These conditions promoted the growth and diversification of English depredation. During the later 1560s and early 1570s transatlantic plunder emerged, while localized and opportunistic piracy flourished within the Channel and the western approaches. Both forms of enterprise were focused on the spoil of Iberian commerce. The dangers to Spanish trade and shipping were intensified by the activities of a Huguenot fleet in the Channel, under the authority of the Duke of Condé, which was supported by the English. Although Condé’s targets were French Catholics, Huguenot raiding spilled over into attacks on Spanish and Flemish vessels. During 1568 the new Spanish ambassador, Guerau de Spes, whose angry reports from London helped to inflame Anglo-Spanish tension, warned Philip II that ships sailing to Flanders needed to sail in convoy to defend themselves against possible attack. By November the Huguenot privateering force had reportedly seized eleven prizes which were brought into England.81
In the following month de Spes informed Philip that the Huguenots had a fleet at sea of about ten men-of-war, manned with 1,200 men. An additional seven or eight ships were expected to reinforce it. In response to Spanish complaints against the use of English ports and havens by the French, the Queen reassured the ambassador that pirates would be punished, though such was the disorder at sea that de Spes was sceptical of the outcome. Indeed, he alleged that Cecil ‘wherever he can, favours the pirates, both on account of religious partiality and of the great profit he derives from it’.82 Spanish concern was fuelled by the activities of adventurers from Plymouth, Southampton and neighbouring ports who were sailing in consort with the French, and by reports that William Winter had led a fleet of six of the Queen’s ships to the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle.
The spread of Huguenot privateering provided a cover for English adventurers who continued to plunder Spanish shipping. In May 1568 two rovers, including Edward Cooke, seized a Spanish galleon off Guipúzcoa, though it was subsequently recovered by one of the Queen’s ships. Among those engaged in what seemed to be an unofficial campaign of reprisals were William Hawkins and Courtenay. Their seizure of several rich Flemish and Spanish ships during 1568 provoked outrage from de Spes, who claimed that they were assisted by friends at the Queen’s court. The deep-seated ambiguity of such depredation, which was rooted in the crisis in Anglo-Spanish relations, grew worse following the arrest of English merchants and property in the Low Countries by the Spanish regent, the Duke of Alva. In retaliation, Elizabeth issued a proclamation in January 1569 suspending commercial relations with Spain and Flanders, while authorizing the arrest of Spanish ships and goods within her realm. Diplomatically, the proclamation insisted that Spanish property was not to be spoiled, but to be kept under guard. It also stopped short of allowing reprisals against Spain, leaving adventurers like Courtenay and Hawkins open to charges of piracy.83
Nonetheless, the return of the survivors of Hawkins’ expedition from the Caribbean early in 1569 provided further justification for the spoil of Spanish shipping. According to de Spes, the seizure of Spanish vessels in English ports was followed by their plunder by Admiralty officials and pirates, despite the Queen’s decree to the contrary. In February 1569 he estimated the loss to Spain at about 900,000 ducats. At sea, moreover, Spanish trade continued to be the target for an increasingly international force of privateers and rovers. De Spes complained of the capture of seven merchant vessels off the Isle of Wight by a mixed group of English and Flemish pirates. Several weeks later he expressed concern that the pirates intended to attack Spanish fleets returning from the Caribbean laden with silver and gold.84
The Queen tried to contain the disorder at sea through proclamations issued in April and August 1569. Both were in response to the threatening activities of mixed groups of pirates, rovers and privateers, ‘of divers nations’, who were ranging the North Sea and the Channel, between the coasts of Denmark, Sweden and France, ‘robbing and spoiling all manner of honest merchants of every nation without difference’. The first extended existing penalties against piracy by including the supporters of pirates and rovers securely within the jurisdiction of the law. Consequently, those who traded or trafficked with pirates, or who assisted them in other ways, faced the same punishment as the robbers themselves. In suspicious cases, local officials were instructed to take bonds for ships that were not engaged in lawful trade or fishing. If the companies of such ships subsequently resorted to piracy, the officials were to be accountable, suffering imprisonment until the offenders were caught. All pirates and rovers were proclaimed ‘to be out of … [the Queen’s] protection, and lawfully to be by any person taken, punished, and suppressed with extremity’.85 These stringent measures were reinforced by the provisions of the succeeding decree against disorder in the Channel. In another attempt to prevent pirates and rovers from being supplied with provisions in England, Vice Admirals and local officers were commanded to apprehend all armed vessels which were not engaged in trade or fishing, or to prevent them from putting to sea. Officials were also instructed not to countenance any ships sailing with overseas licences, but only those which were known as the Queen’s, in order that they ‘may be sent to the seas for keeping the same free from pirates’.86
The regime’s attempts to deal with the growing international menace of piracy and privateering in the Channel failed to improve Anglo-Spanish or Anglo-Flemish relations. Early in 1569 de Spes advised Philip II that the English did not deserve an ambassador, ‘only an agent, so that when they make captures, reprisals may be at once adopted and their commerce stopped’. This was followed by a steady stream of complaints and allegations about the interests of leading representatives of the regime in the spoil of Spanish subjects. In April the ambassador claimed that Cecil and five or six other members of the council were growing rich from the plunder of the Spanish, and from the bribery that accompanied it. This was ‘a road to a host of robberies and rogueries’, he complained later in the year, ‘and has been devised by some of the council in order to gain great riches for themselves’.87 Several prominent councillors were alleged to be directly involved in supporting the growth of anti-Spanish venturing. They included the Queen’s favourite, Leicester, and the Earl of Pembroke, whose servants reportedly captured a rich Spanish ship returning from Barbary.
