Well, let me welcome y'all to chapter III of our ad hoc series covering the Lost Colony of Roanoke, the first attempted permanent civilian English colony in mainland North America, and let's call this one;

The Roanoke Mystery, Chapter III: What happened next and why didn't/when did someone else go looking for the Lost Colonists of Roanoke?

For those needing a little backstory, in chapter I we briefly examined the lead up to the 1587 colony, what happened through White's eyes as the colony was established, and what scholars think today regarding the fate of those men, women, and children who set out for a new world adventure.

In chapter II we took a look at who these early colonists were and where we think they came from as well as why they would have chosen to go on such an adventure.

In this chapter we will focus on what happened after Gov. White sailed away from Roanoke in the summer of 1587 and, more specifically, on the numerous failed attempts to locate those from the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

A quick note from the author: Honestly, I thought about how to answer this question while cooking dinner a couple days ago as I didn't even know where to start this portion of our story. Then I thought on it some more while I ate. Then for a couple more hours. Then typed a bit, and then slept on it. All day at work yesterday it has been playing in my mind. And so on until now. There are just so many layers to this cake that it is virtually impossible to even come close to explaining all the interconnecting pieces surrounding English colonization, particularly from 1578-1604, in a large book let alone a reddit post, and that's the time we're speaking about when we look at Roanoke. I'll do my best, faithful readers. Feel free to ask any followup questions you may have as there is certainly more to it than I have space to elaborate upon here. Grab some warm cocoa, get comfy by a warm fire, and enjoy the story as this will be a long read.

Part One: Governor John White's Rescue Attempts and the Invincible Spanish Armada

As we earlier learned, White &c. set out in 1587 to settle Raleigh Cittie somewhere new to them on the Chesapeake Bay but wanted to swing by Roanoke and pick up the remaining colonists from the temporary military colony previously established by Lane &c., then abandoned and soonafter held by a small contingent of men under authority of Sir Richard Grenville in order to establish continued occupation of Roanoke and Virginia, being a requirement for "claimed" lands in Europe's finders-keepers rules. Unfortunately for those 1587 civilian colonists the privateer (pirate) they hired as a pilot ditched them there, never taking them further north to the Chesapeake. They were doomed at that point, particularly after the barbarous actions of Ralph Lane gave them local enemies, but White sailed away from Roanoke and arrived back in England with hopeful intentions to save the settlement and, more importantly to him, the people within it (including his daughter and newborn granddaughter). White immediately set about securing a rescue mission. After a meeting Nov 20 1587 and hearing of the distressing situation unfolding in Virginia, his benefactor (and owner of the patent over Virginia), Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered a well supplied pinnace to set sail with supplies for the isolated colonists yet there was a problem with this plan. Oct 9 1587 an order went out declaring a general stay on all shipping not directly authorized by the crown's authority - Spain was building their Invincible Armada to set things straight with England once and for all. Sir Francis Drake had raided Cádiz and crippled the fleet, preventing a 1587 invasion, but the order went out to stay ships in port, anyway. It just so happens that Raleigh had enemies on the Privy Council, and whether the order came about organically or whether it was influenced by that privateer (Simon Fernandez) arriving three weeks before White and pitching his side of events to those in a power struggle with Raleigh in an effort to cut off what White would undoubtedly say to Raleigh regarding Fernandez's actions of abandoning the colonists, we cannot say, but it sure is convenient timing if not directly resulting. Unrelenting, Sir Richard Grenville, the man who went to bail out Lane (only to find Lane had bailed on the colony himself) and wound up leaving those the 1587 voyage stopped to pick up, was tasked by Raleigh with building an expedition to resupply the stranded colonists. It would in theory reach them mid-summer of 1588 - if they could just hang on for one year, possibly less, then the colony would be saved. Like every thing else English colony related, it did not go as planned;

The voyage for Virginia by these means for [1588] was thus disappointed. Gov White

The biggest antagonist to Raleigh at this point in time was one Sir Francis Walsingham, a true gentry born and very well connected member of the innermost circle around the Queen. While Raliegh supported his half-brother, Humphrey Gilbert, establishing a colony in the Northern Hemisphere in the 1570s/80s, Walsingham devised a similar plan with Sir Francis Drake intending to colonize the Southern Hemisphere. Where Gilbert wanted to secure the Northwest Passage first and raid Spanish shipping lanes second, Walsingham and (the pirate) Drake had nothing but Spanish gold and silver in mind. This plan never got off the ground but it perfectly illustrates the battling dynamic of the two men so close to the Queen, both struggling to assert themself above the other. Walsingham, unfortunately for Raleigh, found himself in a much better position and began to diminish the authority of Raleigh, at one point causing a court comedian to declare "the knave instructs the Queen" in a slight against both Raleigh and, to some degree, the Queen herself for her association with him. With a failure at Roanoke he could reveal the true essence of Raleigh, being just a commonman and failure acting well beyond his proper station especially in comparison to a man such as Walsingham - or that's how he may have seen it, at least. Raleigh, who was Vice Admiral as well as being Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall and Devon, was occupied with defensive strategy and was actually the man responsible for preventing ships leaving in violation of the Privy order. He allowed an exemption through his Deputy Lieutenant (and half brother) John Gilbert permitting Grenville to sail but somehow word gets out of his intent to sail to the "West Indies," almost certainly a cover story to conceal the true destination of Roanoke in case of just such a leak. It would be far better to have folks believe you were going to raid the Spanish Caribbean than to save the stranded Virginia colonists. Grenville had assembled seven or eight ships, at least as large of a fleet as in 1585, and in March of 1588 was merely waiting for a change in the winds to set sail. The rescue mission seemed all but certain, then orders were sent directly to Grenville to make ready his ships to serve the Queen against the impending Spanish Armada. Grenville has no choice but to submit, offering himself to serve his majesty as best she needs, to which the Privy Council replies, oddly, that if he is so willing to volunteer he should in fact make his readied fleet entirely available to the command of none other than Sir Francis Drake, Walsingham's buddy and one of the main players for the English against the Armada, and now Drake controls Raleigh's Virginia relief fleet. Grenville is permitted to dispatch any ship too small for Drake's employ to wherever he wants but he himself is to remain, assisting the Lieutenants of Cornwall and Devon - aka Raleigh. So now Raleigh's ships have been gifted to Drake, his dutiful commander Grenville returned to his service without the fleet he had built, and neither of them were permitted to sail anywhere per the Council, owing to their military and naval experience and responsibilities in defending English shores and soil. Walsingham's fingerprints are all over this entire series of events and it directly prevented any real and immediate relief for the colonists from leaving England in 1588. White could not accept that as an answer while he undoubtedly thought of his daughter Eleanor, her husband Ananias Dare, and most especially their Virginia born child, accordingly named Virginia, the first Anglo baby born in North America... or as he saw her simply his little grandbaby he so desperately wished to see once more.

Cont'd