Addenda: Miscellaneous 1575 | British History Online

Calendar of State Papers Foreign: Elizabeth, Volume 17, January-June 1583 and Addenda. Originally published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1913.

Citation:

'Addenda: Miscellaneous 1575', in Calendar of State Papers Foreign: Elizabeth, Volume 17, January-June 1583 and Addenda, ed. Arthur John Butler, Sophie Crawford Lomas( London, 1913), British History Online https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/foreign/vol17/pp500-503 [accessed 22 November 2024].

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Miscellaneous 1575



[A.D. 1575, early in ?]	502. [The Queen] to her cousin Count Hollock [Hohenlo].
	The Sieur de Buy has greatly pleased us by his assurance of the constant affection which you have to our service, and so much the more as some reports had been spread abroad to the contrary; to the which, however, we had given little heed, knowing well that your judgment is clear enough to know that those of the Low Countries cannot give occasion to those who favour them to be displeased and consequently abandon them, without bringing about their own ruin; from which we endeavour, by all means, to protect them. And in regard to yourself, we trust that you will ever continue your good behaviour, and will forget nothing which may assure us of your desire for the advancement of our service, which we shall not fail to acknowledge in due time and place, as we have already done by many others.
	Endd. Draft. French. 1 p. [S.P. For. Eliz. CXLVI. 17.]
	(De Buys left England, after a short stay, in March, 1574–5.)
[Beginning of April.]	503. Summary of Articles presented by M. de Boischot to Queen Elizabeth, being the demands made by the King of Spain in his letters dated Nov. 25, 1574.
	Endd. French. 1 p. [S.P. For. Eliz. CXLVI. 18.]
	(On March 27, Boischot was still at Dunkirk; on April 7 he desired an answer from the Queen to the King of Spain's letter and demands. The summary is substantially the same as on the first page of the paper noticed in the Foreign Calendar for 1575–7, p. 52.)
[August.]	504. Captain de la Haye to the Queen.
	In the year when “le petit lit” [Leith] was besieged in Scotland, Captain La Haye was taken prisoner of war by Sir Henry Percy, who, without putting him on his parole, sent him to Sir John Hetherington (Houdrinton) in England, where the said La Haye managed to escape. And although by the ordinances of the Borders, and regulations of war, he is free, yet being come to England in the train of the ambassador, M. de Mauvissiére, for greater security he humbly prays her Majesty that he may be under her safe-conduct and justice.
	Endd. French.½ p. [S.P. For. Eliz. CXLVI. 19.]
	(Mauvissiére came to England in August, 1575.)
[A.D. 1575, towards the end of.]	505. The Spanish King's Complaints of English Piracies.
	A Relation of the informations given to his Majesty's Council of the Indies of the many injuries and robberies committed by English pirates in the ports and on the coasts of the Indies upon the vessels and goods of his Majesty, especially in the year '68.
	In the port of Cartagena, an English man, a resident of Plymouth, named Francis Drake, pilot, who was with John Haquins [Hawkins] when he was at S. Juan de Lua, entered the port by night and sacked a ship of Bartolomeo Farina of 180 tons, and having taken everything of value, burnt the ship and took the said Farina captive to England.
	And the same Francis Drake entered Nombre de Dios at midnight, and killed eighteen persons, and proclaimed war on behalf of the Queen of England, and sacked in the port a vessel of Francisco Gallego, laden with wines.
	He also took a carvel which the officers of his said Majesty of the House of Commerce at Seville had sent with powder and lead and other munitions of war to the Havana, and seized one Francisco Ravano, a pilot and threw him into the sea, because he would not show them the ports.
	And the same robbed the lieutenant of the governor of Cartagena of all that he had in a frigate. He also took two frigates, one being that of James Raphael, the other of Sebastian de Proença, one of which is at Plymouth and the other is said to be sent to the Indies.
	Moreover he has taken many other frigates, with great quantity of gold, silver and merchandize, which were going to the coast of Tierra Firme and Veragua.
