Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to Criminalia, where it's
Speaker 1: pirate season. We're exploring the lives and motivations of some
Speaker 1: of the most notorious freebooters throughout history. I'm Maria T.
Speaker 1: Marking and I'm Holly Fry. Mary Wolverston, Lady Killigrew, was
Speaker 1: an English noblewoman. But she was also a pirate, and
Speaker 1: it is for that which she was eventually accused and convicted.
Speaker 1: That's a whole complicated story. Mary was born into an
Speaker 1: aristocratic family around possibly a few years prior. The exact
Speaker 1: date is lost to the ages, as is often the case.
Speaker 1: She was the daughter of Philip Wolverston of Wolverston Hall
Speaker 1: in Suffolk. Now, if you go looking, this is different
Speaker 1: from the school and events space called Wolverstone Hall in
Speaker 1: Suffolk that has two ohs and ins and an E
Speaker 1: that wasn't built until the seventeen seventies, Just to avoid
Speaker 1: any confusion since that is a more well known place.
Speaker 1: But back to Mary. So, her father, Philip was a
Speaker 1: wealthy man who practiced piracy, earning himself the nickname the
Speaker 1: Gentleman Pirate. This was a term for wealthy landowner turned pirates.
Speaker 1: But don't get confused with Stave Bonnet, who we've talked
Speaker 1: about a little bit before, who was famously known as
Speaker 1: the Gentleman Pirate, again a couple hundred years later in
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century. So we know about Mary's father, but
Speaker 1: then we have a pretty good gap between Mary's childhood
Speaker 1: and when we picked her story back up in her adulthood.
Speaker 1: We know she was married to a man named Henry Nivet,
Speaker 1: who she was widowed. We know that she then married
Speaker 1: Sir John Killigrew the fourth and depending on the record
Speaker 1: you look at, the couple had at least one son
Speaker 1: and possibly as many as five children. There was actually
Speaker 1: one source that I saw that had them with ten children.
Speaker 1: This is really where Mary's story begins in Cornwall with
Speaker 1: the Killer groups. So we have talked at great length
Speaker 1: this season about how it can be really difficult to
Speaker 1: narrow down the details of a person's life when you're
Speaker 1: looking back nearly five hundred years. The National Endowment for
Speaker 1: the Humanities has this great quote about basically what we
Speaker 1: have all learned about pirates so far this season, and
Speaker 1: that is a lot of what is known about pirates
Speaker 1: is not true, and a lot of what is true
Speaker 1: is not known. Mary gets caught right up in that
Speaker 1: there is information about her. She's not a complete blank slate,
Speaker 1: but the story of her life is often confused or
Speaker 1: blurred with another woman named Elizabeth. So who is this Elizabeth?
Speaker 1: One of two things going on here. One theory is
Speaker 1: that Mary began using the name Elizabeth in the later
Speaker 1: years of her life, which, sure, maybe that doesn't always
Speaker 1: make sense when you read her history. To confuse things
Speaker 1: even more, there was also an Elizabeth killer Group, the
Speaker 1: wife of John Godolphin and daughter of John Killer Group,
Speaker 1: but these people lived at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: not during the same time as Mary. The primary explanation
Speaker 1: here is that she's been confused with her mother in law,
Speaker 1: who is another Elizabeth, and sometimes their stories, or at
Speaker 1: least parts of their stories, are told as if these
Speaker 1: women were actually the same person. All of this means
Speaker 1: a few things for us in regard to Mary's story.
