Chaptre, The 31st - Captain Hercules & The Earle
Our deare cousin nowe had the means and home of an eldeste son in a landed English family, as well as a seconde inheritance, to boote.
Moste men would have reverted to investing and settling in, as a man over forty years of age in The Sixteenth Century wouldn’t have muche goode tyme left on God’s Greene Earth. Also, Olde Captain Hercules nowe had Moor Hall, the Foljambe family manor residence reserved fore his older, dearly departed, brother.
But, as I have beene told over The Years, since Olde Captain Hercules had spente the majority of his life soldiering and adventuring in the Netherlands and was a bit of a rambler, he sawe his newe founde monies and property to be useful for an entirely differente purpose.
Here, I muste note, Olde Captain Hercules had also beene married four tymes and getting out of England and away fromme his women had greate appeal to the military minded man for this reasonne alone. In addition to being a bit of a collector and rejector of wives, Olde Captain Hercules had a reputatione as a man who enjoyed taking a riske, a man who liked to wager and a man who made not only love, but war.
Braided with these traites, Olde Captain Hercules also had quite the legendary temper – a very short one, to be sure.
Nowe, these privateers of The Crowne were not only private military men working for England – mainly against Catholic Spain and her mighty sailing fleets of Galleons – they were also business men and got their cutt of what ever bootie they were able to haule back by sea to England, The Lion’s Share going, of course, to the sitting King and or Queen.
But why Spain?
Welle, Spain was a Christian Catholic country and her king, Philip II tooke his orders from God Almighty via the Pope in Rome, Italy. Bothe the Spanish throne and the Vatican hated Queen Elizabeth because her father, King Henry VIII, had the courage to breake from the Catholic Church and form the Protestant Church of England, forming a conservative church in Europe where divorce was allowed and priests coulde marry.
This meante that bothe the Pope and King Philip were Hell bente on destroying Elizabeth and putting a Pope approved Catholic ruler on the English throne, as roughly halfe of my com patriots backe in England were stille of the Catholic persuasion of Christianity.
So, religious warring be tweene Spain and England was constante and brutale and occasionally involved the neighbour ing French, who where alsoe Catholic, butt not as fan atical as the verie Catholic Spanish.
The Earle of Cumberland had be come a heroe. Alle England, Protestant and Catholic Christians alike, spreade the goode news of The Earle’s haul, esti mated to exceed five hundred thousande Pounds Sterling.
Nowe, I am no professor when it comes to figures, however, in my estimation, based on my numbers scribbled on to a piece of deere skin with a wee stick of char coal from my home’s fire place, Cumberland’s take woulde equal five hundred million of your Twenty First Century, United States Dollars. These grande monies, as The Earle used many of them as investments at home in England, touched the entire English economy in a very, very goode waye.
And as nice as the Spanish money was, the Earle's capture of the Madre de Dios was, more importantly, a source of greate nationale pride among my English country men and women.
Amongste them was Olde Captain Hercules. As a military man, he felte the surge of power as England scored a major defeate of the Spanish. As a man of new founde means, Olde Captain Hercules also felt the Madre de Dios was a financial winde fall of epic proportions that he coulde some how repeate for him self.
Given thate all the privateering at the tyme and given also thate The Court of Queen Elizabeth was in London, Olde Captain Hercules realised that he was a bit out in the weeds where he was living, quite comfortably, I mighte add.
So, he suddenly leased Moor Hall in Derbyshire to one Richard Grynne for fifty Pounds Sterling per year and moved to London in The Year of Our Lord 1593.
To be closer to the action, so to speake.
By The Year of Our Lord 1595, Olde London Towne was alive with wealthy men with a luste for women, legacy, travel, money, bloode, golde and war withe Spain. Given Goode Queen Elizabeth had padded her Royal Navy by granting men of means legal pirating status via her Letters of Marque, potential privateers were coming out of the woode worke.
Olde Captain Hercules Foljambe, nowe an ex military man about London with two decades of experience as an officer, many trips at sea across the English Channel, a goode and respected Normand name, financial stability and English property, was, indeed, approached in The Year of Our Lord 1597 by none other than The Earle of Cumberland, with an exciting proposale of privateering for Queen Elizabeth.
