By the way, who were Thomas Smythe and Edwin Sandys
Thomas Smythe: a Taste of the Times
Thomas Smythe was blessed to be a descendant from a three or four generation merchant family. Since the days of the War of Roses his grandfather had been chief “haberdasher of the Port of London”. Gramps combined an amazing portfolio of public and private offices, access to royalty, and private wealth–passing it on to his children. Thomas’s father, Thomas “Customer” Smythe, was almost a pure merchant, who accumulated “enormous wealth” and that too was passed on to our Thomas.
Unlike this father, [ our Thomas] is not to be found in the forefront of those merchants who dabbled extensively in government financial concessions. But there can be no doubt about his pre-eminence in the world of Jacobean [the era of James I] commerce. Governor for fifteen years in all of the East India Company, he was also in his time governor of the Russia, French, Levant, Virginia and Somers Islands [Bermuda] companies. Smythe was to become one of James I’s most trusted allies in the business world, and the government made extensive use of his talents, not only in his capacity as governor of so many great chartered companies, but also as a member of government commissions, including the navy commission in 1618, and the treasury commission in 1619. [99] Robert Ashton, the City and the Court, 1603-1643 (Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 16-17
Thomas inherited a social, economic and political standing that included membership in Parliament; he was Auditor of the City of London, the Sheriff of London. It was Thomas Smythe that bought out Sir Walter Raleigh’s Virginia charter and led the financing effort to send it on its way. In his later years, Smythe was responsible for several major expeditions attempting to discover the proverbial Northwest Passage.
Caught up in palace and merchant intrigues in the turbulent aftermath of Elizabeth’s death and James ascension to the throne, Thomas was imprisoned in the Tower of London for alleged improprieties. For his own reasons James I released, and quickly knighted him. Smythe had become a key member of James’s “Court Faction”. That this might have involved a financial transaction from Smythe to James is not known, but there is every reason to assume Smythe lent funds to the King, and Smythe’s finances were deeply affected by his support of the King.
Thomas Smythe: a Taste of the Times
Thomas Smythe was blessed to be a descendant from a three or four generation merchant family. Since the days of the War of Roses his grandfather had been chief “haberdasher of the Port of London”. Gramps combined an amazing portfolio of public and private offices, access to royalty, and private wealth–and passed it on to his children. Thomas’s father, Thomas “Customer Smythe, was almost a pure merchant, who accumulated “enormous wealth” and that too was passed on to our Thomas. In any case, the senior Thomas’s active involvement in the affairs of London, evidenced by a variety of official and elected positions, he also enjoyed the franchise as the “King’s haberdasher”, blazed a London-based political path for the family. A holder of many formal positions in London government, Thomas Smythe senior passed onto his son, a network of contacts, and a model for the son to copy–which he did.
The older Thomas and his son did not descend from nobility (nor did Sandys) and that, despite their incredible wealth and position in the merchant gentry community, imposed a distinction in social status that “haunted” the younger Thomas throughout his life—and set him apart from his rival the more well-born Edwin Sandys who enjoyed the nepotism of his father. Perhaps that distinction still exists to this day: Sandys has a fine biography of his life [99] Theodore K. Rabb, Jacobean Gentleman: Sir Edwin Sandys (1561-1629) (Princeton University Press, 1998)., Smythe does not. With Smythe we are looking through whatever window we can find to discover the person on the other side of the glass.
Born in 1558, Thomas was three or four years older than Edwin Sandys in 1604. The second surviving son of Thomas “Customer” Smith or Smythe, our Thomas was well-born, into wealth–but not the manor. Never fear, however, the junior Thomas founded his own manor in Kent (where he is buried), nearby that of Edwin Sandys. Remarkably, Smythe died at sixty seven or eight as did Sandys. Sandys was married four tines, Smythe three.
There is no degree from Oxford, or any other university, for Thomas Smythe. A graduate of the Merchant Taylors (public boys) School in 1571, reputed at the time to have been second only St Paul (p. 7, Rabb), Smythe’s graduation may well have been observed by nine year old Edwin Sandys who was a freshman at Merchant Taylors School at that time. The younger Thomas was not a writer (with one exception, his travelogue to Russia) or intellectual. He was to be a philanthropist, a merchant, a very wealthy businessman/financier–and a very well placed merchant adventurer.
Sir Thomas Smythe is cut from a different cloth entirely, There is a pun in this as Smythe got “his start” so to speak with training and certification as a “haberdasher” or a merchant specializing in sale of millinery, men’s apparels, and accessories–he was a member of that guild (earning master status in 1580) for his entire life. The second surviving son of Thomas “Customer” Smythe, our Thomas was well-born, into wealth–but not the manor. There is no degree of study from Oxford, or any other university. He was not a writer (with one exception,)He was a merchant, and a very wealthy one at that.