Speaker 1: Although there is some uncertainty about what the women's roles
Speaker 1: were in the family piracy business, and there are definitely
Speaker 1: some inaccuracies about Mary's life, it is certain that Mary
Speaker 1: kind of had piracy flowing through her veins. So Mary
Speaker 1: is a really interesting lady, and we'll set our scene
Speaker 1: for Lady Killigrew right now. You may know the opera
Speaker 1: The Pirates at Penzance in Cornwall. There's real piracy there
Speaker 1: and has been for centuries. Mostly it was smuggling though,
Speaker 1: and that was especially profitable. The coast of Cornwall in
Speaker 1: southwest England is rocky, with many coves, inlets and other
Speaker 1: secluded in sheltered spots for ships to hide in, which
Speaker 1: is perfect for those who want to practice viracy. Because
Speaker 1: of that, this area was notorious for pirate activity. The Carters,
Speaker 1: which was another long standing Cornish family, ran a smuggling
Speaker 1: operation and carried on their affairs out of three small
Speaker 1: coves Bessie's Cove, Piskeys Cove and Port Leah known today
Speaker 1: as Prussia Cove. Coves are of course attractive to pirates
Speaker 1: because they are challenging to access, so the Carters built
Speaker 1: their houses above those coves, and each of those houses
Speaker 1: were connected to the coves below through secret underground passageways,
Speaker 1: which sounds pretty cool. Mary married into the Killigrew family,
Speaker 1: who were also long established in Cornwall, and a family
Speaker 1: who were also successful pirates. The Kiligrews were wealthy and
Speaker 1: well connected. John his mother Elizabeth, was a relative of
Speaker 1: the statesman William Cecil. William Cecil, first Baron Burghley, was
Speaker 1: the chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth the First and whom
Speaker 1: she considered her most important minister. For forty years. He
Speaker 1: was Lord, High Treasurer and twice Secretary of State. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor, and when we return we'll be talking about when,
Speaker 1: why and how the Killigrew family became so very powerful.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how Mary's husband,
Speaker 1: John was a pirate who became the county's pirate commissioner YEP.
Speaker 1: In the fifteen forties, Pendennis Castle was commissioned by King
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth to be built on our we Nack estate,
Speaker 1: which had long belonged to the Killigrew family. They were
Speaker 1: the second owners technically. In the late fort century, Simon
Speaker 1: Killigrew married Jane Darwina, the daughter and sole heiress of
Speaker 1: Robert Arenak, and the Killigrew family gained the property through
Speaker 1: that marriage. They lived there for about sixteen generations while
Speaker 1: they became really the most powerful family in Cornwall. But
Speaker 1: as our story takes place in the fift hundreds, it
Speaker 1: was still pretty early on in that occupancy, but they
Speaker 1: still had a very solid power base. Mary's father in law,
Speaker 1: John Killigrew the Third, was appointed by the King as
Speaker 1: the first governor of Pan Dennis Castle. After his death,
Speaker 1: it was then Queen Elizabeth First who appointed his son,
Speaker 1: Sir John Killigrew the Fourth as second governor. A governor
Speaker 1: in this instance likely would have been a military officer
Speaker 1: who commanded the fortifications at the castle and at sea.
Speaker 1: In these appointments from the queen, shipping in Carrick Rhodes
Speaker 1: Harbor along the south coast fell under Sir John the
Speaker 1: Fourth's control and family connections made it really easy for
Speaker 1: John and his family to pray on the ships that
Speaker 1: came within his reach along the county's coastline. So John
Speaker 1: was unchallenged in his jurisdiction. An unchallenged pirate. It's great,
Speaker 1: I'm the pirate, cop and the pirates. This is going
Speaker 1: to work out. Just five. I'm investigating myself, not guilty.
Speaker 1: So um Mary Tudor reigned as Queen of England between
Speaker 1: Henry the eighth and Elizabeth the First. Both John the
Speaker 1: Third and John the Fourth opposed her policies. After ignoring
Speaker 1: what they didn't like, they were arrested while using their
Speaker 1: own ships to attack Spanish vessels in the English Channel.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows you don't practice piracy that close to home.
