At the end of these voyages Henry Killigrew proposed an expedition to South America. As recounted by his brother, this was an ill-conceived, wayward and confusing project for plunder, though it may have grown out of conversations with French seafarers who had experience of preying on the Spanish in the Caribbean. Thus ‘they minded not to take wares with them meet for Peru or Guinea, or any other place, but to go thither and there get some prize, they cared not of whom, and therewith come into the Straits, set to shore, sell their ships and go to Italy, and there live and rid themselves of this misery wherein they have long lived’.45 Such a curious scheme suggests the ambition of needy and necessitous adventurers, though it rested on very weak foundations. Indeed, the opportunism that characterized the activities of the Killigrews and their associates was matched by their exploitation as pawns in a game of international rivalry by Henry II.
The activities of the Killigrews in France came to a messy and untidy end during the summer of 1556. Peter Killigrew was captured during 1556, though he avoided trial for treason. In September twenty-four of his men were hanged for piracy; according to the Venetian ambassador in London, they died in a godly manner. The attempts of Henry II to recover the Sacret, which he claimed had been loaned to the Killigrews, did little to ease Anglo-French relations. With war looming, by 1557 Killigrew had been sufficiently rehabilitated to be placed in charge of one of the Queen’s ships.46
To some extent the raiding of the Killigrews and their associates diverted attention away from the persistence of widespread local piracy which continued to be a serious problem, despite the early successes of the regime. During the opening months of 1556 the council handled complaints concerning the robbery of a Flemish vessel off Tilbury, the spoil of a Spanish ship by pirates allegedly from Liverpool and Chester, and the plunder of various vessels along the east coast. Pirates and rovers continued to operate in the Irish Sea and off the Scilly Isles. Consequently, the council resorted to a variety of expedients to deal with a problem that was growing in complexity. During June 1556, in response to Spanish complaints, John Killigrew the elder and younger were bound to appear before the court, following which they were imprisoned separately in the Fleet.47 They were released under a recognizance of £2,000 to answer an Admiralty action brought by a Spanish merchant. Later in the month John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath, was instructed to issue orders prohibiting mariners and others in the West Country from associating with pirates cruising in the Irish Sea. Similar instructions were sent to the mayor and aldermen of Bristol, and to the Lord Deputy and council in Ireland.
The following month the council appointed commissioners for the trial of pirates at Portsmouth. Proceedings were stayed against those who had been ‘taken and kepte against their willes or otherwise brought to this lewde doings by force’, the rest were to be executed along the coast in Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight, while the captains were to be hanged in chains.48 In August a similar commission was issued to proceed against pirates imprisoned at Southampton. Local officials also continued to send pirates to the council, though like Giles Graylocke, they were usually handed over to the Lord Admiral to be dealt with. At the end of July, Leonard Marshall, an Irish pirate, was despatched to the council by the mayor of Rye on suspicion that he was an accomplice of Dudley and Aston. Although Marshall provided no evidence of contact with the exiles, during his examination he confessed that he knew the pirate, Stephenson, who he saw at the house of Robert St John in Ireland.49
But the regime’s attempt to combat piracy remained heavily dependent on the cooperation of local communities and officials, with uncertain and variable results. In September 1556 a Breton vessel was seized by English pirates and brought into Tenby. Although the pirates were apprehended, the French complained that their goods were sold by Sir John Wogan, a local Admiralty official. Later in the month the council reprimanded Sir William Godolphin, one of the Vice Admirals in Cornwall, over the recent trial of Thompson and his company. Thompson was captured shortly after reports that he was cruising off the Scilly Isles with three ships. The council was surprised, however, that only Thompson and four other pirates were condemned by a local jury. The acquittal of the rest could only be explained either by ‘parcialitie of the jurye or negligence in giving the evidence’.50
The interest of the council in the local implementation of justice betrayed a deeper concern with the trial and punishment of pirates. The law, even when used in a discretionary fashion, was intended to punish pirates and deter potential recruits, while providing the opportunity for victims to recover property or seek compensation. Increasingly the spectacle of punishment sought to place pirates beyond the pale of civil society, with their execution at locations along the sea shore, where bodies were left, sometimes in chains, in denial of a Christian burial. The Venetian ambassador in London reported during 1551 that the ‘punishment inflicted on corsairs is to hang them in such a way that their toes well nigh touch the water; so they are generally hanged on the banks of rivers and on the sea shore’.51 It was a well-established practice that Machyn regularly noted during Mary’s reign. On 31 July 1556 a group of six pirates were arraigned at the Guildhall, ‘and the morrow after they were hangyd at Wapping at the low-water marke’.52 Seven more robbers at sea were likewise executed the following year, in April 1557. About the same time, as part of a wider initiative, local officials in Southampton were instructed to hang in chains Captain John Jones and two others. The body of Jones was to remain hanging by the seaside, ‘for the terror and example of others’.53 These occasions might represent the ritual expulsion of social outcasts and criminal deviants, uneasily suspended between land and sea, but they appeared to lack either the public confessions or the moral condemnation which were subsequently demanded by the agencies of state and church.