Smythe’s father died in 1591 (Sandys’ Dad 1588). From that time on our Thomas became heavily involved with the series of merchant joint stock trading companies. By the late 1590’s, certainly, no later than 1600, he was CEO (governor) of the Muscovy, the Levant, and the first CEO-and founder, of the East India Company. It was Thomas Smythe who bought the rights to Sir Walter Raleigh’s Virginia (Roanoke) charter in 1592 (after having invested in his colonization of Roanoke five years earlier). In 1605, he was the proposed governor of the Spanish Company that failed to incorporate successfully as a result of parliamentary opposition to its “regulated” joint stock structure.
The capstone of this career was his selection as the CEO of the new found East India Company (1600-1); that selection was by no means an appointment by Elizabeth as it was a mark of respect by a myriad of merchant adventurers who in one way or another was tied into the making and the prospects of a single joint stock corporation that was forged to open up the East Indies and check the activities of the newly founded Dutch East Indian Company:
The East India Company, along with its Dutch doppelganger, established as a union of those regional voorcompagnieen in 1602, represented in a sense the centuries of effort [and as outlined in Sterns’ third chapter, Initial Public Offerings the countless ventures launched by English merchant adventurers and their supporter for the previous three decades] at long-distance European trade with Asia and the convergence of joint stock and corporate traditions united in a single chartered company. Through closely tied with the Levant Company, this new company was enmeshed in the various global and corporate joint stock projects for predation, commerce and colonialization launched across the globe in recent decades. Thomas Smythe, a well-connected London merchant was a Merchant Adventurer, a skinner and a Haberdasher [guilds] , and like his father, the lucrative and powerful position of royal ‘customer’ or customs collector for the port of London. He would sit in Parliament and as governor of most of the major overseas venturers, including the Levant and the Muscovy Company, which his maternal grandfather helped found, and for which he soon also served as ambassador to Russia [99] Philip J. Stern, Empire, Incorporated: the Corporations that built British Colonialism (Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2023)
Whatever else Smythe was, he was an Londoner. He was a Londoner in the sense also that a Wall Street banker is also a New York City-centric. No doubt his voluminous Rolodex and his Facebook friends were predominately from London. His home was there, his offices were there, and he is not buried there (two out of three ain’t bad). In his final years, often in poor health he purchased an estate in Kent–Sandys “home town”. This is probably why Cecil included him in the Virginia Company incorporation process so to ameliorate the London versus Outer Port rivalry that probably stood in the way of making the Virginia Company a unified national project that the king could make into a signature private corporation enlisted by him to promote his objectives.
Unlike this father, [Thomas] is not to be found in the forefront of those merchants who dabbled extensively in government financial concessions. But there can be no doubt about his pre-eminence in the world of Jacobean [the era of James I] commerce. Governor for fifteen years in all of the East India Company, he was also in his time governor of the Russia, French, Levant, Virginia and Somers Islands [Bermuda] companies. Smythe was to become one of James I’s most trusted allies in the business world, and the government made extensive use of his talents, not only in his capacity as governor of so many great chartered companies, but also as a member of government commissions, including the navy commission in 1618, and the treasury commission in 1619. [99] Robert Ashton, the City and the Court, 1603-1643 (Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 16-17
Thomas inherited a social, economic and political standing that included an expected career path that included Parliament. In 1596, and then in 1598 he may have served as Commissioner in trade negotiations with the Dutch, possibly first elected to Parliament from Aylesbury in 1597, Smythe was more certainly elected in 1599;; he was Auditor of the City of London (1597-98), a member of Parliament in 1599, London alderman (1599-1601) and Sheriff of London in 1600. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/smythe-sir-thomas-ca-1558-1625/#:~:text=Simon%20Smythe%20was%20killed%2C%20but,connect%20Smythe%20and%20C%C3%A1diz%2C%20 In these last years of Elizabeth I, it is likely Smythe had attached himself to the Robert Cecil faction, and benefited greatly from that relationship. Whether consciously, inadvertently, or by serving as an agent of Cecil, the younger Smythe got caught up in palace intrigues associated with the Essex Rebellion (1601).
What accounts for all this? Perhaps, a 1610 event can explain his influence and his source of political affiliation: “In January, King James attended the launch of a ‘goodly ship of above 1,00 tons’ ordered for the East India trade … when he ‘graced Sir Thomas Smythe, the governor , with a chain in the manner of a collar, better worth more than 200 pounds, with his [the King’s] picture hanging at it, and put it about [Smythe’s] neck with his own hands“. In this case a picture is worth a thousand words.
His popularity, however, explains, so asserts his Parliamentary biography, his ample Parliament committee assignments, including being assigned a role in legislation promoting “better execution of the penal laws against Catholics”, and another bill to punish “crypto-Catholics” who attended church but failed to take communion–which I assume ruffled Sandys more moderate treatment for Catholics. He also attended a meeting of Parliamentarians with the King, one in which Sandys made several bitter remarks directly to the King on the Union of Scotland; his Parliamentary biography suggests he supported the king at this session. To make a point, Smythe served in Parliament from 1604 through 1621, and then from 1621 to 1623. Although he served on several prominent committees, he did not speak publicly and his parliamentary biography makes the point most of his committee assignments were related to foreign trade, marine and London-related issues, and, of course, trading company relevant legislation.
