Under the Bloody Flag (17 page)

There was nothing new in the employment of pirates in public service, but as an expedient it failed to discourage the growth of disorder at sea. The difficulties in dealing with the problem were underlined by the arrest of Jamey Fobbe and other English and Scottish pirates in Cornwall during December 1559. Although the pirates were imprisoned in Launceston Gaol, an Admiralty officer later reported that Fobbe was released, because no action was brought against him. During the 1560s, therefore, English depredation continued to flourish, becoming more diverse in structure, organization and range. While the selection of targets was often indiscriminate, there was a marked increase in the plunder of Flemish trading and fishing vessels, which was accompanied by the spoil of richer Spanish ships trading between Spain and the Low Countries.
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The persistence and diversity of piracy and sea roving were indicated by the growing volume of complaint to the Queen’s ministers and council during the early 1560s. In May 1560 Sir Thomas Gresham appealed to Cecil on behalf of a Flemish merchant, who was owed £4,000 by the Queen, whose vessel, the
Abraham
of Enkhuizen, had been taken by William Johnson of Boston. Johnson and his company pretended to be Scots, though the
Abraham
was brought into Boston and sold. In January 1561 the King of Denmark supported a claim for redress to the council from a group of merchants of Hamburg, who had been plundered by English rovers probably under the command of William Holloway of Plymouth. The following month the council was dealing with two rovers who challenged their arrest as pirates, after taking a French vessel, on the grounds that they possessed Scottish letters of marque.
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A collection of depositions by Flemish merchants and mariners, drawn up in February 1561, demonstrates the prevalence of small-scale piracy along the Thames and the coast of Kent. Berthelmieu Cornelison, a mariner of Antwerp, complained that he was unable to make a voyage to England peaceably, without being spoiled of clothes and provisions. Even ‘before the Queen’s palace at Greenwich, they fired at him four or five cannon shot, which tore his sails, which the Queen might have seen from her windows if she had been there’.
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Other cases of such petty robbery along the shore stretched back over several years. The attacks occurred ‘so frequently that no one can sail with safety into England’.

Many of these cases were the result of casual, opportunistic pillage or aggression. Shortly after Christmas 1560 several vessels from Antwerp were attacked by eight or nine English vessels off Margate, after they refused to strike their sails when ordered to do so. In January a Flemish vessel was boarded at Margate by a group of eight or ten armed men who assaulted one of the crew and carried off various commodities. Although their assailants ‘wore caps before their faces like masks, and were otherwise disguised’, the Flemings knew they were English by their speech.
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To some extent this kind of plunder was the product of the spread of river piracy along the Thames. As such it involved small groups of robbers, usually numbering less than twelve men, who were lightly armed with a small range of hand weapons. Operating under cover of night, they stole food and clothing, and anything that could be carried ashore in small rowing boats, including the odd chest of sugar, as well as any money in the possession of the crews of the ships they raided. The men and boys who were involved in this petty criminality relied on surprise and stealth rather than the use of force or violence, although mariners might be intimidated and beaten, like dogs according to one victim. The depositions from Antwerp suggest that small-scale depredation was growing in intensity, with little effective check from law officers or local officials. Albert Jacobsson was able to identify some of the men who boarded his ship at Erith in 1561, and carried off all the clothing and money they could find, ‘because one of their number named Guytelier had no nose’. Although they were arrested, local justices ‘allowed them to depart with a simple caution’.
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Merchants and mariners of the Low Countries were not the only victims of attacks along the Thames, but their grievances were compounded with complaints about pirate raids on the Flemish fishery in the North Sea. This was the work of loosely coordinated groups of pirates operating from various bases along the east coast, which included Boston and Lowestoft. Their leading figures included William Johnson, John Whitehead and John Marychurch. Despite some evidence of local disapproval, they were assisted by shore-based supporters. Two traders from Ostend, who were in Boston during 1561 when Johnson was rigging out his ship, claimed to hear ‘the people say that he was going to sea to rob, and said, “Ah, Jonson, Jonson, what mean you to go rob and spoil on the sea, having no need so to do at all”.’
