Under the Bloody Flag (25 page)

The crisis at sea during these years thus generated varied forms of plunder, ranging from the Channel to the Caribbean, within an international context in which political and religious, as well as economic and strategic objectives were closely related. Although de Spes insisted that this bout of spoil and pillage rested on weak foundations, in England it fed the maritime ambitions or visions of leading members of the regime, who were also supporters of the Protestant cause. In January 1571, ‘as a sort of boast’, Leicester presented Elizabeth with a New Year’s gift of a jewel, inlaid with a painting in which Neptune paid obeisance to the Queen, while Spain and France appeared to be covered by waves.
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In reality, of course, the sea was infested with privateers and pirates, whose activities, while of questionable legality, exposed the fragility and peculiar character of English maritime power and ambitions.

Indeed, the activities of pirates and rovers, as distinct from the raiding of the privateering fleets, remained a persistent problem. During July 1570 John Marten and others were indicted for robbing a vessel of Emden within the jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports. The robbery provoked a strong complaint to the Queen from Anne, the dowager countess of Emden, who alleged also that the robbers were aided by the captain of Dover Castle. Later in the year the council heard complaints against Captain Tyse, a pirate who plundered French traders of goods valued at £300, and against John Wekes, who was accused of the disorderly plunder of Canary wines out of a Spanish vessel. Wekes subsequently tried to justify his seizure and sale of the wine in London. The Duke of Alva, however, scorned the threat to shipping in the Channel from pirates or privateers. In December 1571 he assured the Duke of Medina-Celi that he could sail from Spain for Flanders ‘in perfect safety from the pirates, who are all very mean fellows, and dare not attack two armed ships, but have only assailed little packet boats and the like, as they are not the sort of people to run much risk’.
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While the privateering fleets were discriminating in their focus on vulnerable targets, their activities led to severe disorder and disruption in the Channel. They seized a large number of prizes, of which a significant proportion was brought into English ports and havens. De Spes’ reports from London provide some indication of the heavy toll on trade and shipping. In January 1570 he informed Philip II that the corsairs had captured three Baltic ships bound from Flanders to Spain, in addition to two richly laden Venetian vessels which were taken to La Rochelle. During the following month he complained that the privateers, who were able to land without hindrance in England, had captured a Flemish ship, laden with fruit from Portugal, and a large vessel of Danzig, bound from London to Portugal. In April he reported that the followers of Jacques de Sores had seized a ship laden with salt at Falmouth. The same group allegedly were daily bringing prizes into the Isle of Wight. There was a bustling trade in plundered cargoes on the island which drew on its long-standing importance as a pirate mart. One of the ambassador’s agents described the maintenance of a ‘great fair of spices, wines, wool, saffron, oil, soap, woad,’ and other goods taken from the Spanish, Portuguese and French.
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The spoil of shipping continued during the summer and beyond, in the face of widespread complaint. In July three valuable vessels bound from Spain to Flanders were seized and subsequently fitted out, with two other prizes, as men-of-war to reinforce the privateers. Early in September they were ‘capturing what they can’, including a ship laden with wool from Santander, and disposing of the plunder in the Isle of Wight and other ports along the south coast.
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Shortly thereafter, the privateers seized several Portuguese vessels laden with Spanish commodities which had run aground, in addition to a Biscayan ship carrying a cargo of wool and iron, captured off Le Conquet, where four other ships had taken refuge. The merchants of the Steelyard in London also complained to the council that their ships and goods were taken at sea and brought into the Isle of Wight as prizes.

