The Queen of England and the Queen of Pirates

in February. It's great. It's the gift that keeps on giving. There's also Noble Blood merch That link is in the episode description and very exciting, sort of unrelated to Noble Blood. But I am leading a pilgrimage to Cornwall to talk about the book Rebecca and the author Daphne du Maurier, and you can sign up now. It's from a company called Common Ground. It's just amazing. I did one of these to talk about Mary Shelley and Frankenstein and it

was just the best experience in the world. So if you're free next summer and you want to hang out and ned and write and walk around and talk in a beautiful house in Cornwall with me, you should do that, let's dive into the episode. When you think of a rival queen from the British Isles standing up to Queen Elizabeth the first, I'm sure a certain someone comes right to mind. Well, forget about Mary, Queen of Scott's for the next thirty or so minutes, and travel southwest to

Ireland with me. There we will meet grannyoel or Granja Whale, or Granny and Email or Grana Wally. But among the many, many variations of her name, the two that have stuck most prominently in today's popular culture our Grace O'Malley and the Pirate Queen. Grace may not have been a queen in the same literal monarchical sense as Mary and Elizabeth, but that didn't make her any less of a powerful force.

At one point, she led an army of two hundred men and captained a sizeable fleet of galleys, those big pirate ships with the oars on the side. That's enough to be impressive. But Grace is perhaps most famous for her historical meeting with Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich Palace, at which she petitioned against the mistreatment of her family at the hands of one of the Queen's governors in Ireland. Hearing that today you might be thinking WHOA, let's go

girl boss hashtag shiro. I'm a little nauseous just saying that you might be imagining that she instantly became a celebrated folk hero. But in the fifteen hundreds, when Grace was active, her subversion of the times Gaelic ideals of both heroism and womanhood would mean that you would be

all but left out of recorded Irish history. Instead, much of what we know about Grace's life and her adventures comes from English sources, due in large part to her contentious relationship with the Tutors during a pivotal moment in English Irish history. Still, Grace was cemented in Irish history through folklore traditions, and in more recent years, the Irish canon has adopted Grace as an iconic, even nationalist figure.

Even on an international scale, Grace is held up today as an icon of, perhaps anachronistic but still inspiring feminism. The story of Grace O'Malley has all the elements that can make one an icon, resilience, charisma, defiance of social stigma, and at the end of the day, being a really cool lady pirate, i'm danis Schwartz and this is noble blood. Grace's connection with the sea began with her birth as a member of the O'Malley clan, and notably their sole air.

She was expected to live by their motto terameric potents, or powerful by land and sea. The O'Malley's were unique among the major Irish clans for making much of their money from the sea, which might seem surprising considering Ireland

is surrounded by water. When the King would go to see he would use O'Malley fleets and exchange, documented in Irish records, Each year, the O'Malley's would pay taxes of quote, one hundred milk cows, one hundred hogs, and one hundred casks of beer and quote in exchange for the King's annual gift of quote five shi, five horses, five swords

and five corselets and quote. The sea provided the O'Malley's with four major sources of income, fishing, trading, mercenary work, and of course pirt ing, all of which Grace would involve herself in. Fishing is self explanatory. The coast off the O'Malley territory was known as a particularly great spot, but trading has a more complex history. Recent research confirms that from the Middle Ages on sea trade routes were

established between Ireland and England, France and Spain. Trading abroad was actually more profitable for the O'Malley's than trading in their own country, thanks to taxas in major cities like Galway that were placed on outsiders or non city folk. For Grace, this meant that unlike her peers, she grew up in a home furnished with four in luxury goods

and furniture. Mercenary work also deserves some contexts. Hired mercenaries played a big role in the history of Gaelic warfare, and according to documentation in the Irish Annals, O'Malley ships and crews were near constantly being hired by warring chieftains. Grace and her sons would take up that arm of the family business. And then, of course there's the history of pirate ng Every civilization in history has had them, and in Irish history, pirate and O'Malley go hand in hand.

