You're Dead to Me - Blackbeard

Episode Date: September 13, 2019

Timbers are shivering as Greg Jenner digs down on the legendary pirate, Blackbeard. Why did Blackbeard blockade a small town while scratching himself in frustration? How many wives is too many wives? And what exactly did he put in his beard? Greg’s joined by historian and piracy expert Dr Rebecca Simon and comedian Stu Goldsmith, host of the Comedian’s Comedian podcast. Produced by Dan Morelle Scripted by Greg Jenner Researched by Emma NagouseA Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a history podcast for people who don't like history, or at least people who forgot to learn any at school. My name's Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. I'm all about putting the funny into the factual. So,

what's this podcast about? Well, everything really. In each episode, I'll be joined by an expert historian who knows their onions and a not remotely expert comedian who can do jokes about onions. And today we're splicing the mainsail and corking our rum ration and sailing the high seas with the infamous pirate Blackbeard. Join me to sort facts from fiction and talk all things maritime are two beardless landlubbers who thankfully show no signs of scurvy. Well, not yet anyway. In History Corner, we politely kidnapped her while she visits the UK from America because she's literally writing a book about 18th century piracy.

It's Dr Rebecca Simon. Hi, Rebecca. Thanks for coming. Sorry about the polite kidnapping. Hi, Greg. Thank you so much for having me. I don't mind the kidnapping at all. And in Comedy Corner, he's one of the finest stand-ups in the land. He's the host of one of my favourite podcasts, the brilliant Comedians Comedian podcast, where he quizzes stand-ups on their creativity, their mental health and on being funny. It is the splendid Stu Goldsmith. Hello Stu. Hello, it's lovely to be here. Thank you for that lovely resume, but I'm smarting from not being a pirate historian, which sounds like the coolest job ever. Not least because that suggests it's not only your speciality,

but also that you play pretty fast and loose with the rules. Oh yeah, absolutely. You might be a pirate historian by the end of this. Oh God, I hope so. After 45 minutes, you're going to know some stuff I hope so I know two facts about pirates which I cannot wait to find out if they're true or not Okay, well we will find out as we go through the programme There's a thing we like to do in the show called the What Do You Know

and the What Do You Know is our little introduction to the subject where I'm going to guess what you at home are probably aware of when it comes to this subject So, What Do You Know? In pop culture, Blackbeard is the most famous pirate, apart from Jack Sparrow and Long John Silver and the Sean bloke from Napster in the noughties. But apart from that, Blackbeard. And he's a terrifying killer.

He's got a thick, bushy beard into which he stuffs burning tapers. He wields a cutlass. He yells, He kills his own crew. His flagship is called the Queen and Revenge. And, of course, he's played by the twinkle-eyed Ian McShane in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which is the most expensive film ever made.

Wow. I didn't know that. Not a good film, but most expensive. So that's one accolade. Is it worth just hovering and saying that's tapers in the sense of fuses and not in the sense of those little animals with the long noses? I thought they were called tapirs. Oh, I see, I see. Tapers as in fuses and not in the sense of those little animals with the long noses. I thought they were called tapirs. Oh, I see. I see. Well, that's just one of the gaps in my knowledge. Not to worry. So I reckon that's what people at home are probably thinking, Blackbeard. That's

what comes into their head. But is any of this stuff true? What else is there to know? That's what we're here to find out. So let's go backbeard to Blackbeard to find out his historical roots. Rebecca, who is Blackbeard really? What's his name? Where's he born? Basics of his childhood, please. So Blackbeard was born most likely as Edward Teach. That is the name that pops up in most documents.

Sometimes you'll see Thatch or Thatcher, but generally historians agree his name was Edward Teach. And he was born in Bristol in England, approximately around 1680. He came from a nice family. He was probably from sort of a middle-class family, definitely most likely a maritime family. And he was educated, so he wasn't illiterate by any means. So he's not sort of a street urchin? No. No, not at all.

He was actually quite well-to-do in his age. He came from a middle-class family. That suggests it was something that his careers advisor said, well, there's always piracy. I had no idea. Yeah, I was surprised too when I learned this. And I suppose, is there an extent to which in order to be the captain of a vessel, assuming that that bit of it is real,

you need to be able to read a map and you've got to be able to read and you've got to be able to afford a boat, presumably. You've got to be middle class to be a pirate. God, that is so depressing for working class kids out there. Even piracy is now taken over by people whose mum and dad can afford to fund them during the early years of piracy. It's true. Most of the higher ranking, anyone on a ship,

like the captains, quartermasters, pursers, they had to be educated for exactly your reasons. They had to be able to read maps, communicate with people on land and merchants. They had to be able to mark their inventory. Most other sailors were more illiterate, but if you wanted to become captain, it was most likely that you'd have to be able to read more than your name. I love the idea that there's a hierarchy based on how illiterate you are. Well, I'm more illiterate, so I look up to him.

Stu, you grew up in Bristol as well. Yes. Are you now suddenly regretting your life of not piracy? Well, it's been a fairly piratical life. I'm not going to lie to you. No, I mean, I do like the idea that Blackbeard is likely to have had a broad Bristol accent. I mean, even as a vast me love. What is it?

I can't do it now. It's been a long time. What is it, people? You get off the bus in Bristol, you go, cheers, drive. And then he'll often say to you, all right, my lover. And then part of you thinks you really want to respond. Thanks, princess. I'm just going to continue it. So yes, a nice, he'd have been a sort of cider drenched, apple faced, lovely Bristolian. What else was happening in the world during the 1600s? So 1680. So by this point, Bristol was a really bustling port city.

