Under the Bloody Flag (16 page)
Read Under the Bloody Flag Online
Authors: John C Appleby
34.
CSPD Mary
, pp. 31, 40–1.
35.
CSPD Mary
, pp. 40–1 and for the rest of the paragraph.
36.
D.M. Loades,
Two Tudor Conspiracies
(Cambridge, 1965), pp. 21–40;
CSPD Mary
, pp. 21, 40, 163–4.
37.
Loades,
Tudor Conspiracies
, pp. 161–3, 165, 204; Rowse,
Tudor Cornwall
, pp. 317–9.
38.
CSPD Mary
, pp. 157, 159, 187. They were proclaimed traitors in April 1556,
Tudor Proclamations
, II, pp. 64–7.
39.
CSPD Mary
, p. 235; Loades,
Tudor Navy
, pp. 164–5.
40.
CSPD Mary
, p. 235. Though one of Killigrew’s company claimed that he was forced to serve, Ibid., p. 236.
41.
CSPD Mary
, p. 224.
42.
APC 1552
–
54
, pp. 230, 236, 417–8;
APC 1554
–
56
, p. 52.
43.
CSPD Mary
, pp. 232–4.
44.
Loades,
Tudor Conspiracies
, pp. 162–5;
CSPD Mary
, p. 235.
45.
CSPD Mary
, p. 236.
46.
Loades,
Tudor Conspiracies
, p. 233;
CSPF 1547
–
53
, pp. 242, 245.
47.
APC 1554
–
56
, pp. 227–8, 236, 282, 288, 290, 294, 307–8.
48.
APC 1554
–
56
, pp. 308–9.
49.
APC 1554
–
56
, pp. 316–7, 335; Loades,
Tudor Conspiracies
, p. 225.
50.
APC 1554
–
56
, pp. 336, 358–9, 362–3.
51.
CSPV 1534
–
54
, p. 352.
52.
Nichols (ed.),
Diary
, pp. 111, 131.
53.
A.L. Merson (ed.),
The Third Book of Remembrance of Southampton 1514
–
1602
, 3 vols. (Southampton Record Series, 2, 3 & 8, n. s., 1952–65), II, pp. 55–6. The chain cost three shillings to make.
54.
APC 1556
–
58
, pp. 54, 65, 70.
55.
Calendar
, pp. 16–9. Paget’s ship also took a French vessel which seems to have been returned, Beer and Jack (eds.), ‘Letters of William, Lord Paget’, p. 121.
56.
CSPD Mary
, p. 279; Loades,
Tudor Navy
, pp. 173–4.
57.
APC 1556
–
58
, pp. 135–6, 139–40.
58.
CSPD Mary
, p. 282.
59.
CSPD Mary
, p. 283.
60.
CSPD Mary
, pp. 286–7.
61.
APC 1556
–
58
, pp. 291–3, 298, 319, 323;
CSPD Mary
, pp. 287, 298.
62.
CSPD Mary
, p. 286;
Tudor Proclamations
, II, pp. 79–82; M. Oppenheim,
The Maritime History of Devon
(Exeter, 1968), p. 31. By the 1550s many of the practices of Elizabethan privateering were evident, G.V. Scammell, ‘Shipowning in the Economy and Politics of Early Modern England’,
The Historical Journal
, 15 (1972), p. 402, reprinted in
Ships, Oceans and Empire.
63.
CSPD Mary
, p. 355.
64.
Stanford, ‘Raleghs take to the Sea’, pp. 25–7;
Select Pleas
, II, pp. 31–4; Williamson,
Hawkins
, pp. 68–9.
65.
APC 1556
–
58
, pp. 126–7, 135–6, 140–1, 212, 214, 221.
66.
APC 1556
–
58
, pp. 268–9, 291–3, 298, 319, 323.
67.
CSPD Mary
, p. 343.
68.
APC 1556
–
58
, pp. 279–80, 300, 320, 340, 385.
69.
Stanford, ‘Raleghs take to the Sea’, pp. 28–9.
70.
