Blog Posts

First and foremost, apologies for the lack of blogging of late, caused by a complete inability to think of things to blog about – presumably caused in turn by lockdown ennui. Actually, though, lockdown has proved to be quite productive for me:

• Books read – not really keeping count, but somewhere in the region of 25 (and one of them was The Mirror and the Light, which surely counts quintuple)
• Books abandoned part way through – 5
• Books currently ‘on the go’ – 3
• Books written by self sent off to publisher – 1
• Netflix watched – 0
• Quality TV watched – plenty
• Mindless TV watched – even more
• Local walks discovered – probably around 10
• Manors once owned by William the Conqueror’s sister discovered on said walks – 1
• Lofts tidied – 1

Recently, though, I’ve started to reread some of my own books, not because I’ve run out of other authors’ work to read (books in ‘to read’ pile, either physical or Kindle – somewhere around 30 at least) but essentially to reacquaint myself with the Quinton titles, several of which I haven’t actually read since I finished writing them. I always used to scoff at those actors who appeared on talk shows and said they’d forgotten a lot about the film they were meant to be promoting because they were now so bound up in their next project. But it’s true; even before a book has gone through all its production stages and been published, an author has probably already started writing the next one, or at least planning it. It actually feels quite odd to go back and read one’s own words in this way, rather than during the white heat of the original writing and editing processes, so I thought I’d try to explain some of the thoughts that have gone through my mind as I’ve done so.

• Good grief, did I really write this? I can’t remember doing it.
• Good grief, did I really write this? It’s actually pretty good.
• (A few lines later) Good grief, did I really write this? It’s absolute garbage.
• I wish I’d added this joke / fact / violent character death at this point.
• I wish I’d deleted this adjective / flowery description / character / entire subplot.
• I made that mistake? Phew, what a whopper. Thank goodness nobody seems to have noticed.
• How on earth did that typo somehow slip through all the editing and proofreading stages?
• This book is how long? 

The one that I’m rereading at the moment is the third of the Quinton Journals, The Blast That Tears the Skies. This is set in 1665 and could easily have been given a Friends-like subtitle, ‘The One with the Plague in it’. (Note the date. According to one academic article which I stumbled across the other day, ‘Along with the return of the monarchy London also undergoes restoration after the Great Fire of London in 1665, and a plague the subsequent year’. FAIL.) Some of the passages which I wrote some ten years ago now – ten years!! how did that happen? – seem to me have acquired new layers of meaning in the last few months. See if you agree!

From a passage where Matthew Quinton and his party attend a royal reception at the Banqueting House in Whitehall

…for all the surface bonhomie, the atmosphere was markedly less carefree than usual. The first glance of a courtier is always laden with suspicion: will you prove a rival to me? will you seduce my woman? But that night, men and women eyed each other even more keenly. Was that bead of sweat upon one’s brow merely a natural response to the heat, or the first symptom of the plague? Was that slight cough issuing from Lady So-and-So’s throat the harbinger of doom for us all?

Matthew’s uncle Tristram falls into conversation with his old friend Sir William Petty at a meeting of the Royal Society

‘The mortality rates are troubling so early in the year, particularly in Saint Giles-in-the-Fields’, said Petty gloomily.

‘Mortality rates!’ Tristram scoffed. ‘Not worth the paper they’re printed on, Will. Meaningless numbers. Every man knows that half or more of plague cases never get recorded as such – who wants their houses shut up for all those weeks? And the constables and the aldermen connive in it, of course, so that their wards and parishes don’t lose trade.’

‘Quite, Tristram,’ said Petty. ‘But therefore, and by your own logic, the true incidence of plague must be especially troubling, it being still so early in the season. Yet here we are, the Royal Society, allegedly the finest minds in all of England, and are we putting all our efforts into finding a remedy for the plague? No, we are not! We are –‘

‘Killing cats and getting hens drunk, Will?’

