Under the Bloody Flag (52 page)

  
90.
  Ibid., pp. 130–3; P. E.J. Hammer,
The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux,
2
nd Earl of Essex, 1585
–
1597
(Cambridge, 1999), pp. 212–4, 241–2; Rodger,
Safeguard of the Sea
, pp. 282–5.

  
91.
  K.R. Andrews (ed.),
The Last Voyage of Drake & Hawkins
(Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 142, 1972), pp. 23–4.

  
92.
  Ibid., pp. 29, 76–8.

  
93.
  Ibid., p. 106.

  
94.
  Ibid., pp. 158–9.

  
95.
  Ibid., pp. 93–5.

  
96.
  Ibid., pp. 98–100.

  
97.
  Ibid., pp. 100–2 and ensuing quote.

  
98.
  Ibid., p. 246; Rodger,
Safeguard of the Sea
, pp. 283–4; Rodger, ‘Development of Broadside Gunnery’, p. 310.

  
99.
  Andrews (ed.),
Last Voyage
, pp. 106, 257–8. It is doubtful, as Rodger points out, whether a base in the Caribbean could have been maintained by the English,
Safeguard of the Sea
, p. 284.

100.
  HCA 1/45, ff. 80–1.

101.
  
CSPD 1595
–
97
, pp. 533–4; Hammer,
Polarisation
, pp. 257–60.

102.
  
CSPD 1595
–
97
, pp. 232–4; G.F. Warner (ed.),
The Voyage of Robert Dudley to the West Indies, 1594
–
1595
(Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 3, 1899), p. 25.

103.
  Rodger,
Safeguard of the Sea
, pp. 282–5; Hammer,
Elizabeth’s Wars
, pp. 196–9. BL, Cotton MS Otho E IX, ff. 336–8 for Essex’s apology for proceedings at Cadiz.

104.
  Rodger,
Safeguard of the Sea
, pp. 282–3, 288; McClure (ed.),
Letters of Chamberlain
, I, pp. 30–1.

105.
  Ibid., p. 106. Wood was in command of an abortive voyage to China. It is not clear if the survivors at Puerto Rico were of his company, Sir W. Foster,
England’s Quest of Eastern Trade
(London, 1933), pp. 138–43. On Hawkins,
List and Analysis 1593
–
94
, pp. 453–4.

106.
  
CSPD 1598
–
1601
, pp. 3, 37, 41, 43;
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, pp. 230, 313, 318–9, 331–3.

107.
  McClure (ed.),
Letters of Chamberlain
, I, p. 47; Williamson,
George, Third Earl
, pp. 175–203;
Fugger News
–
Letters
, pp. 201, 226–7, 269, 304–7, 310–11.

108.
  Fury,
Tides in the Affairs of Men
, pp. 168–9 on rising violence.

109.
  The problem was exacerbated by a proclamation of September 1597 authorizing the arrest of ships from northern Europe and the Low Countries carrying grain and munitions to Spain and Portugal,
Tudor Proclamations
, III, pp. 183–5. On the continuing problem over the spoil of Dutch and neutral shipping,
List and Analysis 1595
, pp. 99–101, 160, 177, 257–9.

110.
  
CSPI 1596
–
97
, pp. 238, 253;
Calendar
, pp. 98–9; HCA 1/45, ff. 63v–4.

111.
  
APC 1595
–
96
, pp. 318–9, 334–5, 354–5, 399–400;
Calendar
, pp. 64–8, 71–3, 88–103;
HMC Salisbury
, VIII, p. 104.

112.
  
APC 1595
–
96
, pp. 466–7; Andrews,
Elizabethan Privateering
, p. 116.

113.
  
APC 1597
, pp. 19–20;
APC 1597
–
98
, pp. 171–2;
APC 1599
–
1600
, pp. 173, 320, 660–2;
APC 1601
–
3
, p. 95; Latham and Youings (ed.),
Letters
, pp. 192–4, 223–4.

114.
  
