Richard Hakluyt

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Richard Hakluyt
Hakluyt depicted in stained glass in the west window of the south transept of Bristol Cathedral – Charles Eamer Kempe, c. 1905
Hakluyt depicted in stained glass in the west window of the south transept of Bristol Cathedral – Charles Eamer Kempe, c. 1905
Born1553
Hereford, Herefordshire; or London, England
Died23 November 1616(1616-11-23) (aged 64)
London, England
OccupationAuthor, editor and translator
Period1580–1609
SubjectExploration; geography; travel
Signature

Richard Hakluyt (/ˈhæklʊt, ˈhæklət, ˈhækəlwɪt/;[1] 1553 – 23 November 1616) was an English writer. He is known for promoting the English colonization of North America through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) and The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589–1600).

Hakluyt was educated at

Elizabeth I and James I. He was the chief promoter of a petition to James I for letters patent to colonize Virginia, which were granted to the London Company and Plymouth Company (referred to collectively as the Virginia Company) in 1606. The Hakluyt Society
, which publishes scholarly editions of primary records of voyages and travels, was named after him in its 1846 formation.

Family, early life and education

Hakluyt's patrilineal ancestors were of

Edward VI (reigned 1547–1553).[5][8]

The library of Christ Church, Oxford, by an unknown artist, from Rudolph Ackermann's History of Oxford (1813)

Richard Hakluyt, the second of four sons, was born in Eyton in Herefordshire in 1553.[9] Hakluyt's father, also named Richard Hakluyt, was a member of the Worshipful Company of Skinners whose members dealt in skins and furs. He died in 1557 when his son was aged about five years, and his wife Margery[1] followed soon after. Hakluyt's cousin, also named Richard Hakluyt, of the Middle Temple, became his guardian.[10]

While a Queen's Scholar at

studentship at Christ Church between 1577 and 1586, although after 1583 he was no longer resident in Oxford.[10]

Hakluyt was ordained in 1578, the same year he began to receive a "pension" from the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers to study divinity. The pension would have lapsed in 1583, but William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, intervened to have it extended until 1586 to aid Hakluyt's geographical research.[10]

At the English Embassy in Paris

The Norman chapter house of Bristol Cathedral (engraving 1882). Hakluyt was a member of the chapter.

Hakluyt's first publication[13] was one that he wrote himself, Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America and the Ilands Adjacent unto the Same, Made First of all by our Englishmen and Afterwards by the Frenchmen and Britons (1582).

Hakluyt's Voyages brought him to the notice of Lord Howard of Effingham, and Sir Edward Stafford, Lord Howard's brother-in-law. At the age of 30, being acquainted with "the chiefest captaines at sea, the greatest merchants, and the best mariners of our nation,"[11] he was selected as chaplain and secretary to accompany Stafford, now English ambassador at the French court, to Paris in 1583. In accordance with the instructions of Secretary Francis Walsingham, he occupied himself chiefly in collecting information of the Spanish and French movements, and "making diligent inquirie of such things as might yield any light unto our westerne discoveries in America."[14] Although this was his only visit to Continental Europe in his life, he was angered to hear the limitations of the English in terms of travel being discussed in Paris.[11]

A 1910 memorial tablet to Hakluyt in Bristol Cathedral

The first fruits of Hakluyt's labours in Paris were embodied in his important work entitled A Particuler Discourse Concerninge the Greate Necessitie and Manifolde Commodyties That Are Like to Growe to This Realme of Englande by the Westerne Discoueries Lately Attempted, Written in the Yere 1584, which

Elizabeth I (to whom it had been dedicated) together with his analysis in Latin of Aristotle's Politicks. His objective was to recommend the enterprise of establishing English plantations in the unsettled [by Europeans] region of North America, and thus gain the Queen's support for Raleigh's expedition.[10] In May 1585 when Hakluyt was in Paris with the English Embassy, the Queen granted to him the next prebendary at Bristol Cathedral that should become vacant,[5][15]
to which he was admitted in 1585 or 1586 and held with other preferments till his death.