‘Ah – umm – well, perhaps it might have been more revealing if you had tried the Florentine poison upon some poor soul afflicted with the plague.’ Petty shrugged. ‘But I suppose that would have meant bringing him among us, and we could hardly risk infecting this august body with the pestilence…’

Finally, the Quinton family’s eccentric retainer Phineas Musk relaxes after what he considers to be a hard day’s work

Musk had consumed a most acceptable rabbit pie at the Vulture on Cornhill, noticeably quieter than usual as the more timid clientele sought to avoid any risk of infection; he had contemplated the merits of several tankards of prime Wapping ale, and found them satisfactory; best of all, Goodwife Marten, cheerily unconcerned by plague and her marriage vows alike, had proved very willing to entertain him for an hour or so. True, he had seen a beggar drop dead in Portsoken and heard those who ran to attend the corpse proclaim in terror that it was the pestilence, but one less beggar was hardly a matter of much concern. Moreover, Musk had never been within twenty feet of the cadaver, so in his estimation the plague could not trouble him. Besides, it was well known that drinking prodigiously was one of the surest defences against the pestilence. Phineas Musk was doubly secure.

I’m hugely honoured to have recently become acting chairman of the Society for Nautical Research. I feel very humble about taking this position and following in the footsteps of some very distinguished former incumbents, including my immediate predecessor, Admiral Sir Kenneth Eaton, who will be a very hard to act to follow. It’s obviously a difficult time to be taking up the post; quite apart from anything else, the ‘acting’ nature of the title pro tem reflects the fact that under ordinary circumstances, I would have assumed the role following election at the AGM in June, but the current situation has led to the cancellation of that event. With no certainty over when or how that meeting might be rescheduled, it was felt better to make the handover sooner rather than later. I hope, though, that in due course the membership will have the opportunity to endorse (or not!) my continuation in office.

Founded in 1910, the SNR is the world’s oldest society devoted to the study and preservation of maritime heritage. Its most notable achievements occurred in the first thirty years of its existence: it led the campaign to save HMS Victory for the nation (and still administers the Save the Victory Fund, which provides financial support for the upkeep of the ship), and was the principal driving force behind the establishment of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. The society still has very close ties with both that institution and with the National Museum of the Royal Navy, which is now responsible for the Victory. Indeed, perhaps the highlight of the society’s calendar is the annual dinner aboard Victory following the annual general meeting, an event so special that members often fly in from all over the world to experience it. Obviously, that isn’t happening this year, but I’ll look forward to returning to the lower gun deck for a sumptuous feast next year – although the headroom on that particular deck always presents me with logistical issues!

These days, the society is probably best known for the publishing The Mariner’s Mirror, the world’s premier research journal in the field. In recent years, the Mirror has become much more international in its scope, drawing scholars from all round the world to publish in it. As a result, and also thanks to its high standard of peer review, the Mirror has become a must-have for those interested in maritime history, covering a very wide range of themes and containing the work of established academics as well as early career scholars and independent researchers; and if you don’t believe me, take a look at the contents of a recent issue, here.

All in all, then, I’m fully aware of the great responsibility I’m taking on, especially in present circumstances. But having been a member of the society for thirty-five years, I know that I can fall back on a tremendous asset – my fellow members, a remarkably broad and varied body of people united by their love of the sea, of ships, and of the people who sailed on them, built them, or supported them.

 

Following on directly from last week’s post, where I announced that the third book in the ‘Jack Stannard of the Navy Royal’ trilogy is named Armada’s Wake, I’m now delighted to unveil its cover! Yet again, the lovely people at Canelo have done me proud – I thought the first two covers, for Destiny’s Tide and Battle’s Flood, were good, but this one is even better, in my humble opinion. See if you agree!

More news below the image…

I can also announce that Armada’s Wake is now available for preorder, and will be published on 20 August – only in e-book format at the moment. (Sorry to all you hard-copy lovers, a cohort in which I number myself.) If we’re still in lockdown then, what more could you ask for to while away yet another few days before things may or may not become a bit less abnormal again?

A long, long time ago, when very old people still remembered what the words ‘pubs’, ‘sport’ and ‘handshakes’ meant, I started writing a book. This was to be the third title in my trilogy set in the sixteenth century, ‘Jack Stannard of the Navy Royal’, and until now has had a cunningly disguised provisional work-in-progress title, namely ‘the one with the Spanish Armada in it’. However, I can now reveal the book’s official title, which is…wait for it…

ARMADA’S WAKE

I hope to provide a cover reveal and a publication date before very long. In the meantime, here’s a quick teaser (NB this contains spoilers for the second book in the series, Battle’s Flood)

It is twenty years after the shattering events at San Juan de Ulua, where shipmaster Jack Stannard of Dunwich was captured by the Spanish after the catastrophic failure of the John Hawkins / Francis Drake expedition to the Caribbean. Now England faces the existential threat of the approaching Spanish Armada, and Jack’s son Tom is ready to venture out to meet it, alongside his strange, fanatically religious eldest son Adam, as part of the Narrow Seas fleet. Tom’s middle son Peter, a wild and free-spirited actor, has very different plans of his own, although they don’t include finding himself unexpectedly serving in the royal army at Tilbury, hearing Queen Elizabeth I deliver one of the greatest speeches of all time. The youngest of the three brothers, also named Jack in tribute to his lost grandfather, will be the first to confront the Armada as he ventures out to sea from Plymouth aboard the royal galleon Revenge, commanded by the enigmatic, ruthless living legend that is Sir Francis Drake.

