Monson, Sir William (1568?-1643).

manuscript, folio (335 x 205mm.), ff. [3], 68, [2]; 125 [with 2 blanks between fols 30 and 31], [1], ink on paper, 27 lines to a page, text written within a red-ruled frame, dominant watermarks: grapes surmounted by fleur-de-lis, crown with coats of arms [similar to Heawood 664], in two mid-seventeenth century scribal secretary hands, catchwords, contemporary foliation, binding: nineteenth-century red morocco by Hatton of Manchester, gilt Macclesfield arms on upper cover, lacking one final leaf containing slightly more than half of "A farewell to the Gentlemen to whom I dedicated my Booke", original title-leaf bound at the end with a nineteenth-century title substituted at the beginning, final ten leaves somewhat stained

The Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson, ed. M. Oppenheim, 5 vols, Publications of the Naval Records Society, 1902-1914

"To such Comaunders and Gentlemen as were Actors in the warres with Spaine, in the daies of Queene Elizabeth... I have presented unto the viewe of the world the Accidentes and Accurrentes of the late warre with Spaine, In which yow may worthily challenge an Interest by the Adventures of your Persons in soe desperate Expedicions, and wherein your rewards did not equall your desertes, for tyme and Ingratitude, which are the destroyers of all memorable Actes have made them forgotten." (Book Two, fol. 6)

a previously unrecorded manuscript copy of monson's first-hand history of the elizabethan naval war with spain, and the jacobean navy. Sir William Monson (1568?-1643) was a privateer and naval officer, whose long and eventful career was shaped by dramatic political events of the time. In his early years at sea he sailed with many of the great ‘sea dogs’ of the age including Drake and the Earl of Cumberland. Monson volunteered in the defence against the Armada and entered the Queen’s service in the mid-90s, thereafter taking a prominent part in expeditions against Spanish interests and becoming a close ally of the second Earl of Essex. After Essex’s fall he allied himself with the Howard faction and prospered under James I, being given command of the Channel. Like a number of others, however, he took a pension from Spain. In 1613 the Ambassador to Spain, Sir John Digby, discovered this and wrote to the King, describing Monson as “a person employed in your Majesty’s service in a place of so great consequence and trust, that in times of danger if he should be disloyal unto your Majesty [he] might have... great power to do harm” (Oppenheim, I, p.xxiii). Monson was dismissed and a few years later the Howards fell from power, leaving Monson in the political wilderness. He was rehabilitated in his later years and was widely consulted on a wide range of naval issues in the 1620s and 30s, eventually being appointed vice-Admiral of the first Ship Money fleet in 1635.

Monson’s naval tracts were begun in the mid-1620s. With England once again on the verge of war with Spain, Monson provided narratives of the great expeditions of the Elizabethan navy, beginning with Drake’s raids in the Caribbean in the mid 1580s and continuing with a lively account of the Armada. In retrospect he saw the English actions in 1588 as a missed opportunity to obtain complete victory over “this greate, and Conquering Navey”. Monson tends, understandably, to provide longer and more detailed narratives of the many expeditions in which he had himself taken part, although he is always careful to maintain a neutral air and talks of himself in the third person. He gives a detailed account on the daring attack on Cadiz in 1596, describing the tension between the expedition’s two leaders, Essex and Effingham, acknowledging the impetuosity of Essex (“...Though the Earle of Essex his forwardnesse, and carriage merrited much, yet if it had bine with more advisement, and less hast, it would have succeeded better...”), but also describing his spectacular capture of the town:

“Before that the Lord Admirall coulde drawe neare to the Towne, the Earle of Essex had entred it, and... at last in dispite of the enemy gained the market place, where hee found greatest resistance from the howses thereaboutes... The Lord Generall Essex caused the drumme to sound through the Towne, that all those that would yeild should repaire to the Towne howse where theie should have promise of mercie...” (fol. 37)

Monson served again under Essex in the Azores expedition of 1597. Although this raid ended in failure, Monson describes how tantalisingly close they came to taking the Spanish treasure ships when his ship, the Rainbow, was sent alone to check a report of the sighting of the enemy, and within hours came upon a fleet of 25 ships. With no immediate support, Monson “resolved rather to put his persone then shipp in perill... hee betooke himselfe into his boate, and rowed up with the Fleete demandinge of whence theie were, theie answered of Civill in Spaine, theie required of whence hee was hee told them of England, and that the shipp in sight was a gallion of the Queene of England and alone, alleaginge the honor to wyne her, urging them with daring speeches to chase her his drift beinge to drawe, and intice them into the wake of our Fleete” (fols 43v-44r). Despite this act of personal bravery, the Spanish slipped out of sight before Monson’s reinforcements reached him.

Monson excelled himself again in an attack on Lisbon in 1601. On this occasion the prize did not escape and the expedition returned to England with a carrack carrying cargo later sold for nearly £44,000. He describes his own brutal broadside assault that (as the expedition’s leader, Sir Richard Leveson, acknowledged) was crucial to this success:

“...he [Monson] came to an anchor contynuallie fightinge with the Towne, the Forte, the Gallies, and Carracke all at one instant, for hee brought himselfe betwixt them that hee might plaie both his broadsides upon them, there might bee seene the prowes of the Gallies swimminge on th’one side, the slaves for sake them with offer to swim to us every thinge beinge soe confused amongst them...” (fol. 56v)

The second book of naval tracts is much more miscellaneous. In it Monson describes the Earl of Cumberland’s 1598 voyage to Puerto Rico, discusses the peace with Spain, the “supremacy of the Sea of England”, the “state of Portugall”, provides three lists of ships available to the Royal Navy (in the reign of Edward III, in the mid-sixteenth century, and at the death of Elizabeth), and writes about his own naval experiences. The most significant parts of the second book are his highly critical analyses of the actions of the early Stuart navy, especially the failed expeditions against Cadiz in 1625 and the Isle of Ré in 1627.

The first book was complete by 1624, but Monson continued to add to and revise his tracts until his last years, eventually completing six books of tracts. Portions of an autograph manuscript survive (British Library, Sloane MS 2496, fols 113-88), and the work also circulated in scribal copies, although most copies comprise only Monson’s first book. Oppenheim collated nine manuscripts for his edition of Monson (five of book one only), and noted the existence of three more (two of which are lost). Another copy of the first book, once at Warwick Castle, was sold in these rooms on 14 December 1976. The present manuscript, which is previously unrecorded, is texually significant for two reasons. First, it contains the second book, of which only two other manuscripts are known. Second, it represents a different version of the text from that recorded in Oppenheim. The items relating to the Elizabethan navy that are here included in book two were later incorporated into book one, as was the “farewell to the Gentlemen to whome I dedicated my Booke” (which is here incomplete). The present manuscript lacks a number of items later included in book two, including all of those relating to events in the 1630s. Those were presumably later additions, so the present manuscript apparently represents an earlier version of the text than is otherwise known.