Charles Vane

Zach McGowan portrayed Charles Vane in the 2014 Starz television show Black Sails.

Vane also appears as a secondary character in the 2013 video game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, in which he was voiced by Ralph Ineson.

W. Morgan Sheppard portrayed Vane in the 1999 family film Treasure of Pirate's Point.

He was an actor, known for Comin' Thro' the Rye (1916), Whosoever Shall Offend (1919) and The Secret Seven (1914).

Charles Vane was born on January 2, 1860 in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, England as William George Yarrow.

Charles Vane (1680 – 29 March 1721) was an English pirate who operated in the Bahamas during the end of the Golden Age of Piracy.

Vane sailed to the Bay Islands, capturing sloops along the way, one of which Deal took command of. In February 1719, Vane and Deal were caught in a hurricane and separated; Vane was wrecked on an uninhabited island. When English ships arrived to collect water near the island, Vane tried to join one of the crews under a false name. He was recognized by an old acquaintance, and arrested.

When word reached the pirates that King George I of Great Britain had extended an offer of pardon to all pirates who wished to surrender, Vane led the pirates who opposed taking the pardon, which included many with Jacobite leanings. On 23 February 1718, Captain Vincent Pearse arrived at Nassau in HMS Phoenix (1694) , in an attempt to get the pirates on the island to surrender. Vane was captured along with his sloop, the Lark. Benjamin Hornigold, Thomas Nichols, and others urged Pearse to release Vane as a show of good faith, which he did; Vane afterwards took the King's pardon. But on 21 March, Vane and his men (including Edward England and Calico Jack Rackham) turned pirate again, capturing a Jamaican sloop. Vane sailed back to Nassau and harassed Pearse repeatedly, trading their sloop for the Lark. Vane left Nassau on 4 April; four days later Pearse left with HMS Phoenix, and Nassau was again controlled by the pirates.

Vane worked with Henry Jennings during Jennings' attack on the salvage camp for the wrecked Spanish 1715 Treasure Fleet. Vane first operated as an independent captain in the summer of 1717. By the winter of that year he was one of the leaders of the pirates operating out of Nassau.

Vane was likely born in the Kingdom of England around 1680. One of his first pirate ventures was under the leadership of Henry Jennings, during Jennings' attack on the salvage camp for the wrecked Spanish 1715 Treasure Fleet off the coast of Florida. By 1717, Vane was commanding his own vessels and was one of the leaders of the Republic of Pirates in Nassau. In 1718 Vane was captured but agreed to stop his criminal actions and accepted a King's Pardon; however just months later he and his men, including Edward England and Jack Rackham, returned to piracy. Unlike some other notable pirate captains of the age like Benjamin Hornigold and Samuel Bellamy, Vane was known for his cruelty, often beating, torturing and killing sailors from ships he captured. In February 1719, Vane was caught in a storm in the Bay Islands and was marooned on an uncharted island. Upon being discovered by a passing British ship, he was arrested and brought to Port Royal where he was eventually tried and hanged in March 1721.