Under the Bloody Flag (2 page)

The adventurous and aggressive foreign policy of Henry VIII from the 1520s to the 1540s thus witnessed a resurgence of seaborne spoil which initiated a long-term upward trend in depredation, punctuated by short-term fluctuations. The official encouragement of privateering during the wars with France led to the spread of disorderly venturing within, and occasionally beyond, the Channel. Flemish and Iberian shipping became a target for adventurers such as Robert Reneger of Southampton, whose activities along the coast of Spain during the early 1540s paved the way for others to follow. Much of this enterprise was based in ports and harbours along the coast of south and south-west England, though it spread rapidly to southern Ireland. The difficult mid-Tudor period provided an opportunity for the consolidation of the disorder at sea. It also favoured the anti-Spanish direction of English plunder. The persistence of piracy and piratical activity during the 1560s and 1570s contributed to the growth of Anglo-Spanish tension; mutual resentment and antagonism drew a growing number of predators into the eastern Atlantic. At the same time, the later 1560s and 1570s experienced a dramatic increase in the scale and intensity of local piracy around the British Isles.
⁶

These conditions encouraged the emergence of deep-sea depredation, exacerbating a crisis in Anglo-Spanish relations. Such was the nature of the problem, that the revival of diplomacy during the mid-1570s saw little decline in the lawlessness at sea. Alongside the activities of local pirate groups, led by Callice and others, in 1577 Drake embarked on a voyage that dramatically revealed the oceanic range of English rovers. His return, three years later, after circumnavigating the globe, also demonstrated the rich rewards from preying on vulnerable trade and shipping in weakly defended regions of Spain’s empire. Furthermore, the support of the monarchy for this venture underlined the ambiguous response of successive rulers to the problem of piracy.

In these circumstances the outbreak of hostilities with Spain during 1585, followed by the promotion of reprisal venturing as a means of waging war at sea, served to channel much of the maritime disorder into a legitimate form of enterprise. But the Elizabethan regime failed to control the rapid growth of a disorderly business. The loosely regulated expansion of privateering was followed by piratical attacks on the shipping of friends and allies which grew in scale and range as the war progressed. The experience of the 1580s and 1590s affirmed the striking power and profitability of private maritime enterprise. But it was based on such lax control that it confused the boundary between lawful reprisal voyages and piracy. From the perspective of friends as well as enemies, indeed, the later stages of the war seemed to confirm a widespread suspicion that piracy was a peculiar English addiction.

If the experience of the sixteenth century served to confuse the relationship between piracy and privateering, at the same time it demonstrated the growing variety and vitality of seaborne robbery. In terms of its operation and organization, it ranged from highly opportunistic, almost accidental spoil, by small numbers of poorly armed men and boys, to more effectively structured and planned entrepreneurial plunder, undertaken by large groups of well-armed rovers who were usually promoted and protected by shore-based supporters. Between these two extremes there was a great variety of practice, which included river piracy along the Thames. This varied pattern was manifest in the differences between coastal, offshore and deep-sea piracy and roving. Coastal and offshore spoil was a well-established activity which flourished with renewed vigour during the sixteenth century. Although it was particularly concentrated within the Channel and its approaches, it easily grew into a widespread and endemic problem. By contrast, deep-sea piracy was a new form of depredation which appeared after 1550. Its emergence had far-reaching consequences for the development of piracy, especially in the use of overseas bases and markets. This was the result of a centrifugal tendency within English depredation, reinforced by hostility towards Spain, which encouraged pirates and rovers into the eastern Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean seas. Though it was still undeveloped in 1603, the resort to ports and harbours in north Africa by disorderly men-of-war and pirates during the later years of the war with Spain foreshadowed a weakening in the link between sea rovers and their home communities.
⁷

While the growing dependence of pirates on overseas bases after 1604 facilitated their social and cultural labelling as outcasts, throughout the period covered by this study they remained attached to local communities, retaining links with family, friends or neighbours. An impressive body of evidence testifies to the importance of these connections for the maintenance of piracy as a business venture. Without widespread assistance from land-based dealers, including the connivance of officials, robbery at sea would not have developed as a vigorous commercial enterprise or become such a serious problem. The case of John Piers, a notorious pirate from Padstow, who haunted the coasts of south-west England during the 1570s and early 1580s, with the aid of his mother, Ann, a reputed witch, was an unusual example of the commonplace relations between sea and shore.

