PLAGUE AND ARMADA

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 10954, 20 July 1929, Page 9

PLAGUE AND ARMADA

STORY OF DRAKE. HISTORY FROM OBSCURE SOURCES. Carlyle, in one of his essays, speaks of . the primal thrill of the historian: “The .thing which I here hold imaged in niy mind did actually occur; in very truth, an element in the system of the All, whereof I. too- form part; had therefore, and lias, through all time, an authentic being: is not a dream, but a reality!” 'lnis “Thing” is tho material which he who would write history must search for and securely possess before he goe.s any farther (writes Edward Shuukc, m John o’ London’s Weekly). Much else we jnay complainingly forgive him, but no failure here. NN e must be convinced that lie has facts at his disposition, and that he has done Ins best to establish their literal accuracy : if we want fancy we will go elsewhere. How does tlie historian find his material? Let us take one small .and simple- instance at random. In the year 1588 the Spanish Armada was proceeding up Channel at night, with tlie English fleet- in attendance. Drake was’leading and upon him the Lord High Admiral depended tor guidance. But during the night lie turned aside, and Howard’s ship, which had picked up the stern lights of one of the Spaniards, supposing them to be His. might have been in great peril. In .the morning, he reappeared with a rich prize and a story of having seen some suspicious sails which lie thought it his duty to investigate. Elizabethean seamen did not naturally consider one another the sellless "and patriotic paladins we nowlike to think them all. A good many thought that Drake had left his place in the line to have tlie _ prize to himself, and that the suspicious sails were an invention. The slur clung, to his name almost to this day. But it so happens that there is evidence extant that it all happened as Drake said. ■ THE “SUSPICIOUS SAIL,.” A fortnight later one of the “suspicious’ sails put into Hamburg, and the correspondent there of the Fuggers, the great German merchants and financiers, whose correspondence was published not long ago in English (Tho Fugger News Letters) hastended to report her skipper s story. It was to the effect that on the night in question he had fallen m with Drake, who had afterwards captured the Spaniard. This instance which I have taken ■from Mr. E- F, Benson’s excellent book on Drake, is, as I say. small and simple enough. Yet Drake’s character ana reputation are matters of concern to Drake’s historian. A\e now know that he did not leave his place in the line merely lor the sake of the booty. But we should not have known it a commercial correspondent of an Augsburg merchant house, who was not aware of any dispute (which, of course, makes liis evidence all the pi ore valuable), had not casually slipped tlie information into liis letter as a matter of passing interest. A DISASTROUS PLAGUE. All historical problems are not solved so easily or so finally. Those who wish to get an idea of the doubts and difficulties besotting tho search for the precious ultimate fact might do worse than read Dr. C. C 4. Couiton’s little sixpenny book on the Black Death (Bonn). This plague, which raged in England in 1348-49, at any rate enormously hastened the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times, not only in England, but also in Europe generally. As an example of the effects attributed to-it I may cite Air. Belloc’s argument (in his History of England, volume iii.j that, by leaving, children of the upper classes to be brought up by uneducated, English-speaking servants, it established English as the seneral language of the country. Now it was so terrible that it filled with horror all the chroniclers who suv r it or thought about it, and since the mediaeval chroniclers are at the best of times weak on figures and prone to exaggerate, we need some definite, independent evidence if we are to estimate the number of deaths it caused Some guide is evidently provided by the episcopal registers showing the appointments of new priests to parishes in each diocese. It dees not give us an entirely reliable index, since a priest who did bis duty would obviously run more risks than most laymen, but we ought- to be able to draw reasonably accurate conclusions from tlie number of new' appointments during these fwo years. There is. however, a limiting consideration, which 'jnost historians have neglected. Most of the registers fail to noto the causes which made new appointments necessary. Fortunately, there are a few that- do, and from analysis of these it is possible to conclude- that the Black Death caused the fearful mortality among the clergy of almost, one priest in two. That conclusion, so briefly stated, is the result of immense labor among documents not even, decipherable without long previous training and experience. And it is of correspondingly immense value to the historian, to”whom it gives a fixed point from which he can proceed to make his picture of England in the Middle Ages. Given the fact, he has still to use other faculties than those required to ascertain - it,; lie' has < also to make sense of it. ' 1,.

But merely hunting the riact is a' sufficiently exciting occupation, and it vastly adds, to our enjoyment in readinG« history if wo accustom ourselves to*watch tlie historian at work, to see liow-he does it, and as Tar as we can, to check his results. The fact is a tremendous acquisition—“an element.” says Carlyle, “in the system of All, whereof 1, too, form part.A. scholar works among office Tiles nearly six hundred years old, and gives us what he has discovered, in -fi' sentence, and suddenly we see., if-we if we have any historical imagination at all, descending among human beings.’like ourselves, a visitation so terrible ithat within two years the pulpits in the land were struck empty by it.