John Cockram

2013-12-08T02:47:22Z

94.3.233.124: Updated with new information

{{Era|AC4|Templars}}
{{Spoilerhd}}
{{Stub}}
[[File:AC4-JohnCockram.png|thumb|200px|John Cockram]]
'''John Cockram''' (1689 – 1719) was a [[Piracy|pirate]], close friend and confidant of [[Benjamin Hornigold]]. He engaged in piracy for a few years prior to 1718, until he accepted the [[United Kingdom|British]] Crown's pardon after [[Woodes Rogers]]' arrival on [[Nassau]] and became a pirate hunter.

He and [[Josiah Burgess]] were killed in 1719 on the island of [[Príncipe]] on the coast of west [[Africa]] by [[Edward Kenway]] in an attempt to rescue [[Bartholomew Roberts]].

==Final words==
*'''Cockram:''' ''You done us good, Kenway. Proved yourself a true bravo. And for what?''
*'''Burgess:''' ''His own bloody pride.''
*'''Edward:''' ''You stepped in the path of my prize. Not a thing a man should do.''
*'''Cockram:''' ''A cocksure cully, just like [[Benjamin Hornigold|Hornigold]] said.''
*'''Edward:''' ''That [[Templars|Templar]] scab means nothing to me. None of you do.''
*'''Burgess:''' ''And you're worse for it, Kenway! It were the Templars who took us in when all else went to shit! Not our king. Not our country. The Templars.''
*'''Cockram:''' ''The Templars is our family. Where's yours?''
==Trivia==
*Depsite wearing a red coat in his renders he instead wheres a blue coat similiar to Burgess in the game.

==Gallery==
<gallery captionalign="center" position="center" spacing="small" widths="180">
AC4 John Cockram ( E3 ) closeups by threedsquid.jpg|John Cockram
AC4 John Cockram by threedsquid.jpg|Renders
AC4 John Cockram 3D model by threedsquid.jpg|3D model of John Cockram
</gallery>

==Reference==
*''[[Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag]]''
{{AC4}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cockram, John}}
[[Category:1689 births]]
[[Category:1719 deaths]]
[[Category:Individuals]]
[[Category:Pirates]]
[[Category:Templars]]
[[Category:Templars killed by Assassins]]

Bartholomew Roberts

2013-12-08T02:33:01Z

94.3.233.124: Factual correction

{{Era|AC4}}
{{WP-REAL}}
{{Spoilerhd}}
{{Character Infobox
|image = AC4_Bartholomew_Roberts.png
|birth = 17 May 1682 Casnewydd Bach, {{Wiki|Wales}}
|death = 10 February 1722 (aged 39) Near [[Príncipe]], [[Africa]]
|faction = [[Laurens Prins]] (c. 1715 – 1717) [[Edward Kenway]] (1719 – 1722)
|appear = ''[[Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag]]''
|voice = [[Oliver Milburn]]}}
'''Bartholomew Roberts''' (1682 – 1722), born '''John Roberts''', was a [[United Kingdom|Welsh-born]] British [[Piracy|pirate]], and [[Sages|Sage]], who raided [[ships]] in the [[Caribbean]] and on the West [[Africa]]n coast between 1719 and 1722.

He is regarded by many historians to be the most successful pirate of all time, judging by the number of ships taken and the amount of goods stolen. For his actions, he earned the moniker '''Black Bart''', although the name was never used in his lifetime.

==Biography==
===Imprisonment by Templars===
The [[Templars|Templar Order]] located Roberts sometime in 1715 and took him to [[Havana]], where he was imprisoned in the estate of [[Laureano de Torres y Ayala]]. Torres, his fellow Templars [[Woodes Rogers]] and [[Julien du Casse]], along with [[Edward Kenway]] – under the guise of the turncoat [[Assassins|Assassin]] [[Duncan Walpole]] – met Roberts at the Havana docks before taking him to the prison.

During the transit, he managed to break free when the Templars were attacked by the Assassins sent by [[Ah Tabai]], but was chased down by Kenway and escorted to Torres' estate. He was moved later that same day, but escaped soon after and took to the sea.

===Slaving in Kingston and Príncipe===
In 1717, the Templars learned that Roberts had been recaptured by a [[Kingston]]-based [[Slavery|slaver]] named [[Laurens Prins]], who had indeed encountered Roberts, but had in fact employed him in the slaving business, allowing him to stay in his Kingston estate before planning to sell him out to the Templars.

Kenway, acting on information given by his fellow pirates, confronted Torres and devised a plan to have the Templar master meet with Prins in Kingston, where the pirate captain would then locate and free Roberts. However, Prins detected Kenway and the Assassin [[Mary Read]] and managed to flee back to his mansion.

When Kenway killed Prins in his gardens, Roberts appeared, declaring that Prins had been his employer instead of his jailer. Shooting an alarm bell to alert guards to Kenway's presence, Roberts escaped once more and commandeered Prins' ship, the ''[[Princess]]''. It made regular trips between Kingston and the African nation of [[Príncipe]] roughly every eight weeks. Roberts eventually went into hiding in the Principe jungle after the ship was captured by Templars in late 1718.

===Piracy===
{{Quote|For I have dipped my hands in muddied water, and, withdrawing them, find it better to be a commander than a common man!|Bartholomew Roberts to his crew, before his first voyage as a pirate, 1719.|Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag}}
When Kenway found Roberts hiding in the African jungle in 1719, he struck a deal with the Sage to free his imprisoned crew in exchange for Roberts leading him to the First Civilization site known as the [[Observatory]]. Kenway killed the Templars in Príncipe, freed the crew, and recaptured the ''Princess''. Roberts gave a speech to his crew declaring his intentions to sail as a pirate, and the two captains sailed back to the West Indies.