He was returned to Parliament in 1604 (holding in Dunwich) and was appointed to a considerable number of committees, but, I confess, he made no public speeches before that body. He was on the committee Sandys chaired on the legislation of the foreign trade-regulated monopoly legislation–concerning which his Parliamentary biography asserts “he may be presumed to have opposed the measure, as one of its chief targets was the Muscovy Company” [of which he was then governor].
https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/sandys-sir-edwin-1561-1629
Edwin Sandys: his early career
Son of Elizabeth’s Archbishop of York, the second highest position in the Church of England. His father, called out as a Marist was sent into exile for his less than radical attack on Catholicism, a bias his son seems to have inherited. In an age of English Protestantism, where radicals like Puritans were on the rise, the Sandys family were outliers. Our Edwin Sandys, through most of his life wrote often and thoughtfully on religious topics. He was to write an impactful and controversial book on religion, at a time when religious radicalism was abundant.
That reflected the perspective of a well-educated English gentleman. Interestingly Sandys had qualified in a guild-related occupation, (Merchant Taylors in 1571), but he went on to Oxford with a BA in 1579 and an MA in 1583. He then traveled through Europe (1596-99), also customary for a gentleman, and studied further in Geneva (1597). Sandys’ Dad, however, at the time Bishop of London, was a close friend of its headmaster, Richard Mulcaster (“perhaps the most famous humanist teacher in England” (p..7 Rabb) whom he knew since the 1540’s when they both were fellows at Oxford–although Dad was a graduate of Cambridge and in 1553 was its vice-chancellor. Edwin’s father made his career in the turbulent post-Henry VIII period encased in religious and academic positions of increasing prominence in the rising Church of England. In so doing he blurred the class distinctions that were to distract his rival Smythe.
Edwin after his 1577 graduation from Merchant Taylors benefitted from Dad’s nepotism to follow it up with study at Oxford as well. Dad, Archbishop of Oxford in 1576, kept his two older sons nearby. At Oxford Sandys formed arguably the closest friendship of his life, eg. George Cranmer, (p. 8). Edwin remained at Oxford for the next thirteen years, B.A. in 1579, and leaving somewhat mysteriously previous to completion of a law degree in 1589.
Sandys’ early adult years were wrapped up in academic affairs, while Thomas Smythe served in the guilds of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers and the Worshipful Company of Skinners (1580). His early years were arguably those common to an English land-owning squire,, but in 1604, at the age of 42, he returned to Parliament as a new man–a man who had entered perhaps into a mid-life change which found expression in his advocacy for a greater Parliamentary role in English governance, and a firm and loud anti-divine-right view counter to that of his new sovereign, James I, a Scot, of course–and that also seemed not quite what Sandys preferred.
Although in some ways far from typical, Sandys was thought of then, and now, as a “solid and impeccable country gentleman”, a county squire, and his principal American biographer, Theodore Rabb refers to him as a “Jacobean Gentleman”. It followed that when he acquire some wealth in the post 1600 period, he made his estate in Kent. Smythe, however, with huge offices in London was at his core a very wealthy and well-connected merchant adventurer, a foreign trade financier, with interest in foreign affairs and even colonization. His home, an exquisite manor in Kent was always defined his image of his family’s membership in England’s upper crust.
Sandys on the other hand, mixed in up socially with those in high society, and England’s more intellectual personalities. Sandys in his pre-1600 days set up operations in London, and that fit well for attendance in Parliament. Sandys principal home while he was taking charge of policy-making for the Virginia Company was in Kent–about forty miles from London–whose principal city is Canterbury. Kent was the place he conducted business when he was not active in Parliament–meaning, for significant portions of the year, he ran his side of the Virginia Company operations from his country estate in Kent–not London where the Company headquarters were lodged—near where an increasingly unhealthy Smythe was resident.
The Coming Out of Smythe and Sandys: 1595-1604
By that time, deeply involved in the Muscovy and Levant Companies, and was Founder and the Both Smythe and Sandys involved themselves in the complex aftermath of Elizabeth’s death and James ascension to the throne, Smythe quite dramatically entered into the Jacobean world of politics—as would Edwin Sandys, also likely a member of the Robert Cecil faction [p. 16-7, Rabb], albeit a membership that began with his father, William, First Lord of Burghley, from whom his first election to Parliament (1586) likely was politically facilitated (p. 13) concerning the CEO position in the newly founded East India Company in 1600-1 (a position he held, with one break, through 1621). Smythe was at the height of his power in Elizabeth’s reign by early 1601. Newly elected to both the East India Company and Sheriff of London, he got caught up in the Essex Revolt.
