Queen Njinga, the 17th-century ruler of Ndongo and Matamba, in modern-day Angola, established an impressive reputation for her skills as a warrior and diplomat. At a time when Portuguese colonists were ramping up operations in the region, Njinga had to fight tooth and nail for survival, and make difficult decisions to protect her people. Luke Pepera tells Kev Lochun more about this formidable leader, whose story has been brought to life in a new Netflix docu-drama, African Queens.

The popular conception of Rob Roy MacGregor is of a wronged Highlander, a man of principle who triumphed over overwhelming odds to survive the machinations of his enemies, both personal and political. Yet research into his life has revealed a man who became an outlaw after a failed attempt at large-scale fraud, and whose Jacobite posturing went hand-in-hand in betraying that cause to the Government. So what was Rob Roy really like, how did he become perceived as a hero, and why has this admiration survived for so long in defiance of clear evidence to the contrary?

Which clan did Rob Roy belong to?

Robert MacGregor, nicknamed Rob Roy, was the son of a chieftain of the scattered Clan Gregor. The clan had once been a major force in the Highlands, but over the centuries, with the fluctuations of politics and clan warfare, it had lost most of its lands to rivals, and had even been outlawed by the Government.

• On the podcast | Scottish clans: everything you wanted to know

Remnants of the clan had clung on to small pockets of land in remote areas, often reliant on cattle thieving to survive. Rob Roy’s birth in 1671 came in a period of respite, as the outlawry of the clan had been revoked, but as he reached adulthood the world changed.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 drove the senior line of the Stuart dynasty from the throne, and replaced it with William and Mary. Supporters of the dethroned James II, the Jacobites, rose in rebellion in the Highlands in 1689 and Rob Roy fought with them. But the rising failed, and the Government repression that followed included re-imposing the outlawry of the MacGregors. With their name banned, clansmen had to take new ones, and Rob Roy chose that of his mother, Campbell.

Very little is known of Rob Roy’s activities in the 1690s, and it is probable that he, like many of his clansmen, was heavily involved in cattle raiding and extorting protection money from farmers. But after 1700, he emerged as a legitimate cattle trader, paid in advance by Lowland landowners to buy cattle deep in the Highlands and deliver them to Lowland markets. Rob Roy prospered and bought land. He gained respectability and trust as a peaceful businessman. There were suspicions of his politics, as the MacGregors were notorious Jacobites, but it is clear that he was well liked.

This last point is the key to understanding the way in which stories about Rob Roy developed, even in his own lifetime. Most people who met him found him likeable and believable, and he was usually able to turn his natural charisma to his advantage.

The popular fraudster

Rob Roy the respectable businessman, however, was abruptly replaced in 1711–12 by Rob Roy the fraudster. He faced business failure and decided on a high-risk strategy for survival. First, he secretly transferred his lands to the hands of members of his family – a classic con-man’s move designed to protect assets from creditors. Then he continued trading, gathering as much money as he could from customers. But the cattle he was supposed to deliver never appeared. Neither did Rob Roy, who had disappeared deep into the Highlands with well over £1,000.

It was a clear case of deliberate fraud, and his plan was to bargain with his creditors. He was perfectly safe in the Highlands, so if they did not settle for a percentage of what was due to them, they would never see a penny. He boasted that he was so popular that no one would ever betray him. If creditors tried to use the law against him, they would simply waste more money paying lawyers.

• Read more | Hell at Glencoe: what led to the massacre in the Scottish Highlands?

Many of his creditors might have agreed to this, in spite of their outrage. Settling for a percentage rather than nothing was commonplace at the time. But Rob Roy had miscalculated. One creditor, the Duke of Montrose, was implacable. He was only owed a small amount, but he felt his honour was at stake. One of the greatest magnates in Scotland, he had shown the despised MacGregor friendship, and had been betrayed.

Rob Roy became a hunted outlaw. Legal processes to recover debt were put underway, and Montrose’s Chamberlain, Mungo Graham, even put an advert in an Edinburgh newspaper, offering a reward for his capture. Rob Roy wrote a stream of letters protesting innocence and goodwill, starting with one to a Glasgow lawyer James Graham in June 1712, claiming he was chasing two debtors to exact payment, ‘and with God’s assistance I will gett a grip of them for all the highlands has such a kindness for me in generall that they will assist me what ever place I will gett them taken’. This and subsequent letters are eloquent and full of righteous indignation. But his dishonesty is clear, as he tailors his version of events to suit his individual correspondents.

• Read more | Anglo-Scottish border wars: everything you wanted to know

Rob Roy’s assertion that he was safe in the Highlands was true. Montrose’s desire for vengeance was countered by the patronage of the Earl of Breadalbane, who employed the outlaw in his service. Nonetheless, he remained an outlaw, his future uncertain. Perhaps he hoped that on the death of the ageing and childless Queen Anne, who had succeeded William in 1702, the main Stuart line would be restored, and the reputation of the MacGregors as staunch Jacobites would bring him pardon.

