Van der Feen/Mendels/Rowe/Hesketh Family Tree » Sir Humphrey Gilbert Knight (± 1539-1583)

Persoonlijke gegevens Sir Humphrey Gilbert Knight 

• Hij is geboren rond 11 januari 1539 in Greenway Court, Near Galmpton, Devon, England .
• Hij is overleden op 9 september 1583 in Off Newfoundland (Died at sea.).
• Een kind van Otho Gilbert en Catherine Champernowne

Gezin van Sir Humphrey Gilbert Knight

Hij heeft/had een relatie met Anne Aucher.

Kind(eren):

1. Humphrey/Gilbert Gilbert  1563-????
2. Elizabeth Gilbert  1566-????
3. Otho Gilbert  1571-????
4. Arthur Gilbert  1573-????
5. Sir John Gilbert  1573-1608
6. Anthony Gilbert  1575-????
7. Raleigh Ager Gilbert  1577-1634
8. Adrian Gilbert  1578-1617

Notities over Sir Humphrey Gilbert Knight

Aboutedit | history
Sir Humphrey Gilbert (c. 1539 – 9 September 1583) [1] was an English adventurer, explorer, member of parliament, and soldier from Devon, who served the crown during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England.[1]. One of the pioneers of English colonization, he also claimed what is thought to be the first English property in North America. He was a half-brother (through his mother) of Sir Walter Raleigh.[1] He was a notable sailor in the British Royal Navy.

Early Life
Gilbert was the second birth son of Otho and Katherine Champernowne Gilbert of Compton and Greenway Estate, Galmpton, Devon. His brothers Sir John Gilbert and Adrian Gilbert, and half brothers Carew Raleigh and Sir Walter Raleigh were also prominent during the reigns of Elizabeth I or James I. Katherine was a niece of Kat Ashley, Elizabeth's governess, who introduced the young men at court. His uncle, Sir Arthur Champernowne, involved Gilbert in efforts to establish Irish plantations between 1566-1572. (Ronald, p. 248-2490)

Sir Henry Sidney became his mentor, and he was educated at Eton and the University of Oxford, where he learned to speak French and Spanish and studied the arts of war and navigation. He went on to reside at the Inns of Chancery in London c.1560–1561.

Quid non? ("Why not?") and Mutare vel timere sperno ("I scorn to change or to fear"), indicates how he chose to live his life. He was present at the siege of Newhaven in Havre-de-grâce (le Havre), Normandy, where he was wounded in June 1563. By July 1566 he was serving in Ireland under the command of Sidney (then Lord Deputy) against Shane O'Neill, but was sent to England later in the year with dispatches for the Queen. (See Plantations of Ireland and Tudor conquest of Ireland). At that point he took the opportunity of presenting the Queen with his A discourse of a discoverie for a new Passage to Cataia (published in revised form in 1576), treating of the exploration of a Northwest Passage by America to Asia. Within the year he had set down an account of his strange and turbulent visions, in which he received the homage of Solomon and Job, with their promise to grant him access to secret mystical knowledge.

Military career in Ireland
Gilbert returned to Ireland and, after the assassination of O'Neill in 1569, he was appointed to the profitless office of governor of Ulster and served as a member of the Irish parliament. At about this time he petitioned the Queen's principal secretary, Lord Burghley, for a recall to England - "for the recovery of my eyes" - but his ambitions still rested in Ireland, and particularly in the southern province of Munster. In April 1569 he proposed the establishment of a presidency and council for the province, and pursued the notion of an extensive settlement around Baltimore (in modern County Cork), which was approved by the Dublin council. At the same time he was involved with Sidney and the secretary of state, Sir Thomas Smith, in planning a large settlement of the northern province of Ulster by Devonshire gentlemen.

Gilbert's actions in the south of Ireland played a significant part in the outbreak of the first of the Desmond Rebellions. A kinsman of his, Sir Peter Carew (another Devonshire man), was pursuing a provocative, and somewhat far-fetched, claim to the inheritance of certain lands within the Butler territories in south Leinster. The Earl of Ormond - a bosom companion of the Queen's from her troubled youth and head of that family - was absent in England, and the clash of his family's influence with the lawful authority of Carew's claim created havoc.

Gilbert was eager to participate and, after Carew's seizure of the barony of Idrone (in modern County Carlow), he pushed westward with his forces across the river Blackwater in the summer of 1569 and joined up with his kinsman to defeat Sir Edmund Butler, a younger brother of the Earl's. Violence spread in a confusion from Leinster and across the province of Munster, when the Geraldines of Desmond went into rebellion. Gilbert was then created colonel by Lord Deputy Sidney and charged with the pursuit of the rebel James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald (whom Gilbert considered, "a silly wood-kerne").

The Geraldines were driven out of Kilmallock, but returned to lay siege to Gilbert, who drove off their superior force in a sally, during which his horse was shot from under him and his buckler transfixed with a spear. After that initial success, he showed courage in striking out into rebel territory, and managed to march unopposed through Kerry and Connello, taking 30-40 castles without the aid of artillery.

During the three weeks of this campaign, all enemies were treated without quarter and put to the sword - including women and children - which explains, perhaps, the swiftness with which so many castles had been abandoned before Gilbert's aggression. He is also said to have sent Captain Apsley into Kerry to inspire terror.

Gilbert's attitude to the Irish may be captured in one quote from him, dated 13 November 1569: "These people are headstrong and if they feel the curb loosed but one link they will with bit in the teeth in one month run further out of the career of good order than they will be brought back in three months." In order to cowe local supporters of the rebels, he chose to put on gruesome spectacles: after a day's killing he would order the decapitation of the scattered corpses so that the heads could be brought to his camp in the evening, where they were arranged in two parallel rows, making a pathway to the flaps of his tent, along which the supplicants would tread in the presence of their late fathers, brothers and sons. John Perrot also used the practice at Kilmallock a few years later).

In time, Ormond returned from England and called in his brothers, which caused the Geraldine resistance to weaken. In December 1569, after one of the chief rebels had come in to the government and confessed his treason, Gilbert received his knighthood at the hands of Sidney in the ruined Fitzmaurice camp, reputedly amid heaps of slain gallowglass warriors. Fitzmaurice stayed out in rebellion (only coming in to submit in 1573), and one month after Gilbert's return to England he retook Kilmallock with 120 foot, defeating the garrison and sacking the town for three days, leaving it "the abode of wolves".