Speaker 1: They were both put in Fleet Prison in June of
Speaker 1: fifteen fifty six to quote be kept their apart in
Speaker 1: close prison. They were released after three weeks. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until Queen Elizabeth the First reigned that John we're talking about,
Speaker 1: the younger John, that is, was back in favor with
Speaker 1: the monarchy and he was commissioned by her as essentially
Speaker 1: a local magistrate. NAT put John on the path to
Speaker 1: becoming an even greater influential figure in Cornwall. Influential, yes,
Speaker 1: perhaps also notorious. John also had duties as the piracy
Speaker 1: commissioner I know right. He used his position to maintain
Speaker 1: his relationships with other pirates and to trade with them,
Speaker 1: and so he could use his influence over smugglers who
Speaker 1: frequented his coastline. John's trafficking with these pirates was absolutely
Speaker 1: not a secret. It was just kept quiet through bribery.
Speaker 1: Authorities had known of his operations since fifteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: and despite the corrupt dealings in their favor, in fifteen
Speaker 1: sixty five commissioners were appointed to conduct a formal investigation.
Speaker 1: But these were the Killigrews, and they were very powerful.
Speaker 1: In fact, the family was powerful enough to evade all
Speaker 1: of the allegation against him. It wasn't until a decade
Speaker 1: later the officials resumed their interests and wrote to him.
Speaker 1: It appears they wrote to him repeatedly, actually about certain
Speaker 1: events they were concerned about, and that included his imprisoning
Speaker 1: a French merchant and his seizure of four ships. Only once,
Speaker 1: in January fifteen sixty nine can we find a record
Speaker 1: of commendation of John's behavior anywhere, and that was after
Speaker 1: he and Sir Arthur Champernon had seized Spanish silver from
Speaker 1: a vessel and conveyed it to the Crown. By the
Speaker 1: time Elizabeth the First Rain began in fifteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: piracy was already in its golden age, with thousands of
Speaker 1: pirates sailing the Atlantic and Caribbean oceans in the name
Speaker 1: of the Crown. Explorers or adventurers or privateers or pirates
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call them. It was even
Speaker 1: the Royal Navy who was involved. They were all pretty
Speaker 1: much indistinguishable from each other as they plundered their way
Speaker 1: around the world. Some were commissioned and paid for their services,
Speaker 1: but others weren't, and that was really the only difference.
Speaker 1: The British Empire had a particular interest in looting from
Speaker 1: their enemy, the Spanish, who were busy looting from what
Speaker 1: they called the New World today that refers to the
Speaker 1: Western hemisphere in particular the America's and it was just
Speaker 1: new to them. All this piracy took place with the
Speaker 1: Queen's approval, or at least she turned a blind eye
Speaker 1: to it, and she did fund many commissions, so it's
Speaker 1: hard to argue that she didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1: Elizabethan authorities generally encouraged piracy because they saw it as
Speaker 1: a form of economic warfare against the country's enemies, and yes,
Speaker 1: at this time it was mainly Spain, but it was
Speaker 1: certainly not only Spain. Growing more powerful, the Kilogrews rebuilt
Speaker 1: Arwa Knack House around fifteen sixty seven to seventy one Ish.
Speaker 1: It was now fortified as a stronghold, and they used
Speaker 1: it to store merchandise that they had stolen in raids
Speaker 1: from ships and coastline attacks before they could fence it.
Speaker 1: The house was described as quote the finest and most
Speaker 1: costly house in the country. While the Killergrew family didn't
Speaker 1: always go out on raids themselves, they definitely ran a
Speaker 1: tight operation. They owned and outfitted their own ships. They
Speaker 1: assessed their own stolen goods, they took their share, gave
Speaker 1: their crews their share, and gave a percent to the crown.
Speaker 1: Very careful with the books, they also bribed authorities, probably
Speaker 1: a line item. They had allocated suns formably and pretty
Speaker 1: much had all of Cornwall in their pockets. There is
Speaker 1: a version of the Killer Grew story that suggests Mary
Speaker 1: and John would entertain guests such as naval and other
Speaker 1: ship captains, as well as other aristocratic families, as a
Speaker 1: way to learn where to find their hidden treasures. The
Speaker 1: Killer Grews were known for taking care of their cruise.
