Differing perspectives on the early histories of colonial Bermuda and Virginia

 

Differences in perspective amongst historians working on early English colonial history are inevitable. Scholars on the other side of the Atlantic are usually focused on the development of those societies and are sometimes tempted to overlook the significance of their links to England. The publications marking the importance of 1619 in the history of Virginia testified to the continuing cult of the ‘saintly’ Sir Edwin Sandys and his allies and, at times, minimised their responsibility for the loss of human lives in the colony and the collapse of the Virginia Company of London. This approach incidentally overlooks the fact that, as a prebend in the Church of England, Sandys was in holy orders and thus legally barred from serving in his most famous role as an M.P. in the House of Commons. His overtures to George Villiers, Marquis and then Duke of Buckingham, and his hopes of serving King James VI and I as one of his Secretaries of State tend to be overlooked and his contemporary critics are vilified on the basis of claims made by Sandys and the Ferrar brothers. Major areas of importance like Sir Nathaniel Rich’s success in winning the confidence of Lord Treasurer Middlesex and the successful organisation of opposition to the Sandys’ regime in the Somers Island and Virginia Companies have been under-emphasised. But it would be boring for me to continue with these themes at greater length. Let me instead offer two small-scale examples to illustrate my case about the importance of the English context.

First of all, may I turn to William Collard. He appears to be mentioned only once in the Rich Papers edited by Vernon A.Ive (p.248) in c.1622. Collard had held five shares in Mansell Tribe in Bermuda, shares which Joseph Man had then acquired. There is no other reference to Collard currently known to me in the published records or in historical works. He seems insignificant. But there is plenty of manuscript and printed material to illuminate his life. He was born in c.1583 and, at the time of his second marriage in 1607, came from Wanstead in Essex where, until the late-1570s, the Rich family had owned the mansion house and principal manor. By the early-1620s, he was, prima facie, still in touch with the Riches as well as being a shareholder in the Somers Island Company. In December, 1625, Collard took as 21 year lease from the 2^nd Earl of Warwick of the manor of Barnston just to the west of Felsted in Essex. Collard’s predecessor as tenant had been Richard Scott, Warwick’s secretary. Collard was prominent enough in the county to serve as a grand jury man and to be granted a coat of arms in 1640. By the time he died in 1668, Collard’s family had established themselves in the ranks of the gentry. William Collard’s life hints at the connections that sustained the 2nd Earl of Warwick’s support in the struggle for control of the two companies.

A similar point can be made about Joseph Man. Joseph and his brother, John, both held lands in Bermuda as tenants of the Rich family. Both men came from Braintree in Essex as Robert Rich noted in May, 1617 and March, 1618 (Ive, ed., Pp.26, 49 and 72), although John was alleged to be a negligent and refractory tenant. All Ive tells us is that Sir Robert Rich, the future Earl post-1619, served as M.P. for Essex in 1614 (Ive, p.50 n.5). But this is not the full story as the published works of W.F.Quinn, F.G.Emmison and Brian Quintrell show. Braintree was just over five miles from Leez Priory, one of the Rich family’s two main houses in Essex: the principal manor in Braintree had been held by members of the Man family since at least 1577-1578. Successive members of the Man family had been prominent figures in the Company of Twenty Four or select vestry which oversaw the affairs of this clothing town. There had, moreover, been major development within the town sponsored by the Lords Rich in the mid-1610s.  From 1621 until 1626, Braintree was the seat of the county court at which M.P.s were elected to serve for Essex in the House of Commons. Recruitment of emigrants for Bermuda was not, therefore, surprising. The Man family mattered in this local context. These family connections may have given John and Joseph Man a degree of social standing in Bermuda and, perhaps, contributed to the difficulties Robert Rich faced in dealing with them.

Understanding who such people were, what their origins were, what their links to England might have been and how those connections affected the internal and external histories of these colonies has still to be fully explored. It may well be unfair but my view is that prosaic examples like these suggest that more needs to be done to illuminate such issues and that such work can only be done on this side of the Atlantic.

                                                                                                                              30^th May, 2021