Ah, another historical figure dragged from the merciful obscurity of the past. Let’s get this over with. You wanted to know about William Strachey, a man who achieved the singular distinction of being interesting almost entirely by accident. Try to keep up.
William Strachey
William Strachey (circa 1572–1621) was an English writer whose life reads like a series of unfortunate, yet meticulously documented, events. His primary claim to your fleeting attention is his eyewitness account of the 1609 shipwreck of the colonial ship Sea Venture on the uninhabited island of Bermuda. This little misadventure, and his subsequent survival, provided the raw, salty material for what is arguably his only truly significant work: a letter titled A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight.
This document, a masterpiece of corporate disaster reporting, is widely believed by people who enjoy such debates to be a primary source for William Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. So, in essence, Strachey’s legacy is being the uncredited research assistant for a much better writer. He later became the Secretary of the Colony of Virginia, a role that involved recording the slow-motion collapse of the Jamestown settlement during a period so bleak they called it the "Starving Time." It seems his specialty was documenting misery with remarkable clarity.
Early Life and Predictable Disappointments
Born in the market town of Saffron Walden, Essex, around 1572, William was the grandson of a man of the same name who had cannily acquired former monastery lands following Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries. This suggests a family with a talent for being in the right place at the right time, a talent William himself seems to have tragically misplaced.
He was packed off to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1588, because that's what one did. He left without a degree, which was not uncommon for gentlemen who felt the actual education part was optional. He then drifted to Gray's Inn in London, not necessarily to practice law, but to acquire the social polish and connections required for a man of his station. It was here he likely developed a taste for literature and theatre, rubbing shoulders with the city's literary figures, including poets and playwrights like Ben Jonson and John Donne.
In 1595, he married Frances Forster. The union produced two children, William and Edmund, and apparently, a significant amount of debt. By the early 1600s, Strachey's financial situation was, to put it politely, a disaster. His inheritance was gone, squandered on a lifestyle that his income could not support. This desperation likely fueled his later colonial ambitions; after all, the New World was marketed as a place where a man could reinvent his fortunes, or at least escape his creditors. His friendship with the poet Thomas Campion and his connections at Gray's Inn placed him in the orbit of the Virginia Company of London, a joint-stock company with a royal charter and a shockingly optimistic business plan for colonizing North America.
The Shipwreck That Made a Career
By 1606, Strachey was living in London, a shareholder in the Virginia Company and a man desperately in need of a second act. He briefly served as the secretary to the English Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Sir Thomas Glover, in Constantinople. This ended poorly, with Glover dismissing him for reasons that remain conveniently vague, though "insolence" is a term that has been floated.
Returning to London with his prospects dimmer than ever, Strachey pinned his hopes on the New World. In 1609, he purchased two shares in the Virginia Company and sailed for the colony aboard the Sea Venture. This was the flagship of the Third Supply fleet, a massive flotilla designed to rescue the failing Jamestown settlement. The ship carried the colony's new leadership, including the appointed governor, Sir Thomas Gates, and the admiral, Sir George Somers.
Naturally, it all went wrong. A massive storm, likely a hurricane, scattered the fleet. The Sea Venture was wrecked on the reefs of Bermuda, an archipelago sailors called the "Isle of Devils." Miraculously, all 150 people aboard, and one dog, survived. They found themselves stranded on a surprisingly hospitable island. For the next ten months, the castaways, under the leadership of Gates and Somers, constructed two new ships, the Deliverance and the Patience, from the island's cedar trees and the wreckage of their old vessel.
Strachey, ever the diligent secretary, documented everything: the terror of the storm, the political squabbles among the survivors, the island's flora and fauna, and the sheer, grinding effort of their survival. This account, his A True Reportory, was not merely a log; it was a carefully crafted narrative intended for the Virginia Company's investors, proving that God's providence—and English ingenuity—had prevailed. It was also, incidentally, a stunning piece of prose.
Secretary of a Dying Colony
When the survivors finally reached Jamestown in May 1610, they didn't find a thriving outpost. They found a charnel house. The "Starving Time" had reduced the population of several hundred colonists to a mere 60 skeletal survivors. The fort was a ruin, and the fields were fallow. Strachey's official appointment as Secretary of the Colony meant his first job was to record the full scope of this horror. He described a scene of cannibalism, disease, and total despair, a grim counterpoint to his tale of survival in Bermuda.
His tenure in Virginia was brief but eventful. He worked under the command of Governor Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, who arrived just in time to prevent the colony's complete abandonment. Strachey's duties included cataloging the region's natural resources and observing the local Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy. His writings provide some of the earliest and most detailed English descriptions of Native American culture in the region, though viewed, of course, through the deeply biased lens of a 17th-century Englishman. He met the famed Pocahontas, describing her as a spirited and cartwheeling child, long before she became a figure of colonial propaganda.
Writings and Unfulfilled Ambitions
Strachey returned to England in late 1611, his pockets still empty but his portfolio full of manuscripts. He spent the rest of his life trying, and mostly failing, to turn his experiences into lasting fame and fortune.
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A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight: His masterpiece, circulated in manuscript form long before it was officially published in 1625. Its vivid descriptions of the storm, the island, and the mutinous tensions among the survivors are thought to have directly influenced Shakespeare's depiction of the shipwreck and enchanted island in The Tempest. While direct proof is, as always, elusive, the parallels are too striking for most scholars to ignore.
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The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia: This was meant to be his magnum opus, a comprehensive account of Virginia's geography, nature, and native inhabitants. He dedicated it to Sir Francis Bacon in 1612, hoping for patronage to get it published. It never was. The manuscript languished in obscurity until the Hakluyt Society finally published it in 1849. It remains a vital, if deeply flawed, source for understanding the early years of the Virginia colony and the Powhatan people.
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Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall: Not his own work, but a compilation of the draconian legal code established in Virginia by Sir Thomas Dale. Strachey edited and published this in 1612, perhaps as a grim warning or a manual for how to rule a failing enterprise with an iron fist.
Later Life and Anonymity
Despite his literary efforts, Strachey never escaped his financial woes. He continued to write, including poetry, but never achieved the recognition he sought. He died in London in the summer of 1621 and was buried at St Giles' Church, Camberwell, though the exact location of his grave is unknown. A fittingly anonymous end for a man whose most famous work was overshadowed by a play and whose life's ambition was published two centuries after his death. He remains a crucial source for historians of early America and a tantalizing footnote for students of Shakespeare—a ghost in the literary machine.