WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR?

The irreplacable Cavfancier once did a thread of sea chanties (pronounced shanty, and likely derived from the French chanson--a song). These songs were sung to a certain tempo by a caller or chanter (shanter) while hard labor was done. The call was answered by the refrain from the seamen as they hauled on a cable, or pushed the capstan to raise the anchor. My favorite has always been Weigh Haul Away, a slow cadenced song for pushing the spokes of the capstan in order to "weigh" (lift) the anchor from the mud of the harbor . . .

Call: King Louis was the King of France
Before the Rev-oh-loo-shy-uhn . . .

Refrain: Weigh haul away, we'll haul away Joe

Call: And then he got his head cut off
It spoilt his con-stih-too-shy-un . . .

Refrain: Weigh haul away, we'll haul away Joe

Call: When i was a little boyo
So me mither told me, to me!

Refrain: Weigh haul away, we'll haul away Joe

Call: That if i did not kiss the girls,
Me lips would all grow mouldy, to me!

Refrain: Weigh haul away, we'll haul away Joe

Call and Refrain: Now weigh haul away,
We're bound for better weather, to me!
Weigh haul away, we'll haul away Joe

Call: Now first i met a Yankee girl,
And she was fat and lazy, to me!

Refrain: Weigh haul away, we'll haul away Joe

Call: And then i met an Irish girl
She damned near drove me crazy!

Refrain: Weigh haul away, we'll haul away Joe


The Chanter was often an old sailor no longer fit to go aloft, and as often as not, someone who had been partially or fully blinded. Favored instruments were the tin whistle, the three-stringed fiddle or the concertina.

The title of this thread is taken from one of the most familiar of chanties, a rapid paced one for hauling in a heavy line hand over hand, and was sung out by the Chanter, accompanied by all the men weighing the line:

What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Earl-aye in the morning?

Way hay and up she rises
Patent blocks o' diff'rent sizes,
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-aye in the morning

Sling him in the long boat till he's sober,
Sling him in the long boat till he's sober,
Sling him in the long boat till he's sober,
Earl-aye in the morning.

Way hay and up she rises
Patent blocks o' diff'rent sizes,
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-aye in the morning

Keep him there and make 'im bale 'er.
Keep him there and make 'im bale 'er.
Keep him there and make 'im bale 'er.
Earl-aye in the morning

Way hay and up she rises
Patent blocks o' diff'rent sizes,
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-aye in the morning

Put him in bed with the captain's daughter*
Put him in bed with the captain's daughter
Put him in bed with the captain's daughter
Earl-aye in the morning

(*The captain's daughter is the wry humor of the lowest classes--it's a name for the cat-o-nine tails with which sailors were flogged.)

There are more than twenty verses to the song--although boring to our modern ears, they served a very valuable purpose in the application of the old saw that many hands make light work.

The tune, for Windows Media Player--WARNING: turn down your speakers ! ! ! This is really loud ! ! !

This a modern map of the eastern Carribean. Please note the following:

The Bahamas represent literally thousands of islands, many connected in great stretches of shoal water built up on ancient reefs--a perfect place for the pinnaces and small sloops of smugglers and pirates to elude the Costa Garda or prowling French, English or Dutch frigates. In the 17th century, the English established settlements at Eleutheria, Grand Bahama, Nassau (hey, they stole it from the Dutch, fair and square) and New Providence. Not shown are the Florida Keys, where the French Huguenots set up very transitory pirate havens. Often, they simply landed on the nearest "Key" and divvied up on the spot. Cuba raised a good deal of cattle for export to the Spanish main, and when livestock were taken, a call went out to all local boys that a big cook-out was to be held. A barbican is the cross-barred iron gate of a stone keep, and one of these was often kept aboard for just such occassions--and hence, the English corruption of the French spelling into barbeque, as whole carcasses could be roasted on a barbican. The French also called them boucans, from a Tipu Indian word, and thus gave rise to the name buccaneer.