MP and Adventurer
In 1570 Sir Humphrey Gilbert returned to England, where he married Anne Aucher, who bore him six sons and one daughter.

Gilbert was elected to parliament as a member for Plymouth, and controversially argued for the crown prerogative in the matter of royal licences for purveyance. In business affairs, he involved himself in an alchemical project with Smith, whereby iron was to be transmuted into copper and antimony, and lead into mercury.

By 1572 Gilbert had turned his attention to the Netherlands, where he fought an unsuccessful campaign in support of the Dutch Sea beggars at the head of a force of 1500 men, many of whom had deserted from Smith's aborted plantation in the Ards of Ulster. In the period 1572–1578 Gilbert settled down and devoted himself to writing. In 1573 he presented Elizabeth I with a proposal for an academy in London, which was eventually put into effect by Sir Thomas Gresham upon the establishment of Gresham College. Gilbert also helped to set up the Society of the New Art with Lord Burghley and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, both of whom maintained an alchemical laboratory in Limehouse.

Thereafter, Gilbert's life was spent in a series of failed ship expeditions, the financing of which exhausted his own fortune and a great part of his family's. He backed Martin Frobisher's trip to Greenland, which yielded a cargo of a mysterious yellow rock, subsequently found to be worthless. In pursuit of one of his own projects, he sailed from Plymouth for North America in November 1578 with 7 vessels in his fleet, which was scattered by storms and forced back to port some 6 months later; the only vessel to have penetrated the Atlantic to any great distance was the Falcon under Raleigh's command.

Return to Ireland
In the summer of 1579, Gilbert and Raleigh were commissioned by the lord deputy of Ireland, William Drury, to attack his old foe, the rebel James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, by sea and land and to intercept a fleet expected to arrive from Spain with aid for the Munster rebels. At this time Gilbert had three vessels under his command: the Anne Ager (or perhaps, Anne Archer or Aucher - named after his wife) of 250 tons, the Relief, and the Squirrell of 10 tons. The latter vessel, a small frigate, was notable for having completed the voyage to America and back inside three months under the command of a captured Portuguese pilot.

In pursuit of his Irish commission, Gilbert set sail in June 1579 after a spell of bad weather, and promptly got lost in fog and heavy rains off Land's End, an incident that caused the Queen thereafter to doubt his seafaring abilities. His fleet was then driven into the Bay of Biscay, and the Spanish soon sailed into Dingle harbour, where they made their rendez-vous with the rebels. In October he managed to put into the port of Cobh in Munster, where he delivered a terrible beating to a local gentleman, smashing him about the head with a sword. He then fell into a row with a local merchant, whom he slew on the dockside.

Gilbert was one of the leading advocates for a north-west passage to the land of Cathay (present-day China), noted in great detail for its abundance of riches by Marco Polo in the 13th century. Gilbert made an elaborate case to counter the calls for a north-eastern route. During the winter of 1566 Gilbert and his principal antagonist Anthony Jenkinson (who had sailed to Russia and crossed the country down to the Caspian Sea), argued the pivotal question of polar routes before Queen Elizabeth. Gilbert claimed that any north-east passage was far too dangerous; "the air is so darkened with continual mists and fogs so near the pole that no man can well see either to guide his ship or direct his course." By logic and reason a north-west passage must exist announced Gilbert. Columbus had discovered America with far less evidence to go on. It was imperative for England to catch up, settle in new lands and thus challenge the Iberian powers. Gilberts contentions won support and money was raised, chiefly by the London merchant Michael Lok, for an expedition. The fearless Martin Frobisher was appointed captain and left England in June 1576. Frobisher's search for a north-west passage proved fruitless. He returned with black stone and an inuit.

Newfoundland
It was assumed that Gilbert would be appointed President of Munster after the dismissal of Ormond as lord lieutenant of the province in the spring of 1581. At this time Gilbert was member of parliament for Queenborough, Kent, but his attention was again drawn to North America, where he hoped to seize territory on behalf of the crown.

The six year exploration licence Gilbert had secured by letters patent from the crown in 1578 was on the point of expiring, when he succeeded in 1583 in raising significant sums from English Catholic investors. The investors were constrained by penal laws against the recusants in their own country, and loath to go into exile in hostile parts of Europe; thus, the prospect of an American adventure appealed to them, especially when Gilbert was proposing to seize some 9 million acres (36,000 km²) around the river Norumbega, to be parcelled out under his authority (although to be held ultimately of the crown).

The Catholic investment didn't work out - partly because of the privy council's insistence that the investors pay their recusancy fines before departing, partly because of efforts by Catholic clergy and Spanish agents to dissuade their interference in America - but Gilbert did manage to set sail with a small fleet of 5 vessels in June 1583. One of the vessels - the Bark Raleigh, owned and commanded by Raleigh himself - had to turn back owing to lack of victuals. Gilbert's crews were made up of misfits, criminals and pirates, but in spite of the many problems caused by their lawlessness, the fleet did manage to reach Newfoundland.

On arriving at the port of St. John's, Gilbert found himself temporarily blockaded by the fishing fleet under the organisation of the port admiral (an Englishman) on account of piracy committed against a Portuguese vessel in 1582 by one of Gilbert's commanders. Once this resistance was overcome, Gilbert waved his letters patent about and, in a formal ceremony, took possession of Newfoundland (including the lands 200 leagues to the north and south) for the English crown on 5 August 1583.[1] This involved the cutting of turf to symbolize the transfer of possession of the soil, according to the common law of England. He claimed authority over the fish stations at St. John's and proceeded to levy a tax on the fisherman from several countries who worked this popular area near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Within weeks his fleet departed, having made no attempt to form a settlement, due to lack of supplies.[1] During the return voyage, Gilbert insisted on sailing in his hardy old favourite, the Squirrel.[1] He soon ordered a controversial change of course for the fleet, and owing to his obstinacy and disregard of the views of superior mariners one of the vessels ran aground with some loss of life (probably on the western shoars of Sable Island). Later in the voyage a sea monster was sighted, said to have resembled a lion with glaring eyes.

