Under the Bloody Flag (29 page)

Despite the restoration of trading relations with Spain and Portugal, and a treaty with France designed to improve Anglo-French trade, the revival of English overseas commerce, especially with the Low Countries, was severely disrupted by the activities of men-of-war operating from Flushing, Dunkirk, La Rochelle and the Channel ports of France. In January 1575 warships from Flushing seized an English ship bound for Ostend, laden with a cargo of cloth, which was justified as a necessity of war, ‘without any intention of injuring the English’.
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Following further attacks on shipping, in June the Queen sent a mission, led by Daniel Rogers, to the rebel leader, William of Orange, remonstrating against the activities of Flushing privateers in English waters. Rogers’ purpose was not only to complain of the disruption to trade, but also about the damage to the Queen’s honour. In September he provided a report on his attempts to secure the restitution of English plunder in the Low Countries, which included the spoil of vessels sailing along the coast between Rye and Dover as well as from London to Weymouth.

Furthermore, English shipping was exposed to attack by French men-of-war. Negotiations for an Anglo-French commercial treaty during 1575 were threatened by the grievances of English merchants who were the victims of French depredation, for which it was claimed that they were unable to obtain redress. The French countered with their own complaints, and a request that Elizabeth send out ships to suppress rebel pirates or rovers, serving under commissions issued by Huguenot leaders, who were operating in English waters. Although draft articles for the treaty contained provision for the abolition of the use of letters of reprisal, in June 1575 the Queen was reported to have granted commissions against France, in response to the continued plunder of English merchants. The companies of French men-of-war also faced arrest and legal action in England. During August members of the company of the
Crescent
of La Rochelle were indicted before a court held in Padstow, for unlawfully attacking a ship of the Isle of Man. More Frenchmen were detained for piracy during September. Others, who were condemned for piracy in October, were executed.
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While the Queen and her councillors resorted to diplomacy to try and recover English vessels and cargoes taken by foreign privateers and rovers, the activities of the French in particular provoked unofficial retaliation which was easily confused with piracy. During 1575 William Michelot of St Malo was arrested, apparently as a reprisal action by Captain Courtenay of Dover. Although Michelot was released, he was subsequently apprehended at the suit of merchants of Chester, in retaliation for the spoil of two local ships by men-of-war from the French port. A ship of St Malo also was seized off Ireland by the
Castle of Comfort
, whose owners now included Hawkins. Such actions revived long-standing, cross-Channel rivalries, creating a breeding ground in which a younger generation of pirates and rovers, like John Callice, could flourish.
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The problem of overseas depredation was complicated by the practice of English recruits serving aboard Dutch, French and Flemish men-of-war. The regime was acutely concerned about the number of seamen and soldiers serving overseas in ‘troublesome times of civil wars, some on the one side and some on the other’, because of the divisive domestic and damaging international consequences.
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Volunteers for Spanish service provoked particular concern. The adventurers who served at sea included William Cotton and Henry Carey, who were granted letters of marque or reprisal, in April 1575, by officials in Castile and Flanders. Both men were authorized to capture Dutch shipping; in addition, they were promised a bounty of six crowns for every rebel they seized. English prisoners in Spain were offered pardons on condition that they served aboard the vessels of Cotton and Carey. The Queen complained to the Spanish of the practice, claiming that the ‘worst sort of her people … [were] secretly enticed on both parts to serve on the seas, under colour of which … most become common pirates’.
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The dangers were underlined by the plunder of several ships off the coast of Essex by a man-of-war operating from Dunkirk in the service of the Spanish monarchy, and manned by Englishmen.