In the old print, note the boucan in the background, and in the lower left hand corner. The image to the right is of a modern recreation of the original Tipu boucan, which was designed to smoke meat for preservation, more than to cook it.

Where you see Haiti and the Dominican Republic, you are looking at the island of Hispaniola, the first of the Greater Antilles visited by Columbus. The Spaniard was long settled at Santo Domingo on the south coast at the eastern end, but as the rest was swampy, heavily forested and surrounded by shoal water, not much effort was made to settle it. The French established fortified outposts at Tortuga (actually a separate island at the northwest corner), Port-de-Paix, Leogane and Petite Goave.

The island of Jamaica was an on-again, off-again project of the Spaniard, which really never got off the ground, because of the poor soil of the interior. But in the 1650's, the Barebones Parliament under the thumb of Oliver Cromwell sent an expedition there, lead by Cromwell's younger, capable son. A stronghold was established at the eastern end of the south coast, which faced the Spanish Main (the north coast of South America), and this was named Port Royale after the restoration of the monarchy.

The many islands of the Virgins were unsettled, and used as ad hoc havens by the pirates and smugglers.

St. Martin was the earliest Dutch stronghold, followed by St. Eustasius (not shown) to the southeast. Then the emboldened Dutch set up on Curaçao, just to the north of Lake Maracaibo, and traded freely and illegally with the Spanish Main cities of Maracaibo, Coro, Puerto Cabello, Caracas, Cumana and Margarita.

The English first set-up at Barbados, and the French quickly countered by establishing Monserrat (not shown, north of Guadaloupe), Guadaloupe and Martinique. The English then moved to take Antigua, Nevis and St. Kitts. The islands to the south--St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada and Tobago were unsettled in the 17th century heyday of the pirates and smugglers, and were often used as havens. Trinidad was just about the most lawless and huge smugglers den in the mid-17th century, until the Spaniard came to take it in a desparate and futile attempt to end the smuggling. The islands south of Martinique were known as the Windward Islands, because of the prevailing east-southeast trade winds, and those to the north as the Leeward Islands, beause they were "in the lee" of the southern islands, which is to say, away from the wind.

NEWS FROM THE HANSEATIC CITY OF HAMBURG
THIS DAY THE 20th OF OCTOBER 1401



the senate of the city is proud to announce that today the infamous pirate "klaus stoertebeker" having been captured in the battle of heligoland was executed together with his seventy companions in front of all of the more than 10.000 good citizens of the city.
stoertebeker's head and those of his companions have been put on spikes as an exhibit and deterrence to all others who may want to try to disrupt the fair trade of this great city.
may god help their poor souls.

The Ladies and a Tramp


Chris Collingwood, copyright 2000, Military Art Galleries

Mary Read, Anne Bonny and Calico Jack Rackham

The following introductory biographical "thumbnails" in order of given name, to avoid gender envy.



"If there's a man among ye, ye'll come out and fight, like the men ye are to be!"

