Vice-Admiral Sir William Monson (1569 – February 1643) was an English admiral and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1601.

His first services were in a privateer in an action with a Spanish ship in the Bay of Biscay, of which he gives an account in his Naval Tracts.

There being at that time no regular naval service, Monson is next found serving with the adventurous Earl of Cumberland (1558–1605), whom he followed as a young twenty old as second in command of the Azores Voyage of 1589.

After this, in another venture Monson was taken prisoner by the Spaniards in a recaptured prize after an engagement off Berlengas Islands, and was for a time detained at Lisbon in captivity.

In 1602 he commanded the last squadron fitted out in the reign of Queen Elizabeth by defeating a Spanish and Portuguese fleet at Sesimbra Bay near Lisbon capturing a rich large carrack.

He was the first naval officer in the modern sense of the word, a gentleman by birth and education who was trained to the sea, and not simply a soldier put in to fight, with a sailing master to handle the ship for him, or a tarpaulin who was a sailor only.

The one authority for the life of Sir William Monson is his own Tracts, but a very good account of him is included by Southey in his Lives of the Admirals, vol.

v. The Tracts were first printed in the third volume of Churchill's Voyages, but they have been edited for the Navy Record Society by Mr Oppenheim.

He held a position of trust at the Tower of London, a circumstance which led to his arrest as one of the participators in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.

Having been a member of the court which tried Charles I the viscount was deprived of his honours and was sentenced to imprisonment for life in 1661.