No. 287: Captain Ward and the Rainbow
In The Roxburghe Ballads, Volume 6, 1889, William Chappell gives this account:
"In our Appendix is given the original" Seaman's Song of Capt. Ward." He was by birth a 'Man of Kent,' and it is probable that his baptismal register is still extant, unsuspected by all save ourselves, in the church of his native town Faversham. Even his Christian name, John, had been forgotten in tradition. He was simply remembered as "Captain Ward, the Englishman and Pirate." We need not expect that one whom he had plundered, such as Andrew Barker, could be disposed to give a flattering report of Ward's life and conversation. We take his contemporary account cum grano salis, thankful for small mercies, not believing his word of Ward's cowardice, but admitting drunkenness and profanity. In the last year of Elizabeth's reign, at beginning of the seventeenth century, our John Ward was living at Plymouth, "a fellow poore, base, and of no esteeme, one as tattered in cloathes as he was ragged in conditions, the good past that he could boast of himselfe might bee, that hee was borne in a Towne called Feuersham in Kent, and there lived as a poore fisherman " (A True and certaine Report of . . . Captain Ward and Dansekar the two late famous Pirates, etc., 1609, p. 2). Barker says that "he was commonly called Jack Ward, one that was welcome into any tap-house, more for love of his coyne than love of his company, and all the reputation that his own crue held of him was but this, that he was a mad rascall, would sweare well, drinke stifle, stick too't, and like a good cocke he would neuer out of their damnable pit, if there were either money in his purse or credible chalke in his hoste's hand, being once in."
In the beginning of James I.'s reign, Ward obtained employment in a King's ship, The Lion's Whelpe. He ingratiated himself with the crew, persuaded them to trust him, and commence marauding for mutual profit, on land and sea. So he became their captain, and there is a long list of vessels that fell under his piratical attacks. His chief ally was "Dansekar the Dutchman," whose right name (according to Andrew Barker) was Simon Danser. Other chief associates were William Graves, Thomas Hussey, and John White. Danser, or Dansekar, had belonged to Flushing, whence, after having served the States, he went to Marseilles, and there left his wife and son. Among the vessels that he took, one was the Diamond, of London ; another, the Centurion (Ibid, p. 24). His wife tried to induce him to return, with the offer of pardon from the King of France if Dansekar would devote himself to his service.
The King of Spain sent an expedition against Ward and Dansekar, of twelve ships and eleven galleys. Captain Boniton, a Cornishman, and one Abraham Collings (ancestor of Jesse ?), were taken, and soon carried to Marseilles. Boniton was executed: others, sixty-four in all, were condemned for life to the galley a Barker in 1609 rejoiced in the hope that the Spaniards had thus far crippled Ward's power. Many a tad half-hour the pirates must have suffered at that date. Thus we read the quarto volume (with our ship cut of p. 386), telling of the Execution, of Nineteen late Pirates, Harris, Jennings, Longcastle [one of Ward's men], Domes, Haulsey, etc., executed on 22 December last [1609?] in Southwarke. This is dated January, 1609 [1609-1610?].
Ward appears to have been on good terms with tho Tunisians and Algerines: like Dansekar, he is said to have been a renegade to the faith. A inconstant Turkish woman, Voada, accused and ruined him."
As far as Child A, The Famous Sea-Fight between Captain Ward and the Rainbow, Chappell gives the printing information as "London: Printed by and for W. Onley, and are to be sold by the Booksellers of Rye-corner and London-bridge. [Bagford duplicates.] [Black-letter, woodcut on p. 433. Copies vary. Original date, circa 1620.]"
Chappell's date is 60 years earlier than Child's. For a different date (c. 1688) see Barry's notes (US Versions).
R. Matteson 2014]
Harding Broadside Woodcut
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnotes (There are no footnotes for this ballad)
3. Brief (Kittredge)
4. Child's Ballad Texts A
5. End-Notes
6. Additions and Corrections
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: 287. Captain Ward and the Rainbow
A. Roud No. 224: Captain Ward and the Rainbow (115 Listings)
2. Sheet Music: 286. The Sweet Trinity (The Golden Vanity) (Bronson's music examples and texts)
3. English and Other Versions (Including Child version A)
4. US & Canada Versions
Captain Ward- Woodcut from Forget-Me-Not Songster c. 1842
Child's Narrative: 287. Captain Ward and the Rainbow
A. Bagford Ballads, I, 65.
Other black-letter copies are Pepys, IV, 202, No 195; Roxburghe, III, 56; Euing, No 108; British Museum, 112. f. 44 (19). This copy is printed in Halliwell's Early Naval Ballads, p. 59, Bell's Early Ballads, p. 167, Ebsworth's Roxburghe Ballads, VI, 426.
There are Aldermary Churchyard copies, as Roxburghe Ballads, III, 652, 861; Scottish stall-copies, as Greenock, W. Scott, Stirling, M. Randall; English, by Pitts, Seven Dials, one of which is printed in Logan's Pedlar's Pack, p. 1.
A copy in Buchan's Manuscripts, II, 245, is nearly the old broadside; another, II, 417, is the stall-copy. Kinloch, Manuscripts, V, 109, II, 265, has the stall-copy from oral transmission (with Weir for Ward). Rev. S. Baring-Gould has recently taken down this ballad (much changed by tradition) in the west of England.
Captain Ward, a famous rover, wishes to make his peace with the king, and offers thirty ton of gold as "ransom" for himself and his men. The king will not trust a man who has proved false to France and to Spain, and sends the Rainbow, with five hundred men, against Ward. The Rainbow has easy work with Dutch, Spaniards, and French, but her fifty brass pieces have no effect on Ward; though the Rainbow is brass without, he is steel within, 82 (suggested by 'Sir Andrew Barton,' A 271, B 251, 'He is brass within and steel without).' The Rainbow retires, and reports to the king that Ward is too strong to be taken. The king laments that he has lost three captains, any one of whom would have brought Ward in: George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, †1605, Charles Blount, Lord Mount joy, †1606 (both of whom had a part in the defeat of the Armada), and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, †1601.