A quote from the Ancient Annals Rates quote owen o Wallya went with the crew of three ships against chile Bega or Killie Begs in County Donegal. Quote in the night they raid and burned the town and take many prisoners end quote. Fun fact the galley, the pirate ship, the O'Malley's and most face. Miss Le Grace sailed is thought to derive its design from the long skips or longships of the Vikings, who established their footholds in Ireland

in part due to pirrat ng. This was the life Grace was born into, but at the time of her birth around fifteen thirty, Ireland was on the cusp of a major change. The country hadn't seen much change since

the Anglo Norman invasion of the twelfth century. Ireland had a total population of around seven hundred thousand people, living in a land still densely occupied by thriving forests and woodlands, pastoral fields and bogs and marsha's, with very little in the way of bridges and roads to traverse the ecosystem. This landscape protected the Irish from English interference for a long time, but that would change in the sixteenth century,

especially once Ireland began to become properly mapped. When Grace was born, the current English king Henry the Eighth already held the title of Lord of Ireland, and the Crown had imposed a policy referred to as quote surrender and re grant, in which they hoped to obtain Ireland through willing participation instead of military action. But with their claws in the land, the tutors enter. Their conquest of Grace's homeland will come more into play during her adolescence and

eventually adulthood. Her father was Owen or black Oak O'Malley, chief of his name and ruler of uwal Oughta. Notably, he was one of the few Gaelic chieftains of the time who refused to submit to the English crown. Grace's mother, Margaret, was also in O'Malley, a cousin of her husband. Like her husband, she was a property owner in Ule. She inherited lands from her mother, which she hoped would pass

down to her daughter. Irish law allowed for women to possess land, which directly opposed English law which stated all property went to husband's fathers and sons. Earlier, I mentioned Grace was the sole heir of the O'Malley's, but that information comes with a caveat. Grace had an illegitimate brother, Donald, who lived in O'Malley Castle, but did not inherit the lands or the title. Everything went to Grace. Still Donald existed and he would play an important role in her life.

Grace's childhood is pretty much undocumented, not uncommon for Gaelic children of the age. I also noted earlier that while Grace wasn't formally documented in Irish history, she remained in the culture through folklore traditions. The story behind her name is said to derive from an incident as a child in which she wanted to join her father on an expedition, but she was told she couldn't go because her long

hair would catch in the ship's ropes. In defiance, she chopped off her hair so he wouldn't have an excuse to exclude her, earning her the nickname Granuel or Grace with the chopped hair, the former being the name she's best known by an Irish culture. There are some more academic etymological explanations for the name, but I think that one's a lot more fun folklore aside. It's likely Grace had her sight set on seafaring from an early age, but as a woman, she had a more important obligation

to the O'Malley clan. Marriage. Grace's first marriage happened when she was only sixteen, in fifteen forty six. Her husband was Donald O Flattery, son of the chieftain of the senior ruling branch of the oh Flattery clan, a titled Donald himself would gain by the time of the marriage, not Donald our half brother, a different Donald. The O'Malley and o'flarity clans were neighbors and allies in war, so

political marriages between them made perfect sense. We don't have any specifics of what her married life was like, but based on all we know of Grace, we can imagine she wasn't content with the role of dutiful housewife, but her husband seemed like the man who wouldn't want a woman threatening his power. Still, the couple had three children, two boys and a girl, Margaret, after Grace's mother. When it comes to Grace's husband, we know two main things

about Donald. He was eager to war with neighboring plans, and he was bad at his job when he was picking fights with the Joyce clan over castle ownership. Grace had plans at home over a century before Catherine the Great Wood, Grace O'Malley usurped her husband's position as chieftain, albeit probably less dramatically than Catherine the Great did it.

