The Listening Grove · This Country of Ours
Chapter 11: The Adventures of Sir Humphrey Gilbert
A Charlotte Mason read-aloud lesson. Press play, with the lesson.
What is This Country of Ours Chapter 11, The Adventures of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, about?Parent review
This Country of Ours Chapter 11, The Adventures of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, closes the section with England's first attempt at a colony under a royal charter. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother to Walter Raleigh, sails with five ships. Almost at once things go wrong: ships desert, men fall sick. He reaches Newfoundland and at St. John's harbor takes possession for England, setting up the arms of England engraved on lead and fixed to a pillar of wood. Then his largest ship, the Delight, is lost with most of his company. Cold and hunger force him to give up the search and turn for home, and he will not leave his men for the safer ship, staying aboard the tiny overloaded Squirrel. In a high sea she goes down with everyone aboard, and only the Golden Hind comes home to tell it.
Say what you remember!
Tell what you remember from the last chapter.
What happened in This Country of Ours Chapter 10, How a Frenchman Avenged the Death of His Countrymen?Have a look
In Chapter 10, How a Frenchman Avenged the Death of His Countrymen, France did nothing about the killings in Florida, so Dominique de Gourgues sold his estate, sailed in secret, and allied with the Timucua, who had come to hate the Spaniards. Together they took the three Spanish forts. Gourgues hanged the garrisons on the same trees Menendez had used and nailed up a tablet answering the one Menendez left, then burned the forts and sailed home to live hunted for years. Nothing was restored.
Read the previous lesson: How a Frenchman Avenged the Death of His Countrymen →Show what you know!
Use your printable Lesson Guide. Fill in the vocabulary you know, then click to check your work and learn some new words today.
What are the difficult or advanced vocabulary words in This Country of Ours Chapter 11, The Adventures of Sir Humphrey Gilbert?interloper, league, undaunted, commissionHave a look
- interloper: someone who intrudes where they do not belong
- league: an old measure of distance, roughly three miles
- undaunted: not discouraged in the face of danger
- commission: a written order from a ruler giving someone power
Locate it on the map!
Use your printable Lesson Guide. Use an atlas and fill in the blank map if you can find the geographic location, then click to check your work.
What important geographic locations connect with This Country of Ours Chapter 11, The Adventures of Sir Humphrey Gilbert?
- Find
- Newfoundland
- England
- Canada
- the Gulf of St. Lawrence
- Find and Label
- St. John’s (Newfoundland)
See it on the mapHave a look
This matches the map in your Lesson Guide.
The Books come Alive!
Read or listen to Chapter 11 of This Country of Ours, the Kindred Thicket Revised Edition.
Read by Kindred Thicket from the This Country of Ours Kindred Thicket Revised Edition.
What corrections are made in Chapter 11 of This Country of Ours?Parent review
This is a Kindred Thicket Revised Edition. Factual and historical errors are corrected and dated wording is put right, and these notes tell you plainly what we changed and what we left as Marshall wrote it.
- About this sectionThroughout this section we brought Marshall’s British spellings to American English, keeping the original spelling inside quoted material.
- Kindred Thicket Revised Edition UpdatesIn This Country of Ours Chapter 11 we thoroughly examined and researched the chapter's contents. Two things needed our attention, both small. Marshall calls Walter Raleigh Gilbert's step-brother. The two shared a mother, Catherine Champernowne, and had different fathers, which makes them half-brothers, and the text now says so. She also calls Gilbert the first Englishman ever to attempt to found a colony in America. Martin Frobisher had made an attempt of his own five years earlier, though without a royal charter, so the text now names Gilbert the first to attempt it under a Royal Charter. The distinction is what makes the claim true.
- Teacher's Notes“the wild riff-raff of the sea of which his company was formed”Gilbert's crew is dismissed as riff-raff of the sea. That is the language of a time that judged men by their birth, and the sailors left no account of their own.
- “he landed and solemnly took possession of the country for two hundred leagues north, south, east and west”Newfoundland is claimed here as though no one lived there. The Beothuk and the Mi'kmaq were already living on that coast, and had been for a very long time.
- “Thus began the long two hundred years’ struggle between the French and English”The two hundred years' struggle is a round figure. Different starting points give different totals; from the first French colonies to the fall of New France is nearer a hundred and fifty.
Memory becomes Action!
Use the Response Resource* to remember and spell tricky names. Choose one way to narrate.
*Materials in the Lesson Guide.
What is the list of names, people, characters, and places that are important in Chapter 11 of This Country of Ours?Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth, Newfoundland, St. John's, The Squirrel, The Golden Hind, The Raleigh, the Delight and the SwallowHave a look
- Sir Humphrey Gilbert: An English knight, Walter Raleigh's half-brother.
- Walter Raleigh: Gilbert's half-brother and backer.
- Queen Elizabeth: The queen of England, the source of Gilbert's commission.
- Newfoundland: The northern land Gilbert claimed for England.
- St. John's: The Newfoundland harbour where Gilbert claimed the land.
- The Squirrel: The little ship Gilbert sailed in.
- The Golden Hind: The one ship of the expedition to reach home.
- The Raleigh, the Delight and the Swallow: The other three of Gilbert's five ships.
Chapter 11 Q & A
This is a Kindred Thicket Revised Edition. Marshall’s 1917 history is beautiful but not always right, and here is what the record supports for this chapter.
Was Walter Raleigh Gilbert's step-brother?
Half-brother, and we corrected it. The two shared a mother, Catherine Champernowne, and had different fathers. Raleigh helped finance the venture but did not sail on it.
Was Gilbert the first Englishman to try to found a colony in America?
The first to attempt it under a Royal Charter, which is the distinction that makes the claim true. Martin Frobisher had made an attempt of his own five years earlier, though without a charter, so we qualified Marshall's wording.
Did anyone already live in Newfoundland?
Yes. Gilbert claims the country as though no one lived there, but the Beothuk and the Mi'kmaq were already living on that coast, and had been for a very long time.
Why did Gilbert stay on the smaller ship?
Because his men were on her. The Squirrel was tiny and dangerously overloaded, and he was urged to move to the safer Golden Hind, and refused. It is the reason the chapter is remembered, and it cost him his life.
Were Gilbert's crew really riff-raff of the sea?
That is the language of a time that judged men by their birth. The sailors left no account of their own, so we have only their commander's side of it.
Was the struggle between France and England really two hundred years?
It is a round figure. Different starting points give different totals; from the first French colonies to the fall of New France is nearer a hundred and fifty.
How does this section end?
In failure, like most of it. Of the ventures in these eleven chapters, nearly every European colony is destroyed, abandoned, or starved out. Marshall does not draw the moral. The sequence does it for her, and what remains from Gilbert's voyage is the claim and the example rather than a settlement.