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According to complaints of the Spanish ambassador, however, the pirates benefited from widespread community support, including the collusion of Admiralty officials. Consequently if they were caught, they were later freed or pardoned ‘at the suit of one or other’; sometimes a ‘poor knave or two are hanged, but the ringleaders ever escape’.

The pirates operating in the North Sea during the early 1560s sailed in small vessels, of about 40 tons or less, that were adapted for hit-and-run raiding at sea. Although they carried a limited number of ordnance, the men who served aboard them were armed with a varied range of hand weapons which were usually sufficient for the spoil of small and vulnerable fishing boats. Some of the pirate ships reportedly were painted in distinctive and powerful colours, including black, red and yellow. The vessel that Johnson was preparing in Boston during 1561 was described as a ‘black ship with two tops and pointed before, furnished with a quantity of munitions of war, (as pikes, long low bows, arrows, and ordnance)’.
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These ships acted alone, or in consort with each other, preying on fishing vessels which were spoiled of their catches and provisions. The number of men involved in the boarding of their prey was often small, ranging from four to twelve. Many of the attackers tried to conceal their identities from their victims. Some even operated under the guise of fishing vessels. According to the complaint of the Spanish ambassador, their ‘manner … is to go well manned to the sea, and finding a poor fisherman of the Low Countries, to take from him his fish and nets, and make them of the port believe that the fish was of their own catching’.
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The depositions of Flemish masters and mariners compiled during 1561, as evidence for the Elizabethan regime, underline the petty character of this form of depredation, though it caused widespread disruption to the North Sea fishery. The company of one fishing vessel was approached by an English pirate ship, ‘disguised like a fisherman, armed with bows and darts, with irons … [which] fired twice at them’. A boarding party of five men and one boy entered the fishing vessel, beating the crew with swords and pikes. But the spoil was interrupted by the sighting of two ships in the distance, which persuaded the pirates to depart hurriedly, almost empty handed. Another Flemish vessel was chased by two pirate ships which discharged three or four pieces of ordnance, ‘to make them keep underneath, so that they should not see the Englishmen, lest they might be known’. Johnson’s company were reported to operate with masks to conceal their identities, but their leader was widely recognised. On several occasions, indeed, it seems that he was concerned to ensure that his robberies were reported in Flanders.
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Pirates like Johnson were thus engaged in a specialized form of small-scale depredation. Their prizes were of modest, if not limited, value. Among the Flemish fishing vessels plundered during 1561, the spoil from individual ships included forty barrels of fish and fishing tackle; twelve barrels of fish; 1,000 fish; clothing; fifty pounds of butter; an anchor and an iron pot; twenty barrels of fish; two nets; tackle; butter; and one small gun. Yet the economic cost also included damage to vessels and the wasting of catches. The halyards of one ship were cut in pieces by pirates, who also threw 300 fish and two casks of fish livers into the sea. Another vessel was extensively damaged by pirates, who ‘cut in pieces cords of their ship, so that she should not stay there any longer’. But the victims of this attack were left with 500 fish, apparently in response to a remark from one of the pirates, who queried ‘shall we take all from one man? We shall meet with enough today or tomorrow’.
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Collectively, the damage to the Flemish fishery from English piracy was extensive. In July 1561 the Spanish ambassador claimed that eighty subjects of the King of Spain, mainly from the Low Countries, had been spoiled by English pirates during the previous two years. However, the casualties from this wave of piracy appear to have been limited. While Flemish fishermen were regularly beaten and abused by pirates, death or serious injury were rare, although the master of one ship, plundered by Johnson, died from his wounds in Boston.
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Encounters at sea indicate that if the companies of fishing or trading vessels surrendered peacefully to pirates, they avoided serious harm, and were occasionally left with a share of the plunder.

