1995, Alan Sutton Publishing, hbk
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The Privateering Earl. George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, 1558-1605[top]
First published in 1995 in Great Britain by Alan Sutton Publishing in hardback with dustjacket, 256pp, ISBN 0750908920. Original UK retail price: £18.99. Jacket illustrations: front: miniature of George Clifford, by Nicholas Hilliard; back: an illustration from 'A Brief Relation of the Severall Voyages of the Earl of Cumberland'
Includes 6 colour plates, 54 black and white plates, 2 genealogical tables, 9 tables and 3 maps
About this book/synopsis: George Clifford was a very well-renowned and colourful courtier of Queen Elizabeth I. He was a typical Renaissance man of learning and action, and the leading northern earl at Court, he commanded the Elizabeth Bonaventure against the Spanish Armada and carried news of the English victory to Elizabeth and Tilbury. He was an accomplished jouster, so much so that he became the Queen's Champion in 1590. He was also a co-founder in 1600 of the East India Company, which opened up English Commerce with the Far East, and was appointed to the Privy Council by James I.
He was born at Brougham Castle in Westmorlandon 8th August 1558, heir to the great Clifford estates in Westmorland and Yorkshire, partly inherited by his daughter Lady Anne. Early in life, he showed an enthusiasm for mathematics, geography, navigation and maritime enterprise, and this, with his hopes of profit, inspired his oceanic privateering, on which his fame rests. From 1586 onwards, he regularly equipped and often commanded his own fleets, which attacked and then plundered Spanish shipping and settlements. Notably, his ships helped capture a famously rich carrack, the Madre de Dios in 1592, and his seizure of Puerto Rico in 1598 was one of the outstanding achievements of the sea war. However, he paid a huge price, both he and his family, for his indulgence in privateering and courtier extravagance in the form of mountainous debts that he was only able to reduce by selling land, and the break-up of his marriage.
This attractively illustrated and scholarly biography is the first for 75 years and illuminates Cumberland's many and varied activities as royal servant, courtier, privateer, landowner and spendthrift; and it reveals just how much his life was influenced and shaped by the Queen herself
Contents:
List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations
1. George, Lord Clifford, and his Heritage: 1558-70
2. Guardianship and Tutelage: 1570-9
3. Landowner and Courtier: 1579-86
4. Promoter and Commander: 1586-8
5. Privateer and Queen's Champion: 1589-91
6. The Elusion of Riches: the Capture of the Madre de Dios, 1592
7. The Undaunted Earl: 1593-4
8. The Disastrous Years: 1595-7
9. The Great Puerto Rican Expedition: Preparations, 1597-8
10. The Great Puerto Rican Expedition: Defeat in Victory, 1598
11. Mercantile Promoter and Privy Councillor: 1598-1605
12. The Craven and Westmorland Estates: 1579-1605
13. Retrospective
Appendix 1. Royal jewels, plate and other stuff borrowed by Sir Andrew Dudley for his marriage to Lady Margaret Clifford, June 1553
Appendix 2. Munitions and provisions delivered to the Red Dragon, 25-9 July 1588
Appendix 3. Inventory of the Malice Scourge, October 1600
Notes, Bibliography, Index
Other books on Queen Elizabeth I:
1972. Victor Gollancz
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The Traces of Thomas Hariot[top]
Written by Muriel Rukeyser
First published in 1972 in Great Britain in hardback with dustjacket, 365pp, ISBN 0575013540
Jacket design by John Douet
Original UK retail price: £3.00
About the Book (from front flap):
It seems incredible that so little is generally known about one who was, conceivably, one of the greatest of the Elizabethans. Thomas Hariot was a friend of Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Marlowe, and at various stages of his life was involved with many of the Elizabethans whose names and works are mightily known to us. And yet, in spite of his associations, traces of Thomas Hariot are indeed all that history provides. Consequently, Muriel Rukeyser embarked on a search more arduous than any Quest for Corvo when she began writing about him. What have her researches - from Alnwick Castle to Syon House, from Petworth to Sherborne, to Medina Sidonia, from the Tower of London to the Bank of England, from Carmarthen to the Outer Banks-revealed? A lot -and a little. That Hariot was one of the first English explorers of the New World - he went on the 1585 expedition, and lived a year in Virginia, exploring and recording that unknown wilderness. That he was a pioneer in optics, crystallography, metallurgy, and astronomy. That he was with Drake at Cadiz; that he was with Ralegh in the Tower (where he helped him to write the History of the World), and that he was a member of Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland's household during the Gunpowder Plot. That he corresponded with Kepler, and was probably the originator of Descartes' alegbra. That his friendship with Marlowe was cited by the court in its accusation of blasphemy against the playwright and poet, and that he was named as a mentor and influence in the judgement of the court against Ralegh.
Here, then, is a book which marvellously conjures - Prospero-like - a figure from Renaissance England and Europe. Linked with poets, mathematicians and pioneer scientists; caught in all the heresies of his time - scientific, political, philosophical, sexual; expert in ships and navigation, and master-teacher to sea captains; astronomer and philosopher; a man with the power to bind together poetry and science, England and America, youth and the heresies of undiscovered knowledge. Only a poet of the stature of Muriel Ruskeyser could bring alive this Man for All Seasons.
Illustrations 1. Thomas Hariot's Portrait
2. Moon drawing by Thomas Hariot with photograph of the moon
3. A poem among the diagrams: Hariot's "Three Sea Marriages,"
from his papers
4. Glover's Plan, a picture map of Syon House showing where Hariot lived
5. Sir Walter Ralegh with his son, Wat
6. Henry Percy, Ninth Earl of Northumberland, young. Portrait by Nicholas Hilliard
7. John Donne; [same page] Giordano Bruno
8. The Young Shakespeare
9. Elizabeth Throckmorton (Lady Ralegh); [same page] Sir Francis Drake by Nicholas Hilliard
10.
Northumberland as The Wizard Earl, by Van Dyke; [same page] Indians of the New World (Illustrations for Hariot's 'Brief and True Report'
11. How They Catch Fish
12. Pleasure Trip
13. Chief Lady and Child
14. Woman, Child, Doll
15. The Marks of the Chief
16. Drawing of the Constellation Ophiucus by Hariot: The Struggle with the Serpent