By various means pirate booty was re-distributed and widely dispersed in commercial and gift exchanges. During periods of intense activity pirate companies effectively organized their own shipboard markets, attracting large groups of potential purchasers eager to acquire cheap commodities, free of customs duties. In terms of the damage inflicted by pirates on trade and shipping, the circulation of plundered cargoes may have helped to limit the cost to the wider economy. Although this was no comfort to the victims of piracy or privateering, some of whom were faced with bankruptcy or worse, the traffic in stolen goods undoubtedly promoted community tolerance of organized crime, especially if it was focused on overseas targets. Nonetheless, maritime depredation inflicted widespread disruption and damage to trade, fishing and shipping, provoking allegations of commercial decay from ports such as Southampton during the 1570s, as well as a growing volume of international complaint.

The characteristics of piracy during the sixteenth century influenced or informed the tactics, life cycles and emerging culture of pirate groups. At the same time, they shaped the response of the Tudor regime to a crime which was also a social problem and a means of employment for a growing number of recruits.

Pirates operated at various locations at sea, along the coast and rivers, adopting tactics which drew on a tradition of past practice and knowledge. For those who wore masks, it was intended as an anonymous crime, comparable to the activities of poachers and robbers on land.
⁸
For others, it was a very public execution of robbery by men who were often widely known ashore, and whose leaders earned notoriety or renown as arch-pirates. Driven by the grinding pressures of poverty and lack of work, and attracted by the prospect of booty at sea, pirates exploited and employed a repertoire of tactics to achieve their aims. Depending on the size and armament of vessels, success often depended on surprise and surreptitious enterprise. Although few pirate groups publicly proclaimed their identity, during the later sixteenth century a growing number of captains and companies were prepared to adopt bolder, aggressive and occasionally defiant methods. At sea the use of red and black flags appeared among men-of-war or privateering vessels during the war with Spain. Both were meant to intimidate victims and opponents. While Drake employed black flags and streamers in the Caribbean during 1585, three years later one of the Queen’s ships, the
Elizabeth
Bonaventure
, had ‘a bluddey flagge’ and two flags of St George, for use during the Armada campaign.
⁹

Intimidation, violence and even torture were part of the tactics employed by pirates and other rovers. It is difficult to determine the extent of the violence at sea. It may have been used more against overseas, rather than domestic, victims, especially during times of war and international crisis. While religious rivalries inflamed violent behaviour, anti-Catholicism should not be confused with long-standing enmity towards France, though it certainly affected the behaviour of some groups of maritime robbers, while influencing the emergence of hostility towards Spain. Depending on conditions and context, the use of violence ranged from the symbolic to the pathological. Although a functional purpose is indicated by reports that some pirate groups only used violent methods if they met resistance, this does not account for the horrific, and apparently arbitrary, catalogue of injuries which were inflicted on seafarers and others during the period covered by this book. In the North Sea some Flemish fishermen were badly beaten and treated like dogs, while others were unharmed and even granted a share of the booty. Across the Atlantic, within the competitive and contested arena of the Caribbean, pirates handled some of their victims with courtesy, while inflicting cruel and barbaric punishments on others. The undercurrent of violence which was an inescapable characteristic of piracy and sea roving appeared to grow stronger during the second half of the sixteenth century.

