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Somers Isles Company
The Somers Isles Company (fully, the Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles or the Company of The Somers Isles) was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda, as a commercial venture. It held a royal charter for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown assumed responsibility for the administration of Bermuda as a royal colony. Bermuda under the Virginia Company Bermuda had been settled, inadvertently, in 1609 by the Virginia Company when its flagship, '' Sea Venture'', was wrecked on the reefs to its east. The Admiral of the company, Sir George Somers, was at the helm as the ship fought a storm that had broken apart a relief fleet destined for Jamestown, the Virginian settlement established by the Company two years earlier. Somers had deliberately driven the ship onto the reefs to prevent its foundering, thereby saving all aboard. The settlers and seamen spent ten months in Bermuda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Colonial Empire
The English overseas possessions comprised a variety of overseas territories that were colonised, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the Kingdom of England before 1707. (In 1707 the Acts of Union made England part of the Kingdom of Great Britain. See British Empire.) The first English overseas settlements were established in Ireland, followed by others in North America, Bermuda, and the West Indies, and by trading posts called "factories" in the East Indies, such as Bantam, and in the Indian subcontinent, beginning with Surat. In 1639, a series of English fortresses on the Indian coast was initiated with Fort St George. In 1661, the marriage of King Charles II to Catherine of Braganza brought him as part of her dowry new possessions which until then had been Portuguese, including Tangier in North Africa and Bombay in India. In North America, Newfoundland and Virginia were the first centres of English colonisation. During the 17th century, Maine, Plymouth, New Hampshire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Rolfe
John Rolfe ( – March 1622) was an English explorer, farmer and merchant. He is best known for being the husband of Pocahontas and the first settler in the colony of Virginia to successfully cultivate a tobacco crop for export. He played a crucial role in the Virginia Colony's early economy by introducing a sweeter strain of tobacco from Trinidad, which became a profitable cash crop. Rolfe married Pocahontas, daughter of Native American leader Powhatan, and they had a son named Thomas. Rolfe and Pocahontas traveled to England in 1616 to promote colonization and investment in Virginia. After Pocahontas died, Rolfe returned to Virginia and continued working with tobacco. The tobacco strain cultivated by Rolfe laid the foundation for Virginia's thriving tobacco industry. Early life The birthplace of John Rolfe, born c. 1585, remains unproven. At that time, the Spanish Empire held a virtual monopoly on the lucrative tobacco trade. Most Spanish colonies in the Americas were loca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Herbert, 3rd Earl Of Pembroke
William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (8 April 158010 April 1630) , of Wilton House in Wiltshire, was an English nobleman, politician and courtier. He served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford and together with King James I founded Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1608 he was appointed Warden of the Forest of Dean, Constable of St Briavels Castle, Gloucestershire, and in 1609 Governor of Portsmouth, all of which offices he retained until his death. He served as Lord Chamberlain from 1615 to 1625. In 1623 the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays was dedicated to him and his brother and successor Philip Herbert, 1st Earl of Montgomery. Origins He was the eldest son and heir of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, of Wilton House, by his third wife Mary Sidney. Career Herbert was a bookish man, once tutored by the poet Samuel Daniel, and preferred to keep to his study with heavy pipe-smoking to keep his "migraines" at bay. Nevertheless, he was a conspicuous figure in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Paget, 4th Baron Paget
William Paget, 4th Baron Paget of Beaudesert (1572 – 29 August 1629) was an English peer and colonist born in Beaudesert House, Staffordshire, England to Thomas Paget, 3rd Baron Paget and Nazareth Newton. His grandfather was William Paget, 1st Baron Paget (1506-1563). William's father and his uncle, Charles Paget were both devout Catholics, and would not conform to the Protestant religion of Queen Elizabeth I. Thomas Paget fled to Paris on the uncovering of the Throckmorton Plot in November 1583, joining his brother who had been in exile there since 1581. The failed conspiracy's plan was for an invasion of England by French forces under the command of Henry, Duke of Guise, financed by Philip II of Spain. English Catholics would then rise up and depose Elizabeth, placing Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne. Europe was ablaze with conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. England's ''old enemy'', France, was in the midst of its Religious Wars, which sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Cavendish, 2nd Earl Of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 2nd Earl of Devonshire (c. 1590 – 20 June 1628) was an English nobleman, courtier, and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1614 until 1626 when he succeeded to the peerage and sat in the House of Lords. Life Cavendish was the second son of William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Devonshire, by his first wife Anne Keighley. He was educated by Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher, who lived at Chatsworth as his private tutor for many years. In 1608, he went up to St John's College, Cambridge accompanied by Hobbes. He was knighted at Whitehall in 1609. He then went with Hobbes on a Grand Tour from about 1610, where he visited France and Italy before his coming of age. He was a leader of court society, and an intimate friend of James I, and Hobbes praised his learning in the dedication of his translation of Thucydides. In 1614, Cavendish was elected member of parliament for Derbyshire. He became Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire in 1619. In 1621 he was re-elected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucy Russell, Countess Of Bedford
Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford ( Harington; 1581–1627) was a major aristocratic patron of the arts and literature in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, the primary non-royal performer in contemporary court masques, a letter-writer, and a poet. She was an ''adventurer'' (shareholder) in the Somers Isles Company, investing in Bermuda, where Harrington Sound is named after her. Parentage and marriage Lucy Harington was the daughter of Sir John Harington of Exton, and Anne Keilway. Although the exact date of her birth is unknown, she was christened on 25 January 1581. She was well-educated for a woman in her era, and knew French, Spanish, and Italian. She was a member of the Sidney/Essex circle from birth, through her father, first cousin to Sir Robert Sidney and Mary, Countess of Pembroke; she was a close friend of Essex's sisters Penelope Rich and Dorothy Percy, Countess of Northumberland, and the latter named one of her daughters Lucy after her. Lucy Harington marri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Henry Lefroy
Sir John Henry Lefroy (28 January 1817 – 11 April 1890) was an English military officer and later colonial administrator who also distinguished himself with his scientific studies of the Earth's magnetism. Biography Lefroy was a son of the Rev. John Henry George Lefroy, of Ewshot House (subsequently Itchel) in Hampshire, England, and his wife, Sophia Cottrell. His sister Anne married the Irish landowner and politician John McClintock, who was created the 1st Baron Rathdonnell in 1868. Lefroy was also a first cousin to Thomas Lefroy (1776-1869), the future Chief Justice of Ireland. Lefroy entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich in London in 1831 and became a 2nd lieutenant of the Royal Artillery in 1834. When the British government launched a project under the direction of Edward Sabine to study terrestrial magnetism, he was chosen to set up and supervise the observatory on Saint Helena. He embarked on 25 September 1839, for Saint Helena, and carried out his task thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Wade (English Politician)
Sir William Wade (or Waad, or Wadd; 154621 October 1623) was an English statesman and diplomat, and Lieutenant of the Tower of London. Early life and education William Wade was the eldest son of Armagil Wade, the traveller, who sailed with a party of adventurers for North America in 1536, later, one of the clerks of the privy council in London and a member of parliament, and his first wife, Lady Alice Patten. Both his parents died in 1568, and Wade succeeded to the family property, his father's sons by his first wife having predeceased him. In 1571 he was admitted a student of Gray's Inn, and a few years later, doubtless with a view to entering the service of the government, he began travelling on the continent. Career In July 1576 Wade was living in Paris and frequently supplied political information to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, whose "servant" he is described as being. He claimed "familiar acquaintance" with the celebrated French publicist Jean Bodin, from whom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ambergris
Ambergris ( or ; ; ), ''ambergrease'', or grey amber is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a marine, fecal odor. It acquires a sweet, earthy scent as it ages, commonly likened to the fragrance of isopropyl alcohol without the vaporous chemical astringency. Ambergris has been highly valued by perfume makers as a fixative that allows the scent to last much longer, although it has been mostly replaced by synthetic ambroxide. It is sometimes used in cooking. Dogs are attracted to the smell of ambergris and are sometimes used by ambergris searchers. Etymology The English word ''amber'' derives from Middle Persian ʾmbl, traveling via Arabic (), Middle Latin ''ambar,'' and Middle French ''ambre'' to be adopted in Middle English in the 14th century. The word "ambergris" comes from the Old French ''ambre gris'' or "grey amber">-4; we might wonder whether there's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Governor Of Bermuda
The governor of Bermuda (officially Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Somers Isles (alias the Islands of Bermuda)) is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda. For the purposes of this article, ''Governor of Bermuda'' refers to the local office, although this was originally a ''Lieutenant-Governorship'' (''"Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Our Islands in America commonly called or known by the name of the Bermuda or Summer (Sic#Conventional use, sic) Islands"''; the ''Lieutenant-Governor of Bermuda'' was re-titled ''Governor of Bermuda'' in 1738), which – like the Lieutenant-Governorship of the Jamestown colony – was subordinate to the actual Governor located in England. For a period following the 1783 independence of those continental colonies that were to become the United States of America, the remaining continental colonies, Bermuda and the Bahamas were grouped together as British North America, and the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyme Regis
Lyme Regis ( ) is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site and heritage coast. The harbour wall, known as The Cobb, appears in Jane Austen's novel Persuasion (novel), ''Persuasion'', the John Fowles novel ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' and the 1981 The French Lieutenant's Woman (film), film of that name, partly shot in the town. A former mayor and MP was Admiral Sir George Somers, who founded the English colonial settlement of Somers Isles, now Bermuda, where Lyme Regis is twinned with St. George's, Bermuda, St George's. In July 2015, Lyme Regis joined Jamestown, Virginia in a Historic Atlantic Triangle with St George's. The 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 census gave the urban area a population of 4,712, estimated at 4,805 in 2019. Histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthew Somers
Matthew Somers (fl. 1609 – c. 1624) was an English mariner, captain, and shareholder in the Virginia Company of London who played a small but pivotal role in the early history of Bermuda and the Jamestown colony. A nephew of Admiral Sir George Somers, founder of Bermuda, Matthew commanded vessels in the company’s Third Supply, helped ferry the starving survivors of Jamestown back from the brink of collapse, and controversially repatriated his uncle’s embalmed body to Lyme Regis, Dorset, in 1611. Family and early life Almost nothing certain is known of Somers’s birth, but contemporary writers agree he was raised alongside his elder brother in Lyme Regis, Dorset, in the household of his child-less uncle George and aunt Joan Heywood Somers. As a teenager, he was convicted and fined for drawing blood during a public brawl. Service with the Virginia Company By 1609 the Virginia Company had secured a broader charter and was recruiting aggressively. Somers sailed that June ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
