Betrayal at Popham: The "Lost Colony" of Maine

By Arnie P. Zimbelman

Two shiploads of hopeful colonists arrive on the rugged coast of present day Maine in late spring, 1607.  They are determined to establish Popham Colony as a permanent English presence, just as other English settlers were doing farther south at the Jamestown settlement.  By diligent effort, they construct a substantial fort, Fort St. G

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: Apr 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781948962506

Arnie P. Zimbelman

Dr. Arnie Zimbelman, a career college history professor, specialized in teaching about America's early beginnings. Now retired, Dr. Zimbelman continues to reflect his love of the past through his historical novels. In his third novel, Betrayal at Popham: the "Lost Colony" of Maine, he seeks once again to emphasize the "human" elements that so often affect the outcomes of historical events and are too frequently downplayed or overlooked. Yet it is these human factors that generally play a fundamental role in shaping the course of history. The author and his wife Iris (now deceased) traveled extensively in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, including teaching for a semester in London. Currently, he lives in Elk Grove, California.

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Chapter 1

Sometime during the last decades of the 20 th Century, a curious young Spanish scholar, Jose Rabanal, arrived in London from his native Seville. Through diligent effort, he had managed to earn a fellowship providing a summer of research at Oxford University. His quest had already led him to exhaust the musty annals at the University of Seville. His purpose was to chronicle how Spain’s Golden Age, financed as it was by a seemingly limitless influx of gold and silver from her New World colonies, had actually had a detrimental long-term effect on Spanish economic develop ment.

Rabanal’s hope was that in the voluminous archives at Oxford he would find an alternative perspective to what had been available in Seville. He was seeking British viewpoints of the bitter struggle for naval supremacy between the two nations. And he had become particularly interested in the activities of English sea-dogs ~ pirates in the eyes of Spaniards ~ who had wreaked such devastating havoc on Spanish treasure fleets plying Atlantic waters loaded with riches from the New World.

From his studies, Rabanal had become especially intrigued by the buccaneering exploits of men such as Sir John Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake, and other privateers who for years had systematically stolen hoards of Spanish gold and silver. He hoped that somewhere in the Oxford archives he might discover a record of just how much these daring devils had actually cost the Spanish Empire. Further, he wished to authenticate his theory that these raids did not constitute the greatest ultimate costs for Spain. Rather, he was convinced that much of the total wealth that Spain garnered from her colonies ended eventually in English coffers instead.

Rabanal’s studies to this point had documented a two-fold problem. First, because of their dependence on the endless supply of treasure flowing into the Spanish Treasury, Spaniards had seen no real need to develop industries of their own. In fact, they generally considered such work to be beneath their dignity. It was a great deal easier and more convenient to use their wealth to simply purchase any manufactured goods they needed. But ultimately, this brought about the second complication. Manufactured goods could be obtained only from countries where moves toward an industrial revolution were already underway ~ and most of those countries had reason to be wary of Spanish aims and designs. Thus, Spanish gold and silver made only brief, temporary stops in the Spanish Treasury before being shuttled on to the coffers of these industrializing nations, including England, in exchange for essential manufactured materials.

So it was that, with access to the historical annals at Oxford, young Jose Rabanal pursued his search through all documents relevant to early Spanish-English transactions. And it was this attention to detail that led eventually to a completely unanticipated discovery.

As Rabanal rummaged through shelf after shelf of archival records, tomes that seemed rarely to have been disturbed since the day they were catalogued and filed, he came upon a unique old leather-bound volume. What caught his attention, even more than its obvious age and the faded crest stamped on its brittle spine, was the equally faded, almost illegible title: "Log of the Happy Adventure"

The Happy Adventure! Though for most people this name would have been absolutely meaningless, Rabanal was immediately on alert! From his past studies, he recognized the name as that of an obscure ship captained by an equally obscure sea-dog, a man named Peter Easton. Easton, Rabanal had found, was one of those who had received a commission as a privateer from Queen Elizabeth herself. It permitted him to attack ships and wharves of any enemies of England, but especially those of the hated Spanish. The Happy Adventure was his flagship, and from her mast he had proudly flown the St. George’s Cross, England’s national flag at the time.

