Edward Maria Wingfield, MP, 1st Governor of Virginia

https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Wingfield_Edward_Maria_1550-1631

Edward Maria Wingfield was a founding member of the Virginia Company of London and the first president of the Council of Virginia, a group of Jamestown settlers appointed by the company to make local decisions for the colony. Born into a political and military family, Wingfield followed his uncle Jaques Wingfield to Ireland and spent many years fighting there during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He studied law briefly, fought the Spanish in the Low Countries, returned to Ireland, and served in Parliament before retiring from military service in 1600. From then on he focused on colonization, helping his cousin Bartholomew Gosnold recruit members for the proposed colony in Virginia. Unlike most of the original investors named in the First Charter, Wingfield actually traveled to Virginia and served as the colony's first president. Wingfield was unable to keep the peace among the settlement's leaders—he and Captain John Smith clashed repeatedly—and he was deposed as president and sent back to England. There he wrote his Discourse on Virginia, defending himself against attacks and providing a valuable description of the colony's origins. He died in 1631, having remained active in the Virginia Company's efforts.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Family and Education b. c.1550, 1st s. of Thomas Maria Wingfield† of Stoneley by Margaret, da. of Edward Kaye of Woodsome, Yorks. unm. suc. fa. 15 Aug. 1557.

Offices Held

Capt. in Ireland and Netherlands c.1575-90; patentee of Virginia Co. 10 Apr. 1606; member of council and president, Virginia May-Sept. 1607.1

Biography Although Edward Maria Wingfield is well known by reason of his part in the settlement of Virginia, he has not previously been identified with the ‘Edward Wingfeild esquire’ who sat in the Parliament of 1593. Yet there can be little doubt that they were one and the same: the only contemporary bearing these names, the third son of Edward Wingfield of Kimbolton, was a child of some seven years at the time of the 1593 election.2

There is nothing in the story (dating from 1613) that Edward Wingfield’s father acquired the second christian name which he was to transmit to his three sons by being a godson of Queen Mary and Cardinal Pole, for he had been born about 1518; the name was perhaps a mark of respect on the part of his father, the eminent courtier of Henry VIII, for the infant Princess Mary. Thomas Wingfield married a Yorkshire woman, purchased Stoneley priory hard by the family seat of Kimbolton, and sat in four Marian Parliaments before dying prematurely in 1557. His widow soon remarried, and it was to her new husband, James Cruse or Crewes, that the wardship of the young Edward was granted in March 1562. The Cruses were considerable investors in monastic property in the East Midlands, and one of their acquisitions was the suppressed college of Fotheringay, Northamptonshire. It was thus at Stoneley and Fotheringay, which lie about 15 miles apart, that Edward and his younger brothers Thomas and James passed their boyhood.3

The Wingfields were a fighting family, and it was to the profession of arms that both Edward and Thomas gravitated. Thomas’s career is better documented than Edward’s, which is to be inferred rather than followed; it is not clear, for instance, whether he or his cousin of Kimbolton figured in the affray with Walter Ralegh at Westminster in March 1580 which led to imprisonment. Both Edward and Thomas served in Ireland, as did several of their kinsmen, but Thomas may have preceded his brother to the Netherlands when he went over with the expeditionary force in August 1585, for 18 months later the Queen named ‘one Wingfield’ as ready to murder Mary Queen of Scots, an undertaking for which Edward Wingfield’s domicile at Fotheringay would have specially qualified him. When he reached the Netherlands Edward was taken prisoner, and as Thomas was to write in November 1588 of ‘my brother’s long imprisonment’ his capture probably took place soon after his arrival. At least part of his captivity was passed at Lille. Thomas’s eagerness to effect Edward’s release by taking a valuable prisoner himself was one of the causes of a quarrel between him and General Willoughby which led to his dismissal. Edward was still a prisoner in June 1589 and the date of his release has not been found.4

It was perhaps his experiences at Spanish hands which both prompted and commended Wingfield’s claim to a seat in Parliament. The one he occupied, in a borough and county with which he had no connexion, he could have owed only to Anthony Mildmay, whose house at Apethorpe lay next to Fotheringay and whose father had been much involved with the Wingfields of Kimbolton. Through his marriage to Grace Sharington of Lacock, Mildmay acquired patronage at Chippenham which enabled him to nominate to at least one seat there for the last three Elizabethan Parliaments and the first of James’s; and Edward Wingfield must be accounted the first beneficiary. His election brought the number of Wingfields in the House to five, although only one of them, Sir Edward of Kimbolton, was his near kinsman. To judge from the lack of reference to him, Edward proved a silent and passive Member, though he may have sat on a committee appointed to consider cloth on 15 Mar. 1593.5

A like obscurity surrounds the next 12 years of his life before he emerges, in 1606, as a founder of Virginia. Wingfield’s interest in plantation had first been roused in Ireland; in May 1586 he had figured, to the tune of 3,000 or 4,000 acres, in a project for a Wingfield colony in Munster. When, 20 years later, he tried his fortune in Virginia, he met with disaster. Elected first president of the settlement, he fell foul of his colleagues, was deposed and cast in heavy damages for slander. He returned to England in 1608 and spent his closing years at Stoneley which, since he was unmarried, passed at his death (about 1614) to his brother Thomas. Wingfield’s diary of the Virginia enterprise was rediscovered and published in 1860.6

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603 Author: S. T. Bindoff Notes 1. DNB, which errs in date of birth and name of wife; Vis. Hunts. (Cam. Soc. xliii), 131; VCH Hunts. iii. 81. 2. Sir Edw. Wingfield’s s. and h. James was 19 in May 1603, C142/284/35. 3. Vis. Hunts. loc. cit.; Feet of Fines, Hunts. ed. Turner (Camb. Antiq. Soc. oct. ser. xxxvii), 143; Vis. Northants. 1564, ed. Metcalfe, 16; CPR, 1557-8, p. 396; 1560-3, p. 232; 1563-6, p. 74; Bridges, Northants. ii. 458. 4. APC, xi. 421, 429; C. Read, Burghley 368; CSP For. July-Dec. 1588, p. 307; Jan.-July 1589, p. 332; CSP Dom. 1581-90. p. 542. 5. D’Ewes, 501. 6. CSP Ire. 1586-8, pp. 52, 62; DNB; VCH Hunts. loc. cit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Maria_Wingfield

Captain John Smith wrote that Wingfield was one of the early and prime movers and organisers in 1602-1603 in "showing great charge and industry"[2] in getting the Virginia Venture moving: he was one of the four incorporators for the London Virginia Company in the Virginia Charter of 1606 and one of its biggest financial backers.[3] He recruited (with his cousin, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold) about 40 of the 105 would-be colonists, and was the only shareholder to sail. In the first election in the New World, he was elected by his peers as the President of the governing council for one year beginning May 13th, 1607, of what became the first successful, English-speaking colony in the New World at Jamestown, Virginia. He chose the site, a strong defensive position against land or canoe attack, and supervised the construction of the fort in a month and a day, a mammoth task.

But after four months, on September 10th, because "he ever held the men to working, watching and warding",[4] and because of lack of food, death from disease and attack by the "naturals" (during the worst famine and drought for 800 years), he was made a scapegoat, and was deposed on petty charges.[5] On the return of the Supply Boat on April 10th 1608, he was sent back to London to answer the charge of being an atheist (and one suspected of having Spanish sympathies). Smith's prime biographer, Philip L. Barbour, however, wrote of the "superlative pettiness of the charges...none of the accusations amounting to anything." Wingfield cleared his reputation, was named in the Second Virginia Charter (of 1609), and was active in the Virginia Company until the age of 70 (1620).

He died in 1631 aged 81 and was buried at St. Andrew's, Kimbolton (Cambridgeshire) parish protestant church on April 13th, just ten weeks before John Smith.[6] Wingfield played a crucial role in 1605-08; and without his truly extensive contacts (so often used to denigrate him as an aristocratic hack) and his steady input, the USA might well have been colonized by France or Spain.

Early Life.

He was born in 1550 at Stonely Priory (dissolved ca. 1536), near Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire), the eldest son of Thomas Maria Wingfield, Sr. and Margaret Kay (from Woodsome near Huddersfield, Yorkshire)[7] and was raised as a protestant[8] . His middle name, "Maria" (pronounced [mah-RYE-uh]), derived from Mary Tudor,[9] sister of King Henry VIII (not from the King's Catholic daughter Mary). His father, Thomas Maria Wingfield, MP (who had in 1536 renounced his calling as a priest), died when he was seven.[10] Before he was twelve, his mother married James Cruwys of Fotheringhay,[11] Northamptonshire - who became his guardian; yet the father figure in his early years appears to have been his uncle, Jaques Wingfield (one of six contemporary martial Wingfields).

Stonely Priory House is today on private land.

[edit] Colonisation in Ireland.

Jaques Wingfield was from 1559-60 until his death in 1587, Master of the Ordnance in Ireland, Constable of Dublin Castle and an Irish Privy Counsellor.[12] When Edward Maria was nineteen he apparently accompanied his uncle, one of the key settlers involved in building a colony in Munster, Ireland, truly the "forging house for Virginia", with Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir John Popham and others.[13] His uncle held the Suffolk Manor of Wickham Skeith,[14] next to the future living of the great geographer, Richard Hakluyt, Jr. at Wetheringsett - both being some ten miles from Letheringham Old Hall, the ancestral home of the Wingfield Family, and from Otley Hall, ancestral home of the Wingfields' cousins, the Gosnold Family (4 miles from Letheringham).

