RAINBOROWE, William (1587-1642), of Wapping, Mdx. and Billingsgate, London.

The record of his parents’ marriage in 1582 at Whitechapel is the earliest confirmed notice of William Rainborowe’s family.14St Mary, Whitechapel par. reg. f. 17v. The suggestion that the Rainborowes were originally from Ipswich must remain speculative.15Muskett, Suff. Manorial Fams. i. 155-8. His parentage, however, is enough to place his background in the overwhelmingly maritime world of the Thames riverside beyond the Tower. His father, Thomas, was a mariner who rose to become a sea captain and who owned shares in a number of ships. Foreshadowing his son’s later achievements, he was captain of the Royal Exchange in 1612 when it provided protection against Barbary pirates to two Venetian ships during their voyage to Corfu.16CSP Ven. 1610-1613, p. 326. Thomas Rainborowe was sufficiently prosperous in 1619 to pay £2,300 to Edward, 1st Baron Denny (Sir Edward Denny†), for a 22-year lease on the manor of Claverhambury at Waltham Holy Cross, Essex, and by the time of his death in about 1623 he also owned a house and land at East Greenwich.17PROB11/143/232; PROB11/160/422.

William Rainborowe was baptized at Whitechapel on 11 June 1587, the third child, but first son, born to his parents.18St Mary, Whitechapel par. reg. ff. 23v, 25v, 27, 28v. As his father no doubt expected, he had managed to become a sea captain in his own right by the time he had reached the age of 30. As master of the Rainbow in 1618 he performed ‘some good service’ against Turkish pirates, for which the Levant Company awarded him £25. This money was never paid and in July 1621 he was able to persuade the Company to admit him to their ranks instead.19SP105/148, f. 58; APC 1630-1, 363. At some stage he was also admitted as an elder brother of Trinity House.20Trinity House of Deptford Transactions, 1609-35 ed. G.G. Harris (London Rec. Soc. xix), 66; SP16/135, f. 106. He was able to build up his interests through a combination of inheritance and investment. From his father he inherited shares in the ships, the Rainbow, the Lily and the Royal Exchange.21PROB11/143/232. The Sampson, newly built in 1625, was owned by him, in partnership with John Cordell, John Langham* and Benjamin Barron, and, during her first years in service, Rainborowe acted as her master.22SP16/16, f. 3; SP16/137, ff. 2v-3; APC 1628-9, 239-40. In August 1628, when transporting Sir Thomas Rowe* home from his diplomatic posting in Constantinople, he fended off an attack in the Mediterranean from four galleys of the knights of St John.23R. Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes (4th edn. 1631), 1508-11; M. Strachan, ‘Sampson’s fight with the Maltese galleys’ MM, lv. 281-9. He and Langham expanded their commitments in 1629 when, together with Thomas Freeman and Richard Haddock, they invested in another new ship.24SP16/16, f. 165. It was later said that Richard Deane, the regicide, had served under him.25Dyve Letter Bk. 85. Rainborowe’s interest in technological innovations, later evident in his views on ship design, led him to propose the use of iron rather than lead in the manufacture of bullets and the East India Company in 1627 was sufficiently impressed to organize a trial of his iron bullets.26CSP Col. E.I. 1625-9, p. 393. His two wives were both from local Wapping families, the Coytemores and the Hoxtons, and his two fathers-in-law were a mariner and a shipwright respectively. When ashore, he continued to live in the Wapping area.27PROB11/150/404; PROB11/189/21; St Mary, Whitechapel par. reg. ff. 83v, 133v; LMA, St John, Wapping par. reg. transcript, ff. 10, 11, 17, 26, 132, 152, 156, 160, 162; J. Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster ed. J. Strype (1720), ii. 40.

During the 1630s Rainborowe was among those captains sought out by the admiralty to supplement, as required, the limited cadre of officers employed to command ships in royal service at sea. He evidently had some naval experience, having acted for six years during the 1620s as the pressmaster for Somerset and Dorset, and in 1632 he was among those brought in by the admiralty to assess whether the navy was overmanning its ships.28E351/2263, unfol.; SP16/337, f. 1v; CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 313. In 1633 when naval officials wanted to inspect the Unicorn and the James, under construction at Woolwich and Deptford, and asked Trinity House to provide three expert assessors, they specified that one should be Rainborowe.29Transactions ed. Harris, 123-4. That same year, again as a representative of Trinity House, he was included by the high court of admiralty on the commission to oversee the unblocking of Dunwich harbour.30PC2/43, pp. 352, 492-4. The East India Company also made use of him as an expert inspector.31CSP Col. E.I. 1630-4, p. 580. Between 1633 and 1634 he served as the master of Trinity House.32Transactions ed. Harris, 127, 133; Harris, Trinity House, 274.