After discussions with Edward Hayes and William Cox, captain and master of the Golden Hind, Gilbert had decided on 31 August to return.[1] The wind was in their favor as they sped back to Cape Race in two days and were soon clear of land. Gilbert had injured his foot on the frigate Squirrel and, on 2 September, came aboard the Golden Hind to have his foot bandaged and to discuss means of keeping the two little ships together on the voyage.[1] Gilbert refused to leave the Squirrel, while the vessels continued on the Atlantic crossing.[1] After a strong storm, they had a spell of clear weather and made fair progress: Gilbert came aboard the Golden Hind again, visited with Hayes, and insisted once more on returning back to the frigate Squirrel, even though Hayes insisted she was over-gunned and unsafe for sailing.[1] Nearly 900 miles away from Cape Race, they encountered high waves of heavy seas, "breaking short and high Pyramid wise", said Hayes.[1]

On 9 September, the frigate Squirrel was nearly overwhelmed but recovered.[1] Despite the persuasions of others, who wished him to take to one of the larger vessels, Gilbert stayed put and was observed sitting in the stern of his little frigate, reading a book. When the Golden Hind came within hailing distance, the crew heard him cry out repeatedly, "We are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!" as he lifted his palm to the skies to illustrate his point.[1] At midnight the frigate's lights were extinguished, and the watch on the Golden Hind cried out that, "the Generall was cast away".[1] The Squirrel had gone down with all hands.

It is thought Gilbert's reading material was the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, which contains the following passage: "He that hathe no grave is covered with the skye: and, the way to heaven out of all places is of like length and distance." [1]

Legacy
Gilbert was father to Ralegh Gilbert, who was to become second in command of Popham Colony.

Gilbert was part of a remarkable generation of Devonshire men, who combined the roles of adventurer, writer, soldier and mariner - often in ways as equally loathsome as admirable. He was outstanding for his initiative and originality, if not for his successes, but it is in his efforts at colonization that he had most influence. Ireland ended up as a brutal disaster (although Ulster and Munster were in time colonized), but the American adventure did eventually flourish. The formality of his annexation of Newfoundland eventually achieved reality in 1610; but perhaps of more significance was the reissue to Raleigh in 1584 of Gilbert's patent, on the back of which he undertook the Roanoke expeditions, the first sustained attempt by the English crown to establish colonies in North America.

Gilbert Sound near Greenland was named after him by John Davys.

Afterlife in Science Fiction
Since no one actually saw Gilbert and his ship go down, there remained (at least in theory) room for various fanciful theories - both in his own time and later - as to his ultimate fate. Such theories figure in at least two modern science fiction books, being at the core of one of them.

In Fire in the Abyss by Stuart Gordon (1983), Humphrey Gilbert is the main character.[2] It turns out that he did not drown but was plucked through time to the Twentieth Century by a secret project of the United States Navy. (The cover shows him on the deck of a modern submarine - wearing Elizabethan finery far more gaudy than he was likely to have worn on board a ship far in the Atlantic, and facing the submarine's crew with his drawn sword).
Together with some hundred other "Temporally Displaced Persons" Gilbert is incarcerated in a secret installation until the authorities decide what to do with them. Rather than wait, Gilbert stages a prison break together with a varied crew, including a Norse giant, a dancer from ancient North America and many others.[2]

The book, written in the first person, is Gilbert's diary written after he had managed at last to return to England, four hundred years later than intended. It recounts numerous adventures, such as falling in love with an Ancient Egyptian priestess, a fellow escapee, and being attacked by Irish nationalists who seek revenge for his cruelty to their ancestors. Gilbert makes many sardonic remarks on the life and institutions of the modern world in general and present-day Britain in particular, but also enjoys disabusing moderns who tend to romanticize the Elizabethan Age.[2]

In Philip José Farmer's The Gate of Time (1966), Gilbert was not displaced forward in time but sidewise, into an alternate timeline. Not finding the other ships, he navigates the "Squirrel" to where he expects to find the city of Bristol in England. Instead, he finds a city named Ent where the people speak a language only very distantly resembling English. The country is Blodland, a kind of England which had known neither a Roman Empire nor a Norman Conquest, but did experience very prolonged and bloody Viking incursions (hence the name Blodland = Bloodland).
Gilbert and his crew are placed in a lunatic asylum, where some of the sailors become truly insane. But the adaptable Gilbert learns the local language, gets released and finds conditions not too dissimilar from those he knows. He becomes a sailor and then the captain of a ship, and makes a lot of money from slave trading in this world's Africa.

Cautious not to talk further of his origins, in his old age Gilbert does write a 5,000-page manuscript entitled "An Unpublished Romance, or Through The Ivory Gates of the Sea". In it he tells his personal history and all that he remembers of his Earth's history and geography, as well as writing a comparative English-Blodlandish grammar.

Neglected by many generations of his descendants, the manuscript is found four hundred years later by a Lord Humphrey Gilbert of this world's equivalent of the Twentieth Century - who shows it to the main protagonist of Farmer's book, a World War II combat pilot that also ended up in this alternate world.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Gilbert