It was the second- Slavery, right? Yes. Bristol was kind of the hub that sort of controlled the slave trade and started the slave trade. Many of the ships that were built in Bristol were specifically meant for the slave trade. So Bristol does have an unfortunate legacy as being the second largest port next to London, and also at this point, the second largest city besides London. And they had at this point something called the Society for the Merchant Adventurers and they were established and meant to fund these ships and start kind of other fleets of ships.

The slave trade also brought in other goods into Bristol, such as sugar, rum and cotton, essentially items that slaves were the ones who were producing. And in the 1680s, we're talking here about the end of the Stuart era. So you're talking about Charles II is on his last legs. And then we have what's called the Glorious Revolution, which is this sort of coup, really. Us Stuarts can never hang on to an era. There's always some bloody revolution about to happen.

So really what happens is you get James II gets booted off the throne for being a Catholic. And in comes Mary and William. So William's Dutch. And then we get Queen Anne. So Queen Anne will feature a little bit in the episode because his ship is called Queen Anne's Revenge. So she's sort of the queen who was in the movie The Favourite that won that Oscar. And she is sort of the last of the Stuarts. So in terms of what's going on, it's a massively transitional phase.

There's been a big revolution, but a sort of silent revolution. And it's also the birth of copyright law and all sorts of exciting new innovations, the birth of the novel. So it's quite an exciting time to be around, isn't it? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And with the emergence of copyright law and also kind of removing the Licensing Act, there was a whole lot more freedom for newspapers to really grow, both in England and also across the sea in the American colonies, because colonists brought over printing presses and books. Most of them were quite literate when they came over, at least into New England.

So it was a huge explosion of the wealth of knowledge and books and papers and pamphlets and broadsides. Really, in my opinion, really cool time. Does that feed into why we know so much about Blackbeard? Because he was the first guy they wrote about. Like, if you're the early adopter of Twitter, you get to be the Stephen Fry or whoever it is. Like, he's the guy. Hey, there's printed news.

We need news. There's this guy. Exactly. I'm writing a book at the moment on the history of celebrity, and celebrity is more or less invented in, like, 1709. That's kind of like the year when you get the first major celebrity. So he was the first celebrity pirate. He's one of the first, yeah.

And was real. You mentioned Long John Silver. Not real. Not real. So he was the Kim Kardashian of his era and the fuse is the tape ears in the beard of breaking the press. Maybe. Maybe that's legit.

We'll come to that a little bit later on actually. But how does he get into piracy? Because he doesn't start out as a pirate, does he? I mean, how does a young man go off to sea from Bristol? Is it slavery? Is it fishing? Is it the Royal Navy? What's going on? Well, for him, most likely he was a merchant or he worked with the Royal Navy. We do know that he was a member of the Royal Navy when the War of Spanish Succession started. And he was hired to become a privateer. And this is where he met another privateer named Benjamin Hornigold, who was the captain

of a major privateering ship out of Jamaica. What's a privateer, sorry? Oh, a privateer is someone who is legally sanctioned to rob enemy ships. So it was literally a legal document saying you have permission to rob, and in this case, any Spanish or French ship, and you may keep all the loot as your payment. It's work experience for pirates. Exactly. Okay.

Did they not think, this may cause somewhere down the line, once we've armed and given these people experience on how to rob stuff, did no one think, this may not be a good idea? It might have kind of slipped their minds because after the wars, when the privateering letter, they were called letters of mark, these official documents that they had to carry on ships. After wars, these letter of marks would essentially be expired. And they weren't allowed to do this anymore. But many of these sailors were like, well, we're getting really great money. And we like kind of having the freedom to sail. So we're just going to keep doing it. And this is how many privateers became pirates. And in this case, this is what Benjamin Hornigold did is that he got kind of he captured a new ship just outside Jamaica and he took Blackbeard under his wing, essentially, I think, as quartermaster.

And this is where Blackbeard began to get his real career into piracy until Hornigold decided to retire. And then he gave Blackbeard control of his ship. And this is how Blackbeard became got his career going. So this is literally an apprenticeship almost. Like you can come over quartermaster as you look after the stores. Is that right? You like cutlasses over there and spices on the left. Yeah it's literally an apprenticeship almost. Yeah. Like you can come over, quartermaster is you look after the stores, is that right? You're like cutlasses over there and spices on the left and limes.

Yeah, kind of second in command. They're in charge of discipline. They're in charge of managing the stores. They're in charge of taking the loot that they would get from the other ships. Right. It's like logistics manager. Yeah, yeah, basically.

It's such a sort of weirdly unglamorous lifestyle when you describe it that way because actually, you know, we tend to think of piracy as sort of swinging from the main sail and, the mainsail and shouting. But actually, it's all about admin and teamwork. It was, it had to be quite orderly in order for them to survive, like any other merchant ship, any other sailing ship, they had to be able to survive at sea and also be able to get supplies to kind of keep them going. So pirate ships in a way were just as

orderly as many others. Of course, there are exceptions to that rule, just like any other ship. And you've mentioned the War of the Spanish Succession, which is a sort of very complicated war. Google it if you want to know more about it. But it's a sort of huge European... That's the kind of history I like. I mean, yeah. We don't have time.