-- attributed to Anne Bonny in the final fight of Vanity

Anne Cormac was born in 1697 or '98 at Kinsale, County Cork, in Ireland, the bastard daughter of Marry Brennan and her employer, William Cormac. His wife ferreted out the secret and Cormac fled scandal with Marry Brennan and an infant Anne, settling in Charles Town (Charleston), South Carolina. Cormac soon made such a good living at the bar that he purchased a large estate, and settled his "wife" and daughter there, being accepted in the upper crust of the still new colony. Contemporary comment is that Anne was fierce and courageous--and legends attached to her youth, but only a few of which have any documentary evidence. Her mother dying while she was entering adolescence, Anne became mistress of a large establishment, and the historical rumors date to this responsibility. It is known that a young man attempted sexual assault on her when she was aged fourteen years, and that she thrased him so badly that he was bed-ridden for weeks. Not long thereafter, Anne took up with James Bonny, a "Captain," keeping the affair a secret from her father. Cormac had planned to marry her off to a young man of means and "station" in Charles Town society, and was less than enthused when he discovered her paramour. But Anne would not have her will brooked, and she married Bonny, only to be disowned by her father. Some allege that Bonny had designs on the plantation, but this can't be verified. What is known is that they sailed for the Bahamas, and that Anne seems not to have been contented with being a wife ashore. The islands were rife with privateers, smugglers and pirates, and Anne became fast friends with a certain Pierre, and openly homosexual man who ran a "ladies establishment" at New Providence (now gone, the island is now the home of Nassau). When Bonny took up a toady's life, informing on pirates to Woodes Rogers, the governor, Anne felt betrayed, as these were the only society she had known in the islands, and she preferred the "underside" of the little colony's population much more than the handful of "upper crust" families into which Bonny was attempting to insinutate himself. At a ball to which she had been squired by a modestly wealthy planter--Chidley Bayard--with whom she was involved, she was introduced to the sister-in-law of Governor Lawes of Jamaica, and as Bayard walked away, the woman spoke slightingly to Anne--who responded with a smile that she'd see they kept their distance, and promptly assured it by punching the woman in the mouth, knocking out her two front teeth. The marriage wasn't going well, and now her lover was gone. Never a woman to let grass grow beneath her feet, Anne looked about among the people of the island whom she appreciated and who treated her with respect in return--the pirates and smugglers. There she was introduced to a handsome and charming young man, who like to dress flamboyantly in brightly colored shirts and kerchiefs, and so was known as Calico Jack--John Rackham. Considered a "catch," and eyed by even the ladies of "polite society," Rackham was also pragmatic and straight-forward and he wasted no time offering Anne escape. Dressing her in men's garments, he lead her to his ship, and slipping her moorings with the tide, they put out to sea before Anne was missed.

Wow - talk about living a life - you're not gonna stop there are you Set? We need to hear more of her adventures.

" . . . odd incidents of their rambling lives are such, that some may be tempted to think the whole story no better than a novel or romance, but since it is supported by many thousand witnesses...the truth of it can be no more contested, then there were such men in the world, as Roberts and Blackbeard, who were pirates."

-- Captain Charles Johnson (Daniel Defoe?), A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. London, 1724.

.

Little is actually known of John Rackham--"Calico Jack." Although he was moderately successful as a pirate, he was not among the most dreaded or the most successful. However, he has been assured a place in history because of his association with two of the srongest and most agressive women of the 18th century, or of any century for that matter.

What is known is that Rackham was Quartermaster--the officer responsible for crew discipline--of a "ship" commanded by Lieutenant Charles Vane. It's original name is in dispute, but is usually styled Neptune. It was not unusual for the Admiralty to lease or purchase a privately owned ship, to be fitted out for naval service--such as the brig Bounty purchased for William Bligh's expedition. If this were so, than Rackham would technically have been a midshipman, a nebulous track to a commission which was filled with "boys" from age 12 to 30. Apparently, Vane refused to engage a French ship which would have been a potential prize, and Rackham challenged his decision on the quarterdeck. The men voted Rackham to command, and Vane and those who had voted for him were set down in a "sloop." This would fit in with the ship being contracted for hire or purchase, and the crew privately recruited. The Royal Navy did not purchase true ships (three or more masts), so it likely was a brig, and the "sloop" probably the ship's launch, of from 14 to 21 feet, with a mast to step and a sail to set. Whether so named on the spot or later, Treasure now turned downwind, overtook the Frenchman and make a prize of her. The crew could now hang for mutiny, and they were readily convinced to take up piracy on the principle of hanging together or hanging separately. As the Admiralty would not have commissioned any privateers in the War of the Spanish Succession any later than 1713, and Rackham does not appear "officially" anywhere until 1719, in the six years unaccounted for, either Vane had a long and unsuccessful cruise, or Rackham subsequently had a long and sufficiently profitable cruise to keep the crew aboard. As his later behavior suggests the later it unlikely, and the formal "elective" mutiny suggest the former, i think a little of both many have been true. Rackham put in on a deserted island, and was there surprised by two sloops from Jamaica. No official record existed, but once again, some things can be inferred. Absent an official record and any Admiralty charges, it seems likely that Vane's mutiny raised no eyebrows, and further that the sloops which took Treasure were not acting in any official capacity. There is in fact, precious little honor among theives, and Rackham was dispossessed and later marooned with only a few companions. This is generally thought to have been in late 1717. That the mutiny was known, but not pursued, can be inferred from the readiness with which Governor Rogers granted a pardon--no pardon were needed if the mutinty were not known, and bygones were likely bygones because this was not a crucial matter of Royal Navy discipline. He was to meet Anne Bonny at New Providence in 1719, so his life could not have been terribly successful in the interim. On the other hand, he did cut a stylish and dashing figure in the lively and relatively affluent pirate and smuggler's society in the Bahamas upon his arrival, so this suggests that he was not bereft, and had made some venture a sufficient success to get a local name and present a style for the admiration of the ladies. All of the inference of the man's life before he met Anne Bonny is that he was not an incapable man, but perhaps a mediocre man among the competent.

