Queen Elizabeth's Privateers

While Privateers do not factor into any of my books, yet, I just had to include this picture. These people did a lot of research into their cos tum. While it was considered bad luck to have a woman on a ship, and many women on ships dressed as men, I have come across historical reports of women privateers.

Queen Elizabeth's coffers were drained by her father's desperate attempts to be a bigger man than he already was, if possible. His 'rough wooing' of Mary Queen of Scot as a babe to his son, and his desperation to win back French lands he lost, left Queen Elizabeth with little gold.

However, poverty did not limit her ambition. While she courted God and became a nun (at least on the surface) to be able to keep her crown without a husband, she had no qualms about hiring an armada of privateers to protect her trade, and harass the French and Spanish.

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