Increasingly the reports of de Spes seemed to indicate that the English were engaged in an unofficial war of plunder against the commercial and colonial possessions of the Spanish monarchy. In August 1569 the ambassador reported that the seas remained crowded with pirates. Within the Channel groups of English, French and Dutch rovers plundered Spanish and Flemish shipping from safe havens in south-west England, the Isle of Wight and the neighbouring region. By October de Spes claimed that men-of-war, manned with rovers of Dutch origin, had taken more than thirty vessels, mainly laden with grain, from Spanish subjects. The following month he reported the seizure of four ships by English and French men-of-war under the leadership of the Huguenot commander, Jacques de Sores, who was based in Portsmouth. According to Spanish reports, this Anglo-French force was made up of between thirteen and sixteen strong, well-equipped ships, which were divided into two squadrons. A larger number of scavenging pirate ships also operated in their wake, scouring the Channel in search of prey.88
Although these mixed fleets of rovers and privateers continued to plunder the subjects of the King of Spain, they also spoiled vessels of varied origins. The seizures included two rich Venetian ships, the Justiniana and the Vergi. The cargo of the former was valued at 130,000 crowns, while the lading of the latter was worth 100,000 crowns. De Spes reported that during the capture of the Justiniana the ‘pirates hoisted the Queen’s standard and pretended to be her officers’, though both prizes were subsequently taken to La Rochelle, where their cargoes were declared to be lawful prize. This was followed, during 1570, by the seizure of a hulk of Danzig, of 1,300 or 1,400 tons, which was bound for Portugal.89
During the establishment of the Elizabethan regime from 1558 to 1570, therefore, varied forms of de
predation survived and flourished. A combination of domestic insecurity and international uncertainty created favourable conditions for the maintenance of small-scale and localized piracy, alongside the development of more purposeful and ambitious piratical venturing within the Channel and along the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal. At the same time, aggressive commercial pioneering beyond Europe opened up new channels for English depredation in Guinea and the Caribbean. While the scale of activity should not be exaggerated, the persistence of piracy and disorderly privateering, and the increasing spoil of Spanish and Flemish trade and shipping, created problems for a vulnerable regime with limited naval experience and resources. Although the official response to these developments betrayed confusion and some degree of tension between potentially competing priorities, the Queen and her council made repeated attempts to curb the excesses of English rovers. While resorting to long-standing expedients, the regime also tried to develop a coherent programme to deal with piracy. However, the limited activities and successes of the commissioners for piracy suggest that it was fighting a losing battle against maritime lawlessness and disorder, particularly given the growth of Anglo-Spanish tension and thinly veiled hostility during these years. In December 1569 the Duke of Alva added to the growing chorus of Spanish complaint against English and French piracies, while warning Philip II that pirates or sea bandits from the Low Countries were operating from bases in England. Alva advised Philip that an open rupture with England would be inappropriate and unwelcome.90 But the widening range of English piracy, strikingly demonstrated by the return of Drake to the Caribbean, soon brought England and Spain close to a war of mutual reprisals which spanned the Atlantic.
Notes
1. CSPI 1509–73, p. 151; APC 1558–70, p. 23; CSPS 1558–67, pp. 24–5; G.D. Ramsay, The City of London in International Politics at the Accession of Elizabeth Tudor (Manchester, 1975), pp. 113–4, 125–6; Tudor Proclamations, II, p. 101.
2. CSPD 1547–80, p. 136; J.H. Burton (ed.), The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1545–1569 (Edinburgh, 1877), pp. 430–2.