We don't have any more details as to the how and why of this power transfer, but we know most of the klansmen supported her, even electing to leave their home and live under her authority in mail. It's after she's chieftain that we finally get the first stories of

Grace's pirate escapades. Which she and her crew were essentially doing was disrupting cargo carrying ships with their galleys, scamming Galoway merchants that made their way into her territory into paying a tax for safe passage home fair payback for the taxes Galway merchants placed on those in coastal territories wanting to trade. As described by Anne Chambers in her Rich O'Malley biography quote laden with the agreed or extracted spoil, Granuel and her men disappeared into one or other of

the numerous uncharted days along the identified coastline. Frustrated merchants took their complaints to the English Council in Dublin, complaints that were recorded as such quote the continuing roads used by the O'Malleys and aflaritys with their galleys along our coasts, where there have been taken sundry ships bound for this poor town, which they have not only rifled to the utter overthrow of the owners and merchants, but also have most wickedly murdered divers of young men, to the great

terror of such as would willingly traffic end quote. Grace was already proving herself to be a strong, competent leader, the kind of person a crew would get behind. In fifteen sixty four, Ireland found itself embroiled in a new conflict that would have a large impact on Grace's life. A minor chieftain of the Auflarity sought to expand his territory, and in his campaign he attacked two earls to the crown. Queen Elizabeth the first, at this point, could not ignore.

To resolve the fighting, The Crown decided that they would grant A Flaherty Kinsman overlordship over the territory and elected Donal of Flarherty, Grace's husband, as deputy, when he thought he should have had the primary position. The arrangement temporarily satisfied the warring chieftain, but created a major new problem. The territory already had a legitimate chieftain before England came in,

and just decided who would be in charge. While Elizabeth's father, Henry may have stuck to a policy of surrender and re grant, Queen Elizabeth preferred divide and conquer, in which English laws sought to break up the existing Gaelic order. New wars inevitably broke out among clans, and in one skirmish,

Grace's husband, Donald was mortally wounded. We're getting into the blurrier lines of folklore again, but tradition says that the Joyce is the foremost of Donald's many enemies took the opportunity to take his castle, which they nicknamed Cox Castle after their opinion of its leader. What they didn't account for was his far more competent wife's defenses, who apparently showed such strength that they decided to rename the castle

yet again, Hen's Castle. Unfortunately for Grace, Gaelic law didn't have as high an opinion of her, or of women in general. She couldn't legally inherit the title of chieftain, so after her husband died, Donald's cousin was officially given

the position that she had been in for years. What's more, she couldn't inherit his lands, and so she returned to her birthplace of Oul, bringing along her children any of her a flatterymen who wished to continue as part of her crew, three galleys and a collection of aller boats. This would be the place where the legend of the Pirate Queen would truly be born. Back in Uel, Grace

settled on Claire Island as a base. It's stronghold, a tower castle perfect for seafarers, is today known as Growl Castle. We don't have documentation as to how she spent her time here, but from a collection of external sources, we know that she continued and expanded the practices she had begun with the a Flits in her own territory. She also built alliances with a number of clans, the O'Malley's, the Burkes, the o Flattery's, the McCormack's, the McNally's, the Conroys,

and the Cladonnels. It's testament to her leadership that this many men agreed to follow a woman in a time and place when she couldn't officially become a chieftain. To get a picture of the power that she garnered in the years after turning back to Ull, take a quote from Sir Henry Sydney, Lord Deputy of Ireland in fifteen

seventy seven, thirteen years after Grace's husband died. Quote, there came to me a most famous feminine sea captain named Granny Imally, with three galleys and two hundred fighting men, either in Scotland or in Ireland. She brought with her her husband, for she was well by sea and by land, well more than Mrs Mate with him. This was a notorious woman in all the coasts of Ireland. End quote. You might be thinking, husband, I thought her husband was dead.