Instead, in 1714, the Hanoverian George I ascended the throne. Rebellion brewed once more in the Highlands, and Rob Roy was vociferous in support of the rising. But soon rumours circulated that he was supplying intelligence on Jacobite activities to the Hanoverian Commander- in-Chief in Scotland, the Duke of Argyll. This was true, but surprisingly, it did not entirely discredit him. There were many on both sides in the 1715 rebellion who kept a foot on each side of the fence as insurance against their side’s defeat, so there was a degree of understanding of Rob Roy’s actions. But during the rising there remained suspicion. The Jacobites accepted the services of Rob Roy and his men, but they were not fully trusted.

The failure of the 1715 rising left 49 Scots attainted for high treason, including ‘Robert Campbell alias Macgregour commonly called Rob Roy’; and of course he was still an outlawed bankrupt. The hunt for Rob became intense as the result of political faction fighting. Montrose believed that Rob Roy could supply him with evidence that his rival, Argyll, had had treasonable contacts with the Jacobites. Rob Roy defused the plot with a written declaration, furiously denouncing those who wanted to force him to give false evidence, thanking providence for helping him to ‘escape the barbarity of these monstrous proposals’ and avoid ‘some stinking dungeon, where I must choose either to rot, dye, or be damn’d’. This took the heat off, but the fact that he took part in an abortive Jacobite rising in 1719 meant that he remained, in government eyes, a troublesome outlaw. He also stepped up his feud with Montrose by regularly raiding the Duke’s lands.

Rob Roy’s reputation spread widely. In political terms, he was a man discussed at court by the King himself. In the world of popular journalism and anecdote, Rob Roy’s version of events – that he was a man ruined by oppression by the great and corrupt – was becoming widely accepted. A rather fanciful biography, The Highland Rogue (thought to be by Elias Brockett) was published in London in 1723, which provided the basis of ‘biographies’ until the 20th century. It was the beginning of the Rob Roy legend, and the second edition in 1743 claimed that he had ‘lived in the manner of the ancient Robin Hood of England’.

• Read more | When did the Scots start wearing tartan – and what did it mean?

However, as Rob’s fame as an active outlaw reached its height, an opportunity to end this phase of his career appeared. An offer of pardon for former rebels was announced, and Rob Roy hastened to disarm and submit. His letter of submission addressed to General Wade is a wonderful demonstration of his skill in manipulating facts to his advantage. In it, he boldly announces that he had never wanted to be a rebel. When the 1715 rebellion began he had been keen to join the Hanoverian army, but he couldn’t because he would have been arrested for debt by Montrose. But now at last, if granted a pardon, he would have a chance to serve King George, as he had longed to do all along.

Wade was, predictably, charmed by Rob Roy, even believing the Highlander’s story that whenever he had met lost soldiers in the hills, he had offered them a dram so they could drink a toast to King George together. Rob Roy got his pardon in 1725, and two years later showed that he would indeed serve the king. Jacobite agents from the Continent were known to be operating in the Highlands, trying to gain support for a new rebellion. Rob offered his services to the Government to spy on them – if he was paid. Offer accepted, he infiltrated the plot with such success that he was made trusted messenger, carrying letters between the agents and Highland chiefs. He opened them and sent copies to Wade. Most of the plotting chiefs were let off with a warning, but James Stirling of Keir was arrested, fingered by Rob Roy as one of the chief agents in Scotland of the exiled Stuarts.

From con-man to hero

There is no reason to doubt that Rob Roy would have preferred the Stuart cause to the Hanoverian. In that sense, he was a Jacobite. But political principles were not his priority. He battled for survival for himself and his family. If that necessitated fraud, deceit, double-dealing and betrayal, he was ready to act accordingly. In spite of this he maintained his reputation as a hero. He was talented at spinning his own image, and got Highlanders to see him as a victim who bravely fought against the odds for survival. He created his own myth of triumphantly overcoming oppression.

How did Rob Roy die?

In reality, Rob Roy failed to achieve what he had hoped for. He never got his lands back, and died in 1734 as a poor tenant farmer who was on the brink of eviction. But his deeds had won him immortality, and stories continued to be told and invented about his many exploits.

• Read more | The Highland Clearances: a historian’s guide to a century of eviction

What is the legacy of Rob Roy?

At the end of the century, the romantic vision of old Highland life that was emerging gave the legends a fresh boost. This process culminated in 1818, when Walter Scott’s novel Rob Roy appeared. This was an instant success, and inspired playwrights, poets, composers and artists throughout the western world. Rob Roy the honest man forced into outlawry was reborn, and has thrived ever since. Probably the most powerful influence on his image today is based on the Hollywood film of 1994, with Liam Neeson in the title role.

But why have modern historians not rumbled Rob Roy? The answer is partly that they have ignored him, because he did not play a significant role in Scottish history in his own lifetime, whatever cultural status he achieved. The written accounts of his life have generally been uncritical reworkings of old stories.