[edit] Law School.

In 1575-6 Edward Maria Wingfield returned to England, where in 1576 he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn,[15] the law school, having first passed through its "feeder", Furnivall's Inn. Before completing his legal training, the lure of the drum called him to the Low Countries.

[edit] Soldiering in NL.

Along side his brother Captain Thomas Maria Wingfield, for at least four years, Edward Maria fought as a foot company commander (i.e. commander of 100 pike-wielding soldiers) in the Low Countries for the Free Dutch against Spanish invaders, including in 1586 at the Battle of Zutphen,[16] thereby gaining experience in the defense of forts and in skirmishing. He, his brother and Sir William Drury, were noted in the Army Roll of 1589 as "captains of success".[17] In the first half of 1588 he was taken prisoner together with the virginiaphile Sir Ferdinando Gorges (later Governor of Plymouth), at or near Bergen-op-Zoom, and was held in Spanish captivity with him, first at Ghent and then at Lille until on September 5th, 1588 when ransoms were demanded.[18] Nine weeks later his brother captured two VIP Spanish officers at Bergen, but was not permitted by the Allied Commander-in-Chief, Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, to exchange them (though he was mysteriously paid -L-957 later). He and Gorges were, however, no earlier than June 1589, released as part of a prisoner exchange.[19]

[edit] Soldiering in Ireland.

In the 1590s Captain Wingfield was garrisoned at Drogheda in Ireland[20] - where commanders reported for pay, rations and munitions to the Clerk of the Cheque & Muster-Master, Colonel Sir Ralph Lane,[21] the former Deputy Governor of Sir Walter Ralegh's ill-fated 1584-86 Roanoke Colony (in modern day North Carolina). Lane was Wingfield's father's old neighbour in Orlingbury, near Kimbolton.[22]

[edit] Service in Parliament.

In 1593 Wingfield was a Member of Parliament for Chippenham (Wiltshire) - one of five Wingfield family MPs - a seat obtained for him by his neighbor, Anthony Mildmay of Apethorpe, probably encouraged by Wingfield's cousin, Sir Robert Cecil. He may have sat on a committee considering cloth in March, but this (and parliament) he decided was not for him, and he returned shortly afterward to the soldier's life at Dundalk Garrison in Ireland.[23]

[edit] Kimbolton School Governor.

Wingfield was a Feoffee, or Governor, of Kimbolton School in 1600[24] - which riled his old fellow-colonist from 1569 in Ireland, Sir John Popham, a keen promoter of Virginia; and indeed they clashed over getting their own men onto the school's Board of Governors.[25] Popham had just banished Sir Edward ("Ned") Wingfield to County Galway in Ireland for life, for the part he had played in the Revolt of the Earl of Essex in 1599 - doubtless telling him that this would prevent his being executed - and sequestered his house, Kimbolton Castle, sending his family off to their London house at St.Andrew's, Holborn.[26] Despite his pleas, Queen Elizabeth I never permitted Ned Wingfield to return home.[27]

[edit] Organizing the Virginia Expedition

[edit] Getting the Virgina Expedition Moving.

Although Sir Thomas Gates was later hailed by Sir Edwin Sandys as the "principle forwarder" of the London Virginia Company, Captain John Smith wrote in his General Historie that, when in 1605-06 the Jamestown expedition was making no progress, Wingfield got it moving: "Captain Bartholomew Gosnold [Wingfield's second cousin], one of the first movers of this plantation, having many years solicited many of his friends, but found small assistance; Gosnold at last prevailed with some gentlemen, Capt John Smith, Mr. Edward-Maria Wingfield, Mr. Reverend Robert Hunt, and diverse others, who depended a year upon his projects, but nothing could be effected, till by their great charge and industry, it came to be apprehended by certain of the Nobility, Gentry and Merchants, so that His Majesty by his letters patents, gave permission for establishing Councils, to direct here; and to govern, and to execute there."[28] It is also likely that Cecil, Hakluyt and others were concerned that they should not have a leader like the Earl of Essex, who might set up his own kingdom in Virginia, and therefore sought out an old retired military man instead. (Bartholomew Gosnold's next brother, Captain Wingfield Gosnold, was not to sail with the expedition).[29] Conceivably Captain Gosnold (aka Gosnell) was the "Captain Gosnell" who, in 1604 at a dinner in the Isle of Wight made some "intemperate" comment about the King, so perhaps causing important people to shun him. There is no record of Smith (or indeed Hunt) doing anything special, but Gabriel Archer, who was on Gosnold's 1602 "Cape Cod Expedition", had in that year been active in recruitment in London.[30]

Wingfield was involved in fundraising and was one of the biggest backers of the venture, with family friends, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir William Waad aka Wade (Lieutenant-Governor of the Tower of London), Sir Thomas Smythe (Treasurer of the Virginia Company), John Martin, Sr., his Stonely-Huntingdon neighbor Sir Oliver Cromwell and his London neighbor, Captain John Ratcliffe, aka Sicklemore. Even Philip L. Barbour, (who was obsessively anti-Wingfield), wrote: "John Smith was unaware, always, of the importance of the lever - the legal and financial backing that got the voyage going."[31] (Back in 1602 it was Wingfield's 2nd cousin Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, who funded Bartholomew Gosnold's voyage to "discover" and name Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard).

[edit] Recruiting Settlers.

In 1606, without Wingfield's input through his extensive influential contacts, it is possible that the expedition might never have sailed. In 1605-06 Wingfield and his cousin Bartholomew Gosnold, recruited about 40% of the 105 settlers.[32] Most of the would-be gentlemen settlers were impecunious younger sons without prospects, but more than a dozen gentleman (as Dr. John Horn observes), and Captain John Martin... "clearly were gentlemen with other motives, perhaps just the adventure in its own right".[33] Wingfield obtained the approval of Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, his old London vicar at St. Andrew's, Holborn, for the Reverend Robert Hunt of Old Heathfield (who was in disgrace from his arrival there in 1602 for immorality with his servant, Thomasina Plumber, and for absenteeism and thereby neglect of his congregation). This recruitment may have been with the help of Richard Hakluyt, Jr., who was also due to sail, or maybe he was volunteered by Wingfield's cousin-by-marriage the 3rd Lord De La Warr, the future Governor-General of Jamestown; and Hunt had his will witnessed by a Tristram Sicklemore, so may have already known John Sicklemore aka Ratcliffe.[34] The Archbishop's approval was dated as late as November 24th, 1606 - yet, sadly, at the very last moment Hakluyt, the senior of the two priests, backed out.[35]

[edit] Catholics Debarred from Colonisation.

Despite the fact that Lord Southampton's brother-in-law the Catholic Sir Thomas Howard, Baron Arundell and Sir Ferdinando Gorges had funded the spring 1605 expedition to Allen's Island (in modern day Newfoundland), designed to establish a colony for British Catholicism, there is absolutely no way that Wingfield or indeed Hunt, (described by Wingfield as "a man not in any way to be touched with the rebellious humours of a popish spirit, nor blemished with the least suspicion of a factious schismatic, whereof I had a special care" ), could have had Catholic or Non-conformist leanings, the more so in the wake of the previous year's Catholic Gunpowder Plot. All would-be colonists had to subscribe to the Oath of Allegiance and the Oath of Supremacy of 1559, which denied the doctrine of the Pope's authority, in both deposing rulers and in absolving Englishmen from their allegiance. Indeed the latter oath debarred Roman Catholics from participation in Anglo-American colonisation - until George Calvert founded Maryland for persecuted Catholics and Puritans in 1634.[36]

[edit] Getting the Expedition Legalised.

The 1606 Charter. On April 10th, 1606, Wingfield was one of the eight "incorporators" of the Virginia Company,[37] who "prayed His Majesty to incorporate them, and to enable them to raise a joint stake". Divided into two missions, four men sub-incorporated as the Virginia Company of London and four as the Virginia Company of Plymouth, which would attempt to found a colony at Sagadahoc, Maine. The four for the London (Jamestown) Company, besides Wingfield, being Richard Hakluyt, Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers - (i.e. these suitors ensured the legality of the Company). They prayed His Majesty to incorporate them, and to enable them to raise a joint stake. The Charter stated: "James, by the grace of God, King of England... Whereas our loving and well disposed subjects, Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir George Somers, Knights, Richard Hackluit, Clerk...and Edward Maria Wingfield, Esq... have been humble suitors unto us, that we would vouchsafe unto them and may in time bring the infidels and savages in those parts, to human civility, and to a settled and quiet government, Do, by these our letters patent, graciously accept of, & agree to, their humble and well intended desires....and do therefore, for Us, our heirs and successors, Grant and agree, that the said Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hackluit, and Edward Maria Wingfield, adventurers of and for our city of London... shall and may begin their said first plantation...and seat of their first abode & habitation", etc.

