Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America by Giles Milton Read Free Book Online Page A

that was further augmented when he was given a lucrative licence to export woollen broadcloth. It was not long before the gifts came with titles. Ralegh was made vice-admiral of the West and then given the additional posts of lord-lieutenant of Cornwall and lord warden of the Stanneries, the latter giving him command of the Cornish tin mines. A man with such powers needed a suitably magnificent home, and even here the queen did not fail Ralegh. She offered him the use of Durham House, a rambling edifice that sprawled along the northern bank of the Thames. At the age of thirty, Walter had a London mansion of his own.
    Like so many gifts bestowed by Elizabeth, Durham House was something of a white elephant. It was an ancient building whose crumbling charm held little appeal in stormy weather when the leaded gutters flooded and the towers moaned in the wind. It looked picturesque enough from the exterior: it rested on bulky Norman foundations and was adorned with crenellated battlements that rose sheer from the Thames. But this waterside hulk was a mildewed place whose medieval charm was not appreciated by the army of servants who found themselves living there. In the rain, it looked as if it had risen dripping from the subaqueous depths.
    Yet it retained the vestiges of its former splendour. It had once been an ecclesiastical palace belonging to the bishops of Durham and it occupied one of the finest positions in the capital—downstream from the Palace of Westminster, close to Whitehall, and just a stone’s throw from Leicester House, Arundel House, and York House. It had a watergate with steps leading down to the river and a huge, steep-roofed hall which was “stately and high [and] supported with lofty marble pillars.” Indeed, the roof of the great hall was one of the landmarks of London, with a panorama that encompassed the entire capital.
    Ralegh went to considerable expense to make Durham House habitable. Tapestries were hung from stone corbels and braziers were kept burning in the principal chambers. Visitors were impressed with the speed with which he had converted the palace into a home befitting the queen’s suitor. “His lodging is very bravely furnyshed with arrace,” wrote one, “the chamber wherein hymself doth lye hath a feild-bed, all covered with greine velvett … [and] set with plumes of whit feathers with spangles.” It was furnished in the very latest Elizabethan fashion, and there had been no concessions to cost. Bolsters and hassocks cut the chill of the flagstone floors and damask hung from the embrasures. It was as comfortable as it could be.
    Visitors were staggered by Walter’s extravagance. “I have harde it credibly reported that Master Rawley hath spent within this halfe yeere above 3,000 l, ” wrote one shocked courtier. “He is very soumptous in his aparell … [and] all the vessell with which he is served at his table is silver with his owne armes on the same.” Ralegh’s newfound status had also encouraged him to hire servants, and once again he saw no reason to compromise. “He hath attendinge on hym at lest 30 men who[se] lyveryes are chargable, of which number half be gentillmen, very brave felloes, divers havinge cheynes of gold.”
    After all the gifts that had already been bestowed upon young Walter, the transferral of Sir Humfrey Gilbert’s American grant into
his name passed unnoticed by the courtiers and diarists. But to Walter himself, it was the most welcome present of all, for he had already vowed to go down in history as the man who established the first English colony in America. Durham House had provided him with the ideal building from which he could plan and execute this bold adventure.
    Ralegh spent much of his time in his private study at the top of one of the towers, from where he could watch the Thames wherries and lightermen. It was here that he kept his library and his sea charts, and it was from this room that he would sift through the details of his