William Winter (Royal Navy officer)

Sir William Winter (died 1589) was an admiral under Queen Elizabeth I of England and served the crown during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604).

Winter was born at Brecknock, the son of John Winter (ob.1546 - a merchant and sea captain of Bristol and treasurer of the navy, who was friendly with Sir Thomas Cromwell) and Alice, daughter of William Tirrey of Cork.

Naval career

Winter was schooled in the navy and took part in the 260 ship expedition of 1544, which burned Leith and Edinburgh. In 1545 he served in Lord Lisle's channel fleet; two years later he took part in Protector Somerset's expedition to Scotland, and two years after that in an expedition to Guernsey and Jersey. In that same year, 1549, he was appointed surveyor of the navy, and in the following year he superintended the removal of the ships from Portsmouth to Gillingham. He then commanded the "Minion" when it captured a French ship, taking a reward of £100 to be shared out among the crew of 300, and went on a voyage to the Levant in 1553.

In 1557 Winter was appointed master of navy ordnance, which post he held along with the surveyorship for the rest of his life. He was present at the burning of Conquet in 1558 and commanded a fleet to guard against French landings in Scotland in 1559. Here he blockaded the Firth of the Forth & burnt 7 ships under d'Elbouf not only that all supplies were cut off from France. The result was the Treaty of Edinburgh of 1560 which brought an end to the 'Auld Alliance'. In 1561 he purchased Lydney Manor in Gloucestershire as his residence. In 1563 he served in the fleet off Havre.

In 1571, during the first of the Desmond Rebellions one of Winter's ships was sized at Kinsale by James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, the Irish rebel. On the 12th of August 1573, Winter was knighted, but in 1577 he was passed over for the post of treasurer of the navy in place of Sir John Hawkins, a promotion that would have doubled his income. Nevertheless, Sir William Winter and his brother George, both received a handsome return on their investment in Sir Francis Drake's 1577 Voyage. 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.

Spanish Armada

In 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, Winter joined the main fleet of Lord Howard off Calais and proposed the fire-ship plan to drive the Spaniards from their anchorage; he took a celebrated part in the battle off Gravelines on the 29th of July, which was the only time in his career when he had hard fighting. During the engagement, he received a severe blow on the hip when a demi-cannon toppled over. 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.

Having been created admiral, Winter supported charges of dishonesty against the treasurer of the navy, Hawkins, and wrote critically of him to Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley.

Winter died in 1589.

Legacy

Winter married Mary Langton and had four sons and four daughters.

References

*Richard Bagwell, "Ireland under the Tudors" 3 vols. (London, 1885–1890).
*"Dictionary of National Biography" 22 vols. (London, 1921–1922).