Just how far he was viewed as a sailor of capacity is shown by his appointment during the summer of 1635 to be the captain of the Merhonour, the flagship of the 1st earl of Lindsey as admiral of the narrow seas.33CSP Dom. 1635, p. 421; SP16/302, f. 124. He used this experience to begin a campaign to persuade the navy to alter the design of their ships; his contention was that the decorative sterns were a fire hazard, hampered the effective deployment of cannons and slowed down construction.34SP16/302, f. 124; CSP Dom. 1635, pp. 522, 540; 1635-6, p. 162. The following year, in planning that summer’s expedition, the admiral of the fleet, the 4th earl of Northumberland (Algernon Percy†), saw to it that Rainborowe was again appointed captain of the flagship.35CSP Dom. 1635-6, pp. 260, 362. On their return, Rainborowe gave his support to the 13 proposals (one of which was his own about superfluous decoration) which Northumberland put forward to improve naval administration.36SP16/337, ff. 1-2; SP16/338, ff. 159-164; Two Discourses of the Navy ed. J.R. Tanner (Navy Recs. Soc. vii), 373-9; CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 217. In December 1636, replying to the offer of the appointment which Northumberland probably viewed as due his reward, Rainborowe told Edward Nicholas† of his own ‘extraordinary willingness’ to support Northumberland.37CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 220.

Rainborowe’s moment of glory came in 1637. His command of the fleet sent against Sallee (Salé) that year was to be the high point of his naval service. The incursions by the Barbary corsairs on shipping off the south east of England had long been an annoyance, but the additional funds available to the navy in 1637 from Ship Money persuaded the admiralty commissioners to attempt action against the corsairs’ home base. Advice taken from the Bristol merchant Giles Penn (father of Sir William†) suggested that it was a propitious time to organize a fleet to blockade the port of New Sallee (Rabat) in Morocco. The hope was that this would force the release of those English subjects enslaved by the pirates.38CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 19; Castries, Angleterre, iii. 263-70. On 28 November 1636 the king agreed to the proposal that Rainborowe should be asked to command this fleet. Rainborowe responded enthusiastically.39CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 212, 220. Only ill health prevented his immediate return to London from Southwold.40CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 220, 239. Once recovered, however, he busied himself with the necessary preparations.41CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 363, 367-8, 430-1, 479; SP16/344, f. 31; Castries, Angleterre, iii. 276-8, 344; Strafforde Letters, ii. 50; SP16/349, ff. 65-67. The recommendations he made for the places as officers under him were accepted and these included the appointment of George Carteret† as his vice-admiral. Among those he appointed as captains of the ships to serve in his fleet were a distant relative, Brian Harrison, and a business partner, George Hatch.42CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 367-8, 454, 458; W.R. Chaplin, ‘William Rainsborough’, MM, xxxi. 188-90. His fleet, at that time consisting of the Leopard, the Antelope, the Hercules, the Mary and two pinnaces, set sail from the Downs on 4 March 1637 and passed Lizard Point two days later. He reached Sallee on 24 March.43SP16/157, ff. 154-156; Castries, Angleterre, iii. 344-5; J. Dunton, A true Journall of the Sally fleet (1637), 1-3.

