THE NORTH SEA PIRATES
I am anxious to emphasise the fact that piracy is nearly as old as the
ship herself. It is extremely improbable that the Egyptians were ever
pirates, for the reason that, excepting the expedition to Punt, they
confined their navigation practically to the Nile only. But as soon as
men built sea-going vessels, then the instinct to rob and pillage on sea
became as irresistible as on land. Might was right, and the weakest went
to the bottom.
Bearing this in mind, and remembering that there was always a good deal
of trade from the Continent up the Thames to London, especially in corn,
and that there was considerable traffic between Gaul and Britain across
the English Channel, it was but natural that the sea-rovers of the north
should exist no less than in the south. After Rome had occupied Britain
she established a navy which she called the “Classis Britannica,” and
it cannot have failed to be effective in policing the narrow seas and
protecting commerce from wandering corsairs. We know very well that
after Rome had evacuated Britain, and there was no navy to protect our
shores, came the Angles and Saxons and Jutes. We may permissibly regard
these Northmen, who pillaged and plundered till the time of William the
Conqueror and after, as pirates. In the sense that a pirate is one who
not merely commits robbery on the high seas but also makes descents on
the coast for the purpose of pillage, we may call the Viking seamen
pirates. But, strictly speaking, they were a great deal more than this,
and the object of this book is concerned rather with the incidents of the
sea than the incursions into the land. Although the Vikings did certainly
commit piracy both in their own waters and off the coasts of Britain,
yet their depredations in this respect, even if we could obtain adequate
information thereof, would sink into insignificance before their greater
conquests. For a race of men who first swoop down on to a strange coast,
vanquish the inhabitants and then settle down to live among them, are
rather different from a body of men who lie in wait to capture ships as
they proceed on their voyages.
The growth of piracy in English waters certainly owed much to the Cinque
Ports. In these havens dwelt a privileged class of seamen, who certainly
for centuries were a very much favoured community. It was their privilege
to do that which in the Mediterranean Cicero had regarded with so much
disfavour. These men of the Cinque Ports, according to Matthew of Paris,
were commissioned to plunder as they pleased all the merchant ships as
they passed up and down the English Channel. This was to be without any
regard to nationality, with the exception that English ships were not
to be molested. But French, Genoese, Venetian, Spanish or any others
could be attacked at the will of the Cinque Port seamen. Some persons
might call this sort of thing by the title of privateering, yet it was
really piracy and nothing else. You can readily imagine that with this
impetus thus given to a class of men who were not particularly prone to
lawfulness, the practice of piracy on the waters that wash Great Britain
grew at a great rate. Thus in the thirteenth century the French, the
Scotch, Irish and Welsh fitted out ships, hung about the narrow seas till
they were able to capture a well-laden merchantman as their fat reward.
So, before long, the English Channel was swarming with pirates, and
during the reign of Henry III. their numbers grew to an alarming extent.
The net result was that it was a grave risk for commodities to be brought
across the Channel, and so, therefore, the price of these goods rose.
The only means of remedy was to increase the English fleet, and this at
length was done in order to cope with the evil.
But matters were scarcely better in the North Sea, and English merchant
ships sailed in perpetual fear of capture. During the Middle Ages pirates
were always hovering about for any likely ship, and the wool trade
especially was interfered with. Matters became somewhat complicated when,
as happened in the reign of Edward II., peaceable English ships were
arrested by Norway for having been suspected—erroneously—of slaughtering
a Norwegian knight, whereas the latter had been actually put to death
by pirates. “We marvell not a little,” wrote Edward II. in complaint to
Haquinus, King of Norway, “and are much disquieted in our cogitations,
considering the greevances and oppressions, which (as wee have beene
informed by pitifull complaints) are at this present, more than in times
past, without any reasonable cause inflicted upon our subjects, which doe
usually resort unto your kingdome for traffiques sake.” For the fact was
that one nation was as bad as the other, but that whenever the one had
suffered then the other would lay violent hands on a ship that was merely
suspected of having acted piratically. Angered at the loss to their own
countrymen they were prompted by revenge on alien seamen found in their
own waters and even lying quietly in their own havens with their cargoes
of herrings.
