The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Sunday 15 April 2007

A Visit to the Old Dominion

At the beginning of May, Queen Elizabeth II will be journeying once again to the United States to participate in the festivities marking the 400^th anniversary of the first permanent English colony in North America at Jamestown in Virginia. Her Majesty has been to the U.S. several times, both on official and unofficial visits, but this will be an especially interesting experience of d�j� vu since she also participated as Queen in the 350^th anniversary observances at Jamestown in 1957. Her trip will also include a personal side trip to attend the most famous of all U.S. horse races, The Kentucky Derby, fulfilling a long held desire. (Princess Margaret attended the Derby thirty-some years ago, but this will be the Queen�s first time.) The royal trip will then wrap up with an official dinner at the White House.

There are several unique ties between Elizabeth II and the �Old Dominion� of Virginia. The state is named, after all, for her namesake predecessor Elizabeth I �the Virgin Queen.� The James River and Jamestown itself were named for Elizabeth II�s twelfth generation ancestor, James VI & I of Scotland and Great Britain. And, one of H.M.�s ancestors via the late Queen Mother was an early Virginia colonist, Colonel Augustine Warner. Col. Warner also happened to have been the great-grandfather of George Washington, and an ancestral uncle of the Confederate General Robert E. Lee. So, the Queen comes to the party as �kin� of the founders.

A visit to Jamestown brings one to a site that was long virtually deserted. Less than a century after the founding, the capitol of colonial Virginia moved a few miles inland from the tiny little island village to the new town of Williamsburg, where H.M. is due to stay during this trip. For a long time the only surviving bit of old Jamestown was the ruinous brick church tower dating from the late 17^th century. During the 20^th century a small brick chapel believed to be in the style of the era was constructed adjoining the tower. An interesting reproduction fort was also constructed, but the site of the original fort and village was believed to have been long since washed away by the river.

Within the last twenty years, however, archaeologists re-examining the old records decided that the fort site might not have eroded away, and began digging. Their efforts have been grandly rewarded. The remains of the fort were found, with many artifacts, graves, and supporting evidence for the early years of hardship and near failure of the colony. There was even a historical who-done-it at the dig after the discovery of the remains of a colonist who had apparently been shot with one of the English weapons. The Queen is said to have expressed a particular desire to visit the dig during her upcoming visit.

The legends of Jamestown are many. The tales of the redoubtable Captain John Smith, of the Indian Princess Pocahantas, of the first commercial tobacco plantation founded by Pocahantas�s husband John Rolfe, the founding of the first representative legislature in the New World, and the beginnings of the tragedy of Negro slavery in North America are all stories of Jamestown. After becoming a Christian and marrying John Rolfe, Pocahantas herself actually journeyed to England and was presented at the court of James I as the Lady Rebecca. Then, just as she was about to return to Virginia she died, and is buried in England. Her husband, nonetheless, returned and from their surviving daughter many distinguished Virginians and U.S. citizens have descended.

More than any other U.S. state, Virginia feels English. The Tidewater is a region of old family estates� the homes of Virginia gentry comprised of families like the Carters, Harrisons and Randolphs, who were variously related to folks like the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Madisons, and Lees. It is a place of lovely old brick mansions, and glorious gardens, and even of foxhunting. Virginia is a place of little rural Episcopal churches � some of them now front-line enclaves in the ongoing struggles of the Anglican Communion. Unlike the grim Puritan heritage of New England, Virginia was a Cavalier colony where Christmas was kept when banned in Britain. And it was a place where the American Revolution was often somewhat reluctantly embraced� even by the Queen�s cousin at Mount Vernon. In modern tourist Virginia, the reminders of monarchial America are encountered at many turns.

Some years ago I greatly enjoyed a day with friends touring Colonial Williamsburg, restored by the Rockefeller family in the 1930s. As we toured the reconstructed Governor�s Palace we enjoyed the account given by the elegantly costumed docent in her distinctively clipped Tidewater accent. But she made one wee mistake. Toward the end of the tour, she referred to Lord Dunmore as the last �English� Governor of the Colony who fled in the early stages of the American Revolution. After everyone had left the room to head out into the gardens I turned back to her and said, �Oh by the way, Lord Dunmore was actually a Scot from the Murray clan, and wore the kilt in Williamsburg while it was illegal back in Scotland.� The gracious lady immediately acknowledged that I was right, and apologized. But that is not quite the whole tale.

That last Royal Governor, John Murray 4^th Earl of Dunmore, had a daughter named Augusta. And some years after Lord Dunmore�s misadventures in Virginia the Lady Augusta Murray became the morganatic wife of George III�s son Augustus, Duke of Sussex. Hence, not only does the Queen have familial ties to the beginnings of the Colony of Virginia, but she has an ancestral auntie connected to the final moments of its ties to the Crown.

It seems ever-so-fitting that the woman who has presided so graciously and effectively over the transition of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations will grace the celebrations of the founding first of those colonies.  But there is a final significance to this trip that bears notice.  2009 � just two years hence -- will mark the 70^th anniversary of the visit of the Queen�s parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, to the United States.  That 1939 visit was the first of a reigning British monarch to the U.S., and did much to lay the foundations of the close relationship between the two nations that grew during the ensuing years of World War II.  That visit will also, undoubtedly, be in Her Majesty�s thoughts as she visits the White House.  The links between the two countries are very personal to the Queen.  No one could better or more directly and personally, symbolize the enduring ties of interrelationship that link Great Britain and the United States.

Yours Aye,

- Ken Cuthbertson