The most compelling reason which convinced the English government to send the fleet that year was the disorder which existed among the Muslim factions in the towns of Old and New Sallee. Sidi al-Ayachi (the ‘Saint’), who controlled Old Sallee and who was himself in rebellion against the sultan of Morocco, was seeking to suppress a rebellion by one of the Moriscos factions, the Andalos, in neighbouring New Sallee. Rainborowe’s initial step was to impose, as best he could, a sea blockade against both towns. He claimed that this prevented a fleet of 24 ships setting out to cause trouble in the western approaches to England and Ireland.44Castries, Angleterre, iii. 310-11, 315; CSP Dom. 1637, p. 292. Contact with Sidi al-Ayachi was established and on 5 May a treaty was agreed with him on the understanding that the English ships would assist in his siege of New Sallee.45Castries, Angleterre, iii. 284-96, 309-313, 315-16, 346-8; CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 291-2; HMC Cowper, ii. 158. News of the approach of an army led by the sultan of Morocco, Mohammed esh Sheikh es Seghir, encouraged the Andalos in late June to imprison the governor of New Sallee and then send him as a peace offering to the sultan. The Moroccan advance, however, came to nothing after the garrison at Old Sallee forced their withdrawal by destroying the crops throughout the surrounding countryside. The sultan then adopted a different approach, sending his governor back to New Sallee on board a ship, the Hopeful Elizabeth, belonging to the English merchant, Robert Blake.46Castries, Angleterre, iii. 323-4, 340-1, 349-52. With the arrival of this ship at Sallee on 28 July, it became known that the sultan would accept the submission of the rebels without imposing recriminations and that he favoured the release of the English captives. Within days the Andalos had submitted to the governor and had handed their captives (of whom there were almost 300) over to Rainborowe.47Castries, Angleterre, iii. 324-5, 340, 352, 473; CSP Dom. 1637, p. 430; Dunton, Journall, sig. E4-[F4]; Strafforde Letters, ii. 116, 118; HMC Cowper, ii. 163. On 12 August extra supplies arrived on the Mary Rose and the Roebuck.48Dunton, Journall, 21; CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 289, 292, 307, 351, 366; SP16/372, f. 180v; HMC Cowper, i. 434-5. Unaware that Northumberland had recommended against these ships being sent, the arrival of the supplies led Rainborowe to tell Carteret that ‘we and indeed all the land are much indebted to my lord of Northumberland for his care to us and his care for the business that it might be effected’.49SP16/365, f. 141. Rainborowe headed south for Safi on 23 August to obtain the sultan’s approval and an agreement guaranteeing unmolested trade between England and Morocco was concluded there on 20 September.50Castries, Angleterre, iii. 353-4, 473; CSP Dom. 1637, p. 430; CSP Ven. 1636-9, pp. 281-2; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 126. This completed, Rainborowe sailed back to England, bring with him Indar ben Abdullah and Robert Blake, the ambassadors extraordinary from the sultan. Having put the ambassadors ashore at Deal four days earlier, he landed at Rochester on 12 October.51HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 128; Castries, Angleterre, iii. 354, 368. Edmund Waller* celebrated the fleet’s return in verse.52The Poems of Edmund Waller ed. G. T. Drury (1893), 13-14. When the ambassadors were received at court the following month, the king offered Rainborowe a knighthood, which he declined. He was presented with a gold medal, worth £300, as a substitute.53Strafforde Letters, ii. 129; LC5/134, p. 216.

For all the credit that accrued to Rainborowe for his achievement in securing the release of the prisoners at Sallee, the successful 1637 expedition did not solve the problem of English hostages held by Barbary pirates. Many of the prisoners held at Sallee had been transferred to Algiers prior to Rainborowe’s arrival and their plight continued to cause concern.54Castries, Angleterre, iii. 315; CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 477-8. In January 1638 Rainborowe advised that diplomacy would produce only short-term results and that paying for their release was expensive and would only encourage further hostage-taking; only a second expedition, this time to Algiers, could end the problem.55SP16/379, ff. 162-163. This proposal was not acted upon. Carteret spent the summer of 1638 off the Moroccan coast but achieved little.56G. Carteret, The Barbary Voyage of 1638 (Philadelphia, 1929). Those campaigning on behalf of the prisoners resorted to petitioning Parliament in December 1640 and Rainborowe, by then an MP, was included on the committee which dealt with that petition (10 Dec.). Two days later, Rainborowe and the treasurer of the navy, Sir Henry Vane II*, were sent to ask the king to send ships to protect shipping from a pirate fleet lying off the English coast.57CJ ii. 48b, 50a; Procs. LP, i. 580.

In the immediate aftermath of the Sallee expedition Rainborowe continued in naval service, commanding newly-built Royal Sovereign.58CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 195; 1638-9, p. 9; The Life of Marmaduke Rawdon ed. R. Davies (Cam. Soc. lxxxv), 25-6. Although now the foremost example of his type, he was still among merchants whose employment by the navy was temporary and ad hoc. Rainborowe thus remained as much a businessman as a naval officer. By 1638, he had a share in the ship, the Confidence.59CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 268. But often the two roles were blurred, as when the government sought his advice in the spring of 1638, as to whether the prices the navy was being charged for its victuals were too high. Similarly, he was appointed by the king to the commission to investigate frauds in the timber trade.60CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 312, 363. In April 1640, he and Squier Bence* submitted advice to the government on how the supply of victuals could be organized during the forthcoming campaign against the Scots.61CSP Dom. 1640, p. 55.

