The movements and employments of Thomas Spert can be much more satisfactorily traced. As a mariner in the service of Henry VII he had carried dispatches between England and Spain.[[220]] He served, evidently with credit, in the navy during the war of 1512–14. In 1512–13 he was master of the Mary Rose, one of the most important fighting ships in the fleet. On the approaching completion, towards the end of the latter year, of the Henry Grace à Dieu, the largest vessel then constructed in England, he was transferred to her as master. On November 10, 1514, he was granted an annuity of £20, which was confirmed in January 1516.[[221]] Again, on July 10, 1517, he was granted the office of ballasting ships in the Thames, which office he was to hold during pleasure at a rent of £10 a year.[[222]] This militates strongly against one part of Eden’s story, namely, that it was Spert’s misconduct which spoiled the success of the voyage of discovery. The office was evidently one of profit, and would hardly have been granted to one who had recently disgraced himself. But indeed the whole theory of Spert’s connexion with a voyage of discovery at this time is effectively killed by a document in the Record Office which has not hitherto been quoted in this connexion. It is a manuscript book[[223]] showing the issues of various stores to the masters of the king’s ships, and it proves beyond doubt that between 1515 and 1521 Thomas Spert never vacated his post as master of the Henry Grace à Dieu. There are entries showing his presence in that ship on April 7 and July 3, 1516, and on April 28 and September 17, 1517, which, together with the grant on July 10 of the last-mentioned year, are conclusive evidence that he could not have made a voyage to America at the period in question.
What is known of the remainder of Spert’s career shows that he continued in high favour. He served in the war of 1522–5 and was consulted by the admiral as to the best way of cutting out some Scottish privateers in Boulogne harbour. He remained master of the Great Harry until 1530. His next promotion was to be ‘Clerk Controller’ of the king’s ships. By the year 1533 he had been knighted.[[224]] In 1542 he was granted lands in Essex, and he is last heard of in 1544 as the owner of a ship called the Mary Spert, which was serving with the fleet against the French.[[225]] It is probable that he died soon afterwards; it may be deduced from Eden’s remarks that he was not living in 1553.
On the whole this voyage of 1516 must be ranked as of extremely doubtful authenticity. Spert certainly had nothing to do with it, but there is nothing in the known evidence to render it impossible that Sebastian Cabot had. On the other hand, it has left no contemporary record in official papers, and the chroniclers of the reign are absolutely silent with regard to it. The most feasible conclusion is that the story was the combined product of the credulity of Richard Eden and the senile romantic tendencies of Sebastian Cabot.
Whatever may have happened in 1516, there is no doubt that Henry’s mind was running on schemes of western discovery; and in 1521 a new design was mooted whose details rest upon much surer authority.[[226]] Early in that year two members of the Privy Council, Sir Robert Wingfield and Sir Wolston Brown, were deputed to lay the king’s proposals before the Livery Companies of London. The plan was as follows: the Companies were to furnish five ships of not more than 120 tons each for a voyage to ‘the Newefound Iland’, and to be responsible for the victualling and wages; the king was to find the tackle and ordnance and ‘bear the adventure of the said ships’, whatever that may mean; the City of London should have control of the whole enterprise, although other towns might participate—Bristol had already promised two ships; ten years’ exclusive monopoly of the new trade was offered, with exemption from customs for the first thirty months. As will be seen from what follows, the expedition was evidently to be placed under the command of Sebastian Cabot, although his surname is nowhere mentioned.
The germ of the enterprise was most probably the departure in 1519 of Magellan’s squadron for the discovery of a south-west passage into the Pacific. The actual existence of that passage was not yet known, for Magellan’s Victoria did not return until 1522 with the news of the discovery of the Strait of Todos Sanctos and the circumnavigation of the globe. All that Henry knew was that the Spaniards were challenging the Portuguese monopoly of trade with eastern Asia; and he doubtless felt at liberty to do the same if he could find a north-west passage past the new-found lands which English enterprise had explored in his father’s reign. Most probably King Henry knew of Sebastian Cabot’s former attempt in this direction—we may fairly assume that a man of his learning would be acquainted with Peter Martyr’s Decades of the New World, published in 1516, even if he had as yet no personal knowledge of Cabot himself—and it was natural that he should wish to entrust the command of the new expedition to a man with previous experience of the task.
The cautious merchants of the Livery Companies, however, showed little eagerness to adventure their ships and money in a scheme which had already proved financially unsound within the memory of many of them. Moreover, any success which might be obtained would inevitably be more to the profit of Bristol than of London. The seamen and merchants of the former port were more accustomed to distant enterprises, and their geographical position would give them as much advantage in a north-western trade as it did in the traffic with Bordeaux and Spain. Accordingly, the Companies hung back and advanced objections. The wardens of the Drapers said that they had no authority to bind their fellowship to any outlay; also that there were in their Company ‘but few adventurers, saving only into Flanders, whereunto requireth no great ships’. If the king would supply the vessels they would do their best to find a cargo, but they feared trouble with Spain, which would entail perilous consequences to their legitimate trade.
