One of the noble abbeys demolished in the reign of Henry VIII was that of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. At the site of the ruins there arose a new town to which was drawn the gentry of the outlying manors of Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridge, to live together in a pleasant community. By the last decades of Queen Elizabeth's reign, it had doubtless acquired the characteristics ascribed to it by Daniel Defoe early in the eighteenth century. "It is a town famed for its pleasant situation and wholesome air," he wrote. "This must be attributed to the skill of the monks of those times who chose so beatuiful a situation."
It was in this town that Robert and Martha Golding settled some time before their daughter Martha was born to them and baptized at St. Mary's Church on September 21, 1580. On September 7, 1592, there was buried from St. James' Church, John the son of "Robert Goldyinge." In 1583, the signature of "Robert Goldyinge" appears with that of others of the Guildhall Feoffees (a board of trustees for the holding of town property) on an order concerning almshouses. He was still, or again, a member of this board two years before hisdeath, as the minute-book notes that "Mr. Goldynge" was present at a meeting of April 8, 1608. In the proceedings of the Chancery Court for the reign of Elizabeth I there is a case recorded in which the town of Bury St. Edmunds, represented by Robert Golding, Esq., and others as plaintiffs, sued to recover certain properties belonging to the town's Free Grammar School, founded by King Edward VI. In 1559, as has been mentioned, "Robert Goldynge" was associated with another lawyer of the town in the purchase of a share of a manor at Coddingham.
It was evidently in the town house of his wife's parents at Bury that Bartholomew Gosnold made his home. The baptisms of all but one of his children are entered in the parish register of St. James' Church.
Aprill 24, 1597, Martha Gosnold
October 20, 1600, Robert Gosnold
August 2, 1602, Susan Gosnold
December 16, 1603 Bartholomew Gosnold
December 11, 1605, Paul Gosnold
February 5, 1607, Martha Gosnold
A child born and baptized elsewhere was named Mary, She is mentioned in the will of her grandmother in l614 and in a later will as Bartholomew's oldest (surviving) daughter. She was probably born early 1599.
The first-born Martha had obviously died before a second Martha was given the same name in February, 1607 -- that is, before her ninth year. There is in the same parish register the entry of a burial on December 2, 1598, of one "Martha Gosnold, gent." It has been assumed, questionably, that this records the death of Bartholomew's first child. It is at least unusual, although not impossible, for an infant of less than twenty months to be designated as a gentlewoman. But the more important question is this: if the first-born Martha was over three years dead in 1602, why was the next baby girl to be born named Susan, instead of Martha? It would seem to be within the range of possibility that the Martha Golding baptized in 1580 married a Gosnold, quite likely Bartholomew's brother Anthony, at the age of eighteen, and died shortly after her wedding, on December 2, 1598. Unfortunately there are no further records to clarify the matter; it seems quite unlikely, however, that Bartholomew would have given the name "Martha" to the island of his discovery in America if his first-born child, to whom he had first given the name, had died before that event.
The interval of three and one-half years between the recorded baptisms of his first and second children calls for further explination, which can only be guesswork. It is noticeable that in 1602 and again in 1606 Bartholomew sailed away on expeditions, leaving his wife to bear him a child in his absence. He may have done the same thing late in 1596, or early in 1597, for this is the only interval in which Bartholomew might have had an apprenticeship at sea.
It ought to be said, however, that it is by no means certain that Gosnold needed any such apprenticeship for his voyage of 1602. Gentlemen of tht period seem to have gone to sea in command of ships somewhat as modern a yacht owner takes his vessel out, leaving the business of navigation and the handling of the ship entirely to a sailing master. The function of a captain in that case would be limited to telling the sailing master where he would like to be taken with his settlers or his troops, as the case might be. "Captains" Ratcliffe, Martin, and Archer, for instance, returned to Virginia in command of ships of the third supply under Lord Delaware's deputy, Sir Thomas Gates. John Smith sarcastically writes of them that they were "graced by the title of Captaines of the passengers." One cannot imagine that the argumentative lawyer, Gabriel Archer, knew anything about navigation or the handling of a ship.
If, however, Bartholomew Gosnold did have any training at sea, he possibly obtained it by enlisting under the Earl of Essex in some subordinate capacity in the fleet of the Azors expedition of 1597. The slight indications that this might be so lie in the qcquaintance of Gosnold with officers of the expedition: the Earl of Southampton, who baacked his voyage of 1602, and Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, who were among those whom Bartholomew persuaded to sign the petition to the King for the Virginia Charter. The Earl of Essex himself, as a son-in-law of Sir Francis Walsingham, probably knew that the Secretary of State in his younger days had married into the same Barne family with which the Dudde family was connected; at any rate, the Earl of Essex is known to have been a friend of Sir Thomas Smythe, Bartholomew's first-cousin by marriage. Bartholomew therefore could easily have secured an appointment under the Earl.