Aidan,

Just wait, you haven't heard the whole story yet. Mary Read's bio is even more fantastic than her chum Ann. While these two are the best known female pirates, there were others. A woman pirate in the China Sea commanded fleets of pirate ships ... talk about the Dragon Lady. LOL.

The most famous Swedish pirate (and one that certainly is not on Setanta's list ) was of course Efraim Longstocking, the father of Pippi Longstocking! , a huge man who was a robber on the seven seas, before being washed overboard in a storm and becoming a "negro king" on a tropical island.

The interesting part about him is that this character was based on a real person (although not a pirate), Carl Pettersson, who was shipwrecked in the south seas and washed ashore on a micronesian island, where instead of being eaten by the natives, he ended up marrying the chief's daughter and he became the ruler of the island and its gold mine (hence the fabulous wealth of Pippi's father).

King Carl I Pettersson was also rumoured to be enormously strong (like Pippi's dad). If a guest in his house displeased him he would carry them outside, chair and all, and toss them off the porch of the palace, as noted in the log of a British merchantman that visited the island.

Captain Johnson asserts that the mother of Mary Read had married a man "used to the Sea," and had been abandoned by him while with child. She was delivered of a son, whose eventual fate is not known. Shortly thereafter, Mary Read's mother was pregnant again, with Mary. Johnson suggests bastardy, but other, later accounts assert that the unnamed sailor was her "stepfather." What is known, however, is that Mary's mother passed her off as a boy to her grandmother, or putative grandmother, and so supported the child, who lived her entire childhood in the guise of a boy. Eventually, the mother could no longer maintain herself (drink?) and the child on the crown (five shillings) a week from the old woman, and put Mary out as a Footman's Boy to a French woman of means in London. Mary is estimated to have been about 13 at this time--in perhaps 1703. She abandoned her position of her own accord, and took ship upon an English Man of War. The life of a ship's boy who had no connections, and no access to the Midshipmen's Mess, was a hard life of drudgery and little companionship. In about 1706 or -07, Mary jumped ship, and promptly enlisted in a Foot regiment bound for the Netherlands and the army of Marlborough and Prince Eugene. She became a "cadet," which is to say the land equivalent of a midshipman, a boy in an uncertain career track. What was certain is that without purchase money, and a substantial amount at that, she would be unable to advance to a commission, as all commissions were then purchased. She had displayed great initiative and courage in Flanders. (This would have been at the time of the hard marching and stiff fighting which culminated at Oudenarde in 1709, when Marlborough crushed Louis XIV's army entirely, and the campaign against and into France began.) Mary now found a regiment of horse willing to take her on, she now more than fifteen years mascarading as a boy and man. Mary now fell in love with another cadet of the regiment, who was in a position to purchase an ensigncy, and the same had finally been granted to Mary in recognition of her long, faithful and courageous service to the Duke and the Crown. Mary revealed her true nature to the man, and he accepted her love suit. They sold their commissions, but for not very much money--however, they were both so well-liked and respected in the Army, that members of their former regiments took up a subscription, and purchased women's garments for Mary, and added to the fund of their commission sales sufficiently for them to purchase an inn and "eating house" in Breda in the Netherlands, The Three Horseshoes. It was long a resort of young officers and the men of the regiments who had known them, and life was good to Mary--for a few years.

