J D Davies - Historian and Author

The website and blog of naval historian and bestselling author J D Davies

Maritime history

Ancient Wreck

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To Wales for the weekend for my ‘big birthday’ (clue: I won’t see my twenties again – or several other decades, either). While there, we went for a bracing walk along Cefn Sidan beach, one of the relatively lesser known treasures of the Welsh coastline. By any measure, the beach is stunning in its own right – over seven miles of uninterrupted broad sands backed by a country park built on the site of an old WW1 and WW2 ordnance factory. But the feature that makes Cefn Sidan unique is the extraordinary profusion of visible wrecks, a reminder of its tragic history as a particularly dangerous stretch of coast. The prevailing sou’westerlies led many a ship to be blown off course into Carmarthen Bay, where the endlessly shifting sandbanks, notably the Carmarthen Bar, led to them ending up on Cefn Sidan. Local legend has it that many were lured there deliberately, too, by the wreckers who thronged this stretch of the coast – the Gwyr-y-Bwelli Bach, the people of the little hatchets. There’s an imaginative account of their activities here, although Adeline Coquelin was actually the niece of the Empress Josephine, not her husband Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Coquelin gravestone, Pembrey church

We did our walk during the couple of hours before low tide, and saw around half a dozen wrecks in that time, part buried in the sands. (Others, notably the iron ships Teviotdale and Craigwhinnie, and the huge Hamburg windjammer Paul, lie further out into the Gwendraeth estuary.) Several of the beach’s wrecks were exposed by the storms of 2014, having been buried for many years, and constant changes in the sands regularly unearth other remains. Sadly, though, none of the wrecks on the foreshore have been positively identified. It’s been suggested* that the first one, only some 800 metres from the main access point to the beach, is the wreck of the Brothers, barque rigged, built at Hull in 1822, and en route from Bahia to Liverpool when she came ashore on Cefn Sidan on 20 December 1833, perhaps due to the activities of the gwyr-y-gwelli bach. Personally, I have my doubts about this identification; the wreck seems simply too intact (relatively speaking) to be of that vintage. Another candidate is a French ship named the Marie Therese, lost in 1907, although I’ve not been able to trace much information about her. Maybe some of the sailing ship buffs and marine archaeologists who follow this blog might want to contribute their thoughts, based on the following photos!

The first of the Cefn Sidan Wrecks – but is it the Brothers, lost in 1833?
Another view of the same wreck
Final view of the same wreck – one for this blog’s many futtock fetishist followers
A much smaller but quite broad hulled wreck- maybe a coasting collier?
Another view of the same ship
Only a few score yards further lie these skeletal remains
…and immediately astern of the previous wreck lies this very small craft

 

*  Tom Bennett, Wrecks on Welsh Beaches (e-book available via Google Books)

Sea, the Conference

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This blog has often touched on the subject of ‘sea blindness’ in modern Britain, notably here, and I also took that as the theme of the keynote lecture I delivered to last year’s conference for new researchers in maritime history. One important element of this discussion is the state of maritime history research in the broadest sense of the term: after all, expecting greater public awareness of, and engagement with, ‘the sea’ in all its aspects, is likely to be pie in the sky if those engaged in that research are working on obscure or done-to-death themes, if they are overworked by the demands of the sectors they work in, or simply if their numbers are declining as successive governments put more and more emphasis on training up only scientists, engineers, IT specialists, and other supposedly ‘useful’ disciplines. A recent piece in Topmasts, the excellent online newsletter of the Society for Nautical Research (available to non-members, too), put forward a tongue-in-cheek proposal that the problem of relentless focus on one well-worked theme in particular could be addressed by instituting a seven-year ban on ‘the N word’ (as in ‘N’s Column in T Square’), in order to focus on lesser known and neglected themes. This author concluded with a provocative statement: ‘maritime history is too important to let it die or sink to the tokenism of one essay in an undergraduate course’.

It’s in this context that I’m delighted to join with the organising parties to make a really important announcement. For some time, the Research and Programmes committee of the Society for Nautical Research, which I chair, has been developing the first conference that the society has ever run under its own name, rather than sponsoring other people’s. There are many reasons for doing this: it’s one way of improving the ‘package’ we offer our members, as well as raising the society’s profile, but the society also wanted to offer something rather broader than the many conferences which focus on specific themes, say, or the anniversaries of particular events. Consequently, we’ve partnered with the wonderful Greenwich Maritime Centre, who will be providing the facilities and much of the organisation for the conference to be held on 9 September of this year, under the title ‘The State of Maritime History Research’.

