Under the Bloody Flag

by John C Appleby

  By the early 1580s the Elizabethan regime appeared to have lost its campaign against piracy. Essentially this was due to the varied and intractable nature of the problem. In the waters around the British Isles pirates exposed serious limitations in the naval resources of the regime, while on land they challenged its policing and regulatory powers. The prevalence of sympathetic attitudes towards piracy, and a growing awareness that it was often related to the uncertain and irregular work cycles of the seafaring population, undermined the response of the regime which, in any case, was divided in its willingness to sponsor ambitious schemes for oceanic depredation. For the early propagandists of empire, indeed, the remedy lay in the employment of seamen in the cause of overseas expansion. In 1584 Hakluyt tried to advance English colonization in North America by claiming that longer, transatlantic voyages would prevent poor and idle mariners from falling into piracy. It was an appealing suggestion. Before it could be put to the test effectively, however, conflict between England and Spain had broken out. The war at sea which followed soon provided alternative employment for large numbers of seafarers, including pirates and other rovers.

  Notes

  1. CSPF 1585–86, pp. 409, 411–2.

  2. SP 12/103/61; 12/75/19; 12/135/11–12, 28–33. On good fellowship, Robin Hood and the spread and use of stories see J.C. Holt, Robin Hood (London, 1982), pp. 38–9, 140–2, 147 and A.J. Pollard, Imagining Robin Hood: Late–Medieval Stories in Historical Context (London, 2004), pp. 206–22. For a vivid overview of piracy during the 1570s see Williams, The Sea Dogs, pp. 152–65.

  3. These estimates should be interpreted cautiously. They are based on a wide range of evidence which is used in this chapter. Evidently more than 900 men were tried for piracy during 1578, though only three were executed, Williams, The Sea Dogs, p. 150. For the later period see M. Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo–American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 256–7.

  4. CSPD Addenda 1566–79, p. 563; CSPI 1574–85, p. 157.

  5. H. Doh (ed.), A Critical Edition of Fortune by Land and Sea by Thomas Heywood and William Rowley (New York, 1980), pp. 225, 277 (for the jubilee). D. Mathew, The Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe (London, 1933), pp. 296–304 for the links between England, Wales and Ireland. For evidence of richer pickings from piracy see Scammell, ‘Shipowning in the Economy and Politics of Early Modern England’, pp. 401–2.

  6. APC 1576–77, pp. 73–4, 89, 127–30; C. L’Estrange Ewen, The Golden Chalice: A Documented Narrative of an Elizabethan Pirate (Paignton, 1939); HCA 1/40, ff. 22–5.

  7. APC 1576–77, pp. 209, 219, 240, 267–8, 293–4; HCA 13/21, ff. 29v–30.

  8. APC 1576–77, pp. 337, 351, 357, 365; APC 1577–78, pp. 57–8, 106, 146; CSPF 1577–78, p. 275; HCA 1/40, ff. 17–20.

  9. CPR 1575–78, p. 537; Bain et al. (eds.), Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland, V, p. 308. On Gilbert see NAW, III, pp. 181–257.

  10. SP 15/25/60, I–III.

  11. And for the rest of the paragraph SP 15/25/60, III.

  12. SP 15/25/60, II; SP 12/135/167; HCA 1/40, f. 36v; APC 1575–77, p. 357; APC 1578–80, pp. 300–1.

  13. Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, pp. 188–9; D.B. Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, 1481–1620 (London, 1974), pp. 248–51 on Fernandes. D.B. Quinn (ed.), The Voyages and Colonising Enterprises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 2 vols. (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 83 & 84, 1938–39), I, pp. 33–46, 198, 201–4, 222–3.

  14. CSPF 1579–80, p. 67; Quinn (ed.), Voyages, I, pp. 225–9; II, pp. 498–509. A plan c. 1580 for taking control of the Straits of Magellan envisaged using Clarke, the pirate. E.P. Cheyney, A History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth, 2 vols. (London, 1914–26, repr. New York, 1948), I, p. 430.