CSPI 1509
–
73
, p. 100;
APC 1552
–
54
, pp. 203, 222, 236, 245;
Select Pleas
, II, pp. 84–6, 109–10.
71.
F.J. Levy, ‘The Strange Life and Death of Captain Henry Stranguishe’,
MM
, 48 (1962), pp. 133–7;
CSPD Mary
, pp. 163–4, 179;
CPR 1553
–
54
, p. 412;
CSPF 1547
–
53
, p. 242; J.G. Nichols (ed.),
The Chronicle of Queen Jane, and of the Two Years of Queen Mary
(Camden Society, 48, 1850), p. 68; Williamson,
Hawkins
, p. 50. On the portrait see National Portrait Gallery Collection, 6353,
www.npg.org/live/search/a–z
72.
Levy, ‘Strange Life and Death’, p. 135.
73.
HCA 1/38, f. 95v.
Pirates, Privateers and Slave Traders from the later 1550s to the later 1560s
English depredation grew more varied and wide-ranging during the opening decade of the Elizabethan regime. Small-scale, sporadic spoil remained a problem within the waters of the British Isles, but it was accompanied by the development of more purposeful and systematic piracy and sea roving. The activities of English raiders provoked widespread complaint from Spain and Portugal, as well as from France and the Low Countries, but they were not the only threat to peaceful commerce in north-west Europe. A wide range of maritime predators, of varied backgrounds, operated during these years, creating opportunities for cooperation and competition among unruly groups of pirates and privateers that rival monarchies struggled either to repress or re-direct against their enemies. The disorder at sea was reinforced by international rivalries, civil wars and rebellion. The outbreak of the French wars of religion, followed by the Dutch revolt against the Spanish monarchy, led to inflammatory political and religious conflicts which intensified maritime lawlessness and violence, particularly as rebel leaders in the Low Countries and France issued commissions, justifying the plunder of their enemies. The confusion between religious hostility and pre-existing commercial rivalries served as a driving force for the striking expansion of piracy and privateering along the coasts of Spain and Portugal. During the 1560s this was accompanied by the aggressive development of English trade with Guinea, linked with speculative schemes for breaking into the transatlantic slave trade. Though supported by the Queen and leading courtiers, these ventures were inherently predatory. From the perspective of the Portuguese and Spanish, indeed, they were an alarming, piratical challenge to vulnerable commercial and imperial interests. The relationship between commercial grievances and political and religious enmities thus created the conditions for a dramatic shift in the range of English depredation that laid the basis for the emergence of transatlantic armed trade and plunder during the 1560s and early 1570s.
Piracy and plunder around the British Isles during the later 1550s and early 1560s
The new Queen inherited an unpopular and unsuccessful war with France which was marked by widespread disorder and illegal plunder at sea. The restoration of peace in 1559 failed to ease Anglo-French tension, or to prevent the outbreak of another brief conflict during 1562. In these circumstances disorderly plunder and piracy threatened to become a serious problem, though initially it remained concentrated in the Channel, and focused on the spoil of French trade and shipping. But the Elizabethan regime was soon faced with the danger of the spread of unruly privateering and piracy. English men-of-war continued to seize neutral vessels, despite the risk of retaliation. During 1558 a ship of Hamburg was captured and taken to Ireland. Attacks on Flemish vessels provoked complaints in December about injustice and delay in the High Court of Admiralty. In January 1559 Philip II expressed outrage at the plunder of Flemish ships which carried his safe conduct, complaining to his ambassador in London that ‘although the Queen and council are well aware of the justice of the case no retribution can be obtained’.
1
The problem of English depredation thus cast a shadow over relations between the new regime and its European neighbours, at a time of unsettling religious and political change.
From the outset, overseas complaints were aggravated by uncertainty concerning the recovery of pirate booty, which damaged the international reputation of the High Court of Admiralty. Scottish merchants, who claimed losses of £2,300 to local pirates operating along the coast of Northumberland in 1559, struggled for more than seven years to receive compensation awarded by the court. But piracy cases raised genuine difficulties that were not easily resolved by legal process, especially when the rights of the Lord Admiral were involved. The uncertainty and confusion in the application of the law were reflected in the opinion of the civil lawyers who were consulted about the ownership of property taken by pirates, following the seizure of Strangeways and his company during 1559. While noting that the captors of the pirates ‘had the greater part of their prizes’, they acknowledged that goods ‘taken by pirates can be lawfully claimed by the owners’.