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Sir Humphrey GILBERT
Born: ABT 1539, Greenway, Brixham
Died: 9 Sep 1583, at Sea
Father: Otto GILBERT of Compton Castle
Mother: Catherine CHAMPERNOWNE
Married: Anne AUCKER 1570
Children:
1. John GILBERT
2. Raleigh GILBERT
Second son of Otto Gilbert, (BEF 5 Aug 1513-18 Feb 1546/1547) (son of Thomas Gilbert and Isabel Reynward), and Catherine Champernowne. Compton Castle, the family seat, was then held by Otto's elder brother John; thus it was at Greenway on the River Dart, that John, Humphrey, Adrian and Elizabeth Gilbert were born. All four children were minors when their father died in 1547. Their mother then married Walter Raleigh the elder, and bore two more sons and one daughter, Walter, Carew, and Margaret Raleigh.
Educated at Eton and at Oxford, Gilbert had a very tedious education - so much so that it later inspired him to write a paper on the reform of education. He was taught to believe in the ideals of old-fashioned, heroic chivalry. This was to frame his future ambitions and ultimately lead to his death.
Catherine Ashley, a kinswoman, introduced Gilbert, as a page, to the court of the young Princess Elizabeth, whom he served faithfully for the rest of his life.
In 1562/3, he served under the Earl of Warwick at Le Havre and was wounded during the siege. Three years later, Gilbert was sent to Ireland to quell a rebellion. He was ruthless and thorough. Over the next three years he efficiently subdued the rebels. This brought him promotion and a knighthood, but he found the duty distasteful, expensive and unproductive. Several times he left, but was always sent back because of his success. He realised that harsh subjugation of the Irish was not the way to establish a permanent peace. To his credit, he attempted to peacefully settle Ireland, convinced that English colonisation would be beneficial to both nations. His plans failed, but his dreams of colonisation persisted.
Early interested in exploration, in 1566 he prepared A Discourcs of a Discoveries for a new Passage to Cataia, China, in which he urged the Queen to seek a Northwest Passage to China because the known routes were controlled by the Spanish and the Portuguese. Both Martin Frobisher and John Davys were inspired by this work. Gilbert invested in Frobisher's 1576 voyage and Davys named Gilbert Sound, near Greenland, in his honor.
Gilbert also served in Munster, Ireland, where in 1570 he was knighted by the Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney. In 1571 he was elected to represent Plymouth in Parliament. In 1573 he presented the Queen with a plan for Queen Elizabeth's Academy, which was to be a university in London to train the nobility and the gentry for the army and the navy. It was to be several centuries before there would be either a university in London or schools for military training. In 1578, at the age of 40, he received Letters Patent authorizing the planting of an English colony in America. Gilbert's venture sought to mobilize younger sons of the gentry and landed-class Catholics to establish estates in the new world, and a handful of courtiers and nobles, notably the Queen's secretary Sir Francis Walsingham and the Earl of Sussex, along with a number of landed-class stockholders and the gentry who actually went to settle, provided most of the financial support for it. Sir Humphrey was to sail as Admiral in the Anne Archer, while Raleigh captained the Falcon with Simon Fernandez as master. He assembled a large fleet which sailed from Dartmouth on 26 Sep 1578; however, storms forced the ships to seek refuge in Plymouth until Nov 19. Although this attempt failed, it got his brothers Walter and Carew Raleigh involved in American Exploration. Yet it was not until 1583 that he made a second attempt, sailing from Plymouth on Jun 11. One ship, Barke Raleigh, turned back immediately because of illness, but Gilbert and the other ships arrived at St. John's, Newfoundland, on Aug 3 and took possession two days later. Because it was small and could explore harbors and creeks, Gilbert now sailed on Squirrel, a ship of 10 tuns, rather than Delight, his 120 tun flagship. On Aug 29 the latter ship wrecked with the loss of 100 lives and many of Gilbert's records. On the return voyage to England to record his claim Gilbert remained aboard Squirrel rather than transferring to the larger Golden Hinde as urged by his men. On Monday, Sep 9, he was observed on deck reading a book. As the ships drew near he was heard to say, "We are as near to heaven by sea as by land". Later that evening the small ship disappeared, swallowed up by the sea.
Married in 1570 to Anne Aucker, whose father and grandfather had fought in the final defense of Calais, Gilbert was the father of two sons - John and Raleigh - who with his brothers Adrian Gilbert and Walter Raleigh continued the family involvement in the exploration and colonization of the New World. On 6 Feb 1584, Adrian Gilbert obtained Letters Patent to continue the search for the Northwest Passage. And on Mar 25, 1584, Walter Raleigh obtained a Royal Patent to explore and colonize farther South. His expeditions to what is now North Carolina between 1584 and 1587 are known as the Roanoke Voyages.
Sir Humphrey's older brother, Sir John Gilbert, inherited Compton Castle from their father. when he died without issue he left the property to Sir Humphrey's older son, also Sir John Gilbert. The younger Sir John accompanied Raleigh on his voyages to Guiana in 1595 and Cadiz in 1596. In the latter expedition he was knighted by the Earl of Essex. Married to Alice Molyneux, he died without issue in 1608, leaving Compton Castle to his brother Raleigh Gilbert.
Raleigh Gilbert continued the colonizing efforts of the family and in 1606 was one of eight grantees who received Letters Patent from King James I. This grant provided for two colonies, the London Colony and the Plymouth Colony. Under Captain Christopher Newport, the London Colony sailed from London in Dec 1606 and reached the Chesapeake Bay on May 13, 1607. There they founded Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in the New World. Led by Raleigh Gilbert and George Popham, the Plymouth colony sailed from Plymouth on May 31, 1607 and arrived in what is now the state of Maine on Aug 1, 1607. There they built the Fort of St. George on the Sagadahoc River (now the Kennebec River). The ensuing winter was severe and many of the colonists died. When spring came Raleigh Gilbert learned of the death of his older brother, his inheritance of Compton Castle and the necessity of returning to England to claim his estate. The colony went with him. Later Sir Ferdinand Gorges made a second unsuccessful attempt to colonize the same area. And in 1621 Raleigh Gilbert was a member of the Council of England for the Plymouth colony. He died in 1634.
From: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/HumphreyGilbert(Sir).htm
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GILBERT, Sir Humphrey (c.1537-83), of Compton, Devon.
b. c.1537, 2nd s. of Otho or Otes Gilbert (d.1547), of Compton and Greenway by Katherine, da. of Sir Philip Champernown of Modbury; bro. of Adrian Gilbert and half-bro. of Carew and Walter Ralegh. educ. Eton and Oxf. m. Anne, da. and h. of John Archer, Ager or Aucher of Otterden, Kent, issue. Kntd. 1570.
From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/gilbert-sir-humphrey-1537-83
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Thomas St. Leger ....
He left one daughter and heir Joane, and his widow Juliana, surviving, who died possessed of this manor in the 5th year of Henry V. on which, Joan their daughter, then the wife of Henry Aucher, esq. of Losenham, in Newenden, entitled her husband to the possession of it. He was son of Henry, the eldest son of Nicholas Aucher, of Losenham, and married first Isabella At-Towne, of Throwleigh, by whom he had two sons, Thomas, of Losenham, and Robert, ancestor to the Auchers of Westwell. His second wife was Joan, daughter and heir of Thomas St. Leger, as above-mentioned, by whom he had an only son Henry, who succeeded to this manor of Otterden, and resided here. This branch of the family of Aucher bore for their arms four coats quarterly; first, Aucher, ermine, on a chief, azure, three lions rampant, or; second, St. Leger, fretty, azure and argent, on a chief, or, two mullets, gules; third, Potyn, or Petevin, argent, semee of fleurs de lis, azure; fourth, Ottringden, ermine, a cross voided, gules. He died in 1502, and was buried in the north chapel of this church. His son, James Aucher, died in 1508, and lies buried at his father's seet. On his grave-stone was his effigies in brass, and at the upper corner of the stone, two shields of arms, one of the coat of Aucher; the other two coats, per fess, the upper one, Otterden; the lower one, St. Leger; at the lower part of the stone, in the centre, was the first of those shields impaling the second. His eldest son, Sir Anthony Aucher, married Affra, daughter of William Cornwallis, by whom he left three sons, John, who was of Otterden, Edward, who was of Bishopsbourne, whose descendants were baronets, and remained there till within these few years, and William, who was afterwards of Nonington.
John Aucher, esq. of Otterden-place, the eldest son, left an only daughter and heir Joan, who in the reign of queen Elizabeth marrying with Sir Humphry Gilbert, entitled him to this manor and seat. He bore for his arms, Argent, on a chevron, sable, threeroses of the second, pierced, or.
From: 'Parishes: Otterden', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 5 (1798), pp. 533-549. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=62930 Date accessed: 21 April 2013.
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A genealogical and heraldic history of the extinct and dormant baronetcies of England, by J. and ... (1838)
http://archive.org/details/agenealogicalan02burkgoog
http://archive.org/stream/agenealogicalan02burkgoog#page/n43/mode/1up
Pg. 27
Aucher, of Bishopsbourne
http://archive.org/stream/agenealogicalan02burkgoog#page/n44/mode/1up
Pg. 28
Sir Anthony Aucher, knt. of Otterden, who acquired from Thomas Colepeper, temp. Henry VIII. the manors of Bishopsborne and Hautsborne, in Kent. He wedded Affra, daughter of William Cornwallis, of Norfolk, and had issue,
I. John, of Otterden, m. Ann, daughter of Sir William Kellaway, knt. and left an only daughter and heiress.
Joan, m. temp. Queen Elizabeth, to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, knt. by whom the manor of Otterden was sold to William Lewin, LL.D.
.... etc.
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Although Sir Humphrey Gilbert was not involved directly in the Roanoke voyages, both he and members of his family participated in early colonization efforts, and Gilbert decisively influenced his half-brother Sir Walter Ralegh, the leading proponent of the Roanoke Island colonies. Born about 1539, Gilbert was the second son of Otho Gilbert and Katherine Champernowne. Compton Castle, the family seat, was then held by Otho's elder brother John; thus it was at Greenway on the River Dart, that John, Humphrey, Adrian and Elizabeth Gilbert were born. All four children were minors when their father died in 1547. Their mother then married Walter Ralegh the elder, and bore two more sons and one daughter — Walter, Carew, and Margaret Ralegh.