This is too complex. Google it. But it's essentially a war about who's going to rule Spain because the Spanish king has died without an heir. And everyone gets involved. So Britain is on the side of trying to sort of intervene against the French and the Spanish are split down the middle there's a huge number of different nations trying to sort of get involved in this big war so there's a lot of money to be made it's a bit like sort of you know the Middle East crisis you know the Iraq war and you get all these private financiers coming in and and are

sort of rebuilding cities and so on. So there's a sort of interrelation between private finance and official armies and navies, isn't there? Yeah. It's like a heist. It's the same thing as like, you know, the idea of challenging the law, going your own way, you know, making up your, you know, like, yeah, it has that kind of like the Hatton Garden diamond heist. Everyone's like, yeah, awesome. And then you go, I mean, they are actually criminals.

Yeah, exactly that. How does he go from privateering, where he's essentially allowed to sort of, you know, tackle a Spanish ship and a French ship, to suddenly going, you know what? Any ship will do. I'm now a pirate. Well, he started out with a ship called Revenge.

And this was a ship that Captain Hornigold had given him. And then after some time, not too long after that, Blackbeard ended up capturing a French ship called Le Concorde. And that's the ship that he ended up renaming Queen Anne's Revenge, kind of a play on the War of Spanish Succession. And so this point he was able to start gathering a larger crew. And this was a large ship. It had been used for a long time. I think the ship was built around 1710.

And then he captured it probably in 1717. So after it had been in use for seven years. And this became the thing that really launched him into becoming a powerful pirate. It was a huge ship that he was able to steal on his first go. So he stole it from the French? Yes. And so then he, so what's the first time when he, I mean, presumably as a pirate, he started stealing from the English as well. So that moment of thinking, oh, stuff it.

Like, I mean, does he start attacking one and go, wait a minute, these are British. Ah, keep going. Well, often, yeah, he would steal from British ships, French ships, Spanish ships. And what he would do is he would often hail other ships by throwing up a French flag. And a lot of pirates did this, is that they would throw up the flags of Britain, France, Spain, depending on who they were coming across. And then right beforehand, when they'd reach that other ship, they would take down that flag and then put up what's known as the jolly roger the black flag with a skull and crossbones or a figure of a man holding kind of a spike with a bloody heart next to it and that and he would do that immediately when the ship was too close to get away and this would cause a lot of fear and

intimidation the idea being that the people on the other ship would give up their goods pretty easily to make it a bit quicker and easier for everyone involved. So he catfishes them initially? Yeah, well, that is the drawback of the whole flag system, isn't it? It's like any idiot can put up any flag and go, yep, we're fine. Yeah, and then the opposite of catfishing is he then puts up the terrifying, I'm a pirate flag in the hope that people go, ah! Yeah, exactly.

And was he doing the burning fuses in the beard and the hair at this point? I'm not sure when he started doing that. He started doing that pretty shortly after he got started. He grew out a huge, long, bushy beard and the beard was humongous. It came up almost to his eyes, so it covered most of his face. He grew his hair out very long. And this went against the social conventions of the day where men, if they wanted to be respectable, would have shorter hair and would be clean shaven to show themselves as being polite for polite society, essentially. So Blackbeard did everything opposite.

He would take these tapers and he would tie them into his beard, kind of coating his beard with wax so it wouldn't burn. And then showing up onto a ship, he looked quite monstrous. And the point of this was to scare and intimidate the people on the other ship so he could go in and steal their goods and get the other ship to surrender as fast as possible. Which is ultimately kind of a, like a sort of, it leads to the least death, right? That's actually kind of quite a pacifist way to do it. If you kind of scare them, well, maybe pacifist isn't the right word, but if you scare them completely to the extent that they surrender, then fewer of them die. Yeah. And a lot of pirates

actually preferred to do it that way, including Blackbeard, because the fewer people who died, the fewer crew members you had to replace, the less damage a ship would have. And the more likely both sides could just be let go pretty quickly. So it's all about the most fear you can possibly create. So you terrorize them into surrender. And then actually, if you do get caught later, you haven't killed anyone. Right. Or you haven't killed as many people. I think every pirate, anyone who fought on the seas,

did kill some people, but not as many as we're probably imagining. Is he recruiting from the people he's stealing from? Oh, classic pirate move, right? When he takes a ship, does he go, join me, come on, it's fun? He does, yeah. A lot of pirates would do that in order to increase their crew, especially since now he has such a huge ship, you're going to need more men to be able to sail it successfully. So I think at this point he's got almost 100 people on his ship that he would often

recruit or sometimes kidnap from other ships and force people into piracy, which was also really common. Some people would choose it because of the adventure behind it, not being beholden to any government or nation, because pirates consider themselves to be their own individual society on the sea. Some of the pirates' codes by Bartholomew Roberts, Ned Lowe, George Louther, these codes were real. They're in the general history of the pirates. They usually had certain provisions. If people lost their right arm, for instance,

they would be given 600 pounds or 600 pieces of eight, actually. If they lost their left arm, it would be about 400, assuming that fewer people are left-handed. Same amount with their legs. If they lost an eye or finger, they would usually get about 100 pieces of eight. And someone told me that the reason they have depicted with jewels in their ears is that's your bank. That's your best way to carry your money around because you've got no bank.

So if you get a load of, you turn it into diamonds or gold and then you wear it on your body and then that's you looking after your money. Yes, some people do that, definitely. It was almost like a way of kind of insuring the things that they would capture. I put all of my money into explosives and kept them in my face. Yes, some people do that, definitely. It was almost like a way of kind of insuring the things that they were captured. I've put all of my money into explosives

and kept them in my face. Yeah, right. So, I mean, it sounds extraordinary. So he's running quite a big operation. So he took over from Benjamin Hornigold,

which is a great name. And then there's also... Great name for a pirate. I mean, it's a really good name for a pirate. And there's also Steed Bonnet. Yes. Another great name.

