PIRACY IN ELIZABETHAN TIMES
But although the Mediterranean was the sphere of the Barbarian corsairs,
yet this sea lawlessness was not confided to that area. The Narrow
Seas were just about as bad as they had been in the Middle Ages. And
Elizabeth, with the determination for which she was famous, took the
matter in hand.
As early as the year 1564 she commanded Sir Peter Carew to fit out an
expedition to clear the seas of any pirates and rovers that haunted the
coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall; yet it was an almost impossible task.
For the men of these parts especially had gotten the sea-fever. Fishing
was less profitable than it might be, but to capture ships instead of
fish was a very paying industry and had just that amount of adventure
which appealed to the Elizabethans. And bear in mind that, as in the
case of the later smugglers, these men had at their backs for financial
support the rich land-owners, who found the investment tempting.
It was because the colonies in the New World were yielding such wondrous
treasure that the English pirates found the Spanish ships so well worth
waiting for and pillaging. Again and again did Philip make demands to
Elizabeth that this nuisance should be stopped, insisting that in no
case should a convicted English pirate be pardoned. He requested that
Her Majesty’s officers in the west of England ports should cease from
allowing these marauders to take stores aboard or even frequent these
harbours. Rewards, he begged, should even be offered for their capture,
and all persons on shore who aided these miscreants should be punished
severely.
It was because of Philip’s complaint, no less than of the complaint of
her own merchants, that the Queen was compelled to adopt severe measures.
She despatched more ships to police the seas, but with what advantage?
Up came a ship bound from Flanders to Spain with a cargo of tapestry,
clocks and various other articles for Philip. The English pirates could
not let such a prize go past, so they stopped the ship and plundered her.
The Queen’s next effort was to cause strict inquiries to be made along
the coast in order to discover the haunts of these Northern corsairs.
Harbour commissioners were appointed, says Lindsay, to inquire and report
on all vessels leaving or entering port, and all landed proprietors who
had encouraged the pirates were threatened with penalties. But it was
an impossible task, as I will explain. First of all, consider the fact
that after centuries of this free sea-roving, no government, no amount of
threats, could possibly transform the character of the English seaman.
If, for instance, to-morrow, Parliament were to make it law forbidding
the North Sea fishermen to proceed in their industry, nothing but shells
from men-of-war would prevent the men putting to sea. Years of occupation
would be too strong to resist.
So it was with the seamen in the Elizabethan age. It began by that hatred
of their French neighbours; it was encouraged by the privileges which the
Cinque Ports enjoyed, though it was in the blood of the English seamen
quite apart from any royal permission. But there was in the time of
Elizabeth still a further difficulty. Those privateers whom the law had
permitted to go forth sea-roving had become too strong to be suppressed.
Privateering strictly consists of a private ship or ships having a
commission to seize or plunder the ships of an enemy; in effect it
amounts to legalised piracy, and any one can realise that in a none too
law-abiding age, such as the sixteenth century, the dividing line between
piracy and privateering was so very fine that it was almost impossible to
say which pillaging was legal and which was unjustifiable. That alone was
sufficient reason for the frequent releases of alleged pirates at this
time.
True, the Crown allowed privateering, though the commissions were limited
only to the attacks on our acknowledged enemies, yet it was futile to
expect that these rude Devonshire seamen would have any respect to legal
_finesse_. To control these men adequately was too much to expect.
French and Spanish and Flemish merchantmen, regardless of nationality,
were alike liable to fall into the English pirates’ hands. Some of the
backers were making quite a handsome income, and who shall say that some
of those fine Elizabethan mansions in our country were not built out of
such illegal proceeds? The Mayor of Dover, for instance, with some of the
leading inhabitants of that port, had captured over 600 prizes from the
French, to say nothing of the number of neutrals which he had pillaged.
This was in the year 1563, and already he had plundered sixty-one Spanish
ships. And there was the valuable trade passing to and from Antwerp and
London, which was a steady source of revenue for the pirates of this
time. You cannot be surprised, then, at that important incident in 1564,
that did so much to enrage the English seamen and help matters forward
to the climax in the form of the Spanish Armada; for what happened?
Philip, seeing how little Elizabeth was doing to put down this series
of attacks on his treasure ships, had, in the year mentioned, suddenly
issued an order arresting every English ship and all the English crews
that happened to be found within his own harbours. It was a drastic
measure, but we can quite understand the impetuous and furious Spaniard
acting on this wise.
