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Close to Stoke Gabriel & Dartmouth is the countyr house of the Gilbert family.
It is not hard to imagine that the boys of both families encountering each other whilst messing about on the river Dart.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert figures large in the explorations and adventures in the New World in Elizabethan times.
Gilberts were an ancient family were seated at Compton Castle near Maldon in Paignton, with a '2nd home' at Greenways on the Dart opposite Dartmouth , a busy and important port.
Note a few lesser members of both Gilbert and Ralegh families have marital connections to Pomeroy.
Grace daughter of Hugh of Ignsdon in 1581 married John Gilbert of Bridgerule;
Joan daughter of Roger of Sandridge in 1649 married Humphrey Gilbert.
Henry Baron Pomeroy in about 1440 married Alice Ralegh of Fardel
Ann daughter of Sir JohnPomeroy married Sir John Rawlegh
In the 30 years after Dissolution of the Monasteries landed gentleman and men with funds reaped the benefits acquiring lands & monastic buildings like the priories and monasteries themselves as well as the little Chantries which were so much part of medieval society .
Men such as John Champernown, Richard Pollard and William Abbot the Sergeant of the Wine Cellar of Henry VIII who got Hartland Abbey, along with the Priory at Bodmin, which Abbott soon sold to the use of that town.
Sir Thomas Pomeroy & Hugh of Tregony his brother ,bought numerous chantries whilst the debt ridden the Pomeory's finances sank and sold they their barony - unlike many of large land owners who became wealthy allowing then to rise to the top of the social tree.
The wealthiest men as ever grew more wealthy , the Courtenays, Coplestones, Edgecombes, Fulford, and Champernown, all also had interests in farming , sheep, tin mining and shipping.
Less wealthy were the Devon squirachy:- the Bassets, Trevellayans, Yarnscomes, Bamfyldes, Hacces, Carews , Wynslades, Whytings and Halses all of whom had incomes of more than £100 per annum.
Less wealthy than them were the families of Monck, Stukely, Tremayne, Yeo, Grenville and Bury who held only one or two manors and who were the minor landed gentry in the 14th and 15th century
One of the most famous of Elizabeths Adventurers was Sir Humphrey Gilbert -5th son of Otto Gilbert of Compton Castle. An arrogant, boastful man given to outburst of violent rage he was certainly a man of his times, an entitled white aristocrat who had been given much, expected more and took what he wanted. Like many a younger son before him he was virtually ' penniless' , his aggression, violence and abuse are witnessed by the time he spent in Ireland.
As an adventure he was reckless and flamboyant. His seamanship was questionable but nevertheless he sailed off into the Atlantic looking for wealth & fame . His first venture was a result of being sold a little highly coloured hand drawn map and which had been accompanied by wildly inaccurate tales verbal about the New World including terrible beasts and rampant cannibals . That 1st expedition to North America in 1578 was an expensive failure.
Like many of his contemporaries Humphrey seems to have been pretty clueless about what to expect.
We should not overlook the fact that the Europeans were not 'offering' the First American tribes anything, they only wanted to 'take', as was the culture of Europeans in at that time.
When Gilbert was sent to Ireland his savagery in dealing with the Irish was well known - In 1567 he was appointed Governor of Ulster and served as a member of the Irish Parliament. To intimidate the Irish rebels he devised a spectacle involving the decapitated heads of his Irish enemies . He particularly advocated the killing of Irish non-combatant women and others, whom he regarded with a kind of racist distain, treating them without mercy and putting men, women & children to the sword.
..... in June 1579 he set sail and promptly got lost in fog and heavy rain off Land's End, Cornwall, an incident which caused the Queen to doubt his seafaring ability. His fleet was then driven into the Bay of Biscay and the Spanish soon slipped past and sailed into Dingle harbour, where they made their rendezvous with the Irish.
In October Gilbert put into the port of Cobh in Cork, where he delivered a terrible beating to a local gentleman, smashing him about the head with a sword. He also had a violent and deadly row with a local merchant, whom he murdered on the dockside.