Speaker 1: It was not uncommon for them to invite their men
Speaker 1: at family meals in their home. They settled disputes, they
Speaker 1: offered protection for their crews, and one example we came
Speaker 1: across of their bound liz bribery was if one of
Speaker 1: their ships was followed by authorities. They were instructed to
Speaker 1: sail into the harbor to the Killogrew's family home, where
Speaker 1: Joan would then row out and I'm gonna air quote
Speaker 1: this word, convince the officials into looking the other way. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we can work something. We're all gentlemen here. Mary, however,
Speaker 1: it's said, preferred to be a little more hands on
Speaker 1: with the family operation, and she was known to go
Speaker 1: out on raids during storms. She would send crews out
Speaker 1: to raid ships that were driven into the harbor. She
Speaker 1: would ultimately be accused of praying on shipping vessels that
Speaker 1: passed along the coastline. She was known to cut deals
Speaker 1: with smugglers and then fence the goods. Historian Nevill Williams
Speaker 1: described Mary as a quote tough and unprincipled businesswoman. So
Speaker 1: we're going to jump into a break for a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsor, and next let's talk about how Mary
Speaker 1: gained that description of un principle old businesswoman. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Criminalia. Okay, Now is when we get to the
Speaker 1: moment when Mary made a big mistake. So the Kiligrews
Speaker 1: continued their business for decades, but their pirate empire was
Speaker 1: brought down in two, when Mary decided she wanted the
Speaker 1: wrong ship. Okay, so this is one of those where
Speaker 1: we have multiple versions. Here's one. A Hanseatic ship sailed
Speaker 1: into the harbor during bad weather and the crew was
Speaker 1: forced to anchor there to win ashore to the Killigrew
Speaker 1: estate to find shelter and over dinner, Mary told the
Speaker 1: men that their ship would be safe if they left
Speaker 1: it in the harbor, and she suggested that they could
Speaker 1: find a place to stay through the storm in a
Speaker 1: nearby town named Penryn. There are some versions of this
Speaker 1: part of the story that suggests that the two men
Speaker 1: actually ended up staying in a guesthouse on the killer
Speaker 1: Grew land, but either way, they were not in for
Speaker 1: a good night. The Hanseatic League to take a moment
Speaker 1: to talk about who those men were. It's a part
Speaker 1: of German history. The League became a powerful network of
Speaker 1: merchants cooperating for the promotion of their trade abroad. The
Speaker 1: allegiance included areas from the east of England to the
Speaker 1: heart of Russia, and at its peak, the League had
Speaker 1: the allegiance of nearly two hundred towns across northern Europe.
Speaker 1: So that night, Mary gathered a crew, and they rode
Speaker 1: out to the men's ship under the cloak of darkness.
Speaker 1: They covered their oars with cloth to muffle their noise
Speaker 1: and not draw attention to their activities. John may Or
Speaker 1: may not have been part of this crew. Once on board,
Speaker 1: they overpowered any crew remaining on the ship and killed them,
Speaker 1: and they helped themselves to the booty that seized cargo
Speaker 1: is said to have been Holland cloth or unbleached linen fabric.
Speaker 1: The crew also stole the ship and in some versions
Speaker 1: of the story, they sailed it to Ireland and when
Speaker 1: the two men returned the next morning everything was gone. So,
Speaker 1: of course, not only are there different versions of that
Speaker 1: first story, there is a second version of the story itself,
Speaker 1: and it goes like this. Mary and her pirate crew
Speaker 1: boarded and stole treasure from the Spanish ship, the Marie
Speaker 1: of San Sebastian, which had been anchored near the Kilagrew estate.