Hakluyt's other works during his time in Paris consisted mainly of

copperplate map dedicated to Hakluyt and signed F.G. (supposed to be Francis Gualle); it is the first on which the name "Virginia" appears.[14]

Return to England

The title page of the first edition of Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589)
A manuscript signature of Hakluyt from the front flyleaf of the above work

In 1588 Hakluyt finally returned to England with Douglas Sheffield, Baroness Sheffield, after a residence in France of nearly five years. In 1589 he published the first edition of his chief work, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, using eyewitness accounts as far as possible. In the preface to this he announced the intended publication of the first terrestrial globe made in England by Emery Molyneux.

Between 1598 and 1600 appeared the final, reconstructed and greatly enlarged edition of The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation in three volumes. In the dedication of the second volume (1599) to his patron, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Hakluyt strongly urged the minister as to the expediency of colonising Virginia.[5] A few copies of this monumental work contain a map of great rarity, the first on the Mercator projection made in England according to the true principles laid down by Edward Wright. Hakluyt's great collection has been called "the Prose Epic of the modern English nation" by historian James Anthony Froude.[18]

On 20 April 1590 Hakluyt was instituted to the clergy house of Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford, Suffolk, by Lady Stafford, who was the Dowager Baroness Sheffield. He held this position until his death, and resided in Wetheringsett through the 1590s and frequently thereafter.[10] In 1599, he became an adviser to the newly-founded East India Company, and in 1601 he edited a translation from the Portuguese of Antonio Galvão's The Discoveries of the World.[10]

Modern memorial to Richard Hakluyt in the chancel of All Saints' Church, Wetheringsett, Suffolk

Later life

In the late 1590s Hakluyt became the client and personal chaplain of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Lord Burghley's son, who was to be Hakluyt's most fruitful patron. Hakluyt dedicated to Cecil the second (1599) and third volumes (1600) of the expanded edition of Principal Navigations and also his edition of Galvão's Discoveries (1601). Cecil, who was the principal Secretary of State to Elizabeth I and James I, rewarded him by installing him as prebendary of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster on 4 May 1602.[10][19] In the following year, he was elected archdeacon of the Abbey.[10] These religious occupations have occasioned reconsideration of the role played by spiritual concerns in Hakluyt's writings on exploration, settlement, and England's relations with its Catholic rivals.[20]

Hakluyt was married twice, once in or about 1594[5] and again in 1604. In the licence of Hakluyt's second marriage dated 30 March 1604, he is described as one of the chaplains of the Savoy Hospital; this position was also conferred on him by Cecil. His will refers to chambers occupied by him there up to the time of his death, and in another official document he is styled Doctor of Divinity (D.D.).[14]

Hakluyt was also a leading adventurer of the Charter of the Virginia Company of London as a director thereof in 1589.[10] In 1605 he secured the prospective living of Jamestown, the intended capital of the intended colony of Virginia. When the colony was at last established in 1607, he supplied this benefice with its chaplain, Robert Hunt. In 1606 he appears as the chief promoter of the petition to James I for letters patent to colonise Virginia, which were granted on 10 April 1606.[5] His last publication was a translation of Hernando de Soto's discoveries in Florida, entitled Virginia Richly Valued, by the Description of the Maine Land of Florida, Her Next Neighbour (1609). This work was intended to encourage the young colony of Virginia; Scottish historian William Robertson wrote of Hakluyt, "England is more indebted for its American possessions than to any man of that age."[21]