In 1982, there was a biography that used historical evidence, but WH Murray’s book has a fatal flaw; the author seemed committed to the belief that Rob Roy was heroic. In this book, the facts are interpreted to portray Rob Roy in a favourable light, and at one point, Murray omits to consider a key piece of evidence. The papers that prove that Rob Roy acted as a Hanoverian spy in 1727 were published (in Historical Records Relating to the Jacobite Period) as long ago as 1895. Murray uses this source in his biography, but he writes nothing about the 1727 papers. As always, Rob Roy has a knack of finding friends who prefer to turn a blind eye to many of his actions.

David Stevenson was formerly Professor of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews, and has written an article on Rob Roy for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 

This article was first published in the August 2004 edition of BBC History Magazine

In 1616, when the first English embassy was installed in Mughal India, England was a minor player on the global stage rather than a leading actor. Nandini Das explores what the challenges of this embassy can tell us about England’s unequal relationship with India at the time – and reveals how the future dominance of the British empire was far from a foregone conclusion

Nandini Das is the author of Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire (Bloomsbury, 2023)

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What were the Acts of Union?

On 1 May 1707, two acts took effect: one passed by the Parliament of Scotland and the other by the Parliament of England. Together, they enacted the Treaty of Union to bring together their individual states into the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

While they had already shared the same monarchs for more than 100 years, England and Scotland now had a shared sovereignty, parliament and flag, as well as taxation, coinage and trade systems. This was a key step in the formation of the Britain that exists today.

Had there been attempts to unite England and Scotland before the 18th century?

Since 1603, England and Scotland had been in a dynastic union with a shared monarch. Elizabeth I had died without an heir, ending the Tudor line and resulting in her cousin James VI, who had ruled Scotland since 1567, becoming King of England and Ireland. But they remained separate kingdoms: two crowns, just on one head. Despite promises that he would return often to Scotland, James VI and I moved his court to England and only travelled north again on one occasion in the following 22 years. His wish was to establish a “blessed union”, but neither of his parliaments were enthusiastic about that idea and rebuffed his attempts.

The Commonwealth formed after the Civil Wars, when Oliver Cromwell was ruling as Lord Protector, then tried to force the issue in the 1650s by declaring that Scotland had to join with England and Ireland. The Scots were given 30 seats in parliament, but most were not filled during this brief period of union, and it was scrapped with the restoration of Charles II in 1660.

So what were the motivations that eventually led to union?

Coming to the throne in 1702, Queen Anne announced in her first speech to the Westminster parliament that union was “very necessary”. She was its ardent advocate, but it was really the issue of the royal succession that got parliament involved. In 1701, the Act of Settlement had been passed to ensure the crown would go to a Protestant, bypassing the now-excluded Catholic heirs in favour of the House of Hanover (in Lower Saxony, Germany), namely Electress Sophia, granddaughter of James VI and I, and her descendants.

Anne was a Protestant, but, despite her numerous pregnancies, had no surviving children. But she did have a Catholic half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart, whose father had been deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and who still intended to take the throne despite the Act of Settlement. He declared himself James VIII and III, and there were many in Scotland – known as the Jacobites – who supported his restoration.

The threat of the Jacobites made the English nervous, especially as it made it more likely that the Scots would turn once again to their historic allies, the French, and reignite the ‘Auld Alliance’. Increasingly, the English parliament – with Anne’s eager backing – came to the belief that union would be the strongest safeguard against this.

Why did the Scottish come round to the idea?

A major concern the Scots had about the prospect of union was that they would lose their independence and be absorbed as a region of England. And there was a precedent for this: Wales, conquered by Edward I in the 13th century, had been annexed by law in the 1530s and 40s.

By the end of the 18th century, however, Scotland was in desperate financial circumstances, and the pressure to agree to uniting with England grew more pronounced. To begin, the 1690s saw Scotland ravaged by a period of widespread famine and poverty, brought on by a series of failed harvests and an economic slump exacerbated by wars and declining trade. As much as 15 per cent of the population perished in these ‘Seven III Years’.

Then there was the disastrous ‘Darien scheme’. To rejuvenate the economy, an ambitious plan was devised to establish a colony at Darien (on the Isthmus of Panama), from where the Scots could carry out trade in both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The colony, it was hoped, would become so profitable that it could rival England’s East India Company. The scheme proved so popular that it received investments from all over Scotland, at every level of society, totalling £400,000 in a matter of weeks.

In November 1698, the first expedition to settle Darien arrived, but ended in catastrophe eight months later as fewer than 300 of the 1,200 settlers survived and the colony of New Edinburgh was abandoned. That was not the end, though, as a second expedition had set out before news had reached Scotland. Arriving in late 1699, these 1,300 settlers discovered the place deserted and started rebuilding, only to suffer the same inhospitable conditions and diseases that had devastated the first group, as well as attacks from Spanish forces. By the time the colony was abandoned for good, there were only a handful of survivors boarding the boat back home.

The venture left Scotland on the brink of financial ruin, with many investors facing bankruptcy. The benefits of a union with England – an end to trade restrictions, protection for Scottish ships, access to English colonies, and promises of compensation for some of the losses incurred by the Darien scheme – became too attractive to ignore. But, rather than being powerless in any negotiations with the English, the Scots knew they still had something to bargain with: agreeing to the Hanoverian succession.

