In 1409 or 1410, Sir Robert Umfravill, who had been made Vice-Admiral of England, with ten ships of war, harassed the Scots coasts, burnt a Scots galliot and other craft off Blackness, and took fourteen vessels laden with cloth, pitch, tar, meal, and other merchandise, which, being brought to England at a time of great need, earned for the captor the nickname of Robert Mendmarket.[1]
In 1411, when Henry sent an envoy to Castille to settle certain disputes, he desired him to endeavour to purchase a Castillian ship, the St. Mary, which was then at St. Sebastian.[2] In the same year,[3] and again in 1412,[4] ships and seamen were impressed for the king's service to Guienne; and in the autumn of the latter year, Prince Thomas, Duke of Clarence, went to Guienne with a large army to the assistance of the Dukes of Berry, Orleans, and Bourbon, who had agreed to deliver Guienne to England.[5]
The capture of James of Scotland by an "outlaw" named Prendergast in 1405 has been noted in its place. Prendergast seems to have subsequently entered the king's service and to have been knighted; for, in 1412, Sir John Prendergast and William Long, who had been employed in keeping the seas free from pirates, were accused of robbery and other illegalities. They were fifteenth-century prototypes of the notorious Captain Kidd. Prendergast took asylum under a tent near the vestibule of Westminster Abbey. Later he again served at sea. Long was found at sea by the admiral, who, by a promise that no harm should be done to him, induced him to surrender; but the prisoner was, nevertheless, committed to the Tower.[6] What afterwards happened to this rover does not appear. It is certain, however, that, whether owing to these men's negligence or to their feebleness, the Narrow Seas were inefficiently policed in the last days of Henry IV. In 1412, some vessels and goods belonging to Brittany, improperly captured by seamen of Devonshire and Cornwall, had to be restored,[7] and letters of marque and reprisals were issued to persons who had suffered by the depredations of the Baron de Pons. And in 1413 other letters were granted against citizens of Genoa, and against the inhabitants of Santander.[8] The king died on March 20th, 1413, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry V., of Monmouth.
