He succeeded his father as Baron De La Warr in 1602.[7] It was said that he became a member of the Privy Council, but this has been disproved.[8] In 1645 Dame Cicly petitioned the House of Lords to continue the pension that King James had granted her husband.[9]
Lord De La Warr was the largest investor in the London Company, which received two charters to settle colonists in the New World, and furnished and sent several vessels to accomplish that aim. He was appointed governor-for-life and captain-general of the Virginia, to replace the governing council of the colony under the presidency of Captain John Smith.[10] Subsequently, in November 1609, the Powhatans killed John Ratcliffe, the Jamestown Colony's Council President, and attacked the colony in what became the First Anglo-Powhatan War.[11] As part of England's response, De La Warr recruited and equipped a contingent of 150 men and outfitted three ships at his own expense, and sailed from England in March 1610.[12]
In 1610 captain Samuel Argall named Delaware Bay in honor of Lord De La Warr. Shortly afterwards Dutch settlers along the bay gave it a different name, but the name Delaware Bay was restored when the English took control of the area in 1665.[13] Lord De La Warr contracted malariaorscurvy in 1611. He left the colony on a ship captained by Sir Samuel Argall headed to the West Indies to recover but was blown off course by a storm and forced to return to England.[14]
Later that year, De La Warr published a book titled The Relation of the Right Honourable the Lord De-La-Warre, Lord Governour and Captaine Generall of the Colonie, planted in Virginea.[15] Although attributed to De La Warr, the book was actually written by company employee Samuel Calvert.[8]
In the Autumn of 1616, Baron De La Warr and his wife Lady Cecilia, introduced John Rolfe and his wife, Pocahontas, into English society. The visitors from Virginia were in London to raise funds for the Virginia Company of London and to encourage colonization of Virginia. De La Warr remained the nominal governor, and after receiving complaints from the Virginia settlers about Argall's tyranny in governing them on his behalf, he set sail for Virginia again in 1618 aboard the Neptune to investigate those charges. He died at sea on 7 June[5][14]
It was thought for many years that Lord De La Warr had been buried in the Azores or at sea.[5] By 2006, researchers had concluded that his body was brought to Jamestown for burial. In October 2017, archaeologists excavated remains from underneath one of the churches at Historic Jamestowne, but it is not yet known if De La Warr's is one of those.[16]
On 25 November 1596, De La Warr married Cecily Shirley (died c. 1662), the daughter of Sir Thomas ShirleyofWiston, Sussex, and his wife Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Kempe.[17] They had children:
Henry (1603–1628), who succeeded his father as the 4th Baron De La Warr, married Isabella, daughter of Sir Thomas Edmondes, in March 1625. He died at the age of 24 and was succeeded by his son Charles West, 5th Baron De La Warr.[21]
Lord De La Warr's brother, John West, later became governor and married Anne Percy, daughter of George Percy.[22]
^House of Lords. Main Papers. (3 December 1645) "Petition of Dame Cicily Dowager De la Ware." Lords Journals, VIII. 21. In extenso. The National Archives Kew Retrieved 16 February 2023.
^Lamont, Edward M. (2014). The Forty Years that Created America: The Story of the Explorers, Promoters, Investors, and Settlers Who Founded the First English Colonies. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 121. ISBN978-1442236608.
Cokayne, George Edward, ed. (1983) [c. 1900]. The Complete Baronetage. Vol. 2 (5-volume reprint ed.). Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton Publishing. p. 140.
Cokayne, George Edward; et al., eds. (2000) [1910–1959]. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant. Vol. 4 (reprint in 6 volumes; new ed.). Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton Publishing. p. 160.
Hammond, Peter W., ed. (1998). The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing. p. 128.
Delaware
England
Virginia
