Minehead
fishermen at Carlingford in 1404
Niall
C.E.J. O’Brien
Introduction
In August 1404 a group
of fishermen from Minehead in Somerset went out into the Irish Sea to go
fishing. The fishermen were John Bray, David Neethe, John Lacy, William Touky, Maurice
Spencer and David Walter, all tenants of Sir Hugh Luttrell, lord of Minehead.
Yet their fishing trip went very much against them as they were captured by
pirates and held in captivity in a foreign castle for many months.[1]
Minehead
and fishing
The port of Minehead in
Somerset was owned by the Luttrell family, lords of Dunster Castle. The chief
port of Dunster Castle used to be that of Dunster but this port silted up
towards the end of the fourteenth century. The first notice of Minehead as a port
is in 1380 when Ralph Cooke and others were forbidden to sell their fish
outside the port. But within a few years Minehead became an important fishing
port. In 1383/84 fish from Minehead were export to Beaumaris. In 1419 salmon
was carried from Minehead to Harfluer in France where Sir Hugh Luttrell was a
member of the garrison. In 1421 Lady Margaret Luttrell gave 10s to her tenants
at Minehead towards the cost of building a jetty.[2] The
custom records for 1485 show many vessels of Minehead and elsewhere importing
herrings and salmon to the port.[3] In
the reign of Henry VII another Sir Hugh Luttrell was admiral of the admiralty
court at Minehead.[4]
Boats at rest off Minehead
Tenants
at Minehead
In October 1404 Lady de
Mohun, then lord of Minehead, died and Sir Hugh Luttrell of Dunster Castle
shortly after succeeded to the property. Sir Hugh Luttrell had Irish connections
as in 1394 and 1399 he visited Ireland, the latter time in the following of
King Richard II.[5]
Although the names of the captured fishermen do not appear among the
inquisition into the property of Lady de Mohun (they were possibly too poor to
rent directly from the lord of the manor), other people with the same surname
do appear at various times in Minehead. In about 1331 John Tonky (similar to
Touky) lived in Minehead. In about 1383 Nicholas and John Tonky formerly held
different messuages in the town. In 1407 John Bray senior and John Bray junior
rented property in Minehead.[6]
Fishing
off Carlingford
Early in August 1404
the above five tenants of Minehead left the port to go out onto the Irish Sea for
fishing. The type of fishing boat they used is not recorded or how successful
they were at catching fish. On 20th August 1404 the fishermen
dropped anchor off Carlingford in order to go fishing. Just then a well-armed
ship under John Goo of Spain came upon the fishermen and captured them and
their vessel.[7]
It is easy for sailing vessels to come quickly upon each other out on the sea
in a manner of a few minutes. It seems that the Minehead people didn’t notice
the Spanish vessel coming upon them or they thought it would pass by a good
distance off.
There were frequent
attacks by pirates and foreign governments upon shipping in the Irish Sea in
the fourteenth century. King Edward III tried to control the menace with
patrolling warships but the efforts of later governments were fitful. The
Hundred Years War between England and France made the English Channel dangerous
for shipping were piracy by Breton and Spanish shipping increased.[8]
The Minehead fishermen
may have considered Carlingford to be a safe place for fishing as the town was
then in the hands of the English crown. The owner of Carlingford was Edmund
Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, but he was only thirteen in November
1404 and so the crown controlled his estates. His father, Roger Mortimer, 4th
Earl of March and heir presumptive to the English throne, was killed at Kells
in Ireland in July 1398 aged just twenty-four.[9]
A view of Carlingford from the sea
Taken
to Scotland
In the late twentieth
century Spanish ships used to battle on the high seas with Irish and English
fishing boats over fishing grounds. In medieval times such battles also took
place. The maritime court at Lostwithiel recorded a low profit in 1339/40
because no mariners or fishermen docked in the port due to the hostile
challenges of Spanish ships and fishermen.[10]
The attack off
Carlingford may have been over fishing grounds but common piracy seems more
likely in this case. The fishermen were taken to Scotland and sold to William
Carneys, one of the Scottish king’s squires, and held prisoner at Bothwell
Castle on the River Clyde. Conditions in Bothwell Castle were not good at the
time and the material condition of the fishermen’s families back in Minehead
was greatly reduced with no bread winner to keep the families above the poverty
line.[11]
The families must also have missed their husbands and fathers without little
clear knowledge of their fate.
