Best-Selling Author Patricia Cornwell Donates Rare Letters to CW

By WY Daily Staff Monday, December 20, 2010

Best-selling author Patricia Cornwell recently donated two 17th-century letters from Philip III of Spain to Colonial Williamsburg’s John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library.

Cornwell acquired the two letters, which warn about the dangers of Jamestown being a pirate base, and asked William Kelso of Jamestown Rediscovery where they should be kept. He suggested the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library.

In the letters, the king of Spain wrote to the Alonso Perez du Guzman, the seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia, about his concern over the first permanent English settlement in North America. In the first letter dated July 29, 1608, the king said, “By various avenues He (i.e., the King) has been advised that the English are attempting to procure a foothold on the Island of Virginia, with the end [in mind] of sallying forth from there to commit piracy.”

In the second letter dated June 11, 1609, the king wrote, “You will do me great service in continuing [to gather] intelligence about the designs of the corsairs and any [intelligence] that shows the English having interest in continuing to populate the land called Virginia in the Indies.”

“Philip III of Spain was concerned the English would create a base in Virginia to attack Spanish ships in the Atlantic,” said Doug Mayo, associate librarian of the Rockefeller Library. “He is afraid that the English are not only going to attack the Atlantic but raid as far as the Pacific and New Spain, or Mexico, as well.”

The Duke of Medina Sidonia was known as the commander of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The single-page letters were part of the Medina Sidonia’s family archives in Spain and were auctioned off at Sotheby’s in New York.

Cornwell, one of the world's major international best-selling authors, has been an avid follower of the progress of the excavation of Jamestown over the years and has provided financial support to the project, funding a burial study examining the years of the Starving Time.

“The excavation of Jamestown produces a wealth of forensics about America’s past,” Cornwell said. “It is all about how we began, who we were and who we are and why. I can't think of a more worthy and exciting project, and I'm so happy I've been able to participate in it over the years.”

Cornwell is a founder of the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, a founding member of the National Forensic Academy and a member of the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital's National Council, where she is an advocate for psychiatric research.

The letters she donated to Colonial Williamsburg will eventually be put on display in the Rockefeller Library.