Note (return) — Chapter I

Even as far back as the thirteenth century, indeed, lawless sea-rovers, mostly Bretons and Flemings, had infested the English Channel and the seas about Great Britain. In the sixteenth this mode of livelihood became the refuge for numerous young Englishmen, Catholic and Protestant, who, fleeing from the persecutions of Edward VI. and of Mary, sought refuge in French ports or in the recesses of the Irish coast, and became the leaders of wild roving bands living chiefly upon plunder. Among them during these persecutions were found many men belonging to the best families in England, and although with the accession of Elizabeth most of the leaders returned to the service of the State, the pirate crews remained at their old trade. The contagion spread, especially in the western counties, and great numbers of fishermen who found their old employment profitless were recruited into this new calling.37 At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign we find these Anglo-Irish pirates venturing farther south, plundering treasure galleons off the coast of Spain, and cutting vessels out of the very ports of the Spanish king. Such outrages of course provoked reprisals, and the pirates, if caught, were sent to the galleys, rotted in the dungeons of the Inquisition, or, least of all, were burnt in the plaza at Valladolid. These cruelties only added fuel to a deadly hatred which was kindling between the two nations, a hatred which it took one hundred and fifty years to quench.