Richard Hakluyt, Edward Maria Wingfield, [etc] Adventurers... of and for our City of London, and such others as are or shall be joined unto them of that Colony... shall and may begin their said first Plantation and Seat of that first Abode and Habitation, at any place upon the said coast of Virginia, where they shall think fit and convenient between the said four and thirty and one and forty [34-41] degrees of the said Latitude...

He and his fellow incorporators were licensed by King James I to "make habitation, plantation and to deduce a colony in that part of America "commonly called Virginia, and other parts and territories not actually possessed by any Christian prince or people, between 34 and 45 degrees North and "shall and may inhabit and remain there, and shall build and fortify [there] ... "according to their best discretion"... "and shall and lawfully may ... dig, mine and search for all manner of mines... yielding to us... the fifth part only of all the same gold and silver and the fifteenth part of all the same copper... and they shall or fully may establish and cause to be made a coin, to pass current there between people... with sufficient shipping, and furniture of armour, weapons, ordnance, powder, victuals" etc... The Charter went on to say: that Wingfield, Hakluyt, Gates and Somers could "encounter, repulse or repel and resist" all persons attempting to inhabit the said colonies "without especial licence" and that anyone they caught "trafficking" i.e. trading, should pay "five of every hundred of such wares". Anyone robbing or spoiling was to make restitution. Everything was to be in effect for 25 years before reverting to the Crown and all land was to be held of the Crown.

Wingfield apparently took a copy of the 1st Virginia Charter with him to Virginia, something that would have been provocative to a man like Gabriel Archer. Two days before he sailed - which was about the time that his Bible was stolen - he made over his estate at Stonely to seven friends and neighbours (including two Pophams and Hakluyt's friend and Wingfield's neighbour, Pickering) and five relations (including four Wingfields).[38] For the southern colony (Jamestown) Wingfield was the only adventurer (one risking his means) and venturer (one risking his life) to sail. The four patentees for each of the two colonies (Jamestown, and Sagadahoc - in modern day Maine) had, as stated above, "licence to make habitation, plantation and to deduce a colony." The two colonies were to be controlled by the King's Council of Virginia - which included not only the indomitable Sir Thomas Smythe, but also Wingfield's old comrade-in-arms and fellow Prisoner of War (for 18 months in 1588-1589) in Spanish captivity, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and Wingfield's cousin-by-marriage, Lord de la Warr.

[edit] Jamestown

[edit] Departure.

Three little ships, the Susan Constant, the Discovery and the Godspeed sailed from Blackwall Dock, London under the overall command of Captain Christopher Newport on December 19th 1606 to found Jamestown; and "the fleet fell from London" on December 20th .[39]

[edit] Commander for the Voyage only.

The Council of Virginia had decreed on September 10th 1606 that Newport was commissioned and given by the Council "with the sole charge and command of all the captains and soldiers, and mariners, and other persons, that shall go in any of the said ships and pinnace in the said voyage from the day of the date hereof [i.e. 13 weeks prior to settling at Jamestown] until such time as they shall fortune to land' upon the said coast of Virginia." Newport, "was hired only for our transportation" (wrote Smith).[40] From April 26th 1607 everyone knew who was a councillor, but not who was President - and knew that the first British presidential election was not to be before they had found "and landed" at a good site to settle. This was not a propitious beginning, and likely caused friction between the Councillors as they "jostled" to obtain votes.

[edit] Arrival.

On April 26th 1607. "...the first land they made, they called Cape Henry" for Prince Henry, the young heir to the throne. Here Newport and Wingfied likely would have made a formal Declaration claiming Virginia for the Crown. That night the box was opened and the orders [dated November 20, 1606] read out. Wingfield [et al] were to be on the Council and were to elect a President for a year from their number.

[edit] Reconnaissance and Election.

"Until the 13 of May they sought a place to plant in, then the Council was sworn, and Mr. Wingfield was chosen President, and an Oration made..." - by him, probably immediately after being sworn in. This was the first-ever democratic election in the New World.[41]

[edit] Command & Control.

At 57 Wingfield was about double the age of some of the Council. He had successfully petitioned the King for the Charter, was a "captain of success" in defence-works and skirmishing (patrolling)[42] and was one of the expedition's main stockholders. Thus, he was the obvious choice for President. However, the line of Command and Control and of "Land and Sea Force Cooperation" was problematic, since the President was not to command the mariners (as Sir Richard Grenville had at Roanoke), and the handover details were "woolly".[43]

[edit] A Soldier's Siting.

The Council in London had advised the settlers "to sit (set) down" possibly "on some island that is strong by nature... and not overburthened with woods... so far up as a bark (barque) of 50 tons will float... perchance.. a hundred miles from the river's mouth" "with no native people to inhabit between you and the sea coast".[44] Probably the key factor that swayed Wingfield to select Jamestown, was Ralph Lane's error at Roanoke in 1584 - having the ships a mile from their camp[45] - and, as an experienced soldier not wanting to split his force, therefore kept his heaviest ship with them. So, on May 12th Wingfield vetoed Archer's Hope, the first site proposed, as too visible (thus easily bombarded by foreign ships' guns). At Jamestown, the ships could be secured to the overhanging trees - even the 120-ton Susan Constant. That Wingfield (who as a "suitor" was instructed by the King to site their "abode and habitation... and to begin their ...first plantation" at any place he thought "fit and convenient"[46]) actually succeeded in rejecting Archer's Hope (i.e. haven), and selected the present Jamestown site (some 50 miles upriver), showed that he was a tough character.

[edit] Archer's Hope

Small in number, the colonists had to decide whether to concentrate their defenses against either sea attack by the French and Spanish, or against possible assault from native tribes in the area. Archer's Hope would have been better for firing down on approaching Spanish ships (i.e. large targets), since it was higher than Wingfield's river-level island/isthmus site at Jamestown.[47] But for warding off land or canoe attacks by the "naturals", Jamestown's low field of fire was more easily defended with infantry. Wingfield was a soldier experienced in warding off Spanish foot soldiers and Irish guerrillas in dyke or swampland. Since the Councillors were not yet sworn, after two weeks of everyone arguing the pros and cons of different sites, a decision had to be made before they developed into a rabble. Furthermore, only the Kecoughtan tribe lay between them and the coast, whereas if he had sited the settlement upstream, five further tribes would have cut them off from escape. Jamestown was described by Smith as "a very great place for the erecting of a great city" and by Hamor as "a good and fertile island".

President Edward Maria Wingfield as he might have looked aged 57 in 1607[48]

[edit] Work and Guard Duties.

During his Presidency Wingfield had the vast James Fort constructed in a month and a day. Barbour claimed he had no proven military service - which is nonsense, since his long service in the military in Ireland and up to fifteen years in the Low Countries is listed in the Calendar of State Papers.[49] Since of the dozen or so captains[50] he was by far the most experienced soldier in defence-works and defensive warfare, Wingfield supervised the construction of the fort (140 yards by 100 yards by 100 yards plus three artillery "blisters" of 20 yards each) - involving the felling of perhaps 500-600 30ft-trees, cutting them in half and burying one end firmly in the ground: a vast task. During construction, George Kendall supervised a temporary defence-work of the felled "half-moon of trees and brushwood... the boughs of trees cast together" as cover, prior to the ends of the huge triangular palisade being "joined up", as was normal military practice.

"Newport and Smith and twenty others were sent to discover the head of the river", wrote Smith (rather than "Newport decided to go exploring" - as so many books would have it).[51] President Wingfield was now in charge, but before long his cousin Gosnold warned him that he was driving the men too hard, ever holding them to "working, watching, and warding."[52]

[edit] Repulsing Attack.

May 27th, 1607. Belying Smith's statement that the weapons were kept boxed or casked, President Wingfield successfully repulsed a fierce, hour-long attack on Jamestown, leading from the front. Outnumbered 3:1 - with but 130 men and boys - he drove off 400 native warriors. "...And our President, Mr. Wynckfeild (who showed himself a valiant Gentleman), had one shot clean through his beard, yet scaped hurt" [escaped being injured], wrote Archer. Percy also called Wingfield "a true, valiant gentleman".[53]

The First Holy Communion at Jamestown, June 22nd, 1607 (as depicted in Old Heathfield Church, Sussex, England).[54]

[edit] Strict Ration Control.

President Wingfield built the great fort,[55] sowed the first crops,[56] imposed strict rationing - planned "for the long time until our harvest would be ripe" (wrote Wingfield), - and "every meal of fish or flesh should excuse [e.g. would cancel out] the allowance for porridge". He got in three weeks' reserve supplies through bartering for food with "the Naturals", while (as ordered by the Council in London) "not offending them".[57] He had to impose a strict rationing: "half a pint of wheat and as much barley boiled with water for a man a day, having fried 26 weeks in the ships hold, contained as many worms as grains".[58]

[edit] Worst drought for 800 Years.

In the oppressive heat, the diminishing food-stocks and American Indian attacks soon brought disease, death and dissension. President Wingfield and his settlers were not to know that their founding of Jamestown was during the worst seven-year dry spell (1606-1612) in nearly 800 years - which "dried up fresh-water supplies and devastated corn crops". Indeed Dr. William Kelso and Beverly Straube of Jamestown Rediscovery are convinced that the colony's fate was "beyond the control of either settlers or their London backers".[59] But the settlers were tough. The hardy ones survived that period and won through, establishing, as Dr. James Horn points out, "four fundamental characteristics of British America: representative government, private property, civilian control of the military, and a Protestant church";[60] along with English language and customs.