Stu, what would you... I mean, actually, you'd probably be Stu Hornigold Smith, but what would you, actually, you'd probably be Stu Horny Goldsmith, but what would your pirate name be? I can tell you my entire family, because we had a conversation about this only the other week. My son, who is three,

came up with pirate names for the whole family. All right. My wife is Mumbeard, which I think is incredible. That's pretty highbrow. Our little baby, his little baby sister is Sardines. I, myself, am Flapjack. And I think he was Captain Poobum. So that is exactly, I mean, Flapjack.

I think Flapjack is I'm kind of a first mate rather than a cabin boy. I feel like Sardines is the cabin girl. Oh, Captain Flapjack. Yeah, yeah. But it wasn't clear to me whether Captain Poobum outranked Mumbeard. Because she didn't have an honorific. She didn't have a title. But I feel like she's sort of understood to be the matriarch. I mean, I'm pitching the movie already. poo bum outranked mum beard because she didn't have an honorific she didn't have a title but i

feel like she sort of understood to be the matriarch that's i mean i'm pitching the movie already this was a conversation that took place outside of me knowing i was coming on this podcast come back to me so rebecca how many ships do you think is he raiding you know in a given month is it you know one is it five what's you know what rate? I think it varied. It depended on where they were in the ocean. If they were near a major shipping lane where a lot of merchant ships will come, then they could rob several of them. I think there was one document that said that in a space of 48 hours off the coast of the Carolinas, he'd raided 15 ships. So that's a huge amount. But then there's periods of time where he doesn't raid any for several months, usually because he was restocking in the Caribbean.

So pirates would essentially raid as much as they could in a safe manner. They also didn't want to risk getting caught. So they would kind of have to sort of pick and choose. They were really after large merchant ships that carried a lot of valuable goods because they would sell these in the colonies. A lot of colonial governors sort of turned a blind eye to pirates because they brought in goods that they couldn't get otherwise. The British had really restricted trade amongst the West Indies and North America.

They didn't want their colonists trading with the Spanish and the French because they wanted to control their own trade. Pirates were bringing in French goods, Spanish goods, other goods from Europe that colonists couldn't really get otherwise. So it's sort of a black market, really. Yeah, like when you can't afford a DVD, so you buy a pirate one from a bloke in a greasy spoon. goods, other goods from Europe that colonists couldn't really get otherwise. Sort of a bulk market, really. Like when you can't afford a DVD, so you buy a pirate one for a bloke in a greasy spoon. Yeah, exactly.

Mission impossible four! Are they slave trafficking? Sometimes. There were some pirates who were known to engage in the slave trade and they would take a lot of enslaved people and sell them in slave markets in the West Indies. Well, there were several who did that. It's not as cool anymore, is it?

Well, there were several who did that. I would say there were many, though, who did not. I think pirates were mostly after, or I know they were mostly after things like medicines, spices, which would preserve food and could also serve as medicines as well. And they were also really valuable, especially if they were coming from

what was known as the East Indies. Silks, sugar, rum, wine, especially Madeira wines or other French wines that were really, really valuable. These were the things they were really after. In terms of what we think about in terms of gold and treasure, that's not what they were after because that's heavy. It's going to weigh down a ship. Yeah, of course. You want saffron. Yeah, you do. It's so valuable back then. And also what's interesting is back in the 1700s, the word treasure meant valuable. So just things that were considered to be...

So anything of value. Okay, so you can have earrings with saffron in one and indigo in the other. And then we go, yeah, great. So actually, the Hollywood version of the buried treasure, it's not shiny trinkets and gold cups. It's going to be turmeric. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The whole buried treasure thing, unfortunately,

is pretty much a myth. Pirates didn't bury their treasure because they didn't really have the treasure we're thinking of. I know it's the most disappointing thing I tell people. Faces always fall. But I never understood why they were supposed to bury the treasure.

You get the treasure, you bury it, and then you write a map, and then you go off and... I mean, at what point do you spend it? I guess the idea is it's a bank, isn't it? I mean vikings used to do this as well so vikings we tend to find saxon and viking hordes in the ground where they've buried a massive amount of gold and silver and then they've clearly gone off the war or something and they've been they've been killed probably yeah or they've died of some horrible disease and it's just sitting there in the ground

for a thousand years so clearly you can't carry it with you you can't walk around carrying all this stuff because someone will mug you and steal it so sometimes you have to put it in the ground for a thousand years so clearly you can't carry it with you you can't walk around carrying all this stuff because someone will mug you and steal it so sometimes you have to put it in the ground but i guess pirates aren't doing that as much because really they're living they're living their life aren't they they're spending their money yeah they're spending the money they're living on the ocean um for a pirate bank the ground the listening bank the only bank you can trust we We have lots of branches everywhere. Zero interest. Rebecca, Blackbeard's most sort of infamous siege, I suppose, is Guadeloupe and then Charleston. Charleston's in North Carolina or is it South? South Carolina. And this is where he sort of

turns up and basically lays siege to a town for like a week. Yeah, about a week. He completely blockaded Charleston Harbor because he was after medicine. And it's a bit confusing because medicine on land was quite plentiful to come by, especially in a major port city like Charleston, South Carolina. So it's kind of curious. And there are several reasons as to why they would want medicine. These sailors would have just spent quite a lot of time either off the coast of Africa or in the West Indies, where diseases like malaria and yellow fever are common. There's also what a lot of time either off the coast of Africa or in the West Indies, where diseases like malaria and yellow fever are common. There's also what a lot of people think is most likely was STIs. Oh.

