Under the Bloody Flag

by John C Appleby

  The end of the war with France in 1550, followed by peace with Scotland in 1551, brought little respite to the problem of disorderly plunder and piracy. English, Scottish and French rovers continued to be active, provoking widespread complaints about the extent of illegal spoil. The council was forced to take repeated action to ensure that ships and goods belonging to the subjects of the King of France or the Emperor, captured since the peace, were restored, while also seeking the return of English vessels taken by the Scots or French. Scottish rovers continued to plague the east coast. Some were able to use Ipswich as a base to spoil Flemish shipping; others raided in the Irish Sea or ranged into the Channel, visiting long-standing pirate hunting grounds. In October and November 1550 the council ordered the arrest of a Scots pirate, who had robbed a Spanish vessel and seized a Breton ship off the Isle of Wight, but with little effect. French rovers of varying legality also remained active in the Channel and the western approaches, where they preyed on English and Irish shipping, occasionally seizing Iberian vessels. In November 1551 the council ordered the release of a French man-of-war and two Portuguese prizes which had been seized by the mayor of Tenby. 22

  A Tudor merchant’s house in Tenby, Pembrokeshire. Pirates and rovers occasionally visited this small, but busy port, to dispose of plunder and take on supplies. In 1562 a Scottish pirate, Alexander Hogg, was arrested in the port. (Author’s collection)

  Yet the volume of complaint against the French and Scots appears to have been outweighed by the clamour against the activities of English rovers. In response to an appeal from the French ambassador about the cost and delay in pursuing cases of spoil and piracy before the High Court of Admiralty, during 1550 the council revived a previous practice of appointing commissioners for depredations, with the authority to provide speedy justice for French claimants. Their appointment failed to appease the ambassador. Nor did it reduce the level of complaint reaching the council, although it provided an opportunity for the latter to pass contested cases of depredation to another agency. The commissioners were involved in hearing such cases intermittently, and sometimes in association with the High Court of Admiralty, through to the 1570s. But their use met with limited success.23

  Alongside the widening range of English piratical venturing, localized spoil and pillage flourished. Many of those involved in this form of depredation continued to haunt the Channel as well as the entrance to the Thames, operating from bases along the south coast, which included Calais. Local support and maintenance for such activity meant that it was rarely an anonymous crime: pirate captains and their leading associates were well known to local officials and increasingly to the council. But attempts to apprehend such men were frustrated by delays in the investigation and administration of complaints about spoil, which gave pirates and rovers time to go into hiding or return to the sea. In October 1550 the council dealt with allegations of piracy against Henry Stafforde dating back to May 1547. It took another three months for the council to instruct Robert Reneger to seek and arrest Stafforde and one of his accomplices, William Piers of Southampton, who was reportedly a servant of the Lord Protector.24

  The deterioration of relations with France and the Empire during the early 1550s led to a resurgence of Flemish and French raiding in English waters. During the last years of Edward VI’s reign the council dealt with growing complaints against the depredations of foreign men-of-war, some of whom included English recruits among their companies. In 1552 an Irish ship was attacked and sunk off Rye by two French rovers, who were manned with several Englishmen. French raiding led to diplomatic demands for redress; in June 1552, however, the council reported that ‘no reformation followeth’.25 But conditions at sea led to complex and contested cases of spoil which were difficult to resolve. In April 1553, for example, the council sought the advice of the judge of the High Court of Admiralty, concerning the ownership of a French ship which had been taken by Flemings, re-taken by Scots and subsequently sold to an Englishman in the Isle of Wight.