What was the importance of the Act of Security and the resulting Alien Act?

When the English parliament passed the Act of Settlement in 1701, naming the Hanoverians as successors to the throne, this was done without consulting its Scottish counterpart. The Scottish parliament retaliated by putting forward the Act of Security of 1704: allowing them to appoint their own successor from the Protestant descendants of Scottish kings. The act also stipulated that the person put forward by the English would not be considered unless certain political, economic and religious conditions were met. As punishment for this, the English followed up with the Alien Act of 1705. This categorised all Scots as foreign nationals, or aliens; banned Scottish imports into England or its colonies; and embargoed any exports that could help Scotland raise an army. These measures finally forced the Scottish parliament to enter discussions on the proposed union.

How did the English and Scots negotiate the union?

It was agreed that Queen Anne would appoint 31 commissioners for each nation to negotiate the terms of a union treaty. The members of the Scottish contingent were nominated by two nobles, the Duke of Queensberry (a favourite of Anne’s) and the Duke of Argyll, but both sides decided to select few known opponents to union.

Proceedings began on 16 April 1706 at the Cockpit in the Palace of Whitehall with opening speeches. Among them was William Cowper, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, representing the English commissioners. He laid out the intentions of the negotiations, declaring that “the two kingdoms of England and Scotland be forever united into one kingdom by the name of Great Britain; that the United Kingdom of Great Britain be represented by one and the same parliament,” before ending with: “that the succession to the monarchy of Great Britain be vested in the House of Hanover.”

The commissioners did not actually negotiate face to face but worked in separate rooms, conveying their proposals, arguments and counter-arguments in writing. It took only three days for them to reach an agreement on the major issues: England had its guarantee for the Hanoverian succession; Scotland had access to England’s vast trade markets to boost its moribund economy.

The negotiations continued until July before the Treaty of Union was finalised. On top of establishing the union, it covered economic, judicial and trade concerns, including an English payment of £398,085 and 10 shillings to offset the responsibility Scotland now had in the national debt. In truth, most of the money went to ruined Darien investors.

What were the other terms of the Treaty of Union?

The United Kingdom would have one parliament, in Westminster; the same currency; uniform taxation; equal freedom of trade; and a new flag, made by combining the crosses of St George and St Andrew. Scotland would retain its independence when it came to the legal system and, as laid out in a subsequent act, the Presbyterian Church.

The Scottish representation in the new united parliament amounted to 45 members in the House of Commons and 16 peers in the Lords, although this was actually a small proportion of the 500 or so seats. Not everyone north of the border was happy at the prospect of union on such terms.

What were the main criticisms of the union?

The sole Scottish commissioner opposing the union, Sir George Lockhart of Carnwath, claimed that most in Scotland were against it. A deep-rooted resentment of the English was not going to be swept away by a law. Fuelled by fears of high taxation and loss of independence, there were demonstrations in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the months before the parliament ratified the treaty in January 1707. The English followed shortly afterwards, and, on 1 May 1707, Great Britain came into being. The criticisms did not stop there. There were accusations that bribery had played a major role in persuading the Scottish commissioners. Queensberry – who was met with cheering crowds in London, but pelted with stones and eggs in Scotland – received a large portion of the money gifted by the English, while Argyll received a peerage. Scottish poet Robert Burns would later denounce members of the Scottish parliament who ratified the act as being “bought and sold for English gold”.

How did the current Great Britain come into being?

In 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established with another Act of Union – to much anger among the Irish. This was the case until 1922 when, at a time of swelling nationalism and a war for independence, the Irish Free State formed. Six of Ulster’s provinces remained part of Great Britain, as Northern Ireland.

• Read more about the fight for Irish independence

This article was first published in the August 2022 issue of BBC History Revealed

The 11 years between the execution of King Charles I in 1649 and the restoration of his son, Charles II, in 1660 are among the most turbulent in all of British history – and it was a period dominated by one man: Oliver Cromwell. But was it always Cromwell’s intention to execute Charles I? Why did he decide to readmit Jewish people to England? And did he really ban Christmas? Professor Ronald Hutton responds to your top questions on the rise and rule of the contentious Lord Protector.

Ronald Hutton is the author of The Making of Oliver Cromwell (Yale, 2021)

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In the early 1700s, a golden age of piracy flourished throughout the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern seaboard of Britain’s American colonies.

It might be said that most of those who became pirates at this time did not choose to do so, and that instead piracy chose them. Major Stede Bonnet, however, was not your typical pirate.

From childhood, Bonnet lived a life of privileged luxury. He was provided a liberal education and enjoyed generational wealth as the heir to a bustling sugar plantation on the Caribbean island of Barbados. He married well and fathered four children.

Bonnet was also well respected in the community. He was a part of the Barbadian elite, a justice of the peace [a local magistrate] and member of the Barbadian militia (which was responsible for tracking down and returning escaped slaves), in which he was given the title of major.