Like in modern times
when prisoners are displayed on television pleading for help to their
government in return for some reward to the captors so it was for the Minehead
fishermen. They were forced to send a letter to King Henry IV of England asking
for release in exchange for money. The king and his council discussed the
matter and on 24th November 1404 sent a letter to King James of
Scotland requesting that he order William Carneys to release the fishermen but
without the payment of any ransom.[12]
Other
people and merchandise captured at sea
The detention of the
Minehead fishermen in Scotland was not all one way traffic. Scottish seafarers
also had problems of detention when going into English waters. On 24th
July 1405 King Henry IV commanded William Spenser and four others of Lowestoff
and Norwich to release John of Logy, Adam Strono, William Euty, William Strong,
Richard of Bughwan, and Thomas Orkney, of Scotland, lately arrested by Sir
William Calthorpe, in a ship stranded on the Norfolk coast. The seafarers were
initially liberated by a previous letter from the King but they were arrested again
on their journey homewards at Lowestoft, and were still detained there in
violation of the truce with Scotland.[13]
In about 3rd
March 1404 Thomas Raa of Scotland petitioned Henry IV for safe conduct to carry
away his merchandises, lately captured at sea by Englishmen and since restored
to him. At the same time he asked for safe conduct for the master, twelve
seamen and four other merchants, and a vessel with goods, to trade for a year
on the English coast.[14]
The
battle of Homildon Hill
Meanwhile the Battle of
Homildon Hill, fought on 14th September 1402, and its aftermath
impacted on the Minehead fishermen and was connected with their story. During
the time leading to the break of the Truce of Leulinghem, both Scotland and
England began to raid each other. On 22nd June 1402, a small force
of Scottish soldiers returning from one such raid into England was met at
Nesbit Moor by George Dunbar. In the ensuing battle no quarter was given to the
Scottish force.
In response, Archibald
Douglas, 4th Earl of Douglas, led a large force into England. Archibald Douglas
was arguably the most militarily powerful man in Scotland, and a key part of
the Duke of Albany's administration. The Scots marched as far as Newcastle to
avenge the battle and laid waste to the whole of Northumberland.[15]
As the Scottish army
rested at Wooler on their return to Scotland, they were attacked by an English
force led by Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Although caught on low
ground, the Scots were able to make it onto the high ground of Homildon Hill.
This position saved them from English knights on horseback but not from English
longbowmen on foot. The Scottish army was destroyed with many killed and
countless number captured including about 80 knights. No list of these captured
people was compiled by any Scottish writer but in the 1870s, Sir Henry
Maxwell-Lyte discovered a list in the records of Dunster Castle while examining
the archives for the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Dunster Castle was the
chief seat of the Luttrell family, owners of Minehead. It is supposed that a
member of the Luttrell family could have been at the Battle of Homildon Hill.[16]
The capture of so many
of the Scottish leaders, including Archibald Douglas, left the Duke of Albany,
governor of Scotland, in a precarious position militarily if not politically. But
the English did not press home their advantage due to internal problems within
King Henry's administration and the Welsh rebellion. But Henry IV was keen that
the captured Scottish soldiers should not return to Scotland to fight against
him, and so refused to allow those who held noble captives to ransom them. This
act was one of many of the grievances that the Percys had with the Crown. In
1403 they allied themselves with Owain Glyndŵr, and Archibald Douglas and went into open rebellion
against the English king.[17]
Plight
of the Minehead fishermen
In was into this
political and military climate that the Minehead fishermen found themselves
locked up in Bothwell castle. Bothwell Castle was owned by Archibald Douglas
which he inherited from his mother, Joan Moray. With the Scottish exchequer too
impoverished to pay the ransom for the release of Douglas and Henry IV refusing
to accept the payment of any ransom, the Minehead fishermen were pawns in this
international exchange.
Bothwell Castle at that
time of 1404 was not the best of places to be a captive. In 1336 the powerful
castle overlooking the River Clyde was in such good condition that it was
headquarters of the army of Edward III in Scotland. But shortly after this it
was taken with siege engines by its rightful owner, Sir Andrew Murray. After
its capture, Murray had the castle silted by pulling down the west wall of the
donjon so as to prevent its reuse by the English.
In 1362 the heiress of
Bothwell, Joan Moray, married Archibald Douglas, 3rd Earl of Douglas.
The castle was rebuilt and repaired by Douglas and this repair work was
continued by his son, the 4th Earl. It was only by 1424 that the
castle was fully completed.[18]
Its condition in 1404 therefore must have been one of a building site and
makeshift fortress with little creature comforts.
Artist impression of Bothwell about the time of 1404
Meanwhile after the
Battle of Shrewsbury (21st July 1403), Archibald Douglas became a
prisoner of King Henry IV. He was only released in 1406 on condition that he
returned to captivity by Easter having concluded some private estate business.