Yep. In particular, syphilis, because pirates were known to visit the brothels when they're on land and syphilis at the time was just raging across the world. And so what they would have done is blockaded it to get mercury because mercury was the common treatment for syphilis. And what you do, it's a bit gruesome. You have what's a urethral syringe and you fill it with mercury and you inject it through the penis in order to help alleviate the syphilis symptoms. It did not cure it and made you sicker in the long run. Did it have any benefits at all?

Not really. I've got one of these syringes and I'm just working out whether or not to... No, mercury is a toxin. It's a very, very serious... I mean, you should not be putting it in your body. No, not at all. But it would alleviate the symptoms. And like the first stages was usually when you start to get the legions and the sores all over the body.

But then, or in certain places. But if they had just traveled from the West Indies, at that point, several weeks or even a couple months would have passed. And likely they would be entering into the next stage, which is where you get it goes into lymph nodes, you get fevers and it kind of starts to affect your mind a little bit. So they would have been quite desperate for the medication at this point. If you want to see this syringe is actually one of the Mary Rose Museum. I don't want to see that. I had to identify one on a TV show once. And it's terrifying how big it is.

Yeah. I mean, like you're talking like, you know, when when you pump up a football or a bike, bike tyre, that size and the needly bit, not needly enough. No, it's actually quite big, I think. I winced picking it up. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah. But the phrase at the time was a night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury, which is a sort of pun on Roman gods, you know, Venus and Mercury. Sure, wow.

So they blockaded an entire town in order to get hold of a medicine that didn't work? Yeah, essentially. I mean, back then they thought it did just because it took away the bad feelings of syphilis. They were desperate for it. Yeah, eventually over time with Mercury poisoning. So either way, they weren't going to be having a good time in the long run. What an image of just a bunch of pirates desperately like, please, we've all got the clap, send us the medicine.

You don't understand, we're not leaving. And in terms of his relationships with ladies, how many wives do you think Blackbeard had? Six. Higher? 60. Oh, not that high. 14.

14. Is the sort of... 14 wives living on board with him or in different ports. Rebecca, what's the comment on this? So Blackbeard was very popular with the ladies. He loved women. He was very charismatic. He was very intelligent and he was very charming.

And oftentimes pirates were assumed to be a bit wealthier and more adventurous because of their stealing. So they would become a bit more attractive in that way to women. And so he essentially married in every port he would visit, sometimes under pseudonyms, a lot of times on the ship. So it's questionable as to how legitimate he felt they were. But essentially, he was a man who loved to fall in love and would do so in every port. So he did marry up to 14 women. There are no reports of him ever being really unkind to women. He's not one who went and did raping and pillaging or abusing women. He just pretty much enjoyed their company and just liked marrying as many as possible.

I mean, why can't he just date them? What's the marrying thing for? I think it might have just been kind of romantic, really, maybe back then, or in a way just... It's like a Mormon. He's like, let's marry you and you as well and also you. Let's become connected in the eyes of a law, which I clearly have no respect for. That's an odd... But I think it could have also been a way of sort of insurance for him, because if someone was captured or if a pirate was captured, they would sometimes, and they went on trial, they were sometimes given the opportunity to have someone come forward as a character witness to kind of talk about their good qualities.

There we go. It's medical insurance. It's legal insurance. It is, yeah. So a lot of women could testify him and also the people who would have married him, usually maybe other members of the ships or maybe some local magistrates even

who wouldn't quite know who he was otherwise because he disguised himself and used aliases quite a lot. So I think it was probably also for some... I'm choosing to believe that. That works for me. I think that's most likely. I love the idea of doing that deliberately so that you can have a character,

well, why don't we ask the guy that married me and my local doe-eyed wife, who's also come to plead my case. That's great. An entire book full of alibis, all of them calling you darling. That's brilliant. Hey, just while we're on cunning techniques,

pirates, so this is, I heard this is like a pirate life hack. Please tell me this is true. The eye patch is so that you can switch it from one eye to another when you go below deck, so you retain your night vision. I've heard that. I don't know if it's true or not. I don't need proof. As long as you're not telling me that there's something to prove it

in the opposite direction. I know it's really widely believed, but I think some people might have disproved it. I don't know if it really made a huge amount of difference, but it's very, very possible, and it does make a lot of feasible sense. because pirating was so violent and difficult, though. There would be a lot who would have had missing eyes. And that was kind of a way to protect it.

I mean, what's our evidence for the eye patch? I mean, is there visual evidence, you know, in illustrations, in cartoons, in art of the 18th century? Or is it a sort of Hollywood thing? It's more of a 19th century thing. the 18th century or is it a sort of Hollywood thing? It's more of a 19th century thing. So a lot of the way we visualize pirates today comes from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, which was the most famous novel about pirates ever written. And he based a lot of it on historical fact. He based a lot of the history from a general history of the pirates, which was published in 1724. And it's still in print. You can go to Waterstones and buy a copy right now if you want.

And so he took a lot of information from there. But he also, before he wrote the novel in the 1880s, he did a tour of the United States and he met a lot of American Civil War veterans, many of whom were missing limbs and many of whom were missing eyes because of how violent the war was. And he used a lot of this as kind of inspiration for pirates because pirates would get injured a lot in the line of work. So he's the one who came up with the iconic eye patches, the peg legs like Long John Silver. The parrot? The parrot, yeah.

