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Hugh Bicheno
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Elizabeth's Sea Dogs: How the English Became the Scourge of the Seas Hardcover – March 4, 2014

by Hugh Bicheno (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 40 ratings
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Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Martin Frobisher and Walter Raleigh: these and other uniquely adventurous men sailed the seas in the service of Queen Elizabeth I, fighting, looting, and whoring their way across the globe. In the process, they established a British presence in the Americas, defeated the Spanish Armada, and made Elizabeth very wealthy . . . if not grateful. Through impeccable research, Hugh Bicheno examines these colorful, controversial characters, capturing contemporary views and placing them in historical context. With color plates and Bicheno's own maps and technical drawings, Elizabeth's Sea Dogs tells their vivid, extraordinary story.
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  1. Print length
    448 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Conway
  4. Publication date
    March 4, 2014
  5. Dimensions
    6.33 x 1.47 x 9.56 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1844861740
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1844861743
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

 Hugh Bicheno is a writer and historian who specialized in the politics and cutting edge of conflict. His books include Gettysburg, Midway, and Crescent and Cross: the Battle of Lepanto 1571 (all Cassell Military); Rebels & Redcoats: the American Revolutionary War (HarperCollins), Razor's Edge: the Unofficial History of the Falklands War (Phoenix) and Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance (Phoenix).

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Conway; First Edition (March 4, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1844861740
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1844861743
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.75 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.33 x 1.47 x 9.56 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 40 ratings

About the author

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Hugh Bicheno

Hugh Bicheno

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
40 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

David J Kenney
5.0 out of 5 stars Sea Dogs' Elizabeth 5 stars
Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2014
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It is all here in this brilliant book. How a foggy island begot a few pirates who morphed into a matchless maritime and commercial empire that perdured until June 6th 1944 when America became Europe's supreme power. On the antiseptic side of decks' running with blood and human intestines Bicheno renders a superb, almost overdone recitation of the complex treaties and agreements that finally proved useless for their interlocutors in the smoke of English shot and shell. The book gets down and dirty with ruthless Drake, Frobusher superb in battle, felonious ashore and Raleigh who disobeyed his Queen's orders and the unwritten laws of the sea. Hawkins starved his sailors to fatten up his prisoners for sale at the next port.The boardings and sieges were awful and bloody. There was no penicillin, only the surgeons' sharp saws.
It is little known that Elizabeth's reign passed almost always in a state of penury and that pirates kept her well gowned from her share of their gettings. She had up to one hundred sixty armed ships privately owned, privately plundering and royally documented, all serving her unending needs for gold, silver and vendable cargoes in order to finance everything from adventures in Ireland to squads of lute players. These plunderers have been described as Elizabeth's captains. The more apt description would be Adventurers Seafarers and their Piratical Queen. Sixteenth century history's famous names are all there, but the thousands of ruthless captains and their avaricious crews who manned Elizabeth's stormed battered surrogates of her sovereignty are missing. There were too many of them.
Burghey, for example, kept the wheels greased in court. Keeping the power balanced at home required no little skill among blood seeking adventurers at sea or Thames side. That is a major point. Military success at sea, fed Elizabeth's mojo in negotiations and finally because these hundreds if not thousands of cruel, competent and adventurous men at sea beat down Dutch, French and Hapsburg pretentions. Reading these pages almost convince the reader that these these captains' triumphs were ordered by the stars and could not help but change English culture and society ashore. Inhuman military behavior at sea and on the littoral fuel one of history's most glorious ages. And for that we must examine the next four hundred years.
The prose here is racy enough to keep the dimmest reader alert and the historian waiting for the next page. 5 Stars. Buy this book.
3 people found this helpful
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4.0 out of 5 stars Full of details
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2013
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Great details and well written, albeit in spots a bit difficult to follow. If you love the sea read this book.
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Morongo Molly
5.0 out of 5 stars Now I want the hard copy!
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2013
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I am a writer of epic historical fiction and I needed to know more about 16th century pirates and privateering. I downloaded Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly, and it was very helpful, but its emphasis is on the Golden Age of Pirates, about 100 years off for thepurposes of my research. I found this book, of all places, in the reference notes in Wikipedea regarding the battles in the English Channel during the latter half of Elizabeth's reign, precisely what I needed. And it was hard to find, because the title of the original hardbound edition displays differently. Also, I understand the paperback is not available until September. But Eureka! AmazonUS had it onKindle. So I downloaded itfiguring that even if all I got out of it was a single salient fact I could use in my novel, I would be happy. Besides, it is deductible. Then I started at the beginning just to get the feel of the book, and there is no way I am putting this wonderful book down. My research and writing can come later --along with sleep and dinner. For years I thought nothing would approach Garrett Mattingly's Armada. This is more informative and every bit as good. No, I have not finished it. After all, it is over 400 pages packed with delight after delight. I have read the first 110 and skimmed the rest for overview. I came to the product page so I could budget the hard copy into my private purchases. I have to have this book on the shelf, between Mattingly's Armada and John Guy's My Heart is my Own (I have two copies of it as well) . Anyone who thinks this book is just about Elizabeth and her unscrupulous band of Sea Dogs is in for a surprise. So far I have found a bonus on every page. This is the best overview of life in Elizabethan England that I have found. I feel like today is my birthday and that some anonymousfriend sent me a present. If everyone who wrote history wrote like Hugh Bicheno, there would be many more history buffs. This is a wonderful book!
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

