Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages: The Lives of the Seafaring Middle Class 9789048544554

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Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages

Maritime Humanities, 1400-1800: Cultures of the Sea Early modern oceans not only provided temperate climates, resources, and opportunities for commercial exchange, they also played a central role in cultural life. Increased exploration, travel, and trade, marked this period of history, and early modern seascapes were cultural spaces and contact zones, where connections and circulations occurred outside established centres of control and the dictates of individual national histories. Likewise, coastlines, rivers, and ports were all key sites for commercial and cultural exchange. Interdisciplinary in its approach, Maritime Humanities, 1400–1800: Cultures of the Sea publishes books that conceptually engage with issues of globalization, postcolonialism, eco-criticism, environmentalism, and the histories of science and technology. The series puts maritime humanities at the centre of a transnational historiographical scholarship that seeks to transform traditional land-based histories of states and nations by focusing on the cultural meanings of the early modern ocean. Series Editors: Claire Jowitt and John McAleer Advisory Board Members: Mary Fuller, Fred Hocker, Steven Mentz, Sebastian Sobecki, David J. Starkey, and Philip Stern

Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages The Lives of the Seafaring Middle Class

James Seth

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: An original print of seamen working at a capstan. 19th Century. Original Print. Unknown Author. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Capstan.jpg Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 541 5 e-isbn 978 90 4854 455 4 doi 10.5117/9789463725415 nur 685 © J. Seth / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2022 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 7 Introduction: A Tale of Two Trumpeters

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Part One  The Players 1. Naval Musicians

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2. Civilian Performers, Professional and Amateur

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Part Two  The Performances 3. Signalling and Communicating 4. Courtly Rituals and Casual Entertainments

93 119

5. Diplomacy and Trade 151 Conclusion 193 Bibliography 197 Index 211

Acknowledgements There are many to thank for the completion of this book, and it is through their support that I was able to write it. First, I must thank the faculty at Oklahoma State, including Edward Jones, for whose class “The History of the Book” I began to ask the preliminary questions for this project. Dr. Jones’s support for my research helped me think more critically about the historiographical issues at the heart of the conversation. Many thanks also go to Martin Wallen, Emily Graham, Richard Frohock, and Andrew Wadoski. I must also thank the many people whose expertise and viewpoints were crucial in shaping this project. Many thanks to Ann Christensen for igniting my interests in the early modern maritime. I am grateful for Steve Mentz’s scholarly mentorship as I worked through the ideas of the book and considered the ocean as a performative space. I am grateful for the additional support of early modern scholars Misha Teramura, Ivan Lupić, David Weiss, and John Jowett. Many thanks also go to my institutional colleagues at Auburn University and, currently, Central Washington University. I am very grateful for the assistance of the librarians and staff at the Newberry Library, which provided valuable early research for the project. I am also appreciative of the librarians at Oklahoma State, Auburn, and Central Washington University. Thank you so much to the editors and reviewers at Amsterdam University Press, including series editors Claire Jowitt and John McAleer. Special thanks go to Erika Gaffney for her work as commissioning editor. Her support has made this book much better. Many thanks also go to both anonymous reviewers for their generous and constructive feedback. I must thank my parents and my parents-in-law for their incredible support of my academic work and their unconditional love. It means more than I can say in words. Finally, and most importantly, I thank my husband, Taylor Brunwald, for loving and supporting me through every step of the process, always championing my work, lifting me up, and celebrating every success. This book would not have been possible without you.



Introduction: A Tale of Two Trumpeters Abstract Maritime musicians and performers on early modern English voyages had fascinating, complex lives, and yet the historical and critical conversations have obscured them. Opening with a pair of trumpeters, John Brewer and William Porter, the Introduction sets the stage by presenting the major players on English ships and the conditions of their performances. Despite significant gaps in the research about these players’ lives, this book benefits from scholarly work on maritime labour, and I argue not only for the legitimacy of shipboard playing as labour, but also for the recognition of shipboard performers as multiskilled crew members occupying an important in-between space. Keywords: John Brewer, William Porter, maritime music, shipboard performance, Ian Woodfield, English voyages

Trumpeters John Brewer and William Porter had extraordinary lives on land and sea. Brewer was the lead trumpeter on Sir Francis Drake’s famous circumnavigation (1577–1580), and upon returning to England after the world-compassing voyage, he worked as a court musician for Queen Elizabeth from 1582 to 1589.1 Brewer probably came from yeoman stock like Drake, but he was noted for his skilful musicianship at a young age.2 One of his first known employers was Lord High Chancellor and Queen’s favourite Christopher Hatton.3 Hatton recommended Brewer to Drake, and so began the young trumpeter’s adventure on the Pelican, renamed the Golden Hind 1 Henry Cart de LaFontaine, ed., The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460–1700) (London: Novello, 1909), 201. 2 Claire Jowitt, “Performing ‘Water’ Ralegh: The Cultural Politics of Sea Captains in Late Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama,” in The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain, ed. Richard J. Blakemore and James Davey (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020), 131. 3 Harry Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 83, 108.

Seth, J., Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages: The Lives of the Seafaring Middle Class. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725415_intro

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Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages

during the voyage. 4 Brewer’s experience aboard ship was perilous. While stationed on the poop deck during a calm day at sea, he was struck by a stray rope stirred by a gust of wind and fell into the ocean.5 Seamen on the Hind cast him ropes, but Brewer failed to catch or hold on to them. Just before drowning, he managed to cling to one and was safely recovered. Brewer also witnessed the wreck of the accompanying Marigold in the Straits of Magellan in 1578, and he was entangled in controversy as an accuser of gentleman-navigator Thomas Doughty, notoriously executed during the voyage for mutiny and insubordination towards Drake.6 Brewer survived the nearly three-year circumnavigation, and several years after his return he attained the highest level of employment for an English musician as a trumpeter for the Elizabethan court and married into a musical family, as well. Unlike Brewer, William Porter began as a court trumpeter before serving at sea. Porter’s first official position was “Trumpeter in ordinary” for Charles I from 1641 to 1649.7 Between Charles I’s execution and the Restoration of Charles II, Porter’s whereabouts are unknown. Given his close ties to the former king, he was likely in hiding with other Carolinian court musicians during the Interregnum (1649–1660). Shortly after Charles II was crowned, Porter and several other former court musicians were given pensions and official titles (Porter was named a “Pentioner Trumpeter”), and he received annual wages in return for his loyalty to Charles I. 8 In his later years, Porter decided to join the East India Company’s voyage to Fort St. George (1675–1677), serving on the Loyal Eagle under the command of Captain James Bonnell.9 Porter became terminally ill during the voyage and was left to recover at the island of St. Helena in June 1677.10 His last pension payment was 4 Kelsey, Queen’s Pirate, 108. 5 Francis Fletcher, The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, ed. William Sandys Wright Vaux, Vol. 16 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1854), 81. This episode is also discussed in Ian Woodfield, English Musicians in the Age of Exploration (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), 53–54. 6 For Brewer’s view of the wreck of the Marigold, see David Lasocki’s discussion of the trumpeter in A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 1485–1714, ed. Andrew Ashbee, David Lasocki, Peter Holman, and Fiona Kisby (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2008), 1: cxcii. For his accusations against Doughty, see Woodfield, English Musicians, 53. 7 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 109. At court, “Trumpeter in ordinary” is distinguished from the ranking of “extraordinary” and also from the highest office of Sergeant Trumpeter. 8 Ibid., 134. 9 Ibid., 296. Per LaFontaine’s entry in King’s Musick, the letter of Porter’s assignment appears in the Lord Chamberlain’s court records, Vol. 198, 118d (296). 10 This letter was transcribed by Richard Browne and is reproduced in Indian Records Series: The Diaries of Streynsham Master, 1675–1680 And Other Contemporary Papers Relating Thereto,

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received that year, and it is not known whether Porter recovered and stayed at St. Helena, perished shortly after the Loyal Eagle departed, or recovered and relocated entirely. Regardless, Porter had his financial affairs in order before the voyage, appointing his daughter, Prudence, as lawful attorney.11 If he did recover, he would have had the opportunity to live an entirely new life while his family lived off his remaining pension. One hundred years separated the two trumpeters’ voyages, but the connections between the two are striking. Porter and Brewer both had experience on land and sea, at court and on contracted voyages. Both were rewarded for their loyalty and service, yet they were never high-ranking officials. In an odd coincidence, they both played at court with a trumpeter named “John Smith,” Brewer’s comrade being perhaps an older relative of Porter’s. Brewer and Porter were entangled in executions and public controversies on matters of authority and leadership. At sea both men were subject to danger due to occupational hazards. They would have also performed similar roles as trumpeters, using their instruments to alert, entertain, and communicate with crew members of different ranks and backgrounds. They played for captains, officers, court officials, sailors, foreign representatives, and for Brewer, Indigenous peoples of South America, South Africa, and the Pacific Islands. Their times at sea differed with their ages and levels of experience, but these two trumpeters had many stories to tell. Yet these stories have been largely overlooked in historical and contemporary retellings of voyages. Early modern maritime musicians and performers are rarely named in ship logbooks, and if any were mentioned by diarists, it was often in the context of a gaudy ritual. For example, a voyager named John Fryer wrote about an elaborate banquet given by Gerald Aungier (1640–77), Bombay’s second governor, during his travels to India. In his journal he lists Aungier’s train to emphasize the grand pageantry: “He has Chaplains, Physician, Chyrurgeons, and Domesticks; his Linguist, and Mint-Master: At Meals he has Trumpets usher in his Courses, and Soft Musick at the Table.”12 While it is still a common practice to call musicians by their instrument (“Trumpets,” as opposed to “Trumpeters”), this shorthand prioritizes the sound-making device and not the sound maker. Similarly, Fryer describes Aungier’s disembodied string musicians by the “Soft Musick” gently playing Vol. 2, The First and Second “Memorialls,” 1679–1680, ed. Sir Richard Carnac Temple (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1911), 120. 11 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 296. 12 John Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia in Eight Letters Being Nine Years Travels, Begun 1672 and Finished 1681 (London: R.R. for Rt. Chiswell, 1698), 68.

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during the meal. To Fryer, the trumpeters were food heralds, and the string players sounds without forms. This is the impression many early modern diarists give when describing musicians at sea. Like shipboard phantoms, musicians appear at meals, play for guests, and are never mentioned again. During Drake’s circumnavigation, which Brewer attended, the Spanish gentleman and captive aboard the Hind, Don Francisco de Zárate, briefly sensed the presence of musicians while dining in the great cabin. He states in a letter lavishing praise on Drake that the commander “is served in silver place with a coat of arms engraved on the dishes; and music is played at his dinner and supper.”13 With the focus on Drake, the musicians are afterthoughts, the final touch of elegance following the silver and dishware. This book aims to recover the lives and livelihoods of English shipboard musicians and performers in the early modern period. They are often reduced in voyaging accounts as having one function, and yet they served many communicative tasks. Shipboard performers’ lives were not only complex, but often contradictory. They had ties to the English court as well as to the labouring class. They caroused with deck hands but also interfaced with higher ranking officers. Depending on their role, they may have been part of the captain’s consort, following him about the ship, or they may have been stationed at the deck or the poop. At sea they adhered to strict rules and rituals, but they could also be subversive and shifty. Shipboard musicians and performers have been absent from conversations about English navigation, maritime culture, and economic expansion. Early modern editors and artists portray the ship captains, merchants, and navigators as the true ‘actors’ on the global stage of early modern exploration and trade. The idea of the global stage appears as a visual metaphor in the frontispiece of The Mariners Mirror (1588), the English translation of Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer’s (1533–1606) Spieghel der Zeevaerdt (1584). The image, produced by engraver Theodor de Bry, shows several cartographers at the top of an ornate mirror fixed to a stage-like sea, wherein a battle unfolds between a large ship and several whale-like creatures. On either side of the mirror stand two figures, likely Francis Drake and Anthony Ashley (as their quotes are featured on the frontispiece), angling their lead and line to determine the depth of the ocean. They are the central protagonists in what Oxford professor Walter Alexander Raleigh (not to be confused with the navigator) refers to as “‘[t]he great prose epic of the modern English [nation],’” which 13 “Don Francisco de Zarate’s Letter,” in The World Encompassed and Analogous Contemporary Documents Concerning Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation of the World, ed. N.M. Penzer (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1969), 219.

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is “itself but an incident or episode in a greater and wider world-drama.”14 This outmoded, congratulatory view of English imperialism also suggests the way early modern voyagers viewed themselves and the world. But if the captains were the actors in this “wider world-drama,” what were the shipboard actors themselves? What of the performers and musicians? Contemporary histories of oceanic activity similarly exclude shipboard music, though when it does surface, it feels tangential against the ‘big picture’ narrative.15 Contrary to their portrayal in voyaging journals, histories, and scholarly studies, maritime performers were not merely part of the ships’ décor, signs of wealth to impress guests, or stage props for their ambitious commanders. They were integral members of early modern English voyages and contributed to a broader oceanic history of navigation and cultural exchange. Few contemporary scholars have engaged with the livelihoods of English maritime musicians and performers during this period. Scholarship on and popular interest in shipboard culture has mostly focused on its most prominent or notorious figures, or conversely, the deckhands and labourers shantying to their rhythmic tasks.16 Seminal critics of maritime labour like Marcus Rediker refer to music and dance as “two of the seamen’s most 14 Walter Raleigh, The English Voyages of the Sixteenth Century (Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1906), 1. Notably, the line Raleigh quotes comes from historian James A. Froude, though the line is unattributed. See Mary C. Fuller, Voyages in Print: English Travel to America 1576–1624 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 158. 15 In multi-authored textbooks like The Atlantic World: A History, 1400–1888, ed. Douglas R. Egerton, et al. (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2007), music is mentioned three times: the first in an aside regarding Catholic focus on music during services (121), the second as mini-section separated from the chapter, titled, “Atlantic Drugs and Popular Music” (228), and the third on the influences of African music into European culture, leading to contemporary genres of jazz, tango, cumbia, and others (287). More recent edited collections, such as The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain, ed. Richard J. Blakemore and James Davey (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020), address important topics historically sidelined (see Elaine Murphy’s essay, “Women and the Navy in the British Civil Wars,” 173–193), but there is no mention of music. 16 The work of Stan Hugill is invaluable to the study of shantying, and his book Songs of the Sea: The Tales and Tunes of Sailors and Sailing Ships (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977) is a trove of working-class shipboard music and insightful discussions about shanty culture. See also The Oxford Book of Sea Songs, ed. Roy Palmer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), and Robert Young Walser, “‘Here We Come in a Leaky Ship!’: The Shanty Collection of James Madison Carpenter” Folk Music Journal 7, no. 4 (1998): 471–495. For current discussions of the shanty, especially its resurgence on social media app TikTok, see Amanda Petrusich, “The Delights of Sea-Chantey TikTok,” The New Yorker, 14 January 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/ cultural-comment/the-delights-of-sea-chantey-tiktok. Accessed 1 July 2021. A viral performance of the shanty, “The Scotsman,” as performed by TikTok shantier Nathan Evans, is available here: https://www.tiktok.com/@nathanevanss/video/6909533746983079169. Accessed 1 July 2021.

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fancied pastimes.”17 While music and dance may have been “pastimes” for deckhands and amateurs, they were also paid labour for hired professional musicians and performers aboard ship. Ship labourers sang and played for recreation, but ship performers played at times of work and leisure, making it easy for any onlooker to conflate the two. Rediker’s modifier “fancied” means preferred, but the word also connotes playfulness and imagination. Rediker thus unintentionally distinguishes music and dance from ‘real’ labour—hauling, navigating, trading, plundering, and the like. In effect, part of this project is also legitimizing maritime music and performance by hired professionals as shipboard work. More recent studies of maritime performance focus not on the performers but on issues of authorship and historiography as they pertain to playwrights like Shakespeare.18 The mystery of whether Shakespeare was performed at Sierra Leone during the East India Company’s third voyage (1607–1610) is one many early modern cultural historians, literary critics, and performance scholars have engaged. They include Frederick Samuel Boas, William Foster, Sydney Race, Gary Taylor, Ania Loomba, Richmond Barbour, Bernhard Klein, Bernice Kliman, Graham Holderness, and myself, among others.19 I 17 Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 70. 18 An exciting account of the crew of the Red Dragon flagship performing Hamlet was published by one Ambrose Gunthio in European Magazine (1825) as a freestanding postscript to the newly rediscovered Hamlet Q1 (1603). This account may also be written by John Payne Collier (1789–1883), a literary editor who began forging documents in the 1820s. See Ambrose Gunthio, “A Running Commentary on the Hamlet of 1603,” European Magazine (December 1825): 347. Samuel Purchas also published a much-condensed version of the Keeling journal in Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes (London, 1625). 19 The earliest mention of the original source for this mystery (EIC Commander William Keeling’s journal) appears in the “Catalog of Damaged Papers in Three Lists: Copied in part from the Old Catalogue” in the India Office Collections. The third list contains the entry: “108, First leaf of Capt Keeling’s Journal (Much decayed and mutilated).” This source is reprinted in Frederick Samuel Boas’s Shakespeare and the Universities (New York, D. Appleton, 1923). For other mentions and discussions of the East India Shakespeare mystery, its sources, possible forgeries, and afterlives, see William Foster, “Forged Shakespeariana,” Notes and Queries 134 (1900): 41–42; Sydney Race, “J. P. Collier’s Fabrications,” Notes and Queries 195 (5 August 1950): 480; Gary Taylor’s reprinting and commentary on the Keeling journal in Travel Knowledge: European “Discoveries” in the Early Modern Period, ed. Ivo Kamps and Jyotsna Singh (New York, Palgrave, 2001), 220; Ania Loomba, “Shakespearian Transformations,” in Shakespeare and National Culture, ed. John J. Joughin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997) 111, 113; Richmond Barbour and Bernhard Klein, “Drama at Sea: A New Look at Shakespeare on the Dragon, 1607–08,” Travel and Drama in Early Modern England: The Journeying Play, ed. Claire Jowitt and David McInnis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 150–168; Graham

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will also contribute a new reading to this inquiry in this book, though I am presently more concerned with the lives of shipboard performers. One of the most valuable critical precedents for this project is Ian Woodfield’s English Musicians in the Age of Exploration (1995). This is one of the few monograph-length studies on maritime musicians in early English voyaging history. Woodfield draws primarily on Richard Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1598) and Samuel Purchas’s Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625). His study considers the many complex occasions for performing maritime music, from public worship to private entertainments, and it also serves as a useful primer for understanding the culture of musicianship on voyages and the roles of shipboard consorts. However, even Woodfield’s ground-breaking study is limited both in scope, focusing primarily on the Elizabethan age, and in its reliance on few primary sources. As Woodfield observes, “Archival material concerning the Elizabethan voyages is only occasionally of direct use in the study of musicians” and “[l]ack of detail is the usual problem.”20 Yet there are now many more digitized and readily available works since its publication. Additionally, Woodfield’s work does not “attempt a systematic survey of the original sources,” nor does it seek to understand the full lives of shipboard musicians and performers on both land and sea.21 Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages is, in a sense, a radical expansion of Woodfield’s work. While my book also relies on Hakluyt, I look at primary materials beyond the Principal Navigations, examining documents from court livery accounts to voyage logbooks and diaries to fully assess the lives of shipboard performers. I am also interested in a broader range of performers, including instrumental musicians, dancers, singers, and dramatic performers aboard ship. Additionally, my temporal focus extends from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. My investigation of shipboard theatre, for example, begins in the Jacobean era and ends in the Golden Age of Piracy, focusing on the roles, theatrical and practical, of amateur and outlaw shipboard actors. My book also benefits from critical Holderness, Tales from Shakespeare: Creative Collisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 23–58; and James Seth, “Maritime Performance Culture and the Possible Staging of Hamlet in Sierra Leone,” Shakespeare en devenir – Les Cahiers de La Licorne 12 (2017). Barbour has provided a crucial precedent or this project with Before Orientalism: London’s Theatre of the East, 1576–1626 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and especially The Third Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607–10 (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), which helped form the initial inquiry from which this book was formed. 20 Woodfield, English Musicians, xv. 21 Ibid., xiv.

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conversations about maritime culture in response to the Oceanic Turn and the emergent “blue humanities,” developed by eco-literary scholars like Steve Mentz.22 My research on the history of English shipboard musicians is shaped by scholarship on marginal figures in the age of early English colonialism, piracy, captivity, and intercultural encounter. This includes the work of Cheryl Fury, Paul Gilroy, Bernhard Klein, Claire Jowitt, and Jyotsna G. Singh.23 Additionally, this project is indebted to scholars who have explored the English East India Company’s formation and expansion, including Alison Games, John McAleer, Philip Stern, and Bernard Cohn.24 22 My methodology is partially shaped by the “New Thalassology,” an interdisciplinary approach to maritime research. Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell describe the New Thalassology as an area of study engaging oceanic geopolitics, as their scholarship on the historical Mediterranean demonstrates. However, my research on maritime cross-cultural performance aligns more closely with the broader objectives of the New Thalassology: mapping “the physical and cultural shapes of the oceans in world history,” as Steve Mentz explains in At the Bottom of Shakespeare’s Ocean (London: Continuum, 2009), xi. My research also contributes to an oceanic movement in the humanities that Mentz dubs “blue cultural studies” or “blue humanities,” which pursues the complex relationship between art, culture, and the global ocean. More recently, Mentz has restated his definition of “blue humanities” in “Shakespeare and the Blue Humanities,” SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 59, no. 2 (Spring 2019): 384. In the introduction to Sea Changes: Historicizing the Ocean, Bernhard Klein and Gesa Mackenthun begin with the premise that “the ocean itself needs to be analyzed as a deeply historical location whose transformative power is not merely psychological or metaphorical … but material and very real.” See Klein and Mackenthum, eds, Sea Changes: Historicizing the Ocean (New York: Routledge, 2004), 2. There is a growing cross-section of critical scholarship exploring this “transformative power” and engaging the complex relationship between the sea and culture. This movement, which has evolved from Horden and Purcell’s conception of New Thalassology, has been referred to more generally as “The Oceanic Turn.” Scholarship engaging the cross-section of oceanic ecology and the humanities includes Mentz, Shipwreck Modernity: Ecologies of Globalization, 1550–1719 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015); Dan Brayton, Shakespeare’s Ocean (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012); Ecocritical Shakespeare, ed. Dan Brayton and Lynne Bruckner (New York: Ashgate, 2011); and Elizabeth DeLoughrey, “Submarine Futures of the Anthropocene,” Comparative Literature 69, no. 1 (2017): 32. 23 See Cheryl A. Fury, Tides in the Affairs of Men: The Social History of Elizabethan Seamen, 1580–1603 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002); Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); Bernhard Klein, ed. Fictions of the Sea: Critical Perspectives on the Ocean in British Literature and Culture (Farnham: Ashgate, 2002); Claire Jowitt, Voyage Drama and Gender Politics 1589–1642: Real and Imagined Worlds (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003); Jowitt, Pirates? The Politics of Plunder, 1550–1650 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006); Jowitt, The Culture of Piracy 1580–1630: English Literature and Seaborne Crime (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010); Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe, ed. C. Jowitt and D. Carey (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012); and Jyotsna G. Singh, Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues: “Discoveries” of India in the Language of Colonialism (London: Routledge, 1996). 24 See John McAleer, Britain’s Maritime Empire: Southern Africa, the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, 1763–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); The Royal Navy and the British Atlantic World, ed. John McAleer and Christer Petley (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,

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More recently, scholars like Céline Carayon have made significant contributions to understanding the power of nonverbal communication—including music and dance—between European and Indigenous peoples.25 Carayon “recasts” assumptions in this wider-world drama, not only by rejecting the idea of colonial America as a “Babel of tongues” without “mutualistic linguistic fluency” but also treating forms of ‘play’ and ‘recreation’ as powerful nonverbal gestures.26 My book also interprets music, dance, and theatre as communicative signs in addition to recreational activities, especially when the English interacted with Indigenous peoples without interpreters or familiarity with languages or cultural practices. I argue that musicians and performers on early English voyages were multiskilled crew members occupying an in-between space. Though not high-ranking officers, neither were they lower ranking mariners or sailors. They were influenced by a range of competing cultural practices, having spent time playing on both land and sea, and their roles required them to mediate parties using music, dance, and theatre as powerful forms of nonverbal communication. Their performances breached boundaries of language, rank, race, religion, and nationality, thereby upsetting conventional practices, improving shipboard and international relations, and ensuring the efficacy of their voyages. In my book I identify two major subsets of shipboard musicians and performers: naval musicians and civilian performers. Naval musicians (trumpeters, drummers, and fifes) were ranked more highly, as they had military titles with appointed duties and were paid higher wages. Civilian musicians and performers, both amateur and professionally trained, made up the rest of the seafaring middle class. They included string musicians, woodwinds, pipe players, as well as singers, dancers, and even actors. This subcategory of shipboard performers 2016); McAleer, Picturing India: People, Places and the World of the East India Company (London: British Library, 2017); Philip J. Stern, The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996); Alison Games, The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560–1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Games, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1999). 25 Céline Carayon, Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas (Williamsburg, VA and Chapel Hill, NC: The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 2019). Carayon’s work “recasts … prevailing assumptions about the early history of the American continents by arguing that, rather than being defined by incommunicability and incapacitating linguistic barriers … colonial America was the site of rich intersections between effective traditions of embodied expressiveness.” (7) 26 Ibid., 7.

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was also the wider and more diverse of the two. Some civilian performers were hired to entertain, and many others performed at leisure, both for their amusement and for the crew’s. This book also identifies enslaved and captive performers on early English voyages but distinguishes these individuals from the first two categories, as they were the lowest ranking members of voyages and deprived of freedoms, communicative and otherwise. Slave and captive performers performed to cope with their inhumane conditions, to survive at sea, and to communicate with fellow captives. Free musicians and performers often aspired to become court performers (as Brewer had), and some served the court before voyaging (like Porter). As a result, shipboard performers engaged in courtly ritual and projected manners and customs above those of rugged seafarers. What made maritime musicians and performers truly middle class was, I believe, not their proximity to the court but their aspirations towards it and struggles against it. These individuals were not only between ranks but opposing cultures. From the mid-sixteenth to the early eighteenth century, English shipboard culture increasingly rebelled against the English court and the land community, which Fury also notes in her study of shipboard cultural practices.27 This same tension between sea and land communities affected the conditions and roles of shipboard performers. Seafaring musicians and performers were also intermediaries between foreign cultures, languages, and geographical boundaries. They were needed to communicate between English and foreign contacts, using their instruments or voices to signal their location, negotiate friendly terms, display power or authority, assist in diplomatic introductions, and perform during times of commercial bargaining and trading. This book is structured in two parts, “The Players” and “The Performances.” Part One focuses mainly on the lives and roles of shipboard performers. Each chapter in Part One begins with a breakdown of tasks for each subsection, naval and civilian, respectively. Following this, I include supplemental information including payments and other relevant details. Lastly, I provide 27 While this is evident with the increase of piratical voyages in the seventeenth century, the idea that sea culture was “other” to land culture is well explained in Fury’s Tides in the Affairs of Men as she describes “seamen’s subculture.” This “subculture” was still linked to the landed world while “unusual in the sense that it was nurtured in isolation,” and thus it became something “rich and pervasive” (93). Fury distinguishes the culture of the seafaring “other” by emphasizing aspects like space and other limitations and conditions: “Seamen’s dances were designed for confined areas. Both forms were tailored to shipboard life. Thus, their working environment and the rhythm of their labor had a direct influence upon the character of their popular culture, and that culture reinforced their ‘otherness’” (87).

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biographies of select musicians, singers, actors, and other important figures contributing to this history. The biographies vary by the amount of information available and are incomplete. However, they collectively illustrate a diversity of voyaging practices and experiences based on social connections, household wealth, experience at sea, and relation to the English court. Chapter One discusses naval musicians, paying special attention to the way they brought courtly manners and practices to voyages. This transfer of court culture influenced the climate and activity aboard ship, from dinners to psalm services. Trumpeters, drummers, and fifes also had military ranks and played their instruments to signal and communicate between ships, as well as between themselves and people ashore. They sounded during celebratory and sombre rituals, as well as proper introductions with foreign guests. Naval musicians were the tethers between the higher and lower classes, shifting between worlds to inform and connect people. Chapter Two focuses on civilian performers, both amateur and professional. Civilian performers had to adapt to various audiences, playing spaces, and performance conditions, and they were envoys of English culture when presented to dignitaries and esteemed guests. Chapter Two discusses formal and professional players, as well as crew members who engaged in more leisurely shipboard recreation, including instrumental performance, singing, and play-acting. The second part of this book focuses on the types of performances for shipboard players. The title of Chapter Three, “Signalling and Communicating,” seems self-explanatory, but it covers a range of communicative modes. Signalling, primarily the work of naval musicians, helped the English access coastlines, navigate treacherous waters, and keep the crew together during onshore explorations. However, signalling also made these musicians vulnerable, as trumpeters and drummers became easy targets in Spanish and Portuguese colonies. This chapter also focuses on methods of aural and nonverbal communication between the English and Indigenous people of Africa and the Americas, drawing from first-hand accounts of Drake’s circumnavigation (1577–1580), Martin Frobisher’s second and third Northwest Passage voyages (1577–1578), and John Davis’s first Passage voyage (1585), among others. The “Communication” part of this chapter begins to define “kind entertainment” as courteous or casual diversion between the English and foreign contacts. Early unsuccessful encounters with Indigenous communities encouraged the English to use nonverbal communication such as singing, dancing, making signs, playing music, and giving elaborate performances to make friendly relations. These methods of intercultural engagement would later define strategies of diplomacy during the formative voyages of the East India Company, covered at greater length in Chapter Five.

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Chapter Four, “Courtly Rituals and Casual Entertainments,” distinguishes playing for play and playing for work. Shipboard performances could be duteous or subversive, depending on the audience and occasion for playing. This chapter first presents analytical readings of courtly functions for which hired shipboard musicians were paid to perform (dinners, psalm services, funerals, and other formal ceremonies), and I focus on the way captains like Drake instilled courtly regiment and customs to assert themselves as sole master of the voyage. This mastery not only included the ship schedule but the social, moral, and religious lives of the crew. Given this dynamic, hired shipboard musicians attended to the captain as they would a court official. Conversely, there were also times of recreational play and diversion, which are documented more frequently by voyage diarists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Amateur musicians like Samuel Pepys experimented with songs and melodies, while piratical actors engaged in experimental theatre, reimagining pirate trials in a mock court setting. Music and drama allowed shipboard performers an opportunity to escape their pedestrian or piratical reality and put on the roles of judges, attorneys, or pirate defendants, defying the law of the land they had escaped. Chapter Five, finally, focuses on diplomatic encounters between the English and the kings, dignitaries, and merchants in Asian and African port cities. From the late-sixteenth century circumnavigations to the early voyages of the East India Company, instrumental music and other types of performances helped establish friendly relations. Naval musicians, professional players, and amateur sailors gave kind entertainment to potential trade partners in both formal and causal settings, boosting the success of their respective voyages and projects in the process. Whether presenting music for Javanese kings or putting together an impromptu orchestral arrangement for Japanese royalty, English musicians and performers did the most to impress their hosts and guests. Along with accompanying interpreters, they helped both parties gain cultural fluency in uniquely effective ways.

Bibliography Ashbee, Andrew, David Lasocki, Peter Holman, and Fiona Kisby, eds. A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 1485–1714. 2 vols. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2008. Barbour, Richmond. Before Orientalism: London’s Theatre of the East, 1576–1626. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

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Barbour, Richmond. The Third Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607–10. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Barbour, Richmond, and Bernhard Klein. “Drama at Sea: A New Look at Shakespeare on the Dragon, 1607–08.” In Travel and Drama in Early Modern England: The Journeying Play, edited by Claire Jowitt and David McInnis, 150–168. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Blakemore, Richard J. and James Davey, eds. The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. Boas, Frederick Samuel. Shakespeare & The Universities and Other Studies in Elizabethan Drama. New York: D. Appleton, 1903. Brayton, Dan. Shakespeare’s Ocean. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2012. Brayton, Dan and Lynne Bruckner, eds. Ecocritical Shakespeare. New York: Ashgate, 2011. Carayon, Céline. Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. Williamsburg, VA and Chapel Hill, NC: The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Cohn, Bernard S. Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. “Submarine Futures of the Anthropocene.” Comparative Literature 69, no. 1 (2017): 32–44. Egerton, Douglas R., Alison Games, Jane G. Landers, Kris Lane, and Donald R. Wright, eds. The Atlantic World: A History, 1400–1888. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2007. Evans, Nathan. “The Scotsman.” TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@nathanevanss/ video/6909533746983079169. Accessed 1 July 2021. Fletcher. Francis. The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake. Edited by William Sandys Wright Vaux. Series 1. Vol. 16. London: Hakluyt Society, 1854. Foster, William. “Forged Shakespeariana.” Notes and Queries 134 (1900): 41–42. Fryer, John. A New Account of East-India and Persia in Eight Letters Being Nine Years Travels, Begun 1672 and Finished 1681. London: R.R. for Rt. Chiswell, 1698. Fuller, Mary C. Voyages in Print: English Travel to America 1576–1624. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Fury, Cheryl A. Tides in the Affairs of Men: The Social History of Elizabethan Seamen, 1580–1603. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. Games, Alison. Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Games, Alison. The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in Age of Expansion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Gunthio, Ambrose. “A Running Commentary on the Hamlet of 1603.” European Magazine (December 1825): 339–347. Holderness, Graham. Tales from Shakespeare: Creative Collisions. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014. Hugill, Stan. Songs of the Sea: The Tales and Tunes of Sailors and Sailing Ships. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977. Jowitt, Claire. The Culture of Piracy 1580–1630: English Literature and Seaborne Crime. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Jowitt, Claire. “Performing ‘Water’ Ralegh: The Cultural Politics of Sea Captains in Late Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama.” In The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain, edited by Richard J. Blakemore and James Davey, 125–152. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. Jowitt, Claire. Pirates? The Politics of Plunder, 1550–1650. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006. Jowitt, Claire. Voyage Drama and Gender Politics 1589–1642: Real and Imagined Worlds. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Jowitt, Claire and D. Carey, eds. Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. Kelsey, Harry. Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. Klein, Bernhard, ed. Fictions of the Sea: Critical Perspectives on the Ocean in British Literature and Culture. Farnham: Ashgate, 2002. Klein, Bernhard, and Gesa Mackenthum, eds. Sea Changes: Historicizing the Ocean. New York: Routledge, 2004. LaFontaine, Henry Cart de, ed. The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460–1700). London: Novello, 1909. Loomba, Ania. “Shakespearian Transformations.” In Shakespeare and National Culture, edited by John J. Joughin, 109–141. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997. McAleer, John. Britain’s Maritime Empire: Southern Africa, the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, 1763–1820. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. McAleer, John. Picturing India: People, Places and the World of the East India Company. London: British Library, 2017. McAleer, John, and Christer Petley, eds. The Royal Navy and the British Atlantic World. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Mentz, Steve. At the Bottom of Shakespeare’s Ocean. London: Continuum, 2009. Mentz, Steve. “Shakespeare and the Blue Humanities.” SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 59, no. 2 (Spring 2019): 383–392.

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Mentz, Steve. Shipwreck Modernity: Ecologies of Globalization, 1550–1719. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. Palmer, Roy, ed. The Oxford Book of Sea Songs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Petrusich, Amanda. “The Delights of Sea-Chantey TikTok.” The New Yorker, 14 January, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-delightsof-sea-chantey-tiktok. Accessed 1 July 2021 Race, Sydney. “J. P. Collier’s Fabrications.” Notes and Queries 195 (5 August 1950): 480. Raleigh, Walter. The English Voyages of the Sixteenth Century. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1906. Rediker. Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Seth, James. “Maritime Performance Culture and the Possible Staging of Hamlet in Sierra Leone.” Shakespeare en devenir – Les Cahiers de La Licorne 12 (2017). https:// shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr/index.php?id=1091. Accessed 1 December 2017. Singh, Jyotsna G. Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues: “Discoveries” of India in the Language of Colonialism. London: Routledge, 1996. Stern, Philip J. The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Taylor, Gary. “Hamlet in Africa 1607.” In Travel Knowledge: European “Discoveries” in the Early Modern Period, edited by Ivo Kamps and Jyotsna Singh, 223–248. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Temple, Sir Richard Carnac, ed. Indian Records Series: The Diaries of Streynsham Master, 1675–1680 and Other Contemporary Papers Relating Thereto. 2 vols. Vol. 2, The First and Second “Memorialls,” 1679–1680. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1911. Walser, Robert Young. “‘Here We Come in a Leaky Ship!’: The Shanty Collection of James Madison Carpenter.” Folk Music Journal 7, no. 4 (1998): 471–495. Woodf ield, Ian. English Musicians in the Age of Exploration. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995. Zárate, Don Francisco de. “Don Francisco de Zarate’s Letter.” In The World Encompassed and Analogous Contemporary Documents Concerning Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation of the World, edited by N.M. Penzer, 218–219. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1969.

1.

Naval Musicians Abstract Chapter One discusses naval musicians, paying special attention to the way they brought courtly manners and practices to voyages. This transfer of court culture influenced the climate and activity aboard ship, from dinners to psalm services. Trumpeters, drummers, and fifes also had military ranks and played their instruments to signal and communicate between ships, as well as between themselves and people ashore. They sounded during celebratory and sombre rituals, as well as proper introductions with foreign guests. Naval musicians were the tethers between the higher and lower class, shifting between worlds to inform and connect people. Keywords: naval musicians, trumpeters, drummers, fifes, military musicians, British navy

Naval musicians—trumpeters, drummers, and fife players—were invaluable members of English voyages and served tasks beyond signalling and communicating. They were often called upon to play during rituals aboard ship, including introductory greetings, psalms, funeral rites, elaborate performances, and the naming of territories and specific stretches of land and water. The records of voyages and livery accounts show that naval musicians came from a range of backgrounds, were sometimes promoted to more prominent ranks, and were required to have a diverse set of skills and abilities to join major voyages. Some came from families of musicians, and others had no musical backgrounds at all. As this book argues, English maritime musicians occupied an in-between position. They were neither commanders nor officials, but not rugged seamen either. Though the naval musician had an official position and was not simply referred to as “musician” in voyaging documents, he was a “jack of all trades” despite his seemingly limited vocational task. Some court musicians played aboard ship, usually to attend royal voyages, and some had more experience at sea than others. Some voyaging musicians became court musicians at some point in their careers, like Brewer. As Miranda Kaufmann emphasizes, Seth, J., Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages: The Lives of the Seafaring Middle Class. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725415_ch01

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“A position at court was the best any musician could hope for; it brought high status and a regular wage, as well as board, lodging and a clothing allowance.”1 While many naval musicians in the age of English exploration were passed up for positions at court, this goal for gainful employment may have also inspired early maritime performers to emulate the upper echelon. Many naval musicians brought courtly manners and practices aboard ship. This affected the climate and goings on of shipboard life, and it was advantageous when the captain, with his consort of musicians, introduced himself to royalty. As I will explain more fully in Chapter Three, voyaging musicians’ first-hand experiences and emulation of court practices contributed to the English effort to maintain a domestic status quo while on various privateering, exploratory, and trade missions. Naval musicians used their skills to signal ships, sound alarms, give proper ambiance, and communicate with a range of audiences, from cautious Indigenous peoples to raucous sailors to foreign dignitaries. Trumpeters, drummers, and fifes were trained for such tasks over the course of their journeys. As maritime performers, naval musicians constantly shifted between disparate worlds of sociocultural difference. This chapter is organized by role: trumpeters, followed by drummers, then fife players. Within each subsection, I discuss their general roles aboard ship, the particulars of payment, and biographical information of select naval performers. Many of these naval musicians will be mentioned again in Part Two of this book, which focuses on the practical functions of the musicians’ performances. The biographies of naval musicians reveal that, like shipboard musicians, these performers occupied a liminal space. Naval musicians reported to the captain and were expected to be at the ready to give a signal, but they had their own unique toils and privileges. Naval musicians were often paid more and had a higher social standing than mariners and ship labourers. However, they were easy targets for capture or injury, both at sea and ashore. Their role was pivotal for navigation and for communication with other ships, and their occupational hazards ranged from being swept off the poop deck by wind or waves to being captured.

Trumpeters There would be at least one trumpeter on most English voyages. As Woodfield notes, “almost all accounts of exploration” make a “clear distinction” between 1

Miranda Kaufmann, Black Tudors: The Untold Story (London: Oneworld, 2017), 9.

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trumpeters and other shipboard musicians.2 This is likely because trumpeters held a naval rank, with the possibility of promotion to positions like Sergeant Trumpeter, first held by Benedict Browne in 1546.3 Some trumpeters were even promoted to pilot. 4 The trumpeter would sound his horn indicating incoming ships, sighting land, signalling the crew’s whereabouts (especially if the voyaging members were separated), and announcing the crew’s arrival on shore, among other duties. The trumpeter would announce the arrival of the English and play during significant events like formal meetings and dinners. Drawing on a 1509 court record, Timothy McGee makes the following assessment of early sixteenth-century trumpeters: They were the heraldic symbols of authority and could be found in the entourage of every monarch and many civic officials in Europe from at least the thirteenth century forward. They played fanfares and made official ceremonial sounds on a variety of official state occasions. The King’s Book of Payments, for example, includes numerous entries for trumpeters paid to accompany ambassadors overseas. Their duties were simply to add pomp to any official or royal occasion including processions and official pronouncements.5

This is correct to an extent. An important function for early court trumpets was “add[ing] pomp” to royal processions. However, as more trumpeters travelled, whether with royalty or navigators, those who played or trained at court still had important shipboard signalling tasks (which McGee ignores altogether), as well as political agendas when “accompany[ing] ambassadors overseas.” Ambassadorial relations were important for trumpeters on major navigational and trading expeditions. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, trumpeters were present for diplomatic greetings between the English and their international contacts, both to project power and to express accord. For example, a passage in the journal of Anthony Marlowe, the chief merchant aboard the Hector 2 Ian Woodf ield, English Musicians in the Age of Exploration (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), 33. 3 Henry George Farmer, “The King’s Trumpets,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 43, no. 176 (December 1965): 187. 4 Woodfield, English Musicians, 33. 5 Timothy J. McGee, “The Fall of the Noble Minstrel: The Sixteenth-Century Minstrel in a Musical Context,” Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 7 (1995): 100. For the full list of named court musicians in 1509, see Henry Cart de LaFontaine, ed., The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460–1700) (London: Novello, 1909), 4–5.

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during the East India Company’s third voyage (1607–1610), indicates that the Company trumpeters participated in formal introductions with kings and royal guests. After the Company arrived in Aden, the trumpeters greeted the king with plenty of pomp: “Our Generalls trumpettes and the Kinges drumes and one Trumpett ffor Joy sounded at theyre meetinge.”6 In this case, the trumpeter served to proclaim the meeting between the King of Aden and General William Keeling (1577–1620), who commanded the voyage and the flagship, the Red Dragon. Playing “ffor joy,” the trumpeters set the mood and signalled amity between nations.

Drummers and Fife Players Drummers and fife players were also naval members on English voyages who served similar roles as trumpeters, though they were lower in rank and often not named. As Woodfield explains, while “the naval trumpeters functioned as the captain’s principal military musicians, the drum and fife players were attached to companies of foot soldiers.”7 This distinction, Woodfield notes, parallels military positions on land; the trumpet is the instrument of cavalry, whereas drums and fifes are instruments of the infantry.8 We know how many drummers Francis Drake had on his 1572 voyage to Nombre de Dios because we have his list of weaponry: “sixe Targets, sixe Firepikes, twelve Pikes, twentie foure Muskets, and Callivers, sixteene Bowes, and six Partizans, two Drums, and two Trumpets.”9 Few records detail individual payments to shipboard drummers and fifes, but there is a record for the number of drums purchased for foot soldiers for the 1595 Drake–Hawkins voyage: “Drumes viz ij at xxx s the peece lx s and xj boughte by agreement at xiiijli. In all—xviili.”10 Aboard ship, the drum and fife players were stationed on deck “close to the main mast where the companies of foot soldiers were stationed.”11 Drummers 6 Richmond Barbour, The Hector Journal of Anthony Marlowe, in The Third Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607–10 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 134. 7 Ibid., 37. 8 Ibid., 37. 9 Phillip Nichols, Sir Francis Drake Revived, in Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Spanish Main, 1569–1580, ed. Irene A. Wright, Hakluyt Series 2, No. 71 (Cambridge: University Press, 1932), 254. 10 Woodfield, English Musicians, 14. 11 Ibid., 54. Drummers were depicted in these areas in Dutch marine art. See Plate 2 in Woodfield, English Musicians, 54, which shows Cornelis Vroom’s portrayal of Heemskerk’s defeat of

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called attention to a ship’s position in times of low visibility like fog and heavy rain to avoid catastrophe.12 Drummers could also assist in ceremonial tasks, as well as intimidating enemy fleets by signalling their arrival. One of the few mentions of drumming from Drake’s circumnavigation comes from the deposition of Alonso Sanchez de Mercado, who describes the following scene: “behind certain sand dunes they drew up in formation, flags flying and drums beating.”13 Drake was on the offensive, and he ordered his drummers to sound their approach as they “drew up in formation.” Mercado further states in his deposition: “It was understood that Francis Drake, corsair, was among them because where they set up the artillery in the afternoon there was the music of cornets, sackbuts, and flagelots.”14 The sound of cornets and sackbuts (trombones) signalled Drake’s oncoming attack, and with multiple horns playing, trumpeter John Brewer had assistance from Hind musicians or trumpeters.

Records of Payment In voyaging accounts, there are few records on matters like musicians’ payments, and the surviving documents are incomplete. During the early Elizabethan voyages, there were only a handful of sources verifying specific payment amounts to naval musicians. Woodfield notes the limitations of archival materials in the Tudor era, but he highlights several sources useful in assessing the pay of musicians and instruments, which I will also use in my assessment: Archival material concerning the Elizabethan voyages is only occasionally of direct use in the study of musicians. Lack of detail is the usual problem. Two sources, however, are of sufficient value to merit mention here: the financial accounts of Frobisher’s three voyages to the Northwest, preserved in the Public Record Office (E 164/35 and 36), which contain details of payments to named trumpeters and of the purchase of bells for barter with the Eskimos; and the Exchequer accounts of the last voyage of Drake and Hawkins to the West Indies in 1595 (E 351/2233), which contain details the Spaniards off Gibraltar on 25 April 1607 (c. 1607). In the centre of the painting, a drummer is clearly positioned at the mainmast of the Dutch ship. 12 Ibid., 58. 13 Alonso Sanchez de Mercado, “Statement,” in Further English Voyages to the Spanish Main, ed. Irene Wright, Hakluyt Society Second Series 99 (Cambridge: University Press, 1932), 199. 14 Ibid., 199.

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of payments to the musicians engaged for the expedition. The particular value of sources of this type is that they provide information rarely found in journals, concerning the recruitment and payment of musicians.15

The records of Frobisher’s early voyages to the Northwest Passage, for example, provide a snapshot of funding distribution. Michael Lok, an agent for the Muscovy Company, provided one of the most detailed accounts of ship funding, currently part of the Public Record Office, London, Series E164 and E165. These records have been reproduced in compilations like David Beers Quinn’s five-volume New American World: A Documentary History of North America to 1612 (1979). Lok’s record of the Frobisher voyages from 1576–1578 includes individual payments to everyone involved in the shipbuilding, victualling, operating, navigating, and labouring. Additionally, these documents include information on specific navigation instruments (often brass). Most important to this study, Lok’s record of the 1576 Frobisher voyage includes information on payment to trumpeters like Richard Purdye, as well as several unnamed trumpeters. In addition to Lok’s records of payments for Frobisher’s Northwest Passage Voyages, there are also records of payments to musicians for the 1595 voyage of Drake and Hawkins to the West Indies. As the Exchequer Accounts state, Hawkins’s company received “Sundrie instruments of music for 8 musicians and 9 trumpeters £14 11s 0d.”16 Woodfield notes a “payment of £14 11 shillings would not have equipped seventeen musicians with instruments,” and so the sum must, “therefore have been intended to pay for any deficiencies—lost cases, broken instruments etc.”17 This amount could have also supplemented the total pay for “Sundrie Instrumentes of musicke” for these seventeen players, or it was to be paid individually to these musicians for instruments. In any case, these records also tell us how many trumpeters were employed on the 1595 Drake–Hawkins voyage. With nine trumpeters hired, this voyage had the largest company of musicians of any English voyage before it. Unsurprisingly, the records for payment of musicians are more thoroughly and consistently documented in the Lord Chamberlain’s livery accounts than English voyage diaries. The Lord Chamberlain’s accounts list specific figures not only for livery expenses on land but also sea liveries and any expenditures for court musicians who travelled abroad. The livery 15 Woodfield, English Musicians, xv. 16 These accounts appear in Kenneth R. Andrews, The Last Voyage of Drake and Hawkins, Hakluyt Society Second Series 142 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 55. 17 Woodfield, English Musicians, 14.

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accounts for 16 May 1666, for example, state a warrant “to pay William Peacock, Nicholas Caperon, John Crowther, and Thomas Sculthrop, four of his Majesty’s trumpeters in ordinary, £40 for their present supply, they being to attend his Highness Prince Rupert and his Grace the Duke of Albemarle at sea.”18 Divided four ways, each trumpeter was paid £10 for their “present supply” on the voyage to “attend” Prince Rupert (1619–1682). This voyage may have been to prepare for what would be latter known as the Four Days’ Battle (1 June to 4 June 1666) during the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667). At the time, Rupert was a squadron commander of the English fleet.19 The Four Days’ Battle allowed Rupert and co-commander George Monck to demonstrate new battle strategies. 20 It seems these “trumpeters in ordinary” were assigned to assist Rupert’s naval fleet. The description “in ordinary” indicates these trumpeters were of the lowest rank, but Henry George Farmer also notes the phrase was “used in the Lord Chamberlain’s books to distinguish them from supernumeraries who are called ‘extraordinary.’”21 This title also distinguishes “ordinary” trumpeters from the Sergeant Trumpeter, Gervase Price, who commanded them under Charles II.