The seal of the Virginia Company of London

Hakluyt prepared an English translation of Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius' Mare Liberum (1609),[22] a treatise that sought to demonstrate that the Dutch had the right to trade freely in the East Indies, contrary to Spanish and Portuguese claims of sovereignty over the seas,[23] in the early 17th century.[24] Helen Thornton has suggested that the translation was commissioned by Thomas Smythe who became treasurer of the Virginia Company in 1609 and was also Governor of the East India Company. In that year, Hakluyt was a consultant to the Company when it was renewing its charter. Grotius' arguments supported England's right to trade in the Indies.[25] The translation may also have been part of the propaganda encouraging English people to settle in Virginia. In Mare Liberum, Grotius denied that the 1493 donation by Pope Alexander VI that had divided the oceans between Spain and Portugal entitled Spain to make territorial claims to North America. Instead, he stressed the importance of occupation, which was favourable to the English as they and not the Spanish had occupied Virginia. Grotius also argued that the seas should be freely navigable by all, which was useful since the England to Virginia route crossed seas which the Portuguese claimed.[23] However, it is not clear why Hakluyt's translation was not published in his lifetime. George Bruner Parks has theorized that publication at that time would have been inconvenient to England because after England had successfully helped Holland and Spain to negotiate the Twelve Years' Truce during the Eighty Years' War, the work would have supported English claims for free seas against Spain, but not its claims for closed seas against Holland.[23][26] Hakluyt's handwritten manuscript, MS Petyt 529, in Inner Temple Library in London was eventually published as The Free Sea for the first time in 2004.[24]

In 1591, Hakluyt inherited family property upon the death of his elder brother Thomas; a year later, upon the death of his youngest brother Edmund, he inherited additional property which derived from his uncle. In 1612 Hakluyt became a charter member of the North-west Passage Company.[10] By the time of his death, he had amassed a small fortune out of his various emoluments and preferments, of which the last was the clergy house of Gedney, Lincolnshire, presented to him by his younger brother Oliver in 1612. Unfortunately, his wealth was squandered by his only son.[14]

Hakluyt died on 23 November 1616, probably in London, and was buried on 26 November in Westminster Abbey;[5][27] by an error in the abbey register his burial is recorded under the year 1626.[14] A number of his manuscripts, sufficient to form a fourth volume of his collections of 1598–1600, fell into the hands of Samuel Purchas, who inserted them in an abridged form in his Pilgrimes (1625–1626).[28] Others, consisting chiefly of notes gathered from contemporary authors, are preserved at the University of Oxford.[29]

Hakluyt is principally remembered for his efforts in promoting and supporting the settlement of North America by the English through his writings. These works were a fertile source of material for William Shakespeare[4] and other authors. Hakluyt also encouraged the production of geographical and historical writings by others. It was at Hakluyt's suggestion that Robert Parke translated Juan González de Mendoza's The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof (1588–1590),[30] John Pory made his version of Leo Africanus's A Geographical Historie of Africa (1600),[31] and P. Erondelle translated Marc Lescarbot's Nova Francia (1609).[32]

Legacy

The Hakluyt Society was founded in 1846 for printing rare and unpublished accounts of voyages and travels, and continues to publish volumes each year.[33]

As of 2018, a 14-volume critical edition of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations was being prepared by the Hakluyt Edition Project for Oxford University Press under the general editorship of Daniel Carey, National University of Ireland, Galway, and Claire Jowitt, University of East Anglia.[34]

Westminster School named a house after him as recognition of achievement of an Old Westminster.

In Svalbard (Spitsbergen), the Hakluythovden headland and Hakluytodden landspit in the northwestern region of Amsterdam Island are named after Richard Hakluyt.

Works

Authored

The first page of Vol. I of the 2nd edition of Hakluyt's The Principall Nauigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoueries of the English Nation (1598)
The WrightMolyneux map of the world selected by Hakluyt for inclusion in the 2nd edition of The Principall Nauigations...

