Department of History and Politics
Liverpool Hope University
MA HISTORY
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HISM006
A NATION OF PIRATES:
ENGLISH PIRACY AND PRIVATEERING, c. 1570 to
1620.
Sample
INTRODUCTION
Synopsis:
This module examines the significance and character of
English piracy and privateering during a formative period
of English maritime enterprise, exploring patterns of
activity within the waters around the British Isles, the
Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and through the careers of
adventurers such as Sir Francis Drake, John Callice and
John Ward.
Aims:
This module aims:
1. To explore in depth the significance and character of
English piracy and privateering during the period from c.
1570 to 1620, taking account of recent debate and
controversy.
2. To develop students’ ability to critically interpret and use
a varied range of relevant secondary and primary
materials, and to be aware of their strengths and
limitations.
3. To enhance conceptual understanding, enabling
students to become more aware of the significance and
value of historiography, current research and, where
appropriate, different approaches and methodologies.
4. To develop students’ ability to communicate effectively
and analytically at Masters level.
Learning outcomes:
Students will demonstrate:
1. A deep understanding of the significance and character
of English maritime depredation during the period from c.
1570 to 1620, taking account of recent debate and
controversy.
2. A more critical and assured appreciation of varied
source materials in the essay.
3. A more informed and detailed understanding of current
research and, where appropriate, of different
methodologies in the subject.
4. Clear and effective communication skills for work in the
subject at advanced level.
Assessment:
One essay of 3000 words in length.
PROGRAMME
Piracy and privateering: definitions and earlier practices
Elizabethan piracy: pirate fraternities during the 1570s
English piracy in the Caribbean: Drake and company
during the 1570s
War, plunder and piracy 1585-1603
The legacy of war: Atlantic piracy during the early
seventeenth century
The changing character of English piracy: pirates,
renegades and outcasts in the Mediterranean
Seminar: Pirate culture: lives and life cycles of English
pirates and plunderers.
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. How far was the growth of piracy during the 1560s and
1570s the product of international rivalry and tension with
Spain?
2. To what extent was the spread of English piracy into the
Caribbean during the 1570s dependent on the support of
the cimaroons?
3. How successful was the Tudor monarchy in dealing
with the problem of piracy during the 1570s and 1580s?
4. To what extent can English privateering be seen as an
alternative to piracy during the period from 1585 to 1603?
5. To what extent was the growth English piracy after
1604 the result of the peace with Spain?
Due:
SELECT BIBLOGRAPHY
General Surveys:
E.P. Cheyney, A History of England from the Defeat of the Armada
to the Death of Elizabeth, 2 vols. (London, 1914, rep. New York,
1948)
B. Coward, The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714 (3rd edition,
Harlow, 2003)
G.R. Elton, England under the Tudors (3rd edition, London, 1991)
J. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988)
R. Lockyer, Tudor and Stuart Britain 1485-1714 (3rd edition,
Harlow, 2005)
W. MacCaffrey, The Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime
(Princeton, 1981)
___________, Queen Elizabeth and the Making of Policy,15721588 (Princeton, 1992)
___________, Elizabeth I, War and Politics 1588-1603 (Princeton,
1992)
Sources:
J.S. Brewer et al. (eds.), Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts 15151603, 4 vols. (London, 1867-70)
R. Brown et al. (eds.), Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts,
relating to English Affairs, existing in the Archives and Collections
of Venice, 1558-1625, 15 vols. (London, 1890-1903)
Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Hon. the Marquis of
Salisbury, 23 vols. (Historical Manuscripts Commission, London,
1883-1973)
J.R. Dasent (ed). Acts of the Privy Council of England 1542-1625,
46 vols. (London, 1890-1938)
R. Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques &
Discoveries of the English Nation, 12 vols. (3rd edition, Glasgow,
1903-5, rep. New York 1969)
H.C. Hamilton et al. (eds.), Calendar of State Papers relating to
Ireland 1509-1625, 26 vols. (London, 1860-1937)
P.L. Hughes and J.F. Larkin (eds.), Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3
vols. (New Haven, 1964-69)
M. Hume et al. (eds.), Calendar of Letters and State Papers
relating to English Affairs, preserved principally in the Archives of
Simancas, 1558-1603, 4 vols. (London, 1892-99)
R. Lemon et al. (eds.), Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 15471625, 21 vols. (London, 1856-98)
R.G. Marsden (ed.), Select Pleas in the Court of Admiralty, 2 vols.