Rainborowe’s connection with Bence best explains his election in 1640 as MP for the Suffolk port of Aldeburgh. Rainborowe had no obvious links with his constituency, but the Bences were natives. As a merchant family with large interests in London shipping and the east coast trade, it is likely that Rainborowe had come to know them through shared commercial interests. An added connection was that Squier Bence’s brother, Alexander*, was a tenant of Rainborowe at Wapping.62PROB11/189/21. Shortly before submitting their joint recommendations to the government in April 1640, Squier Bence and Rainborowe had been elected together at Aldeburgh, the election having been held on 23 March.63C219/42/2, no. 24; Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/P1/1/13; Harl. 298, f. 148. When Rainborowe was re-elected the following October (on that occasion with Alexander Bence), it was said that their knowledge of shipping had been the decisive consideration.64Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, f. 85.

Whereas no evidence survives of Rainborowe’s activities in the Short Parliament, his contribution to his second Parliament seems largely explicable in terms of his career to date. His support for further action against the Algerian corsairs has already been mentioned. Fears about shortages of money to pay the armies in the north were voiced in the grand committee considering the question of supply in November 1640 and this led to the formation of a committee to speed up the transportation of money to the armies, to which Rainborowe was named (21 Nov.).65CJ ii. 34a. It is possible that he was mostly away from Westminster between December 1640 and August 1641 - something which would perhaps explain why Rainborowe did not take the Protestation until 27 May 1641.66CJ ii. 158b; Procs. LP, iv. 605, 612. During late 1641 he was appointed to more committees dealing with military affairs. In particular he was the first named when on 25 August the Navy Committee was expanded in order to review the preparedness of the navy.67CJ ii. 271b. During the 1641 autumn recess he served on the Recess Committee. Those committees to which he was named in the second session of the Long Parliament (beginning in October 1641) were again mostly on military matters.68CJ ii. 288b, 294b, 305b, 320a.

His few other committee appointments largely reflected more personal concerns. He may well have had commercial interests in such matters as the complaints by the merchants, Richard Chambers and Samuel Vassall*, about their losses consequent upon their opposition to tonnage and poundage (2 Dec. 1640), the petition from the Virginia Adventurers (18 Dec.) and proposals for a company to trade with America and Africa (30 Aug. 1641). He took an interest in the unsuccessful bill to grant parochial status to his local church, St John’s, Wapping (the chapel of ease for St Mary’s, Whitechapel).69CJ ii. 43a, 54a, 276a, 277a-b. Later that day, when the Commons moved on to debate a bill to relieve creditors, Rainborowe contributed his only known speech, describing it as ‘a bill of ill consequence’ and thus helped to secure its defeat.70Procs. LP, vi. 614.

Rainborowe added a codicil to his will on 1 February 1642.71PROB11/189/21. He had died, however, some time before 14 February, for on that day a new writ was issued for the by-election at Aldeburgh.72CJ ii. 429a-b; PJ i. 371. Three days later he was buried at St John’s Wapping.73LMA St John, Wapping par. reg. transcript, f. 167; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 287. (In 1648 his eldest son, Thomas*, would be buried next to him.74Add. 72442, f. 184.) Rainborowe’s will, drawn up in 1638, shortly after his second wife’s death, instructed that his houses at Southwark and Wapping should pass to his two eldest sons and to his mother-in-law, and that a bequest of £50 should be made to Trinity House to allow them to pay 40s each year to poor sailors of Wapping.75PROB11/189/21.

The naval campaign of 1637 had made Rainborowe’s reputation. Such an expedition would not usually have been entrusted to those who were not career naval officers, but his success as a hired merchant-man had accorded him the authority thereafter to be consulted and to advise on all naval matters. Given his background in the mercantile world of London trade and his status as one of the most respected naval commanders available, it is likely that, had he lived, he would have supported Parliament against the king and gone on to play a major part in the administration of the navy during the 1640s. His sons’ subsequent careers tend to confirm that. Thomas, the eldest, became a parliamentarian colonel, vice-admiral and recruiter Member for Droitwich. Another son, William, became a major in the New Model army. Their step-sister, Judith, married Stephen Winthrop*, the son of John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts. Further intermarriage between the Rainborowes and the Winthrops took place in 1647 when Rainborowe’s eldest daughter, Martha, became Governor Winthrop’s fourth wife.