And pirates were known to sometimes keep pets, so the parrot isn't fiction. A lot of pirates did have exotic birds as pets based on where they travelled through, and birds were probably some of the most likely pets that they would have been able to keep alive on ships as well. And does Blackbeard hang out with other pirates? Do they ever get together?

You know, like when comedians get together and have a sort of a late, I mean, I imagine you'd get together and talk about your favourite motorway service stations. Yeah, 100%. For the record, Lee Delabate. Were there ever sort of, you know, like get togethers where it's like, OK, Jack Rackham, Blackbeard, you know, all the big names in one room having a brilliant night? In a way, yeah. So many of these pirates like Jack Rackham, Charles Vane, Steve Bonnet, Blackbeard, they all would sail around Nassau, which was which is an island in the Bahamas off the coast of Florida. And it's then was called New Providence. And this

was a huge pirate hub at this point. It used to be Port Royal, Jamaica, until an earthquake sank Port Royal in 1692 and the Navy took over. And then pirates kind of found a new place in the Bahamas. And the reason for this is because it's so complicated to sail around that area that there wasn't a permanent government set there. So pirates kind of came and a lot of people came and moved there, opened up taverns. And they say that there was one tavern for every dozen people who inhabited. And with that, lots of women in brothels. And lots of pirates did either know each other or know of each other. Because this is known as the Golden Age of Piracy, which was a period where pirates were the most active between about 1710 and about 1725. And Blackbeard's active in 1717 to 1718.

So he would have had a chance to meet several other pirates, and he did partner up with a pirate named Steve Bonnet, who was from Jamaica. Sorry, he was only active for two years? Only for two years, yeah. Wow, and that's where all of the myths and all of the Blackbeard stuff comes from? Mm-hmm.

Because he was the only guy with tape ears in his beard. Yeah, he had the wildest image. So he was a privateer for a bit longer, wasn't he? He was, yeah, for several years. So hardcore pirate two years. Hardcore pirate on his own for about two years. Before that, he'd sailed as a pirate under the command of Benjamin Hornigold

from about 1713. Hornigold Smith. Yeah. Until he got his own, until Hornigold gave him his ship in 1717. So he had about like four years of essentially pirate training. And before that, he fought for works at least since about 1705, 1710, as a privateer. And presumably your piracy get-out,

once he's had enough of pirating, he takes the fuses out, shaves his beard off, and just walks unknown amongst anyone else. Yeah, yeah, just kind of just says, hello there. He's made his fortune. Yeah. Divided it between his 14 wives and no one can identify him. Well, it's funny you mention that.

He does briefly retire because he attacks Beaufort Inlet. Please tell me he came out of retirement for one last big job. He literally does. Yes! Yeah, he does. So he attacks Beaufort Inlet. And then the governor's like, yeah, you can have a pardon. Yeah.

So what happened around this time is in 1717, the king had issued a proclamation for the effectual suppression of piracy. And this was essentially a notice that said we are going to eliminate piracy once and for all. There had been other proclamations that had been going on for the past like 15 years. But this one was going to be the most successful. And one of the ways they wanted to stop piracy was they were giving pirates a chance to be pardoned because generally if a pirate was captured, they were put on trial and hanged for their crimes. But a pardon said, if you turn yourself in and name your accomplices, we will give you

a pardon and you can keep your loot. But you have to name your accomplices. Yes. So if you and your accomplices turn up and name each other, that's not cool. So you've got to like the deal is you've got to betray your friends. Yeah, you do. I would betray my friends like a shot. Oh, my God.

Yeah, absolutely. So at this time at the Beaufort Inlet off the Cote, which is in North Carolina, what Blackbeard had come to realize is he had become too recognizable. People recognized the Queen Anne's Revenge because it was a huge ship. People recognized him for his looks because he was extremely notorious at this point because of the way newspapers described him. And so he was like, you know what, I need to lay low and I'm too much at risk of getting captured. So what he did, it's quite wild, actually, he gets his whole crew, at this point he's got a crew of about 150 people, and he gets them all rip roaringly drunk.

So that way everyone kind of passes out and he deliberately has the ship kind of crash onto the shoals of Beaufort Inlet. And then at that night, he goes inland and eventually kind of pleads with the governor of Virginia and to get his pardon. And it works. But in the meantime, Blackbeard goes back and takes 40 of his favorite and most skilled pirates with him who already kind of knew of this plan and kind of set off on a smaller ship, a more manageable ship. So he decks his main ship, goes and grasses everyone up and gets the pardon. And then him and his main guys disappear in a smaller ship and get out of their pardon intact. Exactly. And then start pirating again. Yep. And then the men wake up the next morning and find they've been betrayed. And at this point, Steve

Bonnet, the pirate, had been on the pirate ship and thus has to kind of take over as command. But he's not a good pirate, so no one is happy about it. But what happens is that because they lose so much of the crew and the ship was so damaged going up onto the land, they had to abandon it. And eventually the Queen Anne's Revenge

floated back out into sea and sank off the coast of North Carolina. And they found it not long ago and there's massive excavations going on there today. Yeah, archaeologists have swum down and they've been sort of finding all the cannons and things. It's amazing, isn't it? Incredible. Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. So he goes back in the life of... So he's done this sort of incredible

elaborate trick. He's vanished. He's kind of associated himself, but he's back on the... Shaved the beard off, but knitted it into a beard in case he ever needs to put it back on. It wouldn't surprise me if he had a wig that he could take on and off for the purpose of fighting ships. Yeah, that's a theory I have. Darling, I'm blackbeard again.

