St Ives

A small French pirate flotilla assembled in St Ives Bay when the tide came in, flooding the Hayle estuary, sailed up to the small trading port to plunder the town. They were repelled by a local who as a result was granted a coat of arms for his brave action.

Land’s End 

Off Land’s End, in 1641 the "Merchant Royal" ran aground with 36 bronze cannon and £500,000 in silver bullion on board.  

By 1860 over 692 shipwrecks were recorded off the south west's dangerous coastline

Scilly Isles  

Piracy flourished on the Scilly Islands in the Middle Ages. In 1209, 112 captured pirates were beheaded on Tresco in a single day. In Charles I reign in the 1640s many pirates based themselves there.

Sir Cloudsley Shovell (1650-1707)

He was in joint command of the fleet, with Admiral Killigrew of Falmouth. He was returning from an assault on the French port of Toulon, when his flagship the “Association” hit rocks off the Scilly's and sank with all 600 hands in 4 minutes.  Four other Navy ships ran aground and it was England’s worst Naval accident at that time. He was the only survivor and struggled ashore at Porthellick Cove to be greeted by a local woman who promptly slit his throat and cut his fingers off to take the gold rings. His treasure was found by divers from Penzance in recent years and recovered.
He was previously involved in the bombardment of the Arab pirate enclave of Tripoli, and many west country men made up his crew.

Channel Islands 

Eustace the Monk held Sark in 1214. Originally locked away in a monastery he turned to piracy, and with the French King Louis VII in 1217 attempted to invade England with 900 ships. Unfortunately for him, The Bayonne, his flagship, was captured and he was hung from the yard arm at sea, although offering a 10,000 mark bribe for his life...a fortune for a simple monk. His daughter was brought up in Salisbury as an English lady..educated at the fashionable Wilton Abbey. 

Robert Hicks  died 1578

Sailed with Welshman John Callice took 3 ships off Cornwall in 1577 and then a large Danish ship which was taken in to Weymouth.  He was hanged for piracy. 

John Downes 1606-1631

Marauded from harbours in Southern Cornwall. 

Sir Richard Grenville 1541-1591

He was eventually Sheriff of Cornwall and well connected. Grenville was born into a famous naval family in Cornwall. In his early career he fought in Hungary and Ireland and then became an MP for Cornwall in 1571. In 1574 he joined an expedition to the South Pacific and was knighted by Elizabeth in 1577.    

In 1585 he sailed to Virginia with 300 settlers to help found the Roanoke Island colony. He was at the founding of the Virginia colony, but was more interested in piracy. He attacked a Spanish ship on the return voyage and the following year he attacked the Azores. In 1588, Grenville served under Drake during the Spanish Armada and then he guarded Ireland.  

In 1591 he sailed back to the Azores to try and capture a Spanish treasure fleet but they were beaten off by a squadron of Spanish war ships. Grenville was trapped in the harbour and was surrounded. After a battle the crew surrendered. Grenville died of his wounds a few days later.   

William Rous 1631-1643

He was initially a lieutenant in the military and was stationed in the Bahamas. He became a privateer in 1636 as captain of the ship Blessing. He was almost immediately captured and imprisoned by the Spaniards at Cartagena and was later taken to in Spain and freed.  In 1642 he sailed from England under the command of the privateer William Jackson with 900 men. They were in the West Indies for three years.  

Ambrose Sayer 1600-  1620

A pirate in the Mediterranean Sea from 1600 to 1613. He ranged off Tuscany and was captured He spent four years in a jail in Florence, and three years in Rome. In 1620 he escaped.