A simpler explanation of the three-and-one-half year interval between the baptisms recorded at Bury St. Edmunds may be merely that Bartholomew during these years took his family to a house of his father's in Grundisburgh. There are no parish registers extant for Grundisburgh, Clopton, and Otley in these years. Consequently it may be that Mary Gosnold, and perhaps another, unrecorded, child were born in Grundisburgh (where Bartholomew and his father are known to have had propety at one time), and the record of their baptisms lost. This alternative, however, leaves no interval for Bartholomew to have been at sea for any length of time before he sailed to Norumbega in 1602.
It is needles to suggest that Bartholomew and his wife lived in the ordinary, comfortable manner of the lesser gentry, although little is known specifically. Their sons' names do not appear in the rolls of the Free Grammar School of Bury St Edmunds; it is quite likely they had private tutors, or they may have gone to board at school away from home. Paul eventually matriculated at Cambridge University and entered the ministry, where he suffered in mid-career at the hands of the Puritans. He published a sermon "preached . . . the ninth day of August, 1644," defending monarchy and episcopacy. After Bartholomew's death, Mary Gosnold's second husband, Jasper Sharpe, mentioned in his will that he spent all of her money and a great deal of his own on the upbringing of Bartholomew's children.
Giving historical imagination the reins, however, we may, as part of the family scene at Bury, picture Martha Golding driving up to London in her inherited coach, with its prancing stallions and the Judde coat-of-arms, to call on her nephew, Sir Thomas Smythe, in his counting-house. There we can imagine that she would, with firmness, require nephew Thomas to give her son-in-law Bartholomew all the backing possible to make him an adventurer to America of high standing -- and we can imagine Sir Thomas obligingly complying.
The measure of Martha Golding's devotion to the husband and children of herdaughter Mary is found in her will of 1614. It is a brief and charming document, and is given here, somewhat out of its chronological place, to complete the picture of the household at Bury St. Edmunds.
In the name of god amen the laste daye of November in the yeare of our Lord god one thousande six hundred and Fourtene. I Martha Goldynge of Bury S. Ede in the county of Sufk widowe being sicke in body yet of ye best mynde and memory (thanks to be given to almight god) doe ordayne and make this my psent laste will and Testament, revokinge all former wills by me heretofore made in manner and frome following, that it is to saye: Firste I comend my soule into the merciful hands of almighty god, my maker and redeemer and my body to be buryed in christian buryall at the dexretion of my executrix hereunder named. Item my will and meaneinge is that my executrix and supervisor hereunder named shall within one yeare right after my decease sell to the best advantage and benefytt that she can my gold cheyne and brasiletts and all the beddinge hangings, beste coverlett, quilte, and all the furnyture in my beste chamber, my turky carpet and the livery cupboard clothe suitable to yt, all my gilte and pcell gilte [gilt-lined] plate and allmy damaske and diaper Lynnen [pure white with a pattern, nothing to do with babies] lyeing together in one chiste. And the money thereof comeing (together with one hundred pounds wh lyeth by me in golde) my will and meaninge is shall be equally devyded amongst my grandchildren, that is to say: Robt Gosnold, Bartholomew Gosnolde, Paule Gosnolde, Mary Gosnold, Susan Gosnold and Martha Gosnolde, pt and pt lyke. And to have the same as they shall attayne their sevrall ages on one and twenty years. Itm I give and bequeathe to the saide Mary Gosnold my grandchild sixe silver spoons and sixe gold buttons. Itm I give and bequeathe to the saide Susan Gosnold sixe silver spoones and sexe gold buttons. Itm I give and bequeathe to the saide Martha Gosnold six silver spoones and sixe golde buttons with a lytle Jewell. Itm I give and bequeathe to John Anthony my servante Forty shillings in money and a mourning cloake. Itm I give to Barbara Copsey my servante fyve shillings. Itm I give to John Eagle tenn shillings. All the reste of my goods and chattells as well moveable as ymmoveable of what nature or quality soev therewith of ready money, plate, Jewells, utensills and furnyture of householde whatsover (not before gyven and bequeather) I give and bequeath them to my loving daughter Mary Gosnolde, widowe, whom I doe ordayne and make my sole executrix of this may last will and Testament. And I doe hereby nominaate and appointe my servante Thomas Claydon to be supervisor hereof, and doe give him for his paynes a mourneinge cloake. In whitness whereof I the saide Martha Goldynge have to every leafe of this my last will being in number two put hande and seale the daye and yeare first above wrytten.
Subscrilbed sealed and published by the saide Martha Goldinge for her last will and Testament in the presence of Willyam Partrdge.
