My niece and I were at our reading when Nero crept in. You would think he were born in this house, so apt is he to find a door to slip through.
He should have been a spy cat, not a sea cat.
He told us he had not yet finished the heroickal verses he means to give out at our Field, but begged me to set down in ink his true account of the voyage. Else it may be lost.
“Willingly,” sayt I, “for I wish to know more of my lord’s doings.”
Nero settled hisself. This (in brief) is what he sayt.
“After my old master went from this world, leaving me (as I then believed) with nowt but a place in Linkin’s household, I resolved to seek death or honour at sea.
“From Portsmouth I took ship to Plymouth where our fleet lay. There, I saw men employed earlier as mariners being put ashore, e’en though that left our ships ill-manned. Those men knew not one rope from another.
“I heard our Earl say that scant as his knowledge is, even he could see some were unfit for service at sea.
“On the key I made the akwayntance of a cat who’d come ashore from the Rainbow.
“She told me the press-masters took bribes and let the proper mariners go. She did not blame the mariners. They knew they’d get nowt from the Queen but scant vittles and sour ale. That was not newes to me. For not only does Queen Puss [Bess] distain us, her penmen defraud us. They care not that we hazard our lives while they lie safe at home.
“Then my new friend sayt our expedition might come to nowt!
“It was ever her captain’s custom before a voyage to seek advice from a learned doctor. This doctor had warned of great peril for our General. And true, Essicks’ ship was leaking before he reached Plymouth.
“The doctor hisself had thought to join this voyage, but saw from his figures that there would be great winds, sickness and the like.
“I arrkst my she-friend if she meant to stay ashore, but she believed her captain and her ship would come safe through.
“I told her my captain was my old shipmate John Trout [Troughton], a man who knows his trade.
“So she and I left Plymouth in good heart. As did our Earl.
“All now know this learned doctor spake true. Such weather at this time of year never was seen before, but we weren’t driven back to port. What some called a tempest was to us no more than a stiff gale.
“We kept with Lord Thoms Howit’s [Thomas Howard’s] ships and came to the coast of Spain.
“We waited for the others there, and gave the Spaniards good sight of us. They did not come out to fight. We believed they were not readie.
“Then a pinniss [pinnace] brought word from Essicks that we was not to let them see us or do owt before he joined us. Too late for that.
“So Lord Thoms Howit ordered that we run to Plymouth on the wind that would not let the other ships set forth again. And there we lay, whilst vittles were consumed and almost all our soldiers sent home.
“My she-friend and I agreed that were it not for our reputations, we would go ashore and not return to our ships. But there came a fair wind, and all went forth again.”
By the time I’d writ this, my foot and leg aked. I told my niece (listening prick-eared) that she should take up our pen.
But Nero sayt he too was wearie, and would return to end his account on the morrow.
No word of thanks to me.
I was near to telling Nero I was not his secretarie when he added, “My she-friend from the Rainbow told me of another who sought advice from the doctor. A woman whose question touched upon our Earl. I hope I may remember it when next we meet.”
Oh, that cat’s an arrant knave.
The captain of the Rainbow was Sir William Monson (c1568-1643), who’d been knighted the previous year at Cadiz.
He went to Oxford University aged about thirteen, but ran away to sea when he was sixteen. He had a long and adventurous career. Later in life he wrote his account of the war at sea. Edited by the naval historian Michael Oppenheim, it was published in five volumes between 1902 and 1914 by the Navy Records Society.
Sir William was a regular client of the astrologer and medical practitioner Simon Forman (1552-1611) who kept careful notes of his consultations and whose clients represent a cross-section of society.
John Troughton/Traughton, captain of the Garland, had sailed with Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake on their last, disastrous expedition to the West Indies in 1595/96, and sent a report of it to Sir Robert Cecil.
Nero wasn’t the only poet on this voyage (if he went, that is). John Donne, who’d been to Cadiz the previous year, was also there, probably on the Earl of Essex’s ship.
The Earl of Southampton's Cat 
I love the “(in brief)”. Nero must be a very loquacious cat, although he seems to be feeling his age as well.
And John Donne. Now, there’s a man who had a way with words (and women).
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Sorry for the belated reply; for some reason I didn’t see your comment before. A pity John Donne didn’t leave a description of the voyage, though he did send two poems as letters to a friend: The Storm, and The Calm. Both have some vivid images in them.
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I shall look them out. He’s usually worth reading
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Perfect pic of a spy cat.
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It is!
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Such adventures and intrigues…. what a treasure trove you had coming across these. How much more do you have ?
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And to think that somehow this fantastic collection made its way to New Zealand, probably bundled up with the recipe books and other random papers in an immigrant’s sea chest. The pile is diminishing fast.
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You know, for some reason until recently I thought you were in England! It just makes it all the more amazing.
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Excellent as always! I find the information at the bottom so interesting in these posts – especially the fact about John Donne in this one.
Meryl
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Thanks! John Donne seems to have been an adventurous (if not rather wild) young man.
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He’s a deep one, that Nero.
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Poets are a dodgy lot. Was he really on the voyage, or did he spend five or six months living rough in Portsmouth and collecting all the gossip he would need to spin a tale?
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So that’s where I’ve been going wrong!
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Oh clever Nero, always leaving us wanting more. 😎😉
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He’s one sly puss.
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Astrologer and medical practitioner: not a career combination you see very often today!
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A change for the worse, I think. I’d really like to get a horoscope along with my prescription.
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That would make office visits more enticing.
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A delicious post giving eye-witness insights into 16th century naval provenance and group dynamics in a contemporaneous press conference. I don’t think The Niece is to be trusted as an amanuensis though — bad idea, Gib.
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I was struck by what seems to be the origin of our phrase “learning (or knowing) the ropes.”
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Indeed.
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Interesting first-paw accounts, as always. Poor soldiers — they would have gained sea-legs only to be sent home.
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I suspect a fair few of them would have had enough of the sea by then.
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And upon landing would move home to as far from the sea as one can get in England.
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