Maritime disorder continued to be a problem for the remainder of Mary’s reign. The persistence of piracy was complicated by the renewal of war between France and Spain, in which England was reluctantly embroiled. By February 1557 French men-of-war were reportedly haunting the coast of England. Several spoiled three Flemish ships in the Thames. Another Flemish vessel on the river was seized by a group of French and English rovers. As in the past the conflict at sea provoked retaliation and unofficial reprisals, threatening the apparent neutrality of the regime. In March, for example, a cargo of wheat aboard a French prize, which was brought into Plymouth by a Flemish rover, was unladen for the relief of the town on the dubious authority of old custom.54
Conditions at sea were aggravated by the unruly activities of adventurers in England and Ireland, and the indiscriminate attack on shipping by rival groups of men-of-war operating in increasingly crowded hunting grounds. The voyage of the Anne of Dublin, and its seizure by the Moon of London, led to a prolonged case before the High Court of Admiralty which illustrates the dangers of unlicensed venturing during these years. The Anne was owned by Thomas Borrowe and John Marshe, who purchased it from a group of Spaniards for £50 after it was cast away at Drogheda. The vessel was repaired and sent out during 1557, with a company of sixty soldiers and mariners and provisions for one month. The soldiers, who made up half of the company, were each armed with a sword and dagger. In May the vessel was sailing off Land’s End in search of plunder when it encountered the Moon, sent out by Lord Paget, the Lord Privy Seal, reportedly with a royal commission. According to members of the company of the Moon, Borrowe and Marshe approached in the Anne ‘with force, might and main … their tops having armed men in them, with swords waving, crying “Amain, Amain, Amain, villains Amain”.’55 This was contradicted by some of the Anne’s company, who claimed that the ensuing conflict was initiated by the Moon. After a brief fight, during which there were several casualties, one of whom subsequently died from his wounds, the Anne was seized and brought into Plymouth, where Borrowe and Marshe were apprehended as pirates. It became evident during legal proceedings that they had no commission for the voyage of the Anne. In their defence, however, it was claimed
that the vessel was sent out at the command of the Lord Deputy in Dublin, in response to the presence of French and Scots rovers off the coast of Ireland, and with the promise of a commission to follow. Paget did not press the case; on his orders the Anne was restored, though it was later captured by a French rover and carried off to St Malo as prize.
The disorder at sea was intensified by the revival of English privateering, following the outbreak of Anglo-French hostilities during 1557. The plunder of enemy trade and shipping was authorized by a proclamation of 9 June. It was modelled on the decree of December 1544 and was evidently intended to encourage private depredation. Adventurers who sent out vessels to attack the French did not need a licence or commission from the High Court of Admiralty, nor were they required to put in bonds for good behaviour at sea. In addition there was no requirement for adventurers to make any account of the proceeds of prizes, which they were to enjoy without surrendering any part thereof either to the Lord Admiral or the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.56 Armed vessels sent out under these loose provisions were enjoined not to spoil the Queen’s subjects of friends, though it was almost impossible to enforce such conditions.
Scotland was excluded from the proclamation in the hope that conflict with France’s traditional ally might be averted. However, Scottish incursions across the border led to the outbreak of hostilities at the start of August. The change in Anglo-Scottish relations was reflected in the council’s policy towards the seizure of Scottish ships. Days before the outbreak of war, on 29 July, it ordered that two Scottish vessels laden with salt and wine, taken by a group of West Country adventurers, including Walter Ralegh, were to be restored if there was ‘only a pretence of warre’ between the two countries.57 By 2 August the Scots were enemies. Consequently their vessels, including Ralegh’s seizures, were lawful prizes.
Despite official encouragement, the initial response to the proclamation, particularly in London where the war was very unpopular among city merchants, appears to have been disappointing. In June 1557 the Lord Admiral, William Howard, informed the Queen of a recent cruise in the Channel, during which he noted that there were no French ships at sea between Brittany and Boulogne, though he was informed that they were ‘making ready ten or twelve out of Dieppe on the charge of the burgesses of the town. I wish’, he added, ‘London merchants would do so much for your highness with their ships’.58 Yet the Lord Admiral was also acutely aware of the potentially damaging competition for recruits between private adventurers and royal service. Shortly after returning from his expedition in the Channel, he was doubtful about ‘equipping any more ships presently to sea because the mariners to be pressed will claim the liberty of the last proclamation for annoying the enemy’.59
The difficulty in mobilizing private enterprise during an unpopular war was also apparent in Rye, where local adventurers were reported to be discouraged by the levy of dues on prizes by officials, against the terms of the proclamation. As a result, the council complained ‘the coast is the worse defended, the enemy encouraged and their majesties worse served’.60 In July, therefore, the council instructed the mayor and other officers to ‘suffer them that are disposed to go at their adventure, to enjoy such prizes as they take, and assist them in their doings’. The ambiguous but potentially rewarding relationship between public and private enterprise was underlined by the despatch of two royal fleets during July 1557, complemented by twenty-two private ships ‘appointed for war’ on condition that their owners received a share of all prizes ‘according to ancient custom’.61 The captains of the royal ships included Peter Killigrew and several of his associates.
