| Title | Elizabeth |
| Origtitle | Plate 59 from John White Drawings |
| Source | 1964 UNC Edition John White Drawings |
| Date | 1585-1586 |
| Creator | John White |
| Type | Watercolor |
| Copyright | 1964 UNC Edition John White Drawings |
| Origin | Scans from 1964 UNC Edition John White Drawings |
Elizabeth – Surprisingly, this is the name of one of the ships in the Grenvile text. Nowhere in this Hakluyt text is the queen referred to by her name. Because Elizabeth was a fairly common name at that time, we cannot assume that the ship is necessarily named after the queen. Given that another of the ships is named the Dorothy, the Elizabeth could just as easily be named after her owner’s wife, mother, sister, daughter, or mistress, to name a few other possibilities. - Matt
Elizabeth (fl. 1585); The Elizabeth was a 50 ton vessel which sailed in the little fleet of the 1585 Roanoke Expedition under Sir Richard Grenville. She was captained and outfitted by Thomas Cavendish, the high marshal of the expedition. The Elizabeth left Plymouth on 9 April 1585 with the expedition, but within days a tempest had separated the fleet and nothing else is heard of the Elizabeth until she rejoined Grenville and the Tiger (who initially were frightened by her appearance, thinking her to be a Spanish vessel) in Musquetal Bay, Puerto Rico, where Grenville’s men were busy building a pinnace to replace the one which had been lost in the storm early in the voyage. The Elizabeth left Musquetal Bay with the Tiger on 23 May, which shortly afterward captured of two Spanish frigates, one of which was used in the removal of salt from the salt mounds at Salinas Bay near Cape Rojo. The Elizabeth, meanwhile, had been trading with the Spaniards at Guanica before the whole group set out for the North Coast of Hispaniola on 29 May. On 1 June the Elizabeth, together with the Tiger, the two Spanish frigates, and the newly built pinnace, anchored at Isabella, and set sail to the Northwest on 7 June, passing through the Caicos Islands in the Bahamas on 9 June, Guanima on 12 June, Ciguateo (Great Abaco) on 15-16 June, and sighting the mainland of America on 20 June. On 23 June the fleet nearly ran into trouble on the shoals off Cape Fear, and reached Wococan Harbor on 26 June, at which time the Elizabeth and the rest of the fleet (with the exception of the larger Tiger, which for the time being stayed farther out to sea) briefly were stuck on a sand bar while attempting to enter the harbor, but all soon managed to float to freedom. The whole fleet was finally reunited in early July (it appears that the Roebuck, the Lion, the Dorothy, and the second pinnace had reached the Roanoke area before the Elizabeth and company), and together they sailed for Hatarask Harbor on 21 July, reaching their destination on the 27th. After a great deal of time primarily at anchor while the colonists explored and established diplomatic relations of sorts with the Algonquians, the Tiger left for England on 31 August, leaving behind the majority of the colonists and fleet, including the Elizabeth. After the Tiger’s departure, correspondence from Ralph Lane to Francis Walsingham places the Elizabeth (or at least her captain and, we may assume by extension, the Elizabeth) still in Port Ferdinando on 9 September. Though the timeline of the movements of the vessels at Roanoke is quite hazy after the departure of the Tiger, Quinn argues that it is likely that the Elizabeth left the Roanoke settlement for England on or shortly after this 9 September date. Regardless, it is agreed that the Elizabeth, the Roebuck, and the rest of the little fleet returned to England sometime in early September, 1585.;
Works Cited: ; ; The Roanoke Voyages, 1584-1590: Volumes I, ed. David Beers Quinn (London: Hakluyt Society, 1955): 121, 158, 160-175, 178-9, 182-3, 187, 210, 214, 230, 467, 733, 736, 847;