Authors: Susan Ronald
The Pirate Queen (3 page)
Finally, while I have endeavored to be accurate at all times, if there are any errors, I must assure the reader that they are entirely my own.
SUSAN RONALD,
OXFORD,
2006
Bilbao, Spain
Six
P.M
., Wednesday, May 26, 1585
M
aster Foster gazed upon Bilbao harbor, feasting his eyes on the fine sight of so many Londoners that had heeded the King of Spain’s call for help. Philip II had invited English merchants to send cargoes of corn, and assured the Queen’s Majesty that her people would have his very own assurance of safe conduct in these troubled times. Payment for the corn would be made by bills of exchange payable to the City of London in Antwerp at fair-market prices. And so, the
Primrose
, a 150-ton Londoner, had been stocked with nearly twenty tons of corn and several ells of broadcloth, and set sail for Bilbao in Biscay.
Master Foster had heard that the country was starving; that the whole of Iberia had had a harsh winter, though the master of the
Primrose
and his men could be no firm judges of that fact for themselves. Bilbao had been bathed in warm sunshine the past two days in port, and the Spaniards they had seen appeared to have been well fed. Indeed, as Foster took in the near idyllic scene with the sun low in the sky, its rays reflecting lazily on the bay, Bilbao seemed a welcoming voice on the wind as she had always been.
It was then that he noted the soft groan of his rigging. A fine southwesterly was stirring. Foster prayed it would still be blowing the following day when they would weigh anchor and head for home. He hunched over the rail of his ship, leaning heavily on his arms, and looked on as a number of sleek Spanish pinnaces darted between his fellow Londoners. It was one of those rare moments of leisure for the captain of an English merchantman. Perhaps that is why he did not spy the pinnace heading for the
Primrose
. When the watch called out the approach of the Spanish vessel, and that there were seven souls aboard, Foster awoke from his reverie and barked
his orders to the crew, alerting them that a small party wished to board. What the devil could they want at this time of the evening? the
Primrose
’s cargoes had been unladen. It was most unusual for the Spanish merchants to settle their bills of exchange at this hour of the day. Further, the master of the
Primrose
had already settled the matter of loading the Spanish wines for the return voyage the following day.
It was a wary Foster who greeted the corregidor [magistrate] of Biscay. The hale and hearty fellow presented Foster to the six other men as Biscayan merchants, and claimed that they wished to give him a small token of their esteem. They had brought a hamper full of fresh cherries as a gift—a favorite of the English queen, or so they had understood. Master Foster thanked them and ordered that beef, biscuit, and beer be brought to the impromptu gathering in his cabin. Yet before they sat down to eat, four of the Biscayan merchants made their excuses and announced their intention to return to shore aboard the Spanish pinnace. This lack of common civility made Foster truly smell danger.
He ordered his first mate to accompany the Spaniards back on deck, simultaneously giving him the signal that all was not as it should be. It was a well-rehearsed exercise for English merchantmen in foreign waters, and the first mate knew how to alert the crew in secret to be ready for an assault.
The master of the
Primrose
returned to his unwanted guests, laughing and joking with them in broken Spanish and English, noting all the while through the porthole the pinks and oranges of the setting sun, wondering undoubtedly if it would be his last sunset. After some fifteen minutes, the watch called out again that the pinnace had returned carrying more than twenty men and that a larger vessel with perhaps as many as seventy merchants also followed. Foster silently prayed that God would be English this day.
The master bade the corregidor and his men to return to deck to greet the ships, expecting the worst. They were, after all, only twenty-six men against some ninety or more Spaniards. He could only imagine that these Biscayan merchants meant to board the
Primrose
, capture the crew, and, at best, imprison them all. Many a merchantman had been imprisoned before them, and most had fallen foul of the Inquisition. It was a destiny that he could not wish upon his enemies.
Once above deck, Foster’s suspicions were confirmed. Turning to the magistrate and his two friends, he said that he could not allow such a group of men to board his small ship, and the corregidor nodded compliantly. Yet before Foster could give his crew the final signal to repulse an attack, he heard the beat of the battle drum from the Spanish ships below and the unmistakable sound of their swords being unsheathed. The thud of the grappling irons and the roar of the Biscayans wrestling alongside the
Primrose
to board her by force drowned out his orders to his men.
The corregidor and his “merchants” seized Foster with daggers drawn at his throat and cried out above the shouts of the melee, “Yield yourself for you are the king’s prisoner!”
Foster narrowed his eyes and bellowed back, “We are betrayed!”
The crew of the
Primrose
had fortunately taken the defensive measures that her master had laid down for circumstances such as these. Within seconds, five calivers were fired through the grates from below decks at the Spaniards scuffling above. There were screams from those Biscayans who had legs blown off, and shouts to abandon their action from others. They could not know that it was the only gunpowder and shot that the
Primrose
had on board. But the few seconds of confusion the blast created was enough to turn the tide. Foster prized himself loose from his captors and gave the order to fight to the death. Many of the Biscayans fled back to the boarding vessels, fearing that they would be blown to smithereens, as several of their number had been seconds before. Others stood their ground. Hand-to-hand battle broke out, and the well-practiced English drill of a skirmish at sea ensued. The English, knowing that if they were forced from the ship, they would die a thousand slow deaths, fought like demons possessed with boar-spears and lances, which whipped through two to three Spaniards at a stroke.
