Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood had sent Lt. Maynard and the HMS Pearl to capture and kill him. They finally managed to do so via a ruse. After a firefight at Blackbeard’s favored haunt and hideout, Teach's Hole, Maynard feinted by allowing the HMS Pearl to be boarded. When Blackbeard came aboard, they sprang from the ship's hold swinging swords and firing pistols.
Teach managed to break Maynard’s sword with his cutlass before a navy seaman slit his throat from behind. He was then decapitated with his severed head being hung from the bow of the HMS Pearl, then placed on a pike at the mouth of the Hampton River in Virginia, as a warning to pirates.
Teaches' Hole, Ocracoke Village, NC:
The wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge was found buried in sand and silt in surprisingly shallow water south of there a number of years ago in Beaufort Inlet at Beaufort, NC.