Living with danger was an unavoidable fact of life for seafarers, though its exaggerated significance aboard pirate ships may have powerfully contributed to the development of pirate culture, especially during the 1560s and 1570s. If piracy for many of its practitioners was a part-time employment, from the 1540s onwards conditions favoured prolonged participation in the business for a growing number of recruits. In an unusual, though far from unprecedented development, what might be termed ‘career pirates’ emerged. They survived partly by exploiting the uncertain boundary between piracy and privateering; many of those who were caught, and put on trial before the High Court of Admiralty, defended their actions as legitimate, but unauthorized, reprisals. Some of these recruits enjoyed lengthy careers, serving as links between different generations of pirates, in a way that encouraged the inheritance of past custom. Under these conditions patterns of behaviour and conduct coalesced in the formation of a loose pirate brotherhood during the 1570s, whose leading figures were Callice and his associate, Robert Hicks.

Although they were neither as independent nor as coherent as subsequent pirate communities, the groups of pirates who operated during the 1570s were bound together by similar life cycles and backgrounds. Their sense of community was articulated through common practices, including an unwritten and informal code of conduct which was reinforced by a hierarchical structure, publicly acknowledged by the loyalty of pirate companies to their leaders. Loyalty and community were promoted by shipboard life. Both were recognized in the division of booty into shares, with captains and other officers receiving more than other members of the company. While the ownership of pirate ships remains obscure, vessels were granted by captains to loyal officers, spawning new groups as well as encouraging solidarity and bonds of association. Companionship and hospitality were deliberately promoted in pirate haunts along the coast, where crowds of men and women gathered for purposes of business and entertainment, or to secure employment. William Baylye, a sailor of Barnstaple, recounted how he was hired by the pirate captain, Stephen Haynes, in Studland Bay during October 1582, when he was unemployed and ‘in greate extreamitye for wante of raymente and moneye’.
¹⁰
He was given a suit of clothing of green cotton by Haynes, whose company of about thirty wore a similar outfit.

Nevertheless, piracy was a serious crime which provoked a firm but uneven response from the Tudor regime. As a crime it was dealt with by the Lord Admiral and the High Court of Admiralty. Because of its potentially damaging international consequences, however, monarchs and their councillors retained a close interest in the problem. From the 1540s onwards the Privy Council was heavily involved in dealing with overseas complaints against English piracy and disorderly spoil. But this was a problem which taxed the resources and efficiency of Tudor rule. Although it encouraged administrative innovation during the 1560s and 1570s, with the appointment of commissioners for piracy in the maritime shires of England and Wales, the scale and nature of the problem encouraged an uneasy combination of coercion and compromise. The result was a fluctuating pattern of punishment and pardon, and the survival of lawlessness and violence at sea which flourished under the cover of ambivalent public attitudes and responses.
¹¹

By drawing upon a wealth of evidence, including the rich resources of the High Court of Admiralty, this book aims to provide a narrative of English piracy and sea roving from
c
.1485 to 1603. Because of the inherent ambiguity of the subject, it encompasses reprisal venturing and privateering, though its main focus is on charting the contours of illegal and disorderly enterprise. While examining the structure and organization of maritime plunder, it also surveys the changing character of piracy, at a time when the state was prepared to sanction, or to tolerate, certain forms of robbery at sea. As such, it provides a perspective on the broader development of English seafaring activity, and of the wider response to the growth of maritime lawlessness and disorder.

Notes

  
1.
  A. Corbin,
The Lure of the Sea: The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World 1750
–
1840
(London, 1994), pp. 1–15; N.A.M. Rodger,
The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain 660
–
1649
(London, 1997), pp. 79, 97.

  
2.
  S. Rose,
The Medieval Sea
(London, 2007), pp. 123–6; N.A.M. Rodger, ‘The New Atlantic: Naval Warfare in the Sixteenth Century’ in J.B. Hattendorf and R.W. Unger (eds.),
War at Sea in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
(Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 237–47; K.R. Andrews, ‘The Elizabethan Seaman’,
MM
, 68 (1982), pp. 249–51; F. Braudel,
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II
, 2 vols. (2nd edition, London, 1972), II, pp. 865–9.