Richard Hakluyt (; 1553 – 23 November 1616) was an English writer and priest. He is known for promoting the English colonization of North America through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) and The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589–1600).
Hakluyt was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. Between 1583 and 1588 he was chaplain and secretary to Sir Edward Stafford, English ambassador at the French court. An ordained priest, Hakluyt held important positions at Bristol Cathedral and Westminster Abbey and was personal chaplain to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, principal Secretary of State to Elizabeth I and James I. He was the chief promoter of a petition to James I for letters patent to colonize Virginia, which were granted to the London Company and Plymouth Company (referred to collectively as the Virginia Company) in 1606. The Hakluyt Society, which publishes scholarly editions of primary records of voyages and travels, was named after him in its 1846 formation.
Biography Family, early life and education Hakluyt's patrilineal ancestors were of Welsh extraction, rather than Dutch as is often suggested;It has been suggested that the Hakluyts were originally Dutch, but this appears to be a misconception: see the introduction of they appear to have settled in Herefordshire in England around the 13th century, and, according to antiquary John Leland, took their surname from the "Forest of Cluid in Radnorland". "Cluid" was possibly a place called Clwyd in Radnorshire; whether this is the same as present-day Clwyd is unknown. Some of Hakluyt's ancestors established themselves at Yatton in Herefordshire,"Richard Hakluyt", § 13 in pt. IV ("The Literature of the Sea") of vol. IV of John Winter Jones, "Introduction" of It has been claimed that the Hakluyts were given "Eaton Hall" (Yatton?) by Owain Glyndŵr when he invaded that part of Herefordshire in 1402: see and must have ranked amongst the principal landowners of the county. A person named Hugo Hakelute, who may have been an ancestor or relative of Richard Hakluyt, was elected Member of Parliament for the borough of Yatton in 1304 or 1305,See the introduction of It states that this took place in the 14th century. and between the 14th and 16th centuries five individuals surnamed "de Hackluit" or "Hackluit" were sheriffs of Herefordshire. A man named Walter Hakelut was knighted in the 34th year of Edward I (1305) and later killed at the Battle of Bannockburn, and in 1349 Thomas Hakeluyt was chancellor of the diocese of Hereford. Records also show that a Thomas Hakeluytt was in the wardship of Henry VIII (reigned 1509–1547) and Edward VI (reigned 1547–1553).See also Leland, Itinerary of John Leland, p. 75: "From Leonminster to Eyton a mile of by west northe west. One William Hakcluit that was with Kynge Henry the 5. at the batell of Egen Courte set up a house at this village, and purchasyd lands to it. ... Hakcluit now lyvyinge is the third in descent of the house of Eiton. ... There were 3. knyghts of the Hakcluiths about the tyme of Kynge Edward the 3. whereof one was namyd Edmund. It chauncid in Kynge Edward the 3. tyme that one of the Hakcluids toke parte with Llewelin, Prince of Walys, agayn Kynge Edward the 3. Whereupon his lands were attayntyd and devolvid to the Kynge or to Mortimer lord of Radenor, and never were restoryd. There was at that tyme one of the Hakcluiths that fledd into the mountains of Walis, and livyd as a banishid man, but he aftar was pardonyd, and havynge a knyght that tenderyd hym because he was his godsonne or kynesman, and had noe ysswe, he made hym his heire, and those lands yet remayn to the elder howse of the Hakcluiths."
Richard Hakluyt, the second of four sons, was born in Eyton in Herefordshire in 1553. Hakluyt's father, also named Richard Hakluyt, was a member of the Worshipful Company of Skinners whose members dealt in skins and furs. He died in 1557 when his son was aged about five years, and his wife Margery followed soon after. Hakluyt's cousin, also named Richard Hakluyt, of the Middle Temple, became his guardian.
While a Queen's Scholar at Westminster School, Hakluyt visited his guardian, whose conversation, illustrated by "certain bookes of cosmographie, an universall mappe, and the Bible", made Hakluyt resolve to "prosecute that knowledge, and kind of literature".Hakluyt's dedication to Sir Francis Walsingham of the work The spelling has been modernized. Entering Christ Church, Oxford,There does not appear to be any monument to Hakluyt either in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, or elsewhere in the grounds of Christ Church, Oxford. in 1570 with financial support from the Skinners' Company, "his exercises of duty first performed", he set out to read all the printed or written voyages and discoveries that he could find. He took his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) on 19 February 1574, and shortly after taking his Master of Arts (M.A.) on 27 June 1577, began giving public lectures in geography. He was the first to show "both the old imperfectly composed and the new lately reformed mappes, globes, spheares, and other instruments of this art". Hakluyt held on to his studentship at Christ Church between 1577 and 1586, although after 1583 he was no longer resident in Oxford.