  The raiding of foreign rovers provoked retaliation of varying kinds which was difficult to distinguish from the persistence of piracy in the West Country or southern Ireland. The confused disorder at sea was reflected in the activities of the Bark Aucher, owned and sent out by Sir Anthony Aucher, the marshal of Calais. Aucher’s man-of-war piratically attacked a vessel of Denmark, shortly after the plunder of various other Danish ships by Thomas Wyndham while in the service of the King, provoking angry complaints in May 1552. Later in the year the Bark rescued the Little Bark Aucher from attack by two of the French King’s vessels. Thereafter it appears to have ranged the Channel, challenging and engaging in conflict with French vessels, and taking prizes which were subsequently restored. The voyaging of the Bark Aucher was part of a wider pattern of Channel plunder that remained focused on the shipping of France. In May 1553 the Lord Admiral ordered the punishment of a group of English rovers, in prison at Milton, for the seizure of a French vessel, the crew of which were killed. Later in the year the council decreed the restoration of the vessel to the widows of the French mariners. Under these conditions, as the activities of Wyndham demonstrated, English rovers became increasingly indiscriminate in their spoil of shipping.26

  Piracy and disorderly sea roving continued despite the damage to trade and fishing. Coole’s survival illustrates the erratic and limited success of the regime in dealing with disorder at sea. Despite his imprisonment in the Tower, he returned to Ireland and his career of petty depredation. According to reports among merchants and mariners in Dublin he was involved in the capture of a French vessel within Carlingford Lough during 1553, though in his defence it was claimed that he purchased the vessel as lawful prize from a Flemish man-of-war. Thereafter, with the assistance of eight men armed with swords and daggers, he seized the Eugenius, a fishing vessel which had been converted into a small man-of-war, in the harbour of Youghal. Formerly the Katherine of Calais, it was renamed, rebuilt and ‘made ready for the wars’, for John Challenor who intended sending it out from the island of Lambay.27 As described by one of its company, the vessel was armed with two brass pieces of ordnance, carried a main, fore and mizen mast, and ‘was made low with netting above, with a fair cabin of wainscot, and a nose like a pinnace’.28 It was later recovered by William Tyrell during a naval patrol to apprehend Coole and other pirates in Ireland.

  Indeed, during the early 1550s the regime met with some success in the arrest of pirates. Henry Machyn, a London draper, recorded that 100 mariners were arraigned at the Guildhall in March 1551 for robbing on the sea, and the captain, a Scot, was taken to Newgate on the same day and hanged.29 During 1552 sessions of oyer and terminer were scheduled to determine cases of piracy in the Cinque Ports. Pirates were executed in Calais and Dover, while the council issued instructions for pirates in the West Country to be dealt with according to the law. In February 1553 the council in Ireland was ordered to apprehend Strangeways, whose reputation as a pirate captain was growing on either side of the Irish Sea. The Earl of Desmond was requested to assist in his capture. The following month two of the King’s ships were sent out to hunt down Strangeways, Killigrew and their associates in Ireland. Strangeways was captured about this time.30

  Rebellious pirates and privateers during the 1550s

  Under Mary, who became Queen following the unexpected death of Edward during 1553, vigorous action was taken against piracy and disorderly plunder. The new monarch’s religious and dynastic policies, as reflected in the restoration of Catholicism and the marriage alliance with Prince Philip, soon to be King of Spain, reinforced the need to combat the growing assault on Imperial and Iberian shipping by English rovers. The diplomatic interests and priorities of the new regime thus led to a sustained attempt to deal with the pirate menace. Inadvertently, however, its successes were undermined by the increasing intensity of anti-Spanish hostility, especially in south-west England, where seaborne depredation was becoming linked with evangelical Protestantism. Hostility towards Spain and the Marian
regime was expressed in the activities of rebellious rovers and privateers, operating from bases across the Channel under the loose protection of the King of France. Against a background of deepening religious and political division, the experience of Mary’s reign hastened the re-direction of English depredation into the spoil of Iberian trade and shipping.

  The early years of the reign witnessed intense activity by the council to apprehend and bring pirate leaders and their followers to trial. In July 1554 it sent out a fleet to capture the pirate Lightmaker. The following month it ordered the execution of pirates in Dartmouth and in Dorset, in an effort to reinforce the authority of the Lord Admiral. Shortly after, Patrick Colqhon, a Scot, was imprisoned at its command, on suspicion of piracy and counterfeiting the coinage. About the same time it instructed two merchants to appear before the recorder of Bristol on the grounds that they were in possession of the goods of Robert Vaughan, a pirate. In February 1555 it despatched three officers to seize Strangeways, who was reported to be in hiding in Suffolk. In March it issued instructions for the arrest of another pirate or rover, Woodman, who claimed to have a licence to serve against France, under the authority of which he was robbing French and other shipping. Nicholas Thomas, one of Woodman’s associates, was subsequently arrested in Bristol, while other members of his company were taken in Portsmouth. These successes were followed by the capture of Stephenson, by the Earl of Desmond, in Ireland.31