Educated at Eton and at Oxford, Humphrey Gilbert also spent time in the household of Princess Elizabeth, who later became Queen Elizabeth. In 1562-63, he served under the Earl of Warwick at Le Havre and was wounded during the siege. Early interested in exploration, in 1566 he prepared A Discourcs of a Discoveries for a new Passage to Cataia [China] in which he urged the queen to seek a Northwest Passage to China because the known routes were controlled by the Spanish and the Portuguese. Both Martin Frobisher and John Davys were inspired by this work. Gilbert invested in Frobisher's 1576 voyage and Davys named Gilbert Sound, near Greenland, in his honor.

Gilbert also served in Munster, Ireland, where in 1570 he was knighted by the Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney. In 1571 he was elected to represent Plymouth in Parliament. In 1573 he presented the queen with a plan for Queen Elizabeth's Academy, which was to be a university in London to train the nobility and the gentry for the army and the navy. It was to be several centuries before there would be either a university in London or schools for military training.

In 1578, at the age of 40, he received Letters Patent authorizing the planting of an English colony in America. He assembled a large fleet which sailed from Dartmouth on September 26, 1578; however, storms forced the ships to seek refuge in Plymouth until November 19. Although this attempt failed, it got his brothers Walter and Carew Ralegh involved in American Exploration. Yet it was not until 1583 that he made a second attempt, sailing from Plymouth on June 11. One ship, Barke Ralegh, turned back immediately because of illness, but Gilbert and the other ships arrived at St. John's, Newfoundland, on August 3 and took possession two days later. Because it was small and could explore harbors and creeks, Gilbert now sailed on Squirrel, a ship of 10 tuns, rather than Delight, his 120 tun flagship. On August 29 the latter ship wrecked with the loss of 100 lives and many of Gilbert's records. On the return voyage to England to record his claim Gilbert remained aboard Squirrel rather than transferring to the larger Golden Hinde as urged by his men. On Monday, September 9, he was observed on deck reading a book. As the ships drew near he was heard to say, "We are as near to heaven by sea as by land." Later that evening the small ship disappeared, swallowed up by the sea.

Married in 1570 to Ann Aucker, whose father and grandfather had fought in the final defense of Calais, Gilbert was the father of two sons — John and Ralegh — who with his brothers Adrian Gilbert and Walter Ralegh continued the family involvement in the exploration and colonization of the New World. On February 6, 1584, Adrian Gilbert obtained Letters Patent to continue the search for the Northwest Passage. And on March 25, 1584, Walter Ralegh obtained a Royal Patent to explore and colonize farther South. His expeditions to what is now North Carolina between 1584 and 1587 are known as the Roanoke Voyages.

Sir Humphrey's older brother, Sir John Gilbert, inherited Compton Castle from their father. when he died without issue he left the property to Sir Humphrey's older son, also Sir John Gilbert. The younger Sir John accompanied Ralegh on his voyages to Guiana in 1595 and Cadiz in 1596. In the latter expedition he was knighted by the Earl of Essex. Married to Alice Molyneux, he died without issue in 1608, leaving Compton Castle to his brother Ralegh Gilbert.

Ralegh Gilbert continued the colonizing efforts of the family and in 1606 was one of eight grantees who received Letters Patent from King James I. This grant provided for two colonies — the London Colony and the Plymouth Colony. Under Captain Christopher Newport, the London Colony sailed from London in December 1606 and reached the Chesapeake Bay on May 13, 1607. There they founded Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in the New World. Led by Ralegh Gilbert and George Popham, the Plymouth colony sailed from Plymouth on May 31, 1607 and arrived in what is now the state of Maine on August 1, 1607. There they built the Fort of St. George on the Sagadahoc River (now the Kennebec River). The ensuing winter was severe and many of the colonists died. When spring came Ralegh Gilbert learned of the death of his older brother, his inheritance of Compton Castle and the necessity of returning to England to claim his estate. The colony went with him. Later Sir Ferdinando Gorges made a second unsuccessful attempt to colonize the same area. And in 1621 Ralegh Gilbert was a member of the Council of England for the Plymouth colony. He died in 1634.