1
Yet, despite the heavy carnage on the Spanish side, the outcome of the battle remained in doubt for a time. The only certainty to Foster and his men was that the deck of the
Primrose
was stained red with the blood of the Spaniards and Englishmen.
Some Spaniards were flung overboard; many of them begged for their lives, since they could not swim. The corregidor once again managed to put a dagger to Foster’s throat, demanding that his men
cease their fruitless opposition, or Foster would forfeit his own life. The master replied, “Such is the courage of the English nation in defense of their own lives that they would prefer to slay them [the Spanish].”
2
In the heat of the attack, no one had witnessed how Master Foster had freed himself from the corregidor’s clutches, and Foster himself never told the tale.
The fighting raged on for another half an hour with many Spanish Biscayans butchered, flung overboard, or drowned before the English could claim victory. Amazingly, only one Englishman, John Tristam, had been killed. Six other members of the crew were injured, but Foster thought they would survive their wounds. He had to presume that his two men, John Burrell and John Broadbank, who had delivered the last of the corn cargo, had been taken into custody ashore. While the master and his crew made ready to set sail, Foster was perplexed why the Biscayan merchants who had escaped in the pinnaces did not bring reinforcements. He could not understand, at the moment of his own victory, why no armed relief for the corregidor had come.
While he decided what should be done with the unfortunates struggling for their lives in the bay, Foster looked out across the harbor for the first time since the assault. All the other Londoners had the King of Spain’s flag flying high on their masts. The Spanish treachery was now clear. The English ships had been lured into Spanish harbors for Philip II to confiscate in a master piratical act, and leave England helpless.
As the
Primrose
tacked into the bay, Foster knew that he must reach England in all haste and warn the City of London merchants. He took one last glance down at the Biscayans bobbing upon the water as the
Primrose
’s sails filled with the southwesterly, and spied the corregidor and his “merchants.” Foster quickly ordered the crew to fish the Spanish pirates out of the sea.
Once safely away from the Spanish shoreline, Foster demanded that the corregidor and his men be brought to his cabin for questioning. The Spanish officials who had been hale and hearty only two hours earlier now stood trembling and drenched in their bare feet in Foster’s quarters. The master ordered the corregidor to answer why he and his men had boarded the
Primrose
and the other
English vessels in harbor—ships that had come in peace at the behest of their king, delivering much needed corn and other sustenance to Spain?
The magistrate replied that it was none of his doing, and that if Master Foster would allow someone to fetch his hose, which were hanging up to dry, the master could see with his very own eyes that he had a commission from the King of Spain himself to seize all ships from “heretic countries.”
When the commission was brought back for Foster to read, he scanned the drenched document. While the ink had run somewhat, the words “A great fleet was being prepared…. An embargo against foreign shipping is to take place with immediate effect…. You must seize all ships in harbor or attempting to come into harbor, and without exception those ships from Holland, Zeeland, Easterland, Germany and England, and any other country not in service of the king, except those ships from France…” remained clearly visible. The order had been signed by King Philip II himself in Barcelona a week before.
Foster had the corregidor sent back to the hold with his three “merchants,” Francisco de Guevarra, Pedro de Villas Reale, and John de Corale.
3
The crew was ordered to treat their prisoners well, since they may well be worth a ransom. In fact, the corregidor had already offered Foster five hundred crowns to set them free. The master knew they were worth far more than that to the City of London, and that the king’s instructions alone would warrant special recognition from the queen herself.
As Foster knew full well, the commission from the King of Spain would be of the greatest interest undoubtedly to the Privy Council. Its discovery might even earn him a place in naval history.
The Desperate Quest for Security
November 17, 1558
The dominion of the sea, as it is the ancient and undoubted right of the crown of England, so it is the best security of the land….
The wooden walls [of ships] are the best walls of the kingdom.
—THOMAS COVENTRY, FIRST BARON COVENTRY,
1635
W
hen Elizabeth Tudor inherited the kingdom from her half sister Mary I, in November 1558, England was on the brink of ruin. The feeling of despair among the nobles can only be imagined: not only had the country been torn between the ultra-Protestant reign of Elizabeth’s half brother, Edward VI, followed by the fanatically Catholic Mary, but the crown was now proffered to the daughter of the reviled Queen Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth, who had lived her life as an unwelcome reminder of the union of Henry VIII and her mother, would most assuredly have been burned at the stake by Mary without the intervention of the queen’s absentee husband, Philip II of Spain. If there was one thing Elizabeth Tudor understood intuitively, it was life on the edge.
Personal security was a luxury of which she must have dreamed as a child and young woman, and barely dared to hope for when her sister was queen. Mary had kept her prisoner, removing the Lady Elizabeth from palace to palace to prevent the next heir to the throne from plotting against her. During Elizabeth’s time locked away in the Tower of London, each day could have brought the royal command for her execution, yet each day, the queen hesitated. It was in the Tower that Elizabeth’s lifelong devotion to another prisoner, Robert Dudley, blossomed.
Dudley, too, knew life on the edge: his father and grandfather
had been executed for high treason, and it looked highly likely that he would follow them to the scaffold for plotting to overthrow Queen Mary. Dudley’s loyalty to Elizabeth had been absolute before their imprisonment, often to the detriment of his own security. After their time together in the Tower, Elizabeth could never doubt his loyalty again. It was the only sure thing in her vulnerable life.