[edit] America's First Coup: Removed As President

On September 10, 1607, amid starvation and relentless attacks from native tribes, Wingfield was arrested and deposed from his presidency. The now ex-President was arraigned on the following charges (just as in 1609 the 4th Governor/President Percy - with ex-President (the 2nd) Ratcliffe, Archer and Martin - was to send the ex-President Smith (the 3rd president) home to answer eight similar, more serious charges):[61]

(1) Denying Ratcliffe a penny whittle (pocket knife), a chicken and a spoonful of beer. [Beer, corn oil, aquavit and biscuit had actually been rationed by the Council, of which Sicklemore was of course a Member. Wingfield's own knife had apparently been stolen by the Indians and three knives that had been on charge in the store had been exchanged with the Indians for food].

(2) Serving (Ratcliffe, a.k.a.) Sicklemore with foul corn. [All the corn was indeed foul, "having fried some twenty-six weeks in the ship's hold" or after further storage in difficult circumstances at James Fort].

(3) Calling Smith a liar.

(4) Accusing Smith of concealing a mutiny plotted and confessed by Galthrop or Calthorpe, Gent.[62]

(5) Denying Martin a spoonful of beer. Starving Martin's son to death.

(6)"Did but tend his pot, spit and oven". [Once he had a squirrel he had been given, cooked for Sicklemore, because the latter was sick, and on another occasion he had a pint of peas and pork specially boiled for a very sick old man, who later died. Most men who were sick probably sat around near a fire; and indeed he was sick when he was deposed.]

(7)Accusing Smith's old comrade-in-arms from Transylvania, "Jehu Robinson, Gentleman" and others of "consenting to run away with the shallop" to Newfoundland (as it was later called).[63]

(8)Starving the colony.[64] [It was "suggested" that he had had food buried in the ground. Indeed he had, but this was then the normal way to keep food and drink (in casks or vats) from going bad in hot weather, and besides, it did stop rations from being stolen. The future Secretary, William Strachey was to write of such "underground storehouses", and indeed such food and drink storage methods were then in use in England and indeed were still in use in England and America until well into the 20th century. Other stores were removed by Newport and others for bartering with the Indians, but Cape Merchant Thomas Studley's booking-out and booking-in "bookkeepers" (storemen) actually failed to keep adequate booking-in-and-out records].

(9)"Banquet and riot, in that he did feed himself and his servants out to the common store."

In President Wingfield's time everyone was fed out of the common store, although there may have been separate Mess areas for the Council, the Gentlemen and labourers. Clearly, if this charge were true, it would have been made to stick. "Mr. Smith, in the time of our hunger", wrote Edward Maria, "had spread a rumour in the colony that I did feast my servants out of the common store, with intent, as I gathered, to have stirred the discontented company against me". No other writer of this period even implies that the President was requisitioning extra rations for himself or his servants. Wingfield started bartering with the Indians and/or stocked up with shot game, "for, as his store increased, he mended the common pot: he had laid up besides, provision for 3 weeks' wheat beforehand...I was all for one and one to all." Since Newport's return was a long way off, Edward Maria had imposed fair, very strict - and naturally very unpopular - rationing on the settlers].[65]

In his Discourse, President Wingfield "replies" to the following "extra" charges:[66]

(10) "That I combined with the Spaniards to the destruction of the colony".[67]

(11) "That I am an atheist, because I carried not a bible, and because I forbid the preacher to preach". Why was President Wingfield accused of being an atheist? Because (a) he had no bible with him, (b) he cancelled two - or three - sermons, and (c) after he had been deposed, he failed to attend church on one or two occasions. [%28a%29 His bible was stolen at Croft's house, just before they sailed from Blackwall. (b) When the men returned from standing to arms or counter-attacks, it was too late to have the sermon - and sermons were long in those days: so he cancelled them: "On two or three Sunday mornings, the Indians gave us alarums at our town", wrote Wingfield... "by that times they were answered, the place about us well discovered, and our divine service ended, the day was far spent." (c) And after his arrest (when he was sick and lame), he did not attend on a further one or two occasions when it was raining].[68]

(12) "That I affected a kingdom".

(13) "That I did hide the common provision in the ground". [See riposte to Charge 9].

A 14th "charge" is suggested by Smith's biographer, Philip L. Barbour: "that Wingfield was implicated in the planned escape in the pinnace to Spain (not England) by Kendall". He wrote that Kendall began whispering about abandoning the colony - "perhaps with the connivance of Wingfield...and Wingfield seemed implicated" etc.. His primary source was presumably Thomas Studley (or, rather, Smith - see note below), who in June 1608 wrote: "Wingfield and Kendall, living in disgrace... strengthened themselves with the sailors and confederates to regain their former credit and authority, or at least such means aboard the pinnace.. to alter her course, and to go for England... Smith...forced them to stay or sink in the river. Which action cost the life of Kendall [who was shot after trial]".[69]

Smith further wrote: "The President [Ratcliffe aka Sicklemore] and Captain Archer, not long after, intended also, to have abandoned the country".[70]

Wingfield, however, was not charged with desertion - or he too would surely have been shot. It would seem that Smith got confused, accidentally or deliberately, over the dates of two or three different incidents. Indeed in 1608 Smith had also written: "Our store being now indifferently well provided with corn [e.g. maize] there was much ado for to have the pinnace go to England, against which Captain Martin and myself stood chiefly against it: and in fine after many debatings pro et contra, it was resolved to stay a further resolution."[71] Some time after Kendall was shot, Wingfield came ashore from the pinnace and stated to Smith and Archer that: "I was determined to go to England to acquaint our Council of our weaknesses... I said further, I desired not to go into England, if either Mr. President [Ratcliffe aka Sicklemore] would go."[72]

The President by then was Ratcliffe. Smith's biographer, Philip L. Barbour, who wrote of "John Smith's usual exaggeration", describes "the superlative pettiness" of the charges against Wingfield..."none of the accusations against him amounted to anything - not even Archer's assertion that he was in league with the Spaniards to destroy the colony."[73]

When the pragmatic Captain Newport, 47, arrived with the First Supply, he found young Smith, 27 - having been charged with losing two men to the Indians - also under restraint - for the second time; and he was, also for the second time since the expedition had set out, due to be hanged (on the morrow). Newport released Wingfield and Smith, waiving all but one of the charges against them both as petty, but he did not reinstate Wingfield, as the charge of being an atheist was so serious that he would have to be sent to England to be tried for it - just as Smith was to be later.[74]

[edit] Attempted Reinstatement.

The disgruntled settlers now thought that the 2nd President, John Ratcliffe, was the source of all their problems, and Smith, Kendall and Percy planned to send James Read the blacksmith on a maintenance visit to the pinnace, where Wingfield was held, to see if Wingfield would agree to be reinstated, but Ratcliffe learned of these plans and had Read publicly thrashed.[75]

[edit] Rebuttal of Charges.

In his spirited Discourse of Virginia,(1608) Wingfield comes across as a tough old soldier - too tough with the men, and too old to have the vitality and flair required for the job. He "could not make ropes of sand" as Stephen Vincent Benet so aptly described his "no win" situation[76] with a difficult bunch of men - over half of them work-shy "gentlemen" - during the worst drought for 800 years (as we now know). As with the French and Spanish colonies, when the situation got grave, the leader was always made the scapegoat and was sacked.

[edit] Reputation and Later Career

[edit] Reputation.

Up to the 1980s, Wingfield's reputation as a villain stems from his chief rival, John Smith, who was apparently prone to supreme exaggeration,[77]. Newly freed from arrest, Smith wrote of Wingfield's "overweening jealousy" i.e. supremely self-confident and suspicious of rivalry - which one could argue are two necessary qualities required by a commander. Command is lonely and doubtless the "cliqueyness" of the "Cape Cod Crew of 1602" (Gosnold, Martin and Archer), the Middle Temple lawyers (Gosnold and Percy) and the "generation gap" problem between Wingfield aged 57 vis-a-vis Smith aged 27 (and many men in their 20s and 30s), did not help. Smith also described Wingfield and probably Percy and Newport[78] as "tufftaffety humorists" i.e overdressed, full of humour and laughter but liable to mood swings. Smith's views of President Wingfield were repeated by John Oldmixon in 1708, then further downgraded by the author of his entry in the (British) Dictionary of Biography of 1880, and even more so by Barbour (1964), Smith's best biographer. Barbour was obsessively anti-Wingfield, describing him as (a) an aristocrat (i.e. a baron, marquess, viscount, earl or duke) - which he was not, and which (before 1618) no member of his family ever had been (though his grandfather had been a Knight of the Garter, earned through being a brilliant ambassador); and (b) as having three servants at Jamestown; but Smith was no farmer's lad. Smith too was a Captain, had three servants at Jamestown,[79] possessed a coat of arms, owned property (in Louth), had a well-to-do tenant farmer father; and was, moreover, raised with the younger Bertie children and was given a personal equestrian course by the Henry, 2nd Earl of Lincoln of Tattershall Castle.[80]

In 1608 King James "induced" Sir Humphrey Weld, the Lord Mayor, "a member of the Grocer's Company" to issue a Precept about corporate funding for Jamestown.[81] In the 2-3 charges not considered ludicrous by the level-headed Newport, Wingfield defended himself successfully before Archbishop Bancroft in London.

