While Hawkins, Drake, and Raleigh are probably the best known of Elizabeth's troop of legal pirates, they weren't the only ones. Elizabeth had a number of seafarers in her group of trusted and proven sailors, men who were willing to plunder for England either under her letter of marque or with her hidden approval and backing. Besides Humphrey Gilbert, some of the queen's renowned sea dogs included Martin Frobisher, Richard Grenville, and Richard Hawkins, the son of John Hawkins.

A Fool and His Gold

Martin Frobisher was the son of a very prominent English family. In 1553, at the age of eighteen, he went to sea and was captured by a native chief in Guinea, West Africa, and imprisoned by the Portuguese. After being released from his incarceration, Frobisher turned pirate and spent the next fifteen years plundering from the Spanish. During one journey, while sailing past Greenland he discovered what he mistook to be a strait. Believing that he'd found the Northwest Passage, he returned to England, bringing with him a sample of gold-flecked rock. The queen and several others invested in Frobisher's newly started Cathay Company, and he obliged by harvesting and bringing back to England tons of the gold-flecked ore. Unfortunately the ore turned out to be pyrite, or “fool's gold,” and several of Frobisher's backers suffered terrible losses.

Frobisher was later sent to guard the Irish seas; he also made several piratical voyages. He fought hard during the war against the Spanish Armada, and the queen later knighted him for his accomplished efforts. After the war he made several voyages with John Hawkins, but died in 1594 from wounds he sustained while trying to help the French Huguenots who were under siege in Brittany.

Grenville's Last Stand

Richard Grenville was born in 1541 in Cornwall, England. From an early age he had a terrible temper, which was put to good use when he fought against the Turks in Hungary in 1566 and helped Humphrey Gilbert quash rebellions in Ireland in 1569. Because of Gilbert, Grenville found his love of navigation and the seas, and was soon joining sailing expeditions. In 1584, he delivered the first group of Raleigh's colonists to Roanoke Island, and successfully plundered a great store of treasure from Spanish ships while en route to England. He sailed back to Roanoke the next year, only to discover that Francis Drake had already taken the discouraged colonists back to England. Grenville instead continued on with his trip, sailing to the North Atlantic islands of the Azores and pillaging several Spanish towns whose inhabitants he captured and cruelly treated.

In 1591, Grenville joined Lord Thomas Howard, who was leading a group of the queen's ships back to the Azores to capture more Spanish treasure galleons. But Spain's King Philip learned of their plans and sent a large squadron of Spanish warships to meet them. The English were forced to retreat, but Grenville's ship was the last to exit the harbor and he was surrounded.

For more than twelve hours he fought, before his men surrendered his ship against his wishes. He died a few days later from wounds he received in the battle.

Like Father, Like Son

Richard Hawkins was the son of Sir John Hawkins, and as a dutiful son he carried on his father's privateering career. In 1588, he commanded a ship in the fight against the Spanish Armada, but his greatest ambition was to sail around the world, combining piracy and scientific experimentation along the way. With that goal in mind, Hawkins began a voyage in 1593, passing through the Strait of Magellan. Shortly afterward he raided a Spanish settlement in Chile, and soon came under attack by several Spanish ships. After a fierce battle, he surrendered with the agreement that his men would be returned to England. He then spent three years in a Peruvian prison before being transferred to a Spanish prison. Eventually he was ransomed by his stepmother and returned to England, where he was knighted by James I and served as a vice-admiral in the British navy. Hawkins died in 1622 after a long career.