During Elizabeth’s reign there were of course some pirates who had the
bad fortune to be arrested. One little batch suspected included a Captain
Heidon, Richard Deigle and a man named Corbet. Included in the same gang
were Robert Hitchins, Philip Readhead, Roger Shaster and others. The
first three mentioned succeeded in fleeing away beyond capture, but the
remainder admitted their guilt. Hitchins was a man about fifty years old
and a native of Devonshire, but both he and his companions protested that
they had been deceived by Heidon and Deigle; they had undertaken a voyage
to Rochelle presumably in a merchant ship, whereas the trip turned out to
be nothing else than a piratical expedition.
Their version of the incident was that in June 1564 they captured a
Flemish ship, and to her were transferred thirteen Scots who were forming
part of this supposedly merchant ship. The Flemish ship with the Scots on
board now sailed away, as there was some disagreement with the rest of
the party. They proceeded to Ireland, where their skipper joined them,
and they also committed robberies on the coast of Spain. Having captured
a ship with a cargo of wine they proceeded to that extreme south-west
corner of Ireland which, even in this twentieth century, is still a wild,
lonely spot and rarely visited by any craft excepting the British Navy,
an occasional cable-laying ship and sometimes a coaster or two. Berehaven
is a mighty fjord which goes out of Bantry Bay. On the one side rise
high, rocky hills; on the other lies the island of Bere. It is a safe,
clear anchorage and a wild, inaccessible spot.
Here the captured ship was taken and the wines sold. An arrangement was
made with the Lord O’Sullivan by which the pirates could rely on his
assistance. For Corbet with one ship, and a man named Lusingham, who
had charge of another ship, were prevented by O’Sullivan from falling
into the hands of Elizabeth’s ships that had been sent to capture them.
Lusingham, however, had been slain by “a piece of ordnance,” as he was
in the act of waving his cap towards the Queen’s ships at Berehaven, but
Corbet was yet alive. It was alleged that Heidon and Corbet had agreed
jointly to fit out the _John of Sandwich_, giving her all the necessary
guns with the hope of being able to capture a good ship wherewith to
provide Corbet. But whilst in the English Channel a storm had sprung up
and the ship had sprung a leak. They were therefore forced into Alderney,
where the vessel became a wreck, and Heidon, Corbet, Deigle, as well as
fourteen others, made their escape in a small pinnace.
It was discovered that Robert Hitchins had been all his life given to
piracy, so, after having been arrested in the Channel Isles, he was
executed at low-water mark near St. Martin’s Point, Guernsey, and there
his body was left in chains as a warning to others. The rest of the
prisoners were afterwards ordered by Elizabeth to be set free, “after
a good and sharp admonition to beware hereafter to fall again into the
damage of our laws.” They were bidden to return to their native places
and to get their living by honest labour. It is a proof that the Crown
really valued her seamen by an interesting proclamation that was made
in 1572 when there was a likeliness of war. The Queen went so far as
to promise pardon for all piracies hitherto committed by any mariners
who should now put their ships into her naval service, and we must not
forget that, at a later date, the first tidings of the Armada’s advent
were brought into Plymouth by a patriotic English pirate named Fleming.
“Fleming,” wrote John Smith, the great Elizabethan traveller and founder
of the English colony of Virginia, “was as expert and as much sought
for” as any other pirates of the Queen’s reign, “yet such a friend to
his Country, that discovering the Spanish Armado, he voluntarily came
to Plymouth, yeelded himselfe freely to my Lord Admirall, and gave him
notice of the Spaniards comming; which good warning came so happily and
unexpectedly, that he had his pardon, and a good reward.”
“As in all lands,” writes this delightful Elizabethan, “where there are
many people, there are some theeves, so in all seas much frequented,
there are some pirates; the most ancient within the memory of threescore
yeares was one Callis, who most refreshed himselfe upon the Coast of
Wales; Clinton and Pursser his companions, who grew famous, till Queene
Elizabeth of blessed memory, hanged them at Wapping.” Now this John
Callis or Calles, after his arrest, wrote a letter of repentance to
Walsyngham saying: “I bewail my former wicked life, and beseech God and
Her Majesty to forgive me. If she will spare my life and use me in her
service by sea, with those she can trust best, either to clear the coasts
of other wicked pirates or otherwise, as I know their haunts, roads,
creeks, and maintainers so well, I can do more therein than if she sent
ships abroad and spent £20,000.”
Thinking thereby to obtain pardon, Calles accordingly forwarded
particulars of his fellow pirates, their “maintainers and victuallers
of me and my companies.” This list contained the names and addresses of
the purchasers and receivers of goods which had been pillaged from two
Portuguese, one French, a Spanish and a Scotch ship, which Calles and a
Captain Sturges of Rochelle had pirated. If he were given his liberty,
this loquacious corsair further promised that he would also bring in a
Danish ship, which he had pirated. He promised also to warn Walsyngham to
take care that Sulivan Bere of Berehaven “does not practise any treason”
towards Her Majesty there, as he alleged that Sulivan had told Calles in
the former’s castle at Berehaven that James Fitzmorris and a number of
Frenchmen were determined to land there if they could obtain pilots to
guide them thither. The old pirate further alleged that they had tried
to persuade himself to join them and become their guide, promising him
“large gifts.” “But I would not join any rebel of Her Majesty,” he wrote
grandiloquently, “hoping her mercy in time to come.”