HMC Salisbury
, VII, pp. 82, 124; L. Stone, ‘The Fruits of Office: The Case of Robert Cecil, first earl of Salisbury, 1596–1612’ in F.J. Fisher (ed.),
Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England
(Cambridge, 1961), pp. 91–4; K.R. Andrews, ‘Sir Robert Cecil and Mediterranean Plunder’,
EHR
, 87 (1972), pp. 520–2; Kenny,
Elizabeth’s Admiral
, pp. 104–5.

115.
  On the use of Barbary see Sir G. Fisher,
Barbary Legend: War, Trade and Piracy in North Africa 1415
–
1830
(Oxford, 1957), pp. 122–3, 131–2.

116.
  
APC 1596
–
97
, pp. 126–7, 414–5;
APC 1597
–
98
, pp. 247–8;
APC 1598
–
99
, pp. 223, 451–2, 493–4;
APC 1599
–
1600
, pp. 157, 283; Andrews,
Elizabethan Privateering
, p. 68;
ODNB,
‘Edward Glemham’.

117.
  
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, pp. 301–2, 319, 378.

118.
  The number may have varied from seven to seventeen, Andrews, ‘Cecil and Mediterranean Plunder’, p. 517;
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, pp. 412–21, 516. For the damage to Venice see A. Tenenti,
Piracy and the Decline of Venice 1580
–
1615
(London, 1967).

119.
  HCA 1/45, ff. 7–25; Tenenti,
Piracy
, p. 66.

120.
  HCA 1/45, f. 13v. The merchants were of Portuguese origin, but resident in Leghorn.

121.
  HCA 1/45, ff. 9v–10v, 15, 18.

122.
  Ibid., f. 14.

123.
  
Tudor Proclamations
, III, pp. 198–9; McClure (ed.),
Letters of Chamberlain
, I, p. 68;
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, p. 334;
APC 1597
–
98
, pp. 324–6, 382–6, 397–9, 454, 492–3, 604.

124.
  
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, pp. 364–5, 398–9, 401–3, 433.

125.
  
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, pp. 440, 446, 481–2;
Fugger News
–
Letters
, pp. 323–5; McClure (ed.),
Letters of Chamberlain,
I, p. 63.

126.
  
APC 1599
–
1600
, p. 745;
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, p. 460;
HMC Salisbury
, XV, pp. 225–6. The regent of Algiers reportedly received one–eighth of prizes brought in by the English, HCA 1/45, ff. 182–3v.

127.
  
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, pp. 537, 550–2; Fisher,
Barbary Legend
, pp. 130–1.

128.
  
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, pp. 515–6, 521–2, 542, 559, 567–8;
CSPV 1603
–
7
, pp. 28, 31–4;
HMC Salisbury
, XV, pp. 225–6. English rovers included William Hull and Philip Ward of Exeter, who plundered a Venetian vessel off Sardinia during the closing months of the war, HCA 1/5, ff. 11, 150; 1/45, ff. 24v–26v.

129.
  Andrews,
Elizabethan Privateering
, pp. 53–60, 67;
CSPV 1592
–
1603
, pp. 537–9, 544–7, 550;
ODNB
, ‘Sir Thomas Sherley’.

130.
  And following quote,
HMC Salisbury
, XV, p. 127.

131.
  
APC 1595
–
96
, pp. 204–5. The lords of Orkney were also accused of being involved in piracy, H.D. Smith,
Shetland Life and Trade 1550
–
1914
(Edinburgh, 1984), pp. 43, 267.

132.
  
APC 1596
–
97
, p. 507;
APC 1597
, pp. 132–3, 354;
APC 1597
–
98
, pp. 282–3.

133.
  
CSPI 1600
–
1
, p. 437;
APC 1599
–
1600
, p. 724.

134.
  
APC 1601
–
4
, p. 361;
Calendar
, p. 97.

135.
  
CSPD 1598
–
1601
, p. 154.