Hakluyt was ordained in 1578, the same year he began to receive a "pension" from the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers to study divinity. The pension would have lapsed in 1583, but William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, intervened to have it extended until 1586 to aid Hakluyt's geographical research.
At the English Embassy in Paris
Hakluyt's first publicationThe Galileo Project errs in identifying Hakluyt's first publication as A Shorte and Briefe Narration of the Two Nauigations and Discoueries to the Northwest Partes Called Newe Fraunce (1580), a translation of Bref Récit et Succincte Narration de la Navigation Faite en MDXXXV et MDXXXVI () by French navigator Jacques Cartier, which was a description of his second voyage to Canada in 1535–1536; however, the British Library's copy of this work indicates it was translated from an Italian version into English by John Florio. () Hakluyt did prepare his own translation of the Italian version of the work, but only published it in the third volume of the expanded edition of The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation (1600) (). was one that he wrote himself, Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America and the Ilands Adjacent unto the Same, Made First of all by our Englishmen and Afterwards by the Frenchmen and Britons (1582).
Hakluyt's Voyages brought him to the notice of Lord Howard of Effingham, and Sir Edward Stafford, Lord Howard's brother-in-law. At the age of 30, being acquainted with "the chiefest captaines at sea, the greatest merchants, and the best mariners of our nation", he was selected as chaplain and secretary to accompany Stafford, now English ambassador at the French court, to Paris in 1583. In accordance with the instructions of Secretary Francis Walsingham, he occupied himself chiefly in collecting information of the Spanish and French movements, and "making diligent inquirie of such things as might yield any light unto our westerne discoveries in America".Quoted in Although this was his only visit to Continental Europe in his life, he was angered to hear the limitations of the English in terms of travel being discussed in Paris.
The first fruits of Hakluyt's labours in Paris were embodied in his important work entitled A Particuler Discourse Concerninge the Greate Necessitie and Manifolde Commodyties That Are Like to Growe to This Realme of Englande by the Westerne Discoueries Lately Attempted, Written in the Yere 1584, which Sir Walter Raleigh commissioned him to prepare. The manuscript, lost for almost 300 years, was published for the first time in 1877. Hakluyt revisited England in 1584, and laid a copy of the Discourse before Elizabeth I (to whom it had been dedicated) together with his analysis in Latin of Aristotle's Politicks. His objective was to recommend the enterprise of establishing English plantations in the region of North America not yet colonized by Europeans, and thus gain the Queen's support for Raleigh's expedition. In May 1585 when Hakluyt was in Paris with the English Embassy, the Queen granted to him the next prebendary at Bristol Cathedral that should become vacant,According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, above, the Queen granted Hakluyt the next vacant prebendal stall at Bristol Cathedral two days before his return to Paris. to which he was admitted in 1585 or 1586 and held with other preferments till his death.
Hakluyt's other works during his time in Paris consisted mainly of translations and compilations, with his own dedications and prefaces. These latter writings, together with a few letters, are the only extant material out of which a biography of him can be framed. Hakluyt interested himself in the publication of the manuscript journal of René Goulaine de Laudonnière, L'histoire notable de la Floride située ès Indes Occidentales in Paris in 1586. The attention that the book excited in Paris encouraged Hakluyt to prepare an English translation and publish it in London under the title A Notable Historie Containing Foure Voyages Made by Certayne French Captaynes unto Florida (1587). The same year, his edition of Peter Martyr d'Anghiera's De Orbe Nouo Decades Octo saw the light at Paris.At Hakluyt's recommendation, the work was translated into English by Michael Lok and published as This work contains an exceedingly rare copperplate map dedicated to Hakluyt and signed F. G. (supposed to be Francis Gualle); it is the first on which the name "Virginia" appears.
Return to England
In 1588 Hakluyt finally returned to England with Douglas Sheffield, Baroness Sheffield, after a residence in France of nearly five years. In 1589 he published the first edition of his chief work, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, using eyewitness accounts as far as possible. In the preface to this he announced the intended publication of the first terrestrial globe made in England by Emery Molyneux.
Between 1598 and 1600 appeared the final, reconstructed and greatly enlarged edition of The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation in three volumes. In the dedication of the second volume (1599) to his patron, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Hakluyt strongly urged the minister as to the expediency of colonising Virginia. A few copies of this monumental work contain a map of great rarity, the first on the Mercator projection made in England according to the true principles laid down by Edward Wright. Hakluyt's great collection has been called "the Prose Epic of the modern English nation" by historian James Anthony Froude.
On 20 April 1590 Hakluyt was instituted to the clergy house of Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford, Suffolk, by Lady Stafford, who was the Dowager Baroness Sheffield. He held this position until his death, and resided in Wetheringsett through the 1590s and frequently thereafter. In 1599, he became an adviser to the newly-founded East India Company, and in 1601 he edited a translation from the Portuguese of Antonio Galvão's The Discoveries of the World.
Later life