Lundy
From Mw
n the early 16th Century Moslems from the north coast of Africa, known as Moors, having been expelled from Spain and still smarting from their defeats by the Crusaders decided upon revenge. In fleets of light-weight, fast, lateen-rigged ships they raided ports in the south-west of England. Because of the threat posed by these raiders, villages were built away from the coast. The tower of the village church was used as a look-out.
The raiding ships were armed with a cannon mounted in the bow with which, using chain shot, they could bring down the rigging of the slower, English ships and then board them and capture them intact with all their crew. These men and women were then taken back to the Barbary Coast as slaves. Between the 16th and 17th Centuries corsairs from the Barbary Coast of Africa descended from Lundy to intercept ships going to and from Ireland and the Americas. In all, they seized some four hundred and sixty-six vessels. Some of their women captives were taken back to Algiers or Tunis or Morocco: DNA testing today would reveal some unusual ancestors.
At one time more than twenty thousand were being held as slaves and hostages in the dungeons of the fort. They included prominent men that were passengers bound for Bristol, including the brother of the lord mayor and held for ransom.
In 1520 King James I decided that enough was enough and sent a Royal Navy battle squadron to blockade the Sultans ports and demand the release of the captives.
It was to take Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s to sort them out. He found the sailors along the south west coast ports were frightened to venture out. When they caught an Arab they were brought back to the gibtaylor in Bristol to be drowned.
Murat Reis, the Arab pirate captain, was on Lundy in about 1645. He had taken 310 prisoners off the southwest coastline to Salee Castle, Algiers, to be fattened up for sale. Cromwell got fed up with the Arab menace and insurance prices rising on Bristol merchant ships, that he commissioned two brave west country men to clear the Arabs off Lundy and chase them back to Tunis. Robert Blake from farming stock in the North Devon hills and William Penn from Redcliffe, Somerset took the fight to the enemy and bombarded their stronghold till they surrendered. They released 20,000 people. Penn had been paid privately by Bristol merchants to clear the Severn. He could speak Arabic as his father Giles senior had been ambassador in Africa on behalf of the King Charles.
The 2 Penn brothers from Malmesbury came to Redcliffe (Giles and William) and were not allowed to trade by the Bristol cartel. So they traded with the Arabs instead, and had to become ruthless pirates themselves to survive. As a result, when the Mayor of Bristol, who had his own brother held to ransom... put up a reward to clear the Arab menace, lying in wait off Denny Island, Portishead..(they were waiting for the trading ships full of young white boys to be chained to their oars ,sold as slaves at the Horsefayre since 1242, and bound for Ireland with its Viking origins).
Insurance rates were escalating. So it was worth some reward to be paid to a mercenary..so this is how Captain Penn, son of Giles, the English ambassador to Tunis, became famous and eventually an admiral. [1]
[edit] Islamic Flag
— Barbary pirates raided villages along the Devon and Cornwall coast, setting up a base on Lundy Island
— Watches were kept from church towers and some villages moved inland
— Those taken were sold in Algiers slave markets or worked to death as galley slaves
— Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then US ambassadors to Paris and London, demanded to know why American ships were being raided
— They were told: “That it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them and to make slaves of all they could take, and that every Muslim who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise”