Douglas surrendered hostages to ensure his return. But Douglas did not return
and remained in Scotland. It was only in 1413, on the payment of 700 marks to
Henry V, that the hostages were released.[19]
Return
of the fishermen
It is not known when
the Minehead fishermen were released from Bothwell Castle and allowed to go
home. The parole of Archibald Douglas in 1406 seems like an opportune date for
their release as part of a prisoner exchange but the records are silent of the
actual date of release. In the rental of Minehead taken in 1407 John Bray
senior and John Bray junior are mentioned.[20]
Could one of these men be the John Bray among the captured fishermen? We can’t
be sure. The letter of Henry IV to King James of Scotland in November 1404
asked that the fishermen be released without the payment of ransom.[21]
It is not known if any money was paid.
Other
captured Minehead ships
The story of the
Minehead fishermen of 1404 was repeated nearly one hundred years later. In 1497
a fishing boat under William Bassher was taken by a Scottish ship while fishing
in the Irish Sea. England and Scotland were then at war over the succession to
the English throne. But peace was shortly after declared and Bassher got back
his ship after paying a ransom.[22]
William
Carneys
Who was William
Carneys, the jailer of the Minehead fishermen? On 17th August 1405
King Henry IV gave a licence of protection for a vessel of Sir John of
Mountgomery of Scotland, of which John Galway was master, and his merchants
Robert Cauldwelle, William of Carnys, Alan Clerk, and John Wulson, with a crew
of 10, trading to various foreign parts, for a year.[23] Was
this the same William Carneys who held the Minehead fishermen at Bothwell? It
is not possible to say with any certainty. The records are not extensive enough
to say that it was one and the same person. Maybe other documents will come to
light to discover the real William Carneys – something for another day’s
fishing the archives.
==============
End of post
==============
[1]
Paul Dryburgh & Brendan Smith (eds.), Handbook
and Select Calendar of Sources for Medieval Ireland in the National Archives of
the United Kingdom (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2005), p. 170
[2] F.
Hancock, Minehead in the County of
Somerset (Barnicott & Pearce, Taunton, 1903), pp. 37, 167, 234
[3]
Paul Dryburgh & Brendan Smith (eds.), Handbook
and Select Calendar for Medieval Ireland, pp. 285, 287, 288
[4]
Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte, A history of
Dunster and of the families of Mohun and Luttrell (St. Catherine Press,
London, 1909), part 1, p. 132
[5]
Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte, A history of
Dunster and of the families of Mohun and Luttrell, part 1, pp. 78, 80
[6] F.
Hancock, Minehead in the County of
Somerset, pp. 165, 166, 169, 170, 441
[7]
Paul Dryburgh & Brendan Smith (eds.), Handbook
and Select Calendar for Medieval Ireland, p. 170
[8]
Wendy Childs and Timothy O’Neill, ‘Overseas trade’, in Art Cosgrove (ed.), A new history of Ireland, vol. 2: Medieval
Ireland1169-1534 (Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 522, 523
[10]
Maryanne Kowaleski (ed.), The Havener’s
Account of the Earldom & Duchy of Cornwall 1287-1356 (Devon &
Cornwall Record Society, New Series, Vol. 44, 2001), p. 42
[11]
Paul Dryburgh & Brendan Smith (eds.), Handbook
and Select Calendar for Medieval Ireland, p. 170
[12]
Paul Dryburgh & Brendan Smith (eds.), Handbook
and Select Calendar for Medieval Ireland, p. 170
[13] Joseph
Bain (ed.), Calendar of Documents
relating to Scotland preserved in the Public Record Office, London (General
Registry House, Edinburgh, 1888), vol. 4 (1357-1509), no. 690
[14] Joseph
Bain (ed.), Calendar of Documents
relating to Scotland, vol. 4 (1357-1509), no. 649
[16]
Joseph Bain (ed.), Calendar of Documents
relating to Scotland, vol. 4 (1357-1509), p. xxviii
[20]
F. Hancock, Minehead in the County of
Somerset, p. 169, 170
[21]
Paul Dryburgh & Brendan Smith (eds.), Handbook
and Select Calendar for Medieval Ireland, pp. 170, 171
[22]
F. Hancock, Minehead in the County of
Somerset, p. 237
[23]
Joseph Bain (ed.), Calendar of Documents
relating to Scotland preserved in the Public Record Office, London (General
Registry House, Edinburgh, 1888), vol. 4 (1357-1509), no. 697
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