[edit] Still involved with the Virginia Company at 70

Still involved with the Virginia Company at 70, he died at 81. He was still involved in the affairs of the colony a dozen years later, e.g. the Declaration of Supplies intended to be sent to Virginia in 1620, June 22nd has: "Winckfield, Edward Maria, Captain, Esquire, Adventurer of the Virginia Company, London (Eng.): -L-88.".[82] He was buried at St.Andrew's, Kimbolton on April 13th, 1631.[83]

[edit] Founder.

The latest British DNB (Dictionary of National Biography) sums the ex-President up as follows: "he seems to have been a conscientious and fair-minded man who lacked the necessary force of character to maintain order in the difficult early conditions of the colony, where he faced an unruly and quarrelsome set of companions.". Both Percy and Archer described him as "valiant".

"The Founder of an institution, organisation or idea, etc." is defined in Collins, Cobuild as: "a person who sets it up or causes it to be built, perhaps by providing the necessary money." Edward Maria Wingfield qualifies for Founder of Jamestown on all three counts. He was an incorporator of the 1st Virginia Charter, contributed the huge sum of -L-88 [=$15,000 today], one of the very largest investments, was the only adventurer to sail to Jamestown (as cited) and, as the elected first President, built James Fort - described by John Smith as "a very great place for the erecting of a great city".

President Wingfield's memorial at Jamestown Church

Notes on Sources

A. Virginia Company Records. Since the Court (or Minute) Book for the Virginia Company for January 28, 1606 to February 14, 1615 disappeared after 1623(3) the only reliable (and likely incomplete) source is Alexander Brown's The Genesis of the United States [Vol. 2, 1899] - under the various family or individuals' names.

B. Wingfield's "A Discourse of Virginia" ("...upon the truth of this journal [I] do pledge my faith, and life...") is, incredibly, not drawn on as source material in four recent books on Jamestown [Lambeth Palace Library MS 250, ff.382r-392v; British Library 9602e 8, including 1860 copy edited by Charles Deane (with Introduction and Notes, 26 pages]. The first published version was only seen by a few people (through private subscription); and so the first time Wingfield's account was seen by a larger public - in New York and Glasgow - was not until 1905-1906, in Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. XVIII. (To convert the page numbers of Wingfield's Discourse to its page number in Jocelyn R. Wingfield's "Virginia's True Founder", add 298).

C. Wingfield's biography by Jocelyn R. Wingfield: Virginia's True Founder: Edward Maria Wingfield and His Times (1993), revised (2007), with an Introduction by Stephen Blackehart, 2007, ISBN 1-4196-6032-2. All page numbers referenced herein refer to the 1993 edition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Maria_Wingfield

Captain Edward Maria Wingfield, sometimes hyphenated as Edward-Maria Wingfield, (born 1550 in Stonely, Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire), England; died in 1631)[2] was a soldier, Member of Parliament, (1593) and English colonist in America. He was the grandson of Richard Wingfield and son of Thomas Maria Wingfield. In what was the first election of any kind in the New World, in 1607, Wingfield became the first president of what is today the United States of America.

Captain John Smith wrote that Wingfield was one of the early and prime movers and organisers in 1602-1603 in "showing great charge and industry"[3] in getting the Virginia Venture moving: he was one of the four incorporators for the London Virginia Company in the Virginia Charter of 1606 and one of its biggest financial backers.[4] He recruited (with his cousin, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold) about 40 of the 105 would-be colonists, and was the only shareholder to sail. In the first election in the New World, he was elected by his peers as the President of the governing council for one year beginning May 13, 1607, of what became the first successful, English-speaking colony in the New World at Jamestown, Virginia. He chose the site, a strong defensive position against land or canoe attack, and supervised the construction of the fort in a month and a day, a mammoth task.

But after four months, on September 10, because "he ever held the men to working, watching and warding",[5] and because of lack of food, death from disease and attack by the "naturals" (during the worst famine and drought for 800 years), he was made a scapegoat, and was deposed on petty charges.[6] On the return of the Supply Boat on April 10, 1608, he was sent back to London to answer the charge of being an atheist (and one suspected of having Spanish sympathies). Smith's prime biographer, Philip L. Barbour, however, wrote of the "superlative pettiness of the charges...none of the accusations amounting to anything." Wingfield cleared his reputation, was named in the Second Virginia Charter (of 1609), and was active in the Virginia Company until the age of 70 (1620).

He died in 1631 aged 81 and was buried at St. Andrew's, Kimbolton (Cambridgeshire), England parish protestant church on April 13, just ten weeks before John Smith.[7] Wingfield played a crucial role in 1605-08; and without his truly extensive contacts (so often used to denigrate him as an aristocratic hack) and his steady input, the USA might well have been colonized by France or Spain.

He was born in 1550 at Stonely Priory (dissolved ca. 1536), near Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire), the eldest son of Thomas Maria Wingfield, Sr. and Margaret Kay (from Woodsome near Huddersfield, Yorkshire)[8] and was raised as a Protestant[9] . His middle name, "Maria" (pronounced [mah-RYE-uh]), derived from Mary Tudor,[10] sister of King Henry VIII but from the King's Catholic daughter (Bloody) Mary Tudor. His father, Thomas Maria Wingfield, MP (who had in 1536 renounced his calling as a priest), died when he was seven.[11] Before he was twelve, his mother married James Cruwys of Fotheringhay,[12] Northamptonshire - who became his guardian; yet the father figure in his early years appears to have been his uncle, Jaques Wingfield (one of six contemporary martial Wingfields).

Stonely Priory House is today on private land.

Colonisation in Ireland

Jaques Wingfield was from 1559-60 until his death in 1587, Master of the Ordnance in Ireland, Constable of Dublin Castle and an Irish Privy Counsellor.[9] When Edward Maria was nineteen he apparently accompanied his uncle, one of the key settlers involved in building a colony in Munster, Ireland, truly the "forging house for Virginia", with Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir John Popham and others.[13] His uncle held the Suffolk Manor of Wickham Skeith,[14] next to the future living of the great geographer, Richard Hakluyt, Jr. at Wetheringsett - both being some ten miles (16 km) from Letheringham Old Hall, the ancestral home of the Wingfield Family, and from Otley Hall, ancestral home of the Wingfields' cousins, the Gosnold Family (4 miles from Letheringham).

Law school

In 1575-6 Edward Maria Wingfield returned to England, where in 1576 he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn,[15] the law school, having first passed through its "feeder", Furnivall's Inn. Before completing his legal training, the lure of the drum called him to the Low Countries.

Soldiering in NL

Along side his brother Captain Thomas Maria Wingfield, for at least four years, Edward Maria fought as a foot company commander (i.e. commander of 100 pike-wielding soldiers) in the Low Countries for the Free Dutch against Spanish invaders, including in 1586 at the Battle of Zutphen,[16] thereby gaining experience in the defense of forts and in skirmishing. He, his brother and Sir William Drury, were noted in the Army Roll of 1589 as "captains of success".[17] In the first half of 1588 he was taken prisoner together with the virginiaphile Sir Ferdinando Gorges (later Governor of Plymouth), at or near Bergen-op-Zoom, and was held in Spanish captivity with him, first at Ghent and then at Lille until on September 5, 1588 when ransoms were demanded.[18] Nine weeks later his brother captured two VIP Spanish officers at Bergen, but was not permitted by the Allied Commander-in-Chief, Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, to exchange them (though he was mysteriously paid -L-957 later). He and Gorges were, however, no earlier than June 1589, released as part of a prisoner exchange.[19]

Soldiering in Ireland

In the 1590s Captain Wingfield was garrisoned at Drogheda in Ireland[20] - where commanders reported for pay, rations and munitions to the Clerk of the Cheque & Muster-Master, Colonel Sir Ralph Lane,[21] the former Deputy Governor of Sir Walter Ralegh's ill-fated 1584-86 Roanoke Colony (in modern day North Carolina). Lane was Wingfield's father's old neighbour in Orlingbury, near Kimbolton.[22]

Service in Parliament

In 1593 Wingfield was a Member of Parliament for Chippenham (Wiltshire) - one of five Wingfield family MPs - a seat obtained for him by his neighbor, Anthony Mildmay of Apethorpe, probably encouraged by Wingfield's cousin, Sir Robert Cecil. He may have sat on a committee considering cloth in March, but this (and parliament) he decided was not for him, and he returned shortly afterward to the soldier's life at Dundalk Garrison in Ireland.[23]

Kimbolton School Governor

Wingfield was a Feoffee, or Governor, of Kimbolton School in 1600[24] - which riled his old fellow-colonist from 1569 in Ireland, Sir John Popham, a keen promoter of Virginia; and indeed they clashed over getting their own men onto the school's Board of Governors.[25] Popham had just banished Sir Edward ("Ned") Wingfield to County Galway in Ireland for life, for the part he had played in the Revolt of the Earl of Essex in 1599 - doubtless telling him that this would prevent his being executed - and sequestered his house, Kimbolton Castle, sending his family off to their London house at St.Andrew's, Holborn.[26] Despite his pleas, Queen Elizabeth I never permitted Ned Wingfield to return home.[27]