136.
  The raids of the Dunkirkers provoked complaints in parliament and projects for the reorganization of the war: McClure (ed.),
Letters of Chamberlain
, I, p. 182; T.E. Hartley (ed.),
Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth
, 3 vols. (London, 1981–95), III, pp. 429–31.

137.
  BL, Lansdowne MS 142, ff. 159–61, 165–78; McClure (ed.),
Letters of Chamberlain
, I, p. 188;
Select Pleas
, II, pp. 203–5; C. L’Estrange Ewen,
Captain John Ward, ‘Arch
–
Pirate’
(Paignton, 1939), pp. 1–3.

In 1598 Paul Hentzner, a German visitor to England, noted that the English were ‘good sailors and better pirates, cunning, treacherous, and thievish’.
¹
He claimed that more than 300 pirates were hanged annually in London. This was an impressive number of executions to stage during the course of one year. Undoubtedly it exaggerated the actual number of men executed for piracy; however, it registered a response to a serious problem that appeared to be out of control. By the closing years of the reign of Elizabeth, English piracy and disorderly privateering were arousing alarm and anger in many parts of Europe. Nor was there any sign that the end of the Spanish war and the recall of men-of-war by the new monarch, James VI of Scotland, would lessen the disorder at sea. During the summer of 1603 officials in Plymouth, Dartmouth and Bristol warned the council of the persistence of robbery and spoil, while overseas complaints cast a shadow over the King’s efforts to restore peaceful relations with Spain.
²

After nearly twenty years of authorized maritime depredation, involving large numbers of ships and seamen, for many the restoration of peace was an unwelcome development, which encouraged an increasing number of recruits to continue a private war against Spain by sailing under Dutch commissions. Although the new regime tried to prohibit the practice, it provided employment for groups of demobilized men who had served aboard reprisal vessels. Even so, the peace with Spain created a serious problem of unemployment which encouraged the transfer of disorder and lawlessness from sea to land. In June 1603 the mayor of Plymouth presented the council with an alarming report on the influx of a ‘great number of sailors, mariners and other masterless men, that heretofore have been at sea in men-of-war, and being now restrained from that course do still remain here and pester our town which is already overcharged with many poor people’.
³
Faced with an uncertain future, many of these men resorted to stealing from boats at night-time, robbing English as well as French owners.

Among those employed in such petty piracy and theft was John Ward, who was shortly to acquire widespread notoriety as a pirate and renegade in the Mediterranean. Ward, whose unusual and challenging career after 1604 earned him celebrity and condemnation, was at the forefront of a new breed of pirates who were to re-shape, in a radical and unsettling manner, the character of English piracy. By using overseas bases, which also served as places of habitation, some of these pirates adopted a way of life that seemed to be a deliberate rejection of their origins and background. The self-avowed alienation and hostility of Ward and others, including a concern to re-create their lives in a different setting, represented a profound change in the attitudes of pirates and rovers, which became more common with the oceanic expansion of sea robbery as it spread along the maritime frontier of a wider commercial and colonial network.
⁴

While the period covered by this book might be seen as a necessary prelude to the so-called ‘golden age of piracy’ which flourished between 1650 and 1720, it had its own distinctive character which was expressed particularly in the prevailing confusion between piracy, privateering and sea roving. From the 1520s to the 1590s the overlap between these varied forms of maritime depredation became ever more confused. Piracy flourished during these years, but as an ambiguous enterprise. It was maintained with widespread community support and with varying degrees of connivance on the part of successive regimes. While the monarchy was concerned to protect its jurisdiction and to defend its honour at sea, there was no sustained campaign against pirates or their supporters during the period of Tudor rule. At sea, naval patrolling was expensive, irregular and often ineffective. On land the establishment of piracy commissioners during the 1560s and 1570s represented important initiatives in local government and policing, but they were short lived and unsuccessful. Despite the apparent rigour of the law, an increasing number of recruits were prepared to participate in sea robbery, either in the hope that they would not be caught or in the expectation of a pardon.