Under the Bloody Flag (22 page)

The failure of the English to establish peaceful commercial relations with the Spanish in the Caribbean helped to turn the region into a theatre for unofficial war, plunder and reprisals which was exposed to inflammatory religious rivalries. Inadvertently, Hawkins’ voyages drew attention to the weaknesses of the Spanish Caribbean, where vulnerable colonial settlements could be intimidated or plundered by marauding interlopers. They also enabled the English to gain seafaring experience and expertise of unfamiliar and hazardous waters. De Silva warned Philip II early in 1568 that if the ventures of Hawkins were not stopped, ‘they may do much damage by showing the way to the Indies and opening up this business, and also by their religious action in those parts’.
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The implications of the spread of religious rivalries across the Atlantic were reinforced by reports that the Huguenots in Florida, who were assisted by Hawkins and other English adventurers, provocatively identified the Spanish as hogs, whose unclean status may have been intended to portray them as legitimate targets for Protestant crusading in the New World.

Among the English the growth of transatlantic depredation was encouraged by the withdrawal of Hawkins’ London partners following the conflict at San Juan de Ulua. As a result English enterprise in the Caribbean was left in the hands of aggressive provincial adventurers who were prepared to operate in an overtly, if not opportunistic, predatory manner. Among seafaring communities in the south-west, the growth of Caribbean raiding was justified by reports of Hawkins and his company of Spanish treachery and cruelty. This volatile mix of transatlantic reprisals with embryonic Protestantism and patriotism informed the strategic thinking of a generation of Elizabethan sea adventurers. It also favoured the emergence of more ambitious forms of depredation which were linked with schemes for colonial settlement in North America.

In the short term the conflict at San Juan de Ulua contributed to a rapid deterioration in Anglo-Spanish relations, which grew out of the rebellion in the Low Countries. Spanish complaints about the sanctuary given to rebels in England, with the covert support of the Queen, combined with mounting grievances over plunder, escalated into a damaging diplomatic and commercial breakdown. The consequences of the Dutch revolt were compounded with the wider effects of the renewal of the wars of religion in France. Rebellion and civil war encouraged the spread of disorder and violence at sea, particularly in the Channel. In a notorious incident during November 1568 the Elizabethan regime authorized the seizure of ships carrying silver for Philip II’s army in Flanders, after they had sought safety in Plymouth. Although the regime defended the arrest as providing protection for the Spanish against the danger of attack by French men-of-war, the bullion was not restored until 1574.
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Against this darkening diplomatic background the Channel was rapidly infested by organized groups of men-of-war of varying legality and number. Although they were dismissed as pirates or corsairs by the Spanish, whose vulnerable trade with Flanders was one of their main targets, many of these adventurers sailed with commissions issued by French or Dutch leaders. Frobisher, for example, was back at sea during 1568 and 1569 with licences from the cardinal of Châtillon, representing Huguenot leaders in France, and from the Prince of Orange, allowing him to seize French Catholic and Spanish vessels. The growth of international privateering or belligerent piracy drew on powerful forces, including religious and political animosities, underpinned by reprisals and revenge, as well as by commercial rivalries and plunder. Although it was linked with the defence of the beleaguered cause of international Protestantism, it also created new opportunities for experienced and hard-bitten rovers like Frobisher, whose seizure of several prizes led to his arrest and imprisonment during 1569.
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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.
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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’.
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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.
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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.
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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’.
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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’.
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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’.
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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.
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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.
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During the establishment of the Elizabethan regime from 1558 to 1570, therefore, varied forms of depredation 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.
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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.