Organizing the Virginia Expedition

Although Sir Thomas Gates was later hailed by Sir Edwin Sandys as the "principle forwarder" of the London Virginia Company, Captain John Smith wrote in his General Historie that, when in 1605-06 the Jamestown expedition was making no progress, Wingfield got it moving: "Captain Bartholomew Gosnold [Wingfield's second cousin], one of the first movers of this plantation, having many years solicited many of his friends, but found small assistance; Gosnold at last prevailed with some gentlemen, Capt John Smith, Mr. Edward-Maria Wingfield, Mr. Reverend Robert Hunt, and diverse others, who depended a year upon his projects, but nothing could be effected, till by their great charge and industry, it came to be apprehended by certain of the Nobility, Gentry and Merchants, so that His Majesty by his letters patents, gave permission for establishing Councils, to direct here; and to govern, and to execute there."[28] It is also likely that Cecil, Hakluyt and others were concerned that they should not have a leader like the Earl of Essex, who might set up his own kingdom in Virginia, and therefore sought out an old retired military man instead. (Bartholomew Gosnold's next brother, Captain Wingfield Gosnold, was not to sail with the expedition).[29] Conceivably Captain Gosnold (aka Gosnell) was the "Captain Gosnell" who, in 1604 at a dinner in the Isle of Wight made some "intemperate" comment about the King, so perhaps causing important people to shun him. There is no record of Smith (or indeed Hunt) doing anything special, but Gabriel Archer, who was on Gosnold's 1602 "Cape Cod Expedition", had in that year been active in recruitment in London.[30]

Wingfield was involved in fundraising and was one of the biggest backers of the venture, with family friends, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir William Waad aka Wade (Lieutenant-Governor of the Tower of London), Sir Thomas Smythe (Treasurer of the Virginia Company), John Martin, Sr., his Stonely-Huntingdon neighbor Sir Oliver Cromwell and his London neighbor, Captain John Ratcliffe, aka Sicklemore. Even Philip L. Barbour, (who was obsessively anti-Wingfield), wrote: "John Smith was unaware, always, of the importance of the lever - the legal and financial backing that got the voyage going."[31] (Back in 1602 it was Wingfield's 2nd cousin Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, who funded Bartholomew Gosnold's voyage to "discover" and name Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard).

Recruiting settlers

In 1606, without Wingfield's input through his extensive influential contacts, it is possible that the expedition might never have sailed. In 1605-06 Wingfield and his cousin Bartholomew Gosnold, recruited about 40% of the 105 settlers.[32] Most of the would-be gentlemen settlers were impecunious younger sons without prospects, but more than a dozen gentleman (as Dr. John Horn observes), and Captain John Martin... "clearly were gentlemen with other motives, perhaps just the adventure in its own right".[33] Wingfield obtained the approval of Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, his old London vicar at St. Andrew's, Holborn, for the Reverend Robert Hunt of Old Heathfield (who was in disgrace from his arrival there in 1602 for immorality with his servant, Thomasina Plumber, and for absenteeism and thereby neglect of his congregation). This recruitment may have been with the help of Richard Hakluyt, Jr., who was also due to sail, or maybe he was volunteered by Wingfield's cousin-by-marriage the 3rd Lord De La Warr, the future Governor-General of Jamestown; and Hunt had his will witnessed by a Tristram Sicklemore, so may have already known John Sicklemore aka Ratcliffe.[34] The Archbishop's approval was dated as late as November 24, 1606 - yet, sadly, at the very last moment Hakluyt, the senior of the two priests, backed out.[35]

Catholics debarred from colonisation

Despite the fact that Lord Southampton's brother-in-law the Catholic Sir Thomas Howard, Baron Arundell and Sir Ferdinando Gorges had funded the spring 1605 expedition to Allen's Island (in modern day Newfoundland), designed to establish a colony for British Catholicism, there is absolutely no way that Wingfield or indeed Hunt, (described by Wingfield as "a man not in any way to be touched with the rebellious humours of a popish spirit, nor blemished with the least suspicion of a factious schismatic, whereof I had a special care" ), could have had Catholic or Non-conformist leanings, the more so in the wake of the previous year's Catholic Gunpowder Plot. All would-be colonists had to subscribe to the Oath of Allegiance and the Oath of Supremacy of 1559, which denied the doctrine of the Pope's authority, in both deposing rulers and in absolving Englishmen from their allegiance. Indeed the latter oath debarred Roman Catholics from participation in Anglo-American colonisation - until George Calvert founded Maryland for persecuted Catholics and Puritans in 1634.[36]

Getting the Expedition legalised

"Virginia" was the term for all of British America in 1607.The 1606 Charter. On April 10, 1606, Wingfield was one of the eight "incorporators" of the Virginia Company,[37] who "prayed His Majesty to incorporate them, and to enable them to raise a joint stake". Divided into two missions, four men sub-incorporated as the Virginia Company of London and four as the Virginia Company of Plymouth, which would attempt to found a colony at Sagadahoc, Maine. The four for the London (Jamestown) Company, besides Wingfield, being Richard Hakluyt, Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers - (i.e. these suitors ensured the legality of the Company). They prayed His Majesty to incorporate them, and to enable them to raise a joint stake. The Charter stated: "James, by the grace of God, King of England... Whereas our loving and well disposed subjects, Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir George Somers, Knights, Richard Hackluit, Clerk...and Edward Maria Wingfield, Esq... have been humble suitors unto us, that we would vouchsafe unto them and may in time bring the infidels and savages in those parts, to human civility, and to a settled and quiet government, Do, by these our letters patent, graciously accept of, & agree to, their humble and well intended desires....and do therefore, for Us, our heirs and successors, Grant and agree, that the said Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hackluit, and Edward Maria Wingfield, adventurers of and for our city of London... shall and may begin their said first plantation...and seat of their first abode & habitation", etc.

Richard Hakluyt, Edward Maria Wingfield, [etc.] Adventurers... of and for our City of London, and such others as are or shall be joined unto them of that Colony... shall and may begin their said first Plantation and Seat of that first Abode and Habitation, at any place upon the said coast of Virginia, where they shall think fit and convenient between the said four and thirty and one and forty [34-41] degrees of the said Latitude...

He and his fellow incorporators were licensed by King James I to "make habitation, plantation and to deduce a colony in that part of America "commonly called Virginia, and other parts and territories not actually possessed by any Christian prince or people, between 34 and 45 degrees North and "shall and may inhabit and remain there, and shall build and fortify [there] ... "according to their best discretion"... "and shall and lawfully may ... dig, mine and search for all manner of mines... yielding to us... the fifth part only of all the same gold and silver and the fifteenth part of all the same copper... and they shall or fully may establish and cause to be made a coin, to pass current there between people... with sufficient shipping, and furniture of armour, weapons, ordnance, powder, victuals" etc... The Charter went on to say: that Wingfield, Hakluyt, Gates and Somers could "encounter, repulse or repel and resist" all persons attempting to inhabit the said colonies "without especial licence" and that anyone they caught "trafficking" i.e. trading, should pay "five of every hundred of such wares". Anyone robbing or spoiling was to make restitution. Everything was to be in effect for 25 years before reverting to the Crown and all land was to be held of the Crown.

Wingfield apparently took a copy of the 1st Virginia Charter with him to Virginia, something that would have been provocative to a man like Gabriel Archer. Two days before he sailed - which was about the time that his Bible was stolen - he made over his estate at Stonely to seven friends and neighbours (including two Pophams and Hakluyt's friend and Wingfield's neighbour, Pickering) and five relations (including four Wingfields).[38] For the southern colony (Jamestown) Wingfield was the only adventurer (one risking his means) and venturer (one risking his life) to sail. The four patentees for each of the two colonies (Jamestown, and Sagadahoc - in modern day Maine) had, as stated above, "licence to make habitation, plantation and to deduce a colony." The two colonies were to be controlled by the King's Council of Virginia - which included not only the indomitable Sir Thomas Smythe, but also Wingfield's old comrade-in-arms and fellow Prisoner of War (for 18 months in 1588-1589) in Spanish captivity, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and Wingfield's cousin-by-marriage, Lord de la Warr.

Departure

Three little ships, the Susan Constant, the Discovery and the Godspeed sailed from Blackwall Dock, London under the overall command of Captain Christopher Newport on December 19, 1606 to found Jamestown; and "the fleet fell from London" on December 20 .[39]

Commander for the Voyage only

The Council of Virginia had decreed on September 10, 1606 that Newport was commissioned and given by the Council "with the sole charge and command of all the captains and soldiers, and mariners, and other persons, that shall go in any of the said ships and pinnace in the said voyage from the day of the date hereof [i.e. 13 weeks prior to settling at Jamestown] until such time as they shall fortune to land' upon the said coast of Virginia." Newport, "was hired only for our transportation" (wrote Smith).[40] From April 26, 1607 everyone knew who was a councillor, but not who was President - and knew that the first British presidential election was not to be before they had found "and landed" at a good site to settle. This was not a propitious beginning, and likely caused friction between the Councillors as they "jostled" to obtain votes.

