Description:The Articles of Examination indicate that Sir Walter Leveson was accused of involvement in the seizure of a number of fishing boats. He was also accused of being involved in the sale of the stolen cargo of fish obtained when the boats were captured in 1586.
The Depositions of witnesses suggest that Sir Walter was not guilty of direct involvement in the capture of the fishing boats. Edwarde Hollande stated that he had been shown ‘a dele of guifte or of bergaine and sale beinge subscribed withe the name of Walter Leveson…by whiche dele the said Walter Leveson gave the said shippe called the Golden Dragon with her furniture to John Mayer gent’
Indeed, John Mayer himself states in his own deposition that the Golden Dragon and the Hare were in his possession ‘in July, August and September Anno Domine 1586 and that they were bought of Sir Walter Leveson knight in June the same yeare’. He adds that the two ships ‘were delyvered unto him in the habour of Beamareys by Humfrey Clough by virtue of Leveson about the 16th or 17th of June in the yeare aforesaid’. These Depositions suggest that Sir Walter Leveson was not involved in the incident, the ships having been sold to John Mayer in June 1586.
Not surprisingly, once admitting to being the owner of the two ships in question, John Mayer’s deposition becomes more vague when he is questioned about the capture of the flyboats. He states that ‘the golden dragon tooke three fflyboates with fish being of dunkerk in Flaunders’. However, he suggests that he was unaware who the boats and fish belonged to, stating thatt ‘the owners he knew not’.
Concerning the sale of the cargo, one desposition states that ‘the fish was sold to those of John Mayer and his companie, and…Henry Belligard a Frenchman did sell some of the said fish and that accounpt of it was made to John Mayer’. The same deposition reveals that Sir Walter may have become implicated in the crime because John Mayer used money made from the illegal sale of the cargo to pay Sir Walter for the Golden Dragon and the Hare. The Deposition states that ‘fifty pounds of money was paid to Sir Walter Leveson’ by John Mayer’s commandment ‘in part paimient of the foresaid sum’ which he owed Sir Walter for the two ships.
The Depositions suggest that Sir Walter Leveson was not guilty of capturing the fishing boats as he did not own the Golden Dragon or the Hare at the time of the incident. Although he did received some of the profits made from the stolen fish, Davy Green’s Deposition indicates that the money and fish given to Sir Walter was by way of payment for the two ships which Mayer had purchased from him.
The documents relating to this case reflect how legal documents in the Sutherland Papers are able to tell us a great deal about the types of criminal activity which were dealt with by the legal authorities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.