In an effort to suppress the practice, during October 1575 the Queen issued a proclamation prohibiting her subjects from serving overseas. The prohibition was justified by the increase in spoil and robbery in English ports, as a result of which ‘a great number of … mariners and fishermen be turned from good subjects to appear rather to be pirates and sea rovers’.
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English recruits employed by foreign princes, without licence from the Queen, were commanded to return home to their customary occupations or trades. Those who refused would be considered as rebels. Admiralty officers and local officials were instructed to apprehend and imprison anyone who ignored the proclamation. Office holders who failed to implement the instructions faced dismissal and severe punishment. These measures appeared draconian on paper. In practice they were probably unworkable, if only because they rested on a degree of local cooperation and administrative efficiency that was, at best, sporadic. In any case the regime lacked either the persuasive power or compulsive force to prevent volunteers from serving overseas, whether for mercenary or ideological motives.

The activities of a group of English adventurers who were engaged in privateering from Dunkirk provoked particular concern. One of the leading members of this group, William Cotton, was involved in sending out several English captains on voyages of reprisal. Cotton’s associates included Richard Flodde and George Phipson, who was freed from arrest during 1576 after successfully clearing himself of charges of piracy. Complaints against Cotton’s unnatural behaviour, in spoiling English vessels, were voiced during March 1576. But the rebellion in the Low Countries presented opportunities for predatory enterprise, in a godly cause, which Cotton and others eagerly exploited. William of Orange complained bitterly of English adventurers trading with Flanders, who subsequently acquired letters of reprisal, under false pretences, against the rebels. The activities of alienated and committed Catholics in the Low Countries had more dangerous implications. Thus, in January 1577, Cotton, a ‘lewd and most horrible varlet’, was portrayed as a supporter for setting up Mary, Queen of Scots, as a challenger to Elizabeth.
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Yet it was Dutch men-of-war or privateers which continued to inflict heavy damage on English commerce during 1576. In an early indication of subsequent inflammatory disputes over flag honour in the Channel, an English vessel was spoiled off Dover by four warships of Flushing, for refusing to strike its topsails. In April it was claimed that during the course of one month privateers from Flushing had taken thirty English ships. Burghley complained of the ‘universal barbarism’ of Dutchmen, who he dismissed as a ‘rabble of common pirates, or worse, who make no difference whom they outrage’.
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The plunder of English shipping provoked repeated complaints and demands for restitution, which included allegations of the use of gratuitous violence and torture by privateering companies serving under the authority of William of Orange.

In July 1576 Sir William Winter led a diplomatic mission to the Low Countries to complain of the activities of the privateers of Flushing, though it met with little success. William of Orange responded with Dutch grievances against the English. Later in the year, however, he acknowledged the damaging effects of the disorderly spoil by captains sailing with his commissions. The continued seizure of English ships by the Dutch, which were claimed as good prize allegedly on the grounds that they refused to strike their sails to William of Orange’s vessels, thus aroused widespread complaint. In order to deal with such losses, in November the regime suggested that the Estates of Holland and Zeeland should provide insurance for English merchants against the spoil of their goods at sea.
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Evidently the plunder of English shipping was on such a scale that the Estates were reluctant to accept an open-ended and potentially costly commitment.