Along that secondary career path, Smythe was elected Sheriff of London, and held the position when the Earl of Essex attempted a rebellion which Elizabeth felt our Thomas should have headed off at the pass. Our Thomas was arrested and put into the Tower of London (1601 for alleged improprieties; he languished in her displeasure until Elizabeth died in 1603 (a few sources suggest he had been released earlier, but provide no citations). Smythe’s involvement in the Essex affair has been the subject of several descriptions of what happened during the Revolt, but Smythe’s motivations or what prompted Essex to go directly to Smythe at his house half-expecting Smythe to mobilize his sheriffs in the Essex coup. I suspect there remains a backdrop that lingered on and reappeared in the ouster of Smyth from the Company in 1619. If so, it is likely to have been associated with Southampton who also was arrested and imprisioned in the Tower at the same time as Smythe.
In any case, Smythe’s association with Essex, as early as 1595 or so, may not have been to his liking, as Essex was always a contentious fellow and his relationship with Elizabeth had some pretty serious ups and downs. Our Thomas Smith may have wanted to set himself apart from this turbulence, and I offer and unsupported motivation why Smith changed his spelling to Smythe. That he did so sometime before 1600 is not in dispute, and there is support for his desire to distinguish himself from another Thomas Smith who was active in foreign affairs at the same time. Accordingly, I offer my version of what he changed his spelling.
Thomas Smith the younger BTW, spelled his name “SMYTHE” to separate himself from another Thomas Smith, no relation I can discern,[99]. That Thomas Smith https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Smith,_Thomas_(1556%3F-1609) was at the time a powerful member of the Privy Council (1587-1605), and a most impactful player-owner in the Ulster plantation. That Thomas Smith was in this period a Secretary of the Earl of Essex. My research hints that the change of spelling was related to the Essex Revolt in 1601, or at least to separate our SMYTHE from the Essex faction, which rivaled that of Cecil in their attempt to influence Elizabeth. The change in spelling, whatever its motivation, does leave a heritage regarding Smythe’s contemporary biography.
The best example of this confusion between two Smith’s is a current, as of my writing, included in an Encyclopedia Virginia biography of SMYTHE. While I am unable to pinpoint exactly when Smythe changed his spelling, I suspect it may have been in the mid 1590’s and may have been made permanent through the remainder of Smythe’s life and career because of its association with Essex and the 1601 Revolt.
The Encyclopedia Virginia included information which may not be accurate in that they conflated the two Smythe and Smith. Smythe is cited as having been with Essex in Essex’s 1596 campaign against the City of Cadiz in which Smythe’s younger brother Simon was killed. That controversial, bold and successful attack (in which Raleigh also participated, less successfully) then returned to England with the wealth and loot garnered, Smythe was supposedly knighted by Essex, along with future governor of Virginia Thomas Gates. The latter’s knighthood was confirmed by the Queen, but not that of Smythe. Relevant to the conflating of names in the Encyclopedia biography was that the other Thomas Smith was secretary to Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. Biographies of Smythe by Alexander Brown, [99] Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States, Vol. 2 (Forgotten Books, 1890, 2018), pp. 1012; see also Thomas SMITH, p. 1018.
Smythe was also claimed to have served with Essex in Ireland previous to Essex’s Rebellion. One of the two Smythe/Smith’s was sent by Elizabeth to demand the return of Essex. In any case, My research, which I believe is congruent with the contemporary consensus on Smythe, and supplemented by my judgement on the personalities and their known careers, plus SMYTHE’s long-term dislike of privateering, strongly suggest Smythe did not participate in the Cadiz raid, and was not sent to recall Essex in early 1601.[99] https://armorial.bibsoc.org.uk/stamp-owners/SMI006.html#:~:text=On%20the%20accession%20of%20James,the%20Council%20of%20the%20North; see also, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Smith-197682
I do not think the two were confused by Elizabeth in her reaction to the Essex Rebellion. She treated the two men differently. Her hesitation regarding Smythe’s involvement, compared to that of Southampton or Howard, for example, also suggest wariness as to whether SMYTHE was involved in the revolt or caught up with it. It appears rumors spread by others finally resulted in Smythe being sent to the Tower. Smythe’s enemies may have included Southampton, involved in the Revolt also, arrested, and held in the Tower for his role, may have had an impact in Smythe’s arrest. Elizabeth’s investigation into the affair did inspire a number of the participants to “rat” on each other, or make things up—torture or its threat does that.
The ill feeling between the two—which continued after SMYTHE’s ouster as Company Treasurer, the humiliation of John Smythe’s marriage in 1618-9, as well as Southampton’s involvement in the 1619 ouster of Smyth and election of Sandys, perhaps partially explain the obsession with audit and condemnation of Smythe’s Company management, and Southampton’s assumption of that position in 1620 through 1623, any management that consumed three years previous to Smythe’s 1619 ouster.
