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Unexpected and Surprising Facts About England’s Iconic Queens

Khalid Elhassan February 13, 2022 38 min

7. Queen Elizabeth I Was a Soft Touch for Pirates in General

Queen Elizabeth I’s fondness – or at least tolerance – for pirates extended beyond her dealings with Sir Francis Drake. An example was how she handled Mary Wolverston. Better known as Lady Killigrew (circa 1525 – circa 1587), she was an English gentlewoman who led a double life as a pirate. She mostly preyed on ships that passed near Cornwall’s rocky coast – a region that had long been home to smugglers, wreckers, and pirates. Back then, as seen from Drake’s example, above, piracy was something of an English pastime.

English pirates were often abetted or outright encouraged by the authorities. Particularly in the middle of the wars against Catholic Spain. In that era, the line between English pirates and the English navy was often indistinguishable. As to Lady Killigrew, it could be said that piracy was in her blood: her father, Phillip Wolverton, Lord of Wolverton Hall, had been a gentleman pirate for years. She was married and widowed at a young age. She was then remarried to Sir John IV Killigrew and became Lady Killigrew.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.