(Selden Society, 6 & 11, 1894-97)
___________ (ed.), Documents relating to the Law and Custom of
the Sea, 2 vols. (Navy Records Society, 49 & 50)
M. Oppenheim (ed.), The Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson, 5
vols. (Navy Records Society, 22, 23, 43, 45, 47, 1902-14)
D.B. Quinn (ed.), New American World: A Documentary History of
North America to 1612, 5 vols. (London, 1979)
R.H. Tawney and E. Power (eds.), Tudor Economic Documents, 3
vols. (London, 1924)
W.B. Turnbull et al. (eds.), Calendar of State Papers, Foreign
Series, 1547-89, 23 vols. (London, 1861-1950)
R.B. Wernham (ed.), List and Analysis of State Papers Foreign
Series: Elizabeth I, 1589-96, 7 vols. (London, 1964-2000)
Piracy and Privateering:
K.R. Andrews (ed.), English Privateering Voyages to the West
Indies 1588-1595 (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 111, 1959)
___________, Elizabethan Privateering: English Privateering
during the Spanish War 1585-1603 (Cambridge, 1966)
J. Appleby, Under the Bloody Flag: Pirates of the Tudor Age
(Stroud, 2009)
J. Baer, Pirates of the British Isles (Stroud, 2005)
G. Connell-Smith, Forerunners of Drake: A Study of English Trade
with Spain in the early Tudor Period (London, 1954, rep. Westport,
Ct, 1975)
D. Cordingly, Life among the Pirates: The Romance and the
Reality (London, 1995)
P. Earle, The Pirate Wars (London, 2003)
P. Gosse, The History of Piracy (London, 1932)
C.L. Kingsford, Prejudice and Promise in Fifteenth Century
England (Oxford, 1925, rep. London, 1962)
M. Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep-Blue Sea: Merchant
Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 17001750 (Cambridge, 1987)
_________, Villains of all Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden
Age (London, 2004)
R.C. Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War against the Pirates
(Cambridge, Mass., 1986)
T. Travers, Pirates: A History (Stroud, 2007)
Elizabethan Piracy:
K.R. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages: A Re-assessment of their Place
in Elizabethan Expansion (London, 1967)
___________, Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise
and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630 (Cambridge,
1984)
P. Earle, The Pirate Wars (London, 2003)
C. L’Estrange Ewen, ‘Organized Piracy round Britain in the
Sixteenth Century’, Mariner’s Mirror, 35 (1949), 29-42
________________, ‘The Pirates of Purbeck’, Proceedings of the
Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society, 71 (1949), 88109
T. Glasgow, ‘The Royal Navy at the Start of the Reign of Elizabeth
I’, Mariner’s Mirror, 51 (1965), 73-6
_________, ‘The Navy in the first Elizabethan Undeclared War,
1559-1560’, Mariner’s Mirror, 54 (1968), 23-37
J. Glete, Warfare at Sea, 1500-1650 (London, 2000)
P.E.H. Hair, ‘Protestants as Pirates, Slavers and ProtoMissionaries: Sierra Leone 1568 and 1582’, Journal of
Ecclesiastical History, 21 (1970), 203-24
R. Harding, The Evolution of the Sailing Navy, 1509-1815
(Basingstoke, 1995)
C. Jowitt (ed.), Pirates? The Politics of Plunder, 1550-1650
(Basingstoke, 2001)
H. Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven,
1998)
________, Sir John Hawkins: Queen Elizabeth’s Slave Trader
(New Haven, 2003)
K.E. Lane, Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas 1500-1750
(Armonk, NY, 1998)
H.A. Lloyd, The Gentry of South-West Wales, 1540-1640 (Cardiff,
1968)
R.G. Marsden, ‘The Early Career of Sir Martin Frobisher’, English
Historical Review, 21 (1906), 538-44
D. Mathew, The Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe (London,
1933)
S. Maxwell, ‘Henry Seckford: Sixteenth-Century Merchant, Courtier
and Privateer’, Mariner’s Mirror, 82 (1996), 387-97
J. McDermott, Martin Frobisher: Elizabethan Privateer (New
Haven, 2001)
M. Oppenheim, A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy
and of Merchant Shipping in relation to the Navy from 1509 to
1660 (London, 1896, rep. Aldershot, 1988)
____________, The Maritime History of Devon (Exeter, 1968)
G.D. Ramsay, The City of London in International Politics at the