Select Biographies The following biographical entries for naval musicians are incomplete, but they are culled from as many available sources listing names. Some entries focus only on the musician’s time aboard ship or during a specific voyage, while others have more detail about their lives away from sea. Some musicians played at sea for much of their lives, while others had limited experience developing their sea legs. What becomes clear with these biographies is this: at sea, trumpeters, drummers, and fifes were lightning rods for all kinds of dangers, both natural and human, but they also had many vocational advantages. Their lives were shaped by their experiences on both land and sea. In addition to their station and location, naval musicians’ experiences also varied according to age, race, skill, family name, prior service, and many other factors. Though they were still part of 18 LaFontaine, The King’s Musick, 201. 19 See A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (New York: Dover, 1987), 107–108, 117. 20 Ibid., 117–126. 21 Farmer, “The King’s Trumpets,” 185.

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the seafaring middle class, these lightning rods of the sea were some of the most prominent and influential members of oceanic musicians. John Blanke Trumpeter for King Henry VII and King Henry VIII, 1507–1512? Although it is not certain whether he played for the first navy of the Tudor era, it is still worth mentioning John Blanke, the Black trumpeter for Kings Henry VII and VIII whose image appears on the Westminster Tournament Roll.22 It is Blanke’s visage on the Roll that Kaufmann asserts is “the only identifiable portrait of an African in Tudor England,” after all.23 According to Michael Ohajuru, in 1507 Blanke “is recorded in Henry VII’s household accounts by the Treasurer of the Chamber, John Heron, being paid 8 pence a day.”24 Blanke is mentioned in the Lord Chamberlain’s livery accounts for 1509, and he played at Henry VII’s funeral.25 Ohajuru notes the last mention of Blanke recorded in the household records for January 1512: “by Henry VIII to the ‘great wardrobe’ for him to be given a wedding gift.”26 Three months later, the English declared war on France, and naval officer Sir Edward Howard (1477–1513) was appointed to command an eighteenship fleet against the French army.27 In August of the same year came the Battle of Saint-Mathieu (also called the Battle of Brest), which had a fleet of twenty-five English ships commanded by Howard and a Franco-Breton fleet of twenty-two ships, commanded by René de Clermont. No records for musicians’ liveries are kept from 1511 to 1525. The question remains: why? Did Henry VIII enlist some or all his court trumpeters to serve on the fleets against the French, and is that why there is a gap in trumpeters’ records from 1511 to 1525? There are few accounts of naval trumpeting at sea during this period, and those recorded are tenuous. One such account by Edward Hall claims that in 1614, during a French attack on Sussex shore at a village called Brighthelmstone, “prior John [Prégent de Bidoux, 1468–1528], 22 Kaufmann, Black Tudors, 8. 23 Ibid., 8. 24 Michael Ohajuru, “John Blanke, Henry VIII’s Black Trumpeter, Petitions for a Back Dated Pay Increase,” the many-headed monster: the history of ‘the unruly sort of clowns’ and other early modern peculiarities, 27 July 2015. Ohajuru cites: “The king’s Book of Payment [by John Heron, Treasurer of the Chamber], National Archive, E 36/214 f109.” 25 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 2–3. The document is part of the Lord Chamberlain’s records, which LaFontaine indicates as “L.C. [Lord Chamberlain’s Records] Vol. 550, folio 126” (3). 26 Ohajuru, “John Blanke.” 27 David Loades, “Howard, Sir Edward (1476/7–1513),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 September 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/13891.

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great captain of the French navy” came to plunder the town, but when the watch on shore “fired the beacons,” which caused a crowd to gather, the captain “sounded his trumpet to call his men aboard.”28 The account claims that the French admiral used a trumpet himself, rather than ordering a trumpeter aboard ship to perform the task.29 Was there a similar protocol on Henry’s ships, or did they have naval trumpeters? Would they have been court trumpeters like John Blanke, or were they sailors? Were trumpeters called to serve aboard the naval vessels like Charles II’s trumpeters in 1666? Richard Purdye Trumpeter for Martin Frobisher, 1576–? Richard Purdye was trumpeter on Martin Frobisher’s first voyage to find the Northwest Passage in 1576, and he likely joined subsequent voyages in 1577 and 1578. The majority of what we know about Purdye comes from the financial accounts of Lok, who, along with Frobisher, was granted a license to explore the northwest in search for a route to China. As Quinn explains in his preface to the reproduced Passage voyage documents, “Michael Lok left an unequalled series of accounts and correspondence for the Frobisher expedition.”30 From Lok’s full account Quinn offers a “representative sample of what the unpublished PRO series [Public Record Office, London, Series 164] contains.”31 This series, Quinn concludes, indicates a “full picture of the equipment of a vessel for a transatlantic voyage.”32

28 Edward Hall, Chronicle; Containing the History of England … (London, 1548/1809), 568. 29 For more information on the raid, see Alfred Anscombe, “Prégent de Bidoux’s Raid in Sussex in 1514 and the Cotton MS. Augustus I (i), 18,” in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 8 (London, 1914), 103–111. See also Great Harry’s Navy: How Henry VIII Gave England Sea Power by Geoffrey Moorhouse (London: Phoenix, 2005), 116. 30 David Beers Quinn, New American World: A Documentary History of North America to 1612, Vol. 4, Newfoundland from Fishery to Colony. Northwest Passage Searches (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 193. Quinn further explains that Lok’s accounts “in State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth (SP 12) were given at length as an appendix to Richard Collinson, ed., The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher (London, Hakluyt Society, 1867), and these were reprinted in V. Stefansson and E. MacCaskill, eds., The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, 2 vols (London, 1938)” (193). As Quinn argues, “No systematic attempt has been made to present the material in the PRO E164 series, or to print in full the accounts for the third voyage in the Huntington Library (See G.B. Parks, ‘New material on the third voyage,’ Huntington Library Quarterly, II, 59–65)” (193). The essay by George B. Parks that Quinn is referencing is fully cited as follows: Parks, “The Two Versions of Settle’s Frobisher Narrative,” Huntington Library Quarterly 2, no. 1 (October 1938): 59–65. 31 Ibid., 193. 32 Ibid., 193.

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Lok’s records provide not only the wages for Purdye but also those of other trumpeters aboard: paid to Richard Purdye trumpeter, for ij monthes wages .li. 3. 6. 8. & more s. 13. 4. payd before hand he was highered the .j. may at 33. 4d … Paid for trompeters passed in shippe by Carte

li

s

d

4

0

0

0

10

033

Comparatively, Purdye’s £4 wage was nearly double the payment to Frobisher’s other mariners in the accounts from the Public Record Office (hereafter, PRO). For the same pay period, mariners Robarte Garrat (Robert Garret) and William Denye received £2 13s 4d. Purdye is also the only named musician in the records for Frobisher’s 1576 voyage, making him not only the highest paid musician but also the most prominent in the expedition. Purdye may have been stationed on the Gabriel, captained by Christopher Hall. The other, the Michael, was captained by Matthew Kinderslye.34 One of Purdye’s responsibilities as trumpeter was to sound the horn when spotting approaching ships or, once docked, alerting the crew of approaching people (in this case, Inuit). His role was important during this first voyage, as Frobisher and his crew were unfamiliar with the terrain and Inuit people of present-day Greenland and Baffin Island. It was likely Purdye who first sounded the approach of the Inuit. Frobisher presented the Inuit with trinkets to gawk at (“belles, looking glasses, and other toyes”) and traded these for animal skins.35 Shortly after the exchange of trinkets, five of Frobisher’s men took a boat and left sight of the Gabriel, ignoring the advice of their captain.36 It was Purdye’s job to sound the horn, while another member shot a gun, and loud bells were rung to get their attention.37 33 Ibid., 197–198. 34 See Quinn, New American World, 201n1. 35 George Best, A true discourse of the three Voyages of discouerie, for the finding of a passage to Cathaya, by the Northwest, vnder the conduct of Martin Frobisher Generall: Before which as a necessary Preface is prefixed a twofolde discourse, conteining certaine reaons to proue all partes of a World habitate. Penned by Master George Best, a Gentleman employed in the same voyages, in America Part I, vol. 12 of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, ed. Edmund Goldsmid. (Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889), 139. This episode is also recounted in Collinson, Three Voyages, 73. 36 Ibid., 139. The capture and Purdye’s role are also discussed in Woodfield, English Musicians, 105. 37 Ibid., 138–139.

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In addition to signalling, Purdye played for honorific rituals, which likely included the naming of Mount Warwick. This event during Frobisher’s second Passage voyage in 1577 was, Woodfield argues, “the first significant English ritual … enacted in the New World.”38 This “signif icant ritual” aimed to secure English ownership of the island while honouring the Earl of Warwick, Lord Ambrose Dudley (1530–1590), one of the principal backers of the first expedition who contributed a sum of £50 to the voyage.39 During the ceremony, Purdye would have played to provide the proper solemn mood. On 18 July 1577, Frobisher landed on Hall’s Island (named for Christopher Hall, who captained the Gabriel during the first voyage), and he ordered his company to climb with him to the highest point on the mount. On 20 July 1577, after they reached the top, Frobisher had an official ceremony in the christening of the mount, with solemn trumpet playing and a moment of prayer: And leauing his boates here with sufficient guarde we passed vp into the countrey about two English miles, and recouered the toppe of a high hill, on the top whereof our men made a Columne or Crosse of stones heaped vp of a good heigth togither in good sort, and solemnly sounded a Trumpet, and saide certaine prayers kneeling about the Ensigne, and honoured the place by the name of Mount Warwicke, in remembrance of the Right Honorable the Lord Ambrose Dudley Earle of Warwicke, whose noble mind and good countenance in this, as in all other good actions, gaue great encouragement and good furthérance. 40

Frobisher tasked his trumpeters to sound their horns to project England’s dominance in claiming the land, while also honouring the dead during prayer. The “solemnly” mood conveys a eulogistic scene, and the men showed proper respect and gratitude. However, this was also a moment of triumph and celebration, as Frobisher was grateful to not only have reached new territories but was encouraged to keep going forward to find the China route. In her discussion of John Blanke, Kaufmann describes the power of trumpets during such ceremonial occasions, explaining that they were played “to mark power, status, military might, and even divine power.”41 38 Woodfield, English Musicians, 118. 39 Derek Wilson, Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester 1533–1588 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981), 164. 40 Ibid., 148. 41 Kaufmann, Black Tudors, 10.

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By christening the mountain with a “Crosse of stones” and saying prayer after the trumpet sounded, Frobisher was indeed invoking “divine power” by asserting what he viewed as a godly task. The solemn trumpet playing may also have been to mourn those voyagers whose lives were lost during the expedition. Not long after the naming of Mount Warwick, the Inuit on Hall’s Island made their presence known. According to the voyage account by George Best, Frobisher’s men “espied certaine countrey people on the top of Mount Warwick with a flag wafting vs backe againe and making great noise with cries like the mowing of Buls seeming greatly desirous of conference with vs.”42 Frobisher called upon his trumpeters to answer their bull-sounding calls in an attempt to meet them: The Generall being therewith better acquainted, answered them againe with the like cries, whereat and with the noise of our trumpets they seemed greatly to reioice, skipping, laughing, and dancing for ioy. And hereupon we made signes vnto them, holding vp two fingers, coming two of our men to go apart from our companies, whereby they might do the like. 43

The Inuit expressed interest in contacting the English and, as Best states, holding “conference” with them. Though the English may have otherwise been viewed as threatening, the Inuit’s embrace of their newcomers is not surprising. As Clara Sherley-Appel and John D. Bonvillian explain in their research on Inuit signs and communication during this encounter, the low population density of Baffin Island and few instances of intertribal interaction meant that “the inhabitants of the region have little contact with one another.”44 Moreover, there are “few records of intertribal contact between Baffin Island Inuit and their mainland counterparts,” making communication between the Inuit and others few and far between. 45 As a result of this isolation, the Inuit may have been glad—though cautious—to first encounter the English. Still, Frobisher’s early voyages to present day Greenland and Baffin Island were fraught with animosity, in part because 42 Best, A true discourse, 149. 43 Ibid., 149. 44 Clara Sherley-Appel and John D. Bonvillian, “Manual Signs and Gestures of the Inuit of Baffin Island: Observations during the Three Voyages Led by Martin Frobisher,” in Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity, ed. H-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. Murray (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 172. 45 Ibid., 172.

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of the lingual and cultural barriers between the English and Inuit. This made Purdye’s role invaluable as a communicator, as well as a performer, over the course of their journey. John Brewer Trumpeter for Francis Drake, 1577–1580, and Queen Elizabeth I, 1582–1589 John Brewer was the trumpeter aboard the Pelican, renamed the Golden Hind, during Drake’s circumnavigation (1577–1580). He came recommended by the Lord High Chancellor and Queen’s favourite Christopher Hatton, who he was serving prior to the voyage. 46 Brewer is notable not only for his role on the circumnavigation but for being a trusted communicator and ascending to court trumpeter several years after Drake’s return to England. On the voyage, Brewer was susceptible to weather-related danger. Chaplain Francis Fletcher’s voyaging journal includes an anecdote involving Brewer when the Hind was still passing through the Straits of Magellan. The account describes Brewer being struck by a rope while sounding his horn on the poop: before our going to land, wee had a strange and sodaine accident, for John Brewer, our trumpeter, standing upon the poope, sounding his trumpett, being now as great a calme as it had been a storme, without anny wind to moove or shake a silken thredd, most strangely a rope was so tossed and violently hurled against his body that it cast his body over into the sea, with that strength that tenn men with all their powers could not have don more to a block of his weight … many ropes were cast round about him and upon him some, but he could not catch hold of anny one at all to help himselfe, till he called one by name to cast one to him, which no sooner was done, but he received it, and was saved at the last pinch, or as it were, at the end of all hope. 47

The incident highlights the occupational hazards of trumpeters on the poop, given the intensity of the winds and the possibility of being tossed over. Fletcher’s account emphasizes not only the strength of the winds but also their unpredictability. The weather itself was “calme,” and “without 46 Harry Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 83, 108. 47 Francis Fletcher, The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, ed. William Sandys Wright Vaux, Vol. 16 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1854), 81.

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anny wind to moove or shake a silken thredd,” until apparently a sudden gust caused one of the ropes to knock Brewer off the poop entirely. Even men with experience sensing wind patterns would not have been able to predict every occurrence. Yet even with its hazards, the poop was nonetheless the most effective and predictable place for Brewer to sound his trumpet. Trumpeters’ positions made them an easy target for wind, lightning, or gunf ire, but they were also positioned to deliver signals of welcome. On the poop, trumpeters would sound “fanfares during the embarkation of visitors of rank.”48 Trumpeters thus had the unique—but mostly thankless—task of delivering proper fanfare, in a similar manner as a court musician (which Brewer would become). But, along with certain courtly tasks, Brewer was the most vulnerable musician aboard the Hind, and during his time at sea he was also witness to oceanic disasters. Fletcher’s account names Brewer as a witness of the loss of the Marigold, which was wrecked during a catastrophic storm in 1578. 49 As not only a trumpeter but also a key lookout on the Hind, Brewer saw from an aerial view the devastating event: The storme being so outrageous and furious, the bark Marigold, wherein Edward Bright, one of the accusers of Thomas Doubty, was captayne, with 28 soules, were swallowed up with the horrible and unmercifull waves, or rather mountains of the sea, which chanced in the second watch of the night, wherein myself and John Brewer, our trumpeter, being in watch, did heare their fearfull cryes, when the hand of God came upon them.50

Brewer, “hear[ing] their fearfull cryes,” would have sent a distress signal with his horn, though in this case it would have done little good if the incoming “mountains of the sea” muffled the sound of the trumpet and thwarted any rescue attempts. Watching the devastation while stationed at the poop, Brewer was also in a precarious position, likely being beaten by wind and waves. As Fletcher’s account reveals, the drowned Edward Bright (a carpenter aboard ship) had also been involved in one of the most notorious incidents on the Hind while the ship passed through the Straits of Magellan on 22 June 1578. At San Julián, Drake ordered the execution 48 Woodfield, English Musicians, 54. 49 A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 1485–1714, ed. Andrew Ashbee, David Lasocki, Peter Holman, and Fiona Kisby (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2008), 1: cxcii. 50 Fletcher, World Encompassed, 79.

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of Thomas Doughty, who was alleged to have conspired mutiny against Drake. Among the named accusers of Doughty, in addition to Bright, was Brewer.51 Brewer was also noted to be a person whom Drake could trust with delivering important information. When the fleet arrived and anchored at the bay at Plymouth Harbour, Drake told the other sailors not to land because of the plague spreading in London.52 Despite this, Kelsey notes, “Drake’s wife, Mary, came to the ship, as did the mayor Plymouth,” so Drake “sent John Brewer to London with information about their voyage.”53 Since Brewer “was Hatton’s man,” he “could be trusted with confidential business,” Kelsey reasons.54 Brewer was Drake’s prime communicator, though the commander also put the young trumpeter into harm’s way by sending him directly into disease-ridden London to spread the news. Perhaps due to the many near-fatal incidents during his time at sea, Brewer’s life after returning from the circumnavigation was mostly spent on land. After Brewer ended his service with Drake in 1580, the year the Hind returned to England, he may have spent the next year trying to get work on other voyages while also making plans to become a court performer. A recommendation from Hatton could have helped him secure the post. In addition to being “Hatton’s man,” the fame accompanying Drake’s successful circumnavigation may have also contributed to Brewer’s success as a musician. Brewer was appointed as a court trumpeter on 3 April 1581, taking the place of John Peaches, receiving 16d per day when he began his office.55 Later that year, according to David Lasocki’s brief biographical entry, a “‘John Brewer of Bristowe’ married Agnes, a daughter of the Court trumpeter John Winckes, at St Lawrence Jewry on 10 Oct 1581.”56 However, Brewer’s salary was redistributed to various people following his marriage, including his father-in-law, John Winckes, and a Nicholas Watts.57 John’s marriage to the daughter of another royal trumpeter ensured a strong 51 Woodfield, English Musicians, 53. 52 Kelsey, Queen’s Pirate, 211. 53 Ibid., 211. Kelsey cites the Spanish ambassador Bernardino de Mendoza’s letter to the King of Spain, 16 October 1580. See Kelsey, 211n23. 54 Ibid., 211. 55 Ashbee, Lasocki, Holman, and Kisby, Biographical Dictionary, 1: cxcii. 56 Ibid., cxcii. 57 Ibid. Lasocki’s entry reads: “In the will of William Lindsey, dated 21 Sep 1582, Lindsey notes that his ‘fellow John Brewer’ owes him £18 10s. On 30 Sep 1582 Brewer signed a receipt for a quarter’s wages due to his father-in-law John Winckes* and is called ‘his son’ in the document. He was paid to Christmas 1588, but from Christmas 1587 he received only 8d a day, the other 8d being allocated to Nicholas Watts.”

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familial bond between court performers, and the union may have been more for practicality in preserving a familial line of musicians. On 20 August 1582, Brewer was granted a “Warrant for livery” as a trumpeter for Queen Elizabeth.58 As a court trumpeter, he remained in the company of other musicians, including two other seafaring players, John Smith (trumpeter) and Thomas Kinge (drummer). Brewer is included in the Lord Chamberlain’s livery accounts as one of Elizabeth’s trumpeters in entries from 1582 to 1589.59 It is not indicated whether he only had a seven-year contract, or if he left for other employment or retirement, or if he died sometime after Michaelmas 1589, which is the last time he is mentioned in court records. Brewer’s career move from shipboard trumpeter to court trumpeter is notable but not entirely uncommon. Sometimes, musicians began their careers serving captains on major expeditions and later served the court, while others began as court musicians and joined voyages later in their careers. This seems to have happened for Brewer’s comrade, trumpeter John Smith. A trumpeter named “John Smith” is listed in the Lord Chamberlain’s livery accounts for 7 June 1638: “Warrant for a sea livery for John Smith, one of his Majesty’s trumpeters appointed to go to sea in his Majesty’s great ship called the Souveraigne, and for his man.”60 Since the Carolinian trumpeter named “John Smith” was included in livery accounts fifty years after Elizabeth’s trumpeter “John Smith,” Charles I’s court trumpeter “John Smith” may have been a relative or direct descendant, if not the earlier Smith. In any case, the Carolinian court trumpeter Smith was granted a sea livery to board the Souveraigne, which not only included wages for himself but also for his unnamed servant aboard ship. Tege Caroe, John Vobs, Robert Wood (d. 1582), Ambrose Harrisson, Christopher Jackson, and John Rawlyns Trumpeters for Edward Fenton, 1582 Several sources discuss this group of trumpeters on Edward Fenton’s failed 1582 voyage to China. A personnel list is provided in a manuscript held in the British Library, Cotton, Otho. EVIII, fol. 151, recording the Council discussions held on 20 March 1582.61 The manuscript lists “iii mewsitiones” in the flagship 58 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 201. 59 Ibid., 31–36. 60 Ibid., 100. L. C. Vol. 739, p. 260. 61 Woodfield, English Musicians, 7.

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Galleon, captained by Fenton, and “ii mewsitiones” in the Edward Bonaventure, captained by Luke Ward.62 A total of 200 men were projected to be aboard both ships.63 However, there were three trumpeters aboard each ship, as documented by the chaplain of the voyage, Richard Maddox, whose journal provides a detailed and anecdotally rich account of shipboard life.64 The Galleon trumpeters were Christopher (Cristofer) Jackson, John Rawlyns, and Ambrose (Ambrosie) Harrison. The trumpeters on the Edward Bonaventure were Tege Caroe, John Vobs, and Robert Wood.65 One of the voyagers on the Edward, John Walker, recorded Wood’s death on 23 July 1582, most likely due to sickness after Fenton’s crew experienced foul weather: “[Mon.] The 23 we bore of from the coste of Guinea, but continually we had greate showers of rayne and the ayre verye dystemperate. This nyghte one Roberte [Wood] a trumpeter dyed.”66 Robert Wood may have also been a relation to Simon Wood, musician on Fenton’s voyage aboard the Galleon Leicester. William Porter (d. 1677) Trumpeter in Ordinary for Charles I, 1641–1649; Pentioner Trumpeter for Charles II, 1661–1677; East India Company Trumpeter for James Bonnell, 1675–1677 Some trumpeters like John Brewer began their careers at sea and later became court musicians. Others began playing at court and did not venture to sea until later in life, or, in the case of pentioner trumpeter William Porter, the end. Porter’s life as a musician was punctuated by great successes and setbacks, like when his career stalled for eleven years following Charles I’s execution in 1649. Although it is not known what happened to Porter and his cohort of trumpeters during the Interregnum (1649–1660), there are no known records of his employment from 1649 to 1661. His court position and loyalty to Charles likely barred him from playing, granted he was neither imprisoned nor exiled during this time. Porter was sworn in as a trumpeter in ordinary for Charles I on 16 December 1641.67 He was likely in his teens or twenties when he began his service, having lived another thirty-six years. For the next eight years after 62 Ibid., 7. 63 Ibid., 7. 64 See Elizabeth Story Donno, An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls (London: Hakluyt Society, 1976). 65 See the crew list in Madox’s diary, reprinted in Donno, Elizabethan in 1582, 125. 66 “Appendix II: The Diary of John Walker: 1582–83,” in Donno, Elizabethan in 1582, 300. 67 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 109.

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his swearing in, Porter, along with six other trumpeters, served Charles through the English Civil War (1642–1651). Following the years of the Cromwell Protectorate and the ascension of Charles II to the throne in 1660, Charles I’s musicians were paid in full for their devotedness. For the rest of their lives, beginning in 1661, these seven trumpeters continued to receive yearly pensions of £19 17s. 8d.68 They are designated as “pentioner trumpeters” in the Lord Chamberlain’s court records, having received yearly payments “as a pension for their services done to his late Majesty of blessed memory.”69 And yet Charles II already had his own large consort of trumpeters and musicians, so it is possible the pentioner trumpeters were simply given a yearly pension and not expected to play at court.70 There could have been some exceptions, however, as larger formal events may have required additional players. In addition to Porter, the other pentioner trumpeters included Robert Ramsey, Thomas Cresswell, George Bosgrove, Samuel Markland, Henry Peacock, and George Porter, who was likely a relative (perhaps a brother or cousin) of William.71 In the court records for 26 June 1665, an additional amount of “10/– [was] paid to Mary Porter, for her husband, George Porter” and another “10/– to Prudence Porter, for her husband William Porter, trumpeter to the late King.”72 Porter joined the East India Company’s 1675 voyage on the Loyal Eagle, also called the Eagle, commanded by Captain James Bonnell. The following entry appears in the court records for 7 December: 1675, December 7. Letter of assignment from William Porter, one of the pentioner trumpeters of his Majesty, now bound out to sea to the East Indies in the good ship called the Loyall Eagle, appointing his daughter, Prudence Porter, his true and lawful attorney.73

Though not much is recorded about Porter’s station, he most likely joined the expedition as a trumpeter. In any case, he had his daughter Prudence (named after his wife) serve as his “true and lawful attorney,” and she likely took receipt of his final pension payment in 1577 in addition to being in charge of his estate and financial matters during the two years her father was at sea. 68 Ibid., 134. 69 Ibid., 157. 70 Ibid., 109–110. 71 Ibid., 134. 72 Ibid., 181. 73 Ibid., 296. According to LaFontaine, the document appears in the Lord Chamberlain’s records, vol. 198, p. 118d.

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There is some correspondence on the events of the Eagle during its journey, including letters recording the EIC’s arrival at Fort St. George (1676): The Faulcon and Surratt Merchant arrived from Metchlepatam, haveing binn eight dayes in their passage. Upon the Faulcons comeing into the roade, Captain Bonnell in the Eagle struck his Flagg and tooke it downe from the maine topp, and afterwards put it upon the fore top; Captain Stafford tooke his from the foretop and put it on the maine top, according to the Honourable Companyes orders to them upon my leaveing the Fleet. STREYNSHAM MASTER74

One of the few documents mentioning Porter is a letter signed from both Captain Bonnell and his purser, John Bonne, which was kept in the court records for 17 September 1677. As the letter states, Porter’s health deteriorated over the course of the voyage, so much that the Company left him at Saint Helena in June to recover: 1677, September 17. Certificate dated “Ratclif, the 17th of 7ber 1677.” “That Mr. William Porter, late trumpeter of the Loyall Eagle, being very sick, was left at the Island of St. Helena behind the shipp, in order for the recovery of his health, the 5th of June last past.” Signed by James Bounell, commander, and John Bonne, purser.75

While it is not known how long Porter stayed on the island before he died, he is not mentioned in subsequent court accounts after his last pension payment was given in 1577. He may have died shortly after the Company departed Saint Helena, or he recovered briefly and lived the remainder of his life on the island. Gervase Price Sergeant Trumpeter for Charles II, 1660–1687 Gervase Price is notable in the history of English musicians, primarily because he was the f irst Sergeant Trumpeter of Charles II’s reign and the first individual to be given the title after the Interregnum. Although 74 Indian Records Series: The Diaries of Streynsham Master, 1675–1680 And Other Contemporary Papers Relating Thereto, Vol. 2, The First and Second “Memorialls,” 1679–1680, ed. Sir Richard Carnac Temple (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1911), 120. 75 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 323.

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Robert Bucholz claims this title lasted from 1660 (Gervase Price) to 1837 (T.L. Parker), the position itself had existed since the reign of Edward VI, and the f irst musician to be named Sergeant Trumpeter was Benedict Browne, who served the role from 1546 to 1565.76 Browne was replaced as Sergeant with trumpeter Stephen Medcalf in 1566 during Elizabeth I’s reign.77 The Sergeant Trumpeter, Bucholz explains, “regulated not only the trumpeters in ordinary, but all trumpets, fifes, and drums in the country as a whole.”78 In addition to Price’s salary of £100 per annum and a livery payment of £75 14s 3 ½d, this position was held “for life under Charles II, during pleasure thereafter.”79 Price’s tenure also required him to attend royal voyages. Price had a uniquely advantageous position in Charles’s court, as well as at sea. Price was first appointed “Yeoman of the Bowes and Günnes” in 1660, and following this “unblushing sinecure,” he was named “Serjeant-Trumpeter at £100 a year, plus licence fees and other perquisites.”80 These “perquisites,” included “fees for performance at court ceremonials,” as well as an additional £60 for the “breeding and instructing of boies.”81 Price was a court favourite of Charles and had been previously exiled with him; his cushy positions, therefore, were rewards for his allegiance to the king during the years of the Cromwell protectorate.82 In fact, historians doubt Price was a professional performer at all.83 In December 1660, for instance, he was “furnished with a mace,” Farmer points out, which “may point to his being unable to handle a trumpet professionally,” or it “may have been the result of importunation on his part so as to give him 76 Robert Bucholz, “Chamber List 4” (2005). The Database of Court Officers 1660–1837, 7, https:// ecommons.luc.edu/courtoff icers/7. Accessed 2 September 2020. See also LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 6–20. It should be noted that although Browne was the f irst Sergeant Trumpeter in name, a “Peter” was named “marshall of the kyng’s trumpets” during the records of musicians for the coronation for Henry VIII. This “Peter” may have been Peter de Casa Noua, a trumpeter named in earlier records in the Lord Chamberlain’s livery accounts. See King’s Musick, 4. In any case, the “marshall” is likely to have been a similar position to that of the Sergeant Trumpeter, which Henry Farmer argues in his essay, “The King’s Trumpets,” 185. 77 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 19–20. 78 Bucholz, “Chamber List 4.” 79 Ibid. 80 Farmer, “The King’s Trumpets,” 187. 81 Bucholz, “Chamber List 4.” 82 Farmer, “The King’s Trumpets,” 187. 83 Ibid., 187. In his description of the sergeant-trumpeter, Bucholz corroborates Farmer’s claim by stating, “Often, the hold was not a musician.” This point is also argued in John Harley, “Music at the English Court in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Music & Letters 50 (1969): 340.

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the appearance of a Serjeant-at-Arms.”84 This position, at least for Price, was as much about appearance as it was about musicianship. Regardless, Price commanded Charles’s trumpeters and other naval musicians, distributed their pay, and accompanied the royal family during overseas voyages with his men in tow. Although Price seems to have been a kind of overseer, he was also responsible for the raising and education of young musicians, at least in an official capacity. Not having played himself, Price could have tasked experienced trumpeters and naval musicians to instruct the young boy players, which would have afforded him time to attend to other court matters and functions. Price was involved in several significant voyages only a year after Charles was crowned. In the Lord Chamberlain’s records for 22 November 1661, an entry also claims Price was “authorized to impresse and take up for his Majesty’s service, George Chetham, trumpeter, to be employed in the voyage to Tangier.”85 The entry dated 27 November 1661 states there was “Warrant for the payment of £80 to Gervase Price, serjeant trumpettor, to be paid by him to the six trumpettors appointed by his Majesty of this voyage to Portugal to attend upon the Queen’s Majesty.”86 In these voyages early in Charles’s reign, musicians were part of the royal train “attend[ing] upon” Princess Catherine of Braganza of Portugal, who would be crowned Queen Catherine of Braganza the following year. With his marriage to Princess Catherine, Charles attained both Tangier and Bombay.87 These territories could have, in theory, helped alleviate Charles’s sizable debt accrued after taking the throne.88 On the Tangier voyage, Price was in charge of hiring and training the trumpeter Chetham, whereas on the Portuguese voyage Price paid and commanded six trumpeters to be introduced to Princess Catherine. Though Price himself most likely did not play for Catherine nor her royal train upon 84 Farmer, “The King’s Trumpets,” 187. 85 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 139. 86 Ibid., 139. 87 See the most recently updated entry by Henry Roseveare in the Encyclopedia Britannica: “Princess Catherine of Braganza of Portugal in 1662 brought him the possession of Tangier and Bombay …”. See Henry Godfrey Roseveare. “Charles II,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 February 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-II-king-of-Great-Britain-and-Ireland. Accessed 2 September 2020. 88 Robert Bucholz and Newton Key, Early Modern England 1485–1714: A Narrative History (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 287. Bucholz and Key explain in detail that “Charles II had money problems” (287). They follow this up the explanation that, “[d]espite what Parliament saw as a very generous financial package, he was constantly in debt. There were many reasons for this. First, Parliament refused to pay off his or his father’s obligations from before ethe Restoration: as a result, Charles II began his reign over £900,000 in the red” (287).

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arrival, he would have presented himself as sergeant-at-arms. He may also have selected the musical repertoire for the six trumpeters, in addition to giving the trumpeters their cues, whether to signal Charles’s arrival or to play when presented. Though we know little about Price’s personal life while he served as Sergeant Trumpeter, he was married to a Martha Price (1641–1678). Martha seems to have made a significant impression, or least enough to warrant a monument in her name in Westminster Abbey. In an eighteenth-century account of the monument, it states: “This Monument is adorned with Festoons of Fruit, Flowers, and Foliage; and the Inscription shews that she was Wife to Gervase Price, Esq; who served King Charles II. In the double Capacity of Serjeant-Trumpeter, and Gentleman of the Bows.”89 As the inscription further reads, Martha died 7 April 1678 at age 37.90 Mathias Shore and the Shore Family of Musicians Sergeant Trumpeter for Charles II, 1687–1700 Unlike Price, Mathias Shore, the second Sergeant Trumpeter for Charles, had been a professional musician prior to his appointment. Mathias was appointed “a trumpet-in-ordinary” for Charles on 5 January 1682 and also to James II in the summer of 1685, following Charles’s death.91 Shore, who was depicted in artistic portrayals of James II’s coronation and also of William and Mary’s, had been employed by James prior to his coronation, “playing trumpet on the Gloucester” and surviving its shipwreck on 6 May 1682, Smithers and Tarr explain.92 Shore succeeded Price on 5 October 1687 as “Sergeant of the trumpeters, drummers, and fifes in ordinary” and attended James II and William III on a number of continental voyages, during which he was not only in charge of the naval musicians but may have played, as well.93 Mathias Shore was also part of a family of musicians, mainly trumpeters. Many of the Shore relatives served under Mathias while he was Sergeant Trumpeter, and they also played on royal voyages. The Lord Chamberlain’s 89 An Historical Description of Westminster-Abbey, its Monuments and Curiosities (London: J. Newberry, 1767), 151. 90 Ibid., 151. 91 Don Smithers and Edward H. Tarr. “Shore Family.” Grove Music Online. 2001. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/ gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000045733. Accessed April 8, 2021. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid.

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livery accounts for 10 December 1690, for example, detail the Shores’ attendance for King William’s Holland voyage, certifying “that Matthias Shore, sergeant trumpeter, William Bull, Thomas Barwell, Jervas Walker, John Stephenson, John Shore, William Shore, are appointed trumpeters to attend His Majesty in his voyage unto Holland … and are to have the liveries provided for the voyage.”94 Mathias’s relative, William, was likely added shortly before the voyage, as James Truelove’s name is crossed out and replaced with “William Shore” in the Lord Chamberlain’s record of Trumpeters.95 Mathias was initially paid lower wages than his predecessor, Price, having earned £80 per annum as Sergeant Trumpeter. However, his salary rose to the same yearly wages as Price. As Henry Cart de LaFontaine notes, “In the time of William and Mary he attend[ed] the King to Holland at the wages of 10d. a day,” as well as “£60 for his livery for 1692.”96 Finally, in 1697, Mathias earned “£100 per annum,” equalling Price’s pay.97 According to LaFontaine: “It is said that the daughter of Mathias married the celebrated actor, Colley Cibber.”98 It seems appropriate for a family of musicians to marry into a family of actors, but regardless, the Shores were some of the most well-connected and affluent families among English performers. Based on the list of the Shore Sergeant Trumpeters, we can conclude that succeeding positions were passed to the next of kin who were trumpeters in ordinary, at least until the end of the Shore family line. Mathias’s relative, William Shore, was clearly a talented and experienced trumpeter, as he spent several decades in service to the monarchy before his official post as Sergeant Trumpeter, after Mathias. William is first mentioned in court livery accounts beginning in 1679 as a trumpeter-in-ordinary. Despite William’s talent and years of service, it is impossible to overlook the nepotism allowing the Shore family musicians certain privileges. This not only included playing the Holland voyage, but more importantly, passing on the title of Sergeant Trumpeter. Immediately following Mathias’s departure, William served as Sergeant Trumpeter from 1700 to 1708, and the title was passed to William’s next of kin, the trumpeter John Shore, who served the post from 1708 to 1753.99 There was a fourth member of the Shore family briefly mentioned in the court livery accounts—another John Shore, musician (1676–1677). As 94 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 402. 95 Ibid., 401. 96 Ibid., 464. 97 Ibid., 464. 98 Ibid., 464. 99 Bucholz, “Chamber List 4.”

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LaFontaine notes, he was “appointed one of the musicians in ordinary under William and Mary” and is thus distinguished from the trumpeter John Shore who first appears in the livery records in 1688.100 The privileges allowed to the Shore family reveal a culture shaped by nepotism. However, Sergeant Trumpeters who succeeded John Shore did not share surnames until the position ended in 1837, after Thomas John Harper retired from service.101 Thomas Kinge Drummer for Queen Elizabeth I, 1584–1599, and the East India Company, 1617 Drummers and fifes are rarely mentioned by name, or at all, in voyaging accounts and payment logs. However, some drummers like Thomas Kinge were named in both court livery accounts and East India Company documents. Drummers and fife players like John Mangridge, Davy Lake, and Robert Pemberton, who attended Fenton on his 1582 China voyage, are mentioned only in the crew list. As a result, the biographical entries for this section provide an incomplete portrait of the seagoing lives of these lower-ranking naval musicians. This group not only had to be ready to signal, but they needed to possess multiple talents to prove their worth on voyages. Like trumpeters, drummers and fifes were more vulnerable than other sailors and naval men, not only because of their positions aboard ship, but also because of the potential dangers their sounds attracted. These men were also part of a close community, not only with their fellow naval musicians but also with other performers, aspiring and professional. The drummer Thomas Kinge was a court musician who served Queen Elizabeth from 1584 to 1599, and according to the “Account for livery for Thomas Kinge, one of the drum-players,” he took the place of one “Thomas Shugwell, deceased.”102 During his time as a court “drum-plaier,” Kinge served with several other naval musicians who had voyaging experience, including trumpeter John Brewer, who had previously circumnavigated the globe with Francis Drake. Unlike Brewer, Kinge seems to have gained his sea legs after his years of service at court, as there is a “Thomas Kinge” mentioned the 1617 Court Minutes concerning the East India Company and an aspiring shipboard singer. 100 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 464. 101 Bucholz, “Chamber List 4.” See also LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 464. 102 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 32.

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The minutes for 14 October 1617 mention a failed petition by a “singing man” to join the Company’s musicians, and the Court’s reasons are clear enough: “A peticion was red, preferd by Thomas Kinge, brought upp a singinge man, butt cannott playe upon any instrument, not able to labour, not fit for the Companies service. And therefore dismist.”103 With the Company’s “growing reputation as an employer of musicians,” explains Woodfield, they “began to attract applications from individuals anxious to find jobs.”104 However, by 1617 the Company had a strict policy of only employing musicians who could play instruments; shipboard performers had to demonstrate a range of talents and skills to prove themselves worthy of service. Although Kinge evidently recommended the “singinge man,” vouching for his abilities, the Company would not admit any musician who could not play. Multi-instrument Naval Musicians A musician who could play more than one instrument was valuable aboard ship. First, it would mean hiring and paying one fewer musician; secondly, it allowed for the continuation of specific instrumental signals and performances if a musician died. Naval musicians stationed at the poop were some of the most vulnerable. There were multiple voyages carrying multi-skilled instrumentalists, including Edward Fenton’s 1582 voyage, which carried kettledrummer John Mangridge, as well as Davy Lake and Robert Pemberton, who both played drum and fife.105 Mangridge’s task to carry the kettledrum likely increased his strength and could have made him more skilled in shipboard labour. Lake and Pemberton’s talents for both drum and fife were similarly helpful; if one of them was unable to perform their duties, the other could take over. Additionally, physical strength and the ability to perform manual labour were also highly valued, as naval musicians were tasked with other shipboard duties in addition to playing.106 *** The trumpeters, drummers, and fifes who played at sea had their own unique stories and experiences, but they were part of a community who understood 103 India Off ice Library, East India Company, Court Book IV, 35. Qtd in Woodf ield, English Musicians, 25. 104 Woodfield, English Musicians, 25. 105 Donno, Elizabethan in 1582, 125. 106 Woodfield, English Musicians, 25.

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their hardships and played with them for a diverse set of occasions. Some played at court; some played with family members; some played with musicians they had worked with on previous voyages. Some witnessed disasters, and many others never made it back to England. They were comprised of the young, the experienced, the affluent, and the ordinary. The seafaring middle class stretched wide, and naval musicians were proof.

Bibliography Andrews, Kenneth R. The Last Voyage of Drake and Hawkins. Hakluyt Society Second Series 142. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Anscombe, Alfred. “Prégent de Bidoux’s Raid in Sussex in 1514 and the Cotton MS. Augustus I (i), 18.” In Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 8, 103–111. London, 1914. Ashbee, Andrew, David Lasocki, Peter Holman, and Fiona Kisby, eds. A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 1485–1714. 2 vols. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2008. Best, George. A true discourse of the three Voyages of discouerie, for the finding of a passage to Cathaya, by the Northwest, vnder the conduct of Martin Frobisher Generall: Before which as a necessary Preface is prefixed a twofolde discourse, conteining certaine reasons to proue all partes of a World habitate. Penned by Master George Best, a Gentleman employed in the same voyages. In America Part I, vol. 12 of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, edited by Edmund Goldsmid, 113–224. Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889. Bucholz, Rober. “Chamber List 4.” The Database of Court Officers 1660–1837. 7. 2005. https://ecommons.luc.edu/courtofficers/7. Accessed 2 September 2020. Bucholz, Robert, and Newton Key. Early Modern England 1485–1714: A Narrative History. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Collinson, Richard. The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher. Hakluyt Society 38. London: Hakluyt Society, 1867. Donno, Elizabeth Story. An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls. London: Hakluyt Society, 1976. Hall, Edward. Chronicle; Containing the History of England. London, 1548. Harley, John. “Music at the English Court in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Music & Letters 50 (1969): 332–351. An Historical Description of Westminster-Abbey, its Monuments and Curiosities. London: J. Newberry, 1767. LaFontaine, Henry Cart de, ed. The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460–1700). London: Novello, 1909.

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Kaufmann, Miranda. Black Tudors: The Untold Story. London: Oneworld, 2017. Kelsey, Harry. Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. Farmer, Henry George. “The King’s Trumpets.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 43, no. 176 (December 1965): 184–189. Fletcher. Francis. The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake. Edited by William Sandys Wright Vaux. Series 1. Vol. 16. London: Hakluyt Society, 1854. Loades, David. “Howard, Sir Edward (1476/7–1513).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/13891. Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783. New York: Dover, 1987. Marlowe, Anthony. The Hector Journal of Anthony Marlowe. In The Third Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607–10, by Richmond Barbour, 75–147. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. McGee, Timothy J. “The Fall of the Noble Minstrel: The Sixteenth-Century Minstrel in a Musical Context.” Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 7 (1995): 98–120. Moorhouse, Geoffrey. Great Harry’s Navy: How Henry VIII Gave England Sea Power. London: Phoenix, 2005. Nichols, Phillip. “Sir Francis Drake Revived.” In Sir Francis Drake Revived, in Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Spanish Main, 1569–1580, edited by Irene A. Wright, Hakluyt Series 2, No. 71, 245–326. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932. Ohajuru, Michael. “John Blanke, Henry VIII’s Black Trumpeter, Petitions for a Back Dated Pay Increase.” the many-headed monster: the history of ‘the unruly sort of clowns’ and other early modern peculiarities (blog). 27 July 2015. https:// manyheadedmonster.com/2015/07/27/john-blanke-henry-viiis-black-trumpeterpetitions-for-a-back-dated-pay-increase-2/. Accessed 30 Feb 2020. Parks, George B. “The Two Versions of Settle’s Frobisher Narrative.” Huntington Library Quarterly 2, no. 1 (October 1938): 59–65. Quinn, David Beers. New American World: A Documentary History of North America to 1612. 5 vols. Vol. 4, Newfoundland from Fishery to Colony. Northwest Passage Searches. New York: Arno Press, 1979. Roseveare. Henry Godfrey. “Charles II.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-II-king-of-GreatBritain-and-Ireland. Accessed 2 September 2020. Sherley-Appel, Clara, and John D. Bonvillian, “Manual Signs and Gestures of the Inuit of Baffin Island: Observations during the Three Voyages Led by Martin Frobisher.” In Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity, edited by H-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. Murray, 159–181. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

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Smithers, Don, and Edward H. Tar. “Shore Family.” Grove Music Online. 2001. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/ gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000045733. Accessed 8 April 2021. Temple, Sir Richard Carnac, ed. Indian Records Series: The Diaries of Streynsham Master, 1675–1680 and Other Contemporary Papers Relating Thereto. 2 vols. Vol. 2, The First and Second “Memorialls,” 1679–1680. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1911. Wilson, Derek. Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester 1533–1588. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981. Woodf ield, Ian. English Musicians in the Age of Exploration. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995. Wright, Irene A., ed. Further English Voyages to the Spanish Main. Hakluyt Society Second Series 99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932.

2.

Civilian Performers, Professional and Amateur Abstract Chapter Two focuses on civilian performers, both amateur and professional. Civilian performers had to adapt to various audiences, playing spaces, and performance conditions, and they were envoys of English culture when presented to dignitaries and esteemed guests. Chapter Two discusses formal and professional players, as well as crew members who engaged in more leisurely shipboard recreation, including instrumental performance, singing, and play-acting. Keywords: civilian performers, shipboard music, maritime theatre, ship playing, singing, dancing

Civilian performers on early English voyages are the broadest and most diverse group in the two major categories I have distinguished in this book. Unlike naval musicians, civilian performers were generally not given an official title, nor were they enlisted like trumpeters, drummers, and fifes to join English commanders in sea combat. Still, civilian performers journeyed on many kinds of expeditions: exploring, greeting, pirating, trading, and colonizing. On voyages from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, there were singers, dancers, instrumental musicians, and actors aboard. Though there were mainly amateur singers, dancers, and actors, the instrumental musicians aboard ships, including “still” or string players and woodwinds, were mainly professional performers, indicated if listed as “Musician” in the logbook. Amateur performers recruited for shipboard labour or sea trading played during recreational times, while professional musicians were recruited from a pool and played during meals, recreations, religious rituals, and other formal occasions.1 According to Woodfield, they were hired “as part 1 Ian Woodf ield, English Musicians in the Age of Exploration (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), 14.

Seth, J., Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages: The Lives of the Seafaring Middle Class. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725415_ch02

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of the retinue of the leader of the expedition.”2 Additionally, once musicians were selected for a voyage, they “could expect to receive payment for the journey to the port of embarkation and during any delays caused by bad weather.”3 Most professional musicians served on the flagship, the largest and most accommodating for performance. 4 Few records of professional musicians’ payment have survived, including those of Simon Wood, who joined the Drake–Hawkins voyage in 1595 to the West Indies. The Exchequer Accounts lists his pay at “xijd per diem.”5 Other musicians may have also received “xijd,” or twelve pence, per day during the voyage. This voyage also had an unprecedented nineteen-strong consort of musicians. However, the fleet was also quite large, comprising of twenty-seven ships and 2,500 total personnel.6 On an average voyage, there would have been between two and six professional musicians. Like naval musicians, professional musicians were in a midway between the upper-class officers of the voyage and the lower-ranking ship-hands who performed recreationally (or engaged in shipboard work songs to expedite labour). Also like some naval musicians, many professional string, wind, and horn players were formerly or preparing to become court performers. A ripple effect of this connection to the court was the emergence of courtly manners and customs above those of rugged seafarers. This put these men in a social category distinct from other members of the voyage, yet still in a class where they demonstrated their subservience to the captain, in a manner mimicking a court musician serving a monarch. Additionally, musicians and performers served crucial roles as intermediaries between cultures. Not only were they in an in-between position aboard ship, but they were often needed to communicate between English and foreign contacts to establish their location, help negotiate friendly terms, 2 Ibid., 14. 3 Ibid., 14. 4 Woodfield explains that “[o]nly in unusual circumstances (such as those that saved the life of Gilbert in 1583) would the musicians travel on another ship”; ibid., 14. 5 Qtd in Woodfield, English Musicians, 14. See also Kenneth R. Andrews, The Last Voyage of Drake and Hawkins, Hakluyt Society Second Series 142 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 67. Woodfield suggests that Drake “may have been using [Wood] as a recruiting agent,” based on an additional entry in the Exchequer Accounts listing a payment to another man “to serve in his place at the Tower” (14). Wood could have served as a wait, given that he was paid as a replacement. 6 See Andrews, Drake and Hawkins, 35 (for fleet list), 44 (for total numbers of personnel) and 67 (for Exchequer list). The Exchequer accounts state that there were boarding victuals for 1,060 men (67), but Andrews places the total number of personnel at 2,500, which included about 1,500 sailors and 1,000 soldiers (44).