Descendants of the Gilbert family live in Compton Castle today. For over a century it was not family property and had become a ruin; however, in 1930 Commander Walter Ralegh Gilbert and his wife Joan bought the castle which they painstakingly restored. Mrs. Gilbert lived at Compton Castle until 1984. Her son and daughter-in-law Geoffrey and Angela Gilbert with their three children, Humphrey, Arabella, and Walter Ralegh, live there today. A National Trust Property, parts of Compton Castle are open to the public several days each week. In the 20th century, Greenway, the birthplace of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, was the home of the mystery writer Agatha Christie, a close friend of the Gilbert family. The Gilberts, still interested in the New World, participated in 400th Anniversary celebrations in both Newfoundland and North Carolina.

Gilbert's expedition of 1582/1583 1582

Planned by Sir Humphrey Gilbert who allocated 9 million acres to backers and potential colonists. Gilbert devised a plan to dispose of the "surplus" population of Britain by founding colonies in America (the "New World") but intended to eliminate the native peoples first. Aimed for Norumbega, later called North Virginia and finally New England.

Raleigh's plans were not as extreme as Gilbert's but he too planned a colony. Raleigh was against Gilbert's venture but didn't want to miss out on the expedition. He sent the "Bark Raleigh", a ship of 200 tons. June 11th. Expedition sailed. June 13th. "Bark Raleigh" turned back due to lack of supplies (after two days!). Aug. 20th. Remainder turned back, having suffered various sicknesses.

Some accounts say that colonists were left and died, but Hayes report implies that all set off for England. Sept. 9th. Gilbert and his ship, "Squirrel", lost at sea, off Brittany. Sept. 22nd. Edward Hayes (or Haies) in "Golden Hind" arrived in Falmouth with the news. He later published a full account of the voyage. The expedition seems to have been an unfortunate one, suffering "very many difficulties, discontentments, mutinies, conspiracies, sicknesses, mortality, spoilings, and wracks by sea".

[Gilbert, Sir Humphrey (1539?-83), English navigator and soldier, who annexed Newfoundland for the British crown and devised brilliant, if unsuccessful, colonization schemes.

A half brother, on his mother's side, of Sir Walter Raleigh, Gilbert was born near Dartmouth about 1539; he was educated at Eton College and theUniversity of Oxford. His family wished him to become a lawyer, but he joined the English army instead. He saw active service (1562-64) in France during the French religious wars, served in the defense of LeHavrein 1562-3, and in 1566 was commissioned a captain in the English army in Ireland. He was appointed governor of Munster, Ireland, in 1569 and in the following year was knighted by Sir Henry Sidney.In 1570 Gilbert returned to England, where he married Anne Aucher, who was to bear him six sons and one daughter. However, it has been conjectured - following Smith's observation that the only way to soothe Gilbert's temper was to send a boy to him - that he was an "intermittent homosexual", or perhaps a pederast .

Sir Humphrey Gilbert

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Southward with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and gast blew the blast,
And the east-wind was his breath.
His lordly ships of ice
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land-wind failed.
Alas! the land-wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
"Do not fear! Heaven is as near,"
He said, "by water as by land!"
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,
The fleet of Death rose all around.
The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Southward through day and dark,
They drift in cold embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.
____________________________
Catherine CHAMPERNOWNE
Born: ABT 1519
Died: 1594
Notes: during the reign of Henry VIII, she converted to Protestantism and refused to give up her beliefs when Mary Tudor was queen. She sat with the martyr, Agnes Prest, the night before her execution. She does not, however, seem to have been prosecuted herself. Under Elizabeth Tudor, through the influence of Catherine’s relative, Kate Astley, Catherine’s son Walter was introduced to court and made a success of himself there. Catherine continued to live in the West Country, where she kept liveried servants and a waiting woman, but she was in debt when she died. She made her will on 18 Apr 1594. She was buried in Exeter with her second husband.
Father: Phillip CHAMPERNOWNE of Modbury (Sir)
Mother: Catherine CAREW
Married 1: Otho GILBERT of Compton Castle (d. 1547)
Children:
1. John GILBERT
2. Humphrey GILBERT (Sir) (See his Biography)
3. Adrian GILBERT
4. Elizabeth GILBERT
Married 2: Walter RALEIGH of Fardell
Children:
5. Margaret RALEIGH
6. Walter RALEIGH (Sir Knight)
7. Carew RALEIGH of Fardell (Sir) (b. 1550 - d. 1625)
From: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/CHAMPERNOWNE.htm#Catherine CHAMPERNOWNE2
___________________
RALEGHANA.
Part III.
REMARKS ON THE ANCESTRY OF SIR WALTER RALEGH.
BY
T. N. BRUSHFIELD, M.D., F.S.A.
http://www.archive.org/stream/raleghana03brus/raleghana03brus_djvu.txt
_____________________
Sir Walter Raleigh By Raleigh Trevelyan
http://books.google.com/books?id=pq8j7k0LaR4C&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Joan+Drake+Raleigh&source=bl&ots=Su1LYuRgrJ&sig=GyCqRONycyGr1AwakdMyzFCtXG0&hl=en&ei=g5HtTJWGCsWdOo_g2FM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Joan%20Drake%20Raleigh&f=false
Pg.3
--------------------------
Sir Humphrey Gilbert (c. 1539 – 9 September 1583) was an English adventurer, explorer, member of parliament, and soldier from Devon, who served the crown during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. One of the pioneers of English colonization, he also claimed what is thought to be the first English property in North America. He was a half-brother (through his mother) of Sir Walter Raleigh.

Gilbert was the second son born to Otto and Katherine Champernowne Gilbert of Compton and Greenway, Galmpton, Devon. His brothers Sir John Gilbert and Adrian Gilbert, and half brothers Carew Raleigh and Sir Walter Raleigh were also prominent during the reigns of Elizabeth I and / or James I. Katherine was a niece of Kat Ashley, Elizabeth's governess, who introduced the young men at court. His uncle, Sir Arthur Champernowne, involved Gilbert in efforts to establish Irish plantations between 1566-1572.