Her husband (Captain Johnson does not name him) died, and then in 1713, peace broke out, to her financial ruin. She ate up the proceeds of the sale of the inn fairly soon (some state she at that time supported invalided English soldiers who had remained in Holland), and she took men's garments again, and joined a Dutch regiment in a frontier fortress. There was no prospect of advancement there however, and if you have seen the pattern, Mary was not simply content to serve, but must lead. She then took ship for the Dutch West Indies, and was aboard as an able seaman when the ship was taken by English pirates. They kept Mary upon hearing her speak English, and having plundered the Dutchman, let it sail on. Mary was now instructed as a Gunner, and was made the informal Quartermaster, after she had been discovered as a woman, and had beaten senseless (more senseless?) the toughtless fellow who had considered that an invitation to familiarity. Some state that she was soon after elected the master, but Johnson only infers this. When the King's Pardon was casually offered in 1718 and -19, Mary and most of the crew made sail for New Providence. En route, their ship was taken by Calico Jack and Anne Bonny . . .

Aidan, the story moves on . . .

Paasky, that's the stuff, we want more pirates ! ! !

More interesting stories- and a lot of new vocabulary.
Studebaker Hawk was a car, wasn't it? What was called here an American Straßenkreuzer because of its size.

Paaskynen,
Efraim Longstocking was a succesful pirate- Pippilotta got a suitcase full of golden coins.

just imagine that menage a trois. Like I said before, don't you wish you could'a been there?

"If ye'd fought like a man, Calico Jack, ye'd not be goin' to hang like a dog." -- attributed to Anne Bonny




Mary Read once again demonstrates to a fool that she is not to be trifled with.



It now appears that the taking of Mary Read's ship must have occurred at some time after Governor Rogers had been handing out letters of marque to plunder the Spanish Main. Newer research than Johnson's suggests that after a lackluster cruise, Calico Jack had put Anne Bonny ashore in Cuba, pregnant with their son. The boy died an infant, however, and Rackham, despairing of Anne's melancholy, took her to sea again. It seems however, that Anne's enchantment with Rackham had worn off, and as a tough woman who was also a fighter (her fencing lessons in the Bahamas had been cancelled after she disarmed her instructor using the methods he had taught her), she was unimpressed with his command. Taking the sloop in which Mary Read and her crew had sailed, probably as formal or informal privateers for Governor Rogers (letters of marque are one document for which the government does not keep a duplicate), Vanity offered the crew the standard "sign-on or swim" contract, and Mary Read stepped forward and voluteered her services and those of "any man among these who is not a dog" . . . her crew signed on in a body. Anne was much taken with the apparently young and beardless boy commanding, who nevertheless wore a weathered brown face, and a look of long knowledge of life. Discovering Mary's true nature, Bonny was surprised, but some suggest not deterred in her sexual curiosity. At all events, Calico Jack became supercargo, and Anne and Mary paced the quarterdeck of a now well-disciplined fighting sloop.



Moreover, Captain Johnson again confirms Mary Read's penchant for getting what she wanted out of life . .





Although of short duration, the cruise was legendary. Vanity would wear (turn the wheel from one tack to the other, to present a small and moving target) until she could lay alongside, and then board the intended victim. Both women were expert with sword and pistol, and both were over the side and on the victim's quaterdeck before all others.