  With the benefit of unidentified reports and information, the council kept up its campaign against piracy. During June 1555 it ordered the sheriff of Norfolk to search for the pirate, Jones, ‘who shifteth himself from place to place in the said countie’.32 Jones was reportedly lurking at the house of Sir Nicholas Straunge, though the latter apparently ignored a request to apprehend him. In July, however, the council congratulated those involved in the arrest of one of the Killigrews, who had been involved in the plunder of Spanish ships. Several months later, it authorised Sir Edmund Rouse and others to apprehend Coole and his followers, with the offer of a share in the pirates’ plunder. The determination of the council to tackle the problem of maritime disorder was further illustrated by its instructions to officials in Dover to seize Sir Anthony Aucher’s vessel, the Bark Aucher, following reports of its recent arrival ‘with certayne maryners that are stollen out to go fourthe a robbing’.33 With a growing number of pirates, including Strangeways, in custody, by January 1556 it was working with the High Court of Admiralty on the issue of commissions of oyer and terminer for their trial and punishment.

  To some extent the council’s response to piracy and lawlessness at sea was a continuation of the practices established during the closing months of the previous reign. But it was also motivated by the diplomatic requirements of the Queen, who was seeking closer relations with Spain. The plunder of Flemish and Spanish vessels threatened to cast a shadow over Mary’s marriage to Philip in July 1554, particularly as it was fuelled by anti-Spanish feeling. Popular hostility towards the Spanish appears to have provoked widespread unease. Rumours of a ‘stir in Devon’, early in 1554, were accompanied by reports that ‘there was like to be a mad world in that county shortly’.34 Sir Ralph Hopton, a Protestant landowner in the West Country, made clear his views of the Spanish by asking ‘his workmen how they liked them who will occupy their wives before their faces’.35 In response, one worker claimed ‘he would rather cut off the king of Spain’s head himself’. Such hostility was accompanied by the intimidation of local Catholic loyalists. According to one report, ‘if any man would not withstand the King of Spain’s entry, because they would ravish their wives and daughters and rob and spoil the commons, their throats should be cut’.

  In these tense circumstances plans for a rebellion against the new regime attracted support not only from local landowners in Devon, but also from opportunistic maritime adventurers and pirates in the south-west. Piracy and rebellion thus became uneasily yoked together, but in a way that anticipated French support against the spread of Spanish influence in England. In December 1553 it was reported that an English adventurer, possibly one of the Killigrews, offered to serve the King of France, Henry II, with eight or nine ships, which would almost certainly have been used to attack Spanish vessels in the Channel. Indeed, the Killigrews may have served as intermediaries between leading supporters of the rising in Devon, such as Sir Peter Carew, and the French. According to rumour, Carew was also linked with Strangeways, in a plan to seize control of Exeter.36

  In reality the rebellion failed to proceed as planned. Early in February 1554 Carew and others were reported to have fled from Weymouth with the assistance of Walter Ralegh. The rebel leaders and their associates went into exile in France, where they established bases in northern and western ports for raiding in the Channel, with the support of the French King and sympathizers, such as Jean Ribault, the maritime adventurer whose castle at Dieppe became a hotbed for plots and piracy or privateering.

