{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022
The Damned Crew, or Cursed Crew, was a group of young gentlemen in late 16th and early 17th century
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
noted for habitually swaggering drunk through the streets, assaulting passers-by and
watchmen
''Watchmen'' is an American comic book Limited series (comics), maxiseries by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins (comics), John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 a ...
. The earliest certain reference to such a group appears in a sermon preached by
Stephen Gosson
Stephen Gosson (April 1554 – 13 February 1624) was an English satirist.
Biography
Gosson was baptized at St George's church, Canterbury, on 17 April 1554. He entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1572, and on leaving the university in 1576 h ...
at
St Paul's Cross
St Paul's Cross (alternative spellings – "Powles Crosse") was a preaching cross and open-air pulpit in the grounds of Old St Paul's Cathedral, City of London. It was the most important public pulpit in Tudor and early Stuart England, and ma ...
on 7 May 1598, when he claimed that a gang of roisterers of that name – “menne without feare, or feeling, eyther of Hell or Heauen, delighting in that title” – had all been drowned together when the boat in which they were sailing down the
Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
had been upset near
Gravesend
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Ro ...
. Another, possibly earlier reference, is in the work of the pamphleteer
Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe (baptised November 1567 – c. 1601; also Nash) was an Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel ''The Unfortunate Traveller'', his pamphlets including ''Pierce Penniless,'' a ...
, who in 1592 described a vain young man attempting to give himself an air of singularity by wearing his hat pulled low over his eyes “like one of the cursed crue”.
By 1600 a leading member of the Damned Crew was Sir Edmund Baynham (1577 - 1642?), a disaffected
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
later implicated in the
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
rebellion and the
Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who sought ...
. Baynham had originally been admitted to the
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...
in 1595 to study law but soon switched to adventuring. He followed the
Earl of Essex
Earl of Essex is a title in the Peerage of England which was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title has been recreated eight times from its original inception, beginning with a new first Earl upon each new cre ...
on his ill-fated expedition to
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
and was knighted there by him "on the sands" just before Essex returned to England. Thereafter, Baynham was among Essex's most loyal supporters.
On the night of Tuesday March 18, 1600 Baynham and some others left the
Mermaid Tavern
The Mermaid Tavern was a tavern on Cheapside in London during the Elizabethan era, located east of St. Paul's Cathedral on the corner of Friday Street and Bread Street. It was the site of the so-called "Fraternity of Sireniacal Gentlemen", a dr ...
at midnight and set off apparently looking for trouble. They "cast off their cloaks and upper garments, drew rapiers and daggers, marched through the streets" and when challenged by the watch they attacked. After a scuffle they were overpowered, disarmed and marched to the Counter prison, Baynham shouting that "he cared not a fart for the lord mayor or any magistrate in London." Instead of being tried by the ordinary London authorities however they were remitted to
Star Chamber
The Star Chamber (Latin: ''Camera stellata'') was an English court that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late to the mid-17th century (c. 1641), and was composed of Privy Counsellors and common-law judges, to supplement the judic ...
on the personal intervention of the Queen, "for the more exemplar punishment of so great and outrageous disorder." Having at first denied the charges they changed their plea to guilty, "confessed their faults and submitted themselves to the court, and proved that all was done in drink and heat." They were fined £200 and imprisoned.''The House of Commons 1558 - 1603'', ed. P. W. Hasler (H.M.S.O. 1981), I, p.408
A contemporary satirical poem, ''The letting of humors blood in the head-veine'' by
Samuel Rowlands
Samuel Rowlands (c. 1573–1630) was an English author of pamphlets in prose and verse which reflect the follies and humours of lower middle-class life in his day. He seems to have had no literary reputation at the time, but his work throws much ...
, describes the triumph of the watch and the discomfiture of the Damned Crew.