The text of the call for papers (also available on the GMC website) follows, but the key point that I’d like to make here is that we want this to be broad an event as possible, touching on a wide range of themes and disciplines. It’s certainly not all ‘doom and gloom’ in the world of maritime history research, but where are the strong and weak areas? What are the challenges? Above all, what, if anything, can be done to address ‘sea blindness’ – and is that a valid concept in any case? We’re hoping to attract prominent speakers and delegates for what should be a really important event, which we hope will garner considerable publicity. Moreover, if this conference succeeds, we’re looking to make it a regular event, held every few years, because this is an ever-changing scene – for example, university courses disappear, or new ones come into being, with bewildering frequency, while in an age of austerity, it’s a sad truth that the survival of many maritime museums and even historic ships is in doubt. (Witness the current crisis over the survival of HMS President 1918, for example.)

I’m certainly minded to offer a paper myself, but if we get a scrum of outstanding speakers, I’ll happily step aside!

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Over the past few decades there has been significant debate as to the place and shape of maritime history. In January 2008, the Council of the American Historical Association approved unanimously to add ‘Maritime, including Naval’ to its taxonomy of academic specialties. But since then, it has been suggested that the field has been marginalised.  Or does the growth of new areas of interest – such as the study of port towns, the ‘Atlantic World,’ Coastal History, and the role of gender in maritime history – suggest a flourishing, if more diverse, environment? What is the state of health in other research-orientated maritime activities such as public history and heritage?

The Greenwich Maritime Centre and the Society for Nautical Research are excited to announce a major conference to be held at the University of Greenwich to consider these questions. The conference will bring together key contributors from within the broad field of maritime history, as well as those who write on maritime and coastal topics, but do not consider themselves maritime historians. Papers and key discussion points will be published in hard copy and/or online by the Society of Nautical Research.

Proposals are invited for papers on any of the following aspects, or on other related and relevant themes. The principal criterion for acceptance will be the extent to which a paper provides a broad overview of the current situation in a specific field, and of the prospects for the future, rather than narrow, descriptive accounts of a particular period of history or historic ship (to give two examples).

  • The study of maritime history in the university and school sectors
  • The state of maritime research in particular geographical regions and countries
  • The state of particular sub-disciplines within maritime history and research, e.g. naval history, nautical archaeology, port towns, coastal studies
  • The health of the maritime museums sector, and current and future challenges for it
  • The state of the historic ships and craft sector
  • ‘Sea blindness’: fact or fiction?

Proposals of 500 words, together with a short biography of no more than 150 words, should be submitted by 1 June 2017  to  https://tinyurl.com/SNRConference2017

NB: There will be a nominal fee of £25 for the conference. Please book  at  https://maritimeresearch.eventbrite.co.uk, registration will open on 1 June 2017.

The Barbary Corsair Raid on Iceland, 1627

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This week, I’m delighted to welcome Professor Adam Nichols as my guest blogger. Adam is the co-author of a new book which provides a first-hand account of one of a remarkable but very little known event, the Barbary Corsair raid on Iceland in 1627. Having done quite a lot of work over the years on aspects of Britain’s interactions with the corsairs, I’m very pleased to be able to help Adam publicise the book! So without further ado, I’ll hand over to him.

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The early decades of the seventeenth century were the great heyday of the Barbary corsairs. Not only did they swarm the Mediterranean, but with the help of European renegados they also attacked both ships and coastal settlements all along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe, from Spain to the British Isles and beyond.

In the summer of 1627, Barbary corsairs descended upon Iceland, killing dozens of people and abducting more than 400 to sell as slaves in Salé and Algiers. The sheer audacity of this raid—it was a 3,000 mile sail from North Africa to Iceland, a 6,000 mile roundtrip—makes it exceptional. But there’s something else that makes it stand out as well. The Icelanders, who were collectively traumatized by the attack, attempted to process that trauma by writing about what had happened. (Icelanders have always been an astonishingly literate bunch, so writing about the events came naturally to them.) As a result, there is an extensive collection of contemporary descriptions, chronicles, memoires, and letters about the raid—a unique, detailed account quite different from other records of Barbary corsair assaults.

The details of the 1627 corsair raid are not well known outside Iceland, and many references to it are inaccurate. Mainly, this is because few of the Icelandic documents about the raid have been translated. Without access to the primary source documents, amateurs and professional historians alike have had to rely on second-hand précises and summaries of précises.

