Elizabeth's Pirates
The rogue state
• An illegitimate
queen
• Clash with Catholicism
• The Spanish superpower
• The English 'rogue state'
• Pirates and privateers
• The Armada and war
• Shift of power
• Trade and wealth
• Poverty and oppression
An illegitimate queen
Elizabeth I became queen, aged 25, on 17 November 1558, following the
death of her half-sister Mary I. Both were daughters of Henry VIII, and
both came to the throne despite having been declared illegitimate –
Mary when Henry divorced her mother, Catherine of Aragon, and Elizabeth
when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded.
'Bloody Mary', who reigned only briefly from 1553 to 1558, died an unpopular
queen due to her restoration of Catholicism and vicious persecution of
Protestants. By contrast, Elizabeth's coronation in 1559 was marked by
widespread expressions of popular support. Her first acts as monarch included
returning England to the Protestant faith and reimposing the use of English
instead of Latin in church services, editions of the Bible and The
Book of Common Prayer.
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Clash with Catholicism
The clash with Catholicism was to dominate Elizabeth's entire reign,
leading ultimately to war with Catholic Spain. Mary's husband, Philip
II of Spain, was one of many suitors rejected by Elizabeth, whose refusal
to marry led her to become known as the 'Virgin Queen'. Her rejection
of Philip (though not her rejection of marriage altogether) was widely
welcomed in England, not least because Philip and Mary had led the country
into a war against France that it could ill afford – and which cost
it Calais, its last territory on the continent.
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The Spanish superpower
State finances were a continuing problem under Elizabeth. Philip's revenues,
for example, were ten times greater than those of the English monarch.
The Spanish Armada that set sail for war with England in 1588 cost four
million ducats, 100 times the cost of Elizabeth's defences. Spain, drawing
on huge revenues from its plunder of the Aztec and Inca empires of central
and south America, was the European superpower of its day.
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The English 'rogue state'
Elizabethan England, in contrast, was something of a rogue state. Without
colonies or overseas interests of its own to exploit, it had to look elsewhere
for sources of revenue. When the Netherlands rose up against their Spanish
masters in 1566, Elizabeth sided with them against Spain. When he started
to fund Protestant privateers – licensed pirates – she encouraged
Prince William, the leader of the revolt, to attack Spanish ships. English
ports provided safe harbours for the privateers, and English captains
and crew soon began to join them.
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Pirates and privateers
Among the first English privateers was Francis
Drake. In 1567, he and his cousin John
Hawkins had tried to break the Spanish monopoly of the African slave
trade to the Americas. When they arrived off the coast of New Spain (Mexico)
the following year, the Spanish opened fire and they were driven away.
Drake turned his hand instead to licensed piracy.
For Elizabeth, who pretended to the Spanish that she could do nothing
to stop it, this piracy provided a ready source of revenue. By licensing
the privateers to rob Spanish ships, she was able to cream off huge sums
for her exchequer. When Drake set sail for the Strait of Magellan in 1577,
eventually raiding Peru and the west American coast before circumnavigating
the world and returning to England, the booty was sufficient to enable
Elizabeth to pay off the entire national debt. Drake was given £10,000
– an enormous sum in those days – for himself. His crew got
nothing.
Meanwhile, Walter Ralegh, a generation
younger than Drake, was establishing himself as a major backer of privateering
expeditions. He earned Elizabeth's favour with his personal charm, and
confirmed it with his ruthless suppression of Catholic rebellion in the
first English colony, Ireland. Most notoriously, in 1580 he butchered
600 people, including women and children, on a site that is still known
as the 'field of skulls' in Ireland today. Ralegh built up an immense
fortune through the monopoly on wine sales and cloth granted to him by
the queen, together with his privateering licences. Elizabeth benefited
from her share of the profits.
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The Armada and war
Philip's patience with Elizabeth's excuses about piracy eventually wore
thin, and by the mid-1580s, he had begun to prepare for war. In 1587,
Elizabeth's execution of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, her cousin,
provoked outrage among Catholics. And Drake's surprise attack on the Spanish
fleet at Cadiz in the same year not only yielded half a million stolen
ducats for the English treasury; it also made certain – once the
24 ships that had been put out of action had been repaired or replaced
– that the Spanish Armada would set sail
for England in 1588.
The defeat of the Armada did not mean the end of war with Spain. Indeed,
Drake's attack on Lisbon in 1589 (the Spanish and Portuguese thrones had
been united in 1580) ended in disaster with thousands of English killed.
Drake was called before the Privy Council in disgrace.
In Ireland, too, where colonists such as Ralegh were encouraged as a
bulwark against Spanish or French involvement, the Nine Years' War (also
known as Tyrone's Rebellion) from 1594 to 1603 saw out the last years
of Elizabeth's reign.
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Shift of power
The licensed piracy of Drake, Ralegh and others and Spain's defeat in
the war that it had triggered heralded a dramatic change in the European
balance of power.
Spain, which had previously been able to exploit the treasures of the
New World almost as it pleased, was losing its dominant position. Within
a few years of Elizabeth's death, the Netherlanders were able to assert
their independence from Spain and would soon develop an empire of their
own. And although the first English colonies in the Americas – established
by Ralegh in the 1580s – failed, it would not be long before others
succeeded, sowing the seeds of the new English empire overseas.
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Trade and wealth
At home, the privateers brought a double bonus to Elizabethan England.
As well as the booty from their raids, they also helped to turn England
– and London in particular – into a centre of trade and commerce.
The capital's population increased fourfold during the 16th century, reaching
almost 200,000 by Elizabeth's death in 1603. The population of England
increased from three to four million.
The wealth showed itself in the lifestyle of the rich and influential.
The Elizabethan 'prodigy houses', such as Longleat, Wollaton and Hardwick,
are among the most sumptuous palaces ever built in England. The 'Elizabethan
Renaissance' also saw a great flowering in the
arts, most famously through the likes of Marlowe, Jonson and Shakespeare.
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Poverty and oppression
The seeds were also being sown for the revolution and civil wars of the
next century. Population growth brought with it a growth in poverty, too
– as the rich got richer, the poor got poorer. This was made worse
by the enclosure of open field systems, forcing thousands off the land,
and a succession of poor harvests, particularly in the 1590s.
Elizabeth passed a series of 'Poor Laws' that provided for parish relief
for those considered to be 'deserving poor' but cracked down hard on those
deemed to be 'undeserving'. Just as Drake's sailors got nothing out of
his privateer's booty, neither did the bulk of Elizabeth's subjects get
anything out of the increasing wealth of her reign.
The rogue state
The pirates
The Armada
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