Accession of Elizabeth Tudor (Manchester, 1975)
N.A.M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of
Britain 660-1649 (London, 1997)
S. Ronald, The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, her Pirate
Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire (Stroud, 2007)
A.L. Rowse, Tudor Cornwall: Portrait of a Society (London, 1941)
R.B. Wernham, Before the Armada: The Growth of English Foreign
Policy 1485-1588 (London, 1966)
N. Williams, The Sea Dogs: Privateers, Plunder and Piracy in the
Elizabethan Age (London, 1975)
P. Williams, The Tudor Regime (Oxford, 1979)
J.A. Williamson, Sir John Hawkins: The Time and the Man (Oxford,
1926)
____________, Hawkins of Plymouth (2nd edition, London, 1969)
D.M. Woodward, The Trade of Elizabethan Chester (Hull, 1970)
Drake and the Caribbean:
K.R. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages: A Re-assessment of their Place
in Elizabethan Maritime Expansion (London, 1967)
___________, The Spanish Caribbean: Trade and Plunder 15301630 (New Haven, 1978)
___________, Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise
and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630 (Cambridge,
1984)
J. Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy, 2 vols. (London, 1898, rep.
Aldershot, 1988)
H. Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven,
1998)
K.E. Lane, Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas 1500-1750
(Armonk, NY, 1998)
Z. Nuttall (ed.), New Light on Drake (Hakluyt Society, Second
Series, 34, 1914)
D.B. Quinn and A.N. Ryan, England’s Sea Empire, 1550-1642
(London, 1983)
S. Ronald, The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, her Pirate
Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire (Stroud, 2007)
G.V. Scammell, The World Encompassed: The First European
Maritime Empires, c. 800-1650 (London, 1981)
J. Sugden, Sir Francis Drake (London, 1991, rep. 1996)
T. Travers, Pirates: A History (Stroud, 2007)
N. Williams, The Sea Dogs: Privateers, Plunder and Piracy in the
Elizabethan Age (London, 1975)
I.A Wright (ed.), Spanish Documents concerning English Voyages
to the Spanish Main 1569-80 (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 71,
1932)
War, Plunder and Piracy, 1585-1503
K.R. Andrews (ed.), English Privateering Voyages to the West
Indies 1588-1595 (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 111, 1959)
___________ (ed.), The Last Voyage of Drake and Hawkins
(Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 142, 1972)
___________, Elizabethan Privateering: English Privateering
during the Spanish War 1585-1603 (Cambridge, 1966)
___________, Drake’s Voyages: A Re-assessment of their Place
in Elizabethan Maritime Expansion (London, 1967)
___________, The Spanish Caribbean: Trade and Plunder 15301630 (New Haven, 1978)
___________, Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise
and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630 (Cambridge,
1984)
S.T. Bindoff et al. (eds.), Elizabethan Government and Society
(London, 1961)
G.T Cell, English Enterprise in Newfoundland 1577-1660 (Toronto,
1969)
E.P. Cheyney, A History of England from the Defeat of the Armada
to the Death of Elizabeth, 2 vols. (London, 1914, rep. New York,
1948)
P. Croft, ‘Trading with the Enemy 1585-1604’, Historical Journal,
32 (1989), 281-302
S. Doran and G. Richardson (eds.), Tudor England and its
Neighbours (Basingstoke, 2005)
P. Earle, The Pirate Wars (London, 2003)
C.A. Fury, Tides in the Affairs of Men: The Social History of
Elizabethan Seamen, 1580-1603 (Westport, CT, 2002)
P.J. Hammer, The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The
Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585-1597
(Cambridge, 1999)
__________, Elizabeth’s Wars: War, Government and Society in
Tudor England, 1544-1604 (Basingstoke, 2003)
R. Harding, The Evolution of the Sailing Navy, 1509-1815
(Basingstoke, 1995)
C. Jowitt (ed.), Pirates? The Politics of Plunder, 1550-1650
Basingstoke, 2001)
R.W. Kenny, Elizabeth’s Admiral: The Political Career of Charles
Howard, Earl of Nottingham 1536-1624 (Baltimore, 1970)
H. Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven,
1998)
K. Kupperman, Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony (2nd edition,
Lanham, 2007)
D. Loades, The Tudor Navy: An Administrative, Political and
Military History (Aldershot, 1992)
_________, England’s Maritime Empire: Seapower, Commerce
and Policy, 1490-1690 (Harlow, 2000)
W.T. MacCaffrey, Queen Elizabeth and the Making of Policy,
1572-1588 (Princeton, 1992)
______________, Elizabeth I, War and Politics 1588-1603
(Princeton, 1992)
C. Martin and G. Parker, The Spanish Armada (2nd edition,
Manchester, 2002)
J. McDermott, England and The Spanish Armada: The Necessary
Quarrel (New Haven, 2005)
M. Nicholls and P. Williams, Sir Walter Raleigh: In life and legend
(London, 2011)
G. Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (New Haven, 1998)
N.A.M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of
Britain 660-1649 (London, 1997)
____________, ‘Queen Elizabeth and the Myth of Sea-Power in
English History’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth
Series, 14 (2004), 153-74
M.J. Rodriguez-Salgado and S. Adams (eds.), England, Spain and
the Gran Armada 1585-1604 (Edinburgh, 1991)
S. Ronald, The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, her Pirate
Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire (Stroud, 2007)
R.T. Spence, The Privateering Earl: George Clifford, 3rd Earl of
Cumberland, 1585-1605 (Stroud, 1995)
J. Sugden, Sir Francis Drake (London, 1991, rep. 1996)
R.B. Wernham, After the Armada: Elizabethan England and the
Struggle for Western Europe 1588-1595 (Oxford, 1984)
____________, The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the
Elizabethan War against Spain 1595-1603 (Oxford, 1994)
P. Williams, The Later Tudors: England 1547-1603 (Oxford, 1995)
G.C. Williamson, George, Third Earl of Cumberland (1558-1603):
His Life and His Voyages (Cambridge, 1920)
C. Wilson, Queen Elizabeth and the Revolt of the Netherlands
(London, 1970)
Piracy in the Early Seventeenth Century:
K.R. Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise
and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630 (Cambridge,
1984)
G. Bak, Barbary Pirate: The Life and Crimes of John Ward (Stroud,
2006)
F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the
Age of Philip II (2nd edition, London, 1972)
G.T. Cell, English Enterprise in Newfoundland 1577-1660
(Toronto, 1969)
R.C. Davis, Christian Muslims, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in
the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800
(Basingstoke, 2003)
P. Earle, The Pirate Wars (London, 2003)
Sir G. Fisher, Barbary Legend: War, Trade and Piracy in North
Africa 1415-1830 (Oxford, 1957)
J. Glete, Warfare at Sea, 1500-1650: Maritime Conflicts and the
Transformation of Europe (London, 2000)
R. Harding, The Evolution of the Sailing Navy, 1509-1815
(Basingstoke, 1995)
C. Jowitt (ed.), Pirates? The Politics of Plunder, 1550-1650
(Basingstoke, 2001)
R.W. Kenny, Elizabeth’s Admiral: The Political Career of Charles
Howard Earl of Nottingham 1536-1624 (Baltimore, 1970)
P.M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery
(London, 1976)
D. Loades, England’s Maritime Empire: Seapower, Commerce and
Policy, 1490-1690 (Harlow, 2000)
R.G. Marsden (ed.), Documents relating to the Law and Custom of
the Sea, 2 vols. (Navy Records Society, 49 & 50, 1915-16)
M. Oppenheim, A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy
and of Merchant Shipping in relation to the Navy from 1509 to
1660 (London, 1896, rep. Aldershot, 1988)
____________, The Maritime History of Devon (Exeter, 1968)
____________(ed.), The Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson, 5
vols. (Navy Records Society, 22, 23, 43, 45, 47, 1902-14)
N.A.M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of
Britain 660-1649 (London, 1997)
C.M. Senior, A Nation of Pirates: English Piracy in its Heyday
(Newton Abbot, 1976)
A. Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice 1580-1615 (London,
1967)
T. Travers, Pirates: A History (Stroud, 2007)