Speaker 1: We don't know many of the details about the raid actually,
Speaker 1: but this turned out to be Mary's final heist. Authorities
Speaker 1: arrested the group and when the stolen goods from the
Speaker 1: ship were discovered in her home, receiving and fencing stolen
Speaker 1: goods were added to her charges. Mary, along with two
Speaker 1: members of her crew, were charged with the murder of
Speaker 1: a crewman on the Marie, and Mary was convicted and
Speaker 1: received a death sentence, so were the other two members
Speaker 1: of that crew. An investigation conducted by Richard Grenville the
Speaker 1: Second and Edmund Tremaine disclosed that Mary had recently shown
Speaker 1: lengths of Holland cloth to her domestic work hers, and
Speaker 1: that one of her daughters had paid a debt with
Speaker 1: twenty yards of the unbleached linen. It's reported that John
Speaker 1: may have been summoned to appear in front of the
Speaker 1: Privy Council, although no details have survived all these years
Speaker 1: to tell us if he really was or if there
Speaker 1: was any punishment. The Privy Council was a group of
Speaker 1: nineteen powerful noblemen appointed by Elizabeth First, and they advised
Speaker 1: the Queen on both domestic and foreign affairs, such as
Speaker 1: how to handle threats and when to go to war,
Speaker 1: relations with foreign ambassadors and the like. They did not
Speaker 1: control her, but it's reasonable someone could have been called
Speaker 1: in front of them were they accused of piracy and
Speaker 1: of a high standing. The executions were carried out on
Speaker 1: the crew, but Mary wasn't executed. Here's where things become
Speaker 1: a little unclear and may explain why in the first
Speaker 1: version of this story she gets away more or less
Speaker 1: without incident. There are at least three versions of how
Speaker 1: Mary escaped the gallows. Some say her husband intervened on
Speaker 1: her behalf bribery, of course we know, seems to be
Speaker 1: one of his favorite things. Other reports suggest that it
Speaker 1: was Mary's son who broughted those who could secure her
Speaker 1: release from prison and spare her the death sentence. She
Speaker 1: was facing no big stretch on either of these. The
Speaker 1: Killergrew family had been doing this for generations. It seems
Speaker 1: both would be totally plausible. Another version is that the
Speaker 1: men from the Hanseatic ship submitted a complaint to the
Speaker 1: Commission for Piracy in Cornwall. But guess who sat at
Speaker 1: the head of that commission at that time. That would
Speaker 1: have been Mary's son. Coincidentally, the commission couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: exactly who committed the act of piracy. Gosh, I don't
Speaker 1: know this. There no clues, y'all. Unsatisfied, Those two men
Speaker 1: went higher and higher on the chain of command until
Speaker 1: their complaint reached Queen Elizabeth the First herself. Whether it
Speaker 1: was a Spanish ship or a Hansiatic ship. The event
Speaker 1: threatened either way to cause a diplomatic crisis. The monarchy
Speaker 1: encouraged piracy, but such brazen acts in English waters, as
Speaker 1: Mary's raid had been, couldn't be condoned. For the sake
Speaker 1: of plausible deniability, the crown preferred it's pirates conduct their
Speaker 1: business away from England. So what exactly happened here? How
Speaker 1: did Mary escape being killed and executed for her crimes?
Speaker 1: Who pardoned her exactly? We found that it was most
Speaker 1: often reported that it was Queen Elizabeth the First who
Speaker 1: intervened issuing that pardon. And while we don't know what
Speaker 1: really went down to spare her life, Mary did end
Speaker 1: her piracy career. She died several years later, sometime after
Speaker 1: in Buddha Cornwall. And that is the life of Mary Polly.
Speaker 1: What's getting to the groggery? And see what you have today?
