Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
reached St Helena on 8 June and rested there for twelve days before
embarking on the final leg of the voyage. She entered the English
Channel on 3 September and immediately ran into a storm which
shredded her sun-bleached canvas. On the ninth of the month the
little ship limped into Plymouth with her weary crew, who only now
discovered that their success was the gilt on the gingerbread of a
providential English escape from Philip II's invincible Armada.
Thomas Cavendish savoured his triumph to the full. He im-
mediately set to work smartening up the
Desire
and, while ballads
and broadsheets proclaimed his exploits throughout the length and
breadth of England, he sailed his refurbished flagship round to
Greenwich to show her off to the queen. When Elizabeth and her
court came down to the quayside they were confronted by a dazzling
spectacle: the
Desire
was dressed overall, her flags and pennants
gleaming with rich colour and cloth of gold; her sails of blue damask;
her crew resplendent in silks and gold ornaments. Cavendish dined
her majesty in a great cabin hung with silks and served her from rich
plate captured from the Spaniards. The young captain showered his
sovereign with fine gifts in addition to the share of the profits which
she legitimately claimed. It was all very impressive and the queen
was impressed.
She was right to be and Cavendish was right to enjoy his mo-
ment of glory. But all this costly, swaggering splendour was not just
self-indulgent glorification. Cavendish was already planning his next
voyage, to be virtually a repeat of his first circumnavigation. He
wanted backing from the court and the City. He wanted to demon-
strate that sailing freely round the world was not a rare exploit but
could become a habit for English mariners. To achieve all this he
needed publicity.
PR and advertising techniques may have been honed to men-
acing perfection in our century but they are not new.