I have no proof for it, but it's a theory I have. It just seems like it would be the most manageable thing to do. So he goes back into piracy. Yeah, he's about 17, 18. And his luck runs out. It does. It eventually runs out off the coast of Virginia, where the Coast Guard is waiting. Because at this point, there have been lots of reports, people knew who he was, and people were keeping track of maritime activities going on, especially off the coast of the North American colonies, because the vast majority of their economy was maritime based.

They had to know what was going on. And so the Coast Guard off the coast of Virginia was ready for him. And when he arrived, they had their fleet come out and they were ready for battle and began to engage Blackbeard and his whole crew in a massive battle on the ship. Yeah, because if you're not scared, if you're prepped for him and you're not going to be scared by the flag and you've got a fire extinguisher for the beard and you're like if the initial shock tactics that he's used to using don't work and you're actually the navy then uh yeah he's going to be in trouble wow so this um coast guard is led by a lieutenant named um lieutenant maynard and he's the one who that is such the name of a coast guard guy isn't it

so lieutenant maynard goes onto the ship and he immediately engages Blackbeard into a fight. But first beforehand, Blackbeard takes a huge drink and he says, I damn you all to damnation if you offer no quarters. Or unless you offer no quarters. And this term... What does that mean? Sorry, you're about to... So this term, quartering, means you're offering mercy if you unconditionally surrender.

And Blackbeard is saying, I damn you to hell if you do this. Essentially meaning he's challenging them to fight to the death. And Maynard responds, don't worry,

we're never planning on giving you quarters anyways. So they engage into a fight, hand-to-hand combat, all the people, the Coast Guard and the pirates against everyone.

Cutlasses, which are kind of shorter swords that you'd hang off your hip. They're a bit curved and easy to transport and a bit safer to carry around. Pistols and knives. Lieutenant Maynard wounds Blackbeard by stabbing him in the leg. And Blackbeard shouts, well done, lad, as if he's sort of teasing him. Absolute boss move. But because he's then weakened, Lieutenant Maynard decapitates Blackbeard in battle

and thus ends his life as a pirate. Gets him in the leg. What else you got? Lops his head off. Fair enough, as his head rolls away. It was a bloody battle. A lot of casualties on both sides. Maynard himself lost about 35 of his own men in battle.

I thought you were going to say limbs. And all of Blackbeard's crew, they were basically taken on shore and they were arrested and many of them were all hanged at the same time. And Blackbeard's head mounted on the ship? Yep, it was mounted on a ship and it kind of went on tour up the coast,

up and down the coast of North America. Classic pirate retirement. Yep, to kind of show, yes, we killed him. And then legend has it that they encased his skull in silver and used it as a drinking vessel in taverns all over Virginia who kind of travel around. People drink out of it.

That sounds like a health and safety risk. What happened to it after that? Please tell me Nicolas Cage rescued it from somewhere. I'd hope. I'm not sure. It kind of sort of like gets lost in history after that. I think it kind of sort of faded away in the documents I was reading. I haven't really read much in terms of what's happened recently.

So out there now at the bottom of the sea in Davy Jones's locker, the real one, not the movie one, is the silver skull of Blackbeard. See you guys in a minute. I'm going to go and get it. I mean, that's a pretty cool story. But actually, the story of Blackbeard itself is sort of already mythologized in the 1720s, isn't it? Oh, yeah, absolutely. At this point, he'd become quite notorious. And there were lots of stories going around with him. When the general history of the pirates was published in 1724, in advertisements, it would usually mention, you know, including the infamous Blackbeard.

So he's already got a sort of celebrity brand, isn't he? He's already a kind of villain that you love to hate. Yeah, exactly. And he created the brand himself. He wanted people to recognize him and know who he was. He wanted the infamy. He wanted people to be afraid of him. After his death,

did anyone else claim to be Blackbeard? Because that is totally the move that I would have done. If he's dead, I'd have got a bit of silver in me beard and go, I've recovered, lads. You know what I mean? Because if the brand exists,

you might as well. Not quite. Because around the time he died is when piracy slowly started to fade out because a lot of pirates were starting to kind of stop being pirates because they were like, it's getting too risky, the Navy's getting too powerful. And then more wars and conflicts started to break out. And many of these pirates were hired back into privateering

because England, France, Spain, they were like, we need experienced sailors who know how to fight. So if you hold out from the amnesty, they hire you again as a privateer? They did. By the 1730s, they were getting hired again. Those who had survived were getting hired again if they also hadn't retired. But it's privateers.

Scandalous, isn't it? Yeah. So, no, I haven't seen any records about people kind of claiming to be Blackbeard. Some people have claimed to have found buried treasure

from Blackbeard, but again, that's ended up being false. The nuance window! This is where we allow Rebecca, our expert, to just go to town on whatever you want to talk about for three minutes and give us your nerdiest, most deeply researched take.

And Stu and I will sit here silently in awe, learning things, because this is the bit where I get excited. So what are you going to talk to us about in the nuance window? What's your thing? I thought I'm going to talk about the process of how pirates were publicly executed in London and the Americas. Let me get the stopwatch up. Three minutes starting now. Okay. So at the turn of the 18th century, the people who were in charge of all laws relating to the sea was known as the Admiralty Court. They were the ones who were in charge of everything that was on water, essentially lakes, rivers, oceans, etc. So if pirates were

captured anywhere in the sea, they were transported back to London for trial. Generally, these trials were for show. And if they were known to be pirates, they were going to be executed no matter what. But they had to kind of have a show trial because it was the law. And then when they were known to be pirates, they were going to be executed no matter what. But they had to kind of have a show trial because it was the law. And then when they were found guilty, which happened almost every single time, they were then paraded through the streets of London down to Wapping in East London, the Wapping docks. And that's where they were hanged because it symbolized the place where the crime happened. A lot of times if a criminal is going to be executed, then they execute them at the scene of the crime or in an area that would be kind of symbolic of it. So, for instance, highwaymen were often executed at Marble Arch here in London.