In short, Bonnet had everything necessary for a life of respect, pomp and luxury. But even in the midst of such bounty, he did not adjust well to family life – and in 1717 he left it all behind. In what might easily be described as one of the worst mid-life crises of all time, Stede Bonnet decided to become a pirate.

Why did Stede Bonnet become a pirate?

The reason Bonnet left his comfortable island life is likely more complicated than the prevailing view that he suffered “discomforts he found in a married state” caused by a nagging wife.

In fact, there are many other plausible explanations – that Bonnet’s early life as an orphan caused him to carry emotional baggage that was too much to sustain an already fragile marriage; that the emotional stresses of losing a young son created irreconcilable fissures for both Bonnet and his wife, Mary Allamby; that he possessed straightforward wanderlust, owing to a big imagination and access to all the voyage narratives of the time.

But, like much of pirate history, Bonnet’s real motivations are forever lost, hidden from the historical record.

What we do know is that Bonnet is among the most unique figures in pirate history – which is saying something considering some of the other famous pirates that we know of.

Stede Bonnet in Our Flag Means Death

Stede Bonnet is the star of period comedy Our Flag Means Death, which follows the ‘Gentleman Pirate’ through his mid-life crisis, abandoning his life of plenty to become a pirate. It does not go well.

Our Flag Means Death arrives in the UK on BBC Two and BBCiPlayer from 4 January 2023.

Bonnet’s idiosyncrasies are apparent even before he set sail. Rather than steal a ship, he bought one with own money – a sloop, which he named the Revenge – and modified it to carry a dozen cannon. He didn’t stop with the mere necessities, instead equipping the vessel with all the comforts a man of his status would expect ­– including a full library of books in his private quarters.

Likewise, when it came to crew, Bonnet did something unusual: he paid the men he hired out of the Barbadian port a wage out of his own fortune. Most pirates of the time would have taken a cut of plunder, not regular pay.

Was Stede Bonnet really a bumbling ‘gentleman’ pirate?

In spring 1717, Bonnet set sail in search of fame, fortune, and adventure. Eager to leave his life behind, he travelled north of Barbados for his fresh start. He was sighted off Jamaica, then made his way to Virginia, where the Revenge enjoyed early success pillaging several English ships for plunder. Bonnet would spend the next few months off the coasts of North Carolina, New York, South Carolina and Florida.

Like other pirates, most of what Bonnet plundered was not treasure, gold, silver or jewels, but was actually more mundane, day-to-day necessities (provisions, clothes, ammunition and rigging) to stay afloat and to trade for money.

Bonnet and his crew rarely engaged in full-fledged sea battles (when they did, it did not go well). Instead, Bonnet – like other pirates – would fire a warning shot across the bow of a ship and fly its Jolly Roger to garner a quick surrender.

• Q&A | X marks the spot: did pirates bury their treasure?

Records of his interactions with other ships showed ‘the Gentleman Pirate’ treated most of his captives with respect, with one exception: Bonnet routinely burned all ships based out of Barbados, presumably to either mask his identity or exact revenge on his former homeland.

Despite his initial successes, Bonnet’s inexperience and ignorance soon became obvious.

Off the coast of Florida around August 1717, Bonnet attacked a large Spanish man-of-war, likely sent to patrol and secure the remaining treasure of a sunken Spanish treasure fleet.

Bonnet was among those injured in the initial broadside, and half his crew was killed. The few able-bodied men remaining aboard the Revenge were able to flee, making their way to the pirate haven of Nassau.

Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard

Bonnet himself could not have known the impact his arrival in Nassau would have on the course of pirate history and lore, or on colonial commerce and trade. It was here that Bonnet met Edward Thatch (or Teach), known to the world as Blackbeard, with whom his legacy would be forever connected.

Blackbeard and Bonnet struck up either a friendship or a business arrangement, with Blackbeard taking over as captain of the Revenge (an upgrade for his current, smaller vessel) and Bonnet staying aboard as an observer and apprentice to one of the most feared pirates of all time.

Their working relationship grew more complicated as the two sailed throughout the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of the American colonies. Working together on-and-off between September 1717 and late summer 1718, they took dozens of prizes and pulled off one of the era’s most significant naval blockades, holding the walled-city of Charleston hostage for six days and effectively stopping all commerce to the city.

Blackbeard soon amassed a large flotilla under his command, including a new flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

It was in the summer of 1718 that Blackbeard and Bonnet arrived in North Carolina to take advantage of King George I of Great Britain’s pledge to pardon pirates who turned themselves in.

• Q&A | Did pirates really live on the island of Tortuga?

Sending Bonnet first to meet with Governor Eden of North Carolina, Blackbeard stayed with the flotilla near Topsail Inlet. But while Bonnet was ashore, Blackbeard double-crossed the Gentleman Pirate, looting his ship and marooning most of the Revenge’s crew onto an island with no food or water.

Upon his return, Bonnet was furious. He quickly resumed his captaincy of the Revenge, picked up the marooned men and chased Blackbeard up the Carolina coast. Perhaps luckily for Bonnet, he never again saw any signs of Blackbeard.

