Cutting through myth and prejudice, High Bicheno shines a light on the motivations and exploits of a unique group of corsairs who came to define an era

Sea Dogs explains how a corsair culture grew up spontaneously on either side of the western English Channel long before Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Raleigh & Co. were born, and continued long after their deaths. It shows how the refusal of Spanish King Philip II to permit trade with his American dominations led to a corsair assault that put at risk the flow of bullion he needed to finance his wars of religion. Finally he hurled his sea-borne mighty Armada against the maddening English and was soundly defeated, providing England with one of the defining heroic episodes of her history.

This is the first full-length account to show the rise and fall of a unique group of adventurers, who as expert seafarers and controversial characters, were deemed to have done ‘what they did’ for profit instead of from selfless service to their country. The Queen they served was a receiver of stolen goods, and many of her courtiers were accomplices to outright piracy. Bicheno sets the Sea Dogs in historical context through diligent historical research incorporating contemporary testimony and concludes that ‘The Elizabethans were not the paladins it suited the proud Victorians to portray, nor the villains denounced today by those with a politico-moralizing agenda. They were men and women of and for their time’.

Hugh Bicheno is a writer and historian with a specialist interest in politics and cutting edge conflict. Before becoming an author he served as an intelligence officer for the MI6 in London and Buenos Aires. His recent books include Rebels & Redcoats: the American Revolutionary War, Razor’s Edge: the Unofficial History of the Falklands War and Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance.