18 Facts About Francis Verney

Sir Francis Verney was an English adventurer, soldier of fortune, and pirate.

Francis Verney's supposed conversion to Islam with Ward in 1610 was the cause of considerable controversy in his native country.

Francis Verney was later captured and spent two years in the Sicily slave galleys.

Francis Verney was rescued by an English Jesuit in 1614 and converted to Catholicism shortly before his death.

The only son of Audrey Gardner and Sir Edmund Verney, Francis Verney was born in 1584 at Pendley Manor in Tring, Hertfordshire, England.

In 1599, Francis Verney was married to his stepsister, Ursula St Barbe, daughter of William St Barbe of Broadlands and Mary Blackeney.

Francis Verney persuaded her husband to divide the property granted to Francis by his uncle's will with their son Edmund.

Francis Verney appealed to the House of Commons to reverse the family arrangement which an Elizabethan Act sanctioned years earlier.

Francis Verney sold his estates following his loss, effectively deserting his wife, and went abroad.

Francis Verney wandered the continent for some time, visiting Jerusalem during his travels, and became an accomplished adventurer and world traveler.

On his return trip to England, Francis Verney briefly attended religious services with George Carew at the English embassy in Paris.

Francis Verney had "fought several duellos" but, since departing his home country, had lost what remained of his fortune.

Francis Verney spent the summer and fall of 1608 to tie up loose ends, giving "general irrevocable authority" to his uncle Urian Francis Verney and handed his remaining title deeds to another uncle, and left England for a final time.

Francis Verney was eventually captured by a Sicilian corsair and spent two years in captivity as a galley slave until being ransomed to an English Jesuit.

Francis Verney was granted his freedom on the condition that he convert to Catholicism which he did.

Francis Verney spent the remainder of his life in Sicily where he was forced to enlist as a common soldier in the service of the Duke of Sona, the Spanish viceroy of Palermo.

Interest in Francis Verney carried over into the 20th century as part of the era's popular culture.

Francis Verney was referenced in Dashiell Hammett's 1930 detective novel The Maltese Falcon as one of the people who possessed the jeweled bird.