  15. Bain et al. (eds.), Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland, V, p. 449; CSPF 1582, p. 130; CSPF 1584–85, p. 522; CSPF 1585–86, pp. 3–4.

  16. E.S. Donno (ed.), An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 147, 1976), p. 192; Rowse, Tudor Cornwall, pp. 390–2.

  17. APC 1577–78, pp. 48–9.

  18. APC 1575–77, p. 377; APC 1577–78, pp. 18, 33, 36–7, 71, 141; SP 12/135/83, 89.

  19. CSPI 1574–85, pp. 130, 150, 162, 167–9; Calendar, pp. 41–3.

  20. APC 1577–78, p. 14; HCA 13/23, ff. 239–9v.

  21. SP 15/25/54, I. Other pirates were active along the east coast of Yorkshire, CPR 1575–78, p. 429.

  22. SP 15/25/54, 1; SP 12/135/15. BL, Additional MS 12505, f. 352.

  23. APC 1577–78, pp. 28, 36–7, 156, 260; HMC Salisbury, II, p. 150; SP 12/135/28–33.

  24. APC 1577–78, pp. 26–7, 89–90, 102; APC 1578–80, pp. 65, 68–9, 90–1; SP 12/135/20.

  25. APC 1577–78, pp. 22, 156.

  26. APC 1577–78, pp. 59, 221, 263, 271, 273, 276, 279; APC 1578–80, p. 109.

  27. Bain et al. (eds.), Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland, V, pp. 375–6; APC 1577–78, pp. 193–4, 277–80.

  28. APC 1577–78, pp. 318, 332, 361–2, 429.

  29. SP 12/122/6; Williams, Tudor Regime, pp. 245–6; A. Hassell Smith et al. (eds.) The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey (Norwich, 1979), pp. 229–30, 247–8; A. L. Rowse, Sir Richard Grenville of the ‘Revenge’ (London, 1937), pp. 146–7, 165–8.

  30. SP 12/123/24, 38, 40.

  31. SP 12/122/59; Hassell Smith et al. (eds.), Papers, pp. 267–8, 271.

  32. SP 12/123/44.

  33. O. Ogle (ed.), Copy–Book of Sir Amias Paulet’s Letters Written during his Embassy to France (Roxburghe Club, London, 1866), p. 82; CSPF 1577–78, pp. 468, 517–20.

  34. Ogle (ed.), Copy–Book, pp. 83, 94–5, 137, 213. For Bristol losses see Vanes (ed.), Overseas Trade of Bristol, p. 113.

  35. SP 12/122/47, 60; 12/123/36; Lloyd, Gentry of South–West Wales, pp. 156–9.

  36. SP 12/122/22; Ewen, ‘Organized Piracy’, pp. 34–9.

  37. SP 12/103/3; 12/135/153, 165–7.

  38. And for the rest of the paragraph, SP 12/103/3.

  39. SP 12/111/36; Lloyd, Gentry of South–West Wales, pp. 162–4.

  40. J.H. Matthews (ed.), Cardiff Records, 6 vols. (Cardiff, 1898–1911), I, p. 349.

  41. Ibid., pp. 349–50.

  42. Ibid., pp. 355–6; SP 12/122/2.

  43. Matthews (ed.), Cardiff Records, I, pp. 353–5.

  44. APC 1575–77, pp. 267–8; APC 1577–78, pp. 57–8, 67, 179–81, 193–4, 296; APC 1580–81, pp. 16, 73, 93–4, 107, 144.

  45. APC 1578–80, pp. 6–9, 13, 35–6, 44, 47, 65, 76, 99–100, 173–4, 259; Calendar, p. 62; EPV, pp. 143, 159; S. Maxwell, ‘Henry Seckford: Sixteenth–Century Merchant, Courtier and Privateer’, MM, 82 (1996), pp. 387–97

  46. APC 1578–80, pp. 13, 34, 38–9, 84–5, 98.

  47. SP 12/123/37; CSPD 1547–80, p. 656.

  48. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, p. 50.

  49. Ibid., p. 48; BL, Cotton MS Otho E VIII, f. 65.

  50. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, pp. 41–7, 54.