Although the French war was short lived, the ‘free licence’ offered to adventurers to send out armed vessels against the enemy led to a resurgence of privateering.62 While the scale of activity is difficult to gauge, it appears to have been similar in character and organization to private enterprise during the 1540s. The surviving evidence suggests that more than twenty men-of-war were operating from ports in Devon during 1557 and 1558. If the prevailing pattern of activity was similar to that during the closing years of the reign of Henry VIII, this would indicate that between forty and sixty ships may have been engaged in privateering during the war. But its impact, at least in terms of prize taking, is even more difficult to estimate, and was offset by the seizure of English vessels by the French. As during earlier conflicts, moreover, the sea war was marked by the rapid growth of disorderly plunder, including attacks on neutral and friendly shipping.
Ports and havens in the south and south-west, which had long-standing interests in maritime depredation, played a leading role in sending out men-of-war. In May 1558 Rye was described as ‘such a scourge to the French as the like is not in this realm’.63 Further west, Dartmouth, Plymouth and neighbouring havens were heavily involved in the business of plunder. London seems to have played a modest part in the sea war. Along the east coast Newcastle also participated in sending out men-of-war. The promoters of such ventures included traders and shipowners, such as Richard Fletcher of Rye, or William and John Hawkins of Plymouth, and Hugh Offley of London. Lesser members of the gentry, including the Raleghs in the West Country, whose landed interests were complemented to some extent by interests in shipowning, were also involved in sending out armed vessels against the enemy.64
The house of John Davis, Dartmouth, Devon. Conveniently located, this modest residence was the home of one of the leading navigators and explorers of Elizabethan England, who appears to have had little interest in plunder. By contrast, Drake was able to purchase Buckland Abbey with the booty he acquired from his voyage of 1577 to 1580. (Author’s collection)
The activities of these men-of-war were heavily concentrated in the Channel and the western approaches, and usually took the form of short-distance raiding which spilled over into the spoil of vessels of varied origin. The war thus provoked widespread complaints from the victims of indiscriminate attacks, who included the subjects of Philip II. In July 1557 a Flemish adventurer complained that his ship and a French prize had been taken by the Raleghs and their associates. At the prompting of the council, both were returned with compensation for the owners. In the following month the council dealt with complaints concerning the disorderly plunder of Spanish merchants by Strangeways, and the piratical seizure of another Flemish vessel. The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was also involved in investigating similar allegations against adventurers based in Rye.65
The disorder at sea appears to have intensified during 1558. The men of Rye, especially, pursued a form of enterprise that repeatedly confused the distinction between legitimate privateering and piracy. In February 1558 Richard Fletcher and his partner came to the attention of the council for the seizure of a vessel laden with a cargo from France, which was claimed as lawful prize, though the owner was an alderman of London. In March the council ordered the restoration of the Job of Antwerp, which had been taken by Fletcher. Towards the end of May it ordered the imprisonment of various local seamen for their disorderly conduct in a ship of the port.66 The following month, in a case which may have been connected, Thomas Wait, shipowner, was sent by local officers to appear before the council for an offence committed at sea by one of his vessels. Despite employing spies in Rye and neighbouring ports to arrest Wait’s men, the officers informed the council that ‘[neither] ship nor any of the mariners came here since’.67
With the war going badly, the regime faced a difficult situation at sea. The loss of Calais early in 1558 was a profound blow to the status of the Tudor monarchy. But it reflected the growing disorganization and disorder of the maritime conflict. In March the council intervened in an Admiralty case to assert that a Scottish vessel, taken by a group of adventurers in Newcastle, was lawful prize. Several weeks later, it ordered the appearance of John Asshe, gentleman and captain of the John of Chepstow, and John Ellyzaunder, the master of the vessel, to answer a charge of piracy for sinking a ship of Lübeck. In May it issued similar orders for the appearance of Strangeways and
Thomas Stukeley. The survival of pirates such as Strangeways was accompanied by the appearance of a new group of adventurers, including Stukeley and Thomas Phetiplace who was taking French prizes off Alderney during August 1558.68
Despite a determined effort to deal with piracy and unruly spoil, the closing months of Mary’s reign witnessed widespread complaints against the piratical activities of English men-of-war. With the war still going on, these problems were part of Mary’s legacy to her successor. In 1559, for example, John Ralegh, who was at sea in a ship owned by Hugh Wright, seized the Hawk of Danzig off the Scilly Isles.69 The plunder of neutral shipping was the product of a prolonged period of disorder at sea which grew out of conflict with France during the 1540s. Weak royal rule provided greater opportunity for piratical activity to flourish. But if the later 1540s and 1550s demonstrated the inability of the mid-Tudor regime to eradicate piracy or lawlessness at sea, the period also underlined the difficulties it faced in trying to deal with an increasingly complex activity that was sustained by forces beyond its control.
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