The documents themselves recount a story somewhat different from the one usually told.

First, the Tyrkjaránið, as the Icelanders refer to the 1627 raid, actually consisted of two raids: one by a group of corsairs from Salé (on the Atlantic coast of Morocco), the other from Algiers. Both groups were led by European renegados who had ‘turned Turk,’ converted to Islam, and made lives for themselves as Muslim corsair ru’asa (plural of Arabic ra’is, meaning ‘captain’).

Routes of the corsairs
Routes of the corsairs

According to the Icelandic sources on the Tyrkjaránið, the Saletian raiders arrived on June 20 and attacked the southwest corner of the island. This group was led by a Dutch renegado ra’is whom the Icelandic sources call Amórað Reis—the (in)famous Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, aka Murat Reis (i.e., Murad the Captain), a Dutch renegado ra’is who operated first out of Algiers and then Salé, where he became the Admiral of the Salé corsair fleet. Murad Reis is typically credited with masterminding the entire raid on Iceland, but Icelandic documents made it clear that his group was separate from, and caused less damage than, the Algerians. The Saletian corsairs were in Icelandic waters a little over a week, and made off with a few dozen captives and a Danish merchant ship—arriving back at Salé on July 30.

The Algerian corsairs appeared in Icelandic waters on July 5 (a fortnight after the Saletian raiders had sailed away) and remained for two weeks, departing on July 19 and arriving back at Algiers on August 16 or 17. This group was led by another Dutch renegado whom the Icelandic sources refer to as “that soul ripper named Mórað Flaming” (an Icelandic rendering of Murad Fleming, i.e., Murad the Flemish, “Flemish” being a common way of referring to the Dutch at the time). The Algerian corsairs first attacked the East Fjords, on Iceland’s southeast corner, and then raided Heimaey, one of the Westman Islands just off the south coast. After that, they set sail for Algiers. The Heimaey raid was the largest and most brutal attack.

The harbour on Heimaey

In typical Icelandic fashion, a month after the raid on Heimaey, a Lögsagnari (the equivalent of a deputy sheriff) named Klaus Eyjólfsson was dispatched to the island to interview eyewitnesses and write out an accurate account of what had happened. His report is filled with the sorts of excruciating, detailed anecdotes that come from eyewitness testimony of such violent events:

“Among those who crossed the path of the pirates was a man named Bjarni Valdason, who tried to run away. They struck him across the head above the eyes and killed him. When his wife, who had been fleeing with him, saw this, she at once fell across his body, screaming. The Turkish took her by her feet and dragged her away, so that the cloth of her dress came up over the head. Her dead husband they cut into small pieces, as if he were a sheep. They took the woman to the Danish houses and threw her in with the other prisoners….

“Then they began to set fire to the houses. There was a woman there who could not walk, whom they had captured easily. Her they threw on the fire, along with her two-year- old baby. When she and the poor child screamed and called to God for help, the wicked Turks bellowed with laughter. They stuck both child and mother with the sharp points of their spears, forcing them into the fire, and even stabbed fiercely at the poor, burning bodies.”

Not all the accounts are so harrowing, though.

“Up in the cliffs above Ofanleiti, the pirates found five stout men, whom they fell upon and captured, binding their hands and feet. They then caught sight of two girls. When they chased after these girls, they passed over a hill so that one of the girls managed to evade them and return to the bound men. As she approached them, one of the men implored her to untie him, which she did in a hurry. After that, one man untied another. When the pirates returned to fetch them, the men ran off as fast as they could, not daring to look back, scattering in all directions, until they could not see each other. The distance was long, so the Icelanders could climb down the cliff and seek hiding places there.”

One of the people taken captive on Heimaey was Reverend Ólafur Egilsson, a Lutheran minister in his early sixties. Of him, Klaus Eyjólfsson writes:

“Since the Reverend Ólafur Egilsson was growing old, and the pirates saw that he was not physically strong, their main captain wanted to leave him behind. But when his wife heard this, she asked him, for God’s sake, not to leave her. He said it should be that way, and that he would suffer along with her.”

Algiers seen from the sea

And so he did. Reverend Ólafur, his pregnant young wife (who gave birth during the voyage) and their two small children, along with nearly 250 Westman Islanders, were loaded onto the corsair ships and, with over a hundred others who had been captured in the east Fjords, transported to Algiers—where they were sold en mass into slavery.