Meanwhile in Dunwich, Tom’s sister Meg faces a terrible danger of her own – charges of witchcraft, brought against her by one whom she should have been able to count among her nearest and dearest.

But what none of the Stannards know is that aboard the galleass Girona, one of the most important vessels in the entire Armada, the slaves at their oars keep time both to the beat of the drum and to the still strong singing voice of a very old man who speaks Spanish with a strange accent…

***

Armada’s Wake was completed ahead of schedule, partly as a result of the current lockdown – after all, it’s not really too different to the normal author lifestyle anyway. I’m also finally completing my long-gestating book on the Stepney family, and will then be starting to develop some new projects. Watch this space for details of those! Otherwise, I’ve been reading (and have just finished) Hilary Mantel’s epic The Mirror and the Light; not quite as good as the first two, IMHO – but then, of course, the same was true of Henry VIII’s wives – yet still vastly superior to pretty much anything else that’s already been published, or is likely to be published, this year (except Armada’s Wake, naturally…).

I wasn’t going to blog during this strange and troubling time, but all of a sudden the seventeenth century has become the go-to period for historical parallels, and my old friend Samuel Pepys has seen a huge upsurge in interest – even earning the ultimate accolade of an opinion piece in the New York Times. In truth, though, our Sam was about the worst apostle for social distancing one could ever encounter. Here, for example, is part of his entry for 10 August 1665:

By and by to the office, where we sat all the morning; in great trouble to see the Bill this week rise so high, to above 4,000 in all, and of them above 3,000 of the plague. And an odd story of Alderman Bence’s stumbling at night over a dead corps in the streete, and going home and telling his wife, she at the fright, being with child, fell sicke and died of the plague. We sat late, and then by invitation my Lord Brunker, Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten and I to Sir G. Smith’s to dinner, where very good company and good cheer. Captain Cocke was there and Jacke Fenn, but to our great wonder Alderman Bence, and tells us that not a word of all this is true, and others said so too, but by his owne story his wife hath been ill, and he fain to leave his house and comes not to her, which continuing a trouble to me all the time I was there.

Thence to the office and, after writing letters, home, to draw over anew my will, which I had bound myself by oath to dispatch by to-morrow night; the town growing so unhealthy, that a man cannot depend upon living two days to an end. So having done something of it, I to bed.

So thousands might be dying, Pepys knows he might die at any moment and is putting his affairs in order, but hey, let’s have a jolly dinner party anyway. The next day, he’s harassing a woman he’s never met before in one of the countless distinctly non-#metoo episodes which pervade his diary. Meanwhile the churches remained open, and when he went to one on the following Sunday he found it packed – no social distancing at all there, for certain.

Now, it’s good to see the 1660s suddenly become so fashionable, but this has had its downsides. A few days ago, there was a minor Twitterstorm over an alleged quote from Pepys’s Diary:

On hearing ill rumour that Londoners may soon be urged into their lodgings by Her Majesty’s men, I looked upon the street to see a gaggle of striplings making fair merry, and no doubt spreading the plague well about. Not a care had these rogues for the health of their elders!

Full disclosure: I’m not quite so much of a nerd that I know the whole of the Diary off by heart, but I have to say that I smelled a rat at once. For one thing, this quotation was attributed to 1664, when the plague didn’t strike London until the summer of 1665, but for another, it rang no bells whatsoever – and even if I can’t recite the whole thing off by heart, I know the volume for 1665 pretty well because it also marked the start of the second Anglo-Dutch war. So yes, I was 99% certain this passage was a modern invention even before forensic analysis of it comprehensively disproved it – there’s a particular good examination of it here, while the splendid Samuel Pepys Club, of which I’ve been a member for years, suddenly found itself in a social media firefight to set the record straight. Of course, the creation of this passage was perfectly innocuous, but it demonstrated (as if we needed further proof) just how quickly ‘fake news’ gets disseminated, with countless social media users repeating and passing on the quotation as though it were gospel.

