Henry Mainwaring

Sir Henry Mainwaring (1587–1653), was an English lawyer, soldier, writer, seaman and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1621 to 1622. He was for a time a pirate based in Newfoundland and then a naval officer with the Royal Navy. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. Early life Mainwaring was born in Ightfield, Shropshire, second son of Sir George Mainwaring and his wife Ann, the daughter of Sir William More of Loseley Park in Surrey. His maternal grandfather was Sir William More, Vice-Admiral of Sussex. He graduated from Brasenose College at the University of Oxford, where he was awarded a B.A. in Law, at the age of 15, in 1602. He then served as trial lawyer (admitted in 1604 as a student at Inner Temple), soldier (possibly in the Low Countries), sailor, and author (pupil of John Davies of Hereford) before turning to piracy. From pirate-hunter to pirate