  51. Ibid., p. 52; G.V. Scammell, The World Encompassed: The First European Maritime Empires c. 800–1650 (London, 1981), pp. 465–7.

  52. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, p. 67.

  53. CSPF 1578–79, pp. 45–60; BL, Cotton MS Otho E VIII, ff. 59–60. The booty included 90 pounds in gold, 26 tons in silver and 13 chests of plate. Plunder was accompanied by damage to churches. Z. Nuttall (ed.), New Light on Drake (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 34, 1914), pp. 214, 331, 341–4.

  54. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, p. 80; Nuttall (ed.), New Light, pp. 50–1. The booty has been estimated at £1.5 million, D.M. Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth: England under the Later Tudors 1547–1603 (2nd edition, London, 1992), pp. 170–1. It was comparable to royal revenue for 1579 or 1581, Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, pp. 110–1. On the Northwest Passage see S. Bawlf, The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577–1580 (New York, 200
3).

  55. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, pp. 81–2; CSPD 1581–90, p. 54. Spanish authorities were alarmed that the Pacific (or South Sea) would fill up with corsairs ‘who would devastate it’, Nuttall (ed.), New Light, p. 122.

  56. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, pp. 87–8; P. Williams, The Later Tudors 1547–1603 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 287–90.

  57. R. Hakluyt, Discourse of Western Planting, eds. D.B. and A.M. Quinn (Hakluyt Society, Extra Series, 45, 1993), pp. 119–20.

  58. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, p. 88; CSPF 1580–81, pp. 338–40, 411–12.

  59. CSPF 1580–81, pp. 385–6, 418–9, 433–4; Williamson, Hawkins, p. 407.

  60. CSPF 1580–81, pp. 423–4, 625–6.

  61. CSPF 1582, pp. 134, 378; HCA 13/24, ff. 320–20v.

  62. CSPF 1583–84, pp. 342, 452, 491; CSPF 1584–85, pp. 63, 116.

  63. CSPF 1583, pp. 93–4.

  64. CSPF 1582, pp. 440–1, 456–7; NAW, IV, pp. 2–3, 13–9. One vessel involved in the raid was owned by Sir John Perrot.

  65. E.G.R. Taylor (ed.), The Troublesome Voyage of Captain Edward Fenton 1582–1583 (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 113, 1959), pp. xxx–xxxi; Donno (ed.), Diary of Madox, pp. 17–8; BL, Cotton MS Otho E VIII, ff. 85v–6v.

  66. Taylor (ed.), Troublesome Voyage, p. 202; Donno (ed.), Diary of Madox, p. 302; Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, pp. 253–4.

  67. Taylor (ed.), Troublesome Voyage, p. 55.

  68. Ibid., pp. 46, 65–6; Donno (ed.), Diary of Madox, p. 280

  69. Taylor (ed.), Troublesome Voyage, p. 284.

  70. Ibid., pp. 74, 284; Donno (ed.), Diary of Madox, pp. 141, 174.

  71. Ibid., pp. 168, 264–5.

  72. Ibid., pp. 144, 188.

  73. Ibid., p. 184.

  74. Ibid., p. 200.

  75. Ibid., pp. 255–6.

  76. Taylor (ed.), Troublesome Voyage, p. 142.

  77. Donno (ed.), Diary of Madox, pp. 273–4.

  78. Ibid., p. 274.

  79. CSPD 1581–90, pp. 11, 14.

  80. APC 1581–82, pp. 92, 128–9, 171; CSPD 1581–90, pp. 19, 21.

  81. BL, Lansdowne MS 33, ff. 184–4v.

  82. Ibid., ff. 185–5v.

  83. CSPD 1581–90, pp. 21, 23, 28–9, 124, 247. The council also investigated the mayor and gaoler in Exeter, who were suspected of allowing a pirate to escape, though the outcome was inconclusive, W.T. MacCaffrey, Exeter, 1540–1640: The Growth of an English County Town (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), pp. 232–3.