How was Stede Bonnet caught?

After receiving his certificate of pardon, Bonnet was absolved of his piratical crimes and looked, at least temporarily, for legal means of continuing his adventure. England, allied with France and the Netherlands, was now at war with Spain, and Bonnet saw the opportunity to secure a letter of marque permitting him and the crew of the Revenge to go privateering against the Spaniards – if only he could reach the Danish-controlled island of St Thomas to acquire it.

It was not to be: Bonnet lapsed into a piratical career, adopting the alias Captain Thomas and renaming the Revenge the Royal James in a bid to keep his pardon intact. By July 1718, he was reaving with as much impunity as before.

In August, Bonnet entered the Cape Fear River of North Carolina, where he had decided to ride out the hurricane season. His presence did not go unmarked, however, and the reports of pirates in the river prompted the governor of neighbouring South Carolina to send two ships to capture them.

In late September 1718, two ships under the command of Colonel William Rhett had arrived at the river mouth, prompting Bonnet to challenge him head-on in a running fight. Comically, all three ships involved in the battle ran aground, and those aboard instead shot at each other for hours with small arms. It was only with the coming of high tide that the battle ended; it freed Rhett’s ship first, allowing them to close on Bonnet and threaten him with boarding. Outnumbered, all he could do was surrender.

• Read more | Hunting pirates: how piracy’s golden age came to an end

Rhett returned Bonnet and his crew to Charleston for trial, though Bonnet would not remain incarcerated for long: three weeks later, he effected a brazen escape by dressing as a woman. He was able to obtain a small boat, but strong winds forced him back onto a nearby island, where he was recaptured by Rhett once more. Brought to trial on 10 November 1718, he was found guilty of piracy and sentenced to death by hanging.

While in custody, Bonnet did all he could to avoid execution. He feverishly wrote letters to the judge, the governor and to Rhett himself asking for mercy. There were additional pleas for mercy by the citizens of Charleston, many of whom saw Bonnet more as gentleman and peer than a criminal. It was all to no avail, and Bonnet was executed on 10 December 1718. Approaching the gallows, Bonnet clutched a wilted bouquet of flowers, in many ways symbolic of his own life, in his shackled hands.

Was Stede Bonnet a bad pirate?

History has not been particularly kind to Bonnet. Many know him as ‘the worst pirate of all time’ and portions of Bonnet’s story are, admittedly, so absurd they are best suited for comedy.

Nonetheless, Bonnet sailed with some of the most fearsome men of the times, fearlessly (or more appropriately, ignorantly) taking on larger vessels with significant courage. Whether Bonnet fulfilled the yearnings that caused his midlife crisis, we’ll never know.

Jeremy Moss is a historian of early modern piracy and author of The Life and Tryals of the Gentleman Pirate, Major Stede Bonnet (Koehler Books, 2020) and Colonial Virginia’s War on Piracy: The Governor and the Buccaneer (publication forthcoming, June 2022). Follow him on Twitter: @StedesRevenge

When fire shot through the City of London over the course of three days in early September 1666, razing everything in its path, the future of England’s capital – its very existence – was in jeopardy. Although the estimated death toll remained remarkably low for a fire that wreaked such destruction, the City itself looked much different when the final smouldering was extinguished.

More than 13,000 houses had been destroyed, along with nearly 90 churches. Some significant buildings were lost to the flames, including the original St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Exchange, as well as the city gates at Aldersgate, Ludgate and Newgate. The subsequent history of England would have taken a different complexion had its entire capital been lost. As it was, the flames were largely limited to the City of London.

A few historians have even suggested that, in some regards, the Great Fire of London turned out to be a force for good. The principal tenet of this line of thinking revolves around the Great Plague. The belief is that, when fire broke out, the epidemic – which had ripped so easily through the cheek-by-jowl living quarters of the City the previous year – would have found it much harder be transmitted; in short, that the fire killed off the epidemic, certainly in London.

• Read more | Coffee, plague and the Great Fire: the pleasures and perils of living in Restoration London

Dr Clare Jackson – senior tutor at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and author of the award-winning Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588–1688 (Allen Lane, 2021) – dismisses this theory. “This is a myth. The Great Fire had not spread to areas that had experienced particularly high levels of plague infection, such as Southwark, Clerkenwell and Whitechapel.” That is, the flames failed to reach certain districts, so couldn’t have had an impact on plague numbers.

Plus, the timeline of the epidemic doesn’t neatly tally with the timeline of the Great Fire, as Dr Jackson explains: “Plague mortality had already started to decline from late 1665, while people also continued to die from plague after the Fire. Popular associations between the Great Plague of 1665 and the Fire of 1666 arise only from their close chronological proximity.”

On the podcast | Rebecca Rideal responds to listener questions about the devastating blaze that swept through the capital in 1666:

Understandably, the Great Fire caused mass migration from the City of London to surrounding areas. But this alone didn’t reshape the city, especially as much of this migration was only short term as the homeless sought temporary shelter in the open land beyond the city limits, particularly to the north. By then, London was already swiftly expanding and swelling.

