J D Davies Historian and Author

 

Projects

FICTION

I've completed The Blast That Tears The Skies, the third 'journal of Matthew Quinton'. This is set in the opening year of the war - 1665 - and centred on the Battle of Lowestoft, one of the most stunning victories in British naval history. I've been working on the plotting of the fourth in the series, provisionally entitled The Lion of Midnight, and hope to start writing shortly.

I'm also developing a couple of other projects set in different historical periods.

NON-FICTION

I'm currently working on a book about the Stepney family, baronets of my home town of Llanelli in Carmarthenshire, to tie in with the restoration of their stunning Georgian town residence, Llanelly House (which reached the final in the first series of the BBC's Restoration). I'm working closely with the project team who are aiming to open the house to the public in 2012/13, which is also the target date for the book. The Stepneys were colourful, larger than life personalities; over the centuries, they provided intimate friends (in some cases, very intimate friends) for the likes of 'the Grand Old Duke of York', Charles James Fox, Disraeli, Gladstone and Dylan Thomas. At the heart of their history is a family feud that would have done credit to the Borgias, culminating in a bizarre will that had repercussions which endured for nearly 150 years. They were also the direct descendants, and claimants to the titles, of the Ruthven Earls of Gowrie, the subjects of my book Blood of Kings, so the Stepney book will also be a 'sequel' to that.

cover
Anne2
Llanelli House

The cover of the original trade paperback British edition of Gentleman Captain, also used as the home page, was specially commissioned from Richard Endsor, the leading authority on warship design and construction in the Restoration period. Richard has made a detailed study of the art of the Van De Veldes and other artists of the time, and seeks to recreate their style in his own work. Richard’s book The Restoration Warship: The Design, Construction and Career of a Third Rate of Charles II’s Navy, extensively illustrated by the author, was published by Conway Maritime Press in 2009.

Richard was formerly chairman of the Warship Anne Trust, of which I'm a trustee. His painting, reproduced at the top of this page. shows the Anne following the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690, ablaze and grounded on Pett Level near Hastings, where the lower part of her hull still lies under the sand. Her remains form the largest surviving relic of the navy of Charles II, Samuel Pepys and Matthew Quinton.