MOVE OVER KEIRA KNIGHTLEY – THESE TWO ARE THE REAL THING
If you thought the plot of ‘Pirates 3’ was complicated, take a look at the true story...(be warned: spoilers follow...)
FROM RICHES TO RAGS
Anne Bonny was born in Co.Cork, in Ireland in the early 1700s. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was his maid. The scandal of Anne’s birth split the family apart and her father moved with the maid and his new daughter to South Carolina, where he became a big plantation owner. Anne grew up a society lady, living in luxury, but not long after that she met and fell in love with the pirate James Bonny, married him and followed him to sea.
AN OFFICER AND A LADY
Mary Read was born into poverty in London and, when she was still very young, her mother started dressing her as a boy. This was to try and pass her off as her older brother (who had just died) – Mary’s grandmother had promised to support the boy and her mother wanted Mary to get the benefits intended for her son. When Mary got older, she ran away and, disguised as a man, joined the British Army. She fought with great distinction in Flanders and it was there she met and fell in love with her captain. She revealed her true identity to him and they subsequently married, leaving the army to set up a tavern together. Soon after, however, Mary’s husband died of influenza and Mary was forced to put on her men’s clothes again and set off for America. En route there, her ship was attacked and taken by pirates and they gave the young ‘Englishman’ a choice: join us, or die. Mary turned pirate.
SAVED BY THE BELLY
Meanwhile, the not-yet-twenty Anne had met and run away with flashy pirate John Rackham, otherwise known as Calico Jack. Mary and Anne met aboard Calico Jack’s ship and the rest is history. They became two of the most successful pirates of the golden age of piracy and had many wild adventures before their eventual capture in 1720. Calico Jack and his crew were sentenced and hanged – Anne reportedly having said to Jack before he died: ‘if you had fought like a man, you need not have been
hanged like a dog’- but just as they themselves were led to the gallows, Mary and Anne played their trump card: “we’re pregnant!” Their sentence was suspended and they were incarcerated in prison.
UNSOLVED MYSTERY
Mary Read died in prison not long after the trial, and her body was buried in the parish of St. Catherine in Jamaica. As for Anne Bonny, she was never hanged, and there’s no reliable record of either her death or her release from prison. She simply disappeared.