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assert power or authority, assist in diplomatic introductions, and perform during times of commercial bargaining and trading. This chapter will discuss and distinguish the professional and amateur players aboard ship, beginning with instrumental performers, followed by singers, dancers, and dramatic performers. Most biographical information on dramatic shipboard actors comes from the accounts of pirates in the early eighteenth century, but there are sources suggesting shipboard dramatic performance occurred earlier, during the first voyages of the East India Company at the beginning of the seventeenth century. As I will show through descriptions of each type of performer and select biographical notes on key players, these men had to be adept in a range of skills, audiences, and performance spaces. This argument branches from Alison Games’s argument in The Web of Empire. In it, Games seeks to “provide a vantage point on English expansion … by focusing on the overlapping and intersecting worlds of commercial and colonial enterprises and the transoceanic global perspectives men derived through travels from one ocean basin to another.”7 “These men,” she argues, “reveal the cosmopolitanism and adaptability central to English success overseas in the first decades of English expansion beyond western Europe.”8 When we think about the work of maritime musicians and performers, it is useful to consider not only the “adaptability” of serving as envoys of English culture, politics, and economy, but also of adapting to shifting performance spaces. Even the very notion of performance shifted as these performers played for different kinds of audiences for purposes both conventional and unconventional. Naval musicians performed for reasons beyond their assigned task (signalling), but civilian performers also had to adapt to situations outside of their formal training. Civilian performers fused courtly manners with shipboard sensibility to play for nearly any kind of audience required. When I use the phrase, “shipboard sensibility,” I am referring to the kind of ebb and flow of shipboard life. On the one hand, shipboard workers knew they would engage suddenly with surrounding elements both natural and manmade, expecting the unexpected. Yet there was also a schedule and a routine to shipboard work, made easier with vocal music like shantying. Shanties were essential aboard ship by keeping time and using rhythm to complete tasks in a timely fashion. Ship-labourers also sang during periods of diversion. We might distinguish instrumental music from shantying, 7 Alison Games, The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in Age of Expansion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 7. 8 Ibid., 7.

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but string and wind players also helped ease the time aboard ship and performed during times of work and play, on deck and ashore. It is easy to dismiss instrumental players as engaging exclusively in diversion during the voyage, but the music was their work, and they had to adapt to a challenging oceanic stage.

String and Wind Players Instrumental Music aboard Ship In addition to trumpets and drums, there were also string and wind instruments aboard ship. The players were listed on crew logs as “Musicians” and did not have a formal rank or distinction beyond this.9 In her work on maritime subcultures, Cheryl Fury notes several examples of instruments recovered from early expeditions: Among the items salvaged from Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose, were a wooden shawm, three tabor pipes, several small reed pipes, a wooden whistle, and the remnants of two stringed instruments. […] The appreciation of music was shared by pirates as well. In the early 1580s a pirate crew kept a young boy with a fiddle on board their ship “to make them merye.” While affection for music was in no way particular to seamen, it is apparent that much of their subculture, that is, their language, songs, and dances, evolved from their unique work environment.10

The Mary Rose contained pipes, drums, woodwind, and string instruments of different sizes and for multiple purposes. The wooden shawm (a long woodwind instrument similar to the oboe) and the stringed instruments were likely used formal occasions. Conversely, the tabor pipes (performed with a drum) were used by court jesters during this time, indicating casual recreation.11 On 9 There was not, for instance, a civilian role equivalent to Sergeant Trumpeter. Rather, musicians reported directly to the Captain. On some occasions, there were section leaders, like William Low, the leader of the fiddlers on Hawkins’s 1567 voyage. See the subsection in this chapter, “William Low, Fiddler for John Hawkins, 1567–1568.” 10 Cheryl A. Fury, Tides in the Affairs of Men: The Social History of Elizabethan Seamen, 1580–1603 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 87–88. 11 See Maurice Hunt, “Purging the Jesting Spirit in The Tempest,” Comparative Drama 45, no. 4 (2011): 430–431. Hunt points to: “A stage direction in the only early text of The Tempest, that of the 1623 Folio,” which “indicates that ‘Ariell plaies [a] tune on a Tabor and Pipe’” (430). Hunt further

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the Mary Rose, there could have been, in theory, nine different players, each with their own instrument. There may have also been fewer woodwind players, each with their own set of tabor pipes, who could have also carried the other reed pipes and whistle. This would have saved the court additional sea livery costs. Fury’s reference to a sixteenth-century pirate crew with a young boy fiddler corresponds with instances of piratical music-making in the “golden age” of piracy, a period beginning in the late seventeenth-century. Stringed instruments like fiddles were commonly played, and when a pirate crew did not possess a naturally gifted performer, they would steal one from another ship, as I will explain further at the end of this chapter. String, or “Still,” Musicians String performers had a powerful role in bringing English culture to shipboard life. They played at mealtimes, as well as periods of formal and informal recreation. For Drake and his contemporaries in the sixteenth century, viol and string players provided a pleasurable atmosphere while keeping with the courtly aesthetics ship captains mandated. Harry Kelsey explains, for example, how Captain John Hawkins “insisted on setting a good table, with fine linen and silver, and dishes cooked to his liking.”12 Hawkins also enjoyed music aboard ship; a “group of five or six musicians on board the Jesus of Lubeck played fiddle music for the enjoyment of the captain and crew.”13 Hawkins’s successor, Drake, also enjoyed having string musicians aboard. A group of viol players on Drake’s circumnavigation performed for Spanish captives. One of the most informative sources on Drake’s string players comes from Don Francisco de Zárate, cousin of the duke of Medina Sidonia and hidalgo aboard the Spanish cargo ship, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, nicknamed the Cacafuego (“shitfire”). Drake captured the Cacafuego on 1 March 1579 and captured Zárate and other dignitaries aboard. In his letter, Zárate describes how music was integrated into Drake’s daily schedule, noting how “music is played at his dinner and supper.”14 According to Zárate, explains that, “Traditionally, the professional jester made his music by holding a drumstick in his left hand to beat a tabor, a small drum, slung from a strap over his shoulder while holding a tabor pipe in his right, upon which he whistled” (430). 12 Harry Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 32. 13 Ibid., 32. 14 Don Francisco de Zárate, “Don Francisco de Zarate’s Letter,” in The World Encompassed and Analogous Contemporary Documents Concerning Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation of the World, ed. N.M. Penzer (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1969), 219.

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Drake had a consort of “nine or ten gentlemen” at his disposal on the Hind.15 Another version of Zárate’s letter published by Zelia Nuttall includes an excerpt claiming that Drake “dines and sups to the music of viols.”16 Drake emulated royalty with his large consort close at hand. His stringed musicians’ music communicated shipboard activities; the sound of strings indicated the captain’s dinner, as well as other rituals, like the singing of psalms. Hautboys (Oboists) Hautboys, or oboists, were distinguished from fife players, who were recruited for naval battle and had official titles. Oboists at sea were generally listed as “musicians,” as opposed to the court oboists, who were listed as “hautboys” in the Lord Chamberlain’s livery accounts. A “hautboy” could either refer to the player or the instrument itself. While we have some information on court hautboys such as Thomas Chaville and John Ober, there is little information on sea oboists in voyaging documents, who are often listed anonymously.17 Even court hautboys who played at sea are often listed anonymously, thought there is still some information on them. There is, for example, an entry in the court’s records noting on December 1690 of a Warrant to pay to Dr. Nicholas Staggins, master of the musick, the sum of £120, whereof £100 is to be paid by him to the five hautboys, £20 to each of them, appointed to attend the king his intended voyage into Holland, and the other £20 to Williame Browne, chamber-keeper to the musick, for his expenses in his voyage to Holland.18

Browne, the “chamber-keeper to the musick,” was likely the holder of music in the Privy Chamber, but even he was assigned to attend the other musicians in Holland.19 There are also East India Company records containing wills 15 Ibid., 219. 16 “Testimony of Francisco de Zarate,” in New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580, ed. Zelia Nuttall, Hakluyt Society Second Series 34 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1914), 207. 17 Henry Cart de LaFontaine, ed., The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460–1700) (London: Novello, 1909), 420: “1695, June 10: Warrant to pay Thomas Chaville and John Ober, for themselves and four other hautboys, the sum of £6 :10. To each of them amount to £39, for playing four times at the practice and once at the ball on his Majesty’s birthday at night the 4 November 1694. L.C. Vol. 776, p. 316.” 18 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 403. According to LaFontaine, this entry is reprinted from the Lord Chamberlain’s accounts, Vol. 724. 19 On a minor note, while Browne’s title bears similarities to Staggins’s, the “master of the music” was a far superior role, as Staggins was essentially in charge of all the king’s court musicians.

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mentioning hautboys and other musical instruments. A Mr. Hanslopp in 1710 left “one Old Hoboy” and “A Jappan Flute” in his will, while a Mr. Shelton in 1725 left “2 Musick Books,” as well as three flutes “and a Hautboy.”20 Even if Mr. Hanslopp and Mr. Shelton were not professional musicians, they were at least in possession of these instruments at one time and may have played them on EIC voyages. The “Jappan Flute,” for instance, could have been acquired on a trading expedition.

Singers, Dancers, and Dramatic Performers In times of work and play, seafarers engaged in many kinds of songs, dances, and entertainments. Civilian performers played not only for diversion and labour but also for diplomatic greetings or periods of commercial bargaining with international contacts. Often, styles of performance overlapped. Singers sang with instrumental performers, and musicians played while men (and women ashore) danced. During the rare instances of shipboard play-acting, the actors may have pooled their talents to provide additional instrumental accompaniment, dancing, or singing. Professional Singers If there were professional singers aboard ship, they needed to be able to play an instrument to serve as a musician. Otherwise, they needed to have a different primary skill to board ship. This was the case for the East India Company, who denied recruitment of a “singinge man,” as EIC court books attest.21 There were sea musicians who were at one time “Quiristers” or choristers for signif icant occasions. William Chambers, for example, was a Westminster Abbey chorister in his youth and sang at Queen Elizabeth I’s funeral before going to sea with the East India Company as an instrumental musician. Trained singers like Chambers may have also sung during holidays observed during the voyage. Most singers aboard ship, however, were amateur. Their voices could be heard often as work was getting done. Andrew Ashbee highlights the fact that the English court had several “keepers” assigned to various court properties, particularly “exotic items.” See Ashbee, “Groomed for Service: Musicians in the Privy Chamber at the English Court, c.1495–1558,” Early Music 25, no. 2 (1997): 185. 20 Qtd in Woodfield, English Musicians, 248. Woodfield explains that this comes from “Volume 23 of the East India Company’s Factory Records (Miscellaneous)” (248). 21 India Office Library, Court Book IV, 35. Qtd in Woodfield, English Musicians, 25.

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Shantymen The act of call-of-response known as “shantying” was an integral part of shipboard life.22 The lead-singer of shanties was called the “shantyman,” and he served as a conductor, leading the musical parts and calling out orders to the sailors.23 In his work on shanties, Robert Young Walser explains that improvisation “was regarded as a hallmark of a good shantyman and was, in fact, a necessity in work contexts where a given task could be done in varying lengths of time depending on the energy of the crew [and the] force of the wind and/or current.”24 This skill to quickly improvise musical chants was imperative amidst the volatile working conditions aboard ship. The ‘performance’ of both work and song can only be mastered when all hands and voices cooperate. Although shanty-singers were sailors and not hired as musicians, it is helpful to distinguish them from the seafaring middle-class performers, primarily to avoid conflating both groups. Dominican friar Felix Fabri (c. 1441–1502) describes in his travel writings “mariners who sing when work is going on” as a “concert between one who sings out orders and the labourers who sing in response.”25 Fabri’s description of the shanty as a “concert” highlights how maritime culture relied on collaboration. To complete a task, there had to be a unity of individual parts, like the harmonies of a chorus. An anchor song, a variant of the shanty, was sung while sailors pulled on rope, and together they would heave in time with the rhythm of the song. The subject matter could involve any number of maritime topics: the labour of shipboard work, the exploits of a famous explorer or pirate, disastrous shipwrecks, true maids and false maids, and other stories passed down from experienced sea dogs. The rhythm and content of sea songs reflected the toils, desires, myths and histories of those who lived and laboured aboard ship. The word “shanty” is likely a corruption of the French imperative, chantez (sing), which the OED notes, and the word has several variations, including 22 More of my work on sea shanties in this chapter also appears in the chapter “Sea Music and Shipboard Performance Culture,” in The Routledge Companion to Marine and Maritime Worlds, 1450–1750, ed. Claire Jowitt, Craig Lambert, and Steve Mentz (London: Routledge, 2020), 559–579. 23 Stan Hugill, Songs of the Sea: The Tales and Tunes of Sailors and Sailing Ships (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977), 10. 24 Robert Young Walser, “‘Here We Come in a Leaky Ship!’: The Shanty Collection of James Madison Carpenter,” Folk Music Journal 7, no. 4 (1998): 475. 25 Felix Fabri, Evagatorium in Terrae Sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti peregrinationem (1494). Translation appears in Hugill, Songs of the Sea, 10. Fabri was sailing to Palestine on a Venetian galley in 1493 when he noted his observations about the singing mariners.

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“chanty” and “chantey.”26 However, Denys Thompson explains the more complicated derivation of “shanty” as a sailor’s song: The best-known and the most numerous of British work songs are the sea shanties of the merchant ships. One of the collectors, Richard Runciman Terry, derived their name from Antigua. There the shanties of West Indians were movable wooden huts, and when a move was desired they hauled away on wheels pulled by two long ropes; the shantyman mounted the roof, and sung a song with a chorus, which is the exact musical parallel to the sailors’ pull-and-haul shanty.27

The shanty itself is inextricably—and literally—tied to work, so it makes sense that the name derives from an object being pulled. As a musical form, the shanty is known for its use of repetition and rhythm, which allowed workers to effectively repeat the orders of the shantyman while applying their strength at the same time.28 Michael Pickering et al. explain that shanties “also keep close to the strict work song definition in being first and foremost connected with the repetitive heaving and hauling work aboard wooden sailing ships.”29 There are many variations of shanties based on different tasks. As the name implies, sailors pulling up the anchor would perform an “anchor song”; a “bowline shanty” would be sung while pulling the bowline; a “hauling song” is performed when hauling rope or other heavy cargo, and so on.30 Minstrels, Amateur Performers, and Dancers Minstrels were part of Tudor court entertainments in the sixteenth century and had a wide range of talents—singing, dancing, juggling, storytelling, and playing music—so it seems relevant to speculate whether they also 26 “shanty | chant(e)y, n.2,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, www.oed.com/view/Entry/177492. Accessed 1 July 2018. 27 Denys Thompson, The Uses of Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 30. 28 Thompson, Uses of Poetry, 31. 29 Michael Pickering, Emma Robertson, and Marek Korczynski, “Rhythms of Labour: The British Work Song Revisited,” Folk Music Journal 9, no. 2 (2007): 232. 30 See also Stan Hugill, Sea Shanties (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1980), 118–19, and 1–43 for the different subgenres of shanties. See also William Main Doerflinger, Shantymen and Shantyboys: Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman (New York: Macmillan, 1951), and Roger D. Abrahams, Deep the Water, Shallow the Shore: Three Essays on Shantying in the West Indies (Austin and London: University of Texas Press for the American Folklore Society, 1974).

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had a place on England’s early voyages.31 King Henry VII’s minstrels, for instance, played for various occasions and were assigned to members of the court. The court livery accounts for 1603/4 name the sole “Minstrel” John Buntaunce, but beneath him on the entry for the same year were “Mynstrells to the prince” and “Mynstrells to the Quene of Scottis.”32 During Henry VIII’s reign, there were also “Mynstrells of the Chambre.”33 Would these court minstrel positions have a place aboard royal vessels, or in seafaring culture, more generally? To be blunt, they may have been excluded from early voyages with the rise of amateur players in London and the disappearance of court minstrels on record after Henry VIII, during which time English navigation also expanded. In his study of the decline of the minstrel player, McGee argues, “Even at the best of times the music provided by minstrels was only a small part of the general musical landscape of England.”34 Perhaps so. Despite being multi-talented, minstrels were still distinguished from instrumental musicians (trumpets, sackbuts, and viols), as well as court singers (for example, the “Chyldryn of the Chapel,” or the child choristers), and their roles in court quickly diminished after Henry VIII’s rule. McGee lists genres of popular music from the medieval era to the seventeenth century that competed with minstrel music: “sacred music for worship; the heraldic sounds, ‘piping,’ and ‘serenading’ of the shawm band; music performed by amateurs in a variety of settings; and ‘theatre music,’ which could involve sacred and/or secular music, and professional and/or amateur musicians, depending on the type of work and the place of performance.”35 Considering the competitive musical landscape, minstrels could have attended several early voyages during Henry VIII’s reign, but they were quickly replaced with formally trained musicians and performers, including “The king’s majesty’s musicians,” who first appear in court documents in 1546, shortly after the coronation of Edward VI.36 Amateur performers were an integral part of England’s musical landscape, and many were part of the same pool of shipboard workers on English voyages to far-reaching places. When the East India Company needed to entertain representatives of the Japanese court at their trade factory in 31 “minstrel, n,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, www.oed.com/view/Entry/118957. Accessed 6 July 2021. 32 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 2. 33 Ibid., 3. 34 Timothy J. McGee, “The Fall of the Noble Minstrel: The Sixteenth-Century Minstrel in a Musical Context,” Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 7 (1995): 99. 35 Ibid., 99. 36 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 5–7.

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1613, the factory manager Richard Cocks recruited a “Master Hownsell” and a carpenter to give an impromptu orchestral performance.37 Amateur singers and dancers were also major players on English voyages, and some used family ties to give them a stage to perform. Letters from royal Spanish captives aboard the Hind during Drake’s circumnavigation describe the commander’s cousin, John Drake, dancing to sacred music. Captain Drake scheduled time on the flagship for men to pray and sing psalms with musical accompaniment, and he permitted his cousin, John, to “dance in the English fashion” at the conclusion of a shipboard worship service, according to the captured Factor of Guatalco, Nuño de Silva.38 Other mentions of dancing by amateur performers include records of Davis’s voyage to the Northwest Passage in 1585, when the members of Captain Bruton’s Moonshine danced for Inuk members on Gilbert’s Sound, according to the account by John Jane.39 Dramatic Performers and Shipboard Theatre Culture In addition to music, there are pieces of evidence suggesting shipboard and cross-cultural dramatic performance occurred during the formative years of English exploration and trade. Yet the few fragments offering possible evidence are either tenuous or lacking. As a result, scholars often put shipboard theatrics in a speculative space. As more evidence is uncovered, there is a stronger argument for playwriting and performing as historical shipboard recreation and diplomatic gestures. The worlds of voyaging and theatre have always had strong tethers. The Tempest is famously believed to have been inspired by John Rolfe’s shipwreck on Bermuda while travelling to Virginia in 1609. 40 Having lost his wife and island-born daughter, Bermuda, Rolfe built a ship and sailed to the American mainland, where he later met and married Pocahontas. Rolfe’s 37 John Saris, The Voyage of Captain John Saris to Japan, 1613, ed. Ernest M. Satow (London: Hakluyt Society, 1900), 159. This episode will be covered at length in Chapter Five. 38 Francisco Gomez Rengifo, “Deposition of the Factor of Guatulco,” in New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580, trans. Zelia Nuttall, Hakluyt Society Second Series 34 (London: Council of the Hakluyt Society, 1932; reprinted by Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967), 355. 39 Jane’s account at Gilbert’s sound reads: “When they came vnto vs, we caused our Musicians to play, our selves dancing, and making many signes of friendship.” See John Jane, The first voyage of M. Iohn Dauis, vndertaken in Iune 1585. for the discouerie of the Northwest passage, Written by M. Iohn Ianes Marchant, sometimes seruant to the worshipfull Master William Sanderson, in America Part I, vol. 12 of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, ed. Edmund Goldsmid (Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889), 228. 40 This account is published in Sylvester Jordain’s A Discovery of the Barmudas (London, 1610).

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daughter, Bermuda, born out of the sea, shows affinities to Shakespeare’s young sea-tossed heroines, Marina and Miranda. Caliban may have been inspired by Frobisher’s Inuk captive, Calichough, whom he brought with him on the return voyage from Baffin Island in 1577. In Twelfth Night and Macbeth, Shakespeare references the Tiger, a well-known ship employed for many expeditions, including John Davis’s last voyage in 1605.41 In The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597/1602), Falstaff describes Mistress Page as “a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty” (1.3.59). 42 He devises to be “cheaters” to her and Mistress Ford, declaring, “They shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade them both” (1.3.60–61). John Fletcher’s play, The Island Princess (c. 1619–1621), similarly draws from the travels of European voyagers and their encounters with dignities and Indigenous peoples. 43 Those who voyaged or had roles in maritime matters also engaged with theatrical culture. Walter Mountfort was an East India Company clerk before writing The Launching of the Mary, or the Seaman’s Honest Wife (1632), which has three plots concerning sea trade and its effects. 44 There is also Nicholas Ling, EIC charter member, victual supplier for the Red Dragon flagship for the EIC’s third voyage (1607–1610), and publisher of the Hamlet Q1 and Q2. Richmond Barbour has made a serviceable case for why Ling could have supplied the Dragon with copies of the Hamlet quartos. This would corroborate the claim in reprinted excerpts allegedly 41 In her biography of Davis, Margaret Larnder explains: “Off the east coast of Malaya the Tiger took a Japanese pirate ship in custody and, on 27 Dec. 1605, during a search of this ship, the pirates broke loose, killing Davis as their first victim.” See Margaret Montgomery Larnder, “DAVIS, JOHN (d. 1605),” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. 1. 1966/1979. http://www.biographi. ca/en/bio/davis_john_1605_1E.html. Accessed 1 July 2020. 42 William Shakespeare, The Oxford Shakespeare, ed. Gary Taylor and Stanley Wells, 2nd ed. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). All subsequent references to Shakespeare come from this version. 43 The sources for Fletcher’s play include two navigation books: Le Seigneur de Bellan’s L’histoire de Ruis Dias, et de Quixaire, Princess des Moloques (1615), and the work from which Bellan’s novella is based, Bartolemé Leonardo de Argensola’s Conquista de las Islas Molucas (1609). 44 In the first plot, the East India Company (whom Mountfort served as clerk) justifies its aims of global trade to the Lord Admiral; in the second, a sailor’s wife maintains her chastity in spite of a series of attempted suitors; in the third, a band of shipyard labourers finish working on the titular ship, the Mary, while engaging in antics and celebrations. Ann Christensen’s excellent chapter on this play in Separation Scenes: Domestic Drama in Early Modern England (Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 2017) shows “how global traffic challenges the marriage-handbook ideals for marital cohabitation, household order, and, thereby, patriarchy” (178–179). Christensen also engages with early modern mercantilist writer Thomas Mun’s Discourse of Trade, from England unto the East- Indies (1621), to show how “Mountfort grounds part of his play in this discourse promoting global trade” (179).

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by Captain William Keeling that the EIC performed Hamlet in 1607 when the Company was docked in Sierra Leone. 45 I have since argued for the possibility of the Hamlet claim, and Chapter Five will pursue this mystery in detail. 46 As victual supplier, Ling could have ensured copies of the play were stored in the ship’s library. In addition to Barbour, Graham Holderness has also considered the Dragon’s connection with Ling to be important evidence for the EIC Shakespeare performances. 47 Bernhard Klein and Barbour posit in their most recent reading of the event that if the Company did perform Shakespeare, it was “fortuitous and incidental, not essential to the episodic drama of voyaging at this early stage in Britain’s bid for global access.”48 Still, they argue that documents of this cross-cultural encounter “command critical attention in their own right” by providing key testaments to the nature of England’s cross-cultural encounters. 49 There are also several accounts from the EIC’s sixth voyage (1610–1613) purporting a play (or more generally, “playing”) occurred. The sixth voyage began 1 April 1610, and included three ships: The Trade’s Increase, the 45 Ambrose Gunthio, “A Running Commentary on the Hamlet of 1603,” European Magazine (December 1825): 347. See also Taylor’s commentary on the Keeling journal in Travel Knowledge: European “Discoveries” in the Early Modern Period, ed. Ivo Kamps and Jyotsna Singh (New York, Palgrave, 2001), 220. 46 James Seth, “Maritime Performance Culture and the Possible Staging of Hamlet in Sierra Leone,” Shakespeare en devenir – Les Cahiers de La Licorne 12 (2017). 47 Barbour writes that Ling “could have supplied [the Company] with books as well as foodstuffs.” See Richmond Barbour, The Third Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607–10 (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 27. In Tales from Shakespeare: Creative Collisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), Graham Holderness goes as far as to insert a mention of Ling in his creative retelling of the Keeling journal. This mention not only justifies the possibility of including copies of the texts with foodstuffs, but it also provides an explanation for why a rough, reductive version of the play would have been optimal for use aboard the Dragon. He writes (as Keeling) on 30 September: “Perusing the play-text by the light of a lantern in my cabin, I noticed first that it was published by Nicholas Ling, whose name I remembered as a founding member of the East India Company. Then my suspicions about the performance were indeed confirmed. The play we had seen performed on the deck of the Dragon was not the play as Master Shakespeare had written it” (54). Holderness’s reimaging of the events shows why this version of the play matters. As a text with fewer scenes, simpler language, and a clear absence of the style and wit of the Q2 and Folio versions, the Q1 would have not only have been readily available if Ling saw to it that they were supplied, but it would have been a much more appropriate version to give at sea. 48 Richmond Barbour and Bernhard Klein, “Drama at Sea: A New Look at Shakespeare on the Dragon, 1607–08,” in Travel and Drama in Early Modern England: The Journeying Play, ed. Claire Jowitt and David McInnis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 163. 49 Ibid.

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Peppercorn, and a third ship, the Darling.50 The voyage was commanded by Sir Henry Middleton (d. 1613) and the company returned on 4 February 1613. The sixth voyage documents are, to some degree, less problematic in their authorship than those from the EIC’s third voyage (1607–1610), as there are not multiple versions of extracts with inconsistent dates. In addition to two mentions of ‘playing’ aboard ship, there is also a dramatic extract within the EIC’s sixth voyage documents.51 The journals of Captain Nicholas Downton of the Peppercorn and “master mate” Thomas Love discuss “playing,” aboard ship on 18 June 1610. If there was a play performed, it would have likely taken place on the Trade’s Increase, since, as the flagship, it would have afforded more space for the Company to entertain. Moreover, Love was transferred from the Peppercorn to the Trade’s Increase on the day the Company had their “play.” Love’s journal records the voyage from 4 April 1610 to 4 December 1611 and only gives a short mention of the play, which followed a “great feast.” Clements Markham includes the following entry from Love in his compilation of EIC journals and documents: The Trade’s Increase, on board of which was Sir Henry Middleton, General of the fleet, the Peppercorn, and the Darling, sailed from the Downs on the 4th of April 1610, and having on the passage put into “Saffee in Barbery”, arrived at the Cape de Verde Islands, from whence they departed on the 16th of May. On the 18th of June, Thomas Love was transferred from the Peppercorn to the Trade’s Increase. On that day “we had a great feast and a play playd.”52

What few details are recorded about the dinner and play are also consistent with other accounts of English maritime play-culture. Drake insisted music 50 This date is provided by Elizabeth Baigent in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, but Downton’s journal lists the date they sailed from the Downs on 4 April 1610. See Baigent, “Downton, Nicholas (bap. 1561, d. 1615), Sea Captain,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 September 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/7986. 51 Clements Markham, The voyages of Sir James Lancaster, Kt., to the East Indies (New York: Burt Franklin, 1877), 153. There are two accounts from the voyage mentioning a play occurring on 18 June 1610, when the Company was outbound off West Africa. One of these accounts comes from the journal of Nicholas Downton (1561?–1615), who commanded the Peppercorn, with Middleton commanding the flagship, the Trade’s Increase. The second account comes from the journal of Thomas Love, a “master mate” who, incidentally, was transferred from the Peppercorn to the Trade’s Increase on the same day that the play was performed. The details of the play itself are few, but it may have been performed on the Trade’s Increase, as Middleton had invited Downton aboard ship to feast and “to play,” as Downton’s journal explains. The excerpt is reprinted in Markham, Sir James Lancaster, 147. 52 Markham, Sir James Lancaster, 147.

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be played for every meal during his circumnavigation. During the EIC’s third voyage, an occasion for “kind entertainment” on September 1607 accompanied a fish dinner in Sierra Leone with African dignitary Lucas Fernandez. Unlike these examples, however, the accounts of the sixth voyage play does not indicate whether it was given for a foreign representative or a guest aboard ship. We can tentatively determine the shipboard playing on 18 June was not given for diplomatic purposes but was meant to raise the spirits of those aboard the Trade’s Increase. The passage from Downton’s journal on 18 June is much vaguer than Love’s, as “playing” could indicate a shipboard drama, a musical performance, or another kind of “play.”53 The act of “playing” opens up the possibilities for the kinds of diversion staged on the Trade’s Increase. As Barbour and Klein stress, “in both cases the ‘play’ in question has neither title nor author and could reference a variety of ludic practices ranging from background entertainment to mimed shows, staged readings, extempore retellings, even card-playing or perhaps dancing.”54 So even with the knowledge that some sort of “play” occurred, more evidence is still needed to clarify if “play” even referred to a dramatic performance. Benjamin Greene, a factor with the EIC who accompanied Henry Middleton on the journey from 1610–1613 to Surat, is also connected to shipboard theatre culture. A dramatic document in Greene’s voyaging journal invites inquiry on the practice of shipboard play-acting during the sixth voyage. Claire Jowitt and David McInnis state that Greene kept a journal from 15 November 1610 to 22 December 1612. The diary, preserved in the India Office Marine Department Records, has been disbound and the individual leaves remounted; the final leaf (which may be in a different hand) contains a dramatic fragment consisting of dramatis personae, a stage direction, and two lines of dialogue.55 There are questions of authorship regarding this unusual fragment. Since the leaf in Greene’s journal is in a different hand, it is unlikely Greene himself authored the text. However, it is possible the true author boarded the Trade’s Increase and was acquainted with Greene. As Jowitt and McInnis point out, the dialogue and characters in the fragment do not dramatize the writer’s 53 Downton’s entry in Markham’s edition reads: “On the 18th June, Sir Henry Middleton invited Captain Downton ‘to dinner and to play’; on the same day, Thomas Love a master mate was, by the General’s command, transferred from the Peppercorn to the Trade’s Increase” (153). 54 Barbour and Klein, “Drama at Sea,” 156. 55 Claire Jowitt and David McInnis, “Introduction: Understanding the Early Modern Journeying Play,” in Travel and Drama in Early Modern England: The Journeying Play, ed. Claire Jowitt and David McInnis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 10.

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voyaging experiences.56 Thus, the document may not have been written by a merchant or voyager. First mentioned in William Foster’s article, “Forged Shakespeariana,” Greene’s play fragment was an afterthought to the central discussion of the EIC Hamlet performance on the Dragon.57 With the Keeling extract, Foster presents the fragment in Greene’s journal as further proof of the EIC’s interests in theatre. Given the lack of material in the fragment itself, proving its authorship is a sizable task, though some early critics have suggested it was forged by John Payne Collier, who is also linked to the Keeling journal extract published by one “Ambrose Gunthio.” Whoever wrote the play fragment in Greene’s journal was clearly inspired by late sixteenth-century prose romances. The source materials from the fragment include Marcos Martínez’s Espejo de príncipes y caballeros (1587, trans. 1598/1601), and Emanuel Ford’s Parismus, the Renoumed Prince of Bohemia (1598), and Parismenos (1599).58 As explained in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Lost Plays Database, Greene’s journal “records events from 15 November 1610 to 22 December 1612, at which point Middleton’s ships had reached Bantam on Java”; oddly, Greene was reported dead in Bantam at age twenty-seven but was still apparently alive in February 1613.59 There are no other references to the play-in-progress (generally referred to as Corus) beyond the fragment in Greene’s journal.60 Pirate Actors in the Golden Age There are also at least two noted instances of shipboard play-acting in the General History. example of play-acting comes from the account of Captain Samuel Bellamy (1689–1717), wherein the crew on the quarterdeck staged a memorable performance of The Royal Pyrate, a play written by 56 Ibid., 10. 57 William Foster, “Forged Shakespeariana,” Notes and Queries 134 (1900): 42. 58 Jowitt and McInnis, “Introduction,” 10. 59 “Fragment of a play in the Journal of Benjamin Greene,” Lost Plays Database, ed. David McInnis and Misha Teramura. https://lostplays.folger.edu/Fragment_of_a_play_in_the_Journal_of_Benjamin_Greene. See also John Jourdain, The Journal of John Jourdain, 1608–1617, ed. William Foster (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1905), 236, 243. Accessed 1 Sept 2018. 60 Still, editors and scholars suggest that this play could have been performed by amateur actors aboard ship during the sixth voyage. Martin Wiggins and Catherine Teresa Richardson, for instance, invite the possibility that EIC members performed aboard the Darling. See British Drama 1533–1642, A Catalogue: Volume VI: 1609–1616, ed. Martin Wiggins and Catherine Richardson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 303. I would also consider the Trade’s Increase as an ideal performance setting, though, given that the play was staged there on 18 June, this being a significant occasion that also required Downton’s attendance.

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an actor-turned-pirate and alleged ancestor of Jack Bunce.61 Pirates also engaged in more satirical forms of dramatic performance. One notable example is described in the General History’s biography of Captain Anstis, who served under Captains Roberts and Howell Davis and commanded the Good Fortune. Anstis’s men diverted themselves by staging mock-trials of piracy, assuming roles of Judge, Defendant, Attorney, and the like.62 The trials, as the General History describes them, were subversive forms of shipboard entertainment satirizing the English court’s prejudice against pirates. The dialogue of the trial in the General History portrays English court figures as antagonistic caricatures who dehumanize the piratical defendants, though the pirates on trial are not spared from criticism, either.

Select Biographies Some musicians and performers aboard ship had previously been or were preparing to become court performers. This was the case for trumpeter William Porter and drummer Thomas Kinge, who both successfully transitioned from court music-making to sea playing. William Chambers sang at court as part of the Westminster Abbey choir before working for the East India Company. Ship performers engaged in courtly rituals and projected manners and customs of the landed nobility, though they were also part of a culture of seafarers and shipboard labourers. Voyaging musicians served their captain much like they would serve a king or queen. On many voyages there was an attempt, at least, to model the schedule and atmosphere of the English court, and sea-going musicians and performers adhered to this reimagining. I will quote Andrew Ashbee’s description of how, where, and when music was given at court: Music-making at court took place largely in the “public” areas: the Guard Chamber, the Presence Chamber and the Chapel. Here, broadly speaking, trumpeters and drummers sounded alarms at appropriate moments, the playing of wind instruments was heard at meal-times and for ceremonials, and stringed instruments accompanied dancing. The Chapel was open to

61 Frederick Burwick and Manushag N. Powell, British Pirates in Print and Performance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 10. 62 Ibid., 292.

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many for worship. But we know that most members of the royal family had a particular delight in music, and skill in performing it.63

These same descriptions generously apply to the spaces and occasions where music and other performances were given aboard ship. Music-making, dancing, and other shipboard performances were often staged on deck, the ship’s “public” area; instead of a Privy Chamber, musicians might give private performances in the captain’s cabin; trumpeters and drummers sounded “at appropriate moments” and heralded the arrival of the company or captain; stringed and horned instruments played at meal-times and recreation; the ship became a “Chapel” when captains like Drake scheduled worship music.64 The ship was, in a sense, a space for the captain and the performers to instil court sensibilities. And yet there were fewer civilian musicians than naval musicians who became court performers. Trumpeters like John Brewer found a pathway to an illustrious court position, but most civilian performers listed on voyaging records do not appear in the court livery accounts, suggesting there were obstacles preventing this transition. Some musicians perished during the voyage, like “Ambrose,” who served Thomas Cavendish from 1586–7. Others, like pirate-actor Jack Spinckes, lost their ligaments mid-performance. Aside from the various dangers and occupational hazards, shipboard performers may have faced certain forms of stigma, as well. We begin the biographies of civilian musicians with William Low, who despite his boyish appearance led a crew of fiddlers on a major expedition. William Low Fiddler for John Hawkins, 1567–1568 During Hawkins’s third voyage in 1567, his crew had plenty of shipboard entertainment on the Jesus of Lubeck, courtesy of professional fiddle players. The leader of the fiddles was “a tiny youth named William Low, twenty years old, though he looked like a freckle-faced boy.”65 Kelsey notes that “Low was twenty-four in 1572, though the friars where he lived thought he was 63 Ashbee, “Groomed for Service,” 188. 64 While Ashbee notes that while “Music-making would be a natural part of their life in the more intimate surroundings of the Privy Chamber,” the “off icial court musicians were not among those with free access to this room” (188). We “should therefore look closely at the names and duties of those who were ‘of the Privy Chamber’ to gain some insight into music performed there” (188). 65 Ibid., 32.

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no more than seven or eight years old.”66 Low apparently had a youthful appearance, and perhaps a diminutive stature if he was mistaken for a child by his friars. Nevertheless, Low oversaw the fiddlers aboard ship and would have likely chosen the music, disciplined his musicians, and directed them during performances. Hawkins, ever the music lover, hired many musicians for his voyages, including his last in 1595. As biographer Basil Morgan notes, “on his final voyage, [Hawkins] loaded macaroni and instruments for seventeen musicians.”67 With seventeen musicians, not to mention live sheep and pigs (which Hawkins often carried aboard voyages), his last voyage was also his loudest.68 Simon Wood Musician for Francis Drake, 1577–1580, and Edward Fenton, 1582 The diary of Richard Maddox, chaplain aboard Fenton’s Galleon, offers a multifaceted view of the daily life of shipboard musicians, including Simon Wood, a musician in Drake’s consort on the Hind during the circumnavigation. As Maddox’s entries reveal, Wood proved to be a knowledgeable and helpful member of Fenton’s 1582 voyage to China. According to the diary, Wood procured for him an effective balm when Maddox experienced rheumatism and was unable to tolerate food aboard ship: Having byn hitherto very yll and unable to brook any meat, Symon Wood gave me 3 drops of artificial oyl for 3 mornings which dryed up my rewme and did me much good and surely yt is a very exelant balme and cost a noble an ounce.69

Experienced musicians like Wood were prepared for any number of conditions and ailments aboard ship. Wood’s experience on the Hind five years 66 Kelsey, Queen’s Pirate, 32n104. Kesley’s footnote states: “There is a record of some of the furnishings left on the flagship by Hawkins in the “Relación del suceso acaecido entre el general inglés Juan de Aquins,” AGI Patronao 265, ramo II, transcribed in Rumeu de Armas, Viajes de John Hawkins, 484. See also the testimony of William Collins (Guillermo Calens), 20 November 1572, AGN Inquisición, tomo 52, fols. 68–74. … His testimony is in AGN Inquisición, tomo 56, exp. 5, fols. 73 ff.” (435). 67 Basil Morgan, “Hawkins, Sir John (1532–1595), Merchant and Naval Commander,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 September 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/12672. 68 Ibid. 69 Elizabeth Story Donno, An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls (London: Hakluyt Society, 1976), 129.

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earlier could have taught him about different balms for shipboard sicknesses, of which there were many. As Stan Hugill explains, “Damp gave [voyagers] rheumatism and allied afflictions.”70 These men were not only vulnerable to rheumatism but, with diets largely consisting of salted meat and rye bread or biscuits, were also susceptible to stomach ailments, scurvy, and other diseases related to vitamin deficiency.71 Wood is mentioned in several other entries in Maddox’s diary. He apparently told the chaplain how six whelps were cut from a shark’s “belly” and thrown back to sea. Maddox’s diary reads: “Simon Wod sayeth 4 more fel owt of his mowth in haling fro the galery to the ship and that she wil let them yn and take them owt lyk an adder.”72 Not only was Wood a communicator with Maddox on sea life, but he was also privy to Drake’s whereabouts on ship and conferred with Hawkins about these matters: At super Haukins and Wood toold that sir Fraunsis Drak was in ther det and that he had used them very il, and that he went to his cabin at 8 a clok and wind or rayn never stird. This ros of that the generaul told Haukins the last of September that sir Fraunsis sayd Ned Gilman was a better mariner than he.73

Here Maddox is referring to Drake keeping himself in his cabin, being “very il,” and did not stir despite the inclement weather. Wood is mentioned conversing with Maddox at supper, implying first that he may have had more freedoms than other lower-class mariners. If Wood did not perform at supper but was instead sharing information, it further indicates that not all shipboard musicians played at the same time, or at all meals. Maddox’s entries detail both the everyday and the unusual, the dinner table gossip and the curious sights and sounds of the voyage. Maddox’s diary shows Drake’s consort to be observant, efficient, and involved personnel aboard ship and not just dinner theatre players. In August 1595 Wood was recruited for what would be the last voyage of Captains Drake and Hawkins.74 In the Exchequer’s account for the voyage, under “Boardwages and Lodging,” there are expenses noted for “11 musicians 70 Hugill, Songs of the Sea, 8. 71 Ibid., 6–8. 72 See “The Diary of Richard Madox,” in Donno, Elizabethan in 1582, 204. 73 Ibid., 237–238. 74 Wood’s name is listed as among those receiving allowance aboard ship in the exchequer accounts for the voyage. These have been reprinted in The Last Voyage of Drake and Hawkins, ed. Andrews, 67.

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and 7 trumpeters at London and Plymouth, at 7/—a man by the week, with £11 10s 0d for apparel.”75 Under the subheading “Boardwages,” there are expenses listed for eight musicians and nine trumpeters at London and Plymouth for Hawkins’s squadron, “at 7/—a man by the week for 11 weeks.”76 Wood was evidently esteemed as a musician, having been assigned to no fewer than three known voyages between 1577 and 1596. Wood may have also been a recruiting agent. In the Exchequer accounts there is an entry right after payment to Drake’s musicians: “Simon Wood for his entertaynment and chardges by the space of ciiijxx ix daies ended the xijth of June 1595 at xijd per diem.”77 Another payment was also made to a man “to serve in his place at the Towe.”78 As Woodfield posits, if “this Simon Wood was indeed the veteran of the circumnavigation,” he would have served “some capacity at the Tower, perhaps as a wait—hence the payment for a temporary replacement.”79 As a wait, or town musician, Wood could have been a performer at the Tower, which required stand-ins on occasion. Aboard ship, Wood was not only knowledgeable with soothing balms and exciting stories, but he and others aboard were intimate with Drake’s strict personal schedule. Wood and William Hawkins, who served as Lieutenant of the Galleon in Fenton’s 1582 voyage, both stated that Drake, “went to his cabin at 8 a clok and wind or rayn never stird.”80 Drake’s insistence on ritual set the tone for how he conducted other shipboard events, including dinner, prayer, and recreation. Drake was punctual to a fault, and likely expected the same from his crew. Wood was hired on Drake’s later voyages as a musician, evidencing his competency for the commander’s high standards. Richard Clarke Musician for Francis Drake, 1577–1580 Less is known about the other two musicians whose signed names are among the other members of Drake’s consort, Richard Clarke and Thomas Meckes, who played on the circumnavigation. Any clues about Meckes’s biography are scant; like other players, he was probably young, played a viol or other stringed instrument like Clarke and Wood, and was tasked to 75 Andrews, Drake and Hawkins, 67. 76 Ibid., 67. 77 Qtd in Woodfield, English Musicians, 14. 78 Ibid., 14. 79 Ibid., 14. 80 Donno, Elizabethan in 1582, 23.

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play at Drake’s meals and the mandatory playing of the psalms. However, there is a historical document referring to a “Richard Clarke” that allows for some speculation. A Richard Clarke is mentioned in the will of Richard Granwall (d. 1607), who served as Gentleman of the Chapel Royal from 1572 to 1607.81 As his entry in A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 1485–1714 states, Granwall “was sworn into the Chapel Royal in place of Henry Aldred on 8 Apr ‘A° 14°’ [1572] (although ‘1571’ appears in the margin).”82 Granwall’s will reads: Probate: Will: PCC: Lpro, PROB 11/109, q.23, 28-2-160617; proved 12 Mar 1606/7 by executors. One of the gentlemen of his Majesty’s Chapel; sick; all estate, house and lands to nephew Richard Clarke, son of William Clarke, late of London, deceased. Executors and to oversee the will until Richard Clarke is 21: Robert Allison*, one of the gentlemen of his Majesty’s Chapel and RG’s kinsman Richard Pickering. Witnesses: R. Vaughan; John Harrison; the mark of John Nicholas. Signatures: CBCR83

Is the “nephew Richard Clarke” the same Richard Clarke who performed aboard the Golden Hind? If this is the case, did Granwall have any involvement in his nephew’s musical aspirations? Was he a significant figure in his life, considering “all estate, houses, and lands” went to him, or was he simply the closest living male relative?84 The caveat is the statement in Granwall’s will, “Executors and to oversee the will until Richard Clarke is 21”; if the will was made only shortly before Granwall’s death, the notyet-twenty-one-year-old nephew Richard may not have been born until after 1586, almost a decade after the Hind departed. If, however, there are any familial connections between Granwall and the “Richard Clarke” of the Hind, they may prove valuable in tying together musical connections 81 David Lasocki, “Richard Granwall (d. 1607). Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, 1572–1607,” in A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 1485–1714, ed. Andrew Ashbee, David Lasocki, Peter Holman, and Fiona Kisby (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2008), 1: 130. 82 Ibid., 130. 83 Ibid., 130. 84 In Lasocki’s biographical entry of Granwall, it states that Granwall was “from Cambridge” and “a friend of Thomas and Joan Tallis, both of whom mention him in their wills” (130). Granwall entered King’s College, Cambridge in 1558 “as a conduct, being paid 25s for 1 ½ terms ending at Michaelmas” and “continued there until a final 6s 9d was paid for three terms at Lady Day 1572, after which he left for London” (130). If Granwall was fourteen years old when he entered King’s College, and twenty-eight when he was sworn in as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, it is feasible that five years later, he could have a nephew old enough to serve Drake’s expedition.

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between the group of court performers of the Chapel Royal and the culture of musicianship on early English voyages. For example, John Brewer (the trumpeter on the Hind) married into a musical family. It may not be too out of reach to explore whether Granwall’s nephew was a maritime musician. James Cole, Francis Ridley, John Russel, and Robert Cornish Musicians for John Davis, 1585 James Cole, Francis Ridley, John Russel, and Robert Cornish were musicians commanded by Captain John Davis (1550–1605), who led the English expedition to f ind the Northwest Passage in 1585. This voyage began several years after Davis’s friend, Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1539–1583), was shipwrecked and drowned during his voyage to find the Passage. Davis is known for his invention, the “Davis quadrant” or backstaff, which allowed sailors to find their latitude.85 He sailed to Gilbert’s Sound on the flagship, the Sunshine, which carried twenty-three men, including the four musicians.86 There was a second ship, the Moonshine, commanded by Captain William Bruton, which carried nineteen—Bruton, the Master John Ellis, and seventeen mariners. There is little recorded about the four musicians on the Sunshine, but there is a lively account of their involvement in the voyage by John Jane, published in Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations. Jane’s account describes how the four musicians were called upon by Bruton to draw the Inuk peoples to the crew. They were instructed to play their instruments (likely string and horn) while the mariners danced and made “many signes of friendship.”87 Ambrose (d. 1587) Musician for Thomas Cavendish, 1586–1587 Captain Thomas Cavendish also kept a consort of instrumental musicians aboard ship. However, little is known about them. On Cavendish’s circumnavigation, there could have been at least four musicians, and we know at least one of their first names. Unfortunately, the one known member, named “Ambrose the musitian,” was drowned during a skirmish with the Spanish on 85 Brendan Lehane, The Northwest Passage (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1981), 36. To use the backstaff, the user adjusts an “arclike armature until it casts a shadow on the end of the instrument; the armature measured the angle of the sun above the horizon, which in turn indicate’d the ship’s latitude” (36). 86 Jane, The first voyage, 224. 87 Ibid., 228.

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2 June 1587.88 Though it is not specified what kind of instrument he played, he may have been one of the string players, the most common non-naval instrumentalists in voyaging documents. If Ambrose was a trumpeter or drummer, he would likely have been named as such. Having “the musitian” attached to Ambrose’s name suggests he was well-known among the crew, but the lack of a surname is disconcerting. There were several prominent court musicians named “Ambrose,” such as Ambrose Lupo (d. 1591), also called “Ambrose de Myllayne” in court records, who served Edward VI and Elizabeth I.89 Lupo was, of course, a different musician than the seafaring “Ambrose,” and it is not known whether the “Ambrose” who died on Cavendish’s expedition was related (though it is doubtful). William Chambers Westminster Abbey Chorister; Musician for Henry Middleton and Thomas Best, 1611–1614 William Chambers was an East India Company musician best known for deserting his Captain, Henry Middleton (1570–1613), to the Portuguese stationed in Surat during the Company’s voyage in 1611. Chambers was one of three men from Middleton’s crew taken captive, including the purser of the Red Dragon flagship, Edward Christian. The two men were captured “as they were being rowed out to the English Ships” and held at Cambay, according to letters written by Captain Ralph Standish and the journal of Captain George Best, who led the EIC’s tenth voyage in 1612.90 Although Chambers was thought to be captive, Standish’s letters claim the musician wanted to join the Portuguese and abandon ship, leaving with the other two men in a rowing boat. Chambers apparently “repented,” subsequently jumping ship again to join Captain Best when the EIC arrived in Surat in 1612.91 Eight years prior to his adventures in Surat, a “William Chambers” was singing with the Westminster Abbey Choir for Queen Elizabeth I’s funeral. It is likely the EIC musician and the young chorister are one and the same. As one of “The Quiristers of Westminster,” Chambers would have attended the Westminster Abbey Choir School as an adolescent and may have joined the EIC when he was still a teenager. As a musician for the EIC, Chambers 88 Hakluyt, Principal Navigations (London: J.M. Dent, 1589), 8: 30. 89 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 8–18. 90 The Voyage of Thomas Best to the East Indies 1612–14, ed. William Foster, Hakluyt Society Second Series 75 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1934), 109 and 241. 91 Voyage of Thomas Best, 120.

