Andrew Barton (privateer) - Last Battle

Last Battle

Later in 1511, Andrew Barton was cruising the English coast looking for Portuguese prizes when he and his ships the Lion and Jenny Pirwyn were captured after a fierce battle with Sir Edward Howard and his brother Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk off Kent at the Downs. According to the story told in ballads, Andrew was subsequently beheaded. The action against him was perhaps illegal because Barton possessed a letter of marque. Later English and Scottish chronicle accounts agree that Andrew died of wounds received in the fight.

The incident was recalled two years later in the exchange of rhetoric at the battle of Flodden. The story of the sea-battle was told by Raphael Holinshed and in other 16th-century English chronicles. In Holinshed's story the Howards at first pretended only to approach and salute Andrew Barton, but then engaged in battle, Barton's ship was the Unicorn and he died from his wounds. The Scottish survivors were taken to London and kept prisoner in the Bishop of York's lodging, York Place at Whitehall. Edward Hall wrote that Andrew encouraged his men during the fight with his whistle. Hall mentions that the two ships were brought to Blackwall on 2 August 1511, and the prisoners were freed after an interview with the Bishop of Winchester, after acknowledging their piracy.

The Scottish bishop John Lesley gave a similar account of the battle in his chronicle. George Buchanan has the detail that Andrew Barton continued fighting after his leg was broken by a gunshot, and encouraged his sailors by beating a drum before he died from his wounds. Buchanan emphasises that the Howards sailed on the instruction of Henry VIII following a representation by a Portuguese ambassador. Hall wrote that Henry VIII was at Leicester when he ordered the Howards to chase the Scottish ships.