But then, Pepys himself was just as gullible when it came to ‘fake news’, and just as responsible for passing it on. (See my published work over thirty years, passim.) Consider the passage from 10 August 1665, above, and the news about Alderman Bence’s wife, while here’s Sam on 23 February of the same year:

At noon to the ‘Change, where I hear the most horrid and astonishing newes that ever was yet told in my memory, that De Ruyter with his fleete in Guinny hath proceeded to the taking of whatever we have, forts, goods, ships, and men, and tied our men back to back, and thrown them all into the sea, even women and children also. This a Swede or Hamburgher is come into the River and tells that he saw the thing done. But, Lord! to see the consternation all our merchants are in is observable, and with what fury and revenge they discourse of it. But I fear it will like other things in a few days cool among us. But that which I fear most is the reason why he that was so kind to our men at first should afterward, having let them go, be so cruel when he went further. What I fear is that there he was informed (which he was not before) of some of Holmes’s dealings with his countrymen, and so was moved to this fury. God grant it be not so!

But a more dishonourable thing was never suffered by Englishmen, nor a more barbarous done by man, as this by them to us.

Of course, the story about the massacre at Guinea by the Dutch admiral was fiction, and although he’s inclined to accept the story, Pepys does display a degree of critical scepticism which, these days, is largely absent from so many of those who believe whatever nonsense they read in a tweet, or in the pages and so-called ‘news’ broadcasts of certain unscrupulous newspapers and TV channels. The uncertainty about whether the source of the story is a Swedish or German skipper suggests that Pepys might be smelling a bit of a rat, especially as it contrasts so markedly with what he knows for sure about De Ruyter’s behaviour. Even more telling is the fact that even if he inclines on balance to accept the story, he provides a form of justification for such a horrific act, namely as revenge for atrocities committed by his own countryman, Sir Robert Holmes. This surely displays a sophistication of critical thought and relative fairmindedness which is so largely absent in these days of ‘my country / political party / pet conspiracy theory right or wrong’. In that sense, it doesn’t matter whether people make up Pepys quotations to suit our times, and it’s clearly very good news if more people become aware of Pepys and the 1660s as a result. We can learn a lot from him – except when it comes to #metoo, obviously.

Anyway, stay safe, everybody, and I’ll blog again as and when something comes along which moves me to hammer the keyboard. Meanwhile it’s back to partial self-isolating lockdown, aka the usual author lifestyle!

If I say ‘seventeenth century naval history’, what’s the first place which springs to mind? The Vasa Museum in Stockholm, perhaps? Amsterdam? Chatham? Ampthill?

(OK, yes, that last one would just be me, then…)

Wherever you’ve thought of, I’ll bet it’s not Southend-on-Sea, home to shrimps, Kiss-me-Quick hats and the longest pleasure pier in the world. But all that might be about to change if a group of dedicated enthusiasts get their way.

Last Saturday, I attended a superb event in Southend called ‘Discover the London: Southend’s Time Capsule’. This took place on the exact 355th anniversary of the destruction of King Charles II’s great ship London by an accidental explosion off Southend, and showcased the history and archaeology of the wreck. This has been dived for the last fifteen years or so by local man Steve Ellis and his team, and some of the finds they’ve brought up have been absolutely stunning. But the wreck is under serious threat. It lies at the very edge of the dredged channel up to the huge new dock developments to the east of London, and ever larger ships are now using these waters, gradually rapidly destroying the wreck and making each dive a hair-raising experience for those involved. So the situation is urgent, and the ‘Discover the London’ event was intended to showcase it and to raise awareness among the local community.

I was delighted and privileged to have been asked to be one of the speakers, and was third up in the morning session on the history of the ship. First to speak was John Goldsmith, chairman of the Cromwell Association and former curator of the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon. John provided a quick and clear overview of Cromwell’s life and career, setting the building of the London in the context of the political troubles of the 1650s. Next up was my old friend Richard Endsor, speaking about the construction of the ship. I know just how much effort Richard puts into preparing his talks, and the hard work certainly paid off on Saturday, when he delivered an impressive and fluent study illustrated with his own exceptionally detailed drawings of the various stages of the ship’s construction. (More of Richard anon.) That left me as the last speaker before lunch, talking about the later career of the London, Samuel Pepys’s dealings with it, and the impact of its sinking. Nobody booed or threw anything, which is always a good result, and I even fitted in a blatant plug for the third Quinton book, The Blast That Tears The Skies, which includes the blowing up of the London as the backdrop to scenes with both Matthew Quinton and Pepys. This had the desired effect as I sold out of my copies of the book during the lunch break!