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would have played a musical instrument (see the biography on Thomas Kinge for the anecdote about the “singinge man” rejected from the Company). He probably played a stringed instrument for the EIC; otherwise, he would have been referenced as “Trumpeter,” “Drummer,” “Fife,” or even “Hautboy” (oboist). This former choir boy not only became a member of the EIC but orchestrated a desertion and survived an escape in the East Indies. Middleton wrote to Sir Thomas Smyth that on 27 or 28 September three of his crew, including one of his “musitioners,” was taken by the Portuguese.92 But Chambers was not taken; he went willingly and decided to join the Company later, when Best arrived in 1612 during the tenth EIC voyage. Standish states that the purser, Christian, escaped by “meanes of one Chambers, who went away from Sir Henrie Midletton heere att Sualley and wentt to the Portingailles, who afterwards repented (as yt should seame) of that he had formerlie done, and to fre himselff of such slavery as he lyved in, did att Cambaia both convey himselff away and likewise the pursser.”93 It is not entirely known why Chambers decided to leave Middleton and, at least temporarily, join the Portuguese. Woodfield believes he was “obviously dissatisfied with their prospects,” but it may have been caused by more than mere dissatisfaction, perhaps a mix of feelings he shared with the other two men: ambition, anger at Middleton, or reckless abandon. Chambers and Christian had different vocations, the former a shipboard entertainer and the latter an officer and record-keeper. Perhaps these middle-ranking men felt inhibited in their positions. In any case, they gambled that the Portuguese could spare them—or use them somehow—if they came willingly. Staying in one place may have seemed safer than venturing on the high seas.

Enslaved and Captive Singers and Musicians Captives and enslaved people were often retained by English sea captains to serve crucial positions like translators and guides. Francis Drake’s Black manservant aboard the Golden Hind, Diego, was captured during Drake’s encounter with the Cimarrons during his voyage to Panama in 1573.94 In 92 Foster, Voyage of Thomas Best, 241. 93 Ibid., 120. 94 As Cassander Smith explains, “Although we cannot know with any certainty Diego’s fate after Drake leaves Panama, a figure named Diego and working as a servant for Drake appears in accounts of Drake’s 1577 circumnavigation. See Cassander L. Smith, Black Africans in the British Imagination: English Narratives of the Early Atlantic World (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State

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addition to translating Spanish during Drake’s circumnavigation from 1577–1580, Diego could have served any number of roles. Kaufman believes Diego could have “pass[ed] as a slave and spy on the Spanish, as one of the Cimarrons had in Panama City in 1573,” or he could have been a useful go-between for both the English and the Cimarrons to gain allyship.95 During Drake’s circumnavigation, Diego’s vital communicative roles would have been most useful after the Hind was docked at port, or during the period when Drake held Spanish and Portuguese captives abord the vessel. During the long months at sea, it is possible Drake gave Diego duties like shipboard playing. Drake surrounded himself with art aboard ship; he not only held psalm services with singing and dancing on the Hind, but he also employed string musicians to perform during dinners, as well as artists to paint landscapes for him. In his account of the events on the circumnavigation, the captured dignitary Francisco de Zárate writes: “[Drake] also carries painters who paint for him pictures of the coast in its exact colours. This I was most grieved to see, for each thing is so naturally depicted that no one who guides himself according to these paintings can possibly go astray.”96 Diego had a unique role as cultural mediator, and it could have extended beyond lingual translation by drawing on other cultural practices, musical or artistic. Enslaved Performers and “Unsayable” Experiences This book’s broader argument is that musicians and performers on English ships held an in-between position allowing them to shift between classes and cultures. It should be clarified, though, that this argument is directed towards hired musicians and performers, who were mostly white. What is largely absent not only from my own study but in the maritime humanities is an understanding of pre-nineteenth century Black maritime performance. There are lingual and epistemic challenges that have aggravated this knowledge gap. Paul Gilroy describes the “topos of unsayability” of the University Press, 2016), Chapter Two, note 30. For more information on Drake’s encounter with the Cimarrons, see Mark Netzloff, “Lines of Amity: The Law of Nations in the Americas,” in Cultures of Diplomacy and Literary Writing in the Early Modern World, ed. Tracey A. Sowerby and Joanna Craigwood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 58. Also see Michael Guasco, Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Penn Press, 2014), 97–103, and Ruth Pike, “Black Rebels: The Cimarrons of Sixteenth Century Panama,” The Americas 64 (2007): 243–66. 95 Kaufmann, Black Tudors, 73. 96 See Zárate’s testimony in Nuttall, New Light on Drake, 219.

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Black slave experience in the nineteenth century, which had “important implications.”97 This terrifying experience was “unsayable” but alive in slave music, challenging “privileged conceptions of both language and writing as preeminent expressions of human consciousness.”98 As George Lamming argues, the language and writing of the oppressor puts the slave in the precarious position of being taught to speak in an act reinforcing their bondage.99 But the written word is also how the Western world recorded its histories and generated knowledge. White English diarists rarely mention Black voyagers’ experiences, and the English frequently misinterpreted the signs, gestures, and languages of the Indigenous people they encountered and enslaved, which Carayon reiterates in her study of nonverbal communication in the Americas.100 Though we know little about the Black slave experience on early English voyages, there is enough for some cursory analysis. Two enslaved African men on Fenton’s 1582 voyage named “Massau” and “Zingo” died before their ship, the Edward, returned to England; their deaths could have been from any number of ailments, including scurvy, malnutrition, and dehydration.101 Massau and Zingo were bought to replace the mariners on Fenton’s voyage who died; Fenton may have intended to sell them once he returned.102 As substitute mariners on the Edward, Massau and Zingo were integrated into the daily rhythm of ship life, instead of being confined to the galley. The English probably used nonverbal communication to show them what work needed to be done, from hauling rope to swabbing the deck. They may have introduced aspects of their culture, as well, including music.103 97 Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 74. 98 Ibid., 74. 99 George Lamming, The Pleasures of Exile (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 109. 100 Céline Carayon, Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas (Williamsburg, VA and Chapel Hill, NC: The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 2019), 423–425. 101 Donno writes in a footnote from Madox’s diary that “the English purchased for certain ‘carsey’ and ‘pease and bisket’ two Negroes for the Edward and two for the Galleon to replace mariners who had died although the crew from the Elizabeth served in part to replace them. The two Negroes on the Edward were to escape at the Bay of Good Comfort, commended by Massau and Zingo, the two on the Galleon, who were themselves to die before reaching England.” See Donno, Elizabethan in 1582, 201n3. 102 Ibid., 201n3. 103 Gilroy offers a way to understand the process of accessing and examining Black music as it formed in the Atlantic, aboard ships and in various locations: “Examining the place of music in

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Alistair Saunders’s work on Black slaves and freedmen in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Portugal shows how African music and dance were interwoven with European culture. Saunders explains that “African music and dances flourished at the slaves’ own gatherings and were performed by blacks at Portuguese festivities.”104 With Massau and Zingo on the Edward, and two other Black slaves on the Galleon (who later escaped), it is possible that other types of “African music and dances” might have been integrated into shipboard life.105 Existing records of enslaved Indigenous people on early English voyages describe how they sang to cope, survive, and articulate emotions which were, to use Gilroy’s word, “unsayable.” Returning to England on his second journey to find the Northwest Passage in 1577, Frobisher brought three Inuk captives back to display as anthropological evidence: “a man, a woman and a baby-in-arms; yet the adults had been captured separately and the man was not the baby’s father.”106 Frobisher named the man “Calichough” (“our savage”) while the woman was named “Egnock” or “Ignorth,” which Robert McGhee explains was “probably a corruption of the Inuktitut word for ‘woman,’ arnaq.”107 The child was named “Nutiok,” which McGhee also notes was a corruption of nutaraq, the word for “child.”108 After remaining the black Atlantic world means surveying the self-understanding articulated by the musicians who have made it, the symbolic use to which their music is put by other black artists and writers, and the social relations which have produced and reproduced the unique expressive culture in which comprises a central and even foundational element” (74–75). One pathway, Gilroy explains, is presented in “the distinctive patterns of language use that characterise the contrasting populations of the modern, western, African diaspora” (75). 104 Alistair Saunders, A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal 1441–1555 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 89. 105 See Donno, Elizabethan in 1582, 201n3. 106 Neil Cheshire et al., “Frobisher’s Eskimos in England,” Archivaria 10 (Summer 1980): 24. 107 Robert McGhee, The Arctic Voyages of Martin Frobisher (Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2001), 81. 108 McGhee, 81. Variations of “Calichough” occur in both earlier and more recent studies of the Frobisher voyages. The spelling of “Calichough” is used in recent works like Bernadette Andrea’s The Lives of Girls and Women from the Islamic World in Early Modern British Literature and Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017); Robert McGhee’s The Arctic Voyages of Martin Frobisher (Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2001); Karen Ordahl Kupperman’s The Jamestown Project (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009); and American Indian Biographies, ed. Harvey J. Markowitz, Carole A. Barrett, and R. Kent Rasmussen (New York: Salem Press, 2007), though the biography by Markowitz et al. lists him as “Kalicho” with the other variations of spelling. Texts using the variant, “Kalicho,” include Robert Ruby’s Unknown Shore: The Lost History of England’s Arctic Colony (New York: Henry Holt, 2014), Mary C. Fuller’s Remembering the Early Modern Voyage (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), and Taliesin Trow’s Sir Martin Frobisher: Seaman, Soldier, Explorer (Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2011).

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silent for much of the return journey to England, Egnock finally spoke to Calichough when they were together. The woman sung a mournful song, giving her a chance for the first time to express an emotional response to her experiences on the journey. Best, the Captain, describes the scene in his account: Hauing now got a woman captive for the comforte of our man, we brought them togither, and every man with silence desired to beholde the manner of their meeting and entertaynement, the whiche was more worth beholding, than can be well expressed in writing. At their first encountering they beheld each the other very wistly a good space, without speech or word vttered, with great change of colour and countenance, as though it seemed the griefe and disdeine of their captiuity had taken away the vse of their tongues and vtterance: the woman at the first very suddenly, as though she disdained or regarded not the man, turned away, and began to sing as though she minded another matter: but being againe brought together, the man brake vp the silence first, and with sterne and stayed countenance, began to tell a long solemne tale to the woman, whereunto she gaue good hearing, and interrupted him nothing, till he had finished, and afterwards, being growen into more familiar acquaintance by speech, they were turned together, so that (I thinke) the one would hardly haue liued without the comfort of the other.109

While the English expected the man and woman to immediately “entertayne” each other through lovemaking or showing affection, they only stared at each other, unsure of what was expected of them. The Inuit “family” had become the unwilling performers of the English observers. McGhee explains how “the woman broke the silence with a song and the man with a long and solemn speech” and considers that Calichough’s speech was “probably relating the history of his captivity.”110 Egnock’s song could have been one reflecting on her despair, having been separated by her family at Bloody Point. Being in a state of “mind[ing] another matter,” Egnock could have been singing to escape the present reality. It is also in Best’s description 109 George Best, A true discourse of the three Voyages of discouerie, for the finding of a passage to Cathaya, by the Northwest, vnder the conduct of Martin Frobisher Generall: Before which as a necessary Preface is prefixed a twofolde discourse, conteining certaine reaons to proue all partes of a World habitate. Penned by Master George Best, a Gentleman employed in the same voyages, in America Part I, vol. 12 of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, ed. Edmund Goldsmid (Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889), 161. This episode is also discussed in McGhee, Arctic Voyages, 83. 110 Ibid., 83.

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that our narrator conveys empathy for their situation, acknowledging the reasons for their silence. The sense of voyeurism and invasiveness of this scene, as the two captives were forced to interact as a husband and wife, is unnerving. Frobisher and the observers were likely disappointed in the results of their experiment. Pirated Musicians Singing and performing instrumental music aboard ship were popular forms of diversion for English pirates well into the eighteenth century. A common source for piratical anecdotes, the General History of Pyrates, refers to multiple occasions of shipboard singing and playing.111 During the Golden Age of Piracy (1650–1720), musicians aboard English vessels were captured from merchant ships and forced to play aboard pirated ships. This was the case for the musicians aboard Captain Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts’s (1682–1722) ship. Roberts is touted as one of the most successful pirates of his time, capturing 400 vessels, according to reports from Colonial governors. 112 Roberts was a theatrical pirate, at least in his dress and manners. For example, in his last battle, Roberts was “covered in f inery, down to diamonds and a brilliant red coat,” as Frederick Burwick and Manushag N. Powell note.113 Roberts’s flair for the dramatic is evident in the account of his trial for piracy, and like many pirate captains before him, he displayed affluence and sophistication. Roberts also pirated musicians and had them perform for him and his crew at a whim. When Roberts’s musicians gave their accounts during the trial for piracy, they also told of the diff icult conditions they had to endure: The four f irst of these Prisoners [William Church, Phil. Haak, James White, Nich. Brattle], it was evident to the Court, served as Musick on board the Pyrate, were forced lately from the several Merchant Ships they belonged to; and that they had, during this Confinement, an uneasy Life of it, having sometimes their Fiddles, and often their Heads broke, only

111 See Chapter 10, “Of Captain THOMAS ANSTIS And his Crew,” in A General History of the Pyrates, ed. Manuel Schonhorn, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972), 288–296. 112 This number appears in Laughton, J. K., and David Cordingly. 2008 “Roberts, Bartholomew (c. 1682–1722), Pirate,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 September 2004, https://doi. org/10.1093/ref:odnb/23744. 113 Burwick and Powell, British Pirates in Print, 10.

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for excusing themselves, or saying they were tired, when any Fellow took it in his Head to demand a Tune.114

As prisoner musicians, the fiddlers were beaten severely for wanting to have breaks after performing. In fact, they had their “Heads broke” more often than they had their fiddles. But this account also reveals that piratical life was also one in which music was a constant occurrence, even if the performers played against their will. These pirated musicians were also demanded to play a tune at Roberts’s will, so it is likely that they had a sizeable repertoire of tunes to play for their new master. The General History also includes biographical details of the musicians in the account of Roberts’s trial. For instance, there is information on a James White, “whose Business was Musick, and was on the Poop of the Pyrate Ship in Time of Action with the Swallow.”115 White had apparently “prevented the Ship’s being blown up” by stopping others who were trying to procure matches below deck.116 The biographies in the General History entry are mostly anecdotal, but a common thread among the musicians and performers is that they could be relied on to assist in tasks beyond their occupation. Whether procuring remedies for shipboard illness, or making signs of friendship with Inuk observers, civilian performers had many skills and instincts that were not solely artistic, but practical and varied. For many, their identity in voyaging records is tied inextricably to their instrument or craft, but the seafaring middle class often combined their communicative and performance skills with others that distinguished them from their crewmates.

Bibliography Abrahams, Roger D. Deep the Water, Shallow the Shore: Three Essays on Shantying in the West Indies. Austin, TX and London: University of Texas Press for the American Folklore Society, 1974. Andrea, Bernadette. The Lives of Girls and Women from the Islamic World in Early Modern British Literature and Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017. Andrews, Kenneth R. The Last Voyage of Drake and Hawkins. Hakluyt Society Second Series 142. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. 114 General History, 262. 115 Ibid., 267. 116 Ibid., 267.

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Ashbee, Andrew. “Groomed for Service: Musicians in the Privy Chamber at the English Court. c.1495–1558.” Early Music 25, no. 2 (1997): 185–190, 193–197. Ashbee, Andrew, David Lasocki, Peter Holman, and Fiona Kisby, eds. A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 1485–1714. 2 vols. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2008. Baigent, Elizabeth. “Downton, Nicholas (bap. 1561, d. 1615), Sea Captain.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004. https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/7986. Barbour, Richmond. The Third Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607–10. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Barbour, Richmond, and Bernhard Klein. “Drama at Sea: A New Look at Shakespeare on the Dragon, 1607–08.” In Travel and Drama in Early Modern England: The Journeying Play, edited by Claire Jowitt and David McInnis, 150–168. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Burwick, Frederick, and Manushag N. Powell. British Pirates in Print and Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Carayon, Céline. Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. Williamsburg, VA and Chapel Hill, NC: The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Cheshire, Neil, Tony Waldron, Alison Quinn, and David Quinn, “Frobisher’s Eskimos in England.” Archivaria 10 (Summer 1980): 23–49. Christensen, Ann. Separation Scenes: Domestic Drama in Early Modern England. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 2017. Doerflinger, William Main. Shantymen and Shantyboys: Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman. New York: Macmillan, 1951. Donno, Elizabeth Story. An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls. London: Hakluyt Society, 1976. Foster, William. “Forged Shakespeariana.” Notes and Queries 134 (1900): 41–42. Foster, William, ed. The Journal of John Jourdain, 1608–1617. Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1905. Foster, William, ed. The Voyage of Thomas Best to the East Indies 1612–14. Hakluyt Society Second Series 75. London: Hakluyt Society, 1934. Fuller, Mary C. Remembering the Early Modern Voyage. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Fury, Cheryl A. Tides in the Affairs of Men: The Social History of Elizabethan Seamen, 1580–1603. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. Games, Alison. The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in Age of Expansion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Guasco, Michael. Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Gunthio, Ambrose. “A Running Commentary on the Hamlet of 1603.” European Magazine (December 1825): 339–347. Hakluyt, Richard. Principal Navigations. 16 vols. Vol. 8. London: J.M. Dent, 1910/13. Holderness, Graham. Tales from Shakespeare: Creative Collisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Hugill, Stan. Sea Shanties. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1980. Hugill, Stan. Songs of the Sea: The Tales and Tunes of Sailors and Sailing Ships. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977. Hunt, Maurice. “Purging the Jesting Spirit in The Tempest.” Comparative Drama 45, no. 4 (2011): 417–437. Jane, John. The first voyage of M. Iohn Dauis, vndertaken in Iune 1585, for the discouerie of the Northwest passage, Written by M. Iohn Ianes Marchant, sometimes seruant to the worshipfull Master William Sanderson. In Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, edited by Edmund Goldsmid, 12: 224–246. Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889. Jordain, Sylvester. A Discovery of the Barmudas. London, 1610. Jowitt, Claire, and David McInnis. “Introduction: Understanding the Early Modern Journeying Play.” In Travel and Drama in Early Modern England: The Journeying Play, edited by Claire Jowitt and David McInnis, 1–20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Kaufmann, Miranda. Black Tudors: The Untold Story. London: Oneworld, 2017. Kelsey, Harry. Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. LaFontaine, Henry Cart de, ed. The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460–1700). London: Novello, 1909. Lamming, George. The Pleasures of Exile. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. Larnder, Margaret Montgomery. “DAVIS, JOHN (d. 1605).” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. 1. 1966/1979. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/davis_john_1605_1E. html. Accessed 1 July 2020. Laughton, J.K., and David Cordingly. “Roberts, Bartholomew (c. 1682–1722), Pirate.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004. https://doi. org/10.1093/ref:odnb/23744. Lehane, Brendan. The Northwest Passage. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1981. Markham, Clements. The voyages of Sir James Lancaster, Kt., to the East Indies. 1830–1916. New York: Burt Franklin, 1877.

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Markowitz, Harvey J., Carole A. Barrett, and R. Kent Rasmussen, eds. American Indian Biographies. New York: Salem Press, 2007. McGee, Timothy J. “The Fall of the Noble Minstrel: The Sixteenth-Century Minstrel in a Musical Context.” Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 7 (1995): 98–120. McGhee, Robert. The Arctic Voyages of Martin Frobisher. Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2001. McInnis, David and Misha Teramura, eds. “Fragment of a play in the Journal of Benjamin Greene.” Lost Plays Database. https://lostplays.folger.edu/Fragment_ of_a_play_in_the_Journal_of_Benjamin_Greene. Accessed 1 September 2018. “minstrel, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press. www.oed.com/view/Entry/118957. Accessed 6 July 2021. Morgan, Basil. “Hawkins, Sir John (1532–1595), Merchant and Naval Commander.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004. https://doi. org/10.1093/ref:odnb/12672. Netzloff, Mark. “Lines of Amity: The Law of Nations in the Americas.” In Cultures of Diplomacy and Literary Writing in the Early Modern World, edited by Tracey A. Sowerby and Joanna Craigwood, 54–68. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Nuttall, Zelia, ed. New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580. Hakluyt Society Second Series 34. London: Hakluyt Society, 1914. Pickering, Michael, Emma Robertson, and Marek Korczynski. “Rhythms of Labour: The British Work Song Revisited.” Folk Music Journal 9, no. 2 (2007): 226–245. Pike, Ruth. “Black Rebels: The Cimarrons of Sixteenth Century Panama.” The Americas 64 (2007): 243–266. Rengifo, Francisco Gomez. “Deposition of the Factor of Guatulco.” In New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580, edited and translated by Zelia Nuttall, 350–359. Hakluyt Society Second Series 34. London: Hakluyt Society, 1914. Ruby, Robert. Unknown Shore: The Lost History of England’s Arctic Colony. New York: Henry Holt, 2014. Saris, John. The Voyage of Captain John Saris to Japan, 1613. Edited by Ernest M. Satow. London: Hakluyt Society, 1900. Saunders, Alistair. A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal 1441–1555. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Schonhorn, Manuel, ed. A General History of the Pyrates. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972. Seth, James. “Maritime Performance Culture and the Possible Staging of Hamlet in Sierra Leone.” Shakespeare en devenir – Les Cahiers de La Licorne 12 (2017). https:// shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr/index.php?id=1091. Accessed 1 December 2017.

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Seth, James. “Sea Music and Shipboard Performance Culture.” In The Routledge Companion to Marine and Maritime Worlds, 1450–1750, edited by Claire Jowitt, Craig Lambert, and Steve Mentz, 559–579. London: Routledge, 2020. Shakespeare, William. The Oxford Shakespeare. Edited by Gary Taylor and Stanley Wells. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. “shanty | chant(e)y, n.2.” OED Online. Oxford University Press. www.oed.com/view/ Entry/177492. Accessed 1 July 2018. Smith, Cassander L. Black Africans in the British Imagination: English Narratives of the Early Atlantic World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016. Thompson, Denys. The Uses of Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. Trow, Taliesin. Sir Martin Frobisher: Seaman, Soldier, Explorer. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2011. Walser, Robert Young. “‘Here We Come in a Leaky Ship!’: The Shanty Collection of James Madison Carpenter.” Folk Music Journal 7, no. 4 (1998), 471–495. Wiggins, Martin, and Catherine Richardson, eds. British Drama 1533–1642, A Catalogue: Volume VI, 1609–1616. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Woodf ield, Ian. English Musicians in the Age of Exploration. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995. Zárate, Don Francisco de. “Don Francisco de Zarate’s Letter.” In The World Encompassed and Analogous Contemporary Documents Concerning Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation of the World, edited by N.M. Penzer, 218–219. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1969.

3.

Signalling and Communicating Abstract Signalling, primarily the work of naval musicians, helped the English access coastlines, navigate treacherous waters, and keep the crew together during onshore explorations. However, signalling also made these musicians vulnerable, as trumpeters and drummers became easy targets in Spanish and Portuguese colonies. This chapter also focuses on methods of aural and nonverbal communication between the English and Indigenous people of Africa and the Americas, drawing from first-hand accounts of Drake’s circumnavigation (1577–1580), Frobisher’s second and third Northwest Passage voyages (1577–1578), and Davis’s first Passage voyage (1585), among others. The “Communication” part of this chapter begins to define “kind entertainment” as courteous or casual diversion between the English and foreign contacts. Keywords: naval musicians, ship signals, maritime communication, nonverbal communication, Francis Drake, Northwest Passage

Musicians and performers were mediators and constant communicators between parties. They would engage with the captain, crew, and foreign contacts using sensory methods that were distinct from yelling seamen. Aboard ship, there were ways of communicating and signalling based on court practices, and others on shipboard practices. The performing middle class participated in both, adapting their method of aural and gestural communication to suit the occasion, whether by orders or instinct. The second part of this book examines the work that maritime musicians and performers accomplished and how that work distinguishes them in the broader narrative history of English exploration. This opening chapter in Part II focuses first on the act of signalling, which was predominantly the work of naval musicians, though there were some exceptions. The second part of this chapter focuses expressly on the ways that English musicians and crew members communicated with Indigenous peoples through music, dance, gesture, and other nonverbal forms.

Seth, J., Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages: The Lives of the Seafaring Middle Class. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725415_ch03

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Signalling Trumpet and drum signalling had multiple purposes, but I will focus on the two most prevalent in early English voyaging accounts: first, to get attention (or cause a distraction), and second, to assert power or authority. In many instances, these purposes overlapped. Rarely was a signal meant to exert power without also trying to get someone’s immediate attention. One exception was the ritual naming of Mount Warwick on Hall’s Island in 1577 during Frobisher’s second Passage expedition. It was there that the trumpet “solemnly sounded” his horn before a prayer was said. Although not his intention for the ritual, Frobisher’s trumpeter alerted the Inuit that the English had arrived.1 Frobisher’s men saw “people on the top of Mount Warwick with a flag wafting vs backe againe and making great noise with cries like the mowing of Buls seeming greatly desirous of conference with vs.”2 And so, the English were discovered. The naming of Mount Warwick not only marked their presence, but it assumed England’s ownership over the land itself; these rituals and signals of power made fraught relations between the English and American Indigenous people. These signals sent mixed messages to the land’s Inuit inhabitants, who despite being greatly isolated were also wary of these loud white men. Frobisher’s naval musicians pierced through unfamiliar regions with trumpets and drums to traverse the snowy hills and dense fog of Greenland and Baffin Island. They were also the surest members of the voyage to establish various lines of communication between the English and the Inuit. Richard Purdye was Frobisher’s trumpeter on the Gabriel during the first Passage voyage in 1576. Spotting Inuit on 23 July near the place they later named “Trumpets Island,” near Baffin Bay, Frobisher ordered the ship to anchor and sent five men to shore in a pinnace. The crew lost sight of the boat and did not hear or see any signal from them, so the next day, Purdye sounded his trumpet loudly, owing to the namesake of the island: The next day in the morning, we stoode in neere the shoare, and shotte off a fauconet, and sounded our trumpet, but we could hear nothing 1 George Best, A true discourse of the three Voyages of discouerie, for the finding of a passage to Cathaya, by the Northwest, vnder the conduct of Martin Frobisher Generall: Before which as a necessary Preface is prefixed a twofolde discourse, conteining certaine reaons to proue all partes of a World habitate. Penned by Master George Best, a Gentleman employed in the same voyages, in America Part I, vol. 12 of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, ed. Edmund Goldsmid (Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889), 148. 2 Ibid., 149.

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nothing of our men: this sound wee called the five mens sound, and plyed out of it, but ankered again in thirtie fathome, and ooze: and riding there all night, in the morning, the snow lay a foote thicke vpon our hatches.3

It could be that they called the geographical sea inlet the “f ive mens sound,” to mark the area where the men were lost. However, given the context that Purdye and the other trumpeters “sounded” their horns, I would also propose that “the f ive mens sound” could have been the name for the trumpeters’ signal to alert in an emergency. It is likely the former (if they plied out of the inlet in their ship), but the account offers both possibilities, especially if “plyed” could have meant “played” in the original account. Unfortunately, Purdye’s trumpeting did not return a response, so the English remained anchored there for another day while the snow built up. The Gabriel left “Trumpets Island” without the five men, but Frobisher would return the following year on the second Passage voyage to retrieve them, using a captured Inuk man (Calichough) as ransom. As Céline Carayon explains, “Frobisher perverted the peaceful intent of gift-giving protocols and used sound to attract the unfortunate man [Calichough], but it is obvious that mutual distrust was already solidly present before such aggressive actions unfolded.”4 Indeed, the mistrust between Frobisher and the Inuit on Baffin Bay was felt on both sides, and so, the commander militarized his crew and commanded his trumpeters to help bring them to order. 3 The first Voyage of M. Martine Frobisher, to the Northwest, for the search of the straight or passage to China, written by Christopher Hall, Master in the Gabriel, and made in the yeere of our Lord 1576, in America Part I, vol. 12 of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, ed. Edmund Goldsmid (Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889), 80. 4 Céline Carayon, Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas (Williamsburg, VA and Chapel Hill, NC: The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 2019), 425. Carayon also notes that Frobisher “used the same trick as Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain” in capturing Indigenous people, using bells and sound-making devices as lures (424). See also W.A. Kenyon, Tokens of Possession: The Northern Voyages of Martin Frobisher (Toronto, Ontario: 1975), 40–41, qtd in Carayon, Eloquence Embodied, 424. The quote reads: “Knowing how greatly they delight in our toys, and especially in our bells, he rang a lowbell and indicated that he would give it to whoever would come fetch it. Because the natives were afraid to come too close, he flung the bell towards them, but he purposely threw it short so that it would fall into the sea and be lost. To make them more greedy, he then range a louder bell till one of the native came to the side of the ship to receive it. Just as the man was about to take it from the captain’s hand, he was thereby taken himself. For the captain suddenly dropped the bell, grabbed the man, and plucked him out of the sea by main force, boat and all, and into the ship” (424).

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Purdye, as a military crew member, oversaw calling the men to attention, which he and other trumpeters were tasked on subsequent voyages. As Frobisher sought to retaliate against the Inuit against alleged kidnappings and other wrongdoings, he ensured his men were prepared for combat. During Frobisher’s second Passage expedition in 1577, shortly after the fleet reached what they believed was the American mainland, the trumpeter, possibly Purdye, sounded a call ordering every man to come together so Frobisher could give a speech on the importance of the mission: Tuesday the three and twentieth of Iuly, our Generall with his best company of gentlemen, souldiers and saylers, to the number of seuentie persons in all, marched with ensigne displayde, vpon the continent of Southerland where, commanding a Trumpet to sound a call for euery man to repaire to the ensigne, he declared to the whole company how much the cause imported the seruice of her Maiestie, our countrey, our credits, and the safetie of our owne liues, and therefore required euery man to be comformable to order, and to be directed by those he should assigne.5

The trumpet sound signalled order to the soldiers and sailors. When Frobisher needed to assign every man to an officer on the voyage, he directed his trumpets to call every crew member to attention. Frobisher wanted his men to be “comformable to order.” His speech was more directive than encouragement, and in assigning each member to an officer (including Best), he made significant steps to avoid repeating the disaster of the first voyage, when five of his crewmen went missing. Not only would he see that the men stayed close to their respective ships, but each crewmember had an assigned officer to report to. The militarization of the voyage had begun, and the Inuit were the enemy. Frobisher’s trumpeters were the conduits between the captain and crew, and they were assigned to perform drills to keep the men alert. On 7 August 1577, Frobisher gesture communicated with Calichough and became convinced after their discussion that he should send a ransom letter to the Inuit who held his five captured men. The ransom was Calichough, who Frobisher would instead keep and take back to England with another Inuk woman and child. After sending the letter, Frobisher prepared for the worst, so he enlisted his trumpeter to sound an emergency call for everyone to 5 Best, A true discourse, 153.

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report to the ensign. The call was a test to prepare them for similar calls to action in the event of danger: because the people were very neere vnto vs, the Lieutenant caused the Trumpet to sound a call, and euery man in the Island repayring to the Ensigne, he put them in the minde of the place so farre from their countrey wherein they liued, and the danger of a great multitude which they were subiect vnto, if good watch and worde were not kept.6

This emergency test served two important tasks. First, the trumpeter’s horn could have scared away anyone who could be close enough to the English to launch an attack. Secondly, it put the crew in a vigilant state of mind so they could act promptly afterward. After all, they had to put themselves in a state of mind to react quickly and effectively since they were in a place with “danger of a great multitude” so “farre from their countrey.” And indeed, there were many dangers for trumpeters, drummers, and other instrumental musicians. Trumpeters were most vulnerable when signalling. If they sounded to distract, they made themselves an easy target. When they played to assert power and authority, as previously stated, it was to assert the captain’s authority, not their own. In some instances, this made them more susceptible. During Drake’s 1586 voyage to the South Sea, the trumpeters were needed to signal but were also used as bait to draw out any enemies in Spanishcontrolled territories. This may be an overstatement, as Drake needed to keep the trumpeters alive if he was going to send any quick correspondence. Though they were invaluable crew members, trumpeters were human lighting rods. Like the musician Ambrose (d. 1587) on Cavendish’s voyage and trumpeter Robert Wood (d. 1582) on Fenton’s, Drake’s lead trumpeter did not make it home. The trumpeter’s role as a signaller made him a mark for gunfire. Drake led the English fleet to the Spanish-occupied town of Nombre de Dios, where he had ventured on previous voyages. He entered the marketplace in town with his trumpeter and a group of his men and ordered another group to stay behind in a fort with their own trumpeter to communicate with his. Drake ordered his trumpeter to blast his horn in the middle of the marketplace, causing the townspeople and armed Spanish militia to flee to the mountains. However, the Spanish returned armed and shot

6 Ibid., 163.

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the trumpeter, as Hakluyt’s account from Portuguese observer Lopez Vaz describes: getting to a corner of the market-place they discovered the Englishmen, and perceiving that they were but a few, discharged their pieces at them; and their fortune was such, that they slew the trumpetter, and shot the captaine (whose name was Francis Drake) into the legge: who feeling himselfe hurt retired toward the Fort, where he had left the rest of his men: but they in the Fort sounded their trumpet, and being not answered again, and hearing the calivers discharged in the towne, thought that their fellows in the town had bene slaine, and thereupon fled to their pinnesses … Thus Captaine Drake did no more harme at Nombre de Dios, neither was there in this skirmish any more than one Spaniarde slaine, and of the Englishmen onely their Trumpetter, whom they left behind with his trumpet in his hand.7

In addition to shooting and killing Drake’s trumpeter, the Spanish militia guarding Nombre de Dios also shot Drake in the leg, and he had to be carried the rest of the way to the fort with the remaining men. Fleeing to their pinnaces and rowing to the fleet, Drake left the seaside town, but not before killing one of the Spanish soldiers. Drake’s trumpeter died with his instrument still in hand; perhaps this was Hakluyt embellishing for dramatic effect, but in any case, it does offer a stark view of how devoted and vulnerable these musicians were in sudden combat. With only their instruments in hand, naval musicians were not prepared to fight, so they were caught in the middle. Sometimes, signalling musicians were ordered to keep ships on course. On the South Sea voyage (1586–1587) financed by George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland, the trumpeter aboard the flagship maintained order by calling back ships to their original route.8 In late August 1586, the English spotted five foreign ships about 44 degrees latitude south of the Equator. 7 A discourse of the West Indies and South sea written by Lopez Vas a Portugal, borne in the citie of Elvas, continued unto the yere 1587. Wherein among divers rare things not hitherto delivered by any other writer, certaine voyages of our Englishmen are truely reported: which was intercepted with the author thereof at the river of Plate, by Captaine Withrington and Captaine Christopher Lister, in the fleete set foorth by the right Honorable the Erle of Cumberland for the South sea in the yeere 1586, in Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 153–154. 8 This was also Clifford’s first privateering voyage, as noted by Philip S. Palmer in “‘All Suche matters as passed on this vyage’: Early English Travel Anthologies and the Case of John Sarracoll’s Maritime Journal (1586–87),” Huntington Library Quarterly 76, no. 3 (2013): 325.

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According to merchant John Sarracoll’s account, the English hailed the largest vessel and conversed with the crew. The men aboard claimed they were from Hamburg, except for one member, who stated they were from Denmark. Suspicious, Clifford’s fleet followed closely behind, but Admiral Robert Withrington hesitated at attacking them and called the rest of his fleet back: And then our admerall beinge parswaded as I suppos by some that ether would not feight or durst not feight Called us backe again bothe with his trompett and apesse of ordynance not determyning to goo any further after theme [that is, the hulks]; whiche was the greates grefe unto our Companie as ever was too any men for that no dout theie weare the same houlkes laden by the spaynardes and could not gett about yrland for that the windes did hange soo longe atyme by the norweste; This we doute with great losses unto my Lord, discredytt unto the rulers of the vioage and henderans too all the companie; wee suffered with shame [to] us all these 5 [hulkes] to departe whiche I thinke in truth could not be lesse worth then 300 thousand powndes and good prysse but of [that?] good price yett we might have cawsed theme to stricke Consideringe theie shoote ffirste att us; In my Judgment [th]ere was never any thinge donne by 2 suche shipps that was so yll donne the firste daie bade and thee secounde muche worse.9

Withrington, as Sarracoll suggests, was persuaded by “some that ether would not feight or durst not feight,” and so he resisted from engaging with the ‘Hamburg’ fleet, ordering his trumpet to bring the ships back. Sarracoll is notably angered by this missed opportunity, noting his “shame” as they did not fight to claim what could have been no less than £300,000. As Philip Palmer reiterates, these were “richly laden foreign ships” and offered a golden opportunity that Sarracoll was sad to have passed up if only they had goaded 9 From the British Library, Lansdowne MS 100, fol. 24r. Qtd. in Palmer, “‘All suche matters,’” 332. There is another version of Sarracoll’s account reprinted in Hakluyt, Principal Navigations 8: 132, listed as The voyage set out by the right honourable the Earle of Cumberland, in the Yere 1586. intended for The South sea, but performed no farther than the latitude of 44. Degrees to the South of the Equinoctial, Written by M. John Sarracoll marchant in the same voyage. Hakluyt’s version, which Palmer pays significant attention to in his essay on the account, is much more abbreviated, like the episode with W’ithrington’s trumpeter and the five-ship foreign fleet. See Palmer, 332–333. Hakluyt’s account states that while the English lingered behind to set up an attack, Withrington “called us from pursuing them with his trumpet, and a piece of Ordinance” (133).

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them to strike.10 Had they been commanded by Drake, the English could have gone through with it, comparing these vessels to the silver-laden Cacafuego during his circumnavigation. In any case, Withrington’s trumpet sent a signal to fall back, likely making him an unpopular member of the journey. *** Time and experience made the English more cautious regarding when and how they signalled, communicated, and explored. The articles and orders for Frobisher’s third Passage voyage insisted on avoiding further deaths and missing crew, as well as increasing signals during inclement weather. Not only did Frobisher “banish swearing, dice and card-playing, and filthy communication,” but he mandated “That no man shall by day or by night depart further from the Admirall then the distance of one English mile, and as neere as they may, without danger one of another.”11 Frobisher did not want to lose another boatful of five crewmen to the Inuit, who he assumed would kill or cannibalize them.12 Trumpeters, drummers, and other musicians were also given explicit orders to signal during heavy fog, “which continually happen with little winds.”13 Naval musicians were ordered to “keep a reasonable noise with trumpet, drumme, or otherwise, to keep themselves cleere one of another.”14 Other voyages also demonstrated more restraint when engaging foreign ships. On Clifford’s South Sea voyage in 1586, Withrington’s hesitancy to engage in attack was influenced not only by men who persuaded him to resist attacking, as John Sarracoll suggests, but by stories of voyages ending in disaster. Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s (1537–1583) vessel had famously drowned three years prior to Clifford’s voyage; it was

10 Palmer, “‘All suche matters,’” 332. 11 Best, A true discourse, 175. 12 See Sophie Lemercier-Goddard’s essay, “‘Any Strange Beast There Makes a Man’: Interaction and Self-Reflection in the Arctic (1576–1578),” Revue LISA/LISA e-journal: Littératures, Histoire des Idées, Images, Sociétés du Monde Anglophone – Literature, History of Ideas, Images and Societies of the English-speaking World 13 no. 3 (2015). Lemercier-Goddard argues that “[c]annibalism in [Best’s] A True Discourse works as a trompe l’oeil – another ‘counterfeit pageant’” in the narrative of English contact on Baffin Island. The sensational narrative of Inuit savagery is, as LemercierGoddard suggests, only window-dressing for Best’s broader agenda. As Best himself states, he wrote the Frobisher account for “the better encouragement of men to this enterprise.” See Best, A true discourse, 308. 13 Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, Vol. 12, America Part I, ed. Edmund Goldsmid. (Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889), 176. 14 Ibid., 176.

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a disaster retold in sea stories and sung in shanties.15 While Drake lacked a certain hesitancy in his approach to engaging foreign powers (evidenced by his last visit to Nombre de Dios), other commanders relied on their trumpeters and naval musicians to avoid reckless moves and stay the course.

Communicating The English used aural and nonverbal communication to establish trust and make friendly relations with Indigenous people of Africa and the Americas. Music-making, singing, yelling, dancing, and noise-making were effective introductory gestures during the formative English voyages. In this section, I will be focusing on four voyages when musicians and other crew members used these gestures: John Winter’s voyage to the South Sea (1577–1579), Drake’s circumnavigation (1577–1580), Frobisher’s third voyage (1578), and Davis’s first Passage voyage (1585).16 With noise, music, and nonverbal communication, the English made the first steps in having “kind entertainment” with international contacts. A common phrase in voyaging journals, “kind entertainment” refers to any courteous or casual diversion, though it is more often used when describing interactions between the English and foreign nations and cultures. Often starting as a conversation after a meal, kind entertainment helped establish bonds—hence the use of “kind” as familial or establishing kinship—through cultural and lingual exchange.17 Kind entertainment would take many forms: conversations, card games, showing or trading wares, music-making, and elaborate performances. But what were the prefatory gestures before kind entertainment could be had? How could the English establish trust with other nations and tribes 15 The sea song, “Upon Sir Francis Drake’s Return” describes the return of Drake to England, opening with the repetitive line, “Sir Francis, Sir Francis, Sir Francis is come,” and then recounts how Drake and his train “marched gallantly on the road” to claim their glory. The jaunty tune presents Drake as a model for seafaring excellence, though at the expense of his unsuccessful predecessor, Gilbert, cousin of Grenville and uterine half-brother of Walter Ralegh. As the song goes, Gilbert “went out on a rainy day, / And to the new-found land found out his way, / With many a gallant fresh and green, / And he ne’er came home again” (11–16). See “Upon Sir Francis Drake’s Return from his Voyage about the World,” in The Oxford Book of Sea Songs, ed. Roy Palmer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 4. 16 Winter had been voyaging concurrently with Drake in 1577 but lost sight of him in the South Sea and returned before completing the circumnavigation. Therefore, I will treat these voyages separately. 17 “kind, adj. and adv,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, www.oed.com/view/Entry/103445. Accessed 26 July 2021.

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without knowing their languages? When the English lacked translators (Drake’s manservant, Diego, for example) for non-European languages, they relied on accessible and sometimes unconventional ways to show good will and gain trust. This section focuses on how musicians and performers assisted early forms of communication with Indigenous peoples prior to the seventeenth century. Before they could make elaborate acts of kindly diversion, the English used various signalling techniques to communicate nonviolent intentions. Communicating through Music and Dance in Africa and South America In addition to using gesture and sign-language to communicate nonverbally with Indigenous people, English voyagers and performers used music and noise-making to break the ice. Even Captain Winter participated in the informal introductions during his voyage in 1577. Although Winter had been voyaging alongside Drake’s Pelican (Golden Hind) in 1577, he lost sight of the flagship while in the South Sea and decided to return to England. While exploring the Cape of Good Hope (named “Cape Hope”) on 14 May 1577, Winter “met with the fly-boat” that the fleet had lost sight of on 27 April, and he signalled the boat to meet the crew. While bringing the flyboat into shore at Cape Hope, about thirty South African villagers gathered where Winter’s men were docked. They formed a circle near the English, armed with bows and arrows. The islanders approached the visitors cautiously, but they appeared welcoming, “shewing themselves very pleasant, insomuch that M. Winter daunced with them.”18 The report by Edward Cliffe also states they “were exceedingly delighted with the sound of the trumpet, and vialles.”19 Cliffe’s testimony is valuable in revealing two important details: first, that Winter felt emboldened to greet the villagers and engage in an introductory ‘dance,’ and second, that the voyage included at least one trumpeter and multiple viol players who “delighted” the Indigenous people. The string musicians on Winter’s voyage may have only played for meals aboard ship, as well as for other occasions of shipboard diversion, so this occasion was significant in giving them a new audience who had not heard these 18 The voyage of M. John Winter into the South sea by the Streight of Magellan, in consort with M. Francis Drake, begun in the yeere 1577. By which streight also he returned safely into England the second of June 1579. contrary to the false reports of the Spaniards which gave out, that the said passage was not repasseable: Written by Edward Cliffe Mariner, in Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 93. 19 Ibid., 93.

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instruments (unless the Portuguese had played for them). The musicians were game to play for the African villagers during the encounter, having performed spirited music for the captain and crew the dance to aboard ship. Winter did not seek violence, seeing each Khoekhoen man “beareth his bow,” and through their musical introduction, he and his crew recognized that the Khoekhoe were “much given to mirth and jollity.”20 Although Cliffe, the voyage diarist, was put off by their eating habits and characterized them as thieving after they took Winter’s red cap, it appears the English made a significant impression. They stayed at the bay to victual and hunt seals before departing again on 3 June.21 … During Drake’s circumnavigation, his musicians and crew members participated in a lively exchange of music shortly after the Golden Hind made land in South America. Drake’s ships approached the coast of Brazil in late April 1578, and on 12 May, he made anchor at a bay which “seemed to promise a good and commodious harbour.”22 The following day, 13 May, Drake and others took a boat out to survey the area, as explained in the journal of Francis Fletcher: A boat being therefore hoised forth, himselfe with some others the next morning, May 13, rowed into the bay; and being now very nigh the shore, one of the men of the countrey shewed himselfe vnto him, seeming very pleasant, singing and dancing, after the noise of a rattle which he shooke in his hand, expecting earnestly his landing.23

The man’s “very pleasant” demeanour was a welcome sign for Drake and his company. The image of the man holding a rattle also seems to have put Drake and his crew at considerable ease. Though “rattle” was a general term describing any instrument making a rattling sound, it was also known in context with a child’s toy even during the early modern era.24 Though the passage emphasizes the joy and innocence of Drake’s initial encounter with the Brazilians, the description of the man’s instrument as a “rattle” also 20 Ibid., 94. 21 Ibid., 94. 22 Fletcher’s account appears in The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, ed. William Sandys Wright Vaux, Vol. 16 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1854), 43. 23 Ibid., 43. 24 “rattle, v.1,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, www.oed.com/view/Entry/158558. Accessed 1 July 2018. The OED cites a passage from Gabriel Harvey’s works (1593) that reads: “Yet I may chaunce rattle him, like a baby of pachment.” (I.283).

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infantilizes him. Fletcher’s account indicates that the man was “expecting” Drake’s landing, depicting the English as welcomed guests instead of intruders. Contrarily, Drake’s crew was uninvited and excited to make landfall to victual for their journey.25 The English may have viewed the rattle as a ceremonial instrument and not a signalling one. The man was likely a lookout, using his maracas in a similar manner as a horn, drum, or fife to not only signal good will to the English but to also alert the villagers on the coast of the approaching ships.26 Once the ships made land, the English introduced themselves with pomp and gaiety, making use of certain noise-making instruments to entertain the villagers: the people of the country did shew themselues vnto vs with leaping, dancing, and holding vp their hands, and making outcries after their manner; but being then high water, we could not go ouer to them on foot. Wherefore the General caused I a boat to bee in readinesse, and sent vnto them such things as he thought would delight them, as knives, bells, bugles, etc.27

Fletcher’s entry describes their reception in Brazil as overwhelmingly positive. A large crowd of Brazilian people cheered for Drake’s arrival, prompting him to give his first elaborate gesture of diplomacy on the circumnavigation. This was not, John Sugden points out, the only time this gift-giving approach had successfully developed rapport among natives, as the “famous Villas Boas brothers [operated similarly] in their historic efforts to contact remote tribes of the Brazilian rainforest.”28 Drake sent things he thought would 25 Kenneth Andrews notes, for instance, Drake was mostly concerned with South America during this voyage. See Andrews, “Drake and South America,” in Sir Francis Drake and the Famous Voyage, 1577–1580: Essays Commemorating the Quadricentennial of Drake’s Circumnavigation of the Earth, ed. Norman J.W. Thrower (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 49. 26 I mention this because of the terrible weather approaching the English fleet during their arrival. The record by Francis Fletcher, Chaplain to the Expedition, states: “there was sudainly so great an alteration in the weather, into thick and misty fogge, together with an extreame storme and tempest” (43). The storm was so great, in fact, that Drake “thought it better to returne, then either to land or make any other stay” (44). 27 Fletcher, The World Encompassed, 47. Drake critic John Sugden posits that the natives “may have been a welcome diversion” as they “visited daily, growing friendlier the more they learned to trust the English.” See Sugden, Sir Francis Drake (New York: H. Holt, 1990), 106. 28 Additionally, Sugden offers his own narrative retelling of the encounter between the natives and the English interlopers: “Presents were left on rods so that the Indians might approach them at their leisure and leave in return their own offerings. Then, gradually, relations were intensified. The native men proved to be ferocious-looking fellows, though hardly the giants

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“delight” his native hosts: knives, bells, bugles, and likely other musical instruments. He chose the louder instruments but not the ‘still’ instruments of his consort (viols), perhaps given their cost and their importance to his shipboard musicians, or avoidance of any discordant sounds. Although bells and bugles were useful for signalling, his trumpeters still had their own instruments. The English sent the Brazilian villagers instruments like bells because they required little work or skill to play and made the loudest sound. Drake also sent instruments designed for naval communications (bugles) to be used as toys to delight, anticipating that the Islanders would have a childlike susceptibility to noise and spectacle, making “outcries after their manner,” Fletcher notes. Before trying to understand these “outcries” as language, the English felt this was their safest form of communication from their current distance. This exchange of music and musical instruments set the scene as a site of cultural collaboration. Drake’s musicians (John Brewer, Simon Wood, Richard Clarke, and Thomas Meekes) may have given these “leaping,” “dancing” villagers an impromptu concert, in addition to the noise-making items. The villagers were friendly, and they were not Spanish silver-hoarders, so the English aimed to pacify, not plunder. In giving the Brazilians the instruments, the English also attempted to make their mark. In her work on visual representations of maritime commerce, Victoria Lindsay Levine points out that “[musical] instruments can demonstrate the movement of cultural goods and forms from one place to another” and “can also serve as a trope representing a particular cultural tradition.”29 Every time the English gave their musical instruments as gifts, or performed for their guests, they left their cultural footprint. Music in Meta Incognita The musicians of Frobisher’s third Passage expedition in 1578 made music with the inhabitants of “Meta Incognita,” or the “Unknown Boundary.” depicted in Spanish myth. They wore their hair long, painted themselves red, white and black, and if they went largely naked they smeared their bodies with oil to keep out the cold. Bones or wood were thrust into their noses or lips. They fascinated the voyagers, who noted the Indians’ love of music (especially the English drums and trumpets), their ability to produce a fire from two pieces of wood, their dances (in which, to the immense satisfaction of his men, Captain Winter participated) and their jollity” (106). 29 Victoria Lindsay Levine, “The Global Keyboard: Music, Visual Forms, and Maritime Trade in the Early Modern Era,” in Picturing Commerce in and from the East Asian Maritime Circuits, 1550–1800, ed. Tamara H. Bentley (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019), 225.

