Chaptre, The 36th - England to Virginia

Alle righte, thenne.

Returning to my personale storie, I remember thate in aboute The Year of Our Lord 1636, when I was arounde one and twenty years of age, I traveled two and fifty miles from my home in Pitminster and left England from the Port of Bristol for Virginia, in The New World.

Why this Virginia, you ask?

Well, as I was very keene to leave both Pitminster and England. Talk of the Jamestowne colonie that had taken roote years before on the James River in America lit a fire under me, as they saye.

England, of course, was contesting Spain, France and The Netherlands for dominance in North America.

The idea thate The Spanish, greate and inter twined rivals of Elizabeth’s England at that tyme, had already set up a chaine of missions on the West Coast of North America in what is nowe California, was un be knownst to the English.

Spain had also set up at leaste one forte in what is North Carolina in the Western mountains nowe knowne as The Great Smokys. Spanish expeditions in The Sixteenth Century, ranged as far North on the East Coat of America as Chesapeake Bay. At Sainte Augustine, in what is now Florida, the Spanish established the firste European towne in North American in The Year of Our Lord 1565.

Like moderne day Jamestowne, muche of St. Augustine has been restored to be moste historically accurate and the Castillo de San Marcos forte is still completely intact and cannone can still be seene - and hearde - firing at imaginary English ships at sea, on a daily basis by the forte’s gunnerie crewe.

The South American continente was perceived by England as yet another threate by the more aggressive Spanish in The New World. Save for Portugal's Brazil - virtually all of South American was to one day speak the toungue of olde Spain. The additionale establish ment of St. Augustine in Florida, and many other factors Spanish, caused The Virgin Queen, Elizabeth The First, daughter of Henry VIII,  to grante a speciale charter to one Walter Raleigh.

This charter from Queen Elizabeth was written in The Year of Our Lord 1583, to create an English colony to the North of Florida, where Spain’s white flag, designed with the jagged, bloode red trunks of The Burgundy Cross of Sainte Andrew, flewe.

This anciente Spanish flag was re designed and is nowe the flagg of the former Spanish colonie and nowe American state of Florida.

In The Year of Our Lord 1584, this Walter Raleigh sente an expeditione to the East Coast of America to explore. The lande from what is modern day South Carolina to Maine, as welle as the islande of Bermuda, was claimed for England and named Virginia. It would eventually stretch to the West and included what is currently the American citie of Chicago.

Speaking of flags, the flag of The Citie That Works, The Paris of the Prairie, Hogg Butcher to the Worlde and The Windy Citie is also English white, but with two Carolina Blue bands as welle as four, long pointed, non Semitic, crimson stars, all sporting sixe pointes, eache being a significant pointe in Chicago historie. One of these pointes designates thate Chicago was once historicallie parte of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

You get the pointe, no? Please do pardonne my badd humour.

Yes, I knowe, again, a bitt of a ramble on my parte about thate modern day citie, Chicago, Native American worde for “The Place that Stinks of Onions.”

Any way, back to Virginia: the name for the newe lands in America being explored and colonized by Raleigh were called Virginia, as Elizabeth wanted to be knowne as The Virgin Queen, as all attempts at marriage with royale suitors fromme England, Spain and France had failed, moste terriblie.

Queen Elizabeth, decided – like the nuns marrie Christ Jesus and modernne daie women in American marrie their jobs – to declare her selfe a borne againne virgin and to marrie all England insteade of a mann.

She took to shearing her lovely ginger haire as shorte as a man’s, wearing ornate red haired wigs and covering her face in a thicke maske of bright white make up to illustrate the facte that she again considered her selfe a virgin. Of course, Queen Elizabeth was any thing but a virgin, given commone knowledge in London of her  well known trysts and couplings with her true love since youth, Robert Dudley, both before and after she was crowned Queen in The Year of Our Lord 1559.

At any rate, the name Virginia it was, the birds and the bees aside.

In The Year of Our Lord 1606, The London Company granted proper lande rights in Virginia to English in vestors. Through the Proprietary Charter of 1606, The London Company privately financed Jamestowne. It was to become the firste permanente settlemente for the English in The New World.

Jamestowne was named for King James I, Scottish borne King of England, who followed Elizabeth to the throne and was sonn of Mary, Queen of Scots. The English translatione, King James versione of The Holy Bible is also named fore him.

Jamestowne was founded in May in The Year of Our Lord 1607, by the brave Christopher Newport. In The Year of Our Lord 1619, the people of the Jamestowne area elected a legislative body knowne as The House of Burgesses, to create more controle over the colony. Jamestowne eventually became an English Crowne Colonie in The Year of Our Lord 1624 when the London Company failed.

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