The interval gave opportunities both to find somewhere good to eat (I now have an excellent pub recommendation if you ever find yourself in Southend) and to explore the stalls which had been laid out for different organisations. Then it was back for the afternoon session, chaired by living legend Phil Harding of Time Team fame. First up was the hero himself, Steve Ellis, the man who found the wreck and who has dived it with unfailing dedication and good humour no matter what brickbats officialdom has thrown his way (of which also more anon). Steve showed images of the shocking conditions experienced by the divers, but also of some of the stunning finds which have been brought up from the wreck. It’s always salutary and uplifting to hear a true enthusiast talk about what’s become a real passion for him or her, and Steve certainly fits that bill. Then came Hefin Meara of Historic England, who presented an outline of HE’s involvement with the wreck over the years. In some ways he had something of a thankless task, for HE’s policies have sometimes caused disquiet and appeared, rightly or wrongly, to be somewhat inflexible. Hefin received some pretty direct questioning from Richard Endsor about HE’s current perceived reluctance to recover and record artefacts from the wreck; as Richard pointed out, the rapid destruction of the wreck means that invaluable and potentially hugely important items are literally being destroyed before the eyes of the divers, which can surely only be heartbreaking. The spontaneous applause which Richard received suggested that not a few of the audience shared his opinion.

A disclaimer – when it comes to such matters, I’m a complete layman. I’m a historian, not an archaeologist (although I did once go on a dig, spending a week in torrential rain during an excavation which culminated in the professionals getting very excited about a single small piece of charred wood). But to a historian, the notion of priceless evidence being allowed simply to disappear, when other options are available, is complete anathema. If there’s no funding to conserve raised items, so be it; but I’m afraid I simply don’t understand why recovering items, properly recording them, and then maybe reburying them to await (perhaps) more generously funded days in the future seems to be problematic. Partly, though, that was the entire idea of the ‘Discover the London‘ day, namely to launch an ongoing campaign to raise £200,000 a year to allow the recovery and proper conservation of artefacts – after all, saving an item and putting it on public display is surely the best option by a considerable distance!

Before some of us got too depressed, though, the day ended with a barnstorming performance from Mark Beattie-Edwards, CEO of the Nautical Archaeology Society, putting forward his radical – and as he freely admitted, incredibly expensive – solution to the problem of the London, namely sinking a large box to surround the wreck, then bringing it ashore and excavating it at leisure. This may sound like science fiction, but it’s actually been done – by the Chinese, with a fabulous medieval wreck called the Nanhai One (see Sam Willis’s short film about the wreck). Mark even showed designs for a futuristic museum which could become a real showpiece for Southend, allowing the public to watch divers excavate the wreck. The two problems, of course, are the amount this would cost (Mark referred to it as ‘the big number’ which is so huge it’s not worth thinking about, preferring people to focus on the more attainable £200,000 a year instead) and the time it would take to deliver such a solution, given the speed at which the wreck is being destroyed by ever-larger monster ships bringing the great British public all their absolutely indispensable must-have items. Nevertheless Mark presented the case with infectious enthusiasm, even if Phil Harding had an impossible task to keep him to time!

So all in all it was a really excellent day, and I’m proud to have been a part of it. I’ll also continue to support the project in every way I can, so this definitely not the last you’ll hear about it in this blog!

In conclusion, though, a somewhat iconoclastic thought occurred to me as I was driving home via the delights of the M25. I have absolutely no doubt that those involved with the ship from Historic England (and the purse-string-owning ‘powers that be’ above them) are well-meaning, and that their decisions and policies are based on what they genuinely believe to be good practice. But I have a sneaking suspicion that at some point in the future, they may come to be viewed as we now tend to regard Victorian ‘restorers’ and ‘improvers’ of medieval churches, not to mention those earnest souls in the 1950s and 1960s who decided that cement was an absolutely ideal material to use in the repair of historic buildings. So I really hope the London project gets the support it deserves – you can find out even more about it, and make donations, here – while I also hope that everyone who has dealings with the wreck ends up on the right side of history, instead of coming to a terrible realisation…