The Drapers seem to have taken the lead in opposing the design. In a communication to the Mercers they suggested that it would be advisable to have more information from English mariners with respect to the route proposed, ‘although it be further hence than few English mariners can tell. And we think it be too sore adventure to jeopard five ships with men and goods unto the said Island upon the singular trust of one man called, as we understand, Sebastian, which Sebastian, as we hear say, was never in that land himself, all if he makes report of many things as he hath heard his father and other men speak in times past.’[[227]] Also, they continued, even if Sebastian had been there, and were the most cunning navigator imaginable, it would be a great risk to venture five ships in the event of his death or of a separation of the fleet, in which case four ships at least would be in peril by lacking a pilot. They concluded by objecting that it was impossible to victual the ships for a whole year. The other eleven Companies gave a partial and grudging acquiescence. They were willing to find two ships and ‘they supposed to furnish the third’, but they desired a longer respite. The king and the Cardinal, however, would be content with no half measures. The Lord Mayor was sent for to speak with the king. ‘His Grace would have no nay therein, but spake sharply to the Mayor to see it put in execution to the best of his power.’ But passive hostility triumphed; a few niggardly subscriptions were collected and then the whole matter was allowed to drop. As far as is known, not a single vessel put to sea.
It is plain that the ‘Sebastian’ of the Drapers’ protest was Sebastian Cabot. The reference to his father is sufficiently conclusive, and the contention is borne out by two other circumstances. In 1524 Sir Thomas Lovell died, and among the debts paid after his death occurs the following item: ‘18 Feb. (year not stated), to John Goderyk, of Foly, Cornwall, draper, for conducting Sebastian Cabot, master of the pilots in Spain, to London, at our testator’s request, 43s. 4d.’[[228]] This of course might possibly relate to the dubious voyage of 1516, especially as, in that event, his coming to England in February would tally very well with the death of King Ferdinand on January 23. But the supposition is rather far-fetched, and is further vitiated by the fact that Cabot was not Pilot Major until 1518. It seems more likely that Cabot’s visit to England was in connexion with the 1521 project. Again, when he was plotting to betray his geographical secrets to the Venetian Government, Cabot made the following statement to their envoy Contarini at Valladolid in December 1522: ‘Now it so happened that when in England three years ago, if I mistake not, Cardinal Wolsey offered me high terms if I would sail with an armada of his on a voyage of discovery. The vessels were almost ready, and they had got together 30,000 ducats for their outfit. I answered him that, being in the service of the King of Spain, I could not go without his leave, but if free permission were granted me from hence, I would serve him.’[[229]] Allowing for Sebastian’s constitutional inaccuracy in the matter of dates, which in this case expands twenty-one months to ‘about three years’, there is here fairly trustworthy evidence on the question. We are not, of course, obliged to believe that Sebastian failed to take the command from the motive of high principle which he describes. Henceforward he had no further concern with English enterprises until his final reappearance in England in 1548.
In 1525 Henry was in treaty with another foreign navigator, Paolo Centurioni the Genoese, to whom he promised the leadership of an expedition for the discovery of new countries. Centurioni came to London, but died there before the plan took practical shape; and the affair was again in abeyance for lack of a skilled leader.[[230]] Centurioni’s idea was apparently to open up communication with Asia by way of Muscovy and the North-East—a foreshadowing of Willoughby’s expedition of 1553.
The idea of a northern passage to the Pacific was again revived in 1527. In that year Robert Thorne, a Bristol merchant then residing at Seville, addressed to King Henry a Declaration of the Indies,[[231]] in which he exhorted him again to take in hand the promotion of northern exploration, not only because the Spaniards and the Portuguese had already monopolized the western and eastern routes, but also ‘because the situation of this your realm is thereunto nearest and aptest of all other: and also for that you have already taken it in hand ... though heretofore Your Grace hath made thereof a proof and found not the commodity thereby as you trusted, at this time it shall be no impediment. For there may be now provided remedies for things then lacked, and the inconveniences and lets removed that then were cause Your Grace’s desire took no full effect, which is, the courses to be changed, and followed the foresaid new courses.’ Thorne appealed to the honour of the king and the nation not to be left behind in the race. He minimized the danger of Arctic voyages, and enlarged on the advantages to mariners of the perpetual daylight of the Arctic summer. He argued that the Arctic seas were everywhere navigable, and suggested a route to eastern lands right over the Pole itself. ‘For they, being past this little way which they named so dangerous, which may be two or three leagues before they come to the pole, and as much more after they pass the pole, it is clear that from thenceforth the seas and lands are as temperate as in these parts.’ After passing over the Pole, he continued, three routes lay open to navigators: they might turn towards eastern Asia, reaching Tartary, China, Cathay, the Moluccas, and so home by the Cape of Good Hope; or they might decline to the west and go down by ‘the back side of the new found land, which of late was discovered by Your Grace’s subjects, until they come to the back side and south seas of the Indies occidentals’, and then through the Straits of Magellan to England; but if they should take a middle course between these two, ‘and then decline towards the lands and Islands situated between the Tropics and under the Equinoctial, without doubt they shall find the richest lands and islands of the world of gold, precious stones, balms, spices, and other things that we here esteem most, which come out of strange countries; and may return the same way. By this it appeareth Your Grace hath not only a great advantage of the riches, but also your subjects shall not travel half of the way that other do, which go round about as aforesaid.’