3. APC 1558–70, pp. 97–8; CSPS 1558–67, p. 61; CSPF 1558–59, pp. 228, 233, 585–6; CSPF 1559–60, p. 251.
4. CSPF 1558–59, p. 388; Pays–Bas, I, pp. 604–5; II, pp. 138, 635; HCA 1/38, ff. 94–5v.
5. CSPS 1558–67, p. 92.
6. Nichols (ed.), Diary, pp. 212–3; CSPF 1559–60, p. 4; HCA 1/38, f. 95v.
7. CSPD 1547–80, p. 144; Levy, ‘Strange Life and Death’, pp. 135–6.
8. Calendar, pp. 25–6 for Fobbe; Pays–Bas, I, p. 601; II, pp. 180–1, 415, 501–2, 569–75, 589–90.
9. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 150, 207; Pays–Bas, II, pp. 406–7; Calendar, p. 24.
10. CSPF 1560–61, p. 558; CSPS 1558–67, pp. 24–5, 37.
11. CSPF 1560–61, p. 558.
12. CSPF 1560–61, p. 559. J.D. Tracy, ‘Herring Wars: The Habsburg Netherlands and the Struggle for Control of the North Sea, c. 1520–1560’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 24 (1993), pp. 256–66.
13. CSPF 1560–61, p. 56; CSPF 1561–62, pp. 134, 191–2, 276–7.
14. CSPF 1561–62, pp. 133, 149, 193.
15. CSPF 1561–62, pp. 134–5, 137, 193.
16. CSPF 1561–62, pp. 134–5.
17. CSPF 1561–62, pp. 143–4, 150; CSPF 1560–61, pp. 557–60.
18. CSPF 1561–62, pp. 133, 192.
19. CSPF 1561–62, pp. 192–3, 276–7; CSPS 1558–67, pp. 207, 211–2; Tudor Proclamations, I, pp. 171–2.
20. CSPF 1562, p. 162. Phetiplace or Fetiplace was also known as Petit–Pas, Pays–Bas, III, p. 626. Marychurch was pardoned in 1562, CPR 1563–66, p. 327.
21. CSPF 1562, p. 89.
22. CSPF 1562, pp. 162, 590–1.
23. CSPF 1563, pp. 61, 232, 259; CPR 1560–63, p. 502; J. Bain et al. (eds.), Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots 1547–1603, 13 vols. (Edinburgh, 1898–1969), II, p. 1.
24. CSPF 1563, p. 619. By January 1566 he was in Milford Haven, E.A. Lewis (ed.), The Welsh Port Books (1550–1603) (London, 1927), p. 315.
25. CSPI 1509–73, pp. 230–1; CSPF 1564–65, pp. 27, 79–80, 174. Phetiplace’s declaration presented his actions in northern Spain as a legitimate response to Spanish hostility, SP 63/10/22. In 1563 Cecil noted that piracy was ‘detestable and can not last’, R.H. Tawney and E. Power (eds.), Tudor Economic Documents, 3 vols. (London, 1924), II, p. 106.
26. Nichols (ed.), Diary, pp. 256, 281. A report of 1563 claimed there were at least 400 known pirates operating in the waters around the British Isles, Oppenheim, Administration, p. 177.
27. Tudor Proclamations, II, pp. 206–9; R.B. Wernham, Before the Armada: The Growth of English Foreign Policy 1485–1588 (London, 1966), pp. 281–2.
28. APC 1558–70, pp. 136, 141; CSPS 1558–67, pp. 276, 299, 300, 322–3; Ramsay, London, pp. 134–5. William Hawkins was part–owner of a man–of–war with Stukely, Williamson, Hawkins, pp. 96–7.
29. J.A. Twemlow (ed.), Liverpool Town Books, 2 vols. (Liverpool, 1918–35), I, pp. 224–5; CSPD 1547–80, pp. 224, 228, 239; CSPF 1563, p. 431; Tudor Proclamations, II, pp. 228, 232; Rodger, Safeguard of the Sea, pp. 197–200.
30. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 349–51; Tudor Proclamations, II, pp. 235–6.
31. CSPF 1563, p. 132; Pays–Bas, III, pp. 384–5, 538, 540, 585–6.
32. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 345–6; CSPF 1563, pp. 414, 429. Trading vessels from Bristol were seized in Spanish ports as pirate ships during the early 1560s, J. Vanes (ed.), Documents illustrating the Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Sixteenth Century (Bristol Record Society, 31, 1979), pp. 154–6.
33. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 349–55; CSPF 1563, pp. 611–2, 619; CSPF 1564–65, pp. 9, 19, 27, 46, 79, 158–9, 174, 199–200.
34. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 376, 536, 572–3; CSPF 1563, pp. 598, 631; CSPF 1564–65, pp. 192, 201, 224; Ramsay, London, pp. 138–9.
