Edward Maria Wingfield - Removed As President

Removed As President

On September 10, 1607, amid starvation and attacks from native tribes, Wingfield was arrested and deposed from his presidency. The now ex-President was arraigned on the following charges (just as in 1609 the 4th Governor/President Percy - with ex-President (the 2nd) Ratcliffe, Archer and Martin - was to send the ex-President Smith (the 3rd president) home to answer eight similar, more serious charges):

(1) Denying Ratcliffe a penny whittle (pocket knife), a chicken and a spoonful of beer. .

(2) Serving (Ratcliffe, a.k.a.) Sicklemore with foul corn. .

(3) Calling Smith a liar.

(4) Accusing Smith of concealing a mutiny plotted and confessed by Galthrop or Calthorpe, Gent.

(5) Denying Martin a spoonful of beer. Starving Martin's son to death.

(6)"Did but tend his pot, spit and oven".

(7)Accusing Smith's old comrade-in-arms from Transylvania, "Jehu Robinson, Gentleman" and others of "consenting to run away with the shallop" to Newfoundland (as it was later called).

(8)Starving the colony. .

(9)"Banquet and riot, in that he did feed himself and his servants out to the common store."

In President Wingfield's time everyone was fed out of the common store, although there may have been separate Mess areas for the Council, the Gentlemen and labourers. Clearly, if this charge were true, it would have been made to stick. "Mr. Smith, in the time of our hunger", wrote Edward Maria, "had spread a rumour in the colony that I did feast my servants out of the common store, with intent, as I gathered, to have stirred the discontented company against me". No other writer of this period even implies that the President was requisitioning extra rations for himself or his servants. Wingfield started bartering with the Indians and/or stocked up with shot game, "for, as his store increased, he mended the common pot: he had laid up besides, provision for 3 weeks' wheat beforehand...I was all for one and one to all." Since Newport's return was a long way off, Edward Maria had imposed fair, very strict - and naturally very unpopular - rationing on the settlers].

In his Discourse, President Wingfield "replies" to the following "extra" charges:

(10) "That I combined with the Spaniards to the destruction of the colony".

(11) "That I am an atheist, because I carried not a bible, and because I forbid the preacher to preach". Why was President Wingfield accused of being an atheist? Because (a) he had no bible with him, (b) he cancelled two - or three - sermons, and (c) after he had been deposed, he failed to attend church on one or two occasions. .

(12) "That I affected a kingdom".

(13) "That I did hide the common provision in the ground". .

A 14th "charge" is suggested by Smith's biographer, Philip L. Barbour: "that Wingfield was implicated in the planned escape in the pinnace to Spain (not England) by Kendall". He wrote that Kendall began whispering about abandoning the colony - "perhaps with the connivance of Wingfield...and Wingfield seemed implicated" etc.. His primary source was presumably Thomas Studley (or, rather, Smith - see note below), who in June 1608 wrote: "Wingfield and Kendall, living in disgrace... strengthened themselves with the sailors and confederates to regain their former credit and authority, or at least such means aboard the pinnace.. to alter her course, and to go for England... Smith...forced them to stay or sink in the river. Which action cost the life of Kendall ".

Smith further wrote: "The President and Captain Archer, not long after, intended also, to have abandoned the country".

Wingfield, however, was not charged with desertion - or he too would surely have been shot. It would seem that Smith got confused, accidentally or deliberately, over the dates of two or three different incidents. Indeed in 1608 Smith had also written: "Our store being now indifferently well provided with corn there was much ado for to have the pinnace go to England, against which Captain Martin and myself stood chiefly against it: and in fine after many debatings pro et contra, it was resolved to stay a further resolution." Some time after Kendall was shot, Wingfield came ashore from the pinnace and stated to Smith and Archer that: "I was determined to go to England to acquaint our Council of our weaknesses... I said further, I desired not to go into England, if either Mr. President would go."

The President by then was Ratcliffe. Smith's biographer, Philip L. Barbour, who wrote of "John Smith's usual exaggeration", describes "the superlative pettiness" of the charges against Wingfield..."none of the accusations against him amounted to anything - not even Archer's assertion that he was in league with the Spaniards to destroy the colony."

When the pragmatic Captain Newport, 47, arrived with the First Supply, he found young Smith, 27 - having been charged with losing two men to the Indians - also under restraint - for the second time; and he was, also for the second time since the expedition had set out, due to be hanged (on the morrow). Newport released Wingfield and Smith, waiving all but one of the charges against them both as petty, but he did not reinstate Wingfield, as the charge of being an atheist was so serious that he would have to be sent to England to be tried for it - just as Smith was to be later.