George Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland, has fought bravely in
the Low Countries. He is to stay five years in Virginia, to serve there a
short time as Governor, and then, returning to England, is to write "A
Trewe Relacyion", in which he begs to differ from John Smith's "Generall
Historie." Finally, he goes again to the wars in the Low Countries, serves
with distinction, and dies, unmarried, at the age of fifty-two. His
portrait shows a long, rather melancholy face, set between a lace collar
and thick, dark hair.
A Queen and a Cardinal--Mary Tudor and Reginald Pole--had stood sponsors
for the father of Edward-Maria Wingfield. This man, of an ancient and
honorable stock, was older than most of his fellow adventurers to Virginia.
He had fought in Ireland, fought in the Low Countries, had been a prisoner
of war. Now he was presently to become "the first president of the first
council in the first English colony in America." And then, miseries
increasing and wretched men being quick to impute evil, it was to be held
with other assertions against him that he was of a Catholic family, that he
traveled without a Bible, and probably meant to betray Virginia to the
Spaniard. He was to be deposed from his presidency, return to England,
and there write a vindication. "I never turned my face from daunger, or
hidd my handes from labour; so watchful a sentinel stood myself to myself."
With John Smith he had a bitter quarrel.
Upon the Discovery is one who signed himself "John Radclyffe, comenly
called," and who is named in the London Company's list as "Captain John
Sicklemore, alias Ratcliffe.
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