Luke Ward

Notes on Officer

WARDE, LUKE (fl. 1588), sea captain, was with (Sir) Martin Frobiser [q. v.] in his first and second voyages to the north-west, 1576–7. In April 1578 he is mentioned as having brought into Southampton a quantity of goods taken from pirates. In May 1578 he sailed again with Frobiser in his third voyage, being received as an adventurer ‘gratis,’ in consideration of his service. Luke Sound marks a place at which he landed. In December 1581 he was engaged in fitting out the Edward Bonaventure, in which in 1582–3 he was vice-admiral under Edward Fenton [q. v.] in the expedition for China, which did not get further than the coast of Brazil. Warde afterwards wrote the account of the voyage which was published by Hakluyt (Principal Navigations, iii. 757). In 1587–9 he commanded the queen's ship Tramontana against the Spanish armada and in the narrow seas. In 1590, still in the Tramontana, he was admiral, or, as it would now be called, senior officer, in the Narrow Seas. In 1591 he commanded the Swallow in the narrow seas. His name does not occur in the accounts of any of the numerous expeditions during the rest of the war, so that it is probable that he died shortly after 1591. The name, commonly written Ward, is shown by his signature (Cotton. MS. Otho, E. viii. freq.) to be Warde.