Last March, he went on, while he was riding at anchor at Torbay, he met a
Frenchman, commanded by Captain Molloner, who came aboard Calles’s ship
and sought information regarding the Irish coast and the best harbours.
Calles informed him the best were Cork and Kinsale. His inquirers then
asked whether Berehaven and Dingell were not good places where to land.
“They told me if I would go over with them to France, I need not fear the
Queen for any offence I had done.” The French King would pardon him for
anything Calles had done against His Majesty’s subjects, and would give
him 3000 crowns to become his subject and be sworn his man, as well as
a yearly fee during life. “I asked him why his master wanted to use me,
and he said his master shortly meant to do some service on the coast of
Ireland, and wanted pilots.” Calles protested that he had declined this
invitation, to which the other man was reported to have replied that he
would never have such a chance of preferment offered him in England. But
though this made a very fine yarn, the authorities were too well aware of
Calles’s past history to give it too much credence.
“The misery of a Pirate (although many are as sufficient Seamen as any)
yet in regard of his superfluity,” wrote the founder of Virginia, “you
shall finde it such, that any wise man would rather live amongst wilde
beasts than them: therefore let all unadvised persons take heed, how they
entertaine that quality: and I could wish Merchants, Gentlemen, and all
setters forth of ships, not to bee sparing of a competent pay, nor true
payment, for neither Souldiers nor Seamen can live without meanes, but
necessity will force them to steale: and when they are once entered into
that trade, they are hardly reclaimed.”
Poverty as well as the love of adventure and the lust for gain had
certainly to be reckoned among the incentives to this life. So steadily
had the evil grown that on 7th August 1579, Yorke complained to Lord
Burghley that the sea had never been so full of pirates, and a Plymouth
ship which had set out from St. Malo bound for Dartmouth had been robbed
and chased on to the rocks. None the less, the “persons of credit” who
had been appointed in every haven, creek or other landing-place round the
coast, in order to deal with the evil, were doing their best, and three
notable pirates had some time before been arrested and placed in York
Castle together with other pirates.
But the practice of piracy, as we have seen, was the peculiar failing
of no country exclusively, though in certain parts of the world and in
certain centuries pirates were more prevalent than elsewhere. The very
men who in the English Channel might have attained disgrace and wealth as
sea-robbers might, also, when he went into the Mediterranean, be himself
pillaged by those Barbarian corsairs of whom we spoke just now. Many an
exciting brush did the mariners of England encounter with these men, and
many were the sad tales which reached England of the cruelties of these
Moslem tyrants. An interesting account of such an adventure is related by
Master Roger Bodenham. The incident really happened seven years before
Elizabeth came to the throne, but it may not be out of place here to deal
with it.
After having set forth from Gravesend in the “great barke _Aucher_” bound
for the islands of Candia and Chio in the Levant, the ship arrived at
Messina in Sicily. But it was made known that a good many Moslem galleys
were in the Levant and the rest of the voyage would be more than risky.
The _Aucher’s_ crew got to know of this, so that Bodenham was not likely
to get farther on his way and deliver his cargo at Chio. “Then,” he
writes, “I had no small businesse to cause my mariners to venture with
the ship in such a manifest danger. Neverthelesse I wan them to goe with
me, except three which I set on land.” But these presently begged to
come aboard again and were taken, and the ship got under way. A Greek
pilot was taken on board, and when off Chio three Turkish pirates were
suddenly espied. These were giving chase to a number of small boats
which were sailing rigged with a lateen-sail. It happened that in one
of the latter was the son of the pilot, and at this Greek’s request
Bodenham steered towards the Turks and caused the _Aucher’s_ gunner to
fire a demi-culverin at the chaser that was just about to board one of
the boats. This was such a good shot that the Turk dropped astern.
Presently all the little boats came and begged that they might be allowed
to hang on to the _Aucher’s_ stern till daylight. After clearing from
Chio, Bodenham took his ship to Candia and Messina. But whilst on the way
thither and in the very waters where the battle of Lepanto was presently
to be fought, he found some of the Turkish galleots pirating some
Venetian ships laden with muscatels, and, good Samaritan that he was,
Bodenham succeeded in driving off the Moslem aggressors and rescuing the
merchantmen. “I rescued them,” he writes briefly, “and had but a barrell
of wine for my powder and shot.”