Sir Henry Mainwaring (1587–1653), was an

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lawyer, soldier, writer, seaman and politician who sat in the

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from 1621 to 1622. He was for a time a

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

based in Newfoundland and then a

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with the

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. He supported the

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cause in the

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Early life

Mainwaring was born in Ightfield,

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, second son of Sir George Mainwaring and his wife Ann, the daughter of Sir William More of

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. His maternal grandfather was Sir William More, Vice-Admiral of Sussex. He graduated from

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at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, where he was awarded a B.A. in Law, at the age of 15, in 1602. He then served as trial lawyer (admitted in 1604 as a student at

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), soldier (possibly in the

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), sailor, and author (pupil of John Davies of Hereford) before turning to

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

From pirate-hunter to pirate

In 1610, at the age of 24, Mainwaring was given a commission from Lord High Admiral

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to capture the notorious Newfoundland "arch-pirate"

Peter Easton Peter Easton ( – 1620 or after) was a pirate in the early 17th century. The 'most famous English pirate of the day', his piracies ranged from Ireland and Guinea to Newfoundland. He is best known today for his involvement in the early En ...

, then feared to be hovering around the Bristol Channel. This may have been just a convenient excuse for the well-armed ''Resistance'', his small but speedy ship, to become a scourge to the Spanish. On reaching the

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Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

, Mainwaring announced to his crew his intention of fighting the Spanish anywhere he found them. Turning to piracy was not that out of line for the young valiant in those years. In 1614 he sailed his fleet to Newfoundland, saying that the region was the best in which to recruit a pirate crew and reprovision his ships. Mainwaring used Easton's old base at

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, as his pirate base and raided

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, and French ships. On 4 June 1614, off the coast of Newfoundland, Mainwaring, in command of eight vessels, plundered the

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-fishing fleet, stealing provisions and taking away with him carpenters and mariners. In taking seamen, Mainwaring would pick one out of every six. In all, 400 men joined him willingly, while others were perforstmen. Sailing to the coast of Spain, Mainwaring then took a Portuguese ship and plundered her cargo of wine, and he later took a French prize and stole 10,000 dried fish from her hold. When Mainwaring was away from his main base at

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, on the Atlantic coast of present-day

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, a Spanish fleet under Admiral Luis Fajardo, sailing from

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on 1 August 1614, conquered the town. Mainwaring's relations with the

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were such that he was able to secure the release of their English prisoners. So feared was his pirate fleet that Spain offered Mainwaring a pardon and high command in return for his services under the Spanish flag.

Pardon and service in the Royal Navy

When his pirate activities almost broke the tenuous peace between England, Spain and Portugal, King

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threatened to send a fleet after Mainwaring, to whom he later granted a royal pardon in 1616 for having saved the Newfoundland trading fleet near

. Mainwaring wrote a book on piracy (''Discourse of Pirates'', on the suppression of piracy, 1618), the manuscript of which is in the

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. In his book, he explains what causes a desperate man to turn to piracy. He also advises the King against granting pardons to pirates. The King promptly dispatched Mainwaring to the

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as his representative, over the protests of the Spanish ambassador. Mainwaring was knighted at Woking on 20 March 1618.Knights of England
/ref> He was commissioned in the Royal Navy. In 1621, he was elected

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from Dover.Browne Willis ''Notitia parliamentaria, or, An history of the counties, cities, and boroughs in England and Wales: ... The whole extracted from mss. and printed evidences'' 1750 pp176-239
/ref> Mainwaring became vice-admiral before leaving the navy in 1639. As a Royalist, he served in the King's cause in the

, was exiled to

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, and died in poverty. He was buried at St. Giles' Church, Camberwell,

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, on 15 May 1653.

Family

Mainwaring married a daughter of Sir Thomas Gardiner in 1630. She died in 1633. His brothers were Sir Arthur Mainwaring, Carver to

Prince Henry Prince Henry (or Prince Harry) may refer to: People *Henry the Young King (1155–1183), son of Henry II of England, who was crowned king but predeceased his father *Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394–1460) *Henry, Duke of Cornwall (Ja ...

, George Mainwaring, the defender of

Tong Castle Tong Castle was a very large mostly Gothic country house in Shropshire whose site is between Wolverhampton and Telford, set within a park landscaped by Capability Brown,Wolverhampton's Listed Buildings on the site of a medieval castle of the s ...

, and Sir Thomas Mainwaring, the Recorder of

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. The

Mainwaring The surname Mainwaring ( or ) is an Anglo-Norman territorial surname deriving from "Mesnil Warin" (or "Mesnilwarin", "Mesnilvarin", "Mesnil Varin"), from the village of Le Mesnil Varin (= "the manor of Warin"), now Saint-Paër, Normandy. Notable ...

family was old and distinguished, probably having arrived in England in the reign of

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...

(1066).

References

*Gosse, Philip. 1924. ''The Pirates' Who's Who, Giving Particulars of the Lives and Deaths of the Pirates And Buccaneers''. New York: Burt Franklin. *Harris, G.G. 2004. "Mainwaring, Sir Henry (1586/7–1653)." ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. *Manwaring, G. E. (ed.). 1920
''The Life and Works of Sir Henry Mainwaring'', volume 1
London: The Council of the Navy Records Society
volume 2, 1922
*Henry Mainwaring. 1923. ''Discourse on Pirates'', London: Navy Records Society. Reprint.

External links

Biography at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''

The life and works of Sir Henry Mainwaring Volume 2. OF THE BEGINNINGS, PRACTICES, AND SUPPRESSION OF PIRATES.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mainwaring, Henry 1580s births 1653 deaths Year of birth uncertain 17th-century Royal Navy personnel Pirates from the Kingdom of England English MPs 1621–1622 Royal Navy admirals Recipients of English royal pardons Pardoned pirates Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford Military personnel from Shropshire People from Camberwell Members of the Parliament of England for Dover Cavaliers Lawyers from the Kingdom of England Kingdom of England people in Newfoundland