25 Facts About Sir Humphrey Gilbert

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was a maternal half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh and a cousin of Sir Richard Grenville.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert's brothers Sir John Gilbert and Adrian Gilbert, and his half-brothers Carew Raleigh and Sir Walter Raleigh, were prominent during the reigns of Queen Queen Elizabeth I and King James VI and I Catherine Champernowne was a niece of Kat Ashley, Elizabeth's governess, who introduced her young kinsmen to the court.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was educated at Eton College and the University of Oxford, where he learned to speak French and Spanish and studied war and navigation.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was described as "of higher stature than of the common sort, and of complexion cholerike".

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was then created Colonel by Lord Deputy Sidney and was charged with the pursuit of FitzGerald.

Related searches

The Geraldines were driven out of Kilmallock, but returned to lay siege to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who drove off their superior force in a sally during which his horse was shot from under him and his buckler transfixed with a spear.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert explicitly advocated the killing of Irish non-combatant women and others under the following rationale;.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert is said to have sent Captain Apsley into Kerry to inspire terror.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert helped to set up the Society of the New Art with William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, both of whom maintained an alchemical laboratory in Limehouse.

Rest of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's life was spent in a series of failed maritime expeditions, the financing of which exhausted his family fortune.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert's fleet was then driven into the Bay of Biscay and the Spanish soon slipped past and sailed into Dingle harbour, where they made their rendezvous with the Irish.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert then fell into a row with a local merchant, whom he murdered on the dockside.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert became one of the leading advocates for the then-mythical Northwest Passage to Cathay, a country written up in great detail by Marco Polo in the 13th century for its abundance of riches.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert made an elaborate case to counter the calls for a Northeast Passage to China.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert's contentions won support and money was raised, chiefly by the London merchant Michael Lok, for an expedition.

Six-year exploration licence Sir Humphrey Gilbert had secured by letters patent from the crown in 1578 was on the point of expiring, when he succeeded in 1583 in raising significant sums from English Catholic investors.

The investors were constrained by penal laws in their own country, and loath to go into exile in hostile parts of Europe; the prospect of American settlement appealed to them, especially as Sir Humphrey Gilbert was proposing to seize some nine million acres around the river Norumbega, to be parcelled out under his authority.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert's crews were made up of misfits, criminals and pirates, but in spite of the many problems caused by their lawlessness, the fleet reached Newfoundland.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed authority over the fish stations at St John's and levied tax on the fishermen from several countries who worked this rich sea near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert soon ordered a controversial change of course for the fleet.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert refused to leave Squirrel and after a strong storm they had a spell of clear weather and made fair progress.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert went aboard Golden Hind again, visited with Hayes, and insisted once more on returning to Squirrel, even though Hayes insisted she was over-gunned and unsafe for sailing.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was part of a remarkable generation of Devonshire men, who combined the roles of adventurer, writer, soldier and mariner.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was passionate and impulsive, a nature liable to violence and cruelty – as came out in his savage repression of rebels in Ireland – but intellectual and visionary, a questing and original mind, with the personal magnetism that went with it.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was outstanding for his initiative and originality, if not for his successes, but it is in his efforts at colonisation that he had most influence.

Related searches