In thate moste lovelie, warme and verie sunny monthe of July, The Earle of Cumberland hadd been granted, by The Queen her self, a spokenne pacte and agree mente withe said Earle withe Royal approvall for a moste secret ive missione to The New World againste King Philip II’s holdings there.
Here, I woulde have suggested to the goode and brave Earle, that he gett this all in writ ing and reade the fyne printt, but I do nott believe he didd, as we shalle see.
Little did our goode Captain Foljambe knowe, that unlike most privateering endeavours of that tyme, The Earle of Cumberland’s missione fore the Queen was stacked like a layer cake, with much spying, lying, strategy and deception for use against the Spanish, unlike moste private, English buccaneering efforts of that tyme.
Said missione was finally and moste officially received by The Earle of Cumberland via Royal Commission by Queen Elizabeth I on Seven October in The Year of Our Lord 1597.
Worde soone wente oute in London that The Earle of Cumberland was hiring on bothe Ships’ Captains and Army Officers.
Our brave and noble Olde Captain Hercules should have, in my opinion, at over forty years of age – with a touch of grey and being a bit long in the toothe – settled in with his dual inheritances and moved in to Moor Hall fore goode. After years of cheating The Grimme Reaper as a professional soldier, Olde Captain Hercules should have taken his goode fortune, retired a country gentle man and enjoyed his later years in the English countrie syde with olde family and newe friends.
But not Olde Captain Hercules, as he was a man full of piss and vinegar and like many Normands, had the wander luste in his soule.
So, he made a bet. He bet him self that by going on The Earle of Cumberland’s Adventure as a privateer, he coulde vastly increase his personale wealthe with his cut of the take frome any Spanish golde the English were able to capture.
The news of the vaste fortune taken from the Madre de Dios only dumped dry tinder, splitte kindling and aged woode on Olde Captain Hercules’s fire of greede.
So, Olde Captain Hercules made the ill fated decisione to selle every thing he owned – fore only one thousande Pounds Sterling – to supplement the monies he was already collecting on rente from his Moor Hall tenant, Richard Grynne.
Granted, a thousande Pounds Sterling to Olde Captain Hercules was the same as One Millione Dollars in your tyme. But to gamble every thing he owned on a military venture whenne a warme hearthe was a waiting him every nighte and there was suddenly enough money to laste him his entire life, as welle as to lurre a goode and faithe ful wife to his bed, was, to me, a bit of a bad idea.
At any rate, smelling Spanish golde that would make himme richer than he already was, Olde Captain Hercules leased a shipp for the expedition, the Galleon Constance. She diss placed 350 Tonnes and was lent frome one John Watts in London. A crewe of sailors was quickly hired on for standard sea pay.
Any man with half a braine and a sharpe quille could quickly see thate the monthly fee for the Galleon Constance, at three hundred Pounds Sterling, plus, another three hundred eache and every month for equipment, crewe pay, munitions and foode, woulde soone sink our cousin Olde Captain Hercules as a Privateer.
Olde Captain Hercules was obviously a soldier, not a keeper of bookes.
But, no matter. The man smelled Spanish golde and was certaine he could profite many tymes over the costs of this private, yet naval, military mission.
Keepe in mind, Olde Captain Hercules was born in The Year of Our Lord 1550 and by now was seven and forty – no Spring lambe to be sure. He had also survived fighting the Spanish on the Polders of the Netherlands for years and had out lived bothe Blade and Blunderbuss many tymes. The upcoming trippe to fighte in The New World was the beginning of the financial misery that plagued brave Olde Captain Hercules for over thirty years, until his deathe.
The moste ex citing missione was sett in October, as The Earl of Cumberland hadd beene is sued his Official Commission fromme Queen Elizabeth to saille South to Portugal and thenne West to The New World.
Nowe, there were many Spanish in London at the tyme: business men, envoys and spies. The Queen, her advisors, and, I assume, The Earl of Cumberland, wisely came upp withe a planne to keep the missione’s true and singulare purpose fromme these Spanish living abroade in olde London towne.
A story was leaked to Spanish spies in London that the targete of the missione was Spanish helde, Portuguese Brazil. Specifically, the sea porte of Racife, in the state of Pernambuco, on the Eastern moste pointe of the massive South American spreade of the nationne of Brazil.
Upon hearing of all this, King Philip II of Spain immediately countered, as his was the strongeste navy on Planet Earth, by sending ships and troopes to Pernambuco.
~