With the death of Queen Elizabeth and the accession of James I to the throne, however, the situation changed. James I ended the war with Spain, and in an effort to improve diplomatic relations between the two nations, also canceled all commissions that had been issued to privateers, documents upon which they had come to rely for an aura of legitimacy. In effect, this negated the very means by which they earned their livelihood.

For a man like Peter Easton, such intervention was designed to be ignored. He continued his attacks on Spanish ships in the West Indies, though now this made him a pirate rather than a privateer. Easton could not be bothered by delicate distinctions such as these, however. Instead, he aligned himself with a powerful family in Cornwall that financed his pillaging in return for a share of the profits, then went right ahead with his raids. His ruthlessness and successes eventually earned him the sobriquet Pirate Admiral. By the time he finally retired, Easton had amassed a personal fortune in gold that enabled him to live out his days in comfort and style in Villefranche, Savoy, even acquiring the title Marquis de Savoy.

Rabanal reached for the delicate volume, his heart racing with anticipation. Here at last he might find a definitive record of how much just one sea-dog had actually cost Spain in lost treasure. As he leafed through the fragile logbook, he saw that it contained everything he had hoped for ~ it was all right there, diligently chronicled in Easton’s own hand!

But then the Spanish scholar detected something else. Tucked into the back of Easton’s log book, placed there perhaps by some bibliographer unsure just where to file it since it was written in the Spanish language, Rabanal found another small journal, also bound in leather. As the young Spaniard carefully opened this relic, he noted something of particular interest: the author identified himself as El Duque de Seville ~ Rabanal’s own home city! What a grand coincidence! And when he began to read, Rabanal realized almost immediately that here was a record potentially of far greater importance than mere statistics about stolen Spanish gold.

The journal claimed to have been penned by a Spanish gentleman of another era, Don Esteban Menendez, who apparently had become involved in British efforts to establish a colony in the New World. Under the auspices of an entity called the Plymouth Company, led by Captain George Popham and with Captain Raleigh Gilbert as second-in-command, English colonists had actually succeeded briefly in establishing a settlement on the north coast of North America. To the young scholar, this was all significant new information. He had been totally unaware of efforts by the British to settle so far to the north.

As he read on, Rabanal discovered that the Popham Colony, as it was called, had survived for only a single year. And the more he read, the more he came to understand why!

In the end, he decided that this bizarre, unusual tale could perhaps be related best in the words of Don Menendez himself. Meticulously, with painstaking care to maintain accuracy, Rabanal began to translate the journal from the antiquated, stilted Spanish in which it had been written into a more contemporary, more readable form of English. His greatest hope was that in the process he would be able to retain both the spirit of its author and the authenticity the work deserved.

Chapter 2

I am Esteban Menendez, eldest son of the Duque of Seville, loyal subject of His Majesty King Philip III of Spain. Upon the death of my father, I inherited his title of nobility. Along with the title came possession of a fine rancho, comprised of many acres of land, where for long pleasant years our family had raised cattle, along with some of Spain’s finest fighting bulls. It was a life I thoroughly enjoyed, and I looked forward to spending the rest of my days in this quiet pur suit.

But this was not to be. A higher duty called. A message came one day from King Philip himself, summoning me to appear at his Court. Naturally I was a bit apprehensive, wondering why His Majesty desired the presence of a humble servant such as myself. Still, it was unthinkable not to respond to the royal call, so as quickly as possible I made my way to the Royal Court, located at the time in the city of Valladolid. Even this temporary shift of governmental functions from Spain’s customary capital city of Madrid to Valladolid added to my sense of unease, almost as though the whole traditional dependable world I had known was suddenly being disrupted.

