In 1983, for a symposium on Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Lost Colony,” the two manuscript draft versions of the grant of arms for the Cittie of Raleigh were reproduced in a packet for distribution to the participants. Ms. lebame houston, the organizer of the symposium, has kindly shared a packet for further study by First Colony Foundation.
The Draft Grant of Arms to the Cittie of Raleigh
The two documents are from the College of Arms (MS. Vincent, vol. 157, folios 397and 398) and were drafted by William Dethick, Garter King of Arms.
The first, longer versions lists the arms given to John White, governor of the “Cittie of Raleigh” and Virginia colony, and ten of his twelve assistants: Roger Baylye, Ananyas Dare, Christopher Cooper, William Fullwoodd, Roger Pratt, Dyonise Harvye, John Nicholls, George Howe, and Simon Ferdinando, “London Gentlemen.”
The second, shorter version, headed “Civitas Ralegh in Virginea,” bears the date of 1586, but does not contain that list. David Quinn commented on the first, but not the second of two documents (Roanoke Voyages p. 506-12).
Two names bear scrutiny.
Despite their Elizabethan script, interlinears, and corrections, both manuscripts are readable – with one exception. The second of the two manuscripts has six names followed by “etc” entered in its left margin.
They were no doubt intended to refer to the “certeyne Assignes deputies & Associates” in the text. These names are written in a very small hand and abbreviated to some degree.
The transcription notes four of them and parts of two more: John White, ..har.. haklyut, C…, Sovngsby?, …s, Wm Fulwood. Some names are immediately identifiable.
John White was a well-known artist and governor of the company and colony. Hakluyt would be Richard Hakuyt the Younger, the promoter and chronicler of English overseas expansion. William Fulwood was a London merchant who did not go to Virginia.
Thomas Doughtye
Comparison of letter forms within the main text indicates that “… Sovngsby” is actually “Th Doughty.” He was likely the Thomas Doughty, Jr., aged 23 in 1568, the son and heir of Thomas Doughtye, Sr., who built a house in St Clement Danes between that of John Lowburye and the mansion house of Lord Pagett.
A man by that name in 1582 was assessed £4 subsidy at St John’s Evangelist, east of St Paul’s, so that is possibly where the son lived then. This would not be the Thomas Doughty, Walsingham’s secretary, whom Drake hanged for mutiny in 1578.
John Davis
The other last name, definitely does not begin with a “C,” but rather a “D.” The full name may read “…n Davis,” in which case John Davis, the Devon-born Elizabethan navigator and explorer comes to mind.
Davis sought the support of Walsingham in 1583 and in 1585 began a series of voyages to locate a Northwest Passage, taking musicians along to entertain the Greenland Eskimo. Soon after, he captained a ship against the Armada and went with Raleigh to Cadiz and to the Azores, but was killed by Japanese pirates in 1605.
He may have been more famous, however, for inventing a quadrant that bears his name and for, his books on navigation, The Seaman’s Secret and The World’s Hydrographical Description.
These two men were certainly suitable for inclusion among those thought likely to be part of the company, though they clearly did not choose to do so.