John Lambie
5.0 out of 5 stars Elizabeth's Sea Dogs
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 2, 2013
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This book is not a novel but often reads like one.
We talk of Great Britain without any idea of the thieving and brutality that we perpertrated on other nations to earn that feared reputation!
I Loved it so much that I ordered a copy to be sent to a sailing friend.
John
2 people found this helpful
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Ralph Cook
4.0 out of 5 stars Solid and well researched, but rather poorly organised and somewhat heavy going to read.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 19, 2015
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I was somewhat concerned when Mr Bicheno used the word 'footling', which I had never heard of. Being 67 and quite well read I get unsettled by such things. He also leaps about in the early chapters, covering events in different periods as though actually sequential. The first 70 pages are all about Portugal and Spain - and France, the latter as home to sea dogs and Buccaneers decades before the English got in on the act. It is fair comment that the age of Nelson was very far way for the English in the 16th century- but the text here is frankly badly organised and rather overblown.

Once we get to the career of John Hawkins things settle down . The author is right to emphasise that he and others of his time were not just 'evil 'slavers': the slave trade and slavery were then quite normal and accepted as a fact of life: it is ridiculous to apply the values of the 21st century to the 16th. This is also true of privateering, although Elizabeth was careful to disguise her own connivance in the profitable activities of the likes of Hawkins, Drake and Frobisher (even though she supplied the huge Jesus of Lubeck, amongst other ships, for the purpose). By the 1560's the French had turned to internal strife over religion but the English, by now enjoying relative political stability under Elizabeth, took up the challenge of adventure on the Spanish Main from that time onwards.

The Portuguese and Spanish ignored North America, largely because the ocean currents and winds did not readily take them there- but it was rather more accessible to the English who initially saw it as a base for attacking homeward bound Spanish flotas.

I was amazed to learn of the many private venture merchants- come- corsairs who I'd never heard of but whose adventures matched those of Drake and Hawkins- men like Cavendish and, later, Watts and Newport. Whenever a US warship sails from Newport News it unwittingly acknowledges a late 16th century English adventurer. The author rather rushes through the 1590- 1603 period, which covers the careers of many of these men and which is rather confusing to read as a result.

There are technical matters that irritate me- for example, reference to non- 'race built' galleons as 'Carracks', which they were not: real carracks had a bulkier and far less efficient hull form than galleons like the 'Victory', not just built- up superstructures.

Mr Bicheno claims that there is no real link between the Elizabethan era and later British imperial power, but in fact Tudor institutions- such as the Navy Board- sustained the 'Navy Royal' well into the future- no other country had its equivalent. Moreover, although the sea dogs were undisciplined and not well suited to working with others in a fleet, as Mr Bicheno notes they established a tradition of ferocious agression that inspired their successors for centuries.

This is a good book that demonstrates clear understanding of the conditions of those times: England was a country of just 4 million people (Spain 10 million, France 20) and I heartily approve the dismissal of modern day moralisers and apologists. However I drop a star because the account is not well balanced: it 'jumps about' in terms of chronology and is inconsistant in the detail of its coverage. Oh yes- I still need to look up 'footling' on Google...
6 people found this helpful
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Garland
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 29, 2017
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A very good, useful and lively approach to the subject. Well referenced for the most part
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David Owen
4.0 out of 5 stars Good overview of neglected period in naval history
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2013
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Most naval history concentrates on the Napoleonic Wars - but this book gives a new insight into the beginnings of Britain's naval ascendancy when seafarers who learned their trade as quasi pirates soon became essential for national survival.
2 people found this helpful
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Michael Oulton
5.0 out of 5 stars tuder ships
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 7, 2019
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excellent book
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