That both SMYTHE and SMITH were in some manner tied to the Essex affair is apparent by the actions of James I upon his succession to the throne at the death of Elizabeth. As James traveled from Scotland to London for his coronation, he knighted our Thomas SMYTHE and the “other” SMITH before he ever reached London–in fact within the first week or so in his trip from Scotland–certainly no later than May 20, 1603. Both were likely associated with James’ belief the Essex Revolt was an attempt to secure the throne for James. In June of that year James also appointed SMITH to Secretary and Keeper of the Signet to the Council of the North, and in 1607 Clerk of the Upper House of Parliament. SMITH was rewarded greatly by James I at the same time as was our Smythe, and, we must remind the reader that Southampton who was returned to his former pre-tower status as Earl of Southampton at the same time–and invited to travel with the King in his trip to London.
Those associated with Essex, and his Revolt, stood tall in James’s mind, and were each rewarded handsomely—and in the very first days–upon his succession to the throne of England. Interestingly, in the November 1606 royal expansion of the royal Virginia Council that governed the Virginia Company, Sir Thomas SMITH, then clerk of the Privy Council was added to that body— our Thomas SMYTHE, however, was an original membership of the royal Virginia Council and a signatory of the 1606 Virginia Company charter. Several other Essex-related individuals were also added to the Virginia Council in November 1606 as well.. [99] Rabb, p. 320
Finally, James I rode into town, released SMYTHE from jail, rehabilitated him politically, and knighted him. Shortly after, Smythe resumed offices as governor (CEO) of the Muscovy and Levant companies, boards of directors of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, and in the next couple of years became once again governor of the East India, and proposed governor for the fledgling French and Spanish trading companies. He was also appointed a magistrate in Kent, with only modest holdings there at that time. All and all, as Sinatra would say, “it was a very good year”. While Sandys played the “parliamentary” card by 1604, Smythe became a key member of James’s “Court Faction”. That this might have involved a financial transaction from Smythe to James is not known, but there is every reason to assume Smythe lent funds to the King, and Smythe’s finances were deeply and positively affected by his support of the King.
In 1604 Thomas was named “Special Ambassador” to Czar Boris Godunov. Assuming responsibility for the negotiations of the Muscovy Company with the Czar. He was sent to Russia by the King in 1604 (causing Smythe’s late start in the 1604 Parliament) where he met with and negotiated with Boris Godunov, the last Czar of Russia previous to Michael Romanov. While Smythe was there the Poles captured Moscow and commenced Russia’s proverbial time of troubles; he was still in Russia (in Russia’s lovely vacation paradise, Archangel) when he heard Godunov had been fired out of a cannon from the Kremlin walls. Not wishing to miss this opportunity, he wrote a blog on his visit and it was an instant hit in London. The mission otherwise was a failure–and the books popularity ended abruptly with the Gunpowder Plot in 1604.
When he got back, Smythe appears to have been “drafted” into the Virginia Company incorporation process—likely because of Cecil who from the start believed depended on the King’s support for its success. He was only partially successful, but the King did assume at least nominal leadership in the North American venture.
In the background at first, he worked through relatives, he was the principal co-founder and future Treasurer (i.e. President) of the Virginia Company (and the London Company) through 1621. It was Smythe who was the vital link between Crown and the Company board and membership.
Judging from his escapades with the better known British East India Company, his style of action and administration was swashbuckling to authoritarian, but behind the scenes, perched in his statesman like commanding heights. Mixing personal profit with pursuit of national interests, in his later years the Virginia Company, in his mind, was the western hemisphere equivalent of the British East India Company–full of opportunity, and ill-formulated hopes. In his case what he did not know about North American colonization did come back to hurt him.
Smythe, deeply involved in the court intrigues, and a likely participant in James’s struggle with Parliament which was ongoing and becoming bitterer with each passing day. No doubt, the far-reaching and quite controversial activities of the British East India Company and Muscovy Company necessarily consumed much of Smythe’s attention. Virginia was not the only item on his plate. That is why his deputy, Sir Edwin Sandys, son of the powerful Archbishop of York and an activist leader in the 1604 Parliament in Elizabeth ‘s time, played such an important role in the affairs of that Company when Virginia ran into trouble after 1609.
Smythe followed it up on his return to England by also playing a major role in ending the war with the Netherlands in the same year. After he got back, he began his involvement with the Virginia Company incorporation—at either the King’s request or that of Cecil’s. From the start, the latter, as well as others believed that project depended for its success—indeed viability–on the King’s support. He was only partially successful, but the King did assume at least nominal leadership in the North American venture.
Whatever else Smythe was, he was an Londoner. He was a Londoner in the sense also that a Wall Street banker is New York City-centric. No doubt his voluminous Rolodex and his Facebook friends were predominately from London. His home was there, his offices were there (same place), but he is not buried there (two out of three ain’t bad). In his final years, often in poor health he purchased an estate in Kent–Sandys chosen “home town” or if one prefers, his Hamptons.
Judging from his escapades with the better known British East India Company, Smythe’s style of action and administration was not swashbuckling, but behind the scenes, perched in his statesman like commanding heights. Mixing personal profit with pursuit of national interests, in his later years the Virginia Company, in his mind, was the western hemisphere equivalent of the British East India Company–full of opportunity, and ill-formulated hopes. In his case what he did not know about North American colonization did come back to hurt him.