In such circumstances de Spes warned that ‘if ships continue to come freely in this way trade will simply be to enrich the heretics’.
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The warning was reinforced by the seizure of six Flemish ships bound for Rouen by the Dutch captain, Schonvall, who had only recently been released from arrest in England because of his disorderly activities in the Channel. Although the council responded to Spanish complaints by issuing orders to prevent the disposal of the plunder in the Isle of Wight, and for the punishment of Schonvall and his associates, it failed to stop the continued pillage of Spanish or Flemish shipping. In December, moreover, French men-of-war were reported to be regularly bringing Spanish commodities into English ports. The plunder included a Flemish vessel laden with fish taken off Dover. At the end of the month the council was investigating further complaints that several vessels belonging to the subjects of the King of Spain had been brought into Colchester. Among the booty was a substantial haul of money which was brought to London, where efforts to recover it by Admiralty officials were frustrated by city officers concerned to defend their jurisdiction against a rival authority. In the face of such activity, de Spes gloomily concluded that ‘they are so used to robbing now that it will be very difficult to teach them honesty again’.
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Although much of this spoil was concentrated in the Channel, it spread to exposed regions along the coasts of Spain and Portugal. In November 1571 the harbours of Vigo and Bayonne were described as ‘the regular refuge and shelter of the pirates as there is nothing there to resist them’.
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Two men-of-war, the
Printemps
of La Rochelle and the
Castle of Comfort
, an English vessel, had recently sought refuge at Bayonne with a Portuguese prize, taken off the Canary Islands. The following year, in July 1572, three ships-of-war were fitted out in London for a voyage towards the Spanish coast, particularly Cape St Vincent.

While the evidence is patchy and vague, it is possible that several hundred vessels were seized by the privateers and brought into England during the early 1570s. Undoubtedly many of these prizes were small trading or fishing craft of Flemish or French origin. But a significant number of richer Iberian and Flemish vessels, as well as ships from Italian and Hanseatic ports which were allegedly carrying Spanish or French commodities, were also taken. A steady flow of booty was thus brought into England by the privateers, laying the basis for a flourishing, if clandestine, trade in prize goods in markets along the coast of the south and south-west. De Spes claimed in August 1571 that the plunder from the privateers enriched Dover, the Isle of Wight and other regions along the coast.
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Some part of these goods was dispersed as gifts and perquisites to procure the support of courtiers and local officials. Châtillon, for example, marked his departure from the Queen’s court in October 1570 with banquets and gifts, paid for out of the proceeds from the privateers. However, a greater part of the booty was disposed of in provincial markets along the coast. These prize marts operated through a combination of exchange and commerce, occasionally at night, and usually to the advantage of buyers who were in a position to acquire plundered commodities at cheap rates. A cargo of cloth brought by French rovers into Tor Bay during September 1571 was worth more than 60,000 crowns, but it was reported that ‘they cannot get more than twelve thousand crowns offered for it’.
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Although the booming trade in plunder was short lived and localized, it provided some compensation for the disruption to the Spanish and Flemish trades, at least in providing an alternative source for imports. De Spes commented on the demand for Spanish goods among English traders towards the end of 1570, though he noted also that they ‘get a sufficient quantity of goods from Andalucia which the pirates steal and bring hither’.
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While the trade in plunder did not replace commerce with either Spain or the Low Countries, which represented a loss to English customs duties of about 6 per cent, it was on such a scale as to provide a powerful economic incentive to support and shelter the privateers, though it was qualified by retaliatory seizures by the French and Spanish. At the same time, the economic benefits were offset by the damage to England’s overseas relations. The activities of the privateers provoked complaints from Spain, France and Flanders, as well as from members of the Hanseatic ports whose trade with the Iberian peninsula was vulnerable to attack. International complaints met with a mixed response in England, although the Queen’s sympathy for the privateers was eroded by the gradual improvement in Anglo-Spanish relations

De Spes’ reports to Philip II nonetheless presented an unfavourable picture of widespread connivance and collusion with the privateers or pirates, as he insisted on describing them. Their supporters included leading members of the regime. Leicester, for example, was dismissed as a ‘light and greedy man who maintains the robbers and lives by their plunder’.
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The ambassador pursued Spanish and Flemish grievances with the Queen, her council and the High Court of Admiralty, but with varying results. In January 1571 the council ordered the arrest of two Dutch warships which had taken several vessels in the River Meuse, in response to his complaints, with a promise that they would be restored to their owners. In ‘the meanwhile’, however, he reported that the ‘other pirates go on robbing, and very little can be done towards punishing them or recovering their booty’. Although Cecil offered in February to send out two of the Queen’s ships against pirates, it was on condition that the merchants of Antwerp contributed to the charge of fitting them out. Several weeks later, the Queen cut short a meeting with one of Alva’s representatives from the Low Countries with a ‘sort of joke about the pirates; remarking that, as they did not speak English, it was no business of hers to correct them’.