Reverend Ólafur wrote a memoir, chronicling his experience. Here is his recounting of the moment when his young son was taken from him in Algiers:

“The people from the Westman Islands were brought to the slave market, which was a square built up of stones with seats encompassing it all around. The ground was paved with stones which appeared glossy—which I understand is because they were washed every day, as were the main houses, sometimes as much as three times a day. This market was next to where their local King [i.e., the Ottoman Governor of Algiers] had his seat, so that he would have the shortest way there, because, as I was told by those who had been there a long time, their King took from the captured people every eighth man, every eighth woman, and every eighth child…

Algiers slave market
Algiers slave market

“When we came to the slave market, we were placed in a circle, and everyone’s hands and face were inspected. Then the King chose from this group those whom he wanted. His first choice amongst the boys was my own poor son, eleven years old, whom I will never forget as long as I live because of the depth of his understanding. When he was taken from me, I asked him in God’s name not to forsake his faith nor forget his catechism. He said with great grief, “I will not, my father! They can treat my body as they will, but my soul I shall keep for my good God.

“I have to say with Job: What is my strength, that I should hope? Were one to try to weigh my misery and suffering altogether on a scale, they would be heavier than all the sand in the sea.”

Reverend Ólafur was not sold into slavery himself. Instead, he was designated by his captors to act as an intermediary to negotiate ransoms from the King of Denmark (Iceland was a Danish possession in those days). He travelled, penniless, from Algiers to Livorno, in Italy, from there to Genoa, and from Genoa to Marseilles. In Marseilles, he met a Dutch sea captain, with the improbable name of Caritas Hardspenner, who offered him free passage to Holland. From Enkhuizen, in Holland, he managed to get to Copenhagen, where he finally arrived after nearly six months of arduous travel.

Routes of Olafur Egilsson's travels
Routes of Olafur Egilsson’s travels

It was the middle of the Thirty Years’ War, however, and Denmark was faring badly. The royal coffers were empty. Reverend Ólafur was forced to return to Iceland alone, sans ransom, sans family.

Ten years later, thirty-four Icelanders were finally ransomed (twenty-six women and eight men), twenty-seven of whom made it back to Iceland. Among them was Reverend Ólafur’s wife, Ásta. The two had the better part of three years together before Reverend Ólafur died in 1639, at the age of seventy‑five.

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You can read more about Reverend Ólafur’s experiences and about the Tyrkjaránið in The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson: the Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Iceland in 1627.

Reverend Ólafur (who was born in the same year as William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei) wrote The Travels to chronicle his experiences both as a captive and as a traveller across Europe. He was a keen observer, and the narrative is filled with a wealth of detail—social, political, economic, religious—about both the Maghreb and Europe. It is also a moving story on the human level: we witness a man enduring great personal tragedy and struggling to reconcile such calamity with his understanding of God.

To give a clearer sense of the extraordinary events connected with Tyrkjaránið, The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson includes not only Reverend Ólafur’s first-person narrative but also Klaus Eyjólfsson’s report on the attack on Heimaey and a number of contemporary letters written by captives describing the conditions under which the enslaved Icelanders lived.

This is the first time any of these Icelandic texts have ever been translated into English.

The Travels also has Appendices containing background information on the cities of Algiers and Salé, on Iceland in the seventeenth century, on the manuscripts accessed for the translation, and on the book’s early modern European context.

The combination of Reverend Ólafur’s narrative, the report and the letters, and the material in the Appendices provides a fascinating first-hand, in-depth view of the early modern world, both Christian and Islamic.

The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson: the Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Iceland in 1627, translated and edited by Karl Smári Hreinsson and Adam Nichols, is published by the Catholic University of America Press and is available on Amazon.uk

Here is a link to the book’s website: http://www.reisubok.net/

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The Icelandic Embassy in London is hosting a European launch for The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson on Thursday, March 2. If you are interested in attending this launch and meeting the authors, contact Adam Nichols, adam.nichols@faculty.umuc.edu.

He can arrange for the Icelandic Embassy to issue you a formal invitation.

 

Adam Nichols is an associate professor of English at the University of Maryland.

Karl Smári Hreinsson is an independent Icelandic scholar, free-lance writer, and documentary film maker.

 

 

 

 

Other South American Rivers are Available

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I don’t usually plug other people’s books on this site, but occasionally, titles come along that really deserve a bit of a leg-up – especially