You are correct. Sydney is actually referring to surprise husband number two, to whom Grace married in fifteen sixty seven. This husband was let me take a deep breath here, Richard on ironren Burke, chieftain of the step of Ulrich of Burswool and Cara. He was a wealthy, well connected, and most importantly man who was fine with Grace continuing

business as usual during their marriage. Unlike Donald, it seems Richard was less bothered by having a powerful wife, evidenced by Sydney's declaration that she was more than missus mate with him and his usually being referred to as quote Grace O'Malley's husband in English sources. Still, there are a number of legends of spats during their marriage, including one in which Grace locks Richard out of his own castle and shouts from the top of the tower, declaring divorce.

I wonder if this legend served to make Grace seem powerful or hysterical, but either way, in reality, the couple never divorced. Legend also tells that their only son, Theobald, whom the couple had the same year they married, was born at sea. The next day, Algerian pirates attacked the ship, and Grace rose from bed to fight, apparently declaring quote take this from an unconsecrated hands end quote, referring to the old Catholic custom that women who had recently given

birth could not participate in ceremonies. Legends also make up most of Grace's pirrating stories from this time. She saved the wealthy son of a merchant from the wreckage of a ship, and he became her lover when he was killed by the McMahons of Juna Castle. She seized it out of vengeance. Apparently she kidnapped the grandson of an earl after he was inhospitable to her. What we know as truth is that her leadership skills, along with the skills of her second husband, would be put to the

test in the fifteen seventies. That quote from Henry Sidney about his meeting with Grace was not just a chat over coffee. He and his son, the poet and soldier, Sir Philip Sidney were making the round two active get Irish lords to submit their lands to them, and Grace and her husband Richard were facing increasing pressure to do

the same. The extended version of that quote from Sydney actually reads quote there came to me also a most famous feminine sea captain named Granny Mallie, and offered her services unto me wheresoever I would command her with three galleys and two hundred fighting men end quote. Grace knew that if power had to be exchanged, she had something to bargain with. Offering an ally ship instead of a surrender of her lands was a shrewd move, one that

Sydney accepted. He asked Grace if she could show him the seaside from one of her galleys, which she accepted if he paid for the trip. A few weeks after her encounter with Sydney, Grace set out on a routine plundering mission to Munster, the lands of the Earl of Desmond, but for the first time in her life, her mission failed and she and three crew members were captured by

the Earl's people. Desmond was desperate for political power, and he thought imprisoning the famous Irish pirate would appeal to Queen Elizabeth. It would be a long confinement. In fifteen seventy eight, the English President of Munster would write correspondence to Sydney describing the Earl's prisoner as quote a woman that hath imprudently passed the part of womanhood and been a great spoiler and chief commander and director of thieves and murderers at sea to spoil this providence end quote.

As we often see with condemnations of women who transgress, there are two crimes. Grace is supposedly guilty of pirating and not fulfilling her designated role as a woman. A year and a half after her initial confinement. She was taken in chains to Dublin Castle, where she was imprisoned again and her three companions were executed. We don't know why Grace was released in early fifteen seventy nine, but she was and she resumed her life at Carrigloy Castle.

By March. Thinking her vulnerable, the Galway merchants, anxious about the inevitable return of her less than legal taxes, attacked her castle, but they were swiftly defeated. The next short period of Grace's life was largely political, though she and her husband's combined forces were now about two thousand men, Richard gained the position of the mac william one of the most powerful and prestigious chieftaincies, as the leader of

the Burks or Mayo Burk's. This new level of power put them in closer proximity with the English, and Richard ended up signing a surrender and re grant agreement, but one that uniquely let him retain autonomous control of his lands in County Mayo. Still there are stories of Grace and Richard refusing English taxes, threatening messengers never to return. Grace and Richard were well matched, but in Fife, Richard died of natural causes at fifty three. Grace was yet

again a widow. This time, however, she refused to lose what she had gained during her marriage, and she gathered her followers to reside in his castle. This apparently worked out well for her, as she retained Richard's assets and her own even after his death. Life wasn't slowing down, though, and Grace was soon embroiled in a new rebellion. In fifteen eighty four, an Englishman named Sir Richard Bingham was

appointed provincial president of connect which included Grace's Mayo. Bingham preferred a violent approach when it came to taking Ireland, and he particularly singled out Grace as a potential threat. He kidnapped her son, Theobald and held him hostage for a year. After a series of other violent transgressions, the Burks rose up against Bingham. In the fighting, Bingham ordered his brother to seize the land of Grace's son, Owen.

