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.