John Crabbe (died 1352)
John Crabbe was from the small town of Muide in Flanders (now Sint Anna ter Muiden in the Dutch province of Zeeland), situated on the coast near the mouth of the river Zwin, which in the fourteenth century connected Bruges, Damme and Sluis with the North Sea.
[5][6][7] Although Crabbe probably began his career earlier, the first notice of him as a pirate is in 1305, when he attacked the Waardeboure of Dordrecht at La Rochelle in the Bay of Biscay, seizing the cargo, which included 160 tuns of wine, burning the ship, and kidnapping the sailors.
[10] He enlisted the help of Philip IV of France in negotiations with Robert III, Count of Flanders, but after four years Crabbe and his men had not been brought to justice.
[9] Nothing further is heard of Crabbe until the spring of 1310, when he seized a ship carrying cloth, jewels, gold, silver and other goods worth £2000 which were the property of Alice of Hainault (died 26 October 1317), Countess Marshal.
[11][12][13][a] As revealed in a letter of complaint from Edward II of England to Count Robert of Flanders dated 29 May 1310, the ship was in the Strait of Dover, bound for London, when it was attacked by Crabbe, then master of the De la Mue (i.e. of Mude or Muiden).
In 1315, some of Crabbe's men were punished, but no restitution had been made, in consequence of which Edward II ordered the seizure of Flemish ships and goods in London to compensate the countess.
The Bona Navis was carrying a valuable cargo of wine intended for the English market, and the king made a series of representations concerning Crabbe's plunder of it to Count Robert during the ensuing five years.
[3][6] Edward III later rewarded Crabbe for his "good service in the siege of Berwick" by pardoning him of all his crimes on both land and sea,[26] and making him Constable of Somerton Castle.
In February and March 1335 Crabbe gathered a fleet of ten ships from English ports, provisioned and manned them, and took them to sea in the king's service.
[31][32] The king did so with reluctance, and with a larger fleet engaged the French in the Battle of Sluys on the afternoon of 23 June; by the end of the day the English had virtually annihilated the enemy.
Early in 1341 he provided timber for "engines" at the king's manor of Langley Marsh in Buckinghamshire, and made barricades at Fauxhall,[34] and in December of that year was employed in helping to fill the empty treasury by collecting certain moneys in Nottinghamshire.
[34] After the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Neville's Cross on 17 October 1346, Edward III refused to permit prisoners taken by the English to be ransomed, and assigned their keeping to various castles throughout the realm.