Arrival

On April 26, 1607. "...the first land they made, they called Cape Henry" for Prince Henry, the young heir to the throne. Here Newport and Wingfied likely would have made a formal Declaration claiming Virginia for the Crown. That night the box was opened and the orders [dated November 20, 1606] read out. Wingfield [et al.] were to be on the Council and were to elect a President for a year from their number.

Reconnaissance and election

"Until the 13 of May they sought a place to plant in, then the Council was sworn, and Mr. Wingfield was chosen President, and an Oration made..." - by him, probably immediately after being sworn in. This was the first-ever democratic election in the New World.[41]

Command and control

At 57 Wingfield was about double the age of some of the Council. He had successfully petitioned the King for the Charter, was a "captain of success" in defence-works and skirmishing (patrolling)[42] and was one of the expedition's main stockholders. Thus, he was the obvious choice for President. However, the line of Command and Control and of "Land and Sea Force Cooperation" was problematic, since the President was not to command the mariners (as Sir Richard Grenville had at Roanoke), and the handover details were "woolly".[43]

A Soldier's siting

The Council in London had advised the settlers "to sit (set) down" possibly "on some island that is strong by nature... and not overburthened with woods... so far up as a bark (barque) of 50 tons will float... perchance.. a hundred miles from the river's mouth" "with no native people to inhabit between you and the sea coast".[44] Probably the key factor that swayed Wingfield to select Jamestown, was Ralph Lane's error at Roanoke in 1584 - having the ships a mile from their camp[45] - and, as an experienced soldier not wanting to split his force, therefore kept his heaviest ship with them. So, on May 12 Wingfield vetoed Archer's Hope, the first site proposed, as too visible (thus easily bombarded by foreign ships' guns). At Jamestown, the ships could be secured to the overhanging trees - even the 120-ton Susan Constant. That Wingfield (who as a "suitor" was instructed by the King to site their "abode and habitation... and to begin their ...first plantation" at any place he thought "fit and convenient"[46]) actually succeeded in rejecting Archer's Hope (i.e. haven), and selected the present Jamestown site (some 50 miles (80 km) upriver), showed that he was a tough character.

Archer's Hope

Small in number, the colonists had to decide whether to concentrate their defenses against either sea attack by the French and Spanish, or against possible assault from native tribes in the area. Archer's Hope would have been better for firing down on approaching Spanish ships (i.e. large targets), since it was higher than Wingfield's river-level island/isthmus site at Jamestown.[47] But for warding off land or canoe attacks by the "naturals", Jamestown's low field of fire was more easily defended with infantry. Wingfield was a soldier experienced in warding off Spanish foot soldiers and Irish guerrillas in dyke or swampland. Since the Councillors were not yet sworn, after two weeks of everyone arguing the pros and cons of different sites, a decision had to be made before they developed into a rabble. Furthermore, only the Kecoughtan tribe lay between them and the coast, whereas if he had sited the settlement upstream, five further tribes would have cut them off from escape. Jamestown was described by Smith as "a very great place for the erecting of a great city" and by Hamor as "a good and fertile island".

Work and guard duties

During his Presidency Wingfield had the James Fort constructed in a month and a day. Barbour claimed he had no proven military service - which is nonsense, since his long service in the military in Ireland and up to fifteen years in the Low Countries is listed in the Calendar of State Papers.[48] Since of the dozen or so captains[49] he was by far the most experienced soldier in defence-works and defensive warfare, Wingfield supervised the construction of the fort (140 yards by 100 yards (91 m) by 100 yards (91 m) plus three artillery "blisters" of 20 yards (18 m) each) - involving the felling of perhaps 500-600 30 ft-trees, cutting them in half and burying one end firmly in the ground: a vast task. During construction, George Kendall supervised a temporary defence-work of the felled "half-moon of trees and brushwood... the boughs of trees cast together" as cover, prior to the ends of the huge triangular palisade being "joined up", as was normal military practice.

"Newport and Smith and twenty others were sent to discover the head of the river", wrote Smith (rather than "Newport decided to go exploring" - as so many books would have it).[50] President Wingfield was now in charge, but before long his cousin Gosnold warned him that he was driving the men too hard, ever holding them to "working, watching, and warding."[51]

Repulsing attack

May 27, 1607. Belying Smith's statement that the weapons were kept boxed or casked, President Wingfield successfully repulsed a fierce, hour-long attack on Jamestown, leading from the front. Outnumbered 3:1 - with but 130 men and boys - he drove off 400 native warriors. "...And our President, Mr. Wynckfeild (who showed himself a valiant Gentleman), had one shot clean through his beard, yet scaped hurt" [escaped being injured], wrote Archer. Percy also called Wingfield "a true, valiant gentleman".[52]

The First Holy Communion at Jamestown, June 22, 1607.

Strict ration control

President Wingfield built the great fort,[54] sowed the first crops,[55] imposed strict rationing - planned "for the long time until our harvest would be ripe" (wrote Wingfield), - and "every meal of fish or flesh should excuse [e.g. would cancel out] the allowance for porridge". He got in three weeks' reserve supplies through bartering for food with "the Naturals", while (as ordered by the Council in London) "not offending them".[56] He had to impose a strict rationing: "half a pint of wheat and as much barley boiled with water for a man a day, having fried 26 weeks in the ships hold, contained as many worms as grains".[57]

Worst drought for 800 years

In the oppressive heat, the diminishing food-stocks and American Indian attacks soon brought disease, death and dissension. President Wingfield and his settlers were not to know that their founding of Jamestown was during the worst seven-year dry spell (1606–1612) in nearly 800 years - which "dried up fresh-water supplies and devastated corn crops". Indeed Dr. William Kelso and Beverly Straube of Jamestown Rediscovery are convinced that the colony's fate was "beyond the control of either settlers or their London backers".[58] But the settlers were tough. The hardy ones survived that period and won through, establishing, as Dr. James Horn points out, "four fundamental characteristics of British America: representative government, private property, civilian control of the military, and a Protestant church";[59] along with English language and customs.

Removed as president

On September 10, 1607, amid starvation and attacks from native tribes, Wingfield was arrested and deposed from his presidency. The now ex-President was arraigned on the following charges (just as in 1609 the 4th Governor/President Percy - with ex-President (the 2nd) Ratcliffe, Archer and Martin - was to send the ex-President Smith (the 3rd president) home to answer eight similar, more serious charges):[60]

(1) Denying Ratcliffe a penny whittle (pocket knife), a chicken and a spoonful of beer. [Beer, corn oil, aquavit and biscuit had actually been rationed by the Council, of which Sicklemore was of course a Member. Wingfield's own knife had apparently been stolen by the Indians and three knives that had been on charge in the store had been exchanged with the Indians for food].

(2) Serving (Ratcliffe, a.k.a.) Sicklemore with foul corn. [All the corn was indeed foul, "having fried some twenty-six weeks in the ship's hold" or after further storage in difficult circumstances at James Fort].

(3) Calling Smith a liar.

(4) Accusing Smith of concealing a mutiny plotted and confessed by Galthrop or Calthorpe, Gent.[61]

(5) Denying Martin a spoonful of beer. Starving Martin's son to death.

(6)"Did but tend his pot, spit and oven". [Once he had a squirrel he had been given, cooked for Sicklemore, because the latter was sick, and on another occasion he had a pint of peas and pork specially boiled for a very sick old man, who later died. Most men who were sick probably sat around near a fire; and indeed he was sick when he was deposed.]

(7)Accusing Smith's old comrade-in-arms from Transylvania, "Jehu Robinson, Gentleman" and others of "consenting to run away with the shallop" to Newfoundland (as it was later called).[62]

(8)Starving the colony.[63] [It was "suggested" that he had had food buried in the ground. Indeed he had, but this was then the normal way to keep food and drink (in casks or vats) from going bad in hot weather, and besides, it did stop rations from being stolen. The future Secretary, William Strachey was to write of such "underground storehouses", and indeed such food and drink storage methods were then in use in England and indeed were still in use in England and America until well into the 20th century. Other stores were removed by Newport and others for bartering with the Indians, but Cape Merchant Thomas Studley's booking-out and booking-in "bookkeepers" (storemen) actually failed to keep adequate booking-in-and-out records].

(9)"Banquet and riot, in that he did feed himself and his servants out to the common store."