“Before the Fire, there had already been significant expansion westwards, with local populations moving beyond the City’s walls to escape overcrowding. Newly fashionable areas such as St James, Covent Garden and Westminster were attracting the gentry and upwardly mobile migrants, while poorer families were tending to move eastwards.”

A speedy recovery

Rather than licking its wounds, the City of London swiftly set about rebuilding itself. The economy obviously took an immediate knock, but it wasn’t as catastrophic a hit as might have been expected. “While there was inevitable short-term disruption to trade,” explains Dr Jackson, “the speed with which the authorities embarked on rapid rebuilding and recovery was remarkable. Two sets of plans for the City’s rebuilding had already been submitted to the government of Charles II by 13 September 1666, only a week after the Fire ended. By 1670, around 6,000 houses had been rebuilt.”

One legacy of the Great Fire was the use of less flammable materials in building; the Rebuilding Act of 1667 specified that “all the outsides of all buildings in and about the said City be henceforth made of brick or stone”.

However, as Dr Jackson clarifies, the events of 1666 can’t take complete credit, pointing out that, during the early 1600s, James VI and I had made similar restrictions on the use of materials in construction in London, “both to reduce fire risk and to reserve timber for England’s Navy ships. Such orders had, however, often been disregarded, but the Fire of 1666 provided an opportunity for widespread enforcement, as City authorities were given the right to demolish illegally built houses.”

One of the grandest rebuilds was, of course, the magnificent Sir Christopher Wren-designed St Paul’s Cathedral, which still dominates the London skyline as viewed looking northwards from the South Bank of the Thames. That’s an undisputed visual reminder of the Fire.

One last potential legacy of 1666 concerns how prepared London was for subsequent outbreaks of fires. Within a few years, the large-scale adoption of fire insurance became standard practice, but the idea that a new emergency service was immediately created is again debunked by Dr Jackson. “There were a few new fire pumps, but the first city-wide fire service was not created until January 1833.”

Perhaps it should have come into force earlier. In 1676, 600 houses in Southwark were lost to a blaze, and a further 1,000 in Wapping six years after that. In conclusion, although it accelerated certain developments that were already afoot, had the Great Fire not happened, the course of English history wouldn’t have been terribly affected. However, if the wind hadn’t dropped three days into the fire and the flames had continued to consume all before them, the events of September 1666 could have left the country without a capital city.

Clare Jackson is senior tutor of Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge. She has presented the BBC2 series The Stuarts and its sequel, The Stuarts in Exile, and is author of Devil-Land: England under Siege 1588-1688 (Allen Lane, 2021)

This article was first published in the October 2022 edition of BBC History Revealed

What drove a group of plotters to attempt to blow up the king on 5 November 1605? To what extent did the conspiracy sour relations between Protestants and Catholics? And why do we continue to be so fascinated by this extraordinary episode today? Speaking with Spencer Mizen, John Cooper answers listener questions about the gunpowder plot.

Watch | John Cooper answers: What was the Gunpowder Plot?

“My Lord out of the love I bear to some of your friends I have a care of your preservation therefore I would advise you as you tender your life to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance at this Parliament for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time and think not slightly of this advertisement but retire yourself into your country where you may expect the event in safety for though there be no appearance of any stir yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament and yet they shall not see who hurts them this council is not to be condemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm for the danger is passed as soon as you have burned the letter and I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it to whose holy protection I commend you.”

It’s not much to look at – a scrap of paper with a few quick lines, unsigned. It’s nothing grand or formal, there’s no seal or signature flourish; just 160 words or so, handwritten, on a yellowed page, a little smaller than A4. But though it’s barely known today, document SP 14 / 216 (2) has, arguably, more mystery and more immediacy than anything else in the vast National Archives collection, and is the trigger for one of the most engaging hypotheticals in British history: what if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded?

The Monteagle Letter takes its popular name from William Parker, Lord Monteagle, the man who on 26 October 1605 had his dinner interrupted by a servant bearing this mysterious missive. The letter spoke of “a great blow” that Parliament would receive, and advised Monteagle to absent himself; it referred to “the love that I bear to some of your friends”. It rejoiced in the thought that the bloodshed was deserved, and planned not just by man but also by God.

Monteagle was a Catholic, or had been once; the priest Oswald Tesimond described him as “a Catholic at least according to his innermost convictions”. He had this same summer written a letter to chief plotter Robert Catesby expressing his discontent at the standing of Catholics under the new regime. Besides this, Monteagle had very lately been imprisoned for his involvement in the Essex Rebellion. Although his status in court had lately been on the ascendant, he was perpetually under suspicion, so he greatly appreciated the chance to prove his loyalty to the King. He didn’t lose a moment, leaving his fellow diners and rushing the letter to Whitehall, to Secretary of State Robert Cecil.