Nevertheless, with the rise of James, Smythe in a handful of years rose to the top of the merchant adventure group of foreign traders. A 1610 event can explain his influence and his source of political affiliation: “In January, King James attended the launch of a ‘goodly ship of above 1,00 tons’ ordered for the East India trade … when he ‘graced Sir Thomas Smythe, the governor , with a chain in the manner of a collar, better worth more than 200 pounds, with his [the King’s] picture hanging at it, and put it about [Smythe’s] neck with his own hands“. In this case a picture is worth a thousand words.
Smythe upon his was return to Parliament in 1604 (from an arranged holding in Dunwich) and was appointed to a considerable number of committees, but, I confess, he made no public speeches before that body. He was on the committee Sandys chaired on the legislation of the foreign trade-regulated monopoly legislation–concerning which his Parliamentary biography asserts “he may be presumed to have opposed the measure, as one of its chief targets was the Muscovy Company” [of which he was then governor]. [99] https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/sandys-sir-edwin-1561-1629
Smythe’s popularity explains, as his Parliamentary biography asserts, Smythe’s ample Parliament committee assignments during this period–and after. In 1604 that included being assigned a role in legislation promoting “better execution of the penal laws against Catholics”, and another bill to punish “crypto-Catholics” who attended church but failed to take communion–which I assume ruffled Sandys more moderate treatment for Catholics. He also attended a meeting of Parliamentarians with the King, one in which Sandys made several bitter remarks directly to the King on the Union of Scotland; his Parliamentary biography suggests he supported the king at this session.
To make a point, Smythe served in Parliament from 1604 through 1621, and then from 1621 to 1623. Although he served on many prominent committees, he did not speak publicly and his parliamentary biography makes the point most of his committee assignments were related to foreign trade, marine and London-related issues, and, of course, trading company relevant legislation.
James early years on the English throne created an immense opportunity for Smythe, but it also requires us to alert the reader this was also a serious, if not fundamental disruption to the the modes and goals of Elizabeth’s foreign and trade policy-making. For a couple of years at least a vacuum of conflicting ambitions to some degree existed in court policy-making, and a tempest was brewing, about to beset, the role of parliament in English policy system. Little discussed in very early English Jacobean colonization of North America, there was, despite its long traditions, an instability in the top levels of English policy-making—out of which would emerge the first charter for English colonization of “Virginia”, a place so little known it was defined as the land that included New England to Florida, i.e. most of America’s East Coast, a geography that interested France, Holland, Sweden, and of course Spain.
Shifting to Sandys
As with Smythe, information is a bit sketchy regarding Sandys. Indebted as we are to Theodore Rabb, I borrow his intro to a middle-age Sandy’s jump into English political life.
“It is only indirectly that we learn … [how and when] Edwin became increasingly involved in the world of politics, after he returned to England from the continent in 1599. His movements remain uncertain until 1604, but there are signs that he was an active member of Sir Robert Cecil’s faction … He was doubtless also acquainted with Coke [who likely had a hand in the Virginia Company 1606 first charter], and [Sir Francis] Bacon [who became Chancellor, and was deeply enmeshed in plantations and colonization].. But the great man in Elizabeth’s last years was Cecil, especially after his main rival, the Earl of Essex made his disastrous lunge for power in February 1601. That Sandys had picked the right side in that conflict and was able to keep his feet amid a newly fluid political situation” [99] Rabb, p. 46, that caught up Smythe and provided him an eighteen month stay in the Tower of London.
Up to that point Rabb describes Sandys life previous to 1604 as qualitatively different from his previous career. Rabb is uncertain what motivated Sandys to “undergo a dramatic change in the pattern of his career during the early 1600’s” that Rabb assumes “he must have taken a long, hard look at his past and found it wanting. The most frivolous dabbling’ in theology, law, politics and the London social whirl, gave way to the public activity of James I’s reign, when he gained unforeseeable stature and respect as the embodiment of the views of the independent gentry in the Commons, and as a leader of trade and colonization in national commercial ventures. If any time can be isolated as the beginning of that new career, it must be last months of 1600, and the early months of 1601” [99] Rabb, pp.47-8. Of note, of course, is how this contrasts with Smythe’s intensive involvement in the world of business and trade, and of his continuity in the profession of his father and family. Rabb finally summarizes his previous career as that of a “staid, respectable gentleman”. [99] Rabb, p. 53,
One would expect, that led to incredible wealth, but in Sandys’ case we do not see the opportunity for the accumulation of wealth. Whatever his inheritance from his father, whose career was anchored in the Church of England and academia, who died in 1588, Sandys in the years 1600 to 1604 spent money he likely had not accumulated himself. In these years, he was able to purchase a manor of some cost and substance in Kent.( It may be Sandys became ‘house poor”). [99] see Rabb, p.325. In any case the timing of his career change was likely relevant to the Essex Rebellion. Rabb presents evidence at least one enemy of Sandys father (dead since 1588) put him in the Essex camp [p. 47], while outing Sandys as a member of Cecil’s faction.