The Rainbow was the name of one of Drake's four ships in his expedition against Cadiz in 1587. The Rainbow is mentioned very often from 1589; as in The Manuscripts of the Earl Cowper, vol. i, Hist. Manuscripts Commission, XIIth Report, Appendix, Part I; Index in Part III of the same, p. 296.
John Ward, an Englishman of Kent, is said to have commenced 'rover' about 1604, by inducing the crew of a king's ship in which he had some place to turn pirates under his command. His race, though eventful, was, naturally enough, not long. He seems not to be heard of after 1609, in which year Ward and his colleague, Dansekar, are spoken of as the "two late famous pirates." See Mr. Ebsworth's preface to the ballad, VI, 423 ff., founded on Andrew Barker's book about Ward and Dansekar, published in the year last named.
Two other ballad-histories, 'The Seamen's Song of Captain Ward' and 'The Seamen's Song of Dansekar' (i.e. Dansekar and Ward), entered in the Stationers' Registers July 3, 1609, are given by Mr. Ebsworth, VI, 784, 423.
Brief Description by George Lyman Kittredge
The Rainbow was the name of one of Drake's four ships in his expedition against Cadiz in 1587; it is mentioned very often from 1589. John Ward, an Englishman of Kent, is said to have commenced 'rover' about 1604, by inducing the crew of a king's ship in which he had some place to turn pirates under his command. His race, though eventful, was, naturally enough, not long. He seems not to be heard of after 1609, in which year Ward and his colleague, Dansekar, are spoken of as the "two late famous pirates." (See Mr. Ebsworth's preface in Bagford Ballads, Ballad Society, vi, 423 ff.) George Clifford (Earl of Cumberland), Charles Blount (Lord Mountjoy), and Robert Devereux (Earl of Essex), died, respectively, in 1605, 1606, and 1601.
Child's Ballad Text
'Captain Ward and the Rainbow'- Version A; Child 287 Captain Ward and the Rainbow
Bagford Ballads, I, 65.
1 Strike up, you lusty gallants, with musick and sound of drum,
For we have descryed a rover, upon the sea is come;
His name is Captain Ward, right well it doth appear,
There has not been such a rover found out this thousand year.
2 For he hath sent unto our king, the sixth of January,
Desiring that he might come in, with all his company:
'And if your king will let me come till I my tale have told,
I will bestow for my ransome full thirty tun of gold.'
3 'O nay! O nay!' then said our king, 'O nay! this may not be,
To yield to such a rover my self will not agree;
He hath deceivd the French-man, likewise the King of Spain,
And how can he be true to me that hath been false to twain?'
4 With that our king provided a ship of worthy fame,
Rainbow she is called, if you would know her name;
Now the gallant Rainbow she rowes upon the sea,
Five hundred gallant seamen to bear her company.
5 The Dutch-man and the Spaniard she made them for to flye,
Also the bonny French-man, as she met him on the sea:
When as this gallant Rainbow did come where Ward did lye,
'Where is the captain of this ship?' this gallant Rainbow did cry.
6 'O that am I,' says Captain Ward, 'There's no man bids me lye,
And if thou art the king's fair ship, thou art welcome unto me:'
'I'le tell thee what,' says Rainbow, 'our king is in great grief
That thou shouldst lye upon the sea and play the arrant thief,
7 'And will not let our merchants ships pass as they did before;
Such tydings to our king is come, which grieves his heart full sore.'
With that this gallant Rainbow she shot, out of her pride,
Full fifty gallant brass pieces, charged on every side.
8 And yet these gallant shooters prevailed not a pin,
Though they were brass on the out-side, brave Ward was steel within;
'Shoot on, shoot on,' says Captain Ward, 'your sport well pleaseth me,
And he that first gives over shall yield unto the sea.
9 'I never wrongd an English ship, but Turk and King of Spain,
For and the jovial Dutch-man as I met on the main.
If I had known your king but one two years before,
I would have savd brave Essex life, whose death did grieve me sore.
10 'Go tell the King of England, go tell him thus from me,
If he reign king of all the land, I will reign king at sea.'
With that the gallant Rainbow shot, and shot, and shot in vain,
And left the rover's company, and returnd home again.
11 'Our royal king of England, your ship's returned again,
For Ward's ship is so strong it never will be tane:'
'O everlasting!' says our king, 'I have lost jewels three,
Which would have gone unto the seas and brought proud Ward to me.
12 'The first was Lord Clifford, Earl of Cumberland;
The second was the lord Mountjoy, as you shall understand;
The third was brave Essex, from field would never flee;
Which would a gone unto the seas and brought proud Ward to me.'
End-Notes
The Famous Sea-Fight between Captain Ward and the Rainbow. To the tune of Captain Ward, etc. Licensed and entered.
London, Printed by and for W. Onley, and are to be sold by the Booksellers of Pye-corner and London-bridge. Dated at the British Museum 1680 at the earliest.
113. Everlasting shame, in the Scottish stall-copies.
A collation of Roxburghe, III, 56, shows only variations too trivial to note.
Additions and Corrections
P. 135. A copy taken down from the lips of an old Suffolk (Monk Soham) laborer was contributed by Archdeacon Robert Hindes Groome to Suffolk Notes and Queries in the Ipswich Journal [1877-78], and is repeated in Two Suffolk Friends, 1895, p. 46. W. Macmath.