Henry Mainwaring
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Sir Henry Mainwaring (1587?-1653), was an English pirate, naval officer with the Royal Navy, and author.
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[edit] Early life
Henry Mainwaring was born in Ightfield, England, second son of Sir George Mainwaring and his wife. His grandfather was Sir William More, Vice-Admiral of Sussex. The Mainwaring family was old and distinguished in England, probably having arrived in the train of William the Conqueror (1066).
Mainwaring graduated from Brasenose College at Oxford University, where he was awarded a B.A. in Law, at the age of 15, in 1602. He then served as trial lawyer (admitted in 1604 as a student at Inner Temple), soldier (possibly in the Low Countries), sailor, and author (pupil of John Davies of Hereford) before turning to piracy.
[edit] From pirate-hunter to pirate
In 1610, at the age of 24, Mainwaring was given a commission from Lord High Admiral Nottingham to capture the notorious Newfoundland "arch-pirate" Peter Easton, then feared to be hovering around the Bristol Channel. This may have been just a convenient excuse for a the well-armed Resistance, his small but speedy ship, to become a scourge to the Spanish.
On reaching the Straits of Gibraltar, Mainwaring announced to his crew his intention of fighting the Spanish anywhere he found them. Turning to piracy was not that out of line for the young valient in those years.
In 1614 he sailed his fleet to Newfoundland, saying that the region was the best in which to recruit a pirate crew and reprovision his ships. Mainwaring used Easton's old base at Harbour Grace, Canada, as his pirate base and raided Spanish, Portuguese, and French ships.
On June 4, 1614, off the coast of Newfoundland, Mainwaring, in command of eight vessels, plundered the cod-fishing fleet, stealing provisions and taking away with him carpenters and mariners. In taking seamen, Mainwaring would pick one out of every six. In all, 400 men joined him willingly, while others were "perforstmen." Sailing to the coast of Spain, Mainwaring then took a Portuguese ship and plundered her cargo of of wine, and he later took a French prize and stole 10,000 dried fish from her hold.
With Mainwaring away from his main base in Marmora, on the Barbary Coast, present day Morocco, a Spanish fleet under Dom Luís Farjado, sailing from Cadiz on August 1, 1614, reduced the town. Mainwaring's relations with the Moors were such that he had been able to secured the release of their English prisoners.
So feared was his pirate fleet that Spain offered Mainwaring a pardon and high command in return for his services under the Spanish flag.
[edit] Pardon and service in the Royal Navy
When his pirate activities almost broke the tenuous peace between England, Spain and Portugal, King James I threatened to send a fleet after Mainwaring, to whom he later granted a royal pardon in 1616 for having saved the Newfoundland trading fleet near Gibraltar.
Mainwaring wrote a book on piracy (Discourse of Pirates, on the suppression of piracy, 1618), the manuscript of which is in the British Museum. In his book, he explains what causes a desperate man to turn to piracy. He also advises the King against granting pardons to pirates. The King promptly dispatched Mainwaring to the Venetian Republic as his representative, over the protests of the Spanish ambassador.
Knighted (March 20, 1618) and commissioned in the Royal Navy, Mainwaring became Vice-Admiral before leaving the navy in 1639. He was elected to Parliament from Dover (1621-1622)and was appointed (?) Chancellor of Ireland under King Charles I. In 1630, he married the daughter of Sir Thomas Gardiner. Lady Mainwaring died in 1633.
As a Royalist, he served in the King's cause in the English Civil War, was exiled to France, and died in poverty. He was buried at St. Giles' Church, Camberwell, London, on May 15, 1653.
[edit] References
- Gosse, Philip. 1924. The Pirates' Who's Who, Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers. New York: Burt Franklin. ISBN 0-833-71394-9
- Harris, G.G. 2004. "Mainwaring, Sir Henry (1586/7–1653)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- Mainwaring, G. E. (ed.). 1920. The Life and Works of Sir Henry Mainwaring. London: The Council of the Navy Records Society.
- Henry Mainwaring. 1923. Discourse on Pirates, London: Navy Records Society. Reprint.
