Sir Andrew Barton served as High Admiral of the Kingdom of Scotland

Kingdom of Scotland

The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...

. Notorious in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 as a 'pirate', Barton was a seaman who operated under the aegis

Aegis

An aegis is a large collar or cape worn in ancient times to display the protection provided by a high religious authority or the holder of a protective shield signifying the same, such as a bag-like garment that contained a shield. Sometimes the garment and the shield are merged, with a small...

 of a letter of marque

Letter of marque

In the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government licence authorizing a person to attack and capture enemy vessels, and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale...

 on behalf of the Scottish crown

Scottish Crown

Scottish Crown can refer to:* Crown , see Scottish coinage* Crown of Scotland, part of the Honours of Scotland, kept at Edinburgh Castle* Scottish monarchy, see List of Scottish monarchs* The Crown...

, and is therefore more widely described as a privateer

Privateer

A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...

. The letter of marque against Portuguese shipping was originally granted to his father John Barton by James III of Scotland

James III of Scotland

James III was King of Scots from 1460 to 1488. James was an unpopular and ineffective monarch owing to an unwillingness to administer justice fairly, a policy of pursuing alliance with the Kingdom of England, and a disastrous relationship with nearly all his extended family.His reputation as the...

 in 1485. John's ships were attacked by Portuguese vessels when he was trading in Flanders. James IV

James IV of Scotland

James IV was King of Scots from 11 June 1488 to his death. He is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs of Scotland, but his reign ended with the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Flodden Field, where he became the last monarch from not only Scotland, but also from all...

 revived the letters. Andrew Barton was cruising the English coast looking for Portuguese prizes when he and his ship the Lion were captured in 1511 after a fierce battle with Sir Edward Howard

Edward Howard (admiral)

Sir Edward Howard, KG , son of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife, Elizabeth Tilney, and a younger brother of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. He was the first of the Howards to win fame as an admiral, participating in his first naval battle while in his teens...

 and his brother. He was subsequently beheaded, which was itself illegal because Barton possessed a letter of marque. However this fact was ignored by vengeful English nobles.

He is the subject of an English folk song entitled Sir Andrew Barton or Andrew Bartin, which is Child ballad number 167.

The most famous lines of this ballad are:
His story is also told in a Scottish Child ballad called Henry Martin (Child ballad number 250). Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 wrote a short story connected with Barton in his Puck of Pook's Hill

Puck of Pook's Hill

Puck of Pook's Hill is a historical fantasy book by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1906, containing a series of short stories set in different periods of English history. The stories are all narrated to two children living near Burwash, in the area of Kipling's own house Bateman's, by people...

 series.

Additional sources

Claire Jowitt. (ed.), Pirates? The Politics of Plunder, 1550–1650. Pp. xii + 244. Basingstoke, London, New York: Palgrave Macmillan,

External links

• Andrew Bartin, two variants on the ballad
• http://www.electricscotland.com/history/leith/17.htm, Story of the Bartons on Electric Scotland