2
The potential contradiction between competing claims to pirate property, in which the Lord Admiral also had an interest, complicated the recovery and restoration of plundered cargoes, irrespective of the related issue of compensation. This provoked anger and concern among the victims of piracy and disorderly depredation, fuelling suspicions about the connivance of powerful vested interests which undermined respect for legal process. At the same time it threatened to taint the Queen and the court with unseemly allegations about their secret support for pirates and rovers.
The capture of Strangeways was an unexpected success for the new regime, which gave it an opportunity to demonstrate its resolve in dealing with piracy and lawlessness at sea. But the survival of this notorious rover, who was widely known among the Spanish and French as either Enrriex Tranguaz or Estranguitz, exposed a long-standing ambiguity in the handling of the problem. Despite his apparent abandonment of piracy, in April 1559 the Privy Council instructed customs officials in Southampton and Plymouth to prevent Strangeways and an associate, William Wilford, from leaving port, as a result of alarming reports that they intended to raid Madeira with a force of two vessels and 500 soldiers, which apparently included fifty gentlemen. Following a declaration before the council that they intended to go to sea as merchants, Strangeways and Wilford were allowed to proceed on their voyage.
3
Once in the Channel, however, Strangeways seized several Portuguese and Spanish vessels. By July he was reported to have visited Fécamp in Normandy, despite assurances from the French that he would be arrested if he entered their jurisdiction. The English ambassador in Paris, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, warned the Queen that the French ‘will use all the practices they can to make Stranguyse, the pirate, wholly theirs, to be an instrument to impeach her; it would, therefore,’ he added, ‘be good policy to serve herself by him covertly’.
4
The regime responded rapidly to Strangeways’ return to piracy. In August 1559 the King of Spain was informed that Elizabeth had sent out six ships in search of him, with a warning that ‘if it cost her ten thousand pounds she would get hold of him and have him executed, as he had been captured on previous occasions but had been pardoned through the bought favour of her sister’s chamber-women’.
5
However, the same report also claimed that the fleet was despatched by the Lord Admiral with the primary purpose of enriching himself from the pirate’s booty which was reputedly between 50,000 and 60,000 ducats in value.
Although Strangeways was taken by the fleet off La Rochelle during August, he evaded execution. According to the diary of the London draper Henry Machyn, he was brought to the Tower on 10 August. Several days later he was transferred to the Marshalsea, together with eighty members of his company, in preparation for their trial. They were paraded through the streets of London shackled with fetters, like a band of penitents. The following month Strangeways and seven of his company were arraigned at Southwark and sentenced to be hanged; the rest of the pirates were to be sent to the galleys. Early in October Sir William Cecil, the Queen’s secretary, informed Throckmorton of the sentence, although the latter had urged the Queen to delay the execution. While Strangeways and his men awaited punishment, two new pairs of gallows were constructed at Wapping. On the day of execution, however, the pirates were reprieved. Later in the month, the Queen issued a warrant for the release of Strangeways, ‘in order to judge of his conduct before his pardon is finally given to him’.
6
Thereafter Strangeways was given the opportunity to earn redemption through royal service. In January 1560 the French ambassador in England reported that the former pirate, who, he warned, possessed information of the harbours and landing places in Normandy acquired from a French prisoner in the Tower, had been placed in command of one of the Queen’s ships. At a time when Elizabeth was prepared to instruct one of her Admirals, in December 1559, to ‘pick a quarrel with the French fleet’ in Scotland, while publicly maintaining peace with France, there was ample scope for the use of a man of Strangeways’ experience and ability.
7
When Elizabeth subsequently intervened in the first war of religion in France during 1562, in an attempt to recover Calais, Strangeways served in command of a royal vessel with a company of seventy men, though during the course of the conflict he was wounded and died at Rouen.