	Also he took, in the year '71, in the inn of Las Cruzes, which is between Nombre de Dios and Panama, a great quantity of goods of Lope Ruyz de Lezo and Balthasar Diaz, and since then has committed many other robberies, murders and injuries, concerted with the Cimarrones negroes, and with a French ship, and lurked on the road from Panama to Nombre de Dios, and captured the droves of cattle, which were of great value, and then returned to England, and it is said that having given notice of his voyage to several persons, who communicated it to her Majesty's Council of State or others, and, obtaining promise and safeguard from them, he entered Plymouth. All which is a reason why her Majesty should order examination and exemplary punishment of all concerned in this affair.
	And as her Majesty should give orders to be informed of all, it is well that she should know that it is believed that amongst the participators and accomplices in these crimes and robberies are Captain John Haquins and his brother, and Sir William Winter and many others, and the brothers of Francis Drake, and Lewis Lader [Larder]; and they particularly say that from one of these robberies a slave was given to a member of the Council, who, as they believe, was brought from Guinea.
	Other English, whose names are not known, went to the Island of Jamaica with three ships belonging to George and William Winter, gentlemen, and robbed and burned a ship of Hernan Ruyz, an inhabitant of Seville, and committed many other injuries and insults; and by what is sent from England, it is known that a negro was in possession of Juan Baptista de Sanct' Victores, and the Earl of Hertford held another, from which it may be known that he was a pirate.
	The captains of the Isle of Wight and of Portsmouth armed a vessel which has made two voyages to the Indies, and robbed and done much damage.
	Another Englishman, called Captain Trenel, an inhabitant of Lotenes [? Totnes] took a prey in the Indies of many skins and a great quantity of sugar, and sent it into England, in the year '73.
	And on the 10th of November of the year '73 there sailed from the port of Plymouth Lewis Lader and other gentlemen, and on the 6th of November '74, they arrived at the same port, very rich from prizes which they had taken in the Indies.
	From information had in Nombre de Dios in the year '71, it appears that English pirates, with some French, took a frigate of Diego Polo, and also that English pirates in the year '72 took a ship coming from Yucatan, with a cargo of great value.
	In the year '71 they took and robbed on the coast of Tierra Firme a frigate of Gaspar Hernandez.
	In the year '72, they took and robbed a ship of Diego Franquis, merchant of Seville, which was in the port of Nombre de Dios, into which they managed to enter by night.
	In the year '73 there went on to the coast of Honduras, doing much damage and pillage, a captain called Mestran, with a Hazabra (fn. 1) and a shallop; and the master of the Hazabra was called Thomas Vigue, an Englishman.
	The said English pirates have robbed the cities of Nombre de Dios and Veragua, where they burnt the churches, and all that was in them, with the greatest desecration, and carried away a great quantity of gold and merchandize.
	Also they robbed twice the town of Tolu, in the government of Cartagena, and did much damage and murder.
	In Honduras, on the 3rd of April of the present year, an Englishman came upon the port before dawn, with a certain ship, leaving another out at sea, and robbed a ship which was there, and near there seized a carvel, and killed the people in her, and took a great quantity of gold and merchandize.
	From another town in the province of Veragua they took a quantity of gold, and have taken and burnt many ships on that coast.
	Further, by what we learn from trustworthy narrative, in the islands of Sancto Domingo, Sanct' Juan and Cuba, and in the Canaries, and in the channel of Bahama and coasts from Yucatan to Sancta Marta they have committed outrages, robberies and murders in very great numbers, and have taken many ships and boats.
	This relation is given to Sir Henry Cobham by order of his Catholic Majesty, that he may show it to the Queen of England, his mistress, and require and desire her on the part of his Majesty that she will order the punishment which such insults merit, so that all which the said pirates have taken may be effectually restored. Forbidding and ordering, moreover, on pain of death that from this time any of her subjects should go on the route to the Indies, or into any part thereof. Signed, De Cayas.
	Endd. (in Spanish): Memorial of the English pirates who have committed robberies in the Indies, and of what his Catholic Majesty demands from her Majesty. Spanish. 4 pp. [S.P. For. Eliz. CXLVI. 20.]