  84. APC 1581–82, pp. 315, 356–7, 397, 415; HMC Salisbury, II, p. 522; V, p. 520; Calendar, pp. 47–9.

  85. CSPD 1581–90, p. 64.

  86. SP 12/156/7; Ewen, ‘Organized Piracy’, pp. 38–42; C. L’Estrange Ewen, ‘The Pirates of Purbeck’, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society, 71 (1949), pp. 88–109.

  87. APC 1580–81, pp. 342–3; CSPD 1581–90, pp. 11–2, 16, 25, 28–9, 56, 201; CSPS 1580–86, pp. 410, 432.

  88. SP 12/156/43; Spicer, The French–Speaking Reformed Community, pp. 50–1, 131.

  89. CSPD 1581–90, pp. 186, 201, 214–5, 217, 238.

  90. BL, Lansdowne MS 162, ff. 59–60v.

  91. CSPF 1582, pp. 42, 271–3; CSPD 1581–90, p. 121.

  92. Donno (ed.), Diary of Madox, pp. 111–3.

  93. CSPI 1574–85, pp. 433, 436, 438, 447, 473–5, 487.

  94. CSPI 1574–85, p. 350.

  95. CSPD 1581–90, pp. 186, 192, 208; HCA 13/25, ff. 243–3v; Williams, The Sea Dogs, pp. 150–1.

  96. EPV, pp. 153–4.

  97. And for the rest of the paragraph SP 12/172/90. On recruitment see C.A. Fury, Tides in the Affairs of Men: The Social History of Elizabethan Seamen, 1580–1603 (Westport, CT, 2002), pp. 22–3. From 1581 to 1583 forty vessels seized by pirates and rovers were brought into Studland Bay, Ewen, ‘The Pirates of Purbeck’, pp. 92, 100–3.

  98. SP 12/172/90–1, 94.

  99. BL, Lansdowne MS 33, f. 184.

  100. Donno (ed.), Diary of Madox, p. 131.

  101. BL, Lansdowne MS 26, ff. 71–1v.

  102. BL, Lansdowne MS 33, ff. 183–4. According to the same report, Piers had been pardoned twice for such offences.

  103. Clinton had already given to his friends a velvet coat with gold lace, ‘apparell too sumptuous for sea rovers which he had worne at the seas’. J. Stow, The Annales of England (London, 1605), p. 1175; A True Relation of the Lives and Deaths of the two most Famous English Pyrats, Purser and Clinton (London, 1639), chap. 4; Williams, The Sea Dogs, p. 152 on the growing use of fine clothes.

  104. C. Jowitt, ‘Scaffold Performances: The Politics of Pirate Execution’ in C. Jowitt (ed.), Pirates? The Politics of Plunder, 1550–1650 (Basingstoke, 2007), pp. 152–9; Fury, Tides, pp. 24–6.

  105. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, pp. 92–3; Oppenheim, Maritime History of Devon, p. 44.

  106. SP 12/177/46.

  107. SP 12/177/46. Fenner was back at sea, sailing with letters of reprisal, in 1586, despite charges of piracy for which his uncle was not pardoned until 1598, K.R. Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering: English Privateering during the Spanish War, 1585–1603 (Cambridge, 1966), p. 91.

  6

  War, Reprisals and Piracy from 1585 to 1603

  The Anglo-Spanish conflict from 1585 to 1603 had profound consequences for English piracy, privateering and sea roving. The state of undeclared war, which was justified by the English as a legitimate response to the arrest of shipping in Spanish ports during 1585, led to widespread and general reprisals against Spain and Portugal. By these means the Elizabethan regime sanctioned a private war of plunder against its enemies that drew on earlier precedents and practices. At the same time the regime became a partner in an uneasy coalition of interests which assumed responsibility for promoting larger-scale, semi-official expeditions against the Spanish monarchy. While this was a highly effective means of mobilizing private resources to maintain the war at sea, under the control of seasoned veterans of maritime raiding and spoil, it suffered from limited direction and a lack of coherence. Moreover, its rapid development unavoidably exposed an underlying tension between strategic or tactical goals and financial imperatives. Under these conditions a state-sponsored war of reprisals, conducted by men-of-war sailing alone or in small hunting packs, was overlaid by a naval conflict, involving larger and more ambitious expeditions which included the Queen’s ships. Collectively, these sea raiders captured a substantial haul of booty which in terms of value, at least, more than compensated for the loss of trade with Spain. But this was a war which grew increasingly piratical, particularly in European waters, provoking complaints and retaliation from neutral and friendly states. By the early seventeenth century the damage to England’s diplomatic position within Europe appeared to suggest that the war at sea had outlived its strategic usefulness.