In the following months, Roberts made a name for himself, taking ships and making a fortune. He called himself "Black Bart" and kept his crew to high standards with an [[Pirate code of Bartholomew Roberts|eleven-part creed]]; it discouraged gambling on the ship, required the men to keep their equipment in good working order, and provided that pirates should live their lives as fully as possible and die before they became weak and old, vulnerable to having their power stripped from them: a philosophy he summed up with the words "a merry life and a short one."

Roberts and Kenway met again off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, where they infiltrated a Portuguese camp to steal First Civilization [[blood vials]] that had been imbued with the blood of both pirates and Templars alike. After completing the heist and commandeering the Portuguese flagship, Roberts renamed it the ''[[Royal Fortune]]''. Kenway killed [[Benjamin Hornigold]] to ensure the pirates were not followed before meeting Roberts again at [[Long Bay]], on the northern shore of [[Jamaica]]. The two went ashore with four of Roberts's crew in search of the Observatory.

===The Observatory===
{{Quote|Dirty and decrepit. Not quite as I remember. But it has been over 80 millennia.|Bartholomew Roberts, on the Observatory, 1719.|Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag}}
Edward cleared the jungle of the protective [[Guardians]] while Roberts and his crew followed until they reached the Observatory's door. Upon opening it with an incantation, he suddenly shot his four crewmen dead, telling Kenway he did it to save them from the insanity that was sure to follow if they entered the building, whereas he believed Edward could handle the secrets stored within. To this, the two walked inside.

Roberts informed Kenway of his past as a Sage and his new life as a pirate, including his pirate's creed, as they made their way deeper and deeper into the Observatory. He even commented on it being in much worse condition than what it had been when he had last seen it eighty millennia ago, although he still knew how to deactivate the building's security measures once inside.

In the Observatory's antechamber, Roberts showed Kenway exactly what its purpose was, using the blood vials they had taken from the Portuguese and inserting them into a [[Crystal Skulls|Crystal Skull]] set into the centerpiece of a golden armillary sphere. Soon, the machine began to operate, projecting the vision of the individual whose blood was in the vial - a perfect method of spying on any individual in the world.

Although Kenway agreed with Roberts that the Observatory would be too powerful for the Templars to have control of, Roberts had a different plan on how to stop them - by removing the skull, rendering the Observatory inoperable. He then kicked Edward over a ledge and into the water below, remarking that there was no part of his creed that forbade betrayal.

Roberts returned to the shore, but was surprised to see a severely wounded Kenway struggling across the beach. After a brief fight, Kenway collapsed; the Sage commented that it would be more profitable to claim the bounty on Kenway's head than to kill him, following which he made the sale and disappeared.

===Death===
Over the next two years Robert's captured hundreds of ships(presumably with the aid of The Observatory) earning the attention of both the British and Spanish navy as well as the Templars forcing him to retreat to Principe where Kenway found him. Roberts attempted to flee aboard HMS ''Royal Fortune ''keeping the ''Jackdaw'' at bay with mortar fire and fire barrels before moving out into more open waters where Spanish and British forces engaged him. Eventually the ''HMS Royal Fortune'' was disabled by the ''[[Jackdaw]]'' and boarded. On board, Bartholomew Roberts and Edward Kenway – the last of the pirate captains – fought one another, with Kenway emerging the eventual victor, having impaled Roberts with his [[Rope darts|rope dart]].

Roberts first thought about the aptness of his motto "A merry life and a short one" before remarking that he may have misjudged Kenway and perhaps he was indeed the one [[Juno|she]] had sought, and that he wished he only had the time to open the door to the [[Grand Temple|Temple]], confusing Edward, who demanded he make some sense. Roberts requested that Edward destroy his body, in order to prevent the Templars' from gaining anything from it, and passed away.

Edward complied with his final request.

==Final words==
*'''Bartholomew:''' ''A merry life and a short one, as promised. How well I know myself. And what of you, Edward? Have you found the peace you seek?''
*'''Edward:''' ''I'm not aiming so high as that. For what's peace but a confusion between two wars?''
*'''Bartholomew:''' ''You're a stoic then! Perhaps I was wrong about you. She might have had some use for you after all.''
*'''Edward:''' ''She? Of whom do you speak?''
*'''Bartholomew:''' ''Oh... she who lies in wait. Entombed. I had hoped to find her, to see her again. To open the door of the Temple and hear her speak my name once more. [[Aita]]...''
*'''Edward:''' ''Talk sense, man.''
*'''Bartholomew:''' ''I was born too soon, like so many others before.''
*'''Edward:''' ''Where's the device, Roberts?''
Bartholomew handed the Crystal Skull to Edward.
*'''Bartholomew:''' ''Destroy this body, Edward. The Templars... if they take me...''

==Trivia==
*Roberts could be seen wearing a portrait necklace, depicting a visage of a woman, identical to the one worn by [[John]], one of Aita's later reincarnations.

==Gallery==
<gallery captionalign="center" position="center" spacing="small" widths="180">
Concept Art - Black Bart.jpg|Concept art of Bartholomew Roberts
A_Man_They_Call_The_Sage_3.png|Governor Torres questioning Roberts
A Man They Call The Sage 6.png|An Assassin attempting to liberate Roberts in Havana
Unmanned_9.png|Roberts holding Mary Read at gunpoint
</gallery>

==Reference==
*''[[Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag]]''
{{AC4}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Bartholomew}}
[[Category:1682 births]]
[[Category:Individuals who held Pieces of Eden]]
[[Category:Sages]]
[[Category:Individuals killed by Assassins]]
[[Category:1722 deaths]]
[[Category:Individuals]]
[[Category:Pirates]]
[[Category:Welshmen]]

Assassin's Creed Wiki - User contributions [en-gb]

John Cockram

Bartholomew Roberts