While the evidence from Flanders reveals that a loosely organized force of pirate captains raided the North Sea fishery, during the early 1560s pirates and rovers remained very active in the Channel and the Irish Sea. Scottish men-of-war continued to range along the east coast. In response to Flemish and Spanish complaints, indeed, the English tried to shift responsibility for the plunder at sea onto the Scots. Faced with a thinly veiled warning from Philip II, that he would be compelled to ‘arm some power to the seas’ if the spoil persisted, Elizabeth sent out several royal fleets against the pirates during the summer of 1561. This failed to impress the Spanish ambassador, who reported that the fleet sent into the Channel was intended for service in Ireland, allowing the pirates to return to sea and to continue the daily spoil of foreign shipping. Nonetheless, at the end of August, Cecil advised the ambassador that Flemish fishermen could proceed on their voyages, ‘without fear of pirates’, as a result of the presence of five of the Queen’s ships along the east coast.
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As a group, the pirates in the North Sea withdrew to the apparent safety of remote havens in Scotland. During August 1561 Elizabeth requested the assistance of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the arrest of Johnson, Whitehead, Marychurch and other English pirates. At the same time, the English ambassador in Edinburgh, Thomas Randolph, was instructed to seek redress for the plunder of English vessels by Scottish rovers, who were allegedly sailing under colour of letters of marque. Neither request met with success. Johnson and his associates evaded arrest, joining forces with Thomas Phetiplace. Randolph reported during 1562 that they formed a company of ‘three great vessels in good equipage; so that much mischief must ensue if their devilish purposes be not staid’.
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With a mixed force of English, Scottish and Irish recruits, they operated from temporary bases in the Western Isles and along the west coast of Scotland, ranging into the Irish Sea in search of plunder. In March 1562 Johnson and Whitehead were reputedly in the company of Gerald Fitzgerald, 15
th
Earl of Desmond, who refused to hand them over to the Lord Justice in Dublin. By June they were at Loch Ryan, in south-west Scotland, with a rich prize laden with wine and sugar. The Scottish monarchy issued orders for their arrest, although Randolph reported that ‘they are very strong and come not aland, but have men of the country who repair to them’.
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In July, however, he informed Cecil that one of the English pirates, and some of the Scots, had been apprehended in the isles. Later in the year Alexander Hogg, a Scottish rover who may have consorted with the English pirates, was arrested in Tenby. Several of Hogg’s company were executed for piracy. He sought a pardon from the Queen and the restoration of his vessel, offering to ‘do service in apprehending the pirates that are now upon the coast’.
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This was followed in 1563 by an appeal to the council from Johnson and Phetiplace, from their temporary base at Kintyre, for a pardon in exchange for ‘doing some good service in those parts’. John English, who delivered the message in March, informed Cecil that the pirate leaders were prepared to seize James MacDonnell or other noblemen from the isles who were supporting rebel leaders in Ulster, while also offering to take two vessels that had reportedly arrived from Spain laden with munitions. The council was prepared to procure a pardon for the pirates, on condition that they served against the rebels in northern Ireland, including Shane O’Neill, under the supervision of Thomas Radcliffe, 3
rd
Earl of Sussex, the Lord Deputy in Dublin. Sussex supported Phetiplace’s appeal for a pardon, evidently in commendation for his recent capture of Whitehead.
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The sequel to these shadowy contacts underlined the inherent dangers in the employment of former pirates by the regime. Although Phetiplace and Johnson were sent out with two ships-of-war by Sussex, at the end of the year they were cruising off the coast of northern Spain, fuelling Spanish complaints against the depredations of English pirates and rovers. Phetiplace, ‘an ill man of long time upon the seas’, seized a Spanish vessel at Santander, and put to sea in it with seven or eight of his men.
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His brother, aboard another ship, was forced into Vermeo, where he unsuccessfully tried to conceal several Spanish prisoners from local officials. When the subterfuge failed, the English were arrested and imprisoned. According to a later report Phetiplace’s brother died in prison on Christmas Day. In January 1564 a Spanish representative was seeking restitution of the goods taken by the pirates. Several months later Phetiplace presented Cecil with a declaration of his activities and of his submission to authority. Back in British waters, he offered his ship and company of thirty men for service, with a recommendation from the Lord Justice of Ireland for his ‘courage and experience’.
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