POCAHONTAS IN ENGLAND.
On Page 1 we saw how Pocahontas, the American Indian Princess, saved the Englishman John Smith from almost certain death. She became a Christian, married John Rolfe and had a young son Thomas. Her husband was now going to return to England on business and Pocahontas, was to accompany him.
It had, for a long time now, been difficult to attract new financial backers and colonists to the Virginia Settlement, therefore in 1616 a voyage was arranged to England.
The purpose was to try and convince a doubting public, that the natives were friendly, that they could be colonized, and of course settling in the colony was safe beyond question.
In order to create the maximum publicity possible, they took around a dozen Algonquian Indians with them, including their young son Thomas.
On arrival in England, she discovered that her old friend John Smith was alive and well and living in London. They did not meet at this point, but on hearing of her arrival, John Smith wrote to Queen Anne, ( the wife of King James I ) urging that the Indian Princess, should be treated as a royal visitor, with the respect she deserved.
He was suggesting that England might lose the chance of a Kingdom if she was scorned in any way.
ABOVE: A PORTRAIT OF KING JAMES I OF ENGLAND, JAMES VI OF SCOTLAND.
Pocahontas was subsequently presented to King James I and other members of the royal family, where it was recorded that she made a most favourable impression.
Invitations to several more social occasions followed, her qualities being praised wherever she went. It was at one of these gatherings where inevitably, she was destined to bump into John Smith, and so it happened.
According to Smith, when they met, she was so overcome, that she just stayed on her own for several hours. It was much later when they did eventually speak, but as Smith recorded, she made him feel very uneasy by calling him "father".
When he objected to this form of greeting she replied, "did you not call Powhatan, father when you were a stranger in Virginia."
It is known that she stayed at The Belle Sauvage, one of the largest and most famous galleried coaching inns in London, which was situated on the north side of Ludgate Hill and the south side of the moat around Fleet Prison.
The entrance to the outer courtyard of the inn, stood at what is now Lime Burner Lane, which is opposite the present day City Thameslink Station.
It is a very interesting fact and one worth noting here, that she was a friend of Samuel Purchas the famous travel writer, who became Rector of St. Martin within Ludgate, just a little further up Ludgate Hill, in 1614. So it extremely likely that she would have paid him a visit there in 1616, as she was by that time a Baptized Christian.
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