Speaker 1: Oh Maria? Good good stuff? Uh it is And it
Speaker 1: surprised me how much I liked it, And it got
Speaker 1: a thumbs up from my beloved who doesn't really drink
Speaker 1: a surpriser. So the thing that I kept thinking about,
Speaker 1: and of course this is because I am a stitcher
Speaker 1: in my life was that unbleached linen. And there is
Speaker 1: actually a drink called a white linen, which is a
Speaker 1: gin cocktail. And so thinking about the unbleached linen called
Speaker 1: it to mind, and I thought it would be fun
Speaker 1: to do a dirty version, since a white linen conveys
Speaker 1: like a beautiful clear beverage to you. Right, So we're
Speaker 1: doing the unbleached one. We're swapping out some of the
Speaker 1: ingredients to make it. Instead of gin. What you're going
Speaker 1: to start with is one and a half ounces of
Speaker 1: Reposada tequila. Have we used tequila before? I think once
Speaker 1: or twice, but not very often. It's not my spirit
Speaker 1: of chill ice. That's why it's a surprise. Yes, apparently
Speaker 1: we're starting out strong, like a good, a good middle
Speaker 1: grade tequila represtato. And then an ounce of lemon juice,
Speaker 1: a half ounce of vanilla syrup. You can use simple,
Speaker 1: but I highly recommend vanilla, and i'll tell you why
Speaker 1: in a moment, a half ounce of Saint Germain liqueur
Speaker 1: so a little elder flower yumminess, and then in alignment
Speaker 1: with the white linen, three cucumber slices, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: put all of that in your cocktail shaker, shake it,
Speaker 1: shake and shake and shake it. You'll have ice in there,
Speaker 1: so you want everything to get cold and incorporated, and
Speaker 1: then you will strain that. Sometimes you'll see a suggestion
Speaker 1: anytime there's a cucumber and a shaker to double strain it,
Speaker 1: or strain it with like a piece of cheese cloth
Speaker 1: or something involved. So none of the seeds slipped through,
Speaker 1: that's up to you. I don't mind them, but I
Speaker 1: also didn't have any come through, and I only strained
Speaker 1: ones and then top it with soda water, and so
Speaker 1: you get this kind of golden e yellowy drink and
Speaker 1: it is complex to the palate, but delicious. And the
Speaker 1: reason why I was adamant that you use vanilla syrup
Speaker 1: here is that more than the simple syrup version, the
Speaker 1: vanilla syrup kind of cuts the legs out from under
Speaker 1: the tequila, so you don't get that bitiness at all.
Speaker 1: You just get kind of a really full, stacked set
Speaker 1: of flavors together. The tequila interacting with the Saint Germain
Speaker 1: and the vanilla syrup does something very interesting and it's
Speaker 1: quite lovely. Even my non drinker husband was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's nice, which I was like, that's like a five
Speaker 1: you and he was like, yeah, yeah, that is the
Speaker 1: Unbleached Linen. Now, if you want to do the mock tail,
Speaker 1: it's easy as pie. You're going to do the exact
Speaker 1: same thing. It's going to have a slightly different flavor profile,
Speaker 1: but instead of the tequila, you're gonna use ginger beer
Speaker 1: because you still want to get that golden la And
Speaker 1: then instead of the Saint Germain, uh, use a lavender syrup.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of a floral but something that's
Speaker 1: not as soft as like a rose or a chrysanthemum syrup.
Speaker 1: You want the avander, and then it makes a whole
Speaker 1: slightly different, but you still get that whoa. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of flavors going on here, but they're playing very
Speaker 1: nicely together sensation, and that is a very refreshing drink.
Speaker 1: I'm almost a little late in the season for it,
Speaker 1: like that would be a great mid July luncheon kind
Speaker 1: of beverage. It's really nice. So that's the Unbleached Linen.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you now, so far, of the
Speaker 1: ones we've done this season, this is my second favorite,
Speaker 1: is it. We'll see when we get to the the
Speaker 1: last episode if it stays there. But right now, that's
Speaker 1: where it's sitting, to my own shock, because it's tequila.
Speaker 1: It's tequila, and there I was. But the ginger, the
Speaker 1: ginger beer version is also very very nice. I hope
Speaker 1: that you try this, have a little unbleached linen of
Speaker 1: your own to enjoy, and we hope that we will
Speaker 1: also see you back here next week for more piracy
Speaker 1: here on Criminalia. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land
Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with I heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.