In any case, we can surmise that while relatively uninvolved in politics, excepting his irregular and unremarkable attendance at parliamentary sessions (called about three or four years at intervals from the past session), Sandys was known to, and aware of, key political personalities, and apparently had enough value to Cecil to keep him in his very large Rolodex of spies and contacts. That is further confirmed (more or less) in that Sandys was found in James court in Scotland on the eve of Elizabeth’s death. Rabb suggests, without citation, that Sandys “apparently undertook one of the delicate missions through which Cecil smoothed the succession [of James to the English kingship]. He seems to have been in Scotland just before the old reign ended [99] Rabb, p.52].
Cecil’s behind the scenes maneuvering to secure James ascension is detailed by Susan Doran, From Tudor To Stuart (Oxford University Press, 2024), p. 95ff. [999] Elizabeth died March 24, 1603. James was proclaimed king later that day. James received unofficial notice of her death around midnight March 26, 1603 [999] . Rabb, citing Anthony Wood [99] Rabb footnote 47, p. 52 that Sandys, was knighted by James I shortly after, at Charterhouse on the edge of London, on May 11, 1603 when James was on his way to London to assume the throne. The reason given for this by Wood was knighthood “for some exemplary service which he did that prince [James I] upon his first coming into England”. Ironically, at the same occasion, Thomas Smythe’s elder brother, John, was also knighted. To add to the relevance of Essex, Thomas Smythe was knighted—in the Tower of London—by James two days later.
The reader may wonder why I go off in this seeming tangent? I ask for patience because Sandys [and the Virginia Company’s loss of its royal charter in 1624 was tied to Sandys’ involvement in a scandal (imposing a tobacco contract on the Company) from which he benefited greatly-comment was noted he was in need of income to support his obligations to help justify the accusations against him [99] See Craven. The seeds of a lack of serious wealth did plague Sandys in his career, and mention was made from time to time of his lack of such.
Plausibly, the problem may be a heritage of his financial burdens inherited from 1600-1605. On a personal level in those years, there was some tumult, i.e. he established a manor in Kent, married for the third time, had a child (who survived), yet married again in 1605—suggesting to me a death at childbirth. Sandys’s subsequent career put him squarely in high society, but his occupation, parliamentary leader, offered few resources from its salary. [999] Further, over the next twelve years, Sandys “sired twelve children” with his fourth wife, and we in a later module will see one of these births (September, 1620) greatly complicated the politics of the Virginia Company in its last years when its Virginia charter was under serious attack. [999].
Amazingly, the good times continued to roll. In December 1603 Sir Edwin was appointed to Queen Anne’s Council, representing Yorkshire. Rabb suggests, with later activities and events lending support, that Southampton may have been the instigator. In any event, our modules preceding this module, provide significant demonstration as to the role the Queens’ Council played directly and indirectly on the Virginia Company. [99] Rabb, footnote 47, p.52; see also L.H. Roper, the English Empire in America, p. 74ff. A departure from Elizabeth’s policy process, the Queen’s Council did add a new dimension, one that played a role in the Virginia Company, to the Jacobean policy system.
The involvement of Queen Anne in James’s foreign and trade/colonization seems to have played a larger role as Queen of England than she had in Scotland. By the time of the English ascension, Anne and James lived in separate castles, and James had placed each of the three children in their own residences, separated from their mother, and who had guardians autonomous from Anne. This arrangement was not to Anne’s liking and when the time came for her to move to England, she took the occasion to rectify the situation.
Since Charles was about three and sickly, thought more unable to travel well, especially as London had an outbreak of the plague, he was left in his Scottish residence. But Henry and then daughter Elizabeth eventually were placed in situations more to Anne’s responsibility. [99] Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stuart, 2024, see pp.109-125 for a detailed description of Anne, her trip to England, and the determination of Anne to exercise greater responsibility for her children.
Henry, the heir, did develop an interest in Virginia, and his mentor—and friend- Thomas Dale became governor in 1611. Dale fell into Smythe’s orbit, with his friend Gates. Retiring as Virginia governor, Dale went into service with the East India Company where he died fighting the Dutch in Indonesia. Smythe always drew his strength in court politics from the king. The Queen herself, for her own reasons also had interests in these policy areas, and that led to Southampton, and to some extent Sandys. In any event, the assertion of her will in regards to her, and her two children to England, hints of a future ability and willingness to engage in the royal policy process, and enhancing the role of those who served on her Council. As we have seen, Southampton was appointed early, and Sandys may have benefited with his later appointment in December, 1603. Fifteen years later this played a role in the ouster of Smythe as Company Treasurer.