As an attempt to make the North Sea more possible for the innocent
trading ships, the kings of England at different dates came to treaties
with those in authority on the other side. Richard II., for example,
made an agreement with the King of Prussia. In 1403 “full restitution
and recompense” were demanded by the Chancellor of England from the
Master-General of Prussia for the “sundry piracies and molestations
offered of late upon the sea.” Henry IV., writing to the Prussian
Master-General, admitted that “as well our as your marchants ... have,
by occasion of pirates, roving up and downe the sea” sustained grievous
loss. Finally it was agreed that all English merchant ships should be
allowed liberty to enter Prussian ports without molestation. But it
was further decided that if in the future any Prussian cargoes should
be captured on the North Sea by English pirates, and this merchandise
taken into an English port, then the harbour-master or “governour”
was, if he suspected piracy, to have these goods promptly taken out of
the English ship and placed in safe keeping. Between Henry IV. and the
Hanseatic towns a similar agreement was also made which bound the cities
of Lubec, Bremen, Hamburg, Sund and Gripeswold “that convenient, just
and reasonable satisfaction and recompense” might be made “unto the
injured and endamaged parties” “for all injuries, damages, grievances,
and drownings or manslaughters done and committed” by the pirates in the
narrow seas.
It would be futile to weary the reader with a complete list of all
these piratical attacks, but a few of them may here be instanced.
About Easter-time in the year 1394 a Hanseatic ship was hovering about
the North Sea when she fell in with an English merchantman from
Newcastle-on-Tyne. The latter’s name was the _Godezere_ and belonged
to a quartette of owners. She was, for those days, quite a big craft,
having a burden of 200 tons. Her value, together with that of her sails
and tackle, amounted to the sum of £400. She was loaded with a cargo of
woollen cloth and red wine, being bound for Prussia. The value of this
cargo, plus some gold and certain sums of money found aboard, aggregated
200 marks. The Hanseatic ship was able to overpower the _Godezere_, slew
two of her crew, captured ship and contents and imprisoned the rest of
the crew for the space of three whole years.
A Hull craft belonging to one Richard Horuse, and named the _Shipper
Berline of Prussia_, was in the same year also attacked and robbed by
Hanseatic pirates, goods to the value of 160 nobles being taken away.
The following year a ship named the _John Tutteburie_ was attacked by
Hanseatics when off the coast of Norway, and goods consisting of wax and
other commodities to the value of 476 nobles were captured. A year later
and pirates of the same federation captured a ship belonging to William
Terry of Hull called the _Cogge_, with thirty woollen broad cloths and a
thousand narrow cloths, to the value of £200. In 1398 the _Trinity_ of
Hull, laden with wax, oil and other goods, was captured by the same class
of men off Norway. Dutch ships, merchant craft from the port of London,
fishing vessels, Prussian traders, Zealand, Yarmouth and other ships were
constantly being attacked, pillaged and captured.
In the month of September, of the year 1398, a number of Hanseatic
pirates waylaid a Prussian ship whose skipper was named Rorebek. She
carried a valuable cargo of woollen cloth which was the property of
various merchants in Colchester. This the pirates took away with them,
together with five Englishmen, whom they found on board. The latter
they thrust into prison as soon as they got them ashore, and of these
two were ransomed subsequently for the sum of 20 English nobles, while
another became blind owing to the rigours of his imprisonment. In 1394
another Prussian ship, containing a number of merchants from Yarmouth
and Norwich, was also captured off the Norwegian coast with a cargo of
woollen goods and taken off by the Hanseatic pirates. The merchants were
cast into prison and not allowed their liberty until the sum of 100 marks
had been paid for their ransom. Another vessel, laden with the hides of
oxen and sheep, with butter, masts and spars and other commodities to the
value of 100 marks, was taken in Longsound, Norway.