  Although relations among this motley collection of pirates and rebels varied, and were based on a superficial coincidence of interests, their activities from 1554 to 1556 demonstrated the dangers of English adventurers seeking employment with a rival, and potentially hostile, monarch. In addition to the Carews and Killigrews, the leading figures in these overlapping groups included Andrew and Nicholas Tremayne, Henry Dudley, Christopher Ashton and Edward and Francis Horsey. But a clear distinction appears to have existed between the aims of the rebels, such as the Carews, for whom piracy was a subsidiary, if attractive concern, and those of pirate leaders, like the Killigrews, who were essentially interested in the pursuit of plunder rather than in a change of regime across the Channel. The backgrounds of such men, indeed, suggest that they were tempted into piracy and conspiracy by socio-economic pressures as much as by political ambition. Most of the leading figures among the exiles in France have been aptly described as ‘minor gentry who lived by their swords’.37 Some were in difficult economic circumstances. Dudley fled to France because ‘he was outlawed for debt’, though before departing he informed an associate of his determination to return, with ten or twelve ships, to drive out the ‘vile nation of Spaniards’.38

  By 1556 the exiles in France were capable of sending out a small fleet of at least six men-of-war, possibly manned with between 300 and 500 recruits, to attack Spanish and other shipping. Little is known of the composition or character of this irregular force of maritime adventurers, although the two vessels under the command of the Killigrews had a combined company of 180 men ‘of all nations’, including French, Dutch, Scots as well as English.39 Moreover, they were reportedly all willing volunteers. Following his capture in July 1556, Peter Killigrew insisted that he ‘forced no man, neither did his brother’.40

  These groups of pirates and rovers were involved in the plunder of trade and shipping within the confines of the Channel. In June 1556 the council informed Philip II ‘that English pirates had spoiled various ships in the west. Although they seem to treat the English more favourably than foreigners, they spare no nationality, and especially plundered the French’.41 Within a few days, their reported number had grown from three ships to seven or eight. In response the Queen sent out seven royal ships from Portsmouth, under the command of Tyrrell, the Vice Admiral, ‘since it did not seem fit for the Admiral of England to pursue these pirates’.42 During July the royal fleet met the pirates off Plymouth and seized six of their vessels. One small ship escaped, but, with only one of their leaders still active across the Channel, the threat from rebel rovers in France seemed to have been checked.

  A detailed account by Peter Killigrew, who operated at sea in partnership with his brothers, Thomas and Henry, sheds light on the character and conduct of this piratical venturing. Shortly after their arrival in France, the Killigrews acquired the Sacret, one of Henry II’s vessels, either as a gift or on loan for two years. In addition they purchased the Francis from a French merchant, who owed them 300 crowns. As the ship was valued at 600 crowns, half of the cost was covered
by the debt; the other half was to be paid within six months, out of the proceeds from plunder. Like other exiles in France, the Killigrews lived in impoverished, hand-to-mouth circumstances, seeking assistance wherever it could be found. On one occasion Peter Killigrew was arrested for debt in Le Havre, though he was released through the help of several French captains. These economic difficulties were reinforced by the psychological discomforts of exile. Thus the Tremaynes informed Killigrew at La Hogue that ‘they did not like France and desired to go to sea’, while Dudley ‘wished … that all were well at home, [and] to be there with one of his legs broken’.43 Henry Killigrew also urged his brother that if they had good fortune at sea, they would be able to pay off their debts and seek a pardon in England. Although they lacked the political ideology of their more celebrated Dutch successors, who operated from English bases during the early 1570s, this collection of adventurers appeared to be genuine sea beggars, for whom plunder was more a stratagem for survival than for political change.

  Killigrew’s account indicates that he and his brothers made five voyages from bases in France, which met with mixed success. Lacking victuals on the first voyage, they spoiled an Irish vessel returning from Flanders, and seized another ship laden with salt and wine. During the second voyage they captured an English ship laden with wood belonging to a Flemish merchant; when the prize was brought into Le Havre, however, one of the brothers was imprisoned until compensation was made to the Fleming. The third voyage was more successful. In consortship with one of Henry II’s ships, three prizes were taken, laden with wine and salt. In company with the same ship, on the fourth voyage they ‘did nothing but fought with a carrack and drew her into Dartmouth’.44 During the last voyage, in June 1556, sailing in the Sacret and the Falcon, they took at least three prizes, including two Spanish ships laden with wool and iron. Returning to La Hogue, they sold most of the wool, nearly 400 bales, which were worth fifteen or sixteen crowns each, to pay off their debts.