But Sandys broke with the king, dramatically in the 1604 Parliament. Despite some minor ebbs and flows, Sandys drifted into becoming a major parliamentary leader, and a consistent opponent of the king’s policies, style of rule, and trade policies in particular. Sandys was among the first to oppose James’s signature 1604 legislation, a Union with Scotland. Instrumental in defeating that initiative, often using bitter and ad hominin attacks on the new King, Sandys earned a perpetual and personal dislike of the King–a dislike that entered into the King’s position on the Virginia Company during the 1620’s [99] Theodore K. Rabb, Sir Edwin Sandys and the Parliament of 1604 (the American Historical Review, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Apr, 1964), pp. 650-54.
One might also add that Sandys’s quick break with James in 1604 fundamentally disrupted his relationship with his sovereign. He was not appointed to the royal Virginia Council in 1606, charged as it was with the oversight and policy direction of the 1606 Virginia Company. Likely it was that Council, enlarged in 1607, was responsible for his appointment in 1607 In this period, Sandys became a stockholder as well.
Parliament’s Official History, which includes well-developed biographies and summaries of its members since 1364, opens its Sandys commentary with “One of the most brilliant parliamentary figures of his generation, Sandys burst suddenly and unexpectedly onto the parliamentary stage in 1604, establishing a dominance so complete that [M.] Prestwich [noted historian of Parliament and Medieval period] has dubbed him ‘the uncrowned king of the Commons in James’s reign“. While acknowledging it is a bit of an exaggeration, the Commentary balances that comment with R. Gardiner’s [another noted English historian] assertion that “apart from [Sir Francis] Bacon no man enjoyed the confidence of the House [of Commons] more than Sir Edwin Sandys“. [99] Andrew Thrush, “Sandys, Sir Edwin of Northbourne Court, Northbourne Kent“,
The record of his activities and role in Parliament over the next nearly twenty-five years bears this out–although it is evident his golden years were his first after 1604, and the 1620’s witnessed one episode and controversy after another, culminating in his “inglorious years” after termination of the Virginia Company charter. wttps://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/ Rabb summarizes this period with the observation that many factors likely played into Sandys rather dramatic transformation in his career during these years, including:
the removal of Elizabeth’s rather formidable presence [over policy-making], the inadequacies of her successor, the feeling [by many] that new paths might be chartered—helped determine the timing and even the nature of Edwin’s new activities, his boldness and persistence … had deeper roots …And [it also explains his boldness in the 1604 Parliament which we covered in a previous module], but also an unexpected role in two other areas of activity. Between 1604 and 1606 he launched in effect, three different careers, each unlikely for someone in his class and background [gentry]: as a leader of opposition to royal policy in the Commons, as a religious pamphleteer, and a prominent overseas colonizer. The totality of his break with his past suggests that the change in monarchs can only have been a part of his inspiration”. [99] Rabb, p. 54
Sandys left his mark on Parliament during one of its most critical periods. Of note to this history, the reader ought note that whatever role Sandys played with the Virginia Company, as its Deputy CEO, then CEO, his day job was always Member of Parliament. He never left the body until near his death in 1629. One must include in one’s assessment of his role and his politics within the Company, it is not likely to have been in isolation of his role in Parliament, and indeed, at critical points as I hope to demonstrate, in response to his Parliamentary influence he used political leverage to secure his position, and votes on the Virginia Company’s annual board of directors meetings.
In this assertion, I caution the reader that American historians, while not countering my assertion, have made in this module, have done little to support it. For the most part Sandys, parliamentary career and activities, Theodore Rabb, perhaps Andrews, excepted, were treated as a world separate from those of the Virginia Company. From my point of view, whatever else Sandys was, or was not, he was not an apolitical administrator, and never a “neutral” in the politics of England or the Crown. What is also apparent, his politics and his position with the King differed completely from that of his “boss”, Sir Thomas Smythe from 1607 (See Herbert Osgood).
The point to be taken was neither Smythe nor Sandys nor Southampton were in any way apolitical; they were closely linked to personalities and institutions that were increasingly drifting away from each other into a chronic conflict that never was smoothed over. In this we can see even the early phases of “the drift to the civil war” had consequences affecting the founding of the Virginia colony.
For the most part Sandys, parliamentary career and activities, Theodore Rabb, perhaps Andrews, excepted , are treated as a world separate from the Virginia Company’s management of its colony. From my point of view, whatever else Sandys or any other Treasurer of the Company was an apolitical administrator, and never a “neutral” in the politics of England or the Crown. On the contrary English politics, affairs, and its elite-driven policy processes did affect seriously the actions and non actions of the Company in Virginia. My assertion by the 1620’s the Company was so consumed by its London affairs that the colony was given secondary attention, if any at all.
The breakpoint was no later than 1621. In that year, Sandys competed against Smythe for the latter’s position as an M.P. from Kent. Sandys defeated him, ousting Smythe from Parliament until Smythe was able to replace that holding with another with the assistance of the King. From that point on, the King pressed various charges, relevant to the Virginia Company, against Sandys, culminating in Sandy’s placement under house arrest. As we shall see, this was a critical period in the history of the Virginia Company.
Ron W. Coan 