Grace later testified that Owen had offered hospitality, but he ended up quote cruelly murdered, having twelve deadly wounds end quote. As you can imagine, Grace was infuriated and eagerly joined the rebellion against Bingham. In one of the most shocking stories from the time, Grace learned that her second son, still from her first marriage, had allied out of personal gain with the man who had killed his brother. She

did not hesitate to attack. A letter from Bingham describes the conflict, which reads his referring to her second son AfOR said mother. Granny, being out of charity with her son for serving her mate, manned out her navy of galleys and landed in balan Heansee, where he dwelleth, burned his town and spoiled his people of their cattle and goods, and murdered three or four of his men which offered to make resistance. Remember, her oldest son had been murdered

and her youngest kidnapped. Her middle son was a traitor, and so she didn't hesitate to turn against him. By the late fifteen eighties, Elizabeth the First replaced Bingham with a man who she ordered to make peace with the Burkes. Together, she and the new Lord Deputy presented a list of crimes against Bingham. He was tried and acquitted in fifteen ninety, but that wasn't the end. Of Bingham's involvement in Grace's story, nor is it the end of Elizabeth's. Bingham wanted vengeance,

and he blamed his downfall on Grace. On his return to Ireland, now demoted as a mere governor, he devastated Grace's lands while she was at sea, and when her son Theobald tried to stage another uprising against him, he impounded Grace's fleet and further plundered her territory, leaving her with nothing. Theobald was forced to surrender and was once again captured and imprisoned by Bingham. With Grace's fleet destroyed and her resources massively depleted, she decided her best course

of action in this case would be diplomacy. In a letter dated Fife, she goes for a strategic emotional appeal. She argues that everything she has done has been in self defense, as Queen Elizabeth would do against her own enemies. Knowing that Queen Elizabeth the First was a similar age to her sixty three, Grace asked quote in tender consideration whereof and in regard of her great age, to grant her some reasonable maintenance for the little time she hath

to live. Grace also appealed for sympathy as a widow who was never granted her proper compensation from the government. The real meat of the letter is, of course, the exchange. She proposes the release of her son in exchange for her Lands, along with the pledge of her services seafaring. She would, in other words, become a pirate on Elizabeth's behalf. It might seem like Grace was submitting to English rule, but as she did with Sir Sidney years earlier, she

was playing a complex political game. The English takeover of Ireland seemed imminent to Grace, but she could use her Lands as a bargaining chip in the meantime to win back something she cared about more her son. It's also not forget how bold it was for her to appeal directly to the Queen of England. While Grace was a noble daughter in Ireland and a powerful political force, you couldn't exactly call her a peer in terms of on paper status. While the petition was en route to London,

things went from bad to worse. Theobald was named as a conspirator against England and was to be tried for treason. At the same time, Grace's half brother Donald, remember him, was arrested by Bingham. Legend says that at this point Grace took matters into her own hands and set sail

for London. Without an official response, we know that she was at court from June to September of that year, and during that time the Earl of Ormond, a cousin and favorite of Queen Elizabeth the First, introduced Grace to the Chief adviser to the Queen, Lord Burgley. Burgley sent O'Malley eighteen articles of interrogatory to investigate her life, basically a Q and a intake form, which Grace answered and returned. Despite Bingham's protests, Elizabeth agreed to sit down with Grace