Sir Henry Sidney became his mentor, and he was educated at Eton and the University of Oxford, where he learned to speak French and Spanish and studied the arts of war and navigation. He went on to reside at the Inns of Chancery in London ca. 1560–1561.

Quid non? ("Why not?") and Mutare vel timere sperno ("I scorn to change or to fear"), indicates how he chose to live his life. He was present at the siege of Newhaven in Havre-de-grâce (Le Havre), Normandy, where he was wounded in June 1563. By July 1566 he was serving in Ireland under the command of Sidney (then Lord Deputy) against Shane O'Neill, but was sent to England later in the year with dispatches for the Queen.

Gilbert returned to Ireland and, after the assassination of O'Neill in 1569, he was appointed to the profitless office of governor of Ulster and served as a member of the Irish parliament. At about this time he petitioned the Queen's principal secretary, William Cecil, for a recall to England - "for the recovery of my eyes" - but his ambitions still rested in Ireland, and particularly in the southern province of Munster. In April 1569 he proposed the establishment of a presidency and council for the province, and pursued the notion of an extensive settlement around Baltimore (in modern County Cork), which was approved by the Dublin council. At the same time he was involved with Sidney and the secretary of state, Sir Thomas Smith, in planning a large settlement of the northern province of Ulster by Devonshire gentlemen.

Gilbert's actions in the south of Ireland played a significant part in the outbreak of the first of the Desmond Rebellions. A kinsman of his, Sir Peter Carew (another Devonshire man), was pursuing a provocative, and somewhat far-fetched, claim to the inheritance of certain lands within the Butler territories in south Leinster. The Earl of Ormond - a bosom companion of the Queen's from her troubled youth and head of that family - was absent in England, and the clash of his family's influence with the lawful authority of Carew's claim created havoc.

Gilbert was eager to participate and, after Carew's seizure of the barony of Idrone (in modern County Carlow), he pushed westward with his forces across the River Blackwater in the summer of 1569 and joined up with his kinsman to defeat Sir Edmund Butler, a younger brother of the Earl's. Violence spread in a confusion from Leinster and across the province of Munster, when the Geraldines of Desmond went into rebellion. Gilbert was then created colonel by Lord Deputy Sidney and charged with the pursuit of the rebel James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald (whom Gilbert considered, "a silly wood-kerne").

The Geraldines were driven out of Kilmallock, but returned to lay siege to Gilbert, who drove off their superior force in a sally, during which his horse was shot from under him and his buckler transfixed with a spear. After that initial success, he showed courage in striking out into rebel territory, and managed to march unopposed through Kerry and Connello, taking 30-40 castles without the aid of artillery.

During the three weeks of this campaign, all enemies were treated without quarter and put to the sword - including women and children - which explains, perhaps, the swiftness with which so many castles had been abandoned before Gilbert's aggression. He is also said to have sent Captain Apsley into Kerry to inspire terror.

Gilbert's attitude to the Irish may be captured in one quote from him, dated 13 November 1569: "These people are headstrong and if they feel the curb loosed but one link they will with bit in the teeth in one month run further out of the career of good order than they will be brought back in three months." In order to cowe local supporters of the rebels, he chose to put on gruesome spectacles: after a day's killing he would order the decapitation of the scattered corpses so that the heads could be brought to his camp in the evening, where they were arranged in two parallel rows, making a pathway to the flaps of his tent, along which the supplicants would tread in the presence of their late fathers, brothers and sons. John Perrot also used the practice at Kilmallock a few years later).

In time, Ormond returned from England and called in his brothers, which caused the Geraldine resistance to weaken. In December 1569, after one of the chief rebels had come in to the government and confessed his treason, Gilbert received his knighthood at the hands of Sidney in the ruined Fitzmaurice camp, reputedly amid heaps of slain gallowglass warriors. Fitzmaurice stayed out in rebellion (only coming in to submit in 1573), and one month after Gilbert's return to England he retook Kilmallock with 120 foot, defeating the garrison and sacking the town for three days, leaving it "the abode of wolves".

In 1570 Sir Humphrey Gilbert returned to England, where he married Anne Aucher, who bore him six sons and one daughter.

Gilbert was elected to parliament as a member for Plymouth, and controversially argued for the crown prerogative in the matter of royal licences for purveyance. In business affairs, he involved himself in an alchemical project with Smith, whereby iron was to be transmuted into copper and antimony, and lead into mercury.

By 1572 Gilbert had turned his attention to the Netherlands, where he fought an unsuccessful campaign in support of the Dutch Sea beggars at the head of a force of 1500 men, many of whom had deserted from Smith's aborted plantation in the Ards of Ulster. In the period 1572–1578 Gilbert settled down and devoted himself to writing. In 1573 he presented Elizabeth I with a proposal for an academy in London, which was eventually put into effect by Sir Thomas Gresham upon the establishment of Gresham College. Gilbert also helped to set up the Society of the New Art with Lord Burghley and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, both of whom maintained an alchemical laboratory in Limehouse.

Thereafter, Gilbert's life was spent in a series of failed ship expeditions, the financing of which exhausted his own fortune and a great part of his family's. He backed Martin Frobisher's trip to Greenland, which yielded a cargo of a mysterious yellow rock, subsequently found to be worthless. In pursuit of one of his own projects, he sailed from Plymouth for North America in November 1578 with 7 vessels in his fleet, which was scattered by storms and forced back to port some 6 months later; the only vessel to have penetrated the Atlantic to any great distance was the Falcon under Raleigh's command.

In the summer of 1579, Gilbert and Raleigh were commissioned by the lord deputy of Ireland, William Drury, to attack his old foe, the rebel James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, by sea and land and to intercept a fleet expected to arrive from Spain with aid for the Munster rebels. At this time Gilbert had three vessels under his command: the Anne Ager (or perhaps, Anne Archer or Aucher - named after his wife) of 250 tons, the Relief, and the Squirrell of 10 tons. The latter vessel, a small frigate, was notable for having completed the voyage to America and back inside three months under the command of a captured Portuguese pilot.

In pursuit of his Irish commission, Gilbert set sail in June 1579 after a spell of bad weather, and promptly got lost in fog and heavy rains off Land's End, an incident that caused the Queen thereafter to doubt his seafaring abilities. His fleet was then driven into the Bay of Biscay, and the Spanish soon sailed into Dingle harbour, where they made their rendez-vous with the rebels. In October he managed to put into the port of Cobh in Munster, where he delivered a terrible beating to a local gentleman, smashing him about the head with a sword. He then fell into a row with a local merchant, whom he slew on the dockside.

