William Wynter
Gonson held his post until his death in 1577, and Wynter his until 1589, so that this partnership was a constant feature of the naval administration through the third quarter of the sixteenth century.
[14] In 1554, Wynter spent several months in the Tower of London under suspicion of involvement in Thomas Wyatt's rebellion against Mary I of England, until he was pardoned in November.
[24] Wynter commanded a fleet to guard against French landings in Scotland in 1559, while diplomatic efforts were made to negotiate sending an English army to aid the Scottish Protestants.
After a briefing at Gillingham, Wynter left Queenborough in the Lyon on 27 December, and sailed from the Lowestoft sea road on 14 January with 12 men-of-war followed by two supply ships, the Bull and the Saker.
Instead, Cleutin was forced to race back to Stirling overland, and William Kirkcaldy of Grange delayed him by cutting the bridge over the Devon at Tullibody.
To maintain the pretence he was instructed not to bring any ships he captured to England, but to berth them in the friendly harbours of Dundee and St Andrews which were in Protestant hands.
[30] As late as 16 February 1560, Norfolk sent the Chester Herald, William Flower, to Mary of Guise who declared the English fleet had arrived in the Firth by accident.
De Seure wrote of attacks on three ships of Mary of Guise, one carrying artillery to St Andrews, and two smaller boats guarding the Forth captained by Frenchmen.
The articles were for a map and survey of the Guinea coast, its sea inlets and havens, its hinterland and resources, with a commission to identify a suitable site for a fortress in the king of Habaan's country.
[37] In December Lok declined the proposal, partly because the Minion was in poor condition, but Garrard, Hickman and Castelyn next combined with Sir William Chester and Thomas Lodge to promote the Guinea voyage of 1562–63.
In the following year William Wynter was knighted at Gillingham,[40] but in 1577 he was passed over for the office of Treasurer of the Navy in favour of Hawkins,[1] a promotion which would have doubled his income.
[citation needed] Although there were periods of apparent reconciliation, Wynter later supported charges of dishonesty against Hawkins,[42] and wrote critically of him to William Cecil.
In c. 1575 the translator Richard Eden (died 1576) dedicated to Sir William Wynter his translation of the Latin Treatise of Continuall Motions (compiled from Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt and Giambattista Benedetti by Jean Taisnier and published in Cologne in 1562[44]), made at the suggestion of his friend Richard Jugge (died 1577), Printer to the Queen's Majesty.
Claiming long acquaintance with Wynter, in the dedicatory preface Eden remarked that he sought "to consecrate and dedicate the same to some worthie personage, whose fame, aucthoritie, and dignitie, myght defende them from the evyll tongues of such as are more redie rather to reproove other mens dooynges, then to doo any good them selves.
And therfore (gentle Maister Wynter) knowing your aucthoritie and fame in well deservyng, and honorable service unto your Prince and Countrey, to be suche as all men thynke so well of, and so greatlye esteeme, to whom (rather then unto you) may I dedicate this booke of Navigation?
His dedicatory letter, addressing Wynter, remarked, "no person in this Land hath such great iudgement and knowledge in martial affaires by Sea, both touching the shipping, for that purpose, and also for the provision for the same, as your woorship hath: and as for your courage, valiantnesse, and wisdome, which is not unknowne unto the worlde..."[46] In 1571, during the first of the Desmond Rebellions one of Wynter's ships was seized at Kinsale by James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, the Irish rebel.
In 1579, he commanded the squadron off Smerwick in Ireland, cutting off the sea routes and seizing the ships of the papal invasion force, which was landed by Fitzmaurice in the company of Nicholas Sanders launching the Second Desmond Rebellion; during this campaign, he assisted in the siege of Carrigafoyle Castle.
[48] Wynter joined the main fleet of Lord Howard off Calais and proposed the fire-ship plan to drive the Spaniards from their anchorage.
[50] It is said that he was the only one to have understood the completeness of the navy's defence, assessing from his experience at Leith that the enemy army's transport would require 300 ships, while Howard and Drake thought that the invasion of England might still take place despite the naval repulse delivered to the armada.