Edited and translated

See also

Notes

  1. ^
    The Literary Encyclopedia
    . Retrieved 21 April 2007.
  2. ^ It has been suggested that the Hakluyts were originally Dutch, but this appears to be a misconception: see the introduction of Richard Hakluyt (1880s). Henry Morley (ed.). Voyager's Tales, from the Collections of Richard Hakluyt. London: Cassell & Co.
  3. OCLC 697927629. The chefe and auncientest of the Hakcluiths hath bene gentlemen in tymes out of memory, and they toke theyr name of the Forest of Cluid in Radnorland, and they had a castle and habitations not far from Radnor. "Cluid" was possibly a place called Clwyd in Radnorshire; whether this is the same as present-day Clwyd
    is unknown.
  4. ^ a b "Richard Hakluyt", § 13 in pt. IV ("The Literature of the Sea") of vol. IV of A[dolphus] W[alter] Ward (1907–1921). W[illiam] P[eterfield] Trent; et al. (eds.). The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. New York, N.Y.: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
  5. ^ .
  6. ^ It has been claimed that the Hakluyts were given "Eaton Hall" (Yatton?) by Owain Glyndŵr when he invaded that part of Herefordshire in 1402: see "Richard Hakluyt 1552–1616". Notable Herefordians. 10 February 2006. Archived from the original on 5 January 2009. Retrieved 25 April 2007.
  7. ^ See the introduction of Richard Hakluyt (1880s). Henry Morley (ed.). Voyager's Tales, from the Collections of Richard Hakluyt. London: Cassell & Co. It states that this took place in the 14th century.
  8. ^ See also Leland, Itinerary of John Leland, p. 75: "From Leonminster to Eyton a mile of by west northe west. One William Hakcluit that was with Kynge Henry the 5. at the batell of Egen Courte set up a house at this village, and purchasyd lands to it. ... Hakcluit now lyvyinge is the third in descent of the house of Eiton. ... There were 3. knyghts of the Hakcluiths about the tyme of Kynge Edward the 3. whereof one was namyd Edmund. It chauncid in Kynge Edward the 3. tyme that one of the Hakcluids toke parte with Llewelin, Prince of Walys, agayn Kynge Edward the 3. Whereupon his lands were attayntyd and devolvid to the Kynge or to Mortimer lord of Radenor, and never were restoryd. There was at that tyme one of the Hakcluiths that fledd into the mountains of Walis, and livyd as a banishid man, but he aftar was pardonyd, and havynge a knyght that tenderyd hym because he was his godsonne or kynesman, and had noe ysswe, he made hym his heire, and those lands yet remayn to the elder howse of the Hakcluiths."
  9. ^ Hakluyt, Richard (1599). Goldsmid, Edmund (ed.). The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1885 Fourth ed.). London and Aylesbury: Hazell, Watson & Viney Limited.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Richard S. Westfall (1995). "Hakluyt, Richard". The Galileo Project. Retrieved 21 April 2007.
  11. ^ a b c d e Hakluyt's dedication to Sir Francis Walsingham of the work Hakluyt, Richard (1589). The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation. London: Imprinted by George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majestie. The spelling has been modernized.
  12. ^ There does not appear to be any monument to Hakluyt either in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, or elsewhere in the grounds of Christ Church, Oxford.
  13. .).
  14. ^ a b c d e Quoted in Coote, Charles Henry; Beazley, Charles Raymond (1911). "Hakluyt, Richard" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 828–829.
  15. ^ According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, above, the Queen granted Hakluyt the next vacant prebendal stall at Bristol Cathedral two days before his return to Paris.
  16. ^ René Goulaine de Laudonnière (1586). Martin Basanier (ed.). L'histoire notable de la Floride située ès Indes Occidentales. Paris: G. Auvray.
  17. ^ At Hakluyt's recommendation, the work was translated into English by Michael Lok and published as Petrus Martyr Anglerius (1612). De Nouo Orbe, or The Historie of the West Indies ... Comprised in Eight Decades ... Three ... Formerly Translated into English, by R. Eden ... the Other Fiue ... by ... M. Lok. London: for Thomas Adams.
  18. ^ James Anthony Froude (1906). Essays on History and Literature. London: J.M. Dent & Co.
  19. ^ According to Jones's introduction to Hakluyt's Divers Voyages, above, Hakluyt succeeded Dr. Richard Webster as prebendary of Westminster Abbey about 1605.
  20. ^ David Harris Sacks, "Richard Hakluyt's Navigations in Time: History, Epic, and Empire," Modern Language Quarterly 67 (2006): 31–62; David A. Boruchoff, "Piety, Patriotism and Empire: Lessons for England, Spain and the New World in the Works of Richard Hakluyt," Renaissance Quarterly 62, no.3 (2009): 809–58.
  21. ^ William Robertson (1803). The History of America (10th ed.). London: Strahan.
  22. ^ Hugo Grotius (1609). Mare Liberum, sive de jure quod Batavis competit ad Indicana commercia dissertatio [The Free Sea, or, A Dissertation on the Right which Belongs to the Batavians to Take Part in the East Indian Trade]. Leiden: Ex officina Ludovici Elzevirij [From the office of Lodewijk Elzevir ].
  23. ^ a b c Helen Thornton (January 2007). "The Free Sea. Hugo Grotius, Richard Hakluyt (trans.), David Armitage (ed.) [book review]". Journal of Maritime Research. Archived from the original on 18 June 2009.
  24. ^ .
  25. ^ Armitage, "Introduction", The Free Sea: see Thornton, "The Free Sea [book review]".
  26. ^ George Bruner Parks (1928). Richard Hakluyt and the English Voyages [Special Publication American Geographical Society; no. 10]. New York, N.Y.: American Geographical Society. p. 212.
  27. ^ The burial register merely states that Hakluyt was buried "in the Abbey" without giving an exact location, and there is no monument or gravestone: personal e-mail communication on 10 May 2007 with Miss Christine Reynolds, Assistant Keeper of Muniments, Westminster Abbey Library.
  28. ^ Samuel Purchas the Elder (1625). Purchas His Pilgrimes: In Five Bookes: The First, Contayning the Voyages ... Made by Ancient Kings, ... and Others, to and thorow the Remoter Parts of the Knowne World, etc. London: W. Stansby for H. Fetherstone. The work is also known as Hakluytus Posthumus, which was reprinted as Samuel Purchas (1905–1907). Hakluytus Posthumus: or, Purchas His Pilgrimes: Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and Others [Hakluyt Society; Extra Ser., nos. 14–33]. Glasgow: James MacLehose & Sons for Hakluyt Society. 20 vols.
  29. ^ Under the reference "Bib. Bod. manuscript Seld. B. 8".
  30. ^ An edition was published by the Hakluyt Society in the 19th century as Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza, comp. (1853–1854). G. T. Staunton (ed.). The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof: Compiled by J. Gonzalez de Mendoza, and Now Reprinted from the Early Translation of R. Parke [Hakluyt Society; 1st Ser., no. 14]. Translated by Robert Parke. London: Hakluyt Society.
  31. ^ Johannes Leo Africanus; John Pory, transl. & comp. (1600). A Geographical Historie of Africa, Written in Arabicke and Italian. ... Before which ... is Prefixed a Generall Description of Africa, and ... a Particular Treatise of All the ... Lands ... Undescribed by J. Leo ... Translated and Collected by J. Pory. London: George Bishop.
  32. .
  33. ^ "History and Objectives of the Hakluyt Society". Hakluyt Society. Archived from the original on 1 July 2007. Retrieved 13 July 2007.
  34. ^ "The Hakluyt Edition Project". The Hakluyt Edition Project. Archived from the original on 7 November 2018. Retrieved 6 November 2018.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainCoote, Charles Henry; Beazley, Charles Raymond (1911). "Hakluyt, Richard". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). pp. 828–829.

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