35. CSPF 1564–65, p. 39. Phetiplace noted thirty English men–of–war off Belle Isle in October 1563, SP 63/10/22.
36. CSPF 1564–65, pp. 80, 158–9, 199–201, 224, 415; Pays–Bas, III, pp. 668–9.
37. Tudor Proclamations, II, pp. 245–6; HMC Salisbury, I, pp. 286–7; Pays–Bas, III, pp. 585–6, 645–6.
38. CSPF 1564–65, p. 46; APC 1558–70, pp. 186, 202–3, 212–3; Pays–Bas, III, p. 665; Ramsay, London, pp. 201–3.
39. CSPD 1547–80, pp. 244–6, 251; APC 1558–70, pp. 146–8, 151, 184, 202; HMC Salisbury, I, p. 299.
40. CSPS 1558–67, p. 376.
41. APC 1558–70, pp. 153–4, 164, 182, 186, 229–30.
42. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 402–3; APC 1558–70, pp. 175, 179.
43. CSPD 1547–80, p. 251; APC 1558–70, pp. 206–7, 209, 211, 215–6, 235–6.
44. CSPF 1564–65, p. 350; Tudor Proclamations, II, p. 252.
45. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 359–60, 397; CSPF 1563, p. 619; Pays–Bas, III, p. 514; D.B. Quinn, Explorers and Colonies: America, 1500–1625 (London, 1990), pp. 260–2; NAW, II, p. 285; ODNB, ‘Thomas Stukely’.
46. CSPF 1564–65, p. 46; CSPS 1558–67, pp. 354–5.
47. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 359, 373–9.
48. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 373, 376, 440.
49. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 440–1, 449–50, 454–5, 472–3.
50. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 450, 454–5; CSPS 1558–67, p. 450.
51. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 454–5, 472–3. It has been argued that there is no evidence that benefit of clergy was allowed during the sixteenth century (M.J. Prichard and D.E.C. Yale (eds.), Hale and Fleetwood on Admiralty Jurisdiction (Selden Society, 108, 1992), pp. ccviii–ccx), though Marsden accepted that Cobham appeared to evade punishment by these means, R.G. Marsden, ‘Thomas Cobham and the Capture of the “St. Katherine”’, EHR, 23 (1908), pp. 290–1.
52. CSPI 1509–73, pp. 275, 341–2, 408, 466–72.
53. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 539, 552.
54. APC 1558–70, pp. 229–30, 240–1, 244–45, 251; Calendar, p. 25.
55. APC 1558–70, pp. 252�
�4, 256, 260, 273.
56. CSPS 1558–67, p. 496; APC 1558–70, pp. 260, 267, 272–3, 298.
57. APC 1558–70, pp. 273, 275, 293.
58. CSPS 1558–67, p. 496. Cobham remained at sea, Calendar, pp. 27–8.
59. APC 1558–70, pp. 278–90; Tawney and Power (eds.), Tudor Economic Documents, II, pp. 117–22.
60. APC 1558–70, pp. 278–90; P. Williams, The Tudor Regime (Oxford, 1979), pp. 190, 416–7.
61. APC 1558–70, pp. 278–90; N. Williams, The Sea Dogs: Privateers, Plunder and Piracy in the Elizabethan Age (London, 1975), pp. 149–50.
62. APC 1558–70, p. 307.
63. CSPD 1547–80, p. 267; APC 1558–70, p. 325.
64. APC 1558–70, pp. 292–5, 312.
65. CSPS 1558–67, pp. 539, 552, 688.
66. J. McDermott, Martin Frobisher: Elizabethan Privateer (New Haven, 2001), pp. 50–66; R.G. Marsden, ‘The Early Career of Sir Martin Frobisher’, EHR, 21 (1906), pp. 538–44.
67. APC 1558–70, p. 317.
68. APC 1558–70, pp. 320–1; CSPD 1547–80, p. 276.
69. CSPF 1566–68, pp. 388, 450, 578, 583, 588, 592; APC 1558–70, p. 334, 348; Williamson, Hawkins, pp. 99–100; Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, pp. 80–1. Overseas retaliation included the arrest of Bristol shipping in Spain, evidently in response to the continued activities of Cobham, Vanes (ed.), Overseas Trade of Bristol, pp. 131–2.
70. K.R. Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480–1630 (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 102–15.
71. PN, VI, pp. 225, 229, 232–4.
72. PN, VI, pp. 235–52.
73. PN, VI, pp. 250–1.
74. Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, pp. 103–4, 122–3.
75. PN, VI, pp. 266–84. For an earlier venture which ran into trouble off the coast of Spain see K.R. Andrews, ‘Thomas Fenner and the Guinea Trade, 1564’, MM, 38 (1952), pp. 312–4.
76. Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, pp. 121–8; K.R. Andrews, The Spanish Caribbean:Trade and Plunder 1530–1630 (New Haven, 1978), pp. 108–33; CSPS 1558–67, pp. 470, 502–4; PN, VI, pp. 235–6; H. Kelsey, Sir John Hawkins: Queen Elizabeth’s Slave Trader (New Haven, 2003), chaps. 3 & 4.
Under the Bloody Flag Page 16