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Frobisher claimed Meta Incognita, a peninsula on Baffin Island, on behalf of Queen Elizabeth. As the account in Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations states, “her Maiestie named it very properly as Meta Incognita, as a marke and bound vtterly hitherto vnknowen.”30 The accounts at Meta Incognita are considerably less fraught than those of other descriptions of the English and Inuit, often punctuated by capture and massacre. In his account, Hakluyt describes an exchange of vocal and instrumental music between the English and Inuit. On the peninsula, Frobisher’s musicians participated in a cross-cultural performance of singing, dancing, and rhythmic timekeeping. The Inuit shared more of their language and performed their own style of music for the English, and in response, Frobisher’s musicians played for the Inuit and demonstrated how they kept time with the rhythm of their music. What transpired was a performance of shared music-making and mimicry; the Inuk performers repeated back to the English their own songs and rhythms: They will teach vs the names of each thing in their language which wee desire to learne, and are apt to learne any thing of us. They delight in Musicke above measure, and will keepe time and stroke to any tune which you shall sing, both with their voice, head, hand and feete, and will sing the same tune aptly after you.31

The Inuit taught the English “the names of each thing,” which corroborates earlier encounters. When they first arrived in Meta Incognita on the first Passage voyage in 1576, the Inuit taught Frobisher’s crew the names of fingers, body parts, clothing, and words like “Accaskay” (ship), which the Inuit likely used more often with the arrival of Europeans.32 On their third voyage, the English engaged with their Indigenous hosts more intimately. The passage mentions specific musical directions, such as “keep[ing] time” and “stroke,” which are rare in voyage documents. Frobisher’s musicians used their skills to delight the Inuit, but they also witnessed their hosts using “voice, head, hand and feete” to match the tone and rhythm of English songs. The musicians may have gestured for the Inuit to repeat after them, conducting them like a chorus, or the Inuit could have responded to the music they heard by repeating it and initiating a kind of echo-performance, similar 30 The third voyage of Captaine Frobisher, pretended for the discouery of Cataia, by Meta Incognita, Anno Do, 1578, in Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 12: 172. 31 Ibid., 215. 32 Hall, The first Voyage, in Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 12: 81.

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to a round. The English often compared the Inuit and other Indigenous people to animals, “desperate in their fight, sullen of nature, and rauenous in their maner of feeding.”33 While this passage emphasizes their musical intelligence vis-à-vis the English musicians, it still harbours comparisons to mimicking creatures. The English praised the Inuit for parroting songs rather than for making their own. Frobisher’s musicians learned the Inuit language, and in return, the inhabitants of Meta Incognita learned English songs and metronymic techniques. We can compare this exchange to Drake’s gifting of musical instruments in Brazil. In both instances, the English left their cultural footprint. However, Frobisher’s musicians exchanged intangible gifts—language, melodies, and musical methods—which could have even influenced the Inuit’s musical style and techniques. Had the English stayed longer, they could have had even richer exchanges of song and performance. It is exciting to imagine what kind of music Frobisher’s musicians played during this call-and-response performance. Would they have sung shanties or jaunty sailor’s songs, or did they play ballads or more formal music? Did they perform hymns they would play for shipboard services? This act of musical mimicry at Meta Incognita breathes some life into the prescriptive passages of navigating and observing the environment. Frobisher’s musicians were more than observers; they were active participants, sharing their culture in an act of gaining trust and making friendly relations. More importantly, the English musicians and the crewmembers had a “desire to learne” from the Inuit and bridge lingual barriers. Frobisher’s previous missteps on Baffin Island made him more cautious of the Indigenous people, but during this musical exchange, the English finally communicated peacefully and did not need to capture a translator to mediate conversations. Still, we should consider Frobisher’s broader aims and his previous entanglements with the Inuit. Frobisher was determined to extract gold ore and achieve his navigational goals at the expense of native lives, and so the Inuit were always a means to an end. To the English musicians, however, the Inuit were a fascinating and adaptable people who could sing and play as they did. … Music at Nuup Kangerlua (Gilbert’s Sound) Frobisher brought with him the anthropological “evidence” (in this case, his enslaved Inuk ‘family’) to justify his voyage, but he ultimately failed to 33 The third Voyage, 215.

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discover the Northwest Passage and collect mass amounts of the precious “golden Ore” he was commissioned to find in the Arctic.34 These failures, coupled with Gilbert’s failed expedition in 1583, made the prospects of finding the Passage dismal.35 However, Gilbert’s long-time friend, John Davis, endeavoured to continue the search. Davis was not only an adept seaman but a talented navigator. He commanded the sister ships Sunshine and Moonshine and left Dartmouth on 7 June 1585.36 The voyage was recorded by a merchant, John Jane, who was the nephew of one of the principal financial backers of the expedition, William Sanderson. Jane’s account offers a descriptive account of how music, dance, and other nonverbal communication were effective methods of communication when Davis reached Nuup Kangerlua on the southwestern coast of Greenland on the Labrador Sea. The encounter between the English and Inuit is a striking example of what Woodfield calls the “techniques of musical diplomacy” integral in earlier voyages.37 There were four musicians on the Sunshine, commanded by Davis: James Cole, Francis Ridley, John Russel, and Robert Cornish.38 They were responsible for providing shipboard entertainment, but during the four-month voyage they also used their talents to entertain, distract, and lure the Inuk people living on the fjord. Cole et al. performed instrumental music to gain trust and build friendly relations with the Inuit, and they were joined by their singing and dancing crewmembers. As absurd or frivolous as the account may seem, it shows how certain kinds of nonverbal communication helped the English avoid any potential hostility. The Sunshine musicians had to be prepared for anything, and they used their playing skills to survive and bridge lingual and cultural barriers. On 19 July 1585, the Sunshine and Moonshine entered a dense fog, and the next day they encountered a coast, which the voyager John Jane describes as 34 According to Best’s report, Frobisher was “more speciallye directed by comission for the searching more of this golde Ore than for the searching any further discoverie of the passage” (141). 35 Humphrey Gilbert’s younger brother, Adrian, was also a friend of Davis and an adventurer who obtained the permission from Queen Elizabeth in 1585 to resume his brother’s search for Cathay. 36 The 50-ton Sunshine carried twenty-three men, while the 35-ton Moonshine carried nineteen. See John Jane, The first voyage of M. Iohn Dauis, vndertaken in Iune 1585. for the discouerie of the Northwest passage, Written by M. Iohn Ianes Marchant, sometimes seruant to the worshipfull Master William Sanderson, in America Part I, vol. 12 of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, ed. Edmund Goldsmid (Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889), 224. 37 Ian Woodf ield, English Musicians in the Age of Exploration (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), 108. 38 Jane, The first voyage, 224.

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“the most deformed rockie and mountainous land that euer we saw.”39 This “deformed” land was, in fact, the southeast coast of Greenland. This area Davis named the “Land of Desolation.”40 On 29 July, as the Sunshine sailed northwest at 64 degrees 15 minutes of latitude, they encountered a group of islands while sailing north on the western side of Greenland, dropping anchor and searching for food, wood, and water. The English had made their way to the northwestern islands near the place they called “Gilbert’s Sound,” named after Humphrey Gilbert, who had shipwrecked several years before. Davis and his men docked their ships at the first island, where they found clothes and furs. Meanwhile, some of the Sunshine’s crew scaled a high rock to locate the island’s inhabitants. The Inuit quickly discovered Davis’s men, as Jane describes loud cries and screeching sounds as the crew became surrounded. Jane and his other Sunshine companions cried out in response to the noise, hoping to signal their location to their crewmembers: Then we went vpon another Island on the other side of our shippes: and the Captaine, the master, and I, being got vp to the top of an high rocke, the people of the countrey hauing espied vs, made a lamentable noise, as we thought, with great outcries and skreechings: we hearing them, thought it had bene the howling of wolues. At last I hallowed againe, and they likewise cried. Then we perceiuing where they stood, some on the shoare, and one rowing in a Canoa about a small Island fast by them, we made a great noise, partly to allure them to vs, and partly to warne our company of them. 41

Jane’s description of the Inuit depicts them as animals, as their “skreechings” and howling led him to assume they had been targeted by wolves. When the Inuit cried out, the English returned the noise with their own to “allure” them, but also to warn the rest of the crew. It is not known exactly how they made “a great noise,” but we do know from later passages that the musicians readily used their instruments for these same purposes. Nearly a tenth of the crew included musicians, giving the English more opportunities to communicate with each other in different ways when they separated into groups. One group could shout “halloo,” while another could use a bugle, trumpet, or horn instrument to sound their location. Navigating the fjord 39 Jane, The first voyage, 226. 40 Ibid., 226. 41 Ibid., 228.

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“neere the shoare,” the English left enough space between them to make a getaway once they reached the pinnaces. As Woodfield observes, there is “a strong sense in many accounts of the importance of the correct management of the physical arena of the shoreline,” since the “distance between the forward party, which usually included the musicians, and the main force had to be just right” to ensure a rescue if needed. 42 Following this attempt to signal their fellow crewmen, the Sunshine musicians assisted in an impromptu plan to make friendly relations by playing their music while the crew attempted other forms of nonverbal communication. As the Inuit approached Jane and the Sunshine crewmembers, the captain of the Moonshine, William Bruton, came quickly towards them, having heard their cries. Bruton also brought additional members of the Moonshine, as well as the Sunshine musicians. He ordered Cole, Ridley, Russel, and Cornish to start playing: Whereupon M. Bruton and the Master of his shippe, with others of their company, made great haste towards vs, and brought our Musicians with them from our shippe, purposing either by force to rescue vs, if need should so require, or with courtesie to allure the people. When they came vnto vs, we caused our Musicians to play, our selves dancing, and making many signes of friendship. At length there came tenne Canoas from the other Islands, and two of them came so neere the shoare where we were, that they talked with us, the other being in their boats a prety way off. Their pronunciation was very hollow thorow the throat, and their speech such as we could not understand: onely we allured them by friendly imbracings and signes of curtesie. 43

Bruton’s decision to bring the Sunshine musicians seems odd, but he wanted to show “curtesie” instead of force, and this was the surest way. This impromptu performance corresponds with other similar instances; Drake tasked his musicians on the Pelican to play for Indigenous villagers during his circumnavigation. Bruton made this decision quickly, suggesting that the musicians were at the ready to play during all occasions. Music was an act of survival and peacekeeping, should the English find themselves surrounded and outnumbered. And there was more than simply music performed. The 42 Woodfield, English Musicians, 109–110. 43 Jane, The first voyage, 228. Jane describes their language as “very hollow thorow the throat,” presenting an early English description of Eskimo–Aleut language, possibly Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic) or Inuktun.

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crew made “signes of friendship,” using performative gestures to convey their nonviolence. The Inuit were likely confused by these loud, flamboyant invaders and tried to converse with them, but their entreaties were returned by more sign-language, hugging, and music-making. Though Jane says the crew was ready to engage with the Inuit “by force,” they were more prepared to party with their hosts. Ellis himself began to make sign language with the inhabitants, using hand signals to gain the Inuk people’s trust: Then Iohn Ellis, the Master of the Mooneshine, was appointed to vse his best policie to gaine their friendship; who stroke his breast, and pointed to the Sunne after their order: which when he had diuers times done, they beganne to trust him, and one of them came on shoare, to whom we threw our cappes, stockings, and gloves, and such other things as then we had about vs, playing with our musicke, and making signes of joy, and dauncing. So the night I, we bade them farewell, and went aboord our barks. 44

Ellis’s priority was to gain the Inuk’s trust and win their friendship. To do so, he and his company had to put on a proverbial song and dance. The strategy worked, as the English “were very familiar with them” and avoided disaster due to their ignorance of Inuit language and culture. 45 Perhaps it was not quite as utopian as Jane’s report describes, but in any case, the English successfully established trust through goodwill instead of force or abduction. There is a genuine sense of fun as Jane recounts the gaiety of their encounter. As Lehane notes, “The Eskimos so enjoyed the sailor’s dancing that three times as many natives showed up the next day.”46 Word of their sociable guests quickly spread across the island, and the English put on a kind of minstrel show to demonstrate non-violent intentions. Having established friendly relations, “[t]rading was lively” between the Inuit and the English thereafter. 47 Though Jane says the Indigenous people were “making signes of joy,” we should interpret this “joy” within the European understanding that outward signs conveyed inner feeling. This is what Carayon emphasizes when she says, “As in French reports, Indigenous ‘joy’ is a positive herald of future 44 Jane, The first voyage, 228–229. 45 Ibid., 229. 46 Brendan Lehane, The Northwest Passage (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1981), 35. 47 Ibid., 35.

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interactions, and mixed European and Indian signals are successfully put in dialogue to facilitate accommodation.”48 Carayon draws on a similar episode from Frobisher’s second voyage to discuss the ways that nonverbal communication achieved what the English saw as a “window” into the emotions of the Inuit: Nonverbal communication not only achieved pragmatic goals (obtaining food and information, peaceful exchange) but was used by the English as a possible window into Native emotions, as well. Like the French, the English appeared confident in the ability of outward observations to reveal inner states (here, sincerity and affection), even though the accuracy of their observations cannot be tested. 49

As Carayon clearly explains, the English not only wanted victuals, knowledge, and goodwill, but perhaps something even deeper. Frobisher’s and Davis’s musicians and amateur dancers were essential to understanding the Inuit as human beings, having portrayed them as antagonists in earlier voyages. To the English, music and dance were the surest means of establishing a powerful emotional connection. There are important similarities to consider with these four accounts. Musicians played during three voyages (Winter, Frobisher, Davis), and of these, Winter’s is the only account stating which instruments were played (trumpet and viol). There were horns played or present during two (Winter and Drake), and strings played on least one (Winter); Frobisher’s and Davis’s musicians were likely comprised of horn and string players, with possible inclusions of percussion and woodwind players. Indigenous people played with or for the English on at least two voyages (Drake and Frobisher), and they may have joined in the dancing and music-making on Davis’s, as well. Gifts were given on two voyages; Drake sent the Brazilians the bugles and noise-makers, while Davis’s and Ellis’s men gave the Inuit caps, stockings, and gloves (proper gifts if the crew had stolen the furs and skins they found upon arrival). All four encounters involved some act of nonverbal noise-making, and every performance seems to have been made to prevent hostilities. Notably, two of the accounts included descriptions of the sea captains participating in the introductions with their Indigenous hosts. Winter and Ellis both performed to gain the trust of the villagers ashore. While Winter danced to his musicians’ music, Ellis used elaborate hand gestures to communicate peace. 48 Carayon, Eloquence Embodied, 423. 49 Ibid., 423–424.

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Of the four accounts, two from the Passage voyages (Frobisher and Davis/Ellis) seem to be the most reciprocal, as the musicians engaged in a shared appreciation of music and dance. The Passage musicians did not merely entertain, as Winter’s musicians did for the South African coastal villagers, nor did they simply send their instruments or return signals. They imitated, performed, taught, and learned from their hosts. Frobisher’s musicians in Meta Incognita demonstrated musical rhythms and songs, and the Inuit quickly learned to repeat them with their “voice, head, hand and feete.” These interactions were the building blocks of nonverbal communication before the English could speak the villagers’ “hollow” language.

Cross-Cultural Performance and the Prism of Minstrelsy Although Davis’s musicians and crewmen put on an elaborate introductory gesture of music and dance, they were also performing a kind of pantomime of Indigenous culture to enter communication with the Inuit. The English were trying to appear flamboyant, less civilized, and ultimately harmless to disengage any hostile feelings about their presence on shore. They imitated modes of communication perceived as animalistic (having heard animal-like “skreechings” in their first encounter). We can situate this event within more recent discussions of what Julia Prest calls “the largely neglected phenomenon of the colonial imitator” in her work on the history of dance in the colonial Caribbean.50 In Prest’s research, the “pale Imitations” of Caribbean slave dance by white colonists, which were presented in public theatres in the 1770s and 80s in Saint-Domingue, bore “little resemblance” to their original models.51 These poor interpretations of slave dance were also presented as “less threatening” versions of their source.52 Though they have vastly different contexts and intentions (survival versus commercial profit), there are subtle parallels between these white imitations, or caricatures, of non-white cultures and modes of communication and expression. To explain this phenomenon in a wider context, I want to briefly shift to a more recent study of cross-cultural performance in the Pacific between the English and the Melanesians during the nineteenth century. 50 Julia Prest, “Pale Imitations: White Performances of Slave Dance in the Public Theatres of Pre-Revolutionary Saint-Domingue,” Atlantic Studies 16, no. 4 (2019): 502. 51 Ibid., 502. 52 Ibid., 502.

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Beginning in the 1840s, Melanesians in the South Sea Islands gave musical performances after the arrival of white settlers, who forced thousands of Indigenous families to board the labour ships during the voyage to Queensland. These voyages were some of the first steps in the system of indentured plantation labour. In their ethnomusicological study of the Melanesians’ maritime performances, Michael Webb and Camelia WebbGannon conclude that “new syncretic cultures began to develop” as a result of forced captivity on the lengthy voyages.53 Music was an essential part of the Melanesians’ culture, serving as a resistance to the “relentlessness and desolation of the plantation experience.”54 But South Sea Islanders used musical performance for much more than overcoming grief and desolation. Music was used to “establish cross-societal bonds,” not only with other Melanesians, but also with Europeans, who often viewed their hosts “through the prism of minstrelsy.”55 Yet their performances of music and dance were far more complex than European colonists understood. Webb and Webb-Gannon explain that the Indigenous Melanesians during these intercultural encounters took advantage of musical contexts to form alliances, including with Whites, in an attempt to gain a footing in the new settler world. The musical worlds Islanders took with them and encountered along the way were also in flux. … They experimented with any and all modes of sound making, looking to music to express their sense of dislocation but also as a source of enjoyment, as well as a means of individual and collective self-advancement.56

The Melanesians used musical performance to “gain a footing” in the world they had been forced to live, and simultaneously, they experimented with new sounds and musical styles fusing their cultural heritage with the colonists’. Music was not only an act of diversion from pain for Indigenous slave labourers and “a source of enjoyment,” but also as means of survival and self-advancement. This goal presents at least one thin link between the cross-cultural musicianship of Davis’s crew; the Melanesians performed to survive their dislocation, in addition to seeking solace in the dehumanization 53 Michael Webb and Camellia Webb-Gannon. “Melanesians and Music on the Move: South Sea Island Shipboard and Plantation Performance in Queensland, 1860s–1906,” The Journal of Pacific History 52, no. 4 (2017): 457. 54 Ibid., 457. 55 Ibid., 457. 56 Ibid., 458.

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of being enslaved. Yet Davis’s estranged crew members performed to ultimately prevent capture (likely having heard stories of Frobisher’s missing men) or violence. English explorers during the “discovery” voyages viewed the artistic culture of their native guests through what Webb and Webb-Gannon call a “prism of minstrelsy.” The English described Indigenous music in a way that infantilized them, animalized them, or othered them. Indigenous language became screeching or hollow throat sounds with no communicative power. Their spiritual rituals were witchcraft, and their general mistrust of the English and white settlers was a sign of aggression. The “prism of minstrelsy” did more than colour their view of Indigenous peoples—it erased their culture and replaced it with something monstrous. For Melanesian captives in the mid-nineteenth century, their forced entry into an unfamiliar settler colony resulted in experimental sound making and a synthesis of cultural aesthetics. Yet there is little acknowledgement of this “other” side of colonial history, the voices of captive Indigenous music-makers, with written (as opposed to oral) documentation from early English diarists being the most accessible narratives in digital archives.57 … In addition to the four major examples I have discussed, there are other instances of early English voyagers’ intercultural music-making during first encounters with Indigenous peoples. One such example is the account from Martin Pring’s 1603 voyage to North Virginia. In the account, a “youth in [the] company” played a cittern, after which he invited a group of American Indians to join him in song and dance; they happily obliged, and gave gifts in return: We had a youth in our company that could play upon a Gitterne, in whose homely Musicke they tooke great delight, and would give him many things, as Tobaco, Tobacco-pipes, Snakes skinnes of sixe foot long, which they use for Girdles, Fawnes skinnes, and such like, and danced twenty in a Ring, and the Gitterne in the middest of them, using many Savage 57 This is not unusual or surprising, but it is a challenge that ethnomusicographers like Webb and Webb-Gannon have also faced in their research, as they note: “There are no living witnesses, and practically no first hand Indigenous accounts from the recruitment years of farm and plantation celebrations and performances, hence we rely upon anecdotal fragments preserved in newspaper reports and various writings and sketches by recruiters, settlers, journalists, missionaries and other observers” (429). Within these fragments, scholars of Indigenous cultural and musical histories can slowly piece together a cohesive narrative of intercultural performance.

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gestures, singing Jo, Ja, Jo, Ja, Ja, Jo: him that first brake the ring, the rest would knock and cry out upon.58

The description of “Savage gestures” evokes what Webb and Webb-Gannon call the “prism of minstrelsy” through which white colonists and voyagers understood Indigenous performance. During this time, English minstrel performers, or travelling “players,” were the modern-day equivalent of street musicians playing for quick profit. The young man aboard Pring’s voyage emulates such a performer, taking the tobacco and snake skins as payment for his cittern playing. The performance on Pring’s voyage is collaborative, and like those from Davis’s musicians, it became so organically. The music itself was an invitation to participate, a performance that helped engender friendly relations. Woodfield believes this young man “may not have been a professional musician,” most likely from the description of his “homely Musicke.”59 Even so, the simple act of playing prompted the Indigenous audience to participate, thereby changing the performance into something more elaborate and complex.

Bibliography Andrews, Kenneth R. “Drake and South America.” In Sir Francis Drake and the Famous Voyage, 1577–1580: Essays Commemorating the Quadricentennial of Drake’s Circumnavigation of the Earth, edited by Norman J.W. Thrower, 49–59. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Best, George. A true discourse of the three Voyages of discouerie, for the finding of a passage to Cathaya, by the Northwest, vnder the conduct of Martin Frobisher Generall: Before which as a necessary Preface is prefixed a twofolde discourse, conteining certaine reasons to proue all partes of a World habitate. Penned by Master George Best, a Gentleman employed in the same voyages. In America Part I, vol. 12, of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, edited by Edmund Goldsmid, 113–224. Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889. Carayon, Céline. Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. Williamsburg, VA and Chapel Hill, NC: The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 2019. 58 David Beers Quinn and A.M. Quinn, The English New England Voyages 1602–1608, Hakluyt Society Second Series 161 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1983), 220. 59 Woodfield, English Musicians, 111.

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A discourse of the West Indies and South sea written by Lopez Vas a Portugal … in the yeere 1586. In Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, Vol. 8, 153–206. London: J.M. Dent, 1910/13. Fletcher. Francis. The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake. Edited by William Sandys Wright Vaux. Series 1. Vol. 16. London: Hakluyt Society, 1854. Hakluyt, Richard. Principal Navigations. 16 vols. Vol. 12, America Part I, edited by Edmund Goldsmid. Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889. Hall, Christopher. The first Voyage of M. Martine Frobisher, to the Northwest, for the search of the straight or passage to China, written by Christopher Hall, Master in the Gabriel, and made in the yeere of our Lord 1576. In America Part I, vol. 12 of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, edited by Edmund Goldsmid, 74–81. Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889. Jane, John. The first voyage of M. Iohn Dauis, vndertaken in Iune 1585. for the discouerie of the Northwest passage, Written by M. Iohn Ianes Marchant, sometimes seruant to the worshipfull Master William Sanderson. In Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, edited by Edmund Goldsmid, 12: 224–246. Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid, 1889. Kenyon, W.A. Tokens of Possession: The Northern Voyages of Martin Frobisher. Toronto, Ontario: 1975. “kind, adj. and adv.” OED Online. Oxford University Press. www.oed.com/view/ Entry/103445. Accessed 26 July 2021. Lehane, Brendan. The Northwest Passage. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1981. Lemercier-Goddard, Sophie. “‘Any Strange Beast There Makes a Man’: Interaction and Self-Reflection in the Arctic (1576–1578).” Revue LISA/LISA e-journal: Littératures, Histoire des Idées, Images, Sociétés du Monde Anglophone – Literature, History of Ideas, Images and Societies of the English-speaking World 13, no. 3 (2015). https://doi.org/10.4000/lisa.8756. Levine, Victoria Lindsay. “The Global Keyboard: Music, Visual Forms, and Maritime Trade in the Early Modern Era.” In Picturing Commerce in and from the East Asian Maritime Circuits, 1550–1800, edited by Tamara H. Bentley, 223–246. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019. Palmer, Philip S. “‘All Suche matters as passed on this vyage’: Early English Travel Anthologies and the Case of John Sarracoll’s Maritime Journal (1586–87).” Huntington Library Quarterly 76, no. 3 (2013): 325–344. Palmer, Roy, ed. The Oxford Book of Sea Songs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Prest, Julia. “Pale Imitations: White Performances of Slave Dance in the Public Theatres of Pre-Revolutionary Saint-Domingue.” Atlantic Studies, 16, no. 4 (2019): 502–520. Quinn, David Beers, and A.M. Quinn. The English New England Voyages 1602–1608. Hakluyt Society Second Series 161. London: Hakluyt Society, 1983.

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“rattle, v.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press. June 2018. www.oed.com/view/ Entry/158558. Accessed 1 July 2018. Sugden, John. Sir Francis Drake. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. The voyage of M. John Winter into the South sea … Written by Edward Cliffe Mariner. In Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 87–99. London: J.M. Dent, 1910/13. Webb, Michael and Camellia Webb-Gannon. “Melanesians and Music on the Move: South Sea Island Shipboard and Plantation Performance in Queensland, 1860s–1906.” The Journal of Pacific History 52, no. 4 (2017): 427–458. Woodf ield, Ian. English Musicians in the Age of Exploration. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995.

4. Courtly Rituals and Casual Entertainments Abstract This chapter first presents analytical readings of courtly functions for which hired shipboard musicians were paid to perform (dinners, psalm services, funerals, and other formal ceremonies), and I focus on the way captains like Drake instilled courtly regiment and customs to assert themselves as sole master of the voyage. This mastery not only included the ship but the social, moral, and religious lives of the crew. Given this dynamic, hired shipboard musicians had to attend to the captain as they would a court official. Conversely, there were also times of recreational play and diversion, which often gave performers an opportunity to escape their pedestrian or piratical reality. Keywords: ship dinners, psalm services, shipboard musicians, General History of Pirates, circumnavigation

As explored in Chapters One and Two, naval and professional civilian performers brought courtly rituals and customs aboard ship. These rituals may have helped musicians like trumpeter John Brewer transition to a life at court after playing at sea. Genteel customs distinguished shipboard performers as a personnel category above seafaring labourers, though still below the voyages’ top officers. They followed their captain’s orders and sent signals between parties on land and sea, communicated with Indigenous peoples and foreign contacts, and of course, entertained the captain and crew. As entertainers, maritime musicians and performers occupied the same spaces on the ship as the captain, high-ranking officers, and royal guests, usually during meals. However, they also entertained the mariners and lower-ranking sailors who made up most of the ship’s crew, playing on deck during times of diversion. The performing middle class had to shift between these disparate groups and learn how to accommodate both.

Seth, J., Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages: The Lives of the Seafaring Middle Class. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725415_ch04

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For formal, courtly functions, musicians were tasked to give processional music for the appropriate occasion. Casual entertainments, on the other hand, included music, dance, and for pirates during the Golden Age, satirical shipboard theatre, which mocked courtly laws and practises.

Courtly Rituals Queen Elizabeth was an enthusiastic patron of the arts, and she surrounded her court with various types of performers—singers, instrumental musicians, dramatic performers, and so on.1 She kept brass players, drummers, lutes, sackbuts, viols, flute and fife players, and musicians-in-ordinary, according to court livery documents.2 Musicians played a significant role during meals, especially. A 1598 account from a “a German traveller” who visited the court, reprinted in Mandell Creighton’s biography on Elizabeth, describes the daily dinner theatre of court attendants: The dishes were received by a gentleman, who placed them on the table, while the lady taster gave to each of the guard a mouthful to eat of the dish which he carried, for fear of poison. During this time twelve trumpets and two kettle-drums made the hall ring. At the end of this ceremony a number of ladies appeared, who with particular ceremony lifted the meat from the table and carried it into the Queen’s private chamber, where after she has chosen for herself, the rest goes to the ladies of the Court.3

This ceremonial pomp during the latter years of Elizabeth’s reign was not uncommon. There was a fine-tuned performance in the dining hall, with each player conducting their task properly and in the correct sequence. No less than fourteen musicians were required to make “the hall ring” with their playing. Dinner music was a celebratory occasion, more processional than pragmatic (compared to the lady taster’s dangerous task of checking food for poison). These same court musicians were also recruited for military voyages, begging the question of how strictly their processional routines at court 1 Mandell Creighton explains that, beginning at a young age, Elizabeth “was fond of music, but did not devote much time to it.” See Creighton, Queen Elizabeth, (London: Longman, Green, 1920), 18. 2 Henry Cart de LaFontaine, ed., The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460–1700) (London: Novello, 1909), 12–35. 3 Qtd in Creighton, 2’3.

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transferred to shipboard schedules. The Lord Chamberlain’s account for 20 September 1579 mentions, for example, a “Warrant for sea liveries for William Lyndsey and Thomas Holdworthe, trumpettours appointed to searve on the seas under Admiral Sir John Parrot.”4 As naval trumpeters, Lyndsey and Holdworthe had special communicative tasks, sounding their horns to signal enemy ships, as well as communicating between the captain, crew, and their fleet. During this voyage in September, Lord Deputy Sir John Perrot (1528–1592) took five ships (Revenge, Dreadnought, Swiftsure, Foresight, and Achates) to prevent the Spanish from shipping on Ireland’s west coast, as well as to thwart any pirates in the area.5 It was, as biographers Percy Evans and Roger Turvey describe, an “uneventful” voyage for Perrot, despite capturing a pirate ship and running the Revenge aground on the return voyage.6 The two trumpeters likely sounded their horns to indicate the pirate ship and gave Perrot the signal that their ship had run out of water deep enough to float it on the Kentish Downs.7 But what did Lyndsey and Holdworthe do for the duration of the voyage? Did they play at meals, or times of recreation? Times of worship? Did they play as though they were at Hampton Court Palace, even if the queen was not aboard? Playing at Dinner on the Circumnavigation One way to approach these questions is to consider the playing schedules for musicians on contemporaneous voyages. The accounts of Drake’s worldcompassing voyage (1577–1580) offer the richest evidence in describing the shipboard schedule for artists and performers, and they illustrate in detail how the flagship became a courtly playing space. Drake employed different kinds of artists to occupy public and private areas. During the circumnavigation, landscape artists painted ocean views, and professional musicians played at every meal and during times of worship. Don Francisco de Zárate, the gentleman aboard the captured Cacafuego, writes at length 4 LaFontaine, King’s Musick, 28. 5 Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Ireland, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1574–1585, ed. Hans C. Hamilton (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer, 1867), 2: 182. See also Percy Cyril Connick Evans and Roger Turvey. “PERROT family, of Haroldston, Pembrokeshire,” Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2020). https://biography.wales/article/s12-PERR-HAR-1530. Accessed 3 August 2021. Evans and Turvey emphasize that, “[a]part from sighting one pirate ship, the ‘Derifold,’ which Perrot chased and caught, the expedition was an uneventful one, though, on the return to the Thames, Perrot’s ship ran aground on the Kentish Downs.” 6 Evans and Turvey, “PERROT family.” 7 Ibid.

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about the ways Drake demanded music for his meals, as his entry for March 1579 elaborates: The English general is about thirty-five years of age, short of stature, with a red beard, and one of the best sailors that sail the seas, both in respect to boldness and to capacity for command. His ship is of near 400 tons burden, with a hundred men on board, all young and of an age for battle, and all drilled as well as the oldest veterans of our army of Italy … [Drake] also has with him nine or ten gentlemen, the younger sons of great people in England. Some of them are in his counsels, but he has no favourite. These sit at his table, and he is served in silver place with a coat of arms engraved on the dishes; and music is played at his dinner and supper.8

As Zárate’s letter reveals, Drake always kept a train of people around him, including his consort of professional musicians. Of those “nine or ten gentlemen,” three or four of them played musical instruments, likely strings. A second version of Zárate’s letter published by Zelia Nuttall claims Drake “dines and sups to the music of viols.”9 If this account is correct, stringed (or “still”) music was heard daily aboard ship, playing at least twice a day during Drake’s meals. Zárate describes Drake’s crew as “young,” and this description also applies to his young musicians, as well, even if they were not trained for combat. Zárate describes the men on the Hind being “drilled as well as the oldest veterans,” highlighting Drake’s firm command of his crew. The musicians on the circumnavigation included trumpeter John Brewer, musicians Simon Wood, Richard Clarke, and Thomas Meekes, as well as a musician named George, who is only mentioned in Samuel Purchas’s account of Drake’s voyage.10 Drake also enlisted drummers whose names are not 8 Zárate, “Don Francisco de Zarate’s Letter,” in William Sandys Wright Vaux, ed., The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake by Francis Fletcher. Vol. 16 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1854), 218–219. Contrary to Zárate’s claim, Drake was closer to forty years of age in March 1579. See Harry Kelsey, “Drake, Sir Francis (1540–1596), Pirate, Sea Captain, and Explorer,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8022. 9 “Testimony of Francisco de Zarate,” in New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580, ed. Zelia Nuttall, Hakluyt Society Second Series 34 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1914), 207. 10 The elusive “George a Musician” is mentioned only once in Purchas’s account, being one of a list of men “noated to have compassed the world with Drake.” See Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 16: 118. Purchas writes: “Men noated to have compassed the world with Drake, which have come to my hands are Thomas Drake, brother to Sir Francis; Thomas Hood, Thomas Blaccoler, John Gripe, George a Musician, Crane, Fletcher, Cary, T. Moone, John Drake, John Thomas, Robert Winterly,

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stated.11 Wood, Clarke, and Meekes likely played stringed instruments, per Zárate’s observation, and they would have been part of Drake’s personal consort, following him as needed, while Brewer was perched at the poop and the drummers were stationed on the deck. There may have also been an oboe or woodwind among Drake’s consort, but only viols, trumpets, and clarions are mentioned in voyage writings. William Sandys Wright Vaux’s edition of the voyage journal includes a description of various instruments played as Drake engaged with the local ruler at Ternate in the Moluccas: “our ordinance thundred, which wee mixed with great store of small shot, among which sounding our trumpets and other instruments of musick, both of still and loud noise.”12 The phrase “other instruments of musick” suggests a variety of brass, wind, and string. The trumpeters and clarions (Brewer and other horn players aboard) played the “loud” music, while the viol players (Wood, Clarke, Meekes, and/or George) played the “still” music.13

Oliver the Gunner, &c.” (118). He lists the men whose names “have come to his hands,” but he does not indicate exactly how he was notified, or who provided the list (118). Some names in Purchas’s account are given in full, while others only partially, and the two names with epithets are “George a Musician” and “Oliver the Gunner.” 11 One of the few mentions of drumming from Drake’s circumnavigation comes from the deposition of Alonso Sanchez de Mercado, who describes the following scene: “behind certain sand dunes they drew up in formation, flags flying and drums beating.” Drake was on the offensive, and he ordered his drummers to sound their approach as they “drew up in formation.” Mercado further states in his deposition: “It was understood that Francis Drake, corsair, was among them because where they set up the artillery in the afternoon there was the music of cornets, sackbuts, and flagelots.” The sound of horned instruments like cornets and sackbuts (trombones) signalled Drake’s oncoming attack, and the fact that there were multiple horns heard suggests that John Brewer had additional assistance from other musicians—perhaps any of the Hind musicians, or other trumpeters who may have been on any of the other four ships. See Alonso Sanchez de Mercado, “Statement,” in Further English Voyages to the Spanish Main, ed. Irene Wright, Hakluyt Society Second Series 99 (Cambridge: University Press, 1932), 199. 12 Fletcher, The World Encompassed, 141. 13 There were likely other musicians on the circumnavigation whose names, instruments, and roles are still unaccounted for. Drake would have employed multiple drummers to assist in key communicative naval tasks aboard the Hind, along with the trumpeters. In his 1572 voyage to Nombre de Dios, Drake’s weaponry and instruments included “sixe Targets, sixe Firepikes, twelve Pikes, twentie foure Muskets, and Callivers, sixteene Bowes, and six Partizans, two Drums, and two Trumpets.” See Phillip Nichols, “Sir Francis Drake Revived,” in Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Spanish Main, 1569–1580, ed. Irene A. Wright, Hakluyt Series 2, No. 71 (Cambridge: University Press, 1932), 254. The drummers would have been stationed on the deck of the Hind, near the main mast “where the companies of foot soldiers were stationed,” Woodfield notes (54). Drummers are depicted near the main mast in Dutch marine art, including Cornelis Vroom’s portrayal of Heemskerk’s defeat of the Spaniards off Gibraltar on 25 April 1607 (c. 1607). In the centre of the painting, a drummer is clearly positioned at the mainmast of the Dutch ship.

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In this instance, all instruments, regardless of their status or prestige, joined in the noise. Zárate portrays Drake as a powerful conductor of people and activity aboard ship, as well as a commander concerned with image. In addition to having music played at precise times, Drake employed “trained carpenters and artisans, so as to be able to careen the ship at any time.”14 Drake created a rhythm of shipboard activity to serve his desires and to ensure the Hind looked its best. He delegated craftsmen and artisans “to careen the ship” and quickly repair damaged or unsightly parts. Drake was always surrounded, not only to service the ship but also for the appearance and performance of power. Zárate’s letter fawns on Drake’s authority and the genteel way he conducted himself in front of guests, commenting on the gaudy dishware and pleasant music. It is easy to view Drake’s courtly manners as aspirational. As Marco Nievergelt explains, “Drake’s whole life was in fact substantially shaped by his conscious attempt to emulate, impress, and attract the attention of the nobility and gentry of his time.”15 Emulating royalty, Drake attracted the attention of Spanish gentlemen like Zárate. The circumnavigation elevated Drake to a level of prestige surpassing the expectations of his yeoman upbringing, making him a “valiant gentleman,” to quote the title of a 1581 pamphlet by Nicholas Breton.16 14 Don Francisco de Zárate, “Don Francisco de Zarate’s Letter,” in The World Encompassed and Analogous Contemporary Documents Concerning Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation of the World, ed. N.M. Penzer (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1969), 219. 15 Marco Nievergelt, “Francis Drake: Merchant, Knight and Pilgrim,” Renaissance Studies 23.1 (2008): 62. 16 Breton’s full title is A discourse in commendation of the valiant gentleman, maister Frauncis Drake, with a reioysing of his happy adventures (1581), and the document helped sell the genteel image that Drake wanted to project. This image was not shared by English gentlemen who knew Drake personally. Commenting on the content of Zárate’s letter, Quinn notes that “few Englishmen were to speak so well of him,” and Drake’s infamy in Spanish popular culture grew, owing to his nickname “El Draque” and “dragon-pirate” persona in Spanish literature and drama. See Quinn, Sir Francis Drake as Seen by His Contemporaries (Providence, RI: John Carter Brown Library and the Hakluyt Society, 1996), 8. Quinn introduces the “pirate-dragon” persona on p. 1. Critics like Jennifer Goodman and Nievergelt are interested especially in the afterlives of navigator’s inflated personas. See Goodman, Chivalry and Exploration, 1298–1630 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1998), 3. Goodman explains that, “From the fourteenth to the twentieth century, European adventurers and their historians were much given to identifying the deeds of explorers and conquerors with the exploits of the knights errant of medieval chivalric mythology” (3). Nievergelt focuses primarily on one text written with Drake’s circumnavigation in mind, identifying the “presence of this ‘chivalric’ Drake” in the dedication written by Robert Norman in the beginning of William Goodyear’s translation of The Voyage of the Wandering Knight (1581). He argues that Norman’s dedication presents Drake as an actor occupying a series of chivalric

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Much has been written about Drake’s leadership and self-image during the circumnavigation. Zárate says “[Drake] has no favourite,” suggesting he viewed his men as equals aboard ship.17 Nievergelt argues that Drake was shaped by a need to impress the gentry, but Drake was also rewriting the rules for shipboard authority and abolishing a culture built on favouritism and privilege of courtly rank. Claire Jowitt describes Drake as “a new breed of sea captain” which became known as the “tarpaulin captain,” a “sea-bred superior officer.”18 Drake exemplified this “new breed” because he came from “yeoman stock” and “through skill and determination, more than elite birth, rose through the ranks.”19 This idea of Drake rising through the ranks informs his relationships with officers of various social stations. Most of the critical conversation about Drake’s leadership focuses on his execution of gentleman officer and military commander Thomas Doughty, which significantly changed the social dynamic of the voyage. A group of men, Brewer included, brought claims against Doughty for mutiny and for besmirching Drake’s name.20 According to witness John Cooke, Drake apparently addressed these claims to his men and had them vote on whether to execute Doughty.21 Cooke told Doughty’s brother, John, about what haproles (merchant, knight, and pilgrim), similarly to the way that Ralegh fashions his various roles in the Discoverie. 17 An exception, however, would be Drake’s cousin John, who stayed with Drake in his cabin and was allowed certain privileges like dancing at the psalm services aboard ship. 18 Claire Jowitt, “Performing ‘Water’ Ralegh: The Cultural Politics of Sea Captains in Late Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama,” in The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain, ed. Richard J. Blakemore and James Davey (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020), 131. See also “tarpaulin captain,” Oxford Reference, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/ authority.20110803102142205. Accessed 5 August 2021. The entry that appears in The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea states: “There was always great bitterness between tarpaulin captains and what were known as gentlemen captains, for, as Sir Henry Mainwaring wrote in his Discourse on Pirates (1617), the ability to command a ship with ‘discretion and judgement, to manage, handle, content and command the company, both in fear and love’ was beyond the capability of the gentleman captain. That crews also preferred to be commanded by a tarpaulin captain can be appreciated by the example of a dozen seamen at the funeral of a tarpaulin captain, Sir Christopher Myngs, who was killed in 1666 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–7).” 19 Ibid., 131. 20 Woodfield notes that “Brewer had been one of the accusers of Thomas Doughty, controversially executed by Drake”; see English Musicians, 53. 21 Cooke’s testimony includes the following statement from Drake: “you may se whether this fellowe (Doughty) hathe sowght my discredite or no, and what shuld hereby be fnent but the very ovarthrowe of the vyadge, as first by takynge away of my good name, and iscrediti iscrediting me, and then my lyfe … Therefore my mastars they that thinke this man worthy to dye let them with me hold vpp theyr hands, and they that thinke him not worthye to dye hold downe theyr

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pened on the ship, leading to Doughty’s posthumous trial upon the Hind’s return, where Drake pleaded his innocence.22 Drake’s enforcement of authority over social superiors was a radical shift in maritime dynamics by presenting himself as a gentleman-navigator and a Captain who assumed all decision-making power over elite officers, which had long been custom aboard ship.23 Drake’s audacity in rejecting a centuries-old maritime custom to consult superior officers changed the dynamic of shipboard leadership. Like the Boatswain in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Drake refused to kneel to a superior in the land world because he was the commander in the oceanic world. Drake’s execution of Doughty, Jowitt argues, “epitomizes the idea that one captain is the sole master on a voyage regardless of social rank.”24 I believe Drake’s version of the “tarpaulin captain” emulates a kind of monarchical ship commander, turning the social hierarchy in the land community on its head by presenting the captain as the “sole master,” to quote Jowitt. hands.” See “Sir Francis Drake and the Death of John Doughty. From the Narrative of John Cooke … 1854,” in Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1928), 10: 357. 22 David Beers Quinn provides an overview of the aftermath of Doughty’s execution upon the Hind’s return to England in Sir Francis Drake as Seen by His Contemporaries (Providence, RI: John Carter Brown Library and the Hakluyt Society, 1996), 4–5. For more sustained argumentation on the Doughty trail and its aftermath, see Gregory Robinson, “The Trial and Death of Thomas Doughty,” The Mariner’s Mirror 7, no. 9 (1921): 271–282; W. Senior, “Drake at the Suit of John Doughty,” The Mariner’s Mirror 7, no. 10 (1921), 291–297; Kenneth R. Andrews, “The Aims of Drake’s Expedition of 1577–1580,” The American Historical Review 73 no. 3 (February 1968): 724–741; Francesca Loverci, “More’s Words Reverberated in Drake’s Patagonia: ‘New Light on the Doughty Case: English Catholics during the Elizabethan Age’. A summary of ‘Nuova luce sul caso Doughty. 1 cattolici inglesi nell’epoca elisabettiana’, Clio: Rivista di studi storici, 30, 3, Luglio: Settembre 1994, 397– 430,” Morcana 34, no. 130 (June 1997): 123–127; and Mary C. Fuller, “Writing the Long-Distance Voyage: Hakluyt’s Circumnavigators,” Huntington Library Quarterly 70, no. 1 (March 2007): 37–60, esp. 48–49. These are only a handful of existing article-length studies that address the case, though authors like Kelsey also address this topic in monographs on Drake’s life. In his article on the topic, David L. Cole maps a literary connection between Drake and Shakespeare, highlighting the historical relationship of Drake and Doughty as possible inspiration for The Tempest (1610). See Cole, “Drake’s Brave New World and ‘The Tempest,’” CEA Critic 51, no. 4 (Summer 1989): 40–52. 23 Jowitt notes that, “According to medieval maritime law, masters should discuss important decisions with their companies, and vestiges of this custom survived in English naval and privateering ships into the sixteenth century”; see “‘Water’ Ralegh, 131. See also Edda Frankot, “Medieval Maritime Law from Oléron to Wisby: Jurisdictions in the Law of the Sea” in Communities in European History: Representations, Jurisdictions, Conflicts, ed. Juan Pan-Montojo and Frederik Pedersen (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2007), 151–172. 24 Jowitt, “‘Water’ Ralegh,” 132. See also Jowitt, “The Hero and the Sea: Sea Captains and Their Discontents,” Revue de la Société d’études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles 74 (2017). Special Issue: L’Empire. https://doi.org/10.4000/1718.888.

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Having his personal consort perform at meals helped Drake maintain an image of refinement in front of his royal captives. However, I am far more interested in how this shift to “sole master” affected the playing conditions of the musicians and performers aboard. Drake loved music, and he kept musicians near him for most of his major voyages.25 As John Sugden points out, Drake’s performers not only “serenaded the General at his midday and evening meals,” but they also “were at hand at the religious services that invariably accompanied dining.”26 In addition to trumpets and strings, Drake also kept oboe players.27 Drake even “led the singing of the Psalms, read aloud from the Book of Martyrs and on Sundays appeared in his best finery and had pennants and flags hoisted at the masts.”28 Zárate and Nuño de Silva (a Portuguese pilot captured on the Hind) wrote letters corroborating this depiction of Drake as a commander who engaged in pageantry and performance. What is missing from the critical conversations about the music and spectacle on the Hind is how Drake’s shipboard performers brought elements of court culture and synthesized them with the norms and practices of voyaging. No performance on the Hind could perfectly replicate those at Hampton Court Palace. Playing at meals, worship services, or dirges would always be different aboard ship, and those differences highlight an important aspect of middle-class seafaring performers. Much like their roles as mediators between disparate social groups, their performances were a unique blend of genteel manners and shipboard carousing. The songs and dances of lower working-class seamen were “tailored to shipboard life,” Fury notes, and similarly, professional musicians on the Hind tailored their music not only to Drake’s expectations but to those inscribed in working-class shipboard culture. Caught between Cultures Wood, Clarke, Meekes, and perhaps even George navigated between two contradictory shipboard spaces, cultures, and worldviews brought together 25 Kevin Mobbs includes a list of mentions of music from Drake’s voyages in his doctoral dissertation, chaired by Randy Kohlenberg. This list includes Drake’s voyages to Panama (1571–1572), the Circumnavigation (1577–1580), his West Indies raid (1585–1586), and his final voyage (1595–1596). See Kevin Mobbs and Randy Kohlenberg, Music on the Voyages of Sir Francis Drake and Major Spanish Expeditions of the Western Hemisphere (2000), ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. 26 John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake (New York: H. Holt, 1990), 121. 27 Ibid., 121. 28 Ibid., 121.