In June 1395 another English ship, laden with salt fish, was taken
off the coast of Denmark, the value of her hull, inventory and cargo
amounting to £170. The crew consisted of a master and twenty-five
mariners, whom the pirates slew. There was also a lad found on board,
and him they carried into Wismar with them. The most notorious of
these Hanseatic pirates were two men, named respectively Godekins and
Stertebeker, whose efforts were as untiring as they were successful.
There is scarcely an instance of North Sea piracy at this time in which
these two men or their accomplices do not figure. And it was these same
men who attacked a ship named the _Dogger_. The latter was skippered by
a man named Gervase Cat, and she was lying at anchor while her crew were
engaged fishing. The Hanseatic pirates, however, swept down on them, took
away with them a valuable cargo of fish, beat and wounded the master and
crew of the _Dogger_ and caused the latter to lose their fishing for that
year, “being endamaged thereby to the summe of 200 nobles.”
In the year 1402 other Hanseatic corsairs, while cruising about near
Plymouth, captured a Yarmouth barge named the _Michael_, the master of
which was one Robert Rigweys. She had a cargo of salt and a thousand
canvas cloths. The ship and goods being captured, the owner, a man named
Hugh ap Fen, complained that he was the loser to the extent of 800
nobles: and the master and mariners assessed the loss of wages, canvas
and “armour” at 200 nobles. But there was no end to the daring of these
corsairs of the North. In the spring of 1394 they proceeded with a large
fleet of ships to the town of Norbern in Norway, and having taken the
place by assault, they captured all the merchants therein, together with
their “goods and cattels,” burnt their houses and put their persons up to
ransom. Twenty-one houses, to the value of 440 nobles, were destroyed,
and goods to the value of £1815 were taken from the merchants. With
all this lawlessness on the sea and the consequent injury to overseas
commerce, it was none too soon that Henry IV. took steps to put down a
most serious evil.
We cannot but feel sorry for the long-suffering North Sea fishermen, who,
in addition to having to ride out bad weather in clumsy leaky craft, and
having to work very hard for their living, were liable at any time to see
a pirate ship approaching them over the top of the waves. You remember
the famous Dogger Bank incident a few years ago when one night the North
Sea trawlers found themselves being shelled by the Russian Baltic fleet.
Well, in much the same way were the mediæval ancestors of these hardy
fishermen surprised by pirates when least expecting them and when most
busily occupied in pursuing their legitimate calling. The fisherman was
like a magnet to the pirates, because his catch of fish had only to be
taken to the nearest port and sold. That was the reason why, in 1295,
Edward had been induced to send three ships of Yarmouth across the North
Sea to protect the herring-ships of Holland and Zealand.
The following incident well illustrates the statement that, in spite of
all the efforts which were made to repress piracy, yet it was almost
impossible to attain such an object. The month is July, and the year
1327, the scene being the English Channel. Picture to your mind a beamy,
big-bellied, clumsy ship with one mast and one great square sail. She
has come from Waterford in Ireland, where she has taken on board a rich
cargo, consisting of wool, hides and general merchandise. She has safely
crossed the turbulent Irish Sea, she has wallowed her way through the
Atlantic swell round Land’s End and found herself making good headway
up the English Channel in the summer breeze. Her port of destination
is Bruges, but she will never get there. For from the eastward have
come the famous pirates of the Cinque Ports, and off the Isle of Wight
they fall in with the merchant ship. The rovers soon sight her, come up
alongside, board her and relieve her of forty-two sacks of wool, twelve
dickers of hides, three pipes of salmon, two pipes of cheese, one bale of
cloth, to say nothing of such valuable articles as silver plate, mazer
cups, jewels, sparrow-hawks and other goods of the total value of £600.
Presently the pirates bring their spoil into the Downs below Sandwich and
dispose of it as they prefer.