• Read more | Why did the 1605 gunpowder plot fail? 9 big questions about the conspiracy to blow up parliament

The King was out of town on a hunt, but on his return a few days later Cecil passed the letter on to him. The “divinely illuminated” James brilliantly deduced (from the word “blow” and the reference to burning) that the letter was warning of a plot to blow up Parliament. Cecil had surely worked out the barely hidden meaning long before, but was never one to miss an opportunity to flatter the vain King and so complimented him most enthusiastically on his God-sent inspiration and his incisive intelligence. And of course they were correct: there was indeed a plot to blow up Parliament, on 5 November. Cecil ordered a search of the rooms under the Parliament chamber – revealing 36 barrels of gunpowder and a startled Guy Fawkes. This much, at least, we know. The rest, as they say, is history; but of course history is never so simple.

With his network of informers intercepting correspondence across the Continent, it may be that Cecil knew of the plot long before Monteagle rushed into his audience clutching the tip-off. But if Cecil didn’t know, or didn’t know for sure, if he had any doubts at all – then this old page now in the National Archives can be credited with preventing an extraordinary coup, an incomprehensibly audacious, ambitious attempt to eliminate monarchy and government and all establishment, and replace it with … who knows? A Catholic England?

In disguise

So to the letter itself. The writing has certainly been disguised. The hand is clumsy, but deliberately so – it’s easy enough to see places where it has been altered to hide the writer’s natural style. The prose and the vocabulary, meanwhile, are sophisticated. If we were meant to be fooled by the hand into thinking this the work of some barely literate servant, the words belie this.

• On the podcast | The Gunpowder Plot 

Prime suspect for writing the letter has always been Francis Tresham, the plotters’ last recruit, enrolled mainly for his recently inherited wealth. From the moment he joined the inner circle of plotters, Tresham had expressed his doubts about the justification for such massive loss of life, questioning whether, for instance, the Catholics in Parliament shouldn’t be saved. And Tresham’s sister Elizabeth was married to Lord Monteagle; does the wording in the letter – “some of your friends” – refer to Monteagle’s wife? Circumstantial evidence aplenty, then. And indeed, suspicion fell on Tresham from the start. Catesby and another plotter Thomas Wintour summoned him to meet them at once; these two dedicated men were quite prepared to kill their friend for his betrayal.

And yet somehow Tresham was able to win them round. Whatever he said, whatever oaths he swore, Catesby and Wintour left the meeting convinced that Tresham was no traitor. And Catesby was not a man easily fooled. Maybe it wasn’t Tresham, then? After the failure of the plot Tresham spent weeks in the Tower of London signing statements, writing letters to Cecil, insisting that he’d opposed the plot all along and even offering assistance with the investigation – and yet never does he mention the letter. Odd, isn’t it? And besides, the tone of the letter does seem convinced by the righteousness of the plot and doesn’t sound like the voice of a waverer. But if not Tresham, then who?

Unusual suspects

There are at least as many possibilities as there were plotters. And no wonder there was a weak link. With so many men involved in the Gunpowder Plot – an unfortunate 13 – it would have been impressive if there had not been at least one Judas. And we mustn’t assume that the letter was necessarily the work of one of them. Couldn’t a devious Monteagle have written it himself? If he’d suspected something was afoot and feared he would be implicated (he knew many of the conspirators, after all), such a letter would be a fine way of preventing the plot, demonstrating his innocence, and proving his allegiance to the King, at a stroke. He did after all do extremely well out of the whole situation – earning the gratitude and trust of James and Cecil, along with a generous pension, and even a poem by Ben Jonson in his honour.

• Read more | Remember remember the 5th of November: why Bonfire Night is a 400-year-old political hot potato

Many historians have suggested something more Machiavellian still, that a well-informed Cecil wrote the letter himself (or had one of his many shady functionaries do it). This would be an excellent way of officially “discovering” the plot without having to reveal any of his sources – let the plotters entangle themselves in their scheme while you remain in apparent ignorance, and then swoop in and save the day – there’s even a contemporary woodcut of the letter being delivered from God by an eagle. Just the sort of political theatre that came easily to Robert Cecil.

As an added bonus it’s a useful way of testing Monteagle too – have the letter delivered, and if it’s not back in your hand by nightfall you know the man is no friend of the King’s. And yet… And yet there are countless other possibilities. Was it Catesby’s cousin Anne Vaux? Or consipirator Thomas Percy (as Monteagle suggested)? Or Monteagle’s sister, Mary? And so many other questions, too…

Among those who enjoy these things, the argument will continue to rage. In another four centuries we’ll still be questioning what it is we’re dealing with – a tip-off to blow the plotters’ cover, a planted excuse to officially discover an open secret, an attempt to save a friend, a test of loyalty? We’re sure that the letter exists, we know what it says, when it was delivered and to whom. And all the rest? Well, the rest is mystery. Historians have the luxury of doubt, of argument and counter-argument, which is what makes it such fun after all.

Daniel Hahn OBE is a British writer, editor and translator. He is the author of many non-fiction works, including The Tower Menagerie: The Amazing True Story of the Royal Collection of Wild Beasts (Simon & Schuster, 2004)

This article was first published in the November 2005 issue of BBC History Magazine