and hear her petition. The two would officially meet over the summer in Greenwich Palace. As you can imagine, there are a number of bits of folklore that are associated with this meeting. Some legends tell that Grace carried a concealed dagger under her finery. Some believe she dressed in traditional Irish costume instead, or walked barefoot. Other stories are that you refused to bow before the Queen. My personal favorite is an anecdote in which Grace was offered a

noble woman's lace handkerchief. After using it, she threw it into the fireplace, to the horror of the court. Elizabeth explained that the handkerchief was meant to be placed back into her pocket, but Grace explained that in Ireland handkerchiefs are not reused on the basis of cleanliness. While we don't know what exactly happened in that meeting room, Elizabeth's

own letter detailing her reactions paints the clearest picture. The Queen speaks of Grace with respect, and when it comes to her transgression, Elizabeth writes that simply quote she hath in times lived out of order and quote a simple way to put it. Elizabeth felt compassion as Grace described the mistreatment of her family. In fact, the only thing Queen Elizabeth was unsettled by was the way Grace spoke without remorse of the way she attacked her traitorous middle son.

Elizabeth even heard the pirate queen out as she argued that she wanted to be reinstated to her work in as Elizabeth put it, quote maintenance by land and see quite the euphemism for piracy. Elizabeth saw Grace as a valuable asset and additionally agree on the basis that it quote might yield to her some maintenance for her living the rest of her old years end quote. Grace had played her cards quite well. She may have been considered quite old at the time, but with Elizabeth's permission, she

was ready to head back to see. The fruit of Grace's efforts was Elizabeth ordering an investigation into Richard Bingham and an explanation for his extreme actions. Towards the end of September, the Queen ordered the release of theobold and

Donald for Grace herself. With regards to what Elizabeth described as quote having not, by the customs of the Irish any title to any livelihood or position or portion of her two husband's land, now being a widow end quote, the Queen ordered for portions of the taxes the Crown would collect from her son's lands to be devoted to Grace instead. Satisfied, Grace returned home, where Bingham initially refused

to act in accordance to the Queen's orders. Grace threatened him that she would call upon the Queen once again, and ultimately he complied. Bingham, of course, wasn't done, though, and once again sought to deplete Grace's resources. She sailed back to London one more time in fifteen ninety five, where her claims were once again investigated. Bingham, fearing more charges in Ireland, fled back to England, where he was arrested. The closest I think we've ever come to a happy

ending in one of these episodes. The last record we have of Grace's pirrating comes in sixteen o one, when the captain of an English warship came into contact with one of her galleys, and he named her as the ship's owner. This means that upon Grace's death in sixteen o three, she might have been still sailing up until the very end. That's the story of Grace O'Malley. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her legends. Grace O'Malley was a

fascinating figure and remains an icon to this day. Though she was long dismissed by official Irish sources, she's a local legend and her meeting with Elizabeth is held up as a symbol of Irish strength in a desperate time for the country. Her cultural preservation is an odd mixture. English sources documented her as a nuisance, Irish folklore mystifies her as an enigma, and feminist texts wouldn't even come into conversation with her until long after Grace was gone.

As Anne Chambers points out in her book Grace O'Malley, The Biography of Ireland's Pirate Queen. Before the influence of the Church, Ireland was once a matriarchal culture in which most of the deities were women. The name of Ireland itself is derived from the mother goddess Ireu or Eric, who was believed to be one of the three legendary goddesses who ruled the country. Ireland's official sources may have

long dismissed that, but folklore never did. As Chambers argues quote by the time of Granue in the sixteenth century, an analogy for an independent woman ruler could be found only in myth and legend. In turn, this caused the life of Granuel herself to be relegated to myth rather than acknowledged that a woman could you, sir, What had by then come to be accepted as the exclusive role of men. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood

is hosted by me Danish Wartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mirra Hayward, Courtney Sunder, and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by rema Il Kayali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H