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on the Hind. In the captain’s quarters, dining areas, and other spaces where Drake entertained his captured hidalgos, there was a reinforcement of courtly values. Thomas William Edgar Roche reiterates that “[m]eals in the great cabin were a very formal occasion,” noting the fine plates and music being presented.29 Though musical accompaniment seems like a relatively small detail amidst the conversations between Drake and his captives—which were likely mediated through his translator, Diego—such details like music and plate-ware were important to Drake when setting up formal meetings.30 As Zárate explains in his letter, guests were “served in silver place with a coat of arms engraved on the dishes; and music is played at his dinner and supper.” Zárate also notes in his letter that the “silver dishes with gold borders and gilded garlands” on which they ate not only emblazed Drake’s coat of arms, but they “had been given him by the Queen.”31 Drake was quick to lie to Zárate if it resulted in a decorated report from the hidalgo. Zárate was sycophantic and gullible, but Drake also created an atmosphere aboard the flagship parading his social prominence. As for the musicians, they had to sell this image as best they could during meals and other proper occasions. Though it is unlikely Brewer would leave the poop to play at meals with the other strings, his time working for Hatton could have also given him courtly aspirations like his commander. When Wood, Clarke, and Meekes were not performing for genteel guests, they likely followed Drake around the ship as Zárate’s description suggests. But what would they do when there was downtime, or when Drake and his cousin John would stay in the captain’s cabin for extended periods?32 We could assume the musicians, if they were not playing privately for Drake, were about the deck of the ship, playing for the sailors. The Hind’s drummer was likely stationed on deck, as well, presenting an opportunity for impromptu performances. On deck, the sailors were hoisting rope and swabbing the deck, singing shanties in time to their work. The working-class sailors were engaging in what Fury calls the “seamen’s subculture,” which distinguished their way of life from those in the land community.33 Fury differentiates the 29 Thomas William Edgar Roche, The Golden Hinde (New York: Praeger, 1973), 90. 30 In Zárate’s account, it states that one of the gentlemen he first met at dinner was “a Portuguese pilot, whom he brought from England, who spoke not a word during all the time I was on board”; see “Zarate’s Letter,” 219. This was likely Diego, who worked as Drake’s personal manservant. 31 Zárate, “Zarate’s Letter,” 219. 32 Elizabeth Story Donno, An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls (London: Hakluyt Society, 1976), 23. 33 Cheryl A. Fury, Tides in the Affairs of Men: The Social History of Elizabethan Seamen, 1580–1603 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 87–88.

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landed “self” (or status quo) from the seafaring “other,” emphasizing how their sea songs “not only employed their unique jargon but also reflected the work rhythms of their occupation.”34 Fury also distinguishes the culture of lower-class seafarers from the gentlemen navigators by highlighting the special limitations of their shipboard entertainment: “Seamen’s dances were designed for confined areas. Both forms [song and dance] were tailored to shipboard life. Thus, their working environment and the rhythm of their labor had a direct influence upon the character of their popular culture, and that culture reinforced their ‘otherness.’”35 During the circumnavigation, where gentlemen officers like Thomas Doughty were viewed as subordinates to Drake, this sense of “otherness” between sea and land communities was likely quelled. It is important to avoid conflating the “seamen’s subculture” with formal string music musicians like Simon Wood performed during meals in the great cabin. Still, musicians worked in similar spaces and rhythms as the labouring class, even if the work itself differed. Wood, for instance, was intensely involved in shipboard activities during his voyage on Fenton’s 1582 voyage. Not only did he confer with the Galleon chaplain Richard Maddox about ship goings-on, but he also witnessed six whelps being cut from the belly of a shark. It is possible Wood demonstrated the same curiosity in shipboard happenings on the Hind, and it is possible he acquired the “artificial oyl” he gave to Maddox for sickness while he was voyaging on the circumnavigation.36 Drake’s musicians were attuned to the lively activity on the Hind, and it is reasonable to consider their participation in the “seamen’s subculture” in addition to playing in the great cabin. In fact, these musicians were integral in bringing the sea and land worlds together when Drake called everyone for worship services. No matter the office, class, or role, everyone participated in the holy shipboard services, and even Drake’s Spanish captives were invited to attend. Playing Psalms Aboard Ship The 1580 deposition of Francisco Gomez Rengifo, Factor at Guatulco, presents a descriptive account of psalm-singing during Drake’s circumnavigation. The Spanish Inquisition used Rengifo’s deposition to prepare a case against Nuño de Silva, Drake’s Portuguese pilot, for participating in so-called heretical 34 Ibid., 87. 35 Ibid., 87. 36 Donno, Elizabethan in 1582, 129.

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English services of worship.37 Witnesses were questioned about the nature of these services, and one witness, Juan Pascual, gave many details describing how Drake orchestrated the services. Under oath, Pascual says Drake took out a very large book and knelt down bareheaded, and read from the said book in the English language. All the other Englishmen whom he brought with him were also seated without their hats, and made responses. Some of them held books resembling Bibles in their hands and read in these.38

Interestingly, Drake led the services instead of his Chaplain, Francis Fletcher. He used a prayer book dictating prayers to read for specific times throughout the day and on holy days. Drake may have used Fletcher’s copy of the Book of Common Prayer (1559) to lead worship and give psalms.39 Not only did the book contain a table for the order of psalms to be read at morning and night, but it also contained proper lessons to be read throughout the year and those for holy days. Fletcher and Drake would have used the text for worship throughout the circumnavigation. Drake reimagined the ship as church, enforcing men to remove their hats and have their bibles in hand, ready to follow along. In his statement Pascual also draws attention to the fact that Drake reads from the holy book “in the English language.” Giving 37 Ian Woodf ield, English Musicians in the Age of Exploration (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), 47. 38 See “Testimony of Juan Pascual,” in New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580, ed. Zelia Nuttall, Hakluyt Society Second Series 34 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1914), 325. Other testimony confirms these details, including another man interrogated by the Inquisition in 1592 in the Canary Islands, who reported that psalms were given twice a day—once in the morning and again in the evening. See L. de Alberti and A.B. Wallis, English Merchants and the Spanish Inquisition in the Canaries, Camden 3rd Series 23 (London: Offices of the Society, 1912), 38 and 113. Woodfield discusses this testimony and another by a “Portuguese seaman picked up by Cavendish in 1588,” who apparently “told the authorities in the Philippines that crew members who did not wish to attend the ‘Lutheran’ services on board the Desire had not been obliged to do so.” (48). The testimony is available in W.L. Schurz’s The Manilla Galleon (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1912), 311. Sugden also discusses Drake’s psalm service in Sir Francis Drake, but offers little commentary about the event (121). 39 See also Robert Bruce Mullin, “The Book of Common Prayer and Eighteenth-Century Episcopalians,” in Religions of the United States in Practice, ed. Colleen McDannell (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 1: 32–47. Mullin discusses the earliest practices of using the Prayer Book in the Americas. Mullin notes that “[t]he first Prayer Book service in what is now the United States probably took place in 1579 in California under the auspices of Francis Drake during the circumnavigation of the world” and “[r]egular worship began with the establishment of the Virginia colony in 1607” (1: 33).

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prayer in the vernacular could be evidence enough for the Inquisition to deem the services heretical. If we view the Hind as a governed body, Drake’s insistence on giving the service made him sole master of both church and state. Thus, he assumed responsibility of his crew’s physical and spiritual well-being. However, Drake also had experience with shipboard psalm services from earlier voyages. Using a different translation of Nuttall’s version, Woodfield highlights Pascual’s claim that Drake “chanted in a low voice” (“cantava en tono baxo”), and in return, “everyone responded” (“y todos le respondian”). 40 Drake’s call-and-response worship service shows how skilled he was at commanding his men and also how responsive they were in their participation. During John Lovell’s 1573 voyage to Africa, which also included Drake, the men “recited psalms in every ship, along with the other things that are specified in … the books the Protestants use in England,” according to testimony by Miguel Morgan and Morgan Tillert. 41 Drake also learned how to give worship services aboard the Jesus of Lubeck during his time on Hawkins’s second slaving voyage. On Hawkins’s Jesus, Kelsey notes, the mate William Saunders “gathered all the men before the mainmast and had them kneel to recite Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Creed.”42 Saunders or Hawkins could have requested any of the five or six musicians on the Jesus to play, though this detail is not noted in any of the accounts. Wood, Meckes, Clarke, and George were important players during the psalm services, as they followed the prayers with string music when the crew made lamentations and sang in unison. After Drake gave the prayers in a “low voice,” his musicians began to play their strings, and it is possible other instruments accompanied them.43 The services themselves were pure theatre. They gave Drake an opportunity to appoint himself chaplain, read from his prayer book, and conduct his musicians, singers, and performers. For Wood et al., psalm-playing was a time when they could play energetic music for the entire crew, rather the formal music they played for Drake and his officers and guests in the great cabin. Nuttall’s translation of the

40 Woodfield, English Musicians, 47. 41 Testimony of Morgan Tillert (Miguel Morgan), 7 February 1573, AGN Inquisición, tomo 55, exp. I fols. 25v–26. Reprinted in Harry Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 21. 42 Kelsey, Queen’s Pirate, 33. 43 Woodfield believes the “instruments played” with “occasional limitations of size,” considering the space on the poop Drake used to give service; see English Musicians, 39.

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Factor of Guatalco Nuño de Silva’s deposition highlights the theatrical nature of these services: Witness did not know or learn the names of those who were on the said ship, excepting the pirate, Francis Drake; the said Pasqual, and Nuño da Silva, the Portuguese who is in Mexico. It seemed to witness that the English and Nuño da Silva treated each other with entire friendship, but he does not know what they discussed or spoke, because they did so in the English tongue, which witness does not understand. But witness, and the said vicar, Simon de Miranda, as well as the judge of Xochitepec, saw how, after having taken them prisoners, and sacked the port, and taken possession of the laden vessel that lay at anchor, the said Francis Drake had a table placed on deck at the poop of the vessel, and, at its head, on the floor, a small box and an embroidered cushion. He then sent for a book of the size of the Lives of the Saints and when all this was in place he struck the table twice with the palm of his hand. Then, immediately nine Englishmen, with nine small books of the size of a breviary, joined him and seated themselves around him and the table. Then the said Francis Drake crossed his hands and, kneeling on the cushion and small box, lifted his eyes to heaven and remained in that attitude for about a quarter of an hour. He then said to this witness and to the other prisoners that if they wanted to recite the psalms according to his mode they could stay, but if not, that they could go to the prow. As they stood up to go towards the prow, he spoke again saying “that they were to keep quiet,” and he began reading the psalms in the English language of which witness understood nothing whatsoever. This act lasted about an hour and then they brought four viols, and made lamentations and sang together, with the accompaniment of the stringed instruments. Witness does not know what they sang, as he could not understand it. Immediately afterwards he ordered a boy, whom he had brought as a page, to come and then made him dance in the English fashion, with which the service ended. 44

44 Francisco Gomez Rengifo, “Deposition of the Factor of Guatulco,” in New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580, trans. Zelia Nuttall, Hakluyt Society Second Series 34 (London: Council of the Hakluyt Society, 1932; reprinted by Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967), 354–5. An additional example of Drake giving psalms (though without mention of music) is in William Sandys Wright Vaux, ed., The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake by Francis Fletcher, Vol. 16 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1854), 124.

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Drake notably brought conventions of prayer services from London to the Hind’s deck. For instance, he “had a table placed on deck at the poop.” Kelsey notes that the “introduction of the liturgical table in place of the altar had great significance for theologians, but ordinary people may have seen it as less than a revolutionary move.”45 Drake’s use of the table instead of an altar to conduct worship may have been a “less than revolutionary move” for some crew members, but it shows Drake’s insistence on performing a faithful Protestant service in front of his Catholic captives. The altar-less service was probably surprising to Spanish witnesses, whom Drake offered to join in (which, unsurprisingly, they did not). Conducting services on the poop reimagined the ship as church architecturally, with the poop as the ‘sanctuary’—and inversely, the top of the ‘cross’ in a cathedral—and the ‘nave’ being amidships. The term nave comes from the Latin for ship, and thus the symbolic connections between the ship and the church are made more evident by the seafaring service. 46 Perhaps Drake was knowingly exploiting this connection. While Drake gave worship, the Spanish captives went to the forward-most part of the bow, though close enough within range to see and listen to everything happening, given the description of the Factor’s testimony. What is also striking about the Factor’s description of the crew’s active engagement with these services is how differently it reads from those of other voyages. On Hawkins’s fleet (1572), men had to be “menaced with a whip and threatened with imprisonment before they would attend religious services.”47 While Drake could have threatened his men with punishment for not attending and participating, at least the men on the Hind did more than sit and listen to sermons. They sang together, danced (or watched John Drake dance), and had a reprieve from the daily work on deck. The Hind’s musicians were able, at least, to end the hour-long psalm reading with music for the men to sing along to, and de Silva’s account infers they played some spirited music for Cousin John to dance to. This was a lively way to end a worship service, and it gave young John a chance to perform for a crowd and please his commander. The service gave everyone involved an opportunity to come together and perform—whether singing, playing instruments, or dancing. It also allowed Drake to impress upon his Catholic Spanish captives 45 Kelsey, Queen’s Pirate, 20n32. 46 “nave, n.2,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/125449. Accessed 23 May 2020. 47 Kelsey, Queen’s Pirate, 20. Kelsey cites the testimony of William Collins (Guillermo Calens) from 17 November 1572, Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City, Inquisición, tomo 52, exp. 3, fol. 69–v.

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an English Protestant service. 48 These services perhaps also reiterated that everyone, no matter their station or gentleman-status, was subject to the same divine authority and the same universal laws. Funeral Rites and Executions On the subject of adhering to the same universal laws, it is appropriate to address funeral rites, which were also accompanied with horns and drums. Although funeral rites were not an exclusively “courtly” occasion, the shipboard ritual of respecting the dead was a solemn, formal practice, and musicians played in a proper manner. On 17 May 1608, during the East India Company’s third voyage (1607–1610), a Company factor on the Hector, Edmond Clarke, was pronounced dead while the fleet was victualling and entertaining the King at Socotra. 49 The Hector commander William Hawkins insisted Clarke be buried at the shore of Socotra “and that no wronge should be done to yt in his absence,” according to Hector Chief Merchant Anthony Marlowe.50 The King granted the captain’s wish and assured him the body would be untouched and he could “burrye him where he pleased.”51 Shortly after the body was coffined and sent to the grave ashore, the Hector musicians and crew proceeded to give him his last service, which Marlowe describes in detail: His bodye beinge Carryed by 4 men, first marched before him 60 shott out of both shippes, wth the mouthes of theyre peeces Carryed Downward, then in like manner ffollowed all us merchanttes. Then ffollowed our noyse of Trumpeters dolefully soundinge, and last before the bodye, our Captayne and Master. In this manner his bodye was carried ffrom the sea syde to the grave.52 48 Drake likely did not aim to convert Spanish Catholics, but he did manage to bring his friend John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (also known as Acts and Monuments) aboard the ship and had likely absorbed its anti-Catholic stories and images. On the friendship of Foxe and Drake, see Harry Kelsey, “Drake, Sir Francis (1540–1596),” and Nuttall, New Light on Drake, liv. For anecdotes on Drake’s preoccupation with Foxe’s book aboard the Hind, and his conversations with Spanish captives about this “good book,” see Nuttall, New Light on Drake, 356. 49 Richmond Barbour, The Third Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607–10 (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 9. Barbour discusses related insights and lingering questions surrounding Clarke’s death, as well as identity of the anonymous journal writer on the Hector, whose work is included in Barbour’s collection of primary texts. 50 “The Hector Journal of Anthony Marlowe,” in Third Voyage Journals, ed. Barbour, 137. 51 Ibid., 137. 52 Ibid., 137.

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Hawkins’s insistence on having Clarke’s body buried at shore and not burying him at sea denotes reverence for the esteemed merchant, though it could have caused friction with cultural practices at Socotra. Thankfully, the king was gracious enough to allow Clarke’s body to be buried ashore, as well as to permit the EIC’s funeral procession. The trumpeters on the Hector and Red Dragon sounded their instruments “dolefully” before the body was sent to the gravesite. Another account of Clarke’s funeral service is described in the journal of Dragon merchants John Hearne and William Finch. They explain that “hee was buried after a decent order wth sound of trumpetts, 1 greate peece, and 2 volley of small shott.”53 There were even occasions when the English played at other European funerals as “a mark of respect,” Woodfield notes, and this courtesy was even extended to two of England’s most powerful maritime competitors: the Dutch and Spanish. On 17 June 1613, George Best attended the burial of a Dutch captain at Achin, the English trumpeters “sounding his knell.” Drummers at a funeral would muffle their instruments with cloth and beat in a slow tempo as a mark of respect to the deceased. The practice is well described in an account of the funeral of Alvaro de Mendaña in 1595 in the New Hebrides. His coffin was carried by eight men and the soldiers stood with their guns reversed; “two drums covered in mourning cloth” (“dos atambores cubiertos de luto”) were played with “slow and muffled beats” (“unos golpes tardos y rancos”) and the “pifano” echoed a similar sentiment.54 The English drummers muffled their instruments with “mourning cloth,” a ceremonial cloth for this occasion, and they “beat in a slow tempo” in reverence of the dead. If English musicians carried materials like “mourning cloth,” they needed to be prepared to honour their lost seamen. Their shift to a softer, slower beat suggests they had been trained for such occasions. That the English would give these rituals to their Spanish rivals (and sometime enemies) also shows how respect superseded animosity. Executions, like funeral ceremonies, were also accompanied with doleful music, prayer, and procession. Examples include gunner’s mate George King executed on the EIC’s third voyage for bestiality and other sexual indecencies aboard the Hector in 1607; Nicholas White (coxswain) on the Ascension in 1609; and most notoriously, Thomas Doughty’s execution at St. Julian during Drake’s circumnavigation for crimes of insubordination

53 “The Red Dragon Journal of John Hearne and William Finch,” in Third Voyage Journals, ed. Barbour, 227. 54 Woodfield, English Musicians, 63.

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and mutiny in 1578.55 Cheryl Fury notes the importance of these rare rituals and their impact aboard ship: Although there were only a small number of executions on English ships in Tudor and early Stuart times with which to compare, it is likely that all executions marked with some form of gallows ceremony, as they were ashore. Ceremonies, religious sermons, and demonstrations of authority were “acts of symbolic reintegration” for the community and therefore beneficial for seventeenth-century shipboard communities.56

The “gallows ceremon[ies]” Fury describes were acts of reverence but, at the same time, “demonstrations of authority” by the commander of the voyage. The ceremonies incorporated religious readings emphasizing the severity of the crime and perhaps a passage about Christ’s forgiveness of sins. Doughty’s execution established Drake as a powerful figure of authority on his voyage, but it also set a precedent for relations between captains and gentlemen navigators.57

Casual Entertaining During recreational periods, musicians experimented with songs and played among officers and deck hands, amateurs and professionals alike. In his 55 For first-person accounts on King’s crimes and execution, see Barbour, Third Voyage Journals, 13–15 (Barbour’s assessment of the crime), 45–46, 48 (Anonymous Hector journal), 88–89 (Marlowe’s journal), 159–160, 177–178 (Hearne and Finch’s journal). For critical discussion of White’s execution, see Cheryl Fury, “‘Wicked Actions Merit Fearful Judgments’: Capital Trials aboard the Early East India Company Voyages,” in The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain, 163–165. For Clarke’s and Dryver’s, see Fury, “‘Wicked Actions,’” 158–159. 56 Fury, “‘Wicked Actions,’” 165–166. Also see Geoffrey Callender, “Drake and his Detractors,” Mariner’s Mirror 7 (1921): 72. Fury notes: “In 1592, Christopher Newport, future EIC officer, had the crew of the Golden Dragon of London drink to each other in a gesture of forgiveness for any wrongdoings but also as an act of solidarity before battle.” See Fury, “‘Wicked Actions,’” 165n. See also Paul Griffiths, “Introduction: Punishing the English,” in Penal Practice and Culture, 1500–1900, Simon Devereaux and Paul Griffiths (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 1–2, and Martin Ingram, “Shame and Pain: Themes and Variations in Tudor Punishments” in Penal Practice and Culture, 37. 57 As Fury notes, “Before executing Doughty, Francis Drake assembled the men for confession and the Sacrament”; “‘Wicked Actions,’” 165n. David Beers Quinn offers a detailed assessment of the Doughty trial at St. Julian: “Drake’s jury found the charges against Thomas Doughty proved, except for that of treason. Yet Drake insisted on reinstating the charge of treason, and, in putting it to his jury, got them to say Doughty deserved death. … That he prepared himself for a dramatic and gentlemanly end seems undoubted, taking Communion with Drake, making a speech from the scaffold (the terms of which are disputed, and submitting to execution bravely” (4–5).

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famous diary, Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) describes playing instruments for shipboard performances during the time he served as secretary for Sir Edward Montagu (1625–1672), the first earl of Sandwich. Pepys, who later became an administrator for the Navy Board, recorded his daily activities from 1660 to 1669. His diary offers rare descriptions of the London theatre, as well as shipboard goings-on with Montagu. In his entry on 23 April 1660, he writes: W. Howe and I went to play two trebles in the great cabin belowe; which my Lord hearing, after supper he called for our instruments and played a set of Lock’s, two trebles and a bass. And that being done, he fell to singing of a song made upon the Rump [Parliament] … to the tune of “The Blacksmith.”58

Pepys’s shipboard recreation involved multiple musicians and instruments, and Montagu himself joined in the shipboard entertainment, singing with Pepys and William Howe, another of Montagu’s men. It is interesting to imagine how Montagu’s version of “The Blacksmith,” a traditional folk song, could be adapted into a riff on the Rump. The original song tells of a maid courted by blacksmith for nine months, only to find out he was married.59 The theme of short-lived romance seems an apt metaphor for 58 Samuel Pepys, The Illustrated Pepys: Extracts from the Diary, ed. Robert Latham (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 20. 59 Also referred to by the first line, “A Blacksmith courted me for nine months or better,” Roud 816 in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. See also English Folk Songs, ed. Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L. Lloyd, (London: Penguin, 1975). The song “The Blacksmith” was a variation of a song more familiar to contemporary audiences, and it also has a connection to Shakespeare. As early critic Sir Frederick Bridge states in an aside, “This tune [“The Blacksmith”] was also known by the name of ‘Green Sleeves,’ and is referred to in Merry Wives of Windsor, ii. I.” See Sir Frederick Bridge, Samuel Pepys, Lover of Musique (London: Smith, Elder, 1903), 15. The full alternate title of “The Blacksmith” was “Green Sleeves and Pudding Pies.” In the quotation that Bridge references, Mistress Ford shows Mistress Page a near-identical letter she received from Falstaff. She scoffs at his attempts to woo her, as his words “do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of ‘Green Sleeves’” (2.1.59–60). “Greensleeves” was first published in 1584 and is mentioned at multiple points in Merry Wives, evidencing its popularity in Elizabethan culture. At the end of the play, Fallstaff, dressed as Herne the hunter, tells Mistress Ford, “Let the sky rain / potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green / Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes” (5.5.18–20). Vance Randolph explains that the song’s lyrics refer to the grass stains on a female lover’s sleeves after having sex outdoors. See Randolph, Roll Me in Your Arms: “Unprintable” Ozark Folksongs and Folklore, ed. G. Legman (Fayetteville: University Arkansas Press, 1992), 1: 47. Naturally, the song’s sexual connotations make it a fitting reference for a play about wooing women. For Pepys, wooing women was a popular pastime, so

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the equally short-lived Rump Parliament in 1648, created after Colonel Thomas Pride forcibly removed 180 members in a coup (“Pride’s Purge”). Pepys writes that he and his shipmates played “a set of Lock’s,” referring to the composer Matthew Locke, who, as Bridge comments, seems to be “somewhat of a Progressive in music.”60 Apparently Lock “sacrificed the old style for the modes of his time,” to quote Roger North.61 Pepys was game for engaging in new styles of music, as well as for reinterpreting songs of old, like “Greensleeves.” Pepys records several impromptu musical performances during his time serving Montagu, providing a clear view into the ways the English working class entertained themselves, which for Pepys seemed to be every chance he could take. Although Pepys did not have significant maritime experience, having only recorded two voyages for Montagu, he had a curiosity for maritime matters, in addition to his passions for theatre and music.62 In multiple entries, these varied interests often intersected. On 26 April, Pepys went with his musical pal, W. Howe, down to Montagu’s storeroom, where it was “pleasant to observe the massy timbers that the ship is made of,” and Pepys, Howe, one Mr. Sheply, one Tom Guy, and one Mr. Pickering had dinner and played music together, until Pickering began “to play a brass part upon my viall, did it so like a fool that I was ashamed of him.”63 These impromptu performances aboard ship all but confirm Pepys’s own sentiment recorded in 1666: “Music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.”64Shipboard music had a way of bringing people together and giving its players a space to experiment with lyrics and melodies. In a casual setting, it also allowed Pepys and Montagu to comment on political matters and sing a (likely satirical) tune about the Rump Parliament. While formal music adhered to court culture, recreational shipboard songs and dramatic performances critiqued and even subverted the social and behavioural rules of the land community. This practice came with the territory. Drake, for example, was a privateer who overturned centuries of it also seems appropriate that he played a version of the song, retitled “The Blacksmith,” in an impromptu performance with Montagu during his downtime. 60 Bridge, Samuel Pepys, 15. 61 North is quoted in Bridge, Samuel Pepys, 15. 62 As biographer C.S. Knighton explains, Pepys “made himself expert in the weights and measures of the goods themselves, talking to dockyard storekeepers, carpenters, and boatswains, getting to know all the wonderful wheezes and scams which could turn the king’s shilling into a pretty penny.” See C.S. Knighton “Pepys, Samuel (1633–1703), Naval Official and Diarist,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 September 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/21906. 63 Pepys, Extracts from the Diary, 37. 64 Ibid., 103.

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shipboard custom to make himself sole master of the ship, refusing to kneel or bend to higher class gentlemen-navigators. On his world-compassing voyage, the Hind’s shipboard culture itself upended with Doughty’s execution, as it made a significant statement on maritime authority. More than a century after Drake’s piratical activities on the circumnavigation, ambitious pirates like Captain Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy (1689–1717), and Captain Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts (1682–1722) plundered the seas and coasts with their own crew of subversive shipboard performers. Pirate Mock-Trials Shipboard dramatic performers during piracy’s Golden Age reinterpreted the rituals and procedures of the English court as an act of mockery, subversion, and play. The account of Captain Thomas Anstis (d. 1723) in the General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates (1724) describes an elaborate mock court trial staged by the crew of the Good Fortune.65 When Anstis’s men were not assisting in plundering ships in the Caribbean, they would (as the biography suggests) divert themselves by “appoint[ing] a Mock-Court of Judicature to try one another for Pyracy, and he that was a Criminal one Day was made Judge another.”66 The pirates assumed the roles of “Criminal” and “Judge,” engaging in seafaring satire, as Richard Frohock argues.67 The pirates in the General History are, Frohock states, “satirists and objects of satire,” and thus “the binary extremes of pirate culture and mainstream society both fall short of realizing their governing principles.”68 The General History is a speculative, fictionalized account, so even if there were fully staged mock trials at sea, the dialogue and narrative as written were mainly the work of the writer and editor.69 65 This question of authorship is still an issue of debate among critics, though it is generally understood to be the work of Charles Johnson, who penned The Successful Pyrate (1713), as opposed to Daniel Defoe. See also Neil Rennie, Treasure Neverland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), iii–xxx. As Rennie explains, the early critic “[John Robert Moore’s] aim in the 1930s was to assign the General History to the canon of Defoe … His method of assigning this influential work to the author who was his major concern—Defoe—was, however, to weave a web of conjectures and then to show that Defoe’s supposedly distinctive vocabulary and turns of phrase … were used in the General History” (xxx). 66 A General History of the Pyrates, ed. Manuel Schonhorn, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972), 292. 67 Richard Frohock, “Satire and Civil Governance in A General History of the Pyrates (1724, 1726),” The Eighteenth Century 56, no. 4 (Winter 2015): 475. 68 Frohock, “Satire and Civil Governance,” 475. 69 See fn65 on the issue of authorship.

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Frohock highlights how satirical pirates “expose corruptions without becoming themselves heroic.”70 Perhaps the pirates were not “heroic” according to what Frohock deems “mainstream society,” or the land community, more generally. Expanding on Frohock’s point, I believe the pirate actors on Anstis’s ship were rewriting their own narratives, blending caricatures and stock characters with reimagined versions of themselves, to cast criticism on English laws and culture, even at their own expense. The General History introduces the reader to a gallery of rogues and their courtly prosecutors in an opening description: The Court and Criminal being both appointed, as also Council to plead, the Judge got up in a Tree, and had a dirty Tarpaulin hung over his Shoulders; this was done by Way of Robe, with a Thrum Cap on his Head, and a large Pair of Spectacles upon his Nose: Thus equipp’d he settled himself in his Place, and abundance of Off icers attending him below, with Crows, Handspikes, &c. instead of Wands, Tipstaves, and such like. –The Criminals were brought out, making a thousand sour Faces; and one who acted as Attorney-General opened the Charge against them; their Speeches were very laconick, and their whole Proceedings concise.71

Through this description the reader has the dramatis personae (roughly speaking), the costumes and props required, the staging and stage directions of certain figures, and the nature and tone of the delivered speeches. The Judge would wear his “robe,” made of a dirty tarp, as well as a thrum cap and oversized spectacles. These objects, readily available aboard the ship, make the Judge a caricature. As Frohock reiterates, the “respectability of the legal profession comes under fire,” which is evident when the pirate-actors (posing as court figures) make their proceedings. The “Officers” carry instruments replicating items like tipstaves, or clubs used by court officers in ceremonial duties. The criminals come out making “a thousand sour Faces” to express their contempt, a scene not only comical but truthful in how it conveys the “one-sided trials in court” pirates faced, Joel H. Baer argues.72 Art imitated life, imitating art. 70 Ibid., 475. 71 General History, 292. 72 Joel H. Baer, “The Complicated Plot of Piracy”: Aspects of English Criminal Law and the Image of the Pirate in Defoe,” The Eighteenth Century 23, no. 1 (Winter 1982): 6.

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The dialogue of the trial presents many memorable descriptions of the kangaroo court. The “Attorney General” begins with his opening remarks before describing the defendant’s crimes: “An’t please your Lordship, and you Gentlemen of the Jury, here is a Fellow before you that is a sad Dog, a sad sad Dog; and I humbly hope your Lordship will order him to be hang’d out of the Way immediately.”73 The speeches and court proceedings are “critical of overzealous authorities” and sympathetic of “the defendant’s abused rights,” to quote Baer.74 The pirate prisoner pleads his innocence while the inept Judge sternly lays down the law: JUDGE: ——Hearkee me, Sirrah,——you lousy, pitiful, ill-look’d Dog; what have you to say why you should not be tuck’d up immediately, and set a Sun-drying like a Scare-crow?——Are you guilty, or not guilty? PRISONER: Not guilty, an’t please your Worship. JUDGE: Not guilty! say so again, Sirrah, and I’ll have you hang’d without any Tryal. PRISONER: An’t please your Worship’s Honour, my Lord, I am as honest a poor Fellow as ever went between Stem and Stern of a Ship, and can hand, reef, steer, and clap two Ends of a Rope together, as well as e’er a He that ever cross’d salt Water; but I was taken by one George Bradley [the Name of him that sat as Judge] a notorious Pyrate, a sad Rogue as ever was unhang’d, and he forc’d me, an’t please your Honour.75

The playwright infuses the dialogue with appropriate maritime metaphors and alliterative similes for amusement, but perhaps the most amusing part about the dialogue is the note that the Prisoner’s piratical leader was, in fact, named for the actor who played the Judge, George Bradley. The pirates are not above ridiculing themselves, as the Prisoner calls Bradley a “sad Rogue” to his face, which undoubtedly aroused laughter from the pirate audience. By pleading that “one George Bradley” forced him into piracy, the defendant “blurs the lines between law and outlaw,” Frohock argues.76 The pirate-actors shift between the real and unreal, lawful and criminal, forthright and hyperbolized. These pirates’ perversion of court practices mocks the Judge and the performance of court ritual, as the Judge is willing to hang without trial. In another sense, these pirate actors are also 73 74 75 76

General History, 292. Baer, “Plot of Piracy,” 6. General History, 293. Frohock, “Satire and Civil Governance,” 475.

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creating alternate realities where they can be piratical captains who remain “unhang’d,” if they please. Aboard ship, they not only beat the system but rule it on their terms. Though this “trial” is a comic distortion of court proceedings, the Judge’s closing remarks are arguably the most laughable and bitingly satirical. The Judge is presented as overbearing, dim-witted, and quite impatient to have his dinner throughout the court proceedings. He lists among his reasons for the punishment: You must suffer for three Reasons: First, because it is not fit I should sit here as Judge, and no Body be hang’d.—Secondly, you must be hang’d, because you have a damn’d hanging Look:—And thirdly, you must be hang’d, because I am hungry; for know, Sirrah, that ’tis a Custom, that whenever the Judge’s Dinner is ready before the Tryal is over, the Prisoner is to be hang’d of Course.77

The Judge’s appetite is ultimately what decides the Prisoner’s fate; he wants the judicial process and punishment to be as expedient as possible. The “Custom” of a Prisoner hanging if the Judge’s dinner is ready before the end of the trial reiterates that the court of law will never consider pirates’ humanity. In The Trials of Eight Persons (1718), an account of piracy in Massachusetts Bay, one British colonial officer states that a pirate “can claim the Protection of no Prince, the privilege of no Country, the benefit of no Law” and he is “denied common humanity, and the very rights of Nature, with whom no Faith, Promise nor Oath is to be observed, nor is he to be otherwise dealt with, than a wild & savage Beast, which every Man may lawfully destroy.”78 Pirates are, in other words, dealt with as not only outlaws of society but of basic humanity. The officer’s description in the General History sheds some light on the dehumanizing court proceedings on land. The comment made by “Judge” Bradley on the Prisoner’s “damn’d hanging Look” overthrows the workings of blind Justice, assuming wrongdoing purely on appearance before the evidence is presented. 77 General History, 293. 78 The Trials of eight persons indited for piracy &c. Of whom two were acquitted, and the rest found guilty. At a justiciary Court of Admiralty assembled and held in Boston within His Majesty’s province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, on the 18th of October 1717. And by several adjournments continued to the 30th. Pursuant to His Majesty’s commission and instruction, founded on the act of Parliament made in the 11th. & 12th of King William IIId. Intituled, An act for the more effectual suppression of piracy.: With an appendix, containing the substance of their confessions given before His Excellency the governour, when they were first brought to Boston, and committed to goal (Boston: B. Green, 1718), 6.

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Staging The Royal Pyrate on the Whidaw Another notable example of play-acting by pirates in the General History describes a disastrous performance of a play called The Royal Pyrate, allegedly staged on the on the quarterdeck of the Whidaw under the command of Bellamy.79 The play was written by an actor-turned-pirate and supposed forebear of Walter Scott’s Jack Bunce.80 During the performance, an actor playing Alexander the Great examines a pirate brought to him, telling him, “Know’st thou that Death attends thy mighty Crimes, And thou shall’st hang to Morrow Morn betimes.”81 Although The Royal Pyrate is an Alexandrian play, the subject matter, like those mock-trails by Anstis’s crew, reimagine the judicial process for pirates on trial for high crimes. In both cases, the pirate performers create their own courtroom drama, perhaps to satirize the court system or predict their own fates. However, there was one important difference between the staged trials on Anstis’s and Bellamy’s ships. The drunk gunner on the Whidaw “took [the play] to be in earnest,” and swore he would avenge the pirate-actor Jack Spinckes by taking matters into his own hands, or more precisely, taking a Grenado with a lighted Match, followed by his Comrades with their Cutlash, he set Fire to the Fuze and threw it among the Actors. The Audience was on the Gang Ways and Poop, and falling in with their Cutlashes, poor Alexander had his left Arm cut off, and Jack Spinckes his Leg broke with the bursting of the Shell: The Ship was immediately in an Uproar, and the Aggressors seiz’d, who else would have made Havock with the Guards, or have been cut to Pieces by them, for they had all Cutlashes.82

With the explosion bursting on the stage and pirates rushing to the quarter deck, mayhem quickly ensued. During the confusion, many of Bellamy’s crew may have thought they were being attacked by an enemy outside the ship or a mutiny may have started by one of their own. Some of the pirate performers and participants were severely injured, and the situation became more exacerbated by the performers’ (expectedly) violent response, as many were likely unaware of who was attacking them and why. 79 The ship is also referred to as the Whydah or Whydah Galley. For more information on its history and its discovery, see The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found by Martin W. Sandler (Ann Arbor, MI: Candlewick Press, 2017). 80 Burwick and Powell, British Pirates in Print and Performance, 10. 81 General History, 588. 82 Ibid., 589.

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The General History provides a stirring retelling of the violent explosion and its aftermath, including the punishments for those involved: Alexander the Great revenged the Loss of his Arm by the Death of him who deprived him of his Limb. The Gunner and two surviving Comrades were that Night clapp’d into Irons, and the next Day at a Court-Marshal, not only acquitted but applauded for their Zeal. Alexander and his Enemies were reconciled, and the Play forbad any more to be acted.83

In an amusing reversal, the gunner and his companions were praised for their quick response to the scene they believed was happening in real life. The Royal Pyrate was, unsurprisingly, forbidden to be performed again, and it is unlikely any dramatic performance was permitted thereafter. This account of a raucous pirate-produced play was likely a fictitious sea story, but its survival and reappearance in the General History demonstrates the popularity of shipboard performance as both a folk tale and a potential reality. The staging of The Royal Pyrate presents an interesting case where performance and reality were blurred on stage, sparking action by one hapless audience member. Considering this unusual case, one could ask: were the actors so good they could influence an audience aboard ship as well as they could at a theatre? Were the Whidaw actors performing The Royal Pyrate perhaps too convincing? The play, written by the Stroler, showed the “depth of these pirates’ self-delusion,” Frohock remarks.84 He argues that this incident reveals the nature of shipboard storytelling, as well as the difference between the pirates’ image of themselves and reality: The play and the ludicrous mayhem that it causes suggest that the notion of a “royal pirate” is a fiction that contrasts sharply with a more pedestrian reality. The pirates fall prey to their own stories, and are forgiven and even celebrated for doing so, but the narrator clearly marks the gulf between pirate self-representation and actuality.85

In his analysis, Frohock reminds us that even pirates succumb to their own outlandish storytelling, but there is also a line between the way pirates presented themselves and the realities of their situation. Could there ever 83 Ibid., 589. 84 Frohock, “Satire and Civil Governance,” 473. 85 Ibid., 473.

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be a “royal pirate”? The actors aboard the Whidaw attempted, at least, to envision such a reality. Even more fascinating is the fact that a drunk gunner not only took the action on stage to be real but entered and altered the performance. He unknowingly created a new, more intense performance in what may be described as violent audience participation. The resultant melee became a new performance entirely and blew the pirates out of their “pedestrian reality.” … Aboard ship, the performing class imitated courtly practices and functions, at times aspirational and at others satirical. This reflects the complicated relationship seafarers had with the land community. Shipboard musicians and actors portrayed the English court as a setting of affluence and possibility, but they also held the court in contempt when it prohibited the seafaring class from certain rights and privileges. This comes back to Fury’s description of seafarers as being “other” to landlubbers. But if this is the case, performers occupied an even more tenuous position, one relying on their commander’s ambitions and relationships with the English court. For example, the pirated musicians William Church, Philip Haak, James White, and Nicholas Brattle played on merchant ships before they were imprisoned on pirate Captain Bartholomew Roberts’s Swallow, as recorded in the description of the 1722 court trial in the General History.86 Church et al. shifted (against their wills) from lawful to criminal performers and were tortured on Roberts’s voyage, though they still had access to their fiddles. These men were living symbols of the world Roberts disavowed. Other musicians, like Simon Wood on Drake’s Hind, played for his privateer-captain’s Spanish prisoners and had greater freedoms and lines of communication between officers than other sailors. Wood and the other musicians helped Drake posture as a favourite of Elizabeth while also playing roles themselves. Music and drama gave the seafaring middle class an opportunity to escape their reality or create a new one.

Bibliography Alberti, L. de, and A.B. Wallis. English Merchants and the Spanish Inquisition in the Canaries. Camden 3rd Series 23. London: Offices of the Society, 1912. Andrews, Kenneth R. “The Aims of Drake’s Expedition of 1577–1580.” The American Historical Review 73, no. 3 (February 1968): 724–741. 86 General History, 262.

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Baer, Joel H. “‘The Complicated Plot of Piracy’: Aspects of English Criminal Law and the Image of the Pirate in Defoe.” The Eighteenth Century 23, no. 1 (Winter 1982): 3–26. Barbour, Richmond. The Third Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607–10. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Bridge, Sir Frederick. Samuel Pepys, Lover of Musique. London: Smith, Elder, 1903. Burwick, Frederick, and Manushag N. Powell. British Pirates in Print and Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Callender, Geoffrey. “Drake and his Detractors.” Mariner’s Mirror 7 (1921): 142–152. Cole, David L. “Drake’s Brave New World and ‘The Tempest.’” CEA Critic 51, no. 4 (Summer 1989): 40–52. Creighton, Mandell. Queen Elizabeth. London: Longmans Green, 1920. Donno, Elizabeth Story. An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls. London: Hakluyt Society, 1976. Evans, Percy Cyril Connick, and Roger Turvey. “PERROT family, of Haroldston, Pembrokeshire.” Dictionary of Welsh Biography. 2020. https://biography.wales/ article/s12-PERR-HAR-1530. Accessed 3 August 2021. Fletcher. Francis. The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake. Edited by William Sandys Wright Vaux. Series 1. Vol. 16. London: Hakluyt Society, 1854. Frankot, Edda. “Medieval Maritime Law from Oléron to Wisby: Jurisdictions in the Law of the Sea.” In Communities in European History: Representations, Jurisdictions, Conflicts, edited by Juan Pan-Montojo and Frederik Pedersen, 151–172. Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2007. Frohock, Richard. “Satire and Civil Governance in A General History of the Pyrates (1724, 1726).” The Eighteenth Century 56, no. 4 (Winter 2015): 467–483. Fuller, Mary C. “Writing the Long-Distance Voyage: Hakluyt’s Circumnavigators.” Huntington Library Quarterly 70, no. 1 (March 2007): 37–60. Fury, Cheryl A. Tides in the Affairs of Men: The Social History of Elizabethan Seamen, 1580–1603. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. Fury, Cheryl A. “‘Wicked Actions Merit Fearful Judgments’: Capital Trials aboard the Early East India Company Voyages.” In The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain, edited by Richard J. Blakemore and James Davey, 153–172. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. Goodman, Jennifer. Chivalry and Exploration, 1298–1630. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1998. Griffiths, Paul. “Introduction: Punishing the English.” In Penal Practice and Culture, 1500–1900, edited by Simon Devereaux and Paul Griffiths, 1–35. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Hakluyt, Richard. Principal Navigations. 16 vols. Vol. 10. London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1928. Hamilton, Hans C., ed. Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Ireland, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1574–1585. 11 vols. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer, 1867.

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Ingram, Martin. “Shame and Pain: Themes and Variations in Tudor Punishments.” In Penal Practice and Culture, 1500–1900, edited by Simon Devereaux and Paul Griffiths, 36–62. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Jowitt, Claire. “The Hero and the Sea: Sea Captains and Their Discontents,” Revue de la Société d’études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles 74 (2017). Special Issue: L’Empire. https://doi.org/10.4000/1718.888 Jowitt, Claire. “Performing ‘Water’ Ralegh: The Cultural Politics of Sea Captains in Late Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama.” In The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain, edited by Richard J. Blakemore and James Davey, 125–152. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. Kelsey, Harry. “Drake, Sir Francis (1540–1596), Pirate, Sea Captain, and Explorer.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004. https://doi. org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8022. Kelsey, Harry. Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. Knighton, C.S. “Pepys, Samuel (1633–1703), Naval Off icial and Diarist.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004. https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/21906. LaFontaine, Henry Cart de, ed. The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460–1700). London: Novello, 1909. Loverci, Francesca. “More’s Words Reverberated in Drake’s Patagonia: ‘New Light on the Doughty Case: English Catholics during the Elizabethan Age’. A summary of ‘Nuova luce sul caso Doughty. 1 cattolici inglesi nell’epoca elisabettiana’, Clio: Rivista di studi storici, 30, 3, Luglio: Settembre 1994, 397–430.” Morcana 34, no. 130 (June 1997): 123–127. Mobbs, Kevin and Randy Kohlenberg. Music on the Voyages of Sir Francis Drake and Major Spanish Expeditions of the Western Hemisphere. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. 2000. Mullin, Robert Bruce. “The Book of Common Prayer and Eighteenth-Century Episcopalians.” In Religions of the United States in Practice, 2 vols, edited by Colleen McDannell, 1: 32–47. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. “nave, n.2.” OED Online, Oxford University Press. www.oed.com/view/Entry/125449. Accessed 23 May 2020. Nuttall, Zelia, ed. New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580. Hakluyt Society Second Series 34. London: Hakluyt Society, 1914. Nichols, Phillip. “Sir Francis Drake Revived.” In Sir Francis Drake Revived, in Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Spanish Main, 1569–1580, edited by Irene A. Wright, Hakluyt Series 2, No. 71, 245–326. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932.

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Nievergelt, Marco. “Francis Drake: Merchant, Knight and Pilgrim.” Renaissance Studies 23, no. 1 (2008): 53–70. Pepys, Samuel. The Illustrated Pepys: Extracts from the Diary. Edited by Robert Latham. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Purchas, Samuel. Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes. 20 vols. Vol. 16. Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 1906. Purchas, Samuel. Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes. 20 vols. Vol. 16. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Quinn, David Beers. Sir Francis Drake as Seen by His Contemporaries. Providence, RI: John Carter Brown Library and the Hakluyt Society, 1996. Randolph, Vance. Roll Me in Your Arms: “Unprintable” Ozark Folksongs and Folklore. 2 vols. Edited by G. Legman. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1992. Rengifo, Francisco Gomez. “Deposition of the Factor of Guatulco.” In New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580, edited and translated by Zelia Nuttall, 350–359. Hakluyt Society Second Series 34. London: Council of the Hakluyt Society, 1932; reprinted by Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967. Rennie, Neil. Treasure Neverland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Robinson, Gregory. “The Trial and Death of Thomas Doughty.” The Mariner’s Mirror 7, no. 9 (1921): 271–282. Roche, Thomas William Edgar. The Golden Hinde. New York: Praeger, 1973. Sandler, Martin W. The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found. Ann Arbor, MI: Candlewick Press, 2017. Schonhorn, Manuel, ed. A General History of the Pyrates. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972. Schurz, W.L. The Manilla Galleon. New York: E.P. Dutton. 1912. Senior, W. “Drake at the Suit of John Doughty.” The Mariner’s Mirror, 7, no. 10 (1921): 291–297. Sugden, John. Sir Francis Drake. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. “tarpaulin captain.” Oxford Reference. The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803102142205. Accessed 5 August 2021. The Trials of eight persons indited for piracy &c. Of whom two were acquitted, and the rest found guilty. At a justiciary Court of Admiralty assembled and held in Boston within His Majesty’s province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, on the 18th of October 1717. Boston: B. Green, 1718. Williams, Ralph Vaughan and A.L. Lloyd, eds. English Folk Songs. London: Penguin, 1975. Woodf ield, Ian. English Musicians in the Age of Exploration. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995.

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Wright, Irene A., ed. Further English Voyages to the Spanish Main, Hakluyt Society Second Series 99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932. Zárate, Don Francisco de. “Don Francisco de Zarate’s Letter.” In The World Encompassed and Analogous Contemporary Documents Concerning Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation of the World, edited by N.M. Penzer, 218–219. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1969.

5.

Diplomacy and Trade Abstract The final chapter focuses on diplomatic encounters between the English and the kings, dignitaries, and merchants in Asian and African port cities. From the late sixteenth-century circumnavigations to the early voyages of the East India Company, maritime performance helped establish friendly relations. Naval musicians, professional players, and amateur sailors gave kind entertainment to potential trade partners in both formal and causal settings, boosting the success of their respective voyages and projects in the process. Whether presenting music for Javanese kings or putting together an impromptu orchestral arrangement for Japanese royalty, English musicians and performers did the most to impress their hosts and guests. Along with accompanying interpreters, they helped both parties gain cultural fluency in uniquely effective ways. Keywords: English diplomacy, early modern interpreters, East India Company, Javanese music, Japanese kabuki, Shakespeare

Musicians and performers on early English voyages played during pivotal introductions with kings, dignitaries, and merchants. These occasions helped establish peaceful relations and trade negotiations, both long-term (in anticipation of future voyages) and short-term (buying and selling immediately). Musicians’ roles may not seem important, since they were not high-ranking officers who negotiated terms, yet they had an important role as diplomatic agents. Presented by their commander as part of formal greetings and exchanging gifts, shipboard players gave elaborate performances to show good will and keep the representatives of their host kingdom in high spirits. These performances were given as “kind entertainment.” Although the phrase refers to many diversions in English voyaging documents, kind entertainment also includes acts of diplomacy such as showing goods and wares, offering ship tours, having in-depth discussions (on politics, religion, economy, and culture), victualling for the journey, and most notably, giving elaborate performances.

Seth, J., Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages: The Lives of the Seafaring Middle Class. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725415_ch05

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This chapter will focus on diplomatic encounters in Asia and Africa during four English voyages: the circumnavigations of Drake (1577–1580) and Cavendish (1586–1588), followed by the East India Company’s third voyage (1607–1610), and lastly, the EIC’s trade factory in Japan (1613–1623). I discuss not only musical performances but also different forms of play-acting as they are described in Java, Sierra Leone, and Hirado, respectively. The Englishmen who performed for royalty included naval musicians, civilian performers, professional players, and amateur sailors and laymen. Generally, these performers were prepared to impress their hosts, but they were sometimes tasked to give impromptu performances with little rehearsal time. The performers were also introduced to foreign translators and interpreters, who shared in the work of mediating guests and hosts by sharing their language and cultural knowledge. Other patterns emerge from voyage accounts, from the performance spaces and banqueting areas to the reciprocal gestures and conversational topics. Once they moved beyond the formalities, the English and their hosts developed empathy and cultural fluency through kind entertainment.

