In the common imagination linked to pirates and boarding fleets, the pirate Woodleg it’s a very bad character, without a leg and with a parrot on his shoulder. This figure is inspired by a real-life corsair, the Frenchman François Le Clercwhich terrorized the world’s largest fleets in the 1500s.
In the service of the King of France first and then the Queen of England, Le Clerc actually lost a leg and replaced it with a wooden one, hence his name “Jambe de Bois“, in Italian “Wooden Leg”. His picturesque figure and his cruelty contributed to creating the myth of this pirate, whose fame has reached the present day, also associated with the pirate Long John Silver of Treasure Island and Mickey Mouse’s enemy Pietro Gambadilegno.
Le Clerc loses his leg while fighting for France
François Le Clerc was born in France, on the coasts of Normandy, presumably between the last years of 1400 and the beginning of 1500. The proximity of the sea and the adventurous spirit led him to enlist, as soon as he reached the age to do so, in King Henry II’s fleet which guarded the coasts of the French Channel from the English and Spanish invaders, bitter enemies at the time.
Le Clerc immediately demonstrated cunning and skill and, right in the waters of the English Channel, in 1549, during a clash with the British fleet, loses his left leg which is then replaced with a wooden one. Even in this condition Le Clerc continues to fight, so much so that he attracts the attention of the king, who gives him military honors and a new role, that of official corsair of the kingdom of France. His task, therefore, was to attack the Spanish ships that left the Indies loaded with gold, obstructing the enemies’ trade routes.
Battles and terror in the seas: the “Pirate Gambadilegno” and his fleet
In 1553, therefore, the privateer fleet left Normandy – almost a thousand men on galleons and caravels – captained by François Le Clerc, the pirate with the wooden leg.
Near the Canaries they attacked the ships and destroyed the city of Santa Cruz de la Palma, putting it on fire: Gambadilegno’s attack is still remembered today every 4th August, with the celebrations of The day of the corsairthe “day of the corsair”. After a year, Le Clerc launches another memorable attack on Gran Canaria: this is how the myth of Gambadilegnoa nickname that is immediately associated with Le Clerc’s ferocity.
Subsequently, the privateer fleet moved towards the Caribbean and then towards Cuba: the island was so devastated that the capital, until then located in Santiago de Cuba, was moved to Havana as it was tactically better placed to react to the attacks. Gambadilegno-Le Clerc’s fame was sky-high: a pirate feared in the seven seas, admired by the king of France, he settled on the island of Santa Lucia in the Lesser Antilles, where he continued to attack ships headed for Europe.
When the king of France died, Gambadilegno no longer had protection and, dissatisfied with the choices of Francis II, he therefore offered his collaboration to Elizabeth I, queen of England, an enemy of both France and Spain. He fought again for the ports of Normandy, but this time on the side of the English: the queen, however, refused to pay him his compensation and therefore Gambadilegno decided to move as an “independent” pirate. However, he died shortly afterwards, in 1563, in the Azores during an assault.
References in literature, cinema and mass culture
The myth of the pirate with a wooden leg and a parrot on his shoulder – an exotic animal that accompanied him – had already spread enough to go down in history. In fact, in more recent times, it has been adopted into contemporary mass culture.
When it came out in 1883 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, readers got to know the figure of one of the most evil pirates ever, Long John Silverwho had a wooden leg and a parrot. And when it came to naming the Mickey Mouse’s number one enemywas born Pietro Gambadilegnowho despite not being a pirate bore his name.
