From the North Foreland to Penzance

by Clive Holland

The author of The Complete History of Cornwall seems to have had little real love for Fowey folk, whose deeds he recounts, however, somewhat fully and with a suspicion of gusto. He tells us that the pirates of Fowey became unconscionably rich, wicked, and bloodthirsty, and that though, while enriching themselves, they must have assuredly done the nation at large and the west country much service, they were deserving of a fate not much less severe in character than that which overtook the Cities of the Plain. So he tells us, with some elation, how at length, tired of the Cornishmen’s depredations, some Norman lords gained from Louis XI “a commission of mart and arms to be revenged upon the pirates of Fowey town, and carried the design so secret that a small squadron of ships and many bands of marine soldiers was prepared and shipped without the Fowey men’s knowledge.”

This expedition set sail from Le Havre in the summer of 1457, and ran down Channel with a fair wind along the French coast, and then, striking across, in due time came in sight of Fowey, “where they lay off at sea till night, when they drew in towards the shore and dropt anchor, and landed their marine soldiers and seamen, who at midnight approached the south-west end of Fowey town, where they killed all persons they met with, set fire to the houses, and burnt one-half thereof to the ground, to the consumption of a great part of the inhabitants’ riches and treasures, a vast deal of which were gotten by their pyratical practices.”

It is not difficult for the student of local histories, and of the existing records of these troublous days, to conjure up from even the scant details furnished by Hals the sad case of the terror-stricken inhabitants of the little port as their enemies poured down into the town by the path across the headland. Hals reproduces for us the scene of sudden and fierce attack, the hasty gathering together of what men there were in the town (for many must surely have been absent), the fight in the dimly or unlit streets, the ruthless striking down of women and children, and of the aged, the sauve qui peut, followed by a mad rush across the harbour to the Polruan side in search of safety on the further hills, and then the dawn, when the true amount of the devastation wrought could be seen by the survivors. Much—nay, the greater part—of the little town lay a heap of smoking ruins, whilst in the narrow streets, or what had been such, lay many corpses, some hacked beyond recognition and marking the stout resistance that the individual had made to the onslaught of the Breton and Norman marauders, whilst some lay charring amid the smouldering heaps of what once had been homes.

It was with bursting, though, possibly, also thankful, hearts that the survivors of this terrible night saw their enemies depart with whatsoever booty they had saved from the flames and could easily bear. “The news,” Hals tells us, “of the French invasion in the morning flew far into the country, and the people of the contiguous parts as quickly put themselves in arms, and in great multitudes gathered together in order to raise the siege of Fowey, which the Frenchmen observing and fearing the consequence of their longer stay, having gotten sufficient treasure to defray the charge of their expedition, as hastily ran to their ships as they had deliberately entered the town, with small honour and less profit.”

Soon the Fowey men were afloat again, and “in their fresh gale of fortune began to skim the seas with their often piracies,” making descents upon the Breton and Norman coast and exacting a terrible retribution for the ruthless doings of the Lord of Pomier and his men. If one may accept without question the historian, they were not easily satisfied, but many a Norman and Breton village and townlet on the opposite coasts was burned and sacked ere the “slate was wiped clean.”

So considerable, indeed, was the damage done that no less a personage than the King of France himself, Charles VIII, known as the Affable, took the matter up and lodged a complaint with Edward IV. It was often a case of rough justice, or rather injustice, in those days. Indeed, justice unalloyed was not easily obtained, as the men of Fowey were speedily to find, for when the king appointed a commission of inquiry to sit at Lostwithiel, some at least of the commissioners appear to have remembered that Fowey men were quick to avenge themselves. That, indeed, on occasion, they had been no respecters of authority (having but a short time before docked a king’s herald of his ears), and so they did not come straight to the point with the men who had transgressed, but entrapped them, and in this manner. The commissioners having let it be known that they were come into those parts because the king required men and ships for a new expedition, the Fowey men were induced to ascend the river to Lostwithiel, and promptly (for their loyalty was unquestionable, though their obedience at times left something to be wished for) placed their lives and ships at their Sovereign’s disposal.

But the appeal to their loyalty was but a ruse of the commissioners, who, “when the chief men of Fowey were come, promptly seized upon them, took their goods, and without any delay hung their leader.” But this was not all, nor the worst, that could happen, for their rivals, the men of the Dart, were allowed to come to Fowey, to seize the vessels in harbour, and remove the chain which (like the one that guarded approach to Dartmouth) was stretched across the mouth of the haven to bar the entrance against their enemies.

What the feelings of the Fowey men may have been at this severe and somewhat unjust punishment (for, after all, they were not worse pirates than the men of other Devon and Cornish ports) history does not tell us, but certain it is that the town never entirely recovered from the blow, and that its later prosperity was but a poor shadow of its old wealth and reputation.

No longer did the men of Fowey range the Channel, making strenuous and successful warfare upon the king’s enemies, and thus for full two centuries the town played no great part in the history of the west country. Indeed, it is not until the reign of Charles II and the year of the Great Fire that the veil which hides the doings of Fowey lifts for a moment, and shows us that the ancient daring and the sturdy spirit of the inhabitants still survived. After the action in the Channel between the Dutch and English fleets in June, 1666, the latter chased the Virginia fleet, which took refuge in the Fowey estuary and river, and, as Hals puts it, “sailed up the branches thereof as far as they could and grounded themselves on the mud lands thereof.”

Upon the Dutch fleet appearing off Fowey and becoming aware of this, a doubly-manned frigate was detached from the main body, which remained cruising off the harbour mouth, with the mission of entering the haven and destroying the English ships. There were, however, two forts, one on either side of the entrance, and as soon as the Dutch ship “came within cannon shot of those forts she fired her guns upon the two blockhouses with great rage and violence, and these made a quick return of the like compliment. In fine, the fight continued for about two hours’ time, in which were spent some thousands of cannon shot on both sides, to the great hurt of the Dutch ship in plank, rigging, sails, and men, chiefly because the wind slacked or turned so adverse that she could not pass quick enough between the two forts up the river.”