Their cruise was a sky-rocket--it arced bright and burning for less than two years, and then Vanity was trapped on a lee shore by an English brig. Captain Burnet boarded, and a handful of the watch, probably fearing Mary and Anne as much as the King's jacktars, fought briefly, while both Anne and Mary cursed the English (at their trial, "forced" men testified to the rare art of their swearing) and Rackham and the drunken cowards below. Rackham was condemned to hang. Mary and Anne plead their bellies, and both were incarcerated through their "confinement," but Mary died shortly thereafter of a fever. Anne was delivered of her child, and repreived while the child was in infancy, with a new repreive granted each year for a few years . . . until one day Anne Bonny steps off the stage with her son, never to be heard of again . . . one can only wonder.

The Baltic and its adjoining waters have been pestered by pirates like any other sea that is frequented by merchant ships. The last Swedish pirate was not apprehended until 1820. But for the Finnish part in this pirate activity it seems mostly to have ended when the Swedes started their conquest of Finland at the end of the viking era (with Finnish piracy as an excuse)

I guess the best candidate for the title of greatest Finnish pirate would be Stefan Löfving (1689 - 1777, yes he died in bed an old man, having survived three wars and three wives), but actually he was Swedish speaking and born in Narva (which was Swedish then and Estonian now). And he was more of a guerilla leader than a pirate and fought (the Russians) both on land and on the sea. He became known due to his diaries in which he describeds the ruses with which he fooled the Russians during the Great Northern War (1699-1921).

His life was full of ups and downs, his service to the Swedish crown earned him a homestead in Borgå/Porvoo and a pension, but he was also close to being hanged on more than one occasion.

This is for you, Miss Flyer.




The Brig was the workaday vessel of European navies, providing escort to small vessels of importance, convoying merchant ships in time of war, carrying military payrolls or companies of infantry to outposts, and above all else in the early 18th century Carribean, a pirate hunter. When brigs in large numbers appeared on her waters, the great age of the pirates was over.

A brig is slow but sturdy, with the two stepped masts close enough in her short body not to cause hogging, which would rob her of her already mediocre speed. She sails well on a beam reach or a close beam reach (nearer the wind), but wallows on a broad beam reach or running before the wind. She wallows like a pig in a turn, but her body is so short that she still manages to turn in not much more than her own length. She can take incredible punishment and can deal out the same. More of the truly dangerous pirates were taken by brigs than any other class of ships. The small fry were usually eventually taken by sloops of war.




The Brigantine is a smaller and more nimble version of her big sister. As you can see in this excellent image, she carried a large spread of triangular and lanteen sail, as well as stay-sails, much like her haughty mistress, the frigate. She also carries a very large mainsail and a large topsail. She can make sail with a small topgallant at need. More lightly armed than her big sister, she is no less sturdy, and quicker in the turns, her squat body being slimmer than the brig.




The Bark was also a vessel of two masts--seemingly a less than successful attempt to make a smaller version of the athlete of the seas, the frigate. In fact, the bark is a descendant of the snow, which was a successful smaller version of the earliest frigates. Although no cockle-shell, the bark cannot take punishment like a brig does, and relies on her speed and short turn to avoid damage in a fire fight. Her relatively short body reduces the effect of hogging. The ships proved especially useful against Berber corsairs, whose fast and nimble xebecs were not built to withstand a long-range pounding, and barks could usually keep up with them to continue to pound them.




The original barkentine was, like its cousin the brigantine, a smaller version of the larger sister. These were often used as mail runners in the open ocean, called "packets." In the waters of the Carribean, a mail runner was usually a much smaller open pinnace, such as the one shown in an earlier post.



However, unlike the brigantine, the barkentine proved such a great improvement on the larger vessel, and completely sturdy and weather-worthy if not used in combat, that larger and larger versions were built of it, and it remains the only square-rigged vessel routinely built (albeit very rarely) and put in service in the modern western world.



Over the last two and half centuries, the design of the barkentine has taken some strange turns, such as stepping a third mast as a real ship, and putting in a reciprocating steam engine--this model became quite common on the North Atlantic mail runs, and transported affluent immigrants with a desire for an adventurous crossing.