Diplomatic Performers on World Compassing Voyages Drake arrived in Java at what was likely the harbour of Tjilatjap on 11 March 1580 and gave an elaborate banquet to establish diplomatic relations.1 The Chaplain aboard the Hind, Frances Fletcher, documented the first meeting between the English and the Javanese royalty, which included a musical performance and a display of weaponry: The 13 of March, our Generall himself, with many of his gentlemen and others, went to shoare, and presented the king (of whom he was ioyfully and louingly receiued) with his musicke, and shewed him the manner of our vse of armes, by training his men with their pikes and other weapons which they had, before him. For the present we were entertained as we desired, and at last dismissed with a promise of more victuals to bee shortly sent vs.2 1 This is based on the map printed in the Hondius “Drake Broadside,” but as Harry Kelsey notes, “Perhaps this was the port, though we have seen that the inset maps do not necessarily show the places visited by Drake.” See Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 203. 2 See William Sandys Wright Vaux, ed., The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, by Francis Fletcher, Vol. 16 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1854), 160.

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Drake’s musicians included Simon Wood, Thomas Meckes, and Richard Clarke, and they were likely the same musicians being presented to the King. The viol players on the Hind had performed for shipboard rituals and private dinners with royal Spanish captives, and they would have also played for diplomatic introductions. Naval musicians like trumpeter John Brewer, as well as drummers and fifes, could have also assisted in this elaborate musical greeting. Like the musical introduction at Brazil, where Drake gave bells and knives to Indigenous hosts ashore, he similarly showed his weaponry to the Javanese royalty. In return, the Javanese entertained the English and promised victuals for the English to carry with them. Java was a prime location for the English to victual and purchase more supplies for their return journey. As Kelsey elaborates, Drake and his crew even “managed to buy beef for the first time since leaving England,” in addition to rice, chicken, and cassava.3 Although the English had stopped at an island for victuals a month prior, they soon found that Java traded and sold more food and clothing than they had ever seen. 4 Fletcher’s phrase, “a promise of more victuals” suggests not only that they had been given gifts upon arrival, but also that they had stocked up before being formally introduced. So why would the English not only stay in Java to victual, but put on an elaborate show for royalty? In the short-term, there were proper exchanges of material gifts, and both the English and Javanese representatives accompanied these with kind entertainment to establish friendly relations.5 In the long-term, Drake viewed Java as a place for future trading, victualling, and extracting.6 Kind entertainment, a phrase Fletcher uses in his voyage diary, 3 Kelsey, Queen’s Pirate, 203. 4 In Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Fletcher describes the island of “Baratiua” as an excellent victualling spot, carrying “nutmegs, ginger, long pepper, lemmons, cucumbers, cocos, figu, sagu, with divers other sorts.” See Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations (London: J.M. Dent, 1589), 8: 72. Kelsey estimates that they bought about “six or seven tons of rice, plus plantains, coconuts, and sugar cane”; Queen’s Pirate, 203. 5 Fletcher states that “our Generall sent his man ashoare to present the king with certaine cloth, both linnen and woollen, besides some silkes, which hee gladly and thankfully receiued, and returned rice, cocoes, hennes, and other victualls in way of recompense. This Iland we found to be the Iland Jaua, the middle whereof stands in 7 deg. and 30 min. beyond the equator” (160). 6 The Javanese had contact with Europeans before Drake who claimed that the island was rich in mineral wealth. In his account, Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese (1510), Ludovico di Varthema reported that Java not only had great quantities of gold and copper but also “the best emeralds in the world.” See John Winter Jones’s translation, in The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, in Persia, India, and Ethiopia, A.D. 1503 to 1508, Hakluyt Society, ed. George Percy Badger (New York: Burt Franklin, 1863), 252–3. Badger notes that “[i]f emeralds were found at Java, they must have been imported from some other quarter,” as these stones were “very scarce even in India at this period,” citing an account

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first means refreshment and diversion.7 It was also used more precisely to indicate peace-making and banqueting with rivals and foreign contacts.8 Kind entertainment could be had in casual, formal, or semi-formal occasions. In this instance, the English were giving formal music to the Javanese king. The point was to become more familiar, or even familial, hence the use of “kind.”9 We could compare this introduction to John Davis’s musicians’ performance with the Inuit as a form of nonverbal communication. However, the merry-making in Greenland was more informal and surface-level. To give kind entertainment meant more than frolicking to express nonviolence; it involved understanding each other on a deeper level. The English were invited to an elaborate performance expressing Javanese cultural values, and Drake’s musicians provided the means for the English to express theirs from Andrea Corsali (252n3). Duarte Barbosa also visited Java during his first circumnavigation (joining Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage in 1519) and wrote about its abounding treasures. See The Book of Duarte Barbosa. An account of the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean and their inhabitants, written by Duarte Barbosa, and completed about the year 1518 A.D., Vol. 2, ed. M. L. Dames (London: Hakluyt Society, 1918), 191. The account of Java by Tomé Pires in Suma Oriental (1515) also describes Java as having “a goodly quantity of gold, eight and eight and a half mates proof.” This English translation comes from Armando Cortesão, who edited and translated the Portuguese text under the new title, The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires, an Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, written in Malacca and India in 1512–1515 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1944), 180. However, though Java was apparently gold-rich, sources have long refuted claims that Java was a producer of gold. See Brian E. Colless, “Majapahit Revisited: External Evidence on the Geography and Ethnology of East Java in the Majapahit Period,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 48, no. 2 (1975): 137. While Java traded heavily in it, the island did not extract gold. Yet for privateers like Drake, who pirated a store of silver from Spanish cargo ships, Java may have been viewed as a literal goldmine, in addition to a victualling stop. 7 When the Hind was headed south towards the land deemed Terra Incognita, “the great temperate continent supposed to bound the Pacific to the south,” as Hans Kraus describes it, Fletcher voiced his wishes that this sought-after continent would “yeeld us kind entertainment to refresh our weather beaten bodyes and lives” (81n). See Kraus, “Sir Francis Drake: A Pictorial Biography,” The Library of Congress, Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room, 31 August 2010. https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/catalog/drake/drake-intro.html#top. Accessed 20 July 2020. 8 Fletcher, World Encompassed, 12n and 93n. Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations also includes examples of “kind entertainment” from other voyages. Thomas Masham’s account of Walter Ralegh’s voyage to Guiana (1598) mentions an episode when the English encountered a French fleet near the Barbary coast. Ralegh anchored and were “invited to a feast aboord the French admirall: where after great cheere and kinde entertainment.” See The third voyage set forth by sir Walter Ralegh to Guiana, with a pinnesse called The Watte, in the yeere 1596. Written by M. Thomas Masham a gentleman of the companie, in Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 2. 9 We could consider several overlapping def initions here, as “of a good or high quality,” “affectionate, loving, fond,” “pleasant, agreeable, acceptable,” and even “of one’s own kin or people” could all apply in some way. See “kind, adj. and adv,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, www.oed.com/view/Entry/103445. Accessed 26 July 2021.

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in return. This intercultural performance gave the English opportunity to show themselves through their music and instruments. This formal introduction was as crucial for the English as it was for the Javanese; these European visitors were performing for kings not only to victual but also to enter a mercantile economy sustained by Muslim traders. Javanese music and art in the sixteenth century incorporated both Hindu and Muslim traditions, which were both unfamiliar to the English navigators.10 Although Fletcher does not describe the Javanese performance in detail, we should consider the ways Javanese art exposed the English to Islamic culture.11 The first verse of Canto 44 of the unattributed poem Serat Centhini (c. 1814) describes daily rituals of music and prayer: Surat and Senu were in the prayer house, intoning the call to subuh prayers, their voices tuneful in a Banten-style melody, crystal clear, asalatu kerun min anum echoed forth.12 10 Centuries before Drake made it to the southern coast, Java had been visited by Muslim traders, whose traffic had helped shape the Javanese economy. This is first expressed in the account of Marco Polo when he allegedly stopped at Java on route to India. See The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian: Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, ed. and trans. Henry Yule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2: 217. See also The Most Noble and Famous Travels of Marco Polo, together with the Travels of Nicoláo de’ Conti, ed. John Frampton and N.M. Penzer, 2nd ed. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1937). Though Marco’s writings have been notoriously problematic in their authenticity, his description of the island emphasizes its profitable economy in trading imported goods. Although the scholarship on the authenticity of Marco Polo’s voyaging accounts is exhaustive, recent work by Hans Ulrich Vogel (Marco Polo Was in China. Leiden: Brill, 2013) offers a fresh look at the reliability of these documents. 11 Java experienced considerable political and religious change in the sixteenth century. When Drake arrived in Java, Mataram was the governing kingdom over central and eastern Java. Having broken away from the declining Majapahit empire, Java had also transitioned from Hindu to Islam, as Padjang, Mataram, Preanger, Cheribon, and Bantam (which the English East India Company would eventually use as a trading port) all became independent Muslim states. See “Java,” Encyclopædia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Java-island-Indonesia. Accessed 31 January 2019. Early printed English-language histories of Java, such as The History of Java by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1830), stumble on precise descriptions of Javanese religion, stating: “These people are supposed to have been banished from Egypt, and to have consisted of individuals professing different religious persuasions, who carried along with them to the land of their exile, their different modes of worship and articles of belief. Some are said to have adored the sun, others the moon; some the elements of fire or water, and others the trees of the forest. Like all other uncivilized men, they were addicted to the arts of divination, and particularly to the practice of astrology.” See Raffles, The History of Java. 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, Albemarle-Street, 1830), 2: 69. 12 Serat Centhini, Canto 44 verse 1, reprinted in Sarah Weiss, Listening to an Earlier Java: Aesthetics, Gender, and the Music of Wayang in Central Java (Leiden: KITVL Press, 2006), 2. The

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The poem describes the “tuneful” voices of a “Banten-style melody” reciting subuh prayers, and Javanized Arabic phrases are interspersed throughout the poem, blending with the Javanese language in harmony. The poem begins with the echo of a prayer-song (as quoted) and the rest of the Canto describes the daily readings, recitations, and a “final salam” and “praises to God” before describing in verse 7 the daily goings-on in a Javanese village.13 The poem’s language mimics the rhythms of work and bustling movement, as well as the melodies of birds and other fauna. As Sarah Weiss explains in her analysis of the piece, the “articulation of sounds propels the reader through the narrative in the same way that the interactions of the sounds in the early morning urge the Javanese villagers on with their morning activities.”14 Though written more than two hundred years after the arrival of the English, this poem recalls the power of music in the daily activities of the Javanese, from early morning prayers to the “squeak-squeak of men shouldering their loads to market.”15 The subject matter of early Javanese songs varied, and many were based upon the histories of powerful kingdoms. In the eighteenth century, histories with the title Babad Tanah Jawi (“History of Land of Java”) often told of the island’s development of Islam, and these included references to Islamic rituals of song and dance.16 One version of the Babad Tanah Jawi, cited by Weiss, tells a “history of the extended family that ruled a succession of kingdoms located in Central Java from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the present time.”17 Within this text are references to instruments like the rebab (stringed instrument) gambang (xylophone-like instrument), kethuk (percussion translation of the Serat Centhini is by Tony Day. 13 Serat Centhini, Canto 44 verse 6. 14 Weiss, Music of Wayang, 3. 15 Serat Centhini, Canto 44 verse 8. 16 Weiss, Music of Wayang, 90. 17 Ibid., 88. Weiss believes the text “probably dates from some time in the seventeenth century,” though it may have been written a century later (88). Weiss explains that the story “is paraphrased from a prose synopsis of the story written at the Mangkunegaran and published in the Netherlands (Olthof 1941) subsequently translated into Indonesian by Slamet Riyandi and Suwaji (1981) as the Babad Demak and published by the Indonesian Department of Education and Culture” (88n22). However, regarding its possible origin in the seventeenth century, J.J. Ras has argued that many variations of this continually updated and historiographically complex text (which gained popularity in Western culture by nineteenth-century scholars like J.L.A. Brandes) are part of the “so-called kanḍa tradition.” These kanḍa books “contain summary outlines of wayang stories” and “are strung together in such a way as to provide a pseudo-historical account of events supposed to have taken place in Java in the distant past” (344). See Ras, “The Genesis of the Babad Tanah Jawi: Origin and function of the Javanese Court Chronicle,” Bijdragen tot de Taal-,Land-en Volkenkunde 143, no. 2/3 (1987): 343–356.

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instrument), kenong (a gong) and the gendèr (metallophone).18 Another central Javanese musical instrument is the ángklung, made of bamboo tubes within a bamboo frame making sound when struck. Versions of the ángklung could have eight or more bamboo tubes, but earlier versions of this instrument had only two tubes.19 These could be performed by a single musician or an entire orchestra. The ángklung was played in religious rituals, tributes to village chiefs, and festivals.20 Given their diverse roles in Javanese culture, it is not arbitrary to assume that Drake and his men would have at least been introduced to them at one time while they stayed in Java. However, as Angela R. Annabell from the Auckland Institute and Museum notes, these bamboo instruments were “traditionally associated with ensembles used in village rites and festivities rather than with more sophisticated court orchestras.”21 The Hakluyt account claims the English had “honourable entertainment” with the Javanese, suggesting more formal music.22 When presented to the Javanese king, Drake and his musicians likely heard the gamelan, an ensemble of instruments including many of those listed in the Babad Tanah Jawi. Annabell describes the gamelan as the “classical Javanese orchestra” that “include[d] a variety of wood and metal chime-idiophones.”23 It is possible that gongs would have accompanied early versions of gamelan music, and these instruments had powerful associations in Indonesian musical culture. Victoria Lindsay Levine, a gamelan player herself, shares why the gong had powerful commercial and symbolic value in the Javanese court: Bronze gongs circulated throughout Southeast Asia by the ninth century CE, when Arab, Persian, and Indian traders dominated the maritime trade 18 Weiss, Music of Wayang, 89–90. 19 Angela R. Annabell, “Javanese Angklung in the Auckland Institute and Museum,” Records of the Auckland Institute and Museum 22 (18 December 1985), 32. Annabell includes an image of three two-tubed ángklung instruments housed in the Auckland Institute and Museum (Nos. 4796.1–3). 20 In his early history of Java, Raffles explains that after the crop was gathered, the oldest man in a village (“hoarde”) would lead rituals of devotions, sacrificial offerings, and feasting; see History of Java, 2: 69–70. The ángklung was an integral part of these events, particularly in a ritual to attract a bird called the úlunggága. Young men would shake the bamboo instrument and “set up a shout in imitation of its cry” (70). Only when the bird ate the food the Javanese had set out would the village conclude its harvest ceremony, with a sacrifice of a lamb or other animal as an “offering of gratitude to the deity” (70). 21 Annabell, “Javanese Angklung,” 31. 22 Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 72. 23 Annabell, “Javanese Angklung,” 31.

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routes connecting China, Indonesia, mainland Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and India. As the gongs moved, they transformed Asian soundscapes and acquired new layers of meaning. Gongs had commercial value because of the highly specialized knowledge and skilled craftsmanship required to produce them, but also because they symbolized status and prestige among Asian rulers. Under the Mataram Sultanate, for example, bronze gongs became associated with Javanese rulers because they were believed to possess powerful magical properties. Displaying and performing bronze gamelan instruments in court ceremonies enhanced a Sultan’s authority.24

The Mataram Sultanate, formed in 1587, was one of the last independent Javanese kingdoms before the colonization of the Dutch, who arrived in 1596 and took control in 1619.25 A decade before the Dutch’s arrival, Javanese rulers conveyed their power not through weapons but through music.26 The gong’s “powerful magical properties” made it an effective ceremonial instrument. Thus, the Javanese kings may have insisted on the gamelan—and the gongs accompanying it—to harness its powerful properties. Like the English, the Javanese used formal rituals to assert their power, as well as to offer hospitality. The English were under Java’s spell, devouring its culture and its food as soon as they arrived. They stimulated its economy, as Drake paid exorbitantly for victuals, and they freely allowed Javanese kings to tour their ships, gaze at their merchandise, and exchange language and ideas. While the accounts of the circumnavigation portray the English as having greater agency over many of their global hosts, the English were participants in a series of Javanese cultural rituals. Diplomacy through Music In Java, music was a ritual that helped build relationships and community. This is probably in part because the instruments themselves are played 24 Victoria Lindsay Levine, “The Global Keyboard: Music, Visual Forms, and Maritime Trade in the Early Modern Era,” in Picturing Commerce in and from the East Asian Maritime Circuits, 1550–1800, ed. Tamara H. Bentley (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019), 226. These comments are part of Levine’s analysis of the painting America (1666) by Flemish painter Jan van Kessel the Elder. Levine states that “[t]he Javanese gongs in America hint at the ways musical instruments constitute a kind of visual form that can illuminate some of the social, political, and economic dimensions of transoceanic encounters in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries” (227). 25 Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Java.” 26 This is not to say that Java was pacifist or lacked weaponry. As Hakluyt’s account claims, they were “warlike” and were “well provided of swords and targets, with daggers, all being of their own worke, and most artif icially done, both in tempering their mettall, as also in the forme, whereof we bought reasonable store”; see Principal Navigations, 8: 73.

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communally, as opposed to the more common solo performances in European culture (like John Drake’s dance solo following shipboard psalmplaying). But like the English musicians who accompanied Drake, Javanese musicians played to delight and to bridge cultural barriers. In his work on gamelan music of Indonesia, Henry Spiller explains that “Gamelan music of all sorts is about playing together with other people in a unified group in which mutual cooperation is rewarded with harmonious music.”27 In this way, “gamelan musicians use their knowledge and skill not so much to stand out and shine in the group, but to blend seamlessly into the complex musical texture and make everybody shine—an approach to exerting power in all social interactions which Indonesians tend to value highly.”28 This emphasis on the “mutual cooperation” to gain the “reward” of music informs both the cultural and social principles of Indonesian society as they were presented to the English. What Spiller describes as the goal of gamelan music, with its range of instruments—gongs, metallophones, and the like—is also the goal of the Javanese court in creating diplomacy. The Javanese treated the English to an elaborate performance of courtesy, dazzling them like the English attempted to dazzle Indigenous Brazilians with shiny bells. Unlike the encounter in South America, however, the Javanese had kind entertainment to gain a powerful ally and a long-term buyer of goods, both local and imported.29 Drake’s musicians “were in greater demand than ever before,” Woodfield notes, as they were called upon to perform during “frequent visits” from the Javanese.30 Drake first brought his musicians to shore on 13 March to perform for the Javanese court, at which time the English were equally “entertained as [they] desired.”31 Following this introduction, Drake and his men stayed aboard ship for several weeks and were visited by Javanese royals, one of whom brought with him his own consort of musicians to entertain the foreign visitors. The Javanese hosts captivated the English, but it took the English some time to develop a deeper understanding of Javanese culture. As Fletcher’s 27 Henry Spiller, Focus: Gamelan Music of Indonesia, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2008), 4. See also Benjamin Brinner’s Music in Central Java: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 28 Spiller, Gamelan Music, 4. Spiller also explains how Southeast Asia’s ecology affected the types of instruments that thrived in places like Java (8–13). 29 Hakluyt’s version of events states, “With this people linnen-cloth is good marchandize, and of good request, whereof they make rols for their heads, and girdles to wear about them” (72). 30 Ian Woodfield, English Musicians in the Age of Exploration (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), 103. These visits were frequent, as Hakluyt’s version attests that there were as many as four kings at a time aboard the Hind, with at least “two or three often” aboard (73). 31 Fletcher, World Encompassed, 160.

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account shows, the English were uneasy with non-Christian cultural representations, whether in the form of idols, “devil-worshipping” or other forms of cultural identity perceived as dangerous.32 And yet, through intercultural music with the Hindu and Muslim Javanese, the English formed a strong bond and learned much about their governmental structure and way of life.33 We see this in Fletcher’s account when the Javanese royalty came in frequent contact with the English: In this Iland there is one chiefe, but many vndergouernors, or petty kings, whom they call Raias, who live in great familiaritie and friendship one with another. The 14 day we receiued victuals from two of them, and the day after that, to wit the 15, three of these kings in their owne persons came aboard to see our Generall, and to view our ship and warlike munition. They were well pleased with what they saw, and with the entertainement which we gave them. And after these had beene with vs, and on their returne had, as it seemes, related what they found, Raia Donan, the chiefe king of the whole land, bringing victuals with him for our reliefe, he also the next day after came aboard vs. Few were the her that one or more of these kings did misse to visit vs, insomuch that we grew acquainted with the names of many of them, as of Raia Pataidra, Raia Cabocapálla, Raia Manghango, 32 Unsurprisingly, the Chaplain of the voyage, Fletcher, admonishes non-Protestant religious ritual and idolatry early in his account of the voyage. When they came upon the island Braua, where they encountered its only inhabitant (a hermit, likely Catholic, who fled shortly after the English arrived) Fletcher was very disapproving of what “idols” were left behind: “he was so delighted in his solitarie liuing, that he would by no meanes abide our coming, but fled, leauing behind him the relicks of his false worhip; to wit, a crosse with a crucifix, an altar with his superaltar, and certaine other idols of rude workemanship” (26). By the time the English reached Java, Fletcher’s tone is noticeably more approving, though the Javanese were Hindu and Muslim. Additionally, Drake had interacted with non-Christian Indigenous peoples, but entertainment was made mainly on the shoreline. Having the chief leader of an island board the English ship gave a greater cause for more elaborate diplomatic gestures. 33 Notably, there are inconsistencies with the number of kings that purportedly governed the kingdom. Kelsey notes that “John Drake says they met nine kings, though the Hakluyt story mentions five and names only three.” See Kelsey, Queen’s Pirate, 203. Kelsey only lists the kings from Hakluyt’s version, though this account only lists three names, and emphasizes that they were “more than cordial” during their frequent visits (203). In Hakluyt’s version, these three kings are named Rajah Donaw, Rajah Mang Bange, and Raja Cabuccapollo, which live as having “one spirite, and one minde”. See Principal Navigations, 8: 73. Yet there are six names listed in Fletcher’s version. The f irst time he mentioned them, Fletcher lists f ive: Raia Pataidra, Raia Cabocapálla, Raia Manghango, Raia Boccabarra, and Raia Timbanton; see World Encompassed, 160. Later, Fletcher reveals that “Raia Donan” is their chief king. Only two kings have a relatively consistent name in both Hakluyt and Fletcher (Raja Cabuccapollo | Raia Cabocapálla; Rajah Donaw | Raia Donan).

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Raia Boccabarra, Raia Timbanton; whom our Generall alwayes entertained with the best cheere that wee could make, and shewed them all the commodities of our ship, with our ordnance and other armes and weapons, and the seuerall furnitures belonging to each, and the vses for which they serued. His musicke also, and all things else whereby he might do them pleasure, wherein they tooke exceeding great delight with admiration.34

In this case, Fletcher’s use of “entertainement” refers to the tour of the ship, but it is also a blanket term referring to music, conversation, gift-giving, and similar diplomatic rituals. They “entertained with the best cheere,” showing off their wares and goods, as well as their weaponry and ammunition. Drake’s musicians could have also played during the tour, adding another layer of meaning to Fletcher’s description of “entertainement.” The English also learned the Javanese language (which Fletcher recorded), and likely incorporated it in conversations. A telling part of Fletcher’s account states: “Few were the her that one or more of these kings did misse to visit vs.” The Javanese were very interested in developing a relationship with the English, or at least learning as much as they could, including their commodities, munitions, language, and culture. During these frequent times of music-making and entertaining in March 1580, the English, fascinated by the culture of the Javanese, transformed the Hind into a space of intercultural performance. Not only did Drake’s musicians perform, but Javanese musicians were also brought aboard to perform, as well. This was a cultural breakthrough, as there is not a record of similar reciprocal gestures aboard ship or at other ports on the circumnavigation. By allowing these ‘idol worshippers’ aboard and embracing their culture, the English were establishing diplomatic relations. On 21 March, King Donan (the “chiefe king”) boarded the Hind to return the gesture of courtesy in giving him a shipboard orchestral performance: One day amongst the rest, viz., March 21, Raia Donan coming aboard vs, in requitall of our musick which was made to him, presented our Generall with his country musick, which though it were of a very strange kind, yet the sound was pleasant and delightfull: the same day he caused an oxe also to be brought to the waters side and deliuered to vs, for which he was to his content rewarded by our Generall with diuerse sorts of very costly silks, which he held in great esteeme.35 34 Fletcher, World Encompassed, 160–161. 35 Ibid., 161.

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The English were hearing new sounds and new instruments both “pleasant” and “strange.” This description suggests the English were perhaps hearing unfamiliar melodies and chords on what may have been the gamelan. The Javanese musicians gave their own “country musick” and invited the English to experience their culture. Aboard the Hind, two seemingly disparate groups shared performance spaces, resources, language, and the sounds of their cultural identity. The English were not simply hearing wood, metal, or bamboo striking together; they were understanding how the island’s ecology shaped their music and culture. Reciprocal gestures came one after another. Donan brought an ox for the English to bring aboard the Hind, and Drake delivered the costly silks and fabrics. The next day, Donan sent his brother to give the English “hens, goats, cocoes, plantons, and other kinds of victuals.”36 Having a prolonged stay in Java also gave Drake’s crew time and resources to make all necessary preparations for the return voyage—storing food, making drinking water, and getting the barnacles off their ships.37 Not only did the two cultures share music, food, commodities, and conversation, but also sex and disease. Javanese kings freely gave them access to their women—presumably the kings’ wives or servants.38 Clearly, kind entertainment took all forms and was given freely between parties as they were establishing relations diplomatic and otherwise.

36 Ibid., 161. John Drake’s account states that “[t]he kin of provisions they got there was: cassava, bananas and chickens, which they obtained for woollen stuffs.” See “First Declaration of John Drake,” in New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580, ed. Zelia Nuttall, Hakluyt Society Second Series 34 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1914), 32. 37 Aside from victualling, the most urgent task that needed attending was the cleaning and scrubbing of the ship, which had become engulfed with barnacles and other shellf ish. See Fletcher, World Encompassed, 161. 38 Hakluyt’s account states that “[t]he Maluccians hate that their women should bee seene of strangers: but these [Javanese] offer them of high courtesie, yea the kings themselves” (73). Whereas the women of the “Maluccas” (present-day Ternate) were not allowed to engage with visitors, the Javanese invited the English to fornicate with the women at court. Kelsey also points out that an “unfortunate result [of this] was the French pox, common to all, but curable by sitting naked in the sun and letting the evil humors boil out” (203). See also Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 73. The English voyagers’ lack of interaction with women on the voyage was surely a point of anxiety, and the Javanese wives were likely bound to the kings’ wishes. This practice was observed in Japan, as well. Alison Games explains that “Japanese women were part of the diplomatic rituals surrounding the opening of English trade relations of 1613,” when the East India Company built their trade ‘factory.’ See Games, The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560–1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 104.

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Music-Making in Java on the Second Circumnavigation Six years after Drake’s return, his successor Thomas Cavendish ventured to the South Sea in 1586 for his own world-compassing voyage.39 Cavendish began venturing in 1584, during the time another of Elizabeth’s Sea Dogs, Sir Walter Ralegh, was arranging to establish settlements in Virginia. 40 Having spent time on the Carolina Outer Banks in 1585, Cavendish decided he would go on a circumnavigation like Drake, departing on the flagship Desire in June of 1586. 41 With England now warring with Spain, Cavendish’s intent was to capture Spanish ships rather than plunder, as Drake had. 42 Cavendish followed a similar route as Drake, travelling the Strait of Magellan, along the Pacif ic coast of South America up to Central and North America. 43 On 2 June 1587, Cavendish and his men had docked at an island near Puna and stayed near the palace of Casiques, the “lord of Puna.”44 While many of Cavendish’s men were on break to get victuals, a group of a “hundred Spanish souldiers with muskets and an ensigne” landed on the other side of the island and attacked. 45 During this skirmish, Ambrose “the musitian” was one of twelve men killed and three taken prisoner. It is not known what instrument Ambrose played, and he is one of many musicians without surnames or very little information attributed. Still, Cavendish’s musicians were integral when they arrived in Java. It was, after all, a prime location to stock up for victuals and buy imported wares and goods, so the English needed to maintain their good standing. According to diarist Francis Pretty, Cavendish’s fleet (consisting of the Desire, Content, and Hugh Gallant) 39 Sanctioned by Queen Elizabeth, Cavendish was ordered to develop the contacts Drake had made during his circumnavigation. See Susan M. Maxwell, “Cavendish, Thomas (bap. 1560, d. 1592), Explorer,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 September 2004, https://doi. org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4942. 40 David B. Quinn, ed. The Last Voyage of Thomas Cavendish, 1591–1592, Society for the History of Discoveries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 9. 41 Ibid., 9. 42 As Norman J.W. Thrower explains, Cavendish “captured the Manila galleon the Santa Ana and took most of her treasure and supplies” near the coast of Baja California. See Thrower, “The Aftermath: A Summary of British Discovery in the Pacific between Drake and Cook,” in Sir Francis Drake and Famous Voyage, 1577–1580: Essays Commemorating the Quadricentennial of Drake’s Circumnavigation of the Earth, ed. Norman J.W. Thrower (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 165. 43 Ibid., 165. 44 Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 228. 45 Ibid., 229.

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arrived in Java in 1588.46 Pretty reveals that Cavendish “entreated [his guests] singularly well, with banquets and music.”47 Drake’s influence on Cavendish’s voyage seems evident in the way guests were entertained. Cavendish gave the Javanese kings kind entertainment, which included music, banquets, and (with the help of a translator), conversation. Cavendish first approached a group of Javanese fishermen on 1 March 1588 with a translator who could “speak the Morisco tongue” to locate fresh water and victuals.48 Cavendish entreated one of the fishermen to tell their King about their arrival and to formally request trading.49 On 8 March the English were greeted with canoes loaded with food, and soon after a canoe carrying the King’s secretary.50 The secretary brought his own translator (an Indian-Portuguese attendant) to communicate to Cavendish that he had brought a lavish spread of food, including a hog, hens, eggs, fish, sugarcane, and wine.51 Cavendish reciprocated the generous offering of victuals by having his consort of musicians play for the Javanese royalty. The commander engaged in an elaborate demonstration of gratitude, organizing a festive introduction, banquet, music performance, and an exchange of information and wares: Our Generall used him singularly well, banqueted him most royally, with the choyce of many and sundry conserves, wines both sweete and other, and caused his Musitians to make him musicke. This done our Generall tolde him that hee and his company were Englishmen; and that wee had bene at China and had trafique there with them, and that wee were come thither to discover, and purposed to go to Malaca.52

Like his predecessor, Cavendish sought the attention of the Javanese court with the proposal of trade and in doing so, was royally received by the king’s representatives. Cavendish had his musicians “make him musicke” during the banquet, and it is possible since the consort had at least one musician fewer (following the death of Ambrose), Cavendish may have had to recruit 46 The admirable and prosperous voyage of the Worshipfull Master Thomas Candish of Trimley in the Countie of Suffolke Esquire, into the South sea, and from thence round about the circumference of the whole earth, begun in the yeere of our Lord 1586, and finished 1588. Written by Master Francis Pretty lately of Ey in Suffolke, a Gentleman employed in the same action. In Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 246. 47 Ibid., 246. 48 Ibid., 246. 49 Ibid., 246. 50 Ibid., 247. 51 Ibid., 247. 52 Ibid., 247.

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another crew member to fill Ambrose’s place or make do with whoever from his consort remained. If Ambrose’s instrument was still intact, another musician could have also played it to create a balanced ensemble. By giving banquets and music, Cavendish was more than courteous—he was actively establishing a diplomatic agenda. A common theme emerges from these encounters; the English strived to maintain a powerful image while also strengthening the bonds between commodity-rich countries.53 Cavendish also tried to convince the Javanese of English naval superiority after the banquet by ordering every man aboard the Desire to shoot off firearms for the Javanese, in what was a very different kind of performance: “The same night, because they lay abord, in the evening at the setting of the watch, our Generall commanded every man in the shippe to provide his harquebuze and his shotte, and so with shooting off 40. Or 50. Small shot and one Sacre, himselfe set the watch with them.”54 This was “no small marveile” to the Javanese hosts, who, despite their previous encounters with Europeans, “had not commonly seene any shippe so furnished with men and Ordinance,” according to Pretty.55 During their circumnavigations, Cavendish and Drake approached foreign contacts with friendship and firepower, depending on the situation. Of these, friendship was the most fortuitous outcome, achieved primarily through constant interfacing and entertaining with their generous hosts. The musicians aboard the flagships Hind and Desire were the unsung heroes of each successful banquet, shipboard tour, and diplomatic ritual by easing the initial awkwardness and presenting the English as courteous guests and potential long-term traders.

Kind Entertainment (and Hamlet?) in Sierra Leone, 1607 In his journal of the East India Company’s third voyage (1607–1610), the commander General William Keeling (1577–1620) records the following 53 On 12 March, the King sent Cavendish and his men canoes filled with victuals, including livestock (hogs, hens, geese), fruits (limes, oranges, plantains), as well as sugar cane, coconuts, salt, wine, and fresh water. That same day, shortly after receiving the lavish supply of victuals, Cavendish received several Portuguese men on the Desire and had music played for his guests during Lent: “These Portugales were no small joy unto our Generall and all the rest of our company: For we had not seene any Christian that was our friend of a yeere and an halfe before. Our Generall used and intreated them singularly well, with banquets and musicke.” See Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 248. 54 Ibid., 247. 55 Ibid., 247.

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on 5 September 1607, when his ship, the Red Dragon, and its sister ship, the Hector, arrived at the coast of Sierra Leone: I sent the Portuguese interpreter, according to his desire, aboard the Hector, where he broke fast, and after came aboord me, where we had the TRAGEDY OF HAMLET; and in the afternoone we went altogether ashore, to see if we could shoot an elephant.56

What a busy day it was for the Company—meeting with the African dignitary Lucas Fernandez (brother-in-law to King Buré), performing a Shakespeare play, and hunting an elephant in the afternoon. This account, published by one Ambrose Gunthio in European Magazine (1825), may be the work of literary editor and known forger John Payne Collier more than two hundred years later.57 Though it may be forged, the Keeling journal extract presents the only evidence for what may be the earliest Shakespeare performances staged outside of Europe, potentially making Fernandez and his train the first non-European audience of Shakespeare as well as the first African audience. Keeling commanded the Red Dragon flagship, and, along with the Consent and the Hector, aimed to establish trade in Surat, India and Aden in present-day Yemen, as well as to continue trade in Bantam (Banten) in Java, which had previously supplied the EIC with pepper and was a popular trade location for the English.58 Gunthio’s Keeling journal 56 Ambrose Gunthio, “A Running Commentary on the Hamlet of 1603,” European Magazine (December 1825): 347. 57 Some critics contest the EIC Shakespeare performances based on the potential inauthenticity of the Keeling journal extracts. This is understandable given the variances of the extracts’ accounts. It is virtually impossible at this point to determine the authenticity of Keeling’s report without new evidence that proves the EIC performed Shakespeare, as the existing evidence is inextricably connected to Collier and the forgery question. See Bernice W. Kliman, “At Sea about Hamlet at Sea: A Detective Story,” Shakespeare Quarterly 62, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 180–204, esp. 184, as well as Kliman’s precursors (most notably Sydney Race’s essay). However, the forgery argument is often advanced with the assumption that EIC crew members would not be capable or trained to give an elaborate performance aboard ship. Kliman argues that these men (a group that Sydney Race collectively deems “rude sailors”) could not even have performed these plays “poorly and ‘on book,’ with one copy passed around to a group of men sitting still,” offhandedly deeming it “the first instance of readers’ theater!” (189). 58 Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri, The English East India Company: The Study of an Early Joint-Stock Company 1600–1640 (London, Frank Cass, 1965), 40. As Graham Holderness explains, the third voyage was meant to establish a “triangular trade” in which the English would sell broadcloth to merchants in port cities along the Arabian sea, buy cotton cloth in Surat and the Indian coast, and finally exchange the cotton for spices at an EIC factory in Bantam. See Graham Holderness, Tales from Shakespeare: Creative Collisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 23.

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extracts claim that the EIC staged three Shakespeare performances during the outbound journey: Hamlet on 5 September 1607 and 31 March 1608, and Richard II on 29 September 1607. These dates, however, are not consistent across all versions of the Keeling journal. In fact, we do not even have Keeling’s physical journal, and the document has survived solely in published fragments from as early as 1822.59 The authorship question aside, this extract prompts the question: did the East India Company perform plays aboard ship? As far as we know, the other surviving journals from the EIC third voyage—journals by Anthony Marlowe, John Hearne, William Finch, and an anonymous member of the Hector—do not explicitly mention play-acting in their entries.60 Bernice Kliman notes that Andrew Thrush, historian of early English voyages, does not find any instance of a shipboard performance by English sailors, based on a communication with early modern scholar Sabrina Baron in 1995.61 Yet records of any recreational activity from the third voyage journals are scarce. Entries by Marlowe (chief merchant aboard the Hector), Finch and Hearne (EIC factors aboard the Red Dragon) and an anonymous writer from the Hector are mainly concerned with procedural activities for navigation and survival. However, these documents record several formal introductions when the EIC gave kind entertainment to dignitaries and foreign representatives. Flogging a Dead Horse Several critics continue to support the argument for Hamlet despite the lack of hard evidence, although such arguments remain tenuous. Barbour explains that “[m]usic and spectacle held crew-specific and cross-cultural utility,” and his more recent essay with Bernhard Klein infers if the Company did perform both plays, these performances were “fortuitous and incidental, not essential to the episodic drama of voyaging at this early stage in Britain’s bid for global access.”62 Nonetheless, they confirm the documents of this 59 Keeling’s journal was mentioned in a document from 1822, but the extract from that source is only mentioned, and is said to be “Much decayed and mutilated,” as Richmond Barbour explains in The Third Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607–10 (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 243. 60 Though the other EIC third voyage journals do not explicitly mention the Shakespeare performances, Barbour argues that these documents “deserve publication, for they disclose in peculiar detail the social and cultural logistics of a pivotal moment in the emergence of multinational corporatism and global British initiative.” See Third Voyage Journals, 2. 61 Kliman, “At Sea About Hamlet,” 184. 62 Barbour, Third Voyage Journals, 25. See also Richmond Barbour and Bernhard Klein, “Drama at Sea: A New Look at Shakespeare on the Dragon, 1607–08,” Travel and Drama in Early Modern

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encounter “command critical attention in their own right” by providing key testaments to the nature of England’s cross-cultural encounters.63 Barbour and Klein describe these displays of power as forms of theatre, deeming them “the shared viewing of symbolically charged persons and properties in orchestrated constellations.”64 Orchestrated introductions with foreign representatives depended on skilled mediators, including translators (or “interpreters”), but most importantly the performers who entertained guests and hosts.65 Though Gunthio’s Keeling extracts are questionable, this complex story—in all its alternate versions—still offers useful ways to analyse maritime performers as diplomatic agents. Keeling hired trumpeters, drummers, and fifes on the third voyage, as Marlowe’s journal reveals, and the EIC also hired professional non-naval musicians to perform during voyages.66 EIC musician William Chambers famously jumped ship during the EIC’s sixth voyage, becoming a willing Portuguese captive, and one year later he joined Captain George Best on a voyage to Surat. Chambers likely played for Middleton and Downton during the voyage’s only documented account of shipboard entertainment on the flagship, the Trade’s Increase. On 18 June 1610, Middleton invited Downtown “to dinner and to play” according to master mate Thomas Love.67 The nature of this “play” has not been determined, though if the occasion was music, Chambers would have performed. These accounts nonetheless strengthen the argument that the Company engaged in different kinds of shipboard “play.” England: The Journeying Play, ed. Claire Jowitt and David McInnis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 163. 63 Ibid., 163. 64 Ibid., 163. See also James Seth, “Maritime Performance Culture and the Possible Staging of Hamlet in Sierra Leone,” Shakespeare en devenir – Les Cahiers de La Licorne 12 (2017). 65 Michael Dobson even theorizes that Keeling would have provided “the first-ever simultaneous translation of a Shakespearean performance, quite possibly into both Portuguese and the local African language, Temne.” If the EIC were dining with Fernandez and his train and were performing expressly for the Portuguese dignitary, the process of translation may have been an important aspect to consider. Dobson’s musing also implies, if this were the case, that Fernandez would be key for multiple translations, as he was called upon by the EIC to serve as interpreter, likely from Portuguese to Temne. The possibility of a multiple-translated version of Hamlet aboard ship seems intriguing, though unlikely, given the logistics of the introduction. See Michael Dobson, Shakespeare and Amateur Performance: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 3. 66 Anthony Marlowe, “The Hector Journal of Anthony Marlowe,” in The Third Voyage Journals, ed. Barbour, 136. 67 Love’s account of shipboard playing is in Clements Markham, The voyages of Sir James Lancaster, Kt., to the East Indies. 1830–1916 (New York: Burt Franklin, 1877), 153.

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The third voyage journal by factors Hearne and Finch presents the strongest case for shipboard play-acting (though not directly stated) in their account of first meeting with Fernandez on 4 September 1607: Beeing very ffayer wether, and towards eveninge Lucas Fernandez came aboarde wth 3 negros with him. Hee brought wth him a letter ffrom Bart. Andrea unto our gennerall. He wth the rest hadd very kynde interteynment aborde. This night ffell much rayne.68

Here the phrase “very kynde interteynment” describes a vague sort of shipboard recreation that could allow an interpretation of the Hamlet argument, as well as many others. Yet, as I have stated previously in this chapter, it is still a common phrase denoting many kinds of diversion: music-making, conversation, playing games, or trading goods and wares. Keeling could, like Drake, have given Fernandez a tour of the ship. The commander had to convince his royal guests that they could be trusted, even while Keeling received them with caution.69 The passage also mentions Bartholomeu André, an envoy and captain of a small Portuguese ship, who entered the port but kept a distance from the Dragon and Hector.70 The English needed to perform an elaborate show to win Fernandez’s favour, and clearly it worked, as EIC officers conversed with him to learn more about their “interpreter,” the political structure of Sierra Leone, and news about the Portuguese.71 The “kynde interteynment,” in whatever form it took, thus served its diplomatic 68 John Hearne and William Finch, The Red Dragon Journal of John Hearne and William Finch, in The Third Voyage Journals, 176. 69 As Finch and Hearne’s entry explain, Keeling also inspected Fernandez’s letters from his Spanish and Portuguese contacts out of caution. After boarding the Dragon, Fernandez delivered a letter from André, who, Barbour explains, “refused to allow an English party aboard and referred all inquiries to Father Baltasar Barriera.” See Third Voyage Journals, 14–15. 70 Ibid., 14. 71 Here I recall the erroneous use of the word “interpreter” in Gunthio’s Keeling extracts. The word “Interpreter,” as Nandini Das, João Vicente Melo, Lauren Working, and Haig Smith define it, “derives from the Latin interpres, a word used to design agents who moved between different parties or individuals who served as intermediaries, translators or explainers, usually in diplomatic activities.” See “Interpreter” in Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England, ed. Das et al. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021), 148. Additionally, this word in early modern texts “reveal[s] a perception of the interpreter as someone who facilitated communication and knowledge by deciphering words or translating foreign idioms” (148). This designation, however, is misused by diarists (or editors) when given to royal figures like Fernandez, who was heir to the throne and not a hired go-between. Conversely, this word appropriately describes John Rogers, who delivered the gifts to King Buré. Rogers had an integral role in bridging the lingual barriers between Fernandez and the other men aboard. He

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purpose. Additionally, the passage from Finch and Hearne reiterates how Portuguese-speaking members of the EIC were crucial to the success of these encounters. Marlowe’s journal, however, presents a different set of dates than Hearne and Finch’s and describes a separate and more elaborate formal introduction. According to Marlowe, the ruler King Buré sent notice for the EIC to attend him on 17 August 1607. Keeling sent John Rogers, who spoke Portuguese, up the river to deliver a bottle of wine, calico, and “an end of Iron” to the king.72 On 20 August, Rogers returned with news that Buré had gratefully accepted the present, and “promysed much kindnesse” in permitting the trading of commodities like gold and elephants’ teeth.73 Having established good will, the Company prepared to meet him in person. Thus, there are two possible instances when a Hamlet performance could have taken place. The first would have been during the arrival of Fernandez and his three attendants aboard the Dragon (listed by Finch and Hearne on 4 September 1607). The second instance would have been the Company’s formal introduction to Buré in a house by the shore designed for entertaining and banqueting. The conversations about the Hamlet mystery have been so preoccupied with questions of authenticity that they have avoided other spaces and occasions for entertaining. I am more inclined to believe that if the Dragon performers staged Hamlet—or gave any kind of performance—for African dignitaries, it would have taken place at Buré’s banqueting house instead of the Dragon. While some English musicians gave introductory performances aboard ship, as Cavendish’s did, other musicians like Drake’s gave elaborate performances ashore f irst.74 The chaplain Frances Fletcher states that when Drake arrived in Java on 13 March 1580, the “Generall himself, with many of his gentlemen and others, went to shoare, and presented the king (of whom he was ioyfully and louingly receiued) with his musicke.75” In response, Raia Donan came aboard the Hind and “presented [the] Generall with his country musick.”76 Keeling, with Captains William Hawkins may have been an interpreter or translator during all of Fernandez’s conversations for those who did not understand Portuguese. 72 Marlowe, The Hector Journal, 81. 73 Ibid., 81. 74 Notably, Cavendish had visited Sierra Leone on his circumnavigation and “sent some of his company on shore,” where “they played and daunced all the forenoone among the Negros.” See Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 8: 208. However, Cavendish’s men did not formally introduce themselves to royalty while they were docked, though Pretty notes that the people are loyal to their king (208–209). 75 Fletcher, World Encompassed, 160. 76 Ibid., 161.

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and David Middleton of the Hector and Consent, recognized their roles as English ambassadors in Sierra Leone, and they brought Company members to entertain and converse with African royals in the hopes of establishing friendly relations. Entertaining the King in the “Old House” Scholars pursuing the Hamlet narrative have neglected the event at the banquet house, and yet it was still an appropriate occasion for the EIC to perform. Twenty-five Company members attended (enough to stage a play), and it was a prime opportunity to impress their potential trade partners in person. Rather than pursuing the Shakespeare connection without new evidence, I will consider other types of “kynde interteynment” that Company musicians and shipboard performers could have given during this occasion. If they came with Keeling, the musicians on the Dragon had an opportunity to give many other types of performances beyond play-acting, like instrumental music. Marlowe’s journal states that Keeling and a group of men—likely a consort with musicians—introduced themselves to Buré ashore. Fernandez and his train came to the Dragon in canoes, inviting Keeling to the King’s banqueting house. Keeling accepted the offer and went with his men to shore. They conversed with Fernandez and travelled to an “old house nere by” to have dinner and kind entertainment: When dyner was done, newes came that Kinge Borrea was come, to whome our Captayne sent presently Lucas Fernandus whoe soone after retorned, desyringe our Captayne ffrom the kinge to come upp to his house to him, who taking aboute 25 men appointed, went. And the king did receve him verye kindlye after theire Countrye manner, exspressinge much kindnesse to our nation, Lucas Fernandez beinge Interpriter. Our Captayne declared to the kinge the cause of his comminge, was, ffor such Comodities as we had, to have of his people such Comodities and victual as the land afforded, unto wch this poore kinge gladly yealded, offring all his ffurtherance therein. Then our Captayne sent ffor a Bottle of wyne, and presented him, wch he kindly receved, ffor yt semeth they love yt well. Our Captayne sate by him aboute 2 howres, and in this talke he semed very well affected to Christianytie, and that he himselfe had a great desire of a long tyme to be of that professione.77 77 Marlowe, The Hector Journal, 83.

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Keeling brought a crew of twenty-five men, among them likely one or more naval musicians to signal the boats or a lookout. Like Drake, who first showed the Javanese kings “all the commodities of [their] ship” to encourage trade, Keeling made his intentions clear about establishing trade when he first spoke to Buré. The king was interested with Keeling’s proposition, and the commander responded with gifts, as Drake had done when first meeting Raia Donan. Perhaps the most unique part of this introduction is the long conversation Keeling had with Buré about Christianity. Buré seemed “very well affected” by it, begging the question whether the English conducted a prayer, psalm service, or worshipful music to accompany this conversation. Keeling wanted to discuss Christianity with the “poore” local king, who could be converted and (from their view) saved by English Protestantism. Marlowe’s use of “poore” to describe Buré in this context is telling; unlike the European-educated, Christianized Fernandez, Buré is described as a deficient king, one the English could improve economically and spiritually. If Keeling discussed Christianity with Buré for nearly two hours, what were the rest of his men doing during this time? His musicians could have played to entertain themselves in the meantime, though not too loud to disrupt their commander. I also think Keeling’s musicians played en route to the “old house,” which they had done on another occasion. When the Company gave kind entertainment to the King of “Tammarie” (Tamrida, now Hadibu) on 17 May 1608, they played to announce their arrival: Dynner being prepared ffor our Generall and all his company, the Kinge and our Generall went bothe together toward his house, the Kinges Drums, pipes and voyses, and the Generalls Trumpettes, Drume and ffiffe soundinge and playing all the way before them till they came into the Kinges house. Theare he entertayned our Generall wth all rightes and kindnesse he could, and all us merchantes and others whoe attended on the Generall did also dyne wth the Kinge, and had plenty of rice and ffleshe, Caffa and sherbett, all served in in decent manner.78

Like the scene in Sierra Leone, this banquet was well-attended and included a lavish spread, with meat, rice, coffee, and sherbet. EIC musicians played during the dinner, including Walter Stere, a trumpeter mentioned briefly in Marlowe’s journal.79 There were a range of English musicians who attended, 78 Ibid., 136. 79 Marlowe mentions Stere in his account of the feud that occurred after Jones’s theft of African goods. Stere was taken captive by African villagers in response to the theft. Marlowe writes on

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though all of them were naval positions—trumpeters, drummers, and fifes. On their way to the king’s house, they made a proclamation of their arrival. In response, the King sent instrumental players and a chorus of singers to welcome them. With both groups of musicians playing during the procession, it was a loud, gaudy celebration. Marlowe’s entry does not state if there was dramatic performance to accompany the dinner, but the phrase “wth all rightes and kindnesse he could” infers there may have been additional entertainment during the third voyage banquet—music, dancing, and lively conversation, to be sure. If Keeling’s naval musicians attended Buré’s banquet, they likely engaged in similar types of ceremonial and cordial playing. Entertaining the “Interpreter” Of course, giving kind entertainment meant much more than music-making. The Company also enjoyed having conversations with Lucas Fernandez, heir to Buré. Fernandez was an influential cultural ambassador who helped smooth the tensions between the English, Africans, and Portuguese. Though he was in line for the throne, the English treated him as an envoy, a translator, and an ambassador of Christian and European cultural thought. The Company was fascinated with him, in part because he challenged their stereotypes of African people.80 He was Black, European-educated, stately, personable, and linguistically sophisticated; hence he was called the “Interpreter.” As Nandini Das et al. explain, those who were called “Interpreter” in early modern texts “served as integral go-betweens in activities that related to commercial and diplomatic exchanges,” performing “indispensable functions” that “required an element of trust.”81 Fernandez gained this trust through his kind entertainment (in this case, conversing) with the English. Fernandez was someone who could “argue well of his ffaith,” despite certain “delusions” of his Catholic beliefs.82 Though the EIC took issue with Fernandez’s Catholic views, they listened to him with great interest 30 August: “This day Walter Stere, on[e] of our Trumpeters, being sent in the Long Boate to wood, did straggle ffrom his ffellowes, and was surprised by the Negros, and was Carryed prisoner 6 myles into the Countrye to one of theire houses all night” (84). 80 From Hearne and Finch, The Red Dragon Journal, 12 September 1607: “This people are verry lusty men, stronge and well limmed, and a good people and true. They will not steall as others of their collour will doe in other places, ffor many of our menn lost many things ashoare, and they that ffound them brought them and restored them to the right owner. And in all that tyme of our beeinge heer, wee hadd no Injury offered to any of our people, but all the kyndnes that might bee expected at the hands of such a black heathen nation” (179). 81 Das et al., “Interpreter,” 149. 82 Hearne and Finch, The Red Dragon Journal, 176.

