What, you mean doctorates in History don’t count?
But a Tardis would have been very useful over the weekend, when I was in Portsmouth for the AGM of the Society for Nautical Research, followed by a splendid dinner on the lower gundeck of HMS Victory, but I’d also have loved to be in Chatham for ‘Medway in Flames’, the culmination of the commemorative events (on this side of the North Sea, at any rate) for the 350th anniversary of the Dutch attack on the Medway. Bilocation, or at least, being able to make quick temporal jumps back and forth between Portsmouth and Medway via a Tardis, would have been very useful indeed. Fortunately, though, thanks to the joys of the interweb, I’ve been able to catch up on the shenanigans in Kent via local news and the council’s live stream of the event. It looks very jolly, but would it have been preferable to quaffing Pimms on the quarterdeck of Victory? Now there’s a conundrum for a Time Lord to address.
The manic June continues, though, and on Thursday I’ll be hopping on the Eurostar, bound for Amsterdam, for the conference on the Dutch raid organised jointly by the UK’s Naval Dockyards Society and the Dutch Vrienden van de Witt. I’m looking forward to catching up with lots of Dutch friends, and to giving my paper on the political and ideological implications of the raid for the Stuart monarchy! I hope to be able to blog about the conference next Monday, but that might prove to be a bit optimistic given the schedule for the weekend, so there might be a delay of a day or two.
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Meanwhile, multiple good news for all Quintonistas! The new title, The Devil Upon the Wave, will be published by Endeavour Press before the end of the month, initially as an e-book but also available in short order on print-on-demand. Apologies for the slight delay, as I’d hoped it would be out before the main Medway events, but I hope you’ll agree it’s worth the short wait – the main action is set against the backdrop of the Dutch attacks on the Medway, and then the subsequent assault on Landguard Fort at Felixstowe. As well as featuring most of the regular series characters, there are also ‘guest appearances’ from the likes of King Charles II, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, and, yes, Admiral Michiel de Ruyter.
Endeavour will also be bringing out the first Quinton omnibus – a special e-book edition of the first three titles in the series, Gentleman Captain, The Mountain of Gold and The Blast That Tears the Skies. So all your summer holiday reading requirements are sorted!