Special Guest Blogger: Richard Ameryk

Who is America named after? Go on, have a guess. Amerigo Vespucci you say? Nope, it was named after me, Richard Ameryk.
At the end of the 15th century knowledge was a scarce commodity, we knew nothing about almost everything including geography and most people didn't know or what went on over the other side of the horizon.
I was a Customs Officer and the Sheriff of Bristol when I met Cabot who had a reputation of being a skilful mariner, he explained that he considered the World to be round and was convinced that by sailing westwards he could explore unfound riches, if he could find a sponsor.
Never one to look a gift Italian in the mouth, I introduced him to my businessmen friends and we arranged an audience with King Henry VII who handed him a letter of authority to make a voyage and claim lands on behalf of the monarch although he did say agree that as the main sponsor, any land discovered would be named after me.
I donated more money than anyone else to fund the construction of the ship, named the Mathew, and even donated the wood from the Oak trees on my estate to build it and so there we stood, waving goodbye to this guy with a crew of 18 bobbing away from us on a ship only 70 feet long.
To our surprise he came back a few months later with tales of what he had found and provided maps he had sketched of the coastline and a needle for making nets, a snare for catching animals and the jawbone of a whale but most importantly, a land which was now to be called 'Ameryk' after me.
He also said that he found 'A New Found Land' at the top of Ameryk but i ignored that and scratched '24 June, 1497. The land of Ameryk was found by the merchants of Bristowe, in a ship of Bristowe called the Mathew. Buy bread and milk' to record it for posterity.
Cabot became the first recorded European to set foot on American soil, pre-dating that slow-coach Vespucci by two years although so impressed was the King with Cabot that he granted him another patent and sent him out again but he was never heard of again which is tough for him but I had a whole new continent named after me.
So ignore anything you hear about Amerigo Vespucci, new countries or continents were never named after a person’s first name, but always after the second so Ameryk, or America as it is now known because they do like to mangle our language over there, would have become Vespuccia which is a silly name.