Yet the regime was already adopting a tougher line with the privateers and their supporters in England. In March 1571 Elizabeth took action to prevent the spread of disorder along the coast. This included a warning that ‘no pirate of whatsoever nation shall enter any of her ports or the Downs, under penalty of losing the ship which he brings, and imprisonment for himself’.
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The warning appears to have been particularly intended for the privateers who congregated off the south-east coast, making use of temporary bases and havens in Kent and Essex. Later in the year Frobisher was sent out with four naval vessels, in a more direct attempt to limit the activities of the privateers. Furthermore, during October de Spes reported that the Queen had appointed commissioners to assist in the recovery of plunder which was claimed by merchants and shippers of Hamburg. Indeed, the commissioners arrested some of the privateers and purchasers of their booty in Dover, though de Spes claimed that the former continued to be secretly supplied with provisions. The response of the regime culminated in March 1572 with a proclamation expelling the privateers and sea rovers from English ports. The Queen’s subjects were warned that they faced the death penalty if they continued to serve with the privateering fleets.

The actions of the regime had unforeseen consequences for the sea beggars who returned to the Low Countries, seizing Brill in April 1572. Thereafter they acquired bases in Holland and Zeeland, including Flushing, from which they continued their privateering war against Spain. Their sea raiding soon included attacks on neutral and friendly shipping. By June 1573 it was reported that they spared no one they met with, including the English, though three recently captured prizes were released. Their underlying political purpose was underlined by reports that they had taken to wearing the ‘device of the crescent’ on their clothing, as a sign that ‘they would rather turn Turks than abandon’ the struggle with Spain.
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By contrast the maritime activities of the Huguenots, from their base at La Rochelle, were seriously weakened by the massacre of French Protestants on St Bartholomew’s day in Paris and the provinces. While the English remained sympathetic to the Protestant cause in France and the Low Countries, increasingly it was tempered by the diplomatic and defensive concerns of the regime.

Following the restoration of Anglo-Spanish relations and the revival of trade with Spain and Flanders, Dutch and French privateers were in danger of becoming an unwelcome presence in English ports and waters. Even so, the Channel remained infested with Dutch, French and English rovers, many of whom sailed with commissions from William of Orange. Nor was the Queen’s Navy able to prevent fleets of privateers from occasionally visiting English harbours either for provision or plunder. When the French ambassador complained to Elizabeth in January 1573 about the continued support for the Huguenots, reportedly she replied ‘that as they belonged to the same religion as she did, she could not close her country to them. The sea, she said, was their hunting ground, but if they brought any property of French subjects to her country she would order its restitution’.
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The seizure of nine French vessels by a group of privateers off the Isle of Wight reinforced the complaints of the ambassador. French concern was inflamed by the arrival in English waters of a fleet of twenty or twenty-two men-of-war from La Rochelle. It soon became the focus for rumours of a relief expedition to the French port under the command of the Duke of Montgomery, one of the Huguenot leaders who escaped to Guernsey after the massacre of St Bartholomew, with the support of maritime adventurers in the south-west, including Hawkins.
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The continued threat to shipping was dramatically demonstrated by a piratical attack on a ship carrying the Earl of Worcester across the Channel, to represent the Queen at the christening of the daughter of Charles IX. Worcester was saved by the skill of the master and his company, but an accompanying vessel, with a party of gentlemen aboard, was captured. Four of the company were killed and six or seven wounded, while the gentlemen were robbed of their clothes, jewellery and £500 in cash. According to intelligence sent to Alva from London, the attack was carefully planned, if not ‘specially ordered’.
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It provoked a swift response. While the captain of the Isle of Wight took local action against the privateers and pirates, at sea seven men-of-war were seized by the Queen’s vessels under the command of Captain William Holstock.