There's a plaque on the ground where the Tyburn tree was, and that's where they were hanged. But in the case of pirates, they were taken to a place called Execution Dock in Wapping. There's a replica that stands now behind a pub called the Prospect of Whitby, which has been around since about the 1500s. So if you're around there, you should go take a drink there and go see the area. It's got a lot of legend behind it. They were led by a procession of the Admiralty with a silver oar that kind of showed that they were the Admiralty. This silver oar is now in the Royal Courts of Justice, but it's kind of locked away. The pirate would then have to give a speech atoning for their crimes and sort of begging forgiveness. A lot of pirates, because they were pirates, did away with this and decided that they didn't want to do it.

And sometimes they wouldn't speak. Sometimes they would say, if you guys weren't such terrible sailors or terrible captains, we wouldn't have had to turn to piracy. It's your fault. And then they were hanged. Usually they would be hanged in a gibbet until three tides had washed over them. One pirate, however, Captain Kidd, who when he was hanged in 1701, he was in a gibbet for 20 years encased in tar as a warning to other pirates. So by the early 1700s, pirates had become so numerous that it became feasibly impossible for them to be able to take people back to England for their trial. So they began to set up admiralty courts in the colonies, namely in Jamaica, what was then known as Spanish

Town and is now part of Kingston. And then also throughout the American colonies, Charleston, Rhode Island, Boston, and New York. And they had to undergo the same process of this. And hundreds of people would come out and see them. They would publish the pirates' trial transcripts verbatim. They would publish their speeches, and they would get sold in bookstores everywhere. And they would often be sold out immediately with a lot more printing. So this is how pirates became really, really famous. But that is how pirate executions kind of helped create the famous pirates that we know of today. Awesome.

Comprehensive. Very comprehensive. So what do you know now? Stu, this is where we're going to put you to the test to see what you have learned oh god no

I didn't realise I was supposed to be learning so at the beginning of the show we had the what do you know now we're going to have the what do you know now okay

so I'm going to give you a little quiz are you doing questions? I'm going to do a little questions okay cool I'm going to put a minute up on the old oh you I didn't know this

some of these are easy and some of them are harder see how you paid attention so? We'll do a little questions. Okay, cool. I'm going to put a minute up on the old one. Oh, you, I didn't know this. Some of these are easy and some of them are hard. Okay. Let's see how you've paid attention. So, we've got about a minute, I think. We'll probably do it. We've got ten questions. See how many you get through. Here we go.

In what city was he born? Blackbeard. Bristol. Very good. What year did he die? 1719? 1718. Yes, 18.

Very good. What happened to his head? It was cut off and filled with silver and now resides at the bottom of the ocean. Perfect. What was the name of his first ship? It was called the Re the ocean. Perfect. What was the name of his first ship? It was called the Revenge. It was. What was the name of his most famous flagship?

Queen Anne's Revenge. Very good. Previously the Concorde. Oh, my God. Oh, yes, pay attention. Which South Carolina port town did he besiege for penis medicine? Yes, Charleston, yes. How many wives did he have?

14 wives. Oh, you are nailing this. How old was he when he died? We haven't talked about this, but have a guess. Oh, probably something like 24. Was it something nuts like that? Sort of 35 to 40. And what was the name of the European war he fought in as a privateer?

The Spanish War of Succession. Bang on. Yes, mate. 49 seconds, 10 points. Thank you very much. Come on, give me 11 seconds worth of extra. Sure, all right. In the penises with a syringe.

Mercury, eventual death. Penises, pen me 11 seconds worth of extra. Sure, all right. In the penises with a syringe. Mercury, eventual death. Penises, penises, penises. Yes. For an additional five points. Very, very impressive. Well done, Stu. You've scored 10 points and more.

Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so excited about that. And I, okay. Yeah, all right, good. So you say you're not going to dates and stuff, but you've learned all this stuff. Oh, no, I won't be there

tomorrow, but thanks. Well, you can listen back to the podcast. I hope you've enjoyed all this stuff. Oh, no, I won't be there tomorrow, but thanks. Well, you can listen back to the podcast. I hope you've enjoyed learning some stuff about Blackbeard. I 100%, yeah, love it. He's pretty cool, I think, we can agree. A bit naughty, but, you know. Very interesting. True to the ladies properly, so I think we're OK with that.

Probably in context of the time. Yeah, yeah. For the time, 1720, not too problematic, apart from the murder. Join me next time when I'll be talking to some other people about some other stuff. That's how it works. And if you enjoyed the show,

please do share it with your friends, leave a review online, subscribe to the podcast that's called You're Dead to Me, and make sure you don't miss an episode. But for now, let me say a huge thank you to my guests, Dr Rebecca Simon and Stu Goldsmith. And to you, fair listener, I say dar fairly well upon the high seas. Join her to tumble into Davie... Oh, never mind.

Thank you very much. See you next time. You're Dead to Me was a Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4. The researcher was Emma Neguse and the producer was Dan Morrell. Dan Morrell. Beyond Today is the daily podcast from Radio 4. It asks one big question about one big story in the news and beyond. Just how big is Netflix? Why are young people getting lost in the system?

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