Gilbert was one of the leading advocates for a north-west passage to the land of Cathay (present-day China), noted in great detail for its abundance of riches by Marco Polo in the 13th century. Gilbert made an elaborate case to counter the calls for a north-eastern route. During the winter of 1566 Gilbert and his principal antagonist Anthony Jenkinson (who had sailed to Russia and crossed the country down to the Caspian Sea), argued the pivotal question of polar routes before Queen Elizabeth. Gilbert claimed that any north-east passage was far too dangerous; "the air is so darkened with continual mists and fogs so near the pole that no man can well see either to guide his ship or direct his course." By logic and reason a north-west passage must exist announced Gilbert. Columbus had discovered America with far less evidence to go on. It was imperative for England to catch up, settle in new lands and thus challenge the Iberian powers. Gilbert's contentions won support and money was raised, chiefly by the London merchant Michael Lok, for an expedition. The fearless Martin Frobisher was appointed captain and left England in June 1576. Frobisher's search for a north-west passage proved fruitless. He returned with black stone and an inuit.

It was assumed that Gilbert would be appointed President of Munster after the dismissal of Ormond as lord lieutenant of the province in the spring of 1581. At this time Gilbert was member of parliament for Queenborough, Kent, but his attention was again drawn to North America, where he hoped to seize territory on behalf of the crown.

The six year exploration licence Gilbert had secured by letters patent from the crown in 1578 was on the point of expiring, when he succeeded in 1583 in raising significant sums from English Catholic investors. The investors were constrained by penal laws against the recusants in their own country, and loath to go into exile in hostile parts of Europe; thus, the prospect of an American adventure appealed to them, especially when Gilbert was proposing to seize some 9 million acres (36,000 km²) around the river Norumbega, to be parcelled out under his authority (although to be held ultimately of the crown).

The Catholic investment didn't work out - partly because of the privy council's insistence that the investors pay their recusancy fines before departing, partly because of efforts by Catholic clergy and Spanish agents to dissuade their interference in America - but Gilbert did manage to set sail with a small fleet of 5 vessels in June 1583. One of the vessels - the Bark Raleigh, owned and commanded by Raleigh himself - had to turn back owing to lack of victuals. Gilbert's crews were made up of misfits, criminals and pirates, but in spite of the many problems caused by their lawlessness, the fleet did manage to reach Newfoundland.

On arriving at the port of St. John's, Gilbert found himself temporarily blockaded by the fishing fleet under the organisation of the port admiral (an Englishman) on account of piracy committed against a Portuguese vessel in 1582 by one of Gilbert's commanders. Once this resistance was overcome, Gilbert waved his letters patent about and, in a formal ceremony, took possession of Newfoundland (including the lands 200 leagues to the north and south) for the English crown on 5 August 1583. This involved the cutting of turf to symbolize the transfer of possession of the soil, according to the common law of England. He claimed authority over the fish stations at St. John's and proceeded to levy a tax on the fisherman from several countries who worked this popular area near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Within weeks his fleet departed, having made no attempt to form a settlement, due to lack of supplies. During the return voyage, Gilbert insisted on sailing in his hardy old favourite, the Squirrel. He soon ordered a controversial change of course for the fleet, and owing to his obstinacy and disregard of the views of superior mariners one of the vessels ran aground with some loss of life (probably on the western shores of Sable Island). Later in the voyage a sea monster was sighted, said to have resembled a lion with glaring eyes.

After discussions with Edward Hayes and William Cox, captain and master of the Golden Hind, Gilbert had decided on 31 August to return. The wind was in their favour as they sped back to Cape Race in two days and were soon clear of land. Gilbert had injured his foot on the frigate Squirrel and, on 2nd September, came aboard the Golden Hind to have his foot bandaged and to discuss means of keeping the two little ships together on the voyage. Gilbert refused to leave the Squirrel, while the vessels continued on the Atlantic crossing. After a strong storm, they had a spell of clear weather and made fair progress: Gilbert came aboard the Golden Hind again, visited with Hayes, and insisted once more on returning back to the frigate Squirrel, even though Hayes insisted she was over-gunned and unsafe for sailing. Nearly 900 miles away from Cape Race, they encountered high waves and heavy seas, "breaking short and high Pyramid wise", said Hayes.

On 9 September, the frigate Squirrel was nearly overwhelmed but recovered. Despite the persuasions of others, who wished him to take to one of the larger vessels, Gilbert stayed put and was observed sitting in the stern of his little frigate, reading a book. When the Golden Hind came within hailing distance, the crew heard him cry out repeatedly, "We are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!" as he lifted his palm to the skies to illustrate his point. At midnight the frigate's lights were extinguished, and the watch on the Golden Hind cried out that, "the Generall was cast away". The Squirrel had gone down with all hands.

It is thought Gilbert's reading material was the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, which contains the following passage: "He that hathe no grave is covered with the skye: and, the way to heaven out of all places is of like length and distance."

* Gilbert was father to Ralegh Gilbert, who was to become second in command of Popham Colony. One of his later relatives was the architect C. P. H. Gilbert.
* Gilbert was part of a remarkable generation of Devonshire men, who combined the roles of adventurer, writer, soldier and mariner - often in ways as equally loathsome as admirable. He was outstanding for his initiative and originality, if not for his successes, but it is in his efforts at colonization that he had most influence. Ireland ended up as a brutal disaster (although Ulster and Munster were in time colonized), but the American adventure did eventually flourish. The formality of his annexation of Newfoundland eventually achieved reality in 1610; but perhaps of more significance was the reissue to Raleigh in 1584 of Gilbert's patent, on the back of which he undertook the Roanoke expeditions, the first sustained attempt by the English crown to establish colonies in North America.
* Gilbert Sound near Greenland was named after him by John Davys.
* At the Memorial University of Newfoundland, a court of the Burton's Pond Apartments are named "Gilbert Court" in his honor.
Editors Note. Reading the above biography, in my opinion Gilbert was not a particularly nice man and particularly in his time, to the Irish.

____________________________
Compton Castle has been the home of the Gilbert family for 600 years, with a single break in the 19th century.

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