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and participated in a peaceful exchange of ideas on religion and politics. Fernandez came aboard the Dragon again on 12 September (in Finch and Hearne’s journal), bringing a letter from Padre Bartolmeo Barrera, who was stationed at Sierra Leone to “say masse” and “procure some of the black people to become Christians, they havinge drawne some ffewe already to bee Christianed, as Capt Boree and others.”83 Among the “Christianed” in Sierra Leone was Fernandez, who could “argue” his beliefs; though Hearne and Finch were wary of his Catholic ideas, the verb “argue” suggests a dialogue between himself and the English, who were likely compelled to “argue” back. English merchants had to frequently engage with people who shared different views and, as Games argues, developed a cosmopolitan sensibility, or an awareness of the customs of their foreign contacts.84 These men, as Games explains, “played the roles of gracious host and guest constantly,” which “required a social competence—measured in their enthusiasm for new pursuits.”85 Of course, the English still clung to inherently racist ideas and behaviours, viewing Africa to be a “black heathen nation.”86 An anonymous journal from a member of the Hector describes the Company’s attempt to Christianize King Buré in his entry for 27 August 1607, and in the process, the diarist lavishes praise on Fernandez for his great character: And in the afternoone our Captaine had much speech with Boreah by Lucus the Interpreter, wch Interpreter seemed very sensible and plentifull in Spannish completementes, both in spech and action, and verey humaine in his Cariage, whose sister was wife to Boreah. Boreah in this Converse seemed to bee somewhat inclined to Christianitie, and seemed desirous to come aboard and there to be baptized.87

The passage describes Fernandez in glowing terms, “sensible” and “humaine in his Cariage.” The English likely recognized Fernandez’s humaneness—and 83 Ibid., 179. 84 Games, Web of Empire, 14. 85 Ibid., 88. 86 Hearne and Finch, The Red Dragon Journal, 179. Marlowe also writes that three days after Keeling met with Buré, one of their men, a William Jones, started a major feud between the English and a group Black Africans when he arbitrarily stole “dyvers peces of goodes, of wch some was brought abord and some hid in the sand nere where they stole them”; see Marlowe, The Hector Journal, 85. Though this incident caused strife between the two parties, Keeling and Hawkins were willing to listen to the African witnesses to the event. Only after the General and Captain questioned his men with “waightes aboute theire neckes” until one of them finally confessed to Jones’s actions (85). 87 Qtd. in Barbour, Third Voyage Journals, 66.

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his humanity—when they saw him as a Christian servant and not solely an “Interpreter” or representative of a “heathen nation.” The Hector diarist also describes a relationship forming between Keeling and Buré. Keeling impressed his religious ideas on Buré in their long talk, during which he tried to persuade him to be baptized. But rather than turn against it, the king was open to the idea, indicating trust had been established between them. On a more rudimentary level, the journal also discloses Fernandez’s familial relation with Buré, as his brother-in-law; this familial connection was important for the diarist to note since Fernandez, a Christian, could also help convert Buré. Following in the diplomatic tradition of banqueting and entertaining royalty, the Company gave “kynde interteynment” at Sierra Leone successfully established friendly relations with the king. With music and ritual, the EIC served as ambassadors of English culture, regardless of whether they brought England’s most popular playwright in the process.

East India Company Performers at the English Trade Factory in Japan Some of the most elaborate performances by English explorers occurred at the EIC’s trade factory in Japan. Though called a “factory,” the English did not manufacture goods there but only traded and sold them. The factory was a short-term enterprise, only lasting from 1613 to 1623. Richard Cocks (1566–1624) managed the factory and served as “Chief Factor,” or chief merchant. During his stint, he engaged with many Japanese traders and dignitaries and other international merchants, as well. The factory, also called the “English House,” was “simultaneously a residence, a storehouse, and a showroom,” as Games explains.88 Patrons and guests frequently visited the English House, which was not only a trade factory but also a performance space where Cocks and Company members entertained, banqueted, and negotiated. In 1613, John Saris (1580–1643), commander of the EIC’s eighth voyage, reached Hirado, Japan, ruled by shogun Tokugawa Hidetada (1579–1632). Saris aimed to establish a trade factory, which the Dutch had pursued four years earlier, with the long-term goal of trading with China, as the Portuguese had successfully done. In 1611, the EIC received letters from the navigator William Adams, thought to be the first Englishman to arrive in Japan, who wrote

88 Games, Web of Empire, 88–89.

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about the possibility of trade between the two countries.89 In a letter dated 22 October 1611, Adams explained that the Dutch merchants had already amassed supplies of gold and silver, and he urged that the English should also traffic, as “the merchandize which is here vendible for readie money is raw silke, damaske, black taffities, black and red cloth of the best, lead, and such like goods.”90 Adams sent additional letters, but even before the EIC had received them, the Company had already made a plan to send a fleet to Japan. Having reached Bantam on 24 October 1611, Saris set out from Bantam for Japan on 15 January 1613 aboard the Clove, anchoring in Hirado on 12 June. In his journal, Saris describes Cocks’s hospitality towards guests at the English House, having crew members entertain dignitaries, merchants, and buyers. Cocks’s experience and connections were valuable to the Company, and he also spoke French and Spanish.91 Little is known about the other company members in the factory. Gabriel Towerson was chief merchant of the Hector and had, Derek Massarella notes, “sailed in the Second Voyage and had served as the Company’s first chief factor at Bantam from 1605-8,” but was killed “in the infamous massacre of Amboina in 1623.”92 Tempest Peacock, the chief merchant of the Thomas, had a role in the merchandising committee but fell out of favour with Saris for his close ties to rival commander Henry Middleton.93 Richard Wickham was valuable for his connection to the Governor Sir Thomas Smythe, but his “prickly temperament and intractable nature” made Saris and Cocks cautious, and multiple accounts of improper behaviour are recorded in the Eighth Voyage journals.94 The other company members stationed at the factory were Walter Carwarden, William Nealson, and William Eaton. Eaton had been a purser’s mate on the 89 Critics like David Massarella qualify this claim, emphasizing that Adams is, more accurately, “the first recorded Englishman to arrive there” and that “[i]t is possible that other Britons preceded him,” since “Portuguese ships like those of other European maritime nations at this time had international crews” (71). See Massarella, A World Elsewhere: Europe’s Encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 71. 90 Reprinted in P.G. Rogers, The First Englishman in Japan: The Story of Will Adams (London: The Harvill Press, 1956), 54. 91 Massarella, A World Elsewhere, 142. At forty-five years old, he was much older than other Company members to begin service, but he proved to Saris that he could be capable of managing his English company-men and handling affairs with international traders. 92 Ibid., 91. 93 As Massarella explains, Peacock lost Saris’s favour for “passing a copy of the voyage’s cargo list to Middleton, carrying letters on Middleton’s behalf, and constantly informing the rival commander of matters which Saris would have preferred remained privy to the Eighth Voyage.” See A World Elsewhere, 142. 94 For a more detailed account of Wickham’s character, see Massarella, A World Elsewhere, 143–144.

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Hector who was “appointed manager of the English house’s routine affairs in July 1613” but was later promoted to factor thanks to Saris’s confidence in his abilities.95 Two amateur musicians played at the English House, per Saris’s entry on 10 October 1613: a “Master Hownsell” and a carpenter. They formed an impromptu orchestra when Cocks needed musical entertainment for visiting Japanese dignitaries. No hired professional musicians are listed in EIC factory accounts, but the house had laymen with musical abilities, as the English gave music to guests on multiple occasions.96 Cocks and the factory workers improvised and took risks when it came to pleasing their foreign visitors and clientele. Cocks became a kind of “shantyman” at the factory, creating a rhythm of work at the factory to entertain foreign visitors. In the preface to Cocks’s diary, Thompson indicates there were “eight Englishmen who were thus appointed members” of the factory, including Cocks, Adams, Tempest Peacock, Richard Wickham, William Eaton, Walter Carwarden, Edmund Sayers, and William Nealson.97 Of these men, Cocks, Eaton, and Sayers were part of the factory until the end of its operations.98 Though the number of Englishmen who were part of its establishment was small, the English House housed up to seventy company members, according to Saris, including sixty-three English, one Japanese member, one Spanish member, and five “swartes,” or Black company members of unknown origin.99 Given the diversity of their new surroundings, Cocks and other EIC members responded accordingly to the cultural difference, as well. As Games argues: “Cosmopolitanism facilitated survival and success overseas, and thus emerged in part as a series of learned behaviors.”100 Though Saris made multiple gaffes at the Japanese court, Cocks established friendships 95 Ibid., 144. 96 It is unlikely that Saris hired his own crew members to serve as professional musicians at the English House. Additionally, Cocks was not known to be a musician, but was a member of the Merchant Adventurers’, the Clothworkers’ Company, and the East India Company. See Rogers, First Englishman in Japan, 71. As Rogers also notes, “socially [Cocks] was proud of the fact that over a considerable period he had written letters to Sir Thomas Wilson, secretary to Salisbury, Lord Treasurer of King James I of English, on a variety of topics” (71). There is currently no evidence to suggest that the EIC formed and kept a consort of professional musicians in its factories during the seventeenth century, as Woodfield observes (232). This was perhaps because “it was usually possible to hire musicians from visiting shops” (232). 97 Diary of Richard Cocks, cape-merchant in the English Factory in Japan 1615–1622, ed. Edward Maunde Thompson (London: Hakluyt Society, 1883), 1: xii. 98 Ibid., xiv. For more biographical information on Cocks, see Michael Cooper, “Richard Cocks, English Merchant in Japan,” History Today 24, no. 4 (1974): 265–274. 99 Saris, John Saris to Japan, 85. 100 Games, Web of Empire, 10.

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with international traders, including the Chinese merchant, Li Dan, whom Cocks also curiously referred to as “Andrea Dittis.”101 The English rented their house in Hirado from Li Dan, and Cocks describes the merchant as “cheefe commander of all the Chinas in Japon, both at Nangasaque, Firando and elsewheare.”102 Although Cocks relied on him in hopes of trading with China, the merchant took advantage of Cocks’s gullibility and conned him with what Adam Clulow calls “an elaborate, multistage theater of deception usually involving a cast of characters that worked by slowly drawing the mark deeper and deeper until he was prepared to commit significant resources.”103 Li Dan achieved a “confidence trick” lasting nearly a decade, and Cocks believed and gave in to the promise of wealth.104 There were thus many ‘performances’ given at Hirado. Matsura Hoin Shigenobu (1549–1614), the retired feudal lord at Hirado, gave the EIC performances of music and dance to ensure they would choose Hirado as the location of the factory; Li Dan gave performances of goodwill and friendship to con Cocks into an expensive alliance; and the English musicians at the English House performed for guests to draw attention to their supply of goods. Reciprocal Gestures Upon Arrival Performances at the English House were given equally between the English and Japanese. As Thomas Lockley argues, “It often feels like the Europeans were the only actors in the game of outward expansion, global trade, and maritime exploration; implying that those people who they met and interacted with around the globe were simply awaiting the arrival of the white man.”105 However, the Japanese nobility and Hirado’s international traders were also capable actors in this “game of outward expansion.” Shortly after he arrived at Hirado, Saris welcomed Matsura Hoin and Japanese guests to tour the Clove. This included a viewing of a painting of Venus, which guests 101 William Adams to Thomas Best, 1 December 1613. Reprinted in Anthony Farrington, The English Factory in Japan, 1613–1623 (London: British Library, 1991), 1: 111. As Adams records, Saris wanted to hand-deliver a letter to Tokugawa Ieyasu, which was not the proper custom at the Japanese court. Apparently, this angered Saris, who said that if he could not personally deliver the letter, he would return to his lodging. See also Games, Web of Empire, 109. 102 Cocks, Diary, 2: 309. 103 Adam Clulow, “Commemorating Failure: The Four Hundredth Anniversary of England’s Trading Outpost in Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 68, no. 2 (2013): 225. 104 Ibid., 225. 105 Thomas Lockley, “English Dreams and Japanese Realities Anglo-Japanese Encounters Around the Globe, 1587–1673,” Review of Culture 60 (2019): 125.

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supposedly worshipped as a kind of Madonna image.106 Saris hoped to impress his guests by showing them wares and goods, and Matsura was also looking for profitable traders guaranteed to provide steady revenue. Seeing their goods aboard ship, Matsura determined a trade partnership with the English would be profitable and sought to win their trust with elaborate demonstrations of courtesy. After the tour, the feudal lord entertained and banqueted the English visitors to convince them to stay in Hirado. Saris records a performance by a group of female entertainers brought by Matsura on 12 June. The women were part of the feudal lord’s personal consort, and Saris’s journal makes multiple notes comparing their instruments and musical styles to England’s: The Kings women seemed to be somewhat bashfull, but he willed them to bee frollicke. They sung divers songs and played upon certain Instruments (where of one did much resemble our Lute) being bellyed like it, but longer in the neck, and fretted like ours, but had only foure gut-strings. Their fingering with the left like ours, very nimbly: but the right hand striketh with an Ivory bone, as we used to play upon a Citterne with a quill.107

The “bellyed” instrument with “foure gut-strings” was a likely a biwa or a shamisen, resembling the European cittern in its design. This performance would be the first of a series of shared greetings between the English and the Japanese. During the introduction, Saris and the Company gained cultural knowledge and became part of the community, like Adams before them.108 In his description Saris focuses on the connections between Japanese and English music. He describes how the performers “delighted themselues much with their musicke, keeping time with their hands, and playing and singing by booke, prickt on line and space, resembline much ours heere.”109 He identifies similar rhythmic techniques, observing how they keep time “with their hands” like a metronome. This also recalls the encounter Frobisher’s men had with the Inuit as they were amused their hosts could replicate 106 Woodfield, English Musicians, 161. 107 The Voyage of Captain John Saris to Japan, 1613, ed. Ernest M. Satow (London, Hakluyt Society, 1900), 84. 108 Though Saris had been anxious of Adam’s adoption of Japanese culture, he was aware that it was imperative to accept kind gestures and return them with gratitude. As Games emphasizes, successful merchants “had to be willing to acknowledge their cultural ignorance,” and their journals not only convey the wonder of experiencing new forms of entertainment but also willingness to act appreciative for the success of the voyage (87). 109 John Saris to Japan, 84.

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rhythms with hand claps. Saris uses the phrase “like ours” to emphasize continuity across cultural barriers and express his surprise or amusement. Matsura’s musical performance was meant to welcome Saris and the EIC into the local economy, and in return, Saris “feasted them, and presented them with diuers English commodities” as cordial gifts.110 After the performance Matsura Hoin showed the Company homes to rent on the shore at Hirado to house their operation.111 They rented their “English House” from Li Dan, the head of Chinese commercial activity at Hirado, for “76 taels for one monsoon, or 6 months,” and would later buy it outright for 100 taels.112 Despite its optimal position in trading, the English House was in poor condition and had to be constantly maintained. Fires were also common in Hirado, threatening the factory’s goods.113 Although the English House is not described in detail in the EIC journals, it may have been like the Dutch houses, which were wooden structures with whitewashed plaster walls and tatami floors.114 Though the house needed constant maintenance (evidenced by the employment of a carpenter, who also happened to be a 110 Ibid., 84 111 While Adams disliked that Saris insisted on having “a convenyent howse ashoare,” rather than a house near Ieyasu’s court (given Adams’s correspondence with Ieyasu indicating otherwise), it seems that Saris had several reasons for their location. See John Saris to Japan, 84. First, having the house near the shore at Hirado offered an easier access to Chinese trade, which was their long-term goal. However, it also appears that Saris was taken with Matsura Hoin and the kind entertainment he gave the Company. This bond between the two leaders may have led to a joint agreement ensuring that the Company would stay in Hirado and try to build trade connections on the shore. 112 Massarella, A World Elsewhere, 217. 113 These fires were not all naturally caused. On 26 October 1613, Cocks writes that “[a]nother house was set on fire the night past by villaines, but soone put out, and no hurt done”; see John Saris to Japan, 168. Other instances of thieves setting fire to some of the merchant houses occurred in early November, as recorded in Saris’s entries (172–173). Fires were so prevalent that there were even “night-criers of fire,” which “keepe such a horrible noise (without forme or fashion) that it is impossible for any man to take rest.” To lower the risk of fire, Massarella explains, “yards were created to separate the buildings, which besides the residence itself and godowns, included a showroom to display the factor’s merchandise, a storeroom for ships’ provisions and a small hospital” (217–218). Letters from the English and Dutch merchants in Japan often “charged that Japanese merchants switched back and forth between peaceful commerce and violence,” Clulow notes, and consequently “it did not require much prompting to make the leap from merchant to mercenary.” See Clulow, “‘Great help from Japan’: The Dutch East India Company’s Experiment with Japanese Soldiers,” in The Dutch and English East India Companies: Diplomacy, Trade, and Violence in Early Modern Asia, ed. Adam Clulow and Tristan Mostert (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 185–186. Though the English were not aware of all the political reasons for Japanese merchants to disrupt maritime activity, they were nonetheless caught in the middle of it. 114 Massarella, A World Elsewhere, 218.

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musician), it served many functions and was a comfortable space for the Company to give kind entertainment. Kabuki Parties and ‘Comedies’ Matsura Hoin organized elaborate banquets and performances for the Company at the English House as demonstrations of goodwill while the English prepared their factory operation. The Company willingly accepted these gestures and also sought the company of women, mainly prostitutes, extra-marital partners (referred to as “wives”), and kabuki performers, who Cocks noted in his list of important Japanese words as ‘caboque,’ or dancing girl.115 As Saris explains, these dancers were “slaues of one man, who putteth a price what euery man shall pay that hath to doe with any of them.”116 Furthermore, it is “left to his owne discretion to prize her at the first, but rise he cannot afterwards, fall he may,” and neither should any man bargain with the dancer, but only “with her Master, whose command she is to obey.”117 Saris refers to the women as “Wenches,” but they were kabuki slave performers, travelling, performing, and fornicating against their will.118 There are multiple occasions when kabuki parties were given for and by the residents of the English House, evidencing that, while business often mixed with pleasure, the Company spent much of their time on the latter.119 Cocks’s diary of the English Factory in Japan includes a detailed glossary of Japanese words frequently used, along with their definitions. In addition to caboque (kabuki) he also lists fanna, defined as “a present to a dancing girl.”120 The definition of fanna not only indicates the physical object, but 115 A full list of Japanese words (as spelled by the English) and their definitions is listed in the Preface to the Diary of Richard Cocks, 1: liii. 116 John Saris to Japan, 90. 117 Ibid., 90. 118 As Games explains, “traders commonly used woman, whore, and wench [to refer to Japanese women as ‘wives’].” See Web of Empire, 106. The EIC conflated these terms to describe women with various relationships with men, whether marital, temporal, or transactional. 119 Since kabuki and similar entertainment were given often in Hirado, the Japanese language of performance was part of the Company’s daily communication. As Samuli Kaislaniemi explains, Cocks gained a linguistic competency while managing the factory in Japan, as some of the words and phrases in his diary are Japanese, including common phrases as well as everyday objects. See Kaislaniemi, “The Linguistic World of the Early English East India Company: A Study of the English Factory in Japan, 1613–1623,” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 17, no. 3 (Summer 2017): 70. Kaislaniemi explains that Cocks’s use of the phrase “Warry, warry, warry,” or “Warui, warui, warui 悪い 悪い 悪い, meaning “Bad, bad, bad!” highlights a “linguistic competence beyond mere new words for new referents” (70). 120 Cocks, Diary, 1: liii.

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the act of giving and engaging in a reciprocal gesture. There are, the word reveals, certain courteous gestures the Englishmen were expected to give, even in times of pleasure; the definition shows that after a performance, a small present would be given as custom. Cocks’s entry on 8 September 1616 states that on a visit to Edo, he dined with a merchant named Neyen-dono, who “provided caboques, or women plears, who danced and songe; & when we retorned home, he sent eavery one of them to lye w’th them yt would have them all night.”121 In 1618, a kabuki dancer named Tagano wrote to Cocks from Osaka expressing her regret for not saying farewell before he left for Hirado but adding that she looked forward to meeting with him again.122 In Saris’s entry on 21 June, he describes a dramatic performance given by the travelling kabuki performers: The 21st the ould King came aboard and brought with him his women to be frollyke. [These women were Actors of Comedies, which passe there from Iland to Iland to play, as our Players doe here from Towne to Towne, hauing seuerall shifts of apparel for the better grace of the matter acted; which for the most part are of Warre, Loue, and such like.]123

Saris describes kabuki dancers as female performers travelling “from Iland to Iland.” Perhaps he was drawing parallels to England’s travelling all-male actors who performed “from Towne to Towne,” though the lives of these performers were profoundly different. Saris points out similarities in staging practices, as well. There are, for instance, “seuerall shifts of apparel,” or costume changes, depending on the tone and purpose. Second, Saris describes the performance as a ‘Comedy,’ drawing more parallels to English theatrical conventions and genres. The themes of this play were, Saris states, “Warre” and “Loue,” the latter being a popular theme of comedy. Even if Saris’s word “Comedies” was given in a loose sense, the kabuki performers may have dramatized a marriage at the end of the performance, signifying a 121 Ibid., 1: 173. 122 Massarella, A World Elsewhere, 235. 123 John Saris to Japan, 90. The kabuki troupes would also include men, and together, they journeyed to different port cities to entertain traders. Their occupations were perilous, though, as they were vulnerable to pirates and plunderers. In his entry for 21 May 1617, Cocks writes “Speeches are geven out that the caboques or Japon players (or whores), going from hence for Tushma to meete the Corean ambassadors, were set on by the way by a boate of Xaxma theeves, and kild all both men and women, for the money they had gotten at Firando. (256) After their performances in Hirado (Firando), where they profited from the English, Japanese, and Chinese, the kabuki performers were all killed by the pirates.

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comic plot to early modern Englanders.124 He may have used “Comedies” to distinguish the tone as light or playful, corresponding with his description of Kabuki dancers “frollyk[ing].” Saris’s musicians also attended the kabuki ‘comedy’ and gave their own performance in return later that day. Reciprocal entertainment and other forms of exchange were imperative for the English to show their gratitude and ensure a steady clientele.125 Saris’s journal states on 21 June that he intreated them kindlye with musicke and a bankett of Conserues of diuers sorts, which the King [Matsura Hoin] took verye well. Giuen to his majestie a prospectiue glass and a wrought nightcapp of black silke and Goulde. And so he tooke his leaue.126

Saris probably tasked his naval musicians to give “kindlye” music, and these same musicians may have returned to England with Saris after the Company settled at the English House. There were other members who could have service this task—Peacock, Wickham, Eaton, Carwarden, Sayers, and Nealson. On 28 July, Matsura and the “chiefe of the nobillyty” arrived at the English House with a large train.127 Saris gave the feudal lord another “rich bankett and musick,” which he “tooke great pleasure in.”128 Most of the EIC’s initial meetings included music, and they were effective at the task, given that the noble audience took “great pleasure” with their performance in July. At the English House, the English exchanged much more than commodities; they traded customs, language, food, music, dance, and other forms of entertainment. They also engaged frequently with kabuki performers and formed short and long-term relationships with the women they encountered. These connections and exchanges comprised the daily life in Hirado, a melting pot of Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, and English culture.

124 See Northrop Frye, A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), 72 and 85. 125 Words like fanna express not only the item or gift but the act of courtesy. Even words like jurebassa, or translator, express a form of exchange between people. The word jurebasso, Kaislaniemi explains, “comes from the Malay word jurab(a)hasa, literally ‘language-master.’ See “The Linguistic World,” 63. See also Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive. Comp. by Henry Yule and Arthur C. Burnell. Ed. William Crooke (London: J. Murray, 1903), 473–474. See also Keywords, ed. Das et al., 150. 126 John Saris to Japan, 91. 127 Ibid., 108. 128 Ibid., 108.

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An Impromptu Performance at the English House Amateur English musicians gave one of the most important performances at the English House on October 1613, shortly after opening the factory. What Games describes as an “impromptu chamber ensemble” had greater significance in proving Cocks’s competency as chief factor, and the competency of the other EIC members as effective merchants.129 More than just “divert[ing] Japanese music lovers,” Cocks’s quick recruitment of a sailor and carpenter to perform for Japanese nobility was part of a more elaborate political gamble.130 Cocks gave kind entertainment in exchange for the release of a group of English runaways, who were being detained in Nagasaki. This performance also demonstrates the way the English conducted business in the early years of the factory. In the second part of his journal Cocks explains that English fugitives were kept at the court of Hasegawa Sahyō Fujihiro, daikan (or magistrate) of Nagasaki, who Cocks refers to as “Bon Diu” and also calls “governor.”131 Cocks and other EIC members planned to greet Fujihiro and give him entertainment to receive a pardon for his men. The amateur entertainers at the English house were thus part of an elaborate show of hospitality to Fujihiro and his train. On 5 October, Matsura and Fujihiro came to the English House with many guests, where Cocks proceeded to give them “the best entertainment [he] could.”132 The same day he received a letter from the court at Nagasaki.133 Cocks states that “the Gouernor (or King) of Langasaque, called Bon Diu, would bee here at Firando to morrow.”134 On 7 October Fujihiro, the Empress’s brother, made a grand introduction to the English House, where Cocks greeted him with a gift.135 He arrived with, Cocks alleges, “about five hundred followers after them” in a line going “out

129 Games, Web of Empire, 88. 130 Ibid., 88. 131 As Edward Satow explains, “The real name of the Governor of Nagasaki at this period was Hasegawa Sahioye, who held the appointment from 1606 to 1614. A sister of his, named Natsuko, was one of the concubines of lyeyasu. He was a zealous persecutor of the native Roman Catholic Christians. Perhaps Bon Diu is a nickname given him by the English on this account. Cocks, as we know, had lived in France. Other instances of nicknames bestowed on Japanese are Grubstreet for their Osaka agent, and Machiavelli for their agent at Yedo … corroborates Cocks, but calls the Governor by his right name.” See John Saris to Japan, 155. 132 Ibid., 530. 133 Cocks and Saris refer to Nagasaki as “Langasaque.” 134 John Saris to Japan, 530. 135 Ibid., 531.

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into the street.”136 Cocks needed to procure a pardon during the crowded introduction but wanted to avoid any other political gaffes and build their trust. Fujihiro informed Cocks that if he had it in writing that “all in general” should be pardoned for this time—and if Cocks would make a promise to not let it happen again—he would deliver the English fugitives in Nagasaki into Cocks’ custody. Cocks agreed, saying he was “contented with anything it pleased his Greatnes to command.”137 However, Fujihiro’s official written pardon also came with strings attached, mainly that his royal guests and family, who visited the English House during Fujihiro’s stay, should be properly entertained. On 8 October, Fujihiro’s brother was introduced to Cocks and expected a present, which Cocks duly gave. Cocks also used this opportunity to give his guests a tour of the factory and his merchandise. Unfortunately, Fujihiro “looked on all [their] commodities” and “bough nothing.”138 However, he did give the English a quantity of cotton, which Cocks reciprocated with several glass bottles, two gally-pots, and a supply of cloves. On 9 October, Fujihiro’s brother sent gifts—two barrels of wine from Miaco, plus an additional two barrels of Japanese wise—in exchange for more entertainment by their English hosts. On 10 October, several of the daikan’s sons visited the English house, and Cocks used what resources were available to entertain them: two of the Governours sonnes of Langasaque … came to see our English House, they are Christians. I entertayned them them in the best sort I could, and shewed them our commodities, and after made them collation and gave them Musicke, Master Hownsell and the Carpenter by chance being heere: and as wee were at it; old Foyne the King come stealing in upon us; and did as the rest did, and seeing the King and these Langasakians together, I willed our Jurebasso to put out a word for the speedie sending backe of our Run-aways: which they all promised, provided, that they should be pardoned for this fault, as I had formerly promised, which now againe I acknowledged.139

There is a sense of urgency in Cocks’s courting of the daikan’s sons to have a “speedie sending backe” of the English fugitives. Cocks showed off commodities and gathered everyone together (or as many that could fit 136 Ibid., 531. 137 Ibid., 532. 138 Ibid., 532. 139 Ibid., 159.

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inside the house) and had music performed. It is doubtful Hownsell and the carpenter had formal training, and they had to use whatever instruments (strings, perhaps) were available on short notice. Cocks had the jurebasso, or translator, put in a good word after. Whether or not they were professionals, the carpenter Hownsell made Cocks’s task easier. This exchange of goods and music led to Fujihiro’s formal pardon with an addendum that the “Run-awayes should not receive any punishment for this fact.”140 Cocks’s recruitment of the carpenter and sailor for the orchestral performance highlights the experimental nature of their operation in Hirado. Even though the English planned for several years to achieve what the Dutch had earlier attempted, much of the EIC factory operations seem to be in a state of flux, contingent on factors beyond their control or understanding. The orchestral performance recalls the spontaneous musical performances of Davis’s musicians on the Northwest Passage expedition, as well. The four musicians on the Sunshine gave impromptu performances to make friendly relations with people with whom they could not communicate verbally. According to Cocks’s conversation with “the old king,” Matsura Shigenobu, his guests “gaue me thankes for the kind entertaynment I gaue vnto these strangers, which they tooke as done vnto themselves … these people which are departed had taken away certaine commodities from me, and payd mee what they themselves thought good, and not that which I required.141 He lost money on the kind entertainment, but he was able to cut a deal with Fujihiro and get his men back. Though the factory system was one of the most important parts of the EIC’s strategy for eastern trade, critics and historians have determined the English factory a failure. Most significantly, the English failed in their goal of trading with China. Clulow sums up the project as a “ten-year experiment involving a handful of staff and producing no enduring impact either on Japan or on the parent organizations’ balance sheet.”142 It is seen, simply put, as an “unmitigated disaster,” to quote Catherine Ryu.143 140 Ibid., 533. 141 Ibid., 160. 142 Clulow, “Commemorating Failure,” 208. 143 Catherine Ryu, “The Politics of Identity: William Adams, John Saris, and the English East India Companys Failure in Japan,” in A Companion to the Global Renaissance: English Literature and Culture in the Era of Expansion, ed. Jyotsna G. Singh (Maiden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 178. A similar assessment was posited by early critics like Ludwig Reiss in 1898, and little has changed in current scholarship to question this consensus. See Ludwig Riess, “History of the English Factory at Hirado (1613–1622),” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 26 (1898): 113. Early historians have also framed this narrative of failure by explaining that the English abandoned the project due to Japanese hostilities. David Harris Wilson, for example, suggests that “the factory could not have been maintained for long, because of the growing violence of

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Yet the documents of the venture show how quickly the Company gained loyalties with dignitaries and foreign traders. They exchanged and sold commodities, gave lavish parties and banquets, and engaged in cross-cultural entertainment, adopting methods of diplomacy from previous voyages to establish themselves in a multi-ethnic marketplace. … During a period of world-compassing navigation and trade expansion, musicians and performers on English voyages were thoroughly implicated in a network of communication and diplomatic gesturing. Their performances were given as “gifts” between rulers and traders, but these players were more than objects to gift and barter. Their playing helped develop a nonverbal language of friendly reciprocity between the English and their formidable allies in Asia and Africa. ‘Interpreters’ like Fernandez, ambassadors like Adams, and middlemen like Li Don helped bridge lingual barriers and cultural practices. But what were the cultural practices without the players themselves? How successful would Drake have been in Java without his consort? How successful would Cocks have been to negotiate terms with Japanese feudal lords without his Company performers? Would the entertainment given to Fernandez and his train still be “very kinde” without Keeling’s naval musicians at the ready, or any willing Dragon actors to give a performance of Hamlet? Whether aboard ship, at a banquet house, or in a trade factory, professional and amateur performers adapted to their shifting environments and quickly learned their parts in this wider world-drama to achieve the ‘big picture’ goals—circling the globe, establishing trade in China and the East Indies, and surpassing their European rivals. The English laid claim to islands, mountains, goods, minerals, slaves, and wives—through violent and nonviolent means. They privateered Spanish ships, captured Indigenous people, and Christianized kings of ‘heathen’ nations. Maritime performers contributed to this history, as well, despite being excluded from the ‘big picture.’

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Weiss, Sarah. Listening to an Earlier Java: Aesthetics, Gender, and the Music of Wayang in Central Java. Leiden: KITVL Press, 2006. Wilson, David Harris, ed. A Royal Request for Trade: A Letter of King James I to the Emperor of Japan. St. Paul, MN: James F. Bell Book Trust, 1958. Woodf ield, Ian. English Musicians in the Age of Exploration. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995. Yule, Henry, ed. The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian: Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Yule, Henry, Arthur C. Burnell, and William Crooke, eds. Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive. London: J. Murray, 1903.

Conclusion Abstract During this experimental period, maritime performers took cultural practices from land and brought them to sea. Aboard ship, they tethered higher and lower classes, performing communal rituals that brought everyone together and communicating amongst members of different ranks. At shore, they mediated diplomatic relations with villagers, dignitaries, political representatives, and commercial traders. They helped establish cross-cultural relations by navigating language barriers, unfamiliar customs, and awkward introductions. My groupings by rank and type (naval, civilian, professional, amateur), are not static and sometimes overlapped. Not all remained at sea, and some joined voyages after a full life as a landlubber. Court musicians became marooned sailors, and military trumpeters became pirates. Status and duty shifted with each voyage and experience. Keywords: maritime performers, maritime musicians, English exploration, naval musicians, early modern maritime, English voyages

During this experimental period from the mid-sixteenth to early eighteenth century, maritime performers took cultural practices from the land community and brought them to sea. They brought songs, dances, and plays from England to the decks of ships and from there to banqueting houses in Africa. Aboard ship, they tethered higher and lower classes, performing communal rituals that brought everyone together and communicating amongst members of different ranks. At shore, they mediated diplomatic relations with villagers, dignitaries, political representatives, and commercial traders. They helped establish cross-cultural relations by navigating language barriers, unfamiliar customs, and awkward introductions. Though I have grouped them by rank and type (naval, civilian, professional, amateur), these groupings are not static and sometimes overlapped. Not all remained at sea, and some joined voyages after a full life as a landlubber. Court musicians

Seth, J., Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages: The Lives of the Seafaring Middle Class. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725415_conc

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became marooned sailors, and military trumpeters became pirates. Status and duty shifted with each voyage and experience. Maritime musicians performed for many occasions and occupied different spaces for work and play. Naval musicians like Richard Purdye, Frobisher’s trumpeter, signalled ships at sea, played for processions at shore, and stayed at the ready to sound when needed, whether to find missing men or get the attention of villagers. His role as a signaller, though crucial to the success of the voyage, also made him a target for enemy fire, as Drake’s trumpeter at Nombre de Dios understood first-hand. Drummers and fifes like Davy Lake and Robert Pemberton on Fenton’s China voyage shared in signalling tasks and gave processional music to mark the naming of ‘discovered’ sites, or for funeral rites to honour comrades. Stationed on deck, drummers were right in the middle of the action aboard the ship, while the lead trumpeter manned the poop and braced against harsh winds. Meanwhile, the consort musicians attended the captain and guests in the cabin and wherever their services were needed. English musicians played at courts in Java, Sierra Leone, Japan, and many others. They played on makeshift stages aboard ship, as well as in banqueting houses, trade factories, and any space that could accommodate them. Maritime performers were vulnerable to the harsh conditions aboard ship. Ambrose drowned during Cavendish’s circumnavigation, and on Bonnell’s voyage William Porter became too ill to return to England. Some had near-death experiences, like John Brewer’s encounter with a wind-tossed rope that sent him into the ocean. Some mutinied against their captain, like the musician William Chambers, who turned from Middleton to join the Portuguese. Others, like the pirate-actors on the Whidaw, were blown up just for play-acting a mutiny. Performers had to survive extreme weather conditions, playing at snow-covered Baffin Bay, as well as warmer climates in South Africa, South America, and the Pacific Islands. Musicians and performers played for unreceptive or hostile audiences. The fiddlers on pirate-captain Bartholomew Roberts’s ship (William Church, Philip Haak, James White, and Nicholas Brattle) were tortured and forced to play against their will. Despite unfavourable conditions, maritime players inspired feelings of geniality and community. Pepys, Howe, and Montagu made merry with their topical rendition of “The Blacksmith” while they played on “two trebles and a bass.”1 Keeling’s naval musicians played for the King of Tamrida, and in 1 Samuel Pepys, The Illustrated Pepys: Extracts from the Diary, ed. Robert Latham (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 20.

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return the King “entertayned … wth all rightes and kindnesse he could.”2 Aboard the Hind during his captivity, de Silva describes the collaborative worship music among the string players (Simon Wood, Richard Clarke, Thomas Meekes) and the singing crew members: “they brought four viols, and made lamentations and sang together, with the accompaniment of the stringed instruments.”3 Collaborative music brought disparate groups closer. Music, dancing, and singing eased tensions and made a comfortable environment to exchange ideas, beliefs, goods, foods, and other pleasures. Maritime performers not only shared their culture but also their practices. Frobisher’s crew used mimetic methods to get Inuit villagers to repeat melodies and rhythms in Greenland. In Japan, Saris marvelled at the similarities of musical practices between the kabuki performers and English players, keeping time with their hands and playing on stringed instruments resembling English lutes. The documents of these performers’ lives are also tenuous. In addition to Hakluyt and Purchas, there are sources like the Keeling journal extracts and the pirate biographies in the General History that that can only yield speculative information. Yet the stories and voices lifted from these documents still contribute to a complex history of maritime performance that recent scholarship has expanded in productive ways. Referring to the East India Hamlet performance, Graham Holderness explains why scholars should continue to investigate the performance despite the problems with authorship: If the ‘truth’ claims of the record cannot finally be adjudicated, what difference does it make? It is manifest that the historical narratives into which these shipboard performances of Shakespeare have been incorporated do not in any way depend upon its authenticity for their validity and power. 4

If we dismiss maritime performances based on unstable documents, and if we ignore sources that do not corroborate or refute the ‘truth’ claims, 2 Anthony Marlowe, “The Hector Journal of Anthony Marlowe,” in The Third Voyage Journals, ed. Barbour, 136. 3 Francisco Gomez Rengifo, “Deposition of the Factor of Guatulco,” in New Light on Drake: A Collection of Documents relating to his Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1577–1580, trans. Zelia Nuttall, Hakluyt Society Second Series 34 (London: Council of the Hakluyt Society, 1932; reprinted by Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967), 355. 4 Graham Holderness, Tales from Shakespeare: Creative Collisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 34.

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we kill the conversation and discourage productive inquiry. Had scholars like Barbour dismissed the Keeling extracts, we might not have accessible knowledge of the Hector and Dragon journals. These and other documents show how kind entertainment became one of the most powerful diplomatic strategies during this era of English expansion.

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Index Africa 14, 67, 69, 152, 165-75, 194 Amateur Performers 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 55, 57, 61, 64-65, 112, 136, 152, 177, 184-87, 193 Ambrose, musician 72, 77-78, 97, 163, 164, 165, 194 Anstis, Thomas 71, 139, 140, 143 Aungier, George 11

Drake, John 65, 122 n. 10, 132-33, 160 n.33, 162 n. 36 Dramatic Performers 15, 57, 61, 65-71, 120, 138, 139-145, 165-67, 169-71 Drummers 19, 27-28, 30-31, 31 n. 11, 33, 42, 48, 50-2, 55, 71, 72, 78, 79, 97, 100, 120, 122, 123, 123 n. 13, 124 n. 13, 128, 135, 153, 168, 173, 194

Baffin Island 36, 38, 66, 94, 95, 100 n. 12, 106, 107, 194 Battle of Saint-Mathieu 34 Battle of the Brest see Battle of Saint-Mathieu Bellamy, Samuel “Black Sam” 70, 139, 143 Bermuda 66-67 Best, George 38, 78, 135, 168 Blanke, John, trumpeter 34-35, 37 Bonnell, James 10, 43, 44, 45 Bradley, George 141-42 Brattle, Nicholas, fiddler 84-5, 145, 194 Brazil 103, 104, 107, 153 Brewer, John, trumpeter 9-12, 18, 27, 31, 39-43, 50, 72, 77, 105, 119, 122, 123, 125, 128, 153, 194 Browne, William, chamber-keeper to the music 60 Buré, king 166, 169 n. 71, 170-75

East India Company 19, 20, 43, 50, 57, 60, 61, 64, 66, 71, 78, 136 n. 55, 151-87 Edward Bonaventure, ship 43, 81, 82 Egnock 82-4 Elizabeth I, queen of England 9, 39, 42, 46, 50, 61, 78, 106, 108 n. 35, 120, 145, 163 Ellis, John 77, 111, 112, 113 Enslaved performers 18, 79-84, 107, 114-15

Cabin 12, 28, 72, 74, 75, 125, 128, 129, 131, 137, 194 Calichough 66, 82, 82 n. 108, 83, 95, 96-97 Canada see Baffin Island and Hall’s Island Cape of Good Hope 102 Caroe, Tege, trumpeter 42-43 Chambers, William, musician 61, 71, 78-79, 168, 194 Chaville, Thomas, hautboy 60 Charles I, king of England 10, 42, 43, 44 Charles II, king of England 10, 33, 35, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 Christianizing 172, 174, 175, 187 Church, William, fiddler 84-5, 145, 194 Clarke, Richard, musician 75-77, 105, 122, 153, 195 Cole, James, musician 77, 108 Cornish, Robert, musician 77, 108 Dancers 14, 17, 55, 57, 58, 61, 63, 65, 77, 82, 93, 102, 103, 108, 111-15 Davis, John 77, 108, 109, 112 Defoe, Daniel 139 n. 65 Desertion 78-79 Diego, manservant 79, 80, 102, 128 Doughty, Thomas 10, 41, 125, 126, 129, 136 n. 57 Drake, Francis 9, 10, 12, 20, 30, 31, 32, 39, 40, 41, 50, 56, 59, 60, 65, 68, 72, 74, 75, 80, 97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 110, 112, 121-33, 136, 138, 145, 152-55, 157-60, 162, 163, 165, 169, 170, 172, 187

Fenton, Edward 42, 43, 50, 51, 73, 75, 81, 97, 129, 194 Fernandez, Lucas 69, 166, 168-75, 187 Fifes 30-31, 51-2 Finch, William 135, 167, 169, 170, 174 Fletcher, Francis 39, 40, 103, 104, 105, 130, 152, 153, 154 n. 7, 155, 159, 160, 161, 170 Fletcher, John 66 The Four Days’ Battle 33 Frobisher, Martin 19, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 66, 82, 84, 94-97, 100, 101, 105, 106, 107, 112, 113, 115, 179, 194, 195 Fryer, John, diarist 11-12 Gabriel, ship 36, 37, 94, 95 The General History of the Pyrates 70, 71, 84, 85, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 195 George, musician 122, 123, 127, 131 Golden Hind, ship 9, 10, 12, 31, 39, 40, 41, 60, 65, 73, 76, 77, 79, 80, 102, 103, 122, 123 n. 11, 124, 127, 128, 129, 131, 133, 145, 152, 153, 154 n. 7, 159 n. 30, 161, 162, 165, 170, 195 Greene, Benjamin 69-70 Greenland 36, 38, 94, 108, 109, 154, 195 Haak, Philip, fiddler 84-85, 145, 194 Hall, Christopher 36, 37 Hall’s Island 37, 38, 94 Harrisson, Ambrose, trumpeter 42-43 Hearne, John 135, 167, 169, 170, 174 Hector, ship 29, 134, 135, 166, 167, 169, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 196 Henry VII, king of England 34, 64 Henry VIII, king of England 34, 46 n.76, 58, 64 Ignorth see Egnock Interregnum 10, 43, 45 The Island Princess 66

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Jackson, Christopher, trumpeter 42-43 James I, king of England 177 n. 96 James II, king of England 48 Jane, John 65, 77, 108 Japan 20, 64, 152, 175-87, 194, 195 Java 70, 152-65, 166, 170, 187, 194 Johnson, Charles 139 n. 65 Kalicho see Calichough Kind entertainment 19, 20, 69, 101, 151-54, 159, 162, 164, 165, 167, 169, 171-73, 175, 180 n. 111, 181, 184, 186, 196 King, George 135 Kinge, Thomas, drummer 42, 50-51, 71, 79 Lake, Davy, drum/fife 50, 51-52, 194 The Launching of the Mary, or the Seaman’s Honest Wife 66 Ling, Nicholas 66, 67 n. 47 Low, William, fiddler 72-73 Maddox, Richard 43, 73, 74, 129 Mangridge, John, kettledrummer 50, 51-52 Marlowe, Anthony 29, 134, 167, 170 Mary Rose, ship 58-59 Massau, enslaved mariner 81-82 Michael, ship 36 Minstrels 63-64, 111, 113-16 (“prism of minstrelsy”) Mountfort, Walter 66 Multi-skilled musicians 51-52 Mutiny 10, 41, 125, 136, 143, 194 Nombre de Dios 30, 97-98, 101, 123 n. 13, 194 Northwest Passage 19, 32, 35, 65, 77, 82, 108, 186 Nutiok 82 Ober, John, hautboy 60 Oboists See hautboys Painters 80, 158 n. 24 Pelican, ship see Golden Hind Pemberton, Robert, drum/fife 50, 51-52, 194 Peppercorn, ship 68, 69 n. 53 Pirated performers 84-85, 145 Pocahontas 65 Poop deck 10, 12, 28, 39, 40, 51, 85, 123, 128, 132, 133, 143, 194 Porter, William, trumpeter 9-11, 18, 43-45, 71, 194 Price, Gervase, sergeant trumpeter 33, 45-48, 49 Professional Performers 14, 17, 19, 20, 46, 48, 50, 55-57, 61, 64, 72, 119, 121-22, 127, 136, 152, 168, 177, 187, 195 Psalm playing 19, 20, 27, 60, 65, 76, 80, 125 n. 17, 127, 129-134, 159, 172 Purdye, Richard, trumpeter 32, 35-39, 94-96, 194

Rawlyns, John, trumpeter 42-43 Red Dragon, ship 14 n. 18, 30, 66, 67, 70, 78, 135, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 174, 187 Ridley, Francis, musician 77, 108 Roberts, Bartholomew “Black Bart” 84, 139, 145, 194 Rolfe, Bermuda 65-66 Rolfe, John 65 Rolfe, Sarah 65-66 The Royal Pyrate 70, 143-44 Russel, John, musician 77, 108 Saris, John 175-83, 195 Shakespeare, William 14, 66, 67, 126 n. 22, 166, 167, 171, 195 Shakespeare plays: Hamlet 14n, 66, 67, 70, 165-71, 187, 195 Macbeth 66 Merry Wives of Windsor 66, 137, n. 59 Richard II 167 Twelfth Night 66 Shanties 13, 57, 62-63 Shantymen 62-63, 177 Shore, family 48-50 John, sergeant trumpeter 49-50 John, trumpeter 49-50 Mathias, sergeant trumpeter 48-50 William, sergeant trumpeter 49 Sierra Leone see Africa Singers 15, 17, 19, 50, 55, 57, 61-63, 65, 79, 83-84 Slavery 18, 79, 80, 81, 113, 114, 181 Smith, John (elder), trumpeter 11, 42 Smith, John (younger), trumpeter 11, 42 South Sea Islands 113-15 St. Helena 45 Staggins, Nicholas, master of the music 60 Swallow, ship 85, 145 Tiger, ship 66 Trade’s Increase, ship 67, 68, 69, 70 n. 59, 168 Trumpet’s Island 94, 95 Trumpeters 9-12, 17, 19, 27-30, 31, 32, 33, 34-50, 51, 55, 71, 72, 75, 77, 78, 94-101, 102, 105, 119, 121, 122, 123, 134, 135, 153, 168, 172, 173, 194 Vobs, John, trumpeter 42-43 Weather 39, 43, 56, 74, 100, 104 n. 26, 194 Whidaw, ship 143-45, 194 White, James, fiddler 84-85, 145, 194 White, Nicholas 135 Wood, Simon, musician 43, 56, 73-75, 105, 122, 129, 145, 153, 195 de Zárate, Francisco 12, 59, 60, 80, 121-28 Zingo, enslaved mariner 81-82