His first expedition to the New World had failed miserably and left him almost bankrupt , or as he put it, likely to have to sell the clothes off his wife's back. That Map rekindled Gilberts ambitions for a New World colony and he hit on brilliant idea to fund his venture of 1583.
5th August 1583 Humphrey Gilbert claimed St Johns in Newfoundland and 700 miles inland for the English crown. It was the first English colony in North America and the beginning of what became the British Empire.
In September 1583 off the Azores his frigate 'the Squirrel 'was overwhelmed by seas and disappeared and with it Sir Humphrey Gilbert
1588 the Spanish Armada- which failed in part because of the Fireships the English navy launched, but largely because of the weather . It failed to make landfall and invade England & sailed home via Scotland and Ireland ; Drake was not in charge he was Vice Admiral of the Fleet under Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham who was Lord High Admiral from 1585.
Drakes attempt at reverse armada at Corunna the following year, 1559, was the greatest naval disaster in history and 20,00 Englishmen losing their lives ; The myths surrounding the Spanish Armada arose later, many after the death of Elizabeth I
Some vowed to be 'generous' to their putative tenants; Sir George Peckham who in fact gave little thought to the needs or lives of the natives he was setting himself over , promised each of his tenants a looking looking glass , bells, beads, bracelets and chains, and also European clothing, a highly coloured shirt , a cotton cassock and a cap
Recognising that nobody likes to be conquered Gilbert did not intend to send the most worthy men in the first wave of settlement. Instead he was to send 'disposables ' such as thieves wasters and murderers.
in May 1583 the fleet of 5 ships was ready to depart Plymouth in Devon when the Queen withdrew her consent for fear that Gilbert might die at sea. This was rescinded after many pleas and petitions and the Queen sent him a magnificent diamond encrusted gold jewel of considerable worth.
On 11 July 1583 HumphreyGilbert & his half brother & Walter Ralegh with the ships of his little fleet slipped quietly out of Cawsand, the tiny harbour at the edge of Plymouth Sound, carrying 260 men in the 5 badly provisioned and ill equipped ships.
So ill prepared for what was to confront them that they had not even planned route across the stormy Atlantic .
Whether or not there was a Pomeroy in that fleet I have yet to discover
https://sites.google.com/site/pomeroytwigs2/home
Gilbert had numerous rich and influential friends and he excited them with the prospect of vast tracts of wilderness, filled with untold riches, all up for grabs/ Millions of acres to be sold to the highest bidder carrying with them the idea of quasi feudal power. Obviously there would be Laws in this New World , English laws, but there was one for the Europeans and another for the indigenous people.
Once word got out Englands landed gentlemen, aristocrats and the rising class of newly wealthy merchant descended on Gilbert's residence in Red Cross Street in the city of London. Sir Phillip Sydney bought 3 million of acres, Sir Thomas Gerard a million, with a proviso that he would share in all gold silver, pearls and precious stones found therein .
Below Red Cross Street St Giles Cripplegate just outside the city wall
Gilbert's half brother Sir Walter Raleigh was fast becoming the favourite of Elizabeth I & was knighted in 1585. With the Queens favour came properties, including Shebourne Abbey, & funds. He was granted a royal patent to explore Virginia, paving the way for future English settlements. He decided to invest in his kinsman adventure, & bought himself a new ship The Bark Ralegh a vessel of 140 tons, ready to sail, equipped and provisioned for 60 men.
Between June 1582 and Feb 1583 Humphrey sold 8.5 million acres of land in the New World making himself a considerable amount of money.
All was going well until in 1591 , without the Queen's permission, Raleigh secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting. They were both sent to the Tower of London . After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset &. There after he lived a quiet life until after Elizabeths death in 1603. The new king James Stewart James I of England loathed Raleigh & he was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time for being involved in the plot to remove James I from the throne & replace him with Arabella Stuart.
In 1616, having heard stories of vast wealth in gold & El Dorado he was released to lead a second expedition in search for the fabled city During the expedition, men led by his top commander ransacked a Spanish outpost, in violation of both the terms of his pardon and the 1604 peace treaty with Spain.
Raleigh returned to England where, to appease the Spanish, King James had him arrested and executed in 1618.
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