to avoid encountering four years earlier:‘They were clothed in beasts’
skins and ate raw flesh,’ recorded one awestruck chronicler,‘and spake such speech that no man could understand them… In
their demeanour [they were] like… brute beasts.’
Falcons, fish and Eskimos — as the Inuit people came to be called at the end of the sixteenth century — were interesting enough,
but they bore no comparison to the gold, jewels and, above all, silver that Spain would soon be carrying home in heaving galleon-loads
from the southerly lands discovered by Columbus. It would be more than seventy years before England made a determined effort
to settle the northern parts of the continent that, after 1507, would be described on the maps as‘America’.
But the Eskimos settled in nicely, thank you. They evidently found themselves a tailor, for just two years after theyhad first appeared at Henry’s court in their animal skins, England’s first
among those who risked their lives on the mysterious western ocean. Cabot was skilled in the latest navigational techniques
using the stars, and he needed a crew who would not lose their nerve when out of sight of land for four weeks or more.
In the event, the journey took five. On 24 June 1497, thirty-five days after leaving England, the
Matthew
sighted land and dropped anchor somewhere off the coast of modern Newfoundland, Labrador or Nova Scotia. Cautiously,Cabot and his landing party rowed ashore, where they found the remains of a fire, some snares set for game, a needle for making
nets and a trail that headed inland. Obviously, there were humans around; but Cabot was not keen to meet them.’Since he was
with just a few people,’John Day later explained in his letter to the Spanish Grand Admiral,‘he did not dare advance inland
beyond the shooting distance of a crossbow.’
The landing party planted four banners: the arms of St George, on behalf of King Henry VII; a papal banner on behalf of the
Pope; the flag of Venice, since Cabot had taken Venetian citizenship; and a cross intended for the local’heathens and infidels’.
Then the English mariners set off down the coast in pursuit of their great passion — the waters were‘swarming with fish’,
Cabot later boasted to the Milanese Ambassador, and there was no need of a net to catch them: they could just lean over the
ship’s rail and‘let down baskets with a stone’.
Heading for home around the middle of July, captain and crew used the same method that had got them there — the so-called‘dead
reckoning’. This involved fixing on one particular angle to the stars and preserving that angle as they sailed, effectively
staying on one line of latitude as they moved around the curve of the globe. Contrary to received wisdom, fifteenth-century
sailors did not believe the world was flat. Indeed, its roundness was the basis of their adventurous navigation techniques.
By 23 August, Cabot was back in London, reporting on his finds to the King who, never careless with his money,doled out an immediate ten pounds — about four times the average annual wage at the time. Henry also granted the mariner an
annual pension of twenty pounds for life, to be paid by the port of Bristol out of its customs receipts. But John Cabot did
not live to claim it. The next year he set out on another expedition westwards where, as the Tudor historian Polydore Vergil
heartlessly put it, the‘newe founde lande’ he discovered was‘nowhere but on the very bottom of the ocean. Cabot and his ship
vanished without trace.
But his death did not discourage other adventurers. In 1501 Henry VII commissioned six more Bristolians to head westwards,
and they returned with Arctic hunting falcons — perhaps the King gave them to Lambert Simnel to train — along with a few of
the native inhabitants that Cabot had been careful to avoid encountering four years earlier:‘They were clothed in beasts’
skins and ate raw flesh,’ recorded one awestruck chronicler,‘and spake such speech that no man could understand them… In
their demeanour [they were] like… brute beasts.’
Falcons, fish and Eskimos — as the Inuit people came to be called at the end of the sixteenth century — were interesting enough,
but they bore no comparison to the gold, jewels and, above all, silver that Spain would soon be carrying home in heaving galleon-loads
from the southerly lands discovered by Columbus. It would be more than seventy years before England made a determined effort
to settle the northern parts of the continent that, after 1507, would be described on the maps as‘America’.
But the Eskimos settled in nicely, thank you. They evidently found themselves a tailor, for just two years after theyhad first appeared at Henry’s court in their animal skins, England’s first
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