THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408300618
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Francis Limbrecke (alias Francisco Lembri), one of the pilots of Philip II's 1588 Invincible Armada, was a spy for His Catholic Majesty of Spain while being held as a prisoner at Jamestown from 1611 to 1616.
Nothing is known of his early history except that he was born in England around the middle of the 16th century. By the early 1580s, he had defected to the Spanish cause and assumed a Spanish alias. He had also acquired such skill in navigating English waters that he was chosen to guide one of the galleons that made up the 130-ship flotilla that sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, in May 1588 to conquer Protestant England. The mission failed when the armada was almost destroyed on its disastrous cruise around the British Isles.
For the next 23 years, Limbrecke's movements, other than his remaining in Spanish service, are unknown. In 1611, he resurfaced when his employers decided to dispatch him and two others to Virginia to spy on newly established Jamestown. Embarking in a caravel, Limbrecke set sail for Virginia with Don Diego de Molina, the Spanish grandee who masterminded the espionage, and another Spaniard, Marco Antonio Perez.
When the caravel reached Hampton Roads, the trio rowed ashore to Fort Algernon, the first bastion to occupy the site on which Fort Monroe now stands. Pretending to be innocent Spanish wayfarers in search of a lost ammunition ship, the trio requested a pilot to assist their captain to navigate the shoals of Hampton Roads. Temporarily bamboozled, the commander of the fort volunteered the services of Capt. John Clark, a recently arrived Virginia Company pilot.
This kindness was exactly what the spies, who remained on the beach at Point Comfort, had hoped for. As soon as Clark rowed out to the caravel, he was arrested and the ship sailed for Havana. After having remained a Spanish prisoner for several years, Clark finally returned to England and became the pilot of the Mayflower, the ship that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock in 1620.
Meanwhile, Limbrecke, masquerading under the alias Francisco Lembri, and his companions were taken into custody and sent to Jamestown to be interrogated by Sir Thomas Dale, the High Marshal and acting governor of the Virginia colony. Evidently the trio successfully pulled the wool over Dale's eyes, for they escaped hanging as suspected spies by claiming to be Spaniards searching for a lost ship. Once this explanation was grudgingly accepted, the trio circulated freely throughout the settlement, transmitting their observations in code to Don Alonzo de Velasco, the Spanish ambassador in London.
These messages, some of which still exist, were hidden in coils of rope aboard England-bound vessels or were secreted between the double soles of shoes worn by officers or sailors who took the risk of conveying the information, knowing their efforts would be handsomely rewarded.
When Dale learned the Spanish ambassador was insisting that the trio be released, he confined Limbrecke and the others aboard a ship riding at anchor at Jamestown. After Perez's death, Dale also learned the truth concerning Limbrecke, the ``hispanyolated Inglish man'' who had betrayed his country during the 1588 Armada crisis.
Biding his time, Dale kept this information to himself. In 1615, when he set out in the ship Treasurer to take Pocahontas, her husband and their child to England, he included Limbrecke and Molina among the passengers. An agreement had already been tentatively reached to release the high-born Molina once the ship arrived in England. But Limbrecke, being an easily expandable commoner, had no friends at court.
Dale waited until the English coast was visible, then convened a court martial at which Limbrecke was convicted of being a spy and a traitor. He was later hung from the Treasurer's yardarm. by CNB