  Sea war and transatlantic venturing: the opportunities and challenges of the 1580s

  The outbreak of the Spanish war was a defining moment for the Elizabethan regime, when the Queen demonstrated her reluctant willingness to assume the mantle of the defender of international Protestantism, while acting as the protector of the Dutch rebels against Philip II. Although the assassination of the Dutch leader, William of Orange, in 1584 provided a catalyst for these events, the war was also the product of Anglo-Spanish tension which was inflamed by the predatory activities of sea warriors, such as Drake, who looked to Don Antonio, the pretender to the Portuguese throne, as a figurehead for their cause. Elizabeth’s strategic goal in the Netherlands may have been essentially defensive, but her support for the Dutch revolt represented a substantial commitment to a prolonged and internationally divisive cause.1

  Consequently, the conflict with Spain presented the regime with a serious challenge. By necessity and choice it relied heavily on private enterprise to organize the campaign at sea, hoping to weaken a powerful enemy through the unremitting spoil of trade and shipping. In doing so, it was able to draw on a varied and versatile tradition of depredation which incre
asingly encompassed ambitious schemes for transatlantic colonization. At the same time it exploited economic and social resources, including shipping and seamen, which might otherwise have lain dormant during the war. The challenge for the regime was to provide direction and discipline to an irregular or auxiliary force of voluntary vessels which operated beyond its effective control.

  During 1585 the council drew up regulations for the recipients of letters of reprisal, which were intended to serve as a code of conduct for the maritime conflict, while maintaining the convenient fiction that England and Spain were not at open war. These were shaped by previous practice, though subsequently subject to modification in response to international complaint. Thus merchants and others who required commissions of reprisal were to demonstrate proof of their losses in Spain either before the Lord Admiral or the judge of the High Court of Admiralty. Those who were awarded such commissions were to provide bonds for good behaviour, which included provision for the return of all captured ships and cargoes to England, where they were to be inventoried and appraised; after their appraisement such commodities could be sold in open market as lawful prize. Adventurers sailing on voyages of reprisal were instructed not to ‘break bulk’ by disposing of their plunder elsewhere, or to attack any of the Queen’s subjects and allies.2 The council’s regulations codified the division of prizes into three equal parts, distinguishing between merchants and shipowners, victuallers and the companies who served aboard reprisal vessels. Although the regulations omitted any mention of the adjudication of prizes by the High Court of Admiralty, this was remedied later in 1585.

  In theory the publication of this code of conduct drew a clear line between lawful reprisals and piracy. However, in practice it became increasingly difficult to maintain a distinction between legitimate plunder, disorderly venturing and outright piracy. The structure of regulation almost invited such confusion. Although the conduct of the war of reprisals was the responsibility of the Lord Admiral, Charles Howard, 2nd Lord Howard of Effingham, and his deputies in the maritime counties and officials in the High Court of Admiralty, their ability either to control or supervise the activities of men-of-war was undermined by corrupt or vested interests and the lack of an effective policing force. In effect the sea war soon came to depend on self-regulation, particularly as the need to prove losses or provide bonds was rapidly dispensed with. Shortly after the outbreak of the conflict the regime promoted general reprisals against Spain, creating the conditions for a flourishing trade in commissions, with little restraint or regulation. In addition the financial stake of the Lord Admiral in lawful prizes, demonstrated in the collection of a levy of 10 per cent, known as tenths, encouraged persistent intervention in the judicial process.3