Many survive as passenger cruise ships for the adventurous.




Others evolved down a path to the windjammers, the first being made of sturdy wood well reinforced by steel--the windjammer is often mistakenly considered a descendant of the clipper ships.




Taken to their engineering extreme, the windjammers, descended from the lowly barkentine, became behemoths of steel hull and masts, competing for a brief historical moment, with the reciprocating steam engine.




The windjammer also survives as a sailing passenger cruiser.




And finally, the ancestors of the humble barkentine survive as training academies in the world's navies.

Sorry for stretching the page . . .

I find it ironic that another thread is running which
is entitled: Should women fight in combat?

Mary, Anne, what do you think?


EDIT: There, all "unstretched."

I remembered another pirate-John Quelch- and I looked him up. But as the thread is about Caribbean pirates he is not fitting in.

Looking him up I found a web site which looks interesting. It has a list of pirates, weapons, currency, pirate flags

http://www.kipar.org/piratical-resources/pirate-fame.html

While Mary Anne are just reading a bit about Princess Sela, Aethelflaed, La Marquise de Frèsne and all the others, before answering, here's a short reference to what Ul and hamburger referred to:

Störtebeker und Gödeke Micheel,
de roveden beiden to glieken Deel,
to Water un ok to Lande,
so lang, dat et Gott van Hemmel verdrot;
do mosten se lieden grote Schande.

Störtebeker sprok: Alltohand!
De Westsee is uns wohlbekannt
Dahin wöll'n wi nu fahren,
de rieken Kooplüd van Hamborg
Mögt jem ehr Schep nu wahren

Störtebecker memorial in Hamburg:

"God's friend and all the human's enemy"
weren Godes vrende
unde al der werlt vyande


Another famous North European pirate was

Queen Margarete I of Denmark (1353-1412), but she's in the books, Anne and Mary are just looking at.



The Störetbecker memorial in the small Frisian town Marienhafe

which is situated in Brookmerland ("broken land from the sea").


Störtebecker's "gang" was called, btw, "Likedeelers" (= sharing equally men)

Well, that reminds me of another North-European pirate/freedom fighter, Pier Grlofs Donia of Kimswerd (who proclaimed himself "King of Friesland").

He became known as "Greate Pier" because of his legendary size and strength. Pier was originally a farmer, but after his home village was sacked by a band of mercenaries in 1515 he was ruined and full of wrath against the Hollanders (the Netherlands did not exist yet, so we can't speak of "the Dutch") for allegedly killing his wife and children. He joined in the civil war that was raging between the Burgundian (Habsburg) party that wanted to unite the Low countries under one ruler and the independence party that sought to retain independence for the different counties (of which Friesland was one).

Pier unleashed a terror campaign, attacking ships from Holland (and England, well, you can't be too picky). In his first great sea battle he captured no less than 28 merchant vessels, which earned him the nickname "The Cross of the Hollanders". He even landed an army in the North of Holland and sacked two towns.

Nowadays, the life of Greate Pier is mostly the stuff of legends and some of the stories about his superhuman strength, resemble closely those told about other legendary giants. However, an indication that Pier was indeed of unusual stature is a greatsword ascribed to him (with a certain amount of likelyhood), that is kept in the Frisian museum. The weapon measures 2.12 meters and weighs 6 kilos.

Pier died peacefully in bed 1520, believing he had won independence for Friesland. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greate_Pier

I wonder if Pier had a clue about what the year 1520 would mean in Europe's history?

Paasky, i liked your story of the Narva pirate--the great northern war is contemporary to the sunset of the pirate era in the Carribean, and that is what we have so far examined. Many speakers of English are vaguely familiar with the War of the Spanish Succession--they eat least recognize the name Marlborough. But few know of the Great Northern War, and how it raged all up and down the coasts of Courland, Ingria, Karelia, the Finnish fjords, the Aland Islands, and even to Stockholm itself. It was quite a naval war, as well, with lots of unusual adaptations and engagements.