In President Wingfield's time everyone was fed out of the common store, although there may have been separate Mess areas for the Council, the Gentlemen and labourers. Clearly, if this charge were true, it would have been made to stick. "Mr. Smith, in the time of our hunger", wrote Edward Maria, "had spread a rumour in the colony that I did feast my servants out of the common store, with intent, as I gathered, to have stirred the discontented company against me". No other writer of this period even implies that the President was requisitioning extra rations for himself or his servants. Wingfield started bartering with the Indians and/or stocked up with shot game, "for, as his store increased, he mended the common pot: he had laid up besides, provision for 3 weeks' wheat beforehand...I was all for one and one to all." Since Newport's return was a long way off, Edward Maria had imposed fair, very strict - and naturally very unpopular - rationing on the settlers].[64]

In his Discourse, President Wingfield "replies" to the following "extra" charges:[65]

(10) "That I combined with the Spaniards to the destruction of the colony".[66]

(11) "That I am an atheist, because I carried not a bible, and because I forbid the preacher to preach". Why was President Wingfield accused of being an atheist? Because (a) he had no bible with him, (b) he cancelled two - or three - sermons, and (c) after he had been deposed, he failed to attend church on one or two occasions. [%28a%29 His bible was stolen at Croft's house, just before they sailed from Blackwall. (b) When the men returned from standing to arms or counter-attacks, it was too late to have the sermon - and sermons were long in those days: so he cancelled them: "On two or three Sunday mornings, the Indians gave us alarums at our town", wrote Wingfield... "by that times they were answered, the place about us well discovered, and our divine service ended, the day was far spent." (c) And after his arrest (when he was sick and lame), he did not attend on a further one or two occasions when it was raining].[67]

(12) "That I affected a kingdom".

(13) "That I did hide the common provision in the ground". [See riposte to Charge 9].

A 14th "charge" is suggested by Smith's biographer, Philip L. Barbour: "that Wingfield was implicated in the planned escape in the pinnace to Spain (not England) by Kendall". He wrote that Kendall began whispering about abandoning the colony - "perhaps with the connivance of Wingfield...and Wingfield seemed implicated" etc.. His primary source was presumably Thomas Studley (or, rather, Smith - see note below), who in June 1608 wrote: "Wingfield and Kendall, living in disgrace... strengthened themselves with the sailors and confederates to regain their former credit and authority, or at least such means aboard the pinnace.. to alter her course, and to go for England... Smith...forced them to stay or sink in the river. Which action cost the life of Kendall [who was shot after trial]".[68]

Smith further wrote: "The President [Ratcliffe aka Sicklemore] and Captain Archer, not long after, intended also, to have abandoned the country".[69]

Wingfield, however, was not charged with desertion - or he too would surely have been shot. It would seem that Smith got confused, accidentally or deliberately, over the dates of two or three different incidents. Indeed in 1608 Smith had also written: "Our store being now indifferently well provided with corn [e.g. maize] there was much ado for to have the pinnace go to England, against which Captain Martin and myself stood chiefly against it: and in fine after many debatings pro et contra, it was resolved to stay a further resolution."[70] Some time after Kendall was shot, Wingfield came ashore from the pinnace and stated to Smith and Archer that: "I was determined to go to England to acquaint our Council of our weaknesses... I said further, I desired not to go into England, if either Mr. President [Ratcliffe aka Sicklemore] would go."[71]

The President by then was Ratcliffe. Smith's biographer, Philip L. Barbour, who wrote of "John Smith's usual exaggeration", describes "the superlative pettiness" of the charges against Wingfield..."none of the accusations against him amounted to anything - not even Archer's assertion that he was in league with the Spaniards to destroy the colony."[72]

When the pragmatic Captain Newport, 47, arrived with the First Supply, he found young Smith, 27 - having been charged with losing two men to the Indians - also under restraint - for the second time; and he was, also for the second time since the expedition had set out, due to be hanged (on the morrow). Newport released Wingfield and Smith, waiving all but one of the charges against them both as petty, but he did not reinstate Wingfield, as the charge of being an atheist was so serious that he would have to be sent to England to be tried for it - just as Smith was to be later.[73]

Attempted reinstatement

The disgruntled settlers now thought that the 2nd President, John Ratcliffe, was the source of all their problems, and Smith, Kendall and Percy planned to send James Read the blacksmith on a maintenance visit to the pinnace, where Wingfield was held, to see if Wingfield would agree to be reinstated, but Ratcliffe learned of these plans and had Read publicly thrashed.[74]

Rebuttal of charges

In his Discourse of Virginia (1608), Wingfield comes across as a tough old soldier - too tough with the men, and too old for the job. He "could not make ropes of sand" as Stephen Vincent Benet described his situation[75] with a difficult bunch of men, during the worst drought for 800 years (as we now know).

Reputation and later career

Up to the 1980s, Wingfield's reputation as a villain stems from his chief rival, John Smith, who was apparently prone to supreme exaggeration,[76]. Newly freed from arrest, Smith wrote of Wingfield's "overweening jealousy" i.e. supremely self-confident and suspicious of rivalry - which one could argue are two necessary qualities required by a commander. Command is lonely and doubtless the "cliqueyness" of the "Cape Cod Crew of 1602" (Gosnold, Martin and Archer), the Middle Temple lawyers (Gosnold and Percy) and the "generation gap" problem between Wingfield aged 57 vis-a-vis Smith aged 27 (and many men in their 20s and 30s), did not help. Smith also described Wingfield and probably Percy and Newport[77] as "tufftaffety humorists" i.e. overdressed, full of humour and laughter but liable to mood swings. Smith's views of President Wingfield were repeated by John Oldmixon in 1708, then further downgraded by the author of his entry in the (British) Dictionary of Biography of 1880, and even more so by Barbour (1964), Smith's best biographer. Barbour was obsessively anti-Wingfield, describing him as (a) an aristocrat (i.e. a baron, marquess, viscount, earl or duke) - which he was not, and which (before 1618) no member of his family ever had been (though his grandfather had been a Knight of the Garter, earned through being a brilliant ambassador); and (b) as having three servants at Jamestown; but Smith was no farmer's lad. Smith too was a Captain, had three servants at Jamestown,[78] possessed a coat of arms, owned property (in Louth), had a well-to-do tenant farmer father; and was, moreover, raised with the younger Bertie children and was given a personal equestrian course by the Henry, 2nd Earl of Lincoln of Tattershall Castle.[79]

In 1608 King James "induced" Sir Humphrey Weld, the Lord Mayor, "a member of the Grocer's Company" to issue a Precept about corporate funding for Jamestown.[80] In the 2-3 charges not considered ludicrous by the level-headed Newport, Wingfield defended himself successfully before Archbishop Bancroft in London.

Later involvement with the Virginia Company

Still involved with the Virginia Company at 70, he died at 81. He was still involved in the affairs of the colony a dozen years later, e.g. the Declaration of Supplies intended to be sent to Virginia in 1620, June 22 has: "Winckfield, Edward Maria, Captain, Esquire, Adventurer of the Virginia Company, London (Eng.): -L-88.".[81] He was buried at St.Andrew's, Kimbolton on April 13, 1631.[82]

Founder

The latest British DNB (Dictionary of National Biography) sums the ex-President up as follows: "he seems to have been a conscientious and fair-minded man who lacked the necessary force of character to maintain order in the difficult early conditions of the colony, where he faced an unruly and quarrelsome set of companions.". Both Percy and Archer described him as "valiant".

"The Founder of an institution, organisation or idea, etc." is defined in Collins, Cobuild as: "a person who sets it up or causes it to be built, perhaps by providing the necessary money." Edward Maria Wingfield qualifies for Founder of Jamestown on all three counts. He was an incorporator of the 1st Virginia Charter, contributed the huge sum of -L-88 [=$15,000 today], one of the very largest investments, was the only adventurer to sail to Jamestown (as cited) and, as the elected first President, built James Fort - described by John Smith as "a very great place for the erecting of a great city".

President Wingfield's memorial at Jamestown Church

Wingfield On Film

played by Stephen Blackehart in First Landing (2007)

played by David Thewlis in The New World (2005)

played by Tony Goldwyn in Pocahontas: The Legend (1995)

played by James Seay in Captain John Smith and Pocahontas (1953)

Notes on Sources

A. Virginia Company Records. Since the Court (or Minute) Book for the Virginia Company for January 28, 1606 to February 14, 1615 disappeared after 1623(3) the only reliable (and likely incomplete) source is Alexander Brown's The Genesis of the United States [Vol. 2, 1899] - under the various family or individuals' names.

B. Wingfield's "A Discourse of Virginia" ("...upon the truth of this journal [I] do pledge my faith, and life...") is, incredibly, not drawn on as source material in four recent books on Jamestown [Lambeth Palace Library MS 250, ff.382r-392v; British Library 9602e 8, including 1860 copy edited by Charles Deane (with Introduction and Notes, 26 pages]. The first published version was only seen by a few people (through private subscription); and so the first time Wingfield's account was seen by a larger public - in New York and Glasgow - was not until 1905-1906, in Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. XVIII. (To convert the page numbers of Wingfield's Discourse to its page number in Jocelyn R. Wingfield's "Virginia's True Founder", add 298).

C. Wingfield's biography by Jocelyn R. Wingfield: Virginia's True Founder: Edward Maria Wingfield and His Times (1993), revised (2007), with an Introduction by Stephen Blackehart, 2007, ISBN 1-4196-6032-2. All page numbers referenced herein refer to the 1993 edition.

https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Wingfield_Edward_Maria_1550-1631

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wingfield-801

Council President Edward Maria Wingfield (1607)

When the First European Colonists Arrived

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/moretti-langholt...

I found this suggesting Magna Carta Status. Page 27 on computer and page 21 on page.

https://digital.utsa.edu/digital/api/collection/p15125coll9/id/2504...