The regime struggled unsuccessfully to combat the menace of overseas piracy and privateering, particularly when it involved the Dutch. Naval patrols were sent out in an effort to improve the security of the seas, but they met with mixed success, partly as a result of widespread sympathy for the rebel cause and a concern not to alienate William of Orange. In November 1575 the Queen instructed the Lord Admiral to send out two vessels to repress pirates and free-booters in the Channel. The following year, in March 1576, the Lord Admiral was directed to arrest ships of Flushing, in retaliation for the plunder of English vessels. The instructions for Captain Henry Palmer, who was sent out in May 1576 with a fleet of six vessels, indicate that an exception was made for privateers sailing with commissions issued by the Dutch leader. Later in the year William Holstock was sent out in command of three vessels, with instructions to scour the Channel and arrest all ships of Flushing, in response to their continued attacks on English shipping. The limitations of these and other measures adopted by the council during the summer were demonstrated by complaints that thirteen men-of-war from Flushing were in Tor Bay. Yet the reaction of the council to such reports was deeply ambivalent. To some extent, moreover, this reflected a wider ambivalence towards the Dutch and their rebellion against Spain, which might be detected in the complaints of London merchants against cowardly English mariners who surrendered with little or no resistance to privateers from Flushing. While the council insisted that the allegations were an ‘infamous slander’, it also warned that those accused of cowardice would be proceeded against as traitors.
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In the last resort, and with reluctance on the part of the Queen and Burghley, the regime authorized the issue of commissions of reprisal in retaliation for the plunder of English vessels by French or Dutch men-of-war. The number of such commissions was small and carefully controlled by the council. The recipients included Henry Jolliffe of the Isle of Wight, who was granted permission in September 1576 to send out shipping against a French pirate, Captain Gilliam, on condition that he provided bonds for good conduct at sea. Later in the month Richard Gooche received a commission for use against the ships of Flushing. In November Captain Burbaige was granted a licence to arrest vessels of Brest or Le Conquet.
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While the Queen complained of the activities of French raiders, however, she acknowledged that they were not pirates, but lawfully commissioned men-of-war. These circumstances may have reinforced a preference for diplomacy over the use of reprisals, although the Queen warned that if English property was not restored, she would be forced to issue letters of marque.
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A similar concern to limit or avoid the issue of commissions for the plunder of overseas shipping was revealed during the negotiations with Portugal, in October 1576, for the restoration of diplomatic and commercial relations. By the terms of the ensuing treaty, both parties agreed to implement more effective measures for the suppression of piracy, while suspending the use of letters of marque or reprisal for three years.

Despite diplomacy and the threat of reprisals, English trade and shipping remained vulnerable to attack by Dutch, Flemish and French men-of-war. In April 1576 sea rovers from Newhaven reportedly were robbing all the English ships they met at sea. During the course of discussions in August 1577, concerning the French spoil of English shipping, Sir Amias Paulet, the recently appointed ambassador in Paris, claimed that ‘for one pirate in England they had ten in France, and that … all their havens were full of rovers and thieves’.
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Earlier in the month, the Queen sent out three vessels against pirates; nonetheless, several weeks later one of her representatives, Robert Beale, who was travelling to Germany on diplomatic business, was ‘miserably spoiled by Flushingers and others, pretending to serve under the Prince of Condé’.
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To the annoyance of the regime, French captains sailing with commissions issued by the Huguenot leader, Condé, continued to use the Isle of Wight as a temporary base for their privateering ventures.

The persistence of disorderly depredation became a source of mutual suspicion and discontent between England and France during the later 1570s. In January 1578 Walsingham expressed concern at the plunder of English ships, noting that it was an ‘opening to a plain cause of hostility’.
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One Exeter man, Richard Adern, whose case may have come to Walsingham’s attention, was twice plundered by the French, while Henry Jolliffe claimed to have been spoiled six times by French rovers. The French responded with their own complaints, though they only served to provoke righteous indignation among the English. On being informed by the governor of Calais that a group of English adventurers had been captured and brought into the harbour, one of Paulet’s servants replied, ‘if they were pirates he would do well to have them hanged, and that he might be sure they would not be received in any port in England’.
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For Paulet the unregulated issue of letters of marque, which he described as ‘next neighbours to open hostility’, only served to encourage the plunder of English shipping by French rovers. But English complaints provoked a vicious circle of claim and counter-claim. The governor of Normandy insisted that ‘for every crown which those under his government had taken from the English, the … [latter] had spoiled them of 500’.
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Against this, Paulet estimated English losses at the hands of Norman rovers, during the two years from April 1576 to March 1578, at 33,000 crowns. The scale of the problem led to a suggestion for an Anglo-French fleet to be sent out to clear the seas of pirates, though it met with little enthusiasm on either side of the Channel. As a result, indiscriminate attacks on English shipping by French rovers continued. By July 1579 English losses at the hands of French pirates or privateers, since July 1562, were estimated at more than £70,000 in value.
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