After some time of anxious waiting, I was finally ushered in to the royal presence. With deep respect and humility, I approached the throne of His Majesty. The King was most gracious, inquiring about my health as well as about affairs at my rancho before he finally indicated the real reason for my summons.

Nothing could possibly have come as more of a surprise than what His Majesty now proposed! He began by reviewing his concerns about recent efforts by English settlers to establish colonies of their own in the lands of the New World.

Don’t those English lackeys understand, King Philip fumed in frustration, "that the entire territory of the Americas is exclusively the property of Spain, not only by right of discovery but also by edict of the Holy See? Did the Pope not grant to us all lands west of his Line of Demarcation in 1494? And have Spaniards not already endeavored to introduce our superior culture there, for the benefit of the benighted native population?"

Then he added, as if by way of justification, "And is Spain therefore not entitled to be rewarded for these efforts, as represented by the steady flow of riches reaching our Spanish Treasury? How dare those grasping, avaricious English dogs defy us and attempt to encroach upon Spain’s domain!"

Next, King Philip relayed his plan for making sure that any future schemes to plant English colonies in Spain’s New World territories would meet only failure. He reminded me that so far the only such English effort, one led by a Sir Walter Ralegh (or Raleigh), had come to naught when his fledgling colony on Roanoke Island had disappeared without a trace. It was the King’s wish ~ his ultimatum, actually ~ that all future ventures by the English suffer a similar fate. Accordingly, he set forth what my assignment was to be, the unique role I would play in this dramatic undertaking.

"Would you, Don Menendez, be willing to give up your comfortable life on your rancho near Seville, your home and all that you love, to assume a new identity in the over-all interests of Spain?" he asked.

When he saw the look of total bewilderment, the absolute astonishment in my eyes, he paused a moment, then explained: "What I want you to do is make your way to England. There you will pretend to be an ‘outcast’ from Spanish society, driven into exile for your ‘lack of loyalty’ to the Crown. Once safely in England, your true responsibility will be to observe, to listen, to look for any and all new efforts of planned encroachment on our Spanish domain. You will then promptly report your findings back to me. All such communications will take place through the Spanish Ambassador in London, Don Pedro de Zuniga. He hesitated again. Do I make your mission clear? Are there questions regarding this assignment?"

King Philip waited to see what reaction I would have to becoming involved in this somewhat nefarious, though essential, stratagem. What could I say? My initial reaction was one of utter disbelief at his request. Give up my quiet, orderly life? Leave the rancho I dearly loved, as well as all my friends? The Sovereign must be mad! Fearful that I might inadvertently give voice to such treasonous concepts led me to hold my tongue, to remain completely silent for a moment. The King evidently took my silence to be an indication of deep thought.

And sure enough, as I mulled his proposal slowly in my mind, I have to admit that I began to see certain appealing aspects of such a course of action. As a devoted citizen of Spain, was it not my solemn duty to do everything within my powers to further the interests of my Mother Country? Should I not therefore be willing to do whatever I could to help frustrate the ambitions of her enemies, as well? Besides, could I ever forget that it was these devious English who, many years before, had inflicted a near-mortal wound on my father while he served as an officer in the army of Spain during wars in the Low Countries?

So even though I had absolutely no background, no training in the area of espionage, I began to assess what qualifying attributes I did possess. First, I had undergone the requisite military training common to all nobility. In the process, I had acquired rather exceptional skills in use of the saber, having won our battalion’s coveted award for dueling. Secondly, the basics of the English language had been part of my education since childhood, though I knew I was still far from fluent. Then too, some years before it had been my great misfortune to lose my beloved wife following a lengthy illness, which meant I no longer had any true family responsibilities, since sadly, our union had not been blessed by children. Finally, I was sure that the day-to-day care of my rancho could be undertaken readily by our trusted foreman, so this was also not a valid reason for refusal.

In the end, the potential possibilities of such a grand new adventure intrigued me, overwhelming my natural hesitation. Obviously there would be many risks and hazards. But wasn’t that all part of life? Wasn’t that what made living truly meaningful? Was there ever any real gain anywhere without some element of chance, of danger?

Gradually my turbulent thoughts settled. Taking a deep breath and with a hesitant smile, I bowed low, then dropped to one knee before His Majesty and responded, Your Highness, I am at your service.

Chapter 3

By a somewhat circuitous route, I finally arrived in London in the spring of 1605. The choice of route was dictated primarily by the need for deception regarding my true identity, background, and purp oses.

As the Duque of Seville, it had long been my custom to pay special attention to my personal dress and grooming. Now all of that was changed. I no longer looked even remotely like a Spanish nobleman. My customary dark beard and mustache had been shaved clean. Instead of the erect posture and carriage fostered by my military training, I adopted a rather slouched stance that somewhat disguised my above-average height. Further, I was wearing the dress of a typical common merchant or trader, including a cap that helped to hide my full black hair. Papers had been prepared for me indicating that being a tradesman was indeed my occupation, that I had previously owned a small shop in Malaga. My papers also contained the notation that I was currently considered a less-than-desirable citizen of Spain, having voiced opposition to some of the policies fostered by the Crown. My personal story was that I had fled Spain for fear of arrest or reprisal, to seek the greater freedoms guaranteed English subjects under terms of their Magna Charta.

To add credence to my tale, I had been dropped off on the French coast by a Spanish trading ship, near the port of Dieppe ~ in the dead of night, to avoid detection. From there, I engaged a coach to take me overland to Calais, on the English Channel. A few days later, I was able to obtain passage on a fishing boat that carried me across the Channel to Dover. From Dover, it required only one more coach ride to reach London.

After arriving in London, apparently without having aroused any undue suspicion, my first action was to make covert contact with Ambassador de Zuniga. The Ambassador had already been informed ~ surreptitiously, by means of the diplomatic pouch ~ of my impending arrival as well as of my goals, so he was prepared to assist me in fulfilling the mission assigned to me by our King.

In short order, Ambassador de Zuniga cleared the way for me to meet some of London’s merchants, men with whom he had made contact during his efforts to foster trade between our two nations. Fortunately, these contacts also provided opportunities for me to frequent the docks of London undetected, since on these forays I was generally in the company of a recognized London tradesman. And it was also through these associations that I was able to obtain employment with Master Edmund Bradbury, procurer and purveyor of trade goods that were not only sold in his London establishment but additionally were sent to ports around the world.

At first Master Bradbury was hesitant to hire me, fearful that because of my own supposed background as a merchant, I might resent the subservience required by my new position.

How can you be willing to serve as a mere clerk in my shop, to follow my orders and directions, when you are accustomed to being in charge of all such matters yourself? he queried. "Will it not be galling for one of your former station now to be reduced to the role of an employee?" Had he known what my true station was ~ Duque of Seville, member of the Spanish nobility ~ I’m certain that poor Bradbury might have perished of mortification!

Oh, not at all, sir, I assured him. You see, I need to observe and learn how business matters are transacted here, in the English manner. And what better way to learn than by being in the employ of a respected and successful merchant such as yourself, Master Bradbury?

My response seemed to satisfy him, and soon I was at work, acquiring some of the knowledge and skills that I had supposedly brought with me from Spain. Little did I realize just how vital all of this would prove to be in my future endeavors!

As it turned out, one of my principal duties with Master Bradbury was that of looking after the selection and packing of various items of trade, items found to be in demand in distant markets, in foreign lands. I was given responsibility for seeing that the chosen trade goods were safely packed in crates or hogsheads capable of surviving the vagaries of a long, turbulent voyage on a trading vessel. Next, I escorted the crated merchandise as it was transported to the docks of London by cart. At the docks, I observed carefully to insure that the goods were loaded aboard the proper trading vessels, bound for the appropriate ports, while always making sure that I obtained a signed receipt for the materials, as well. And I must say, as time went on Master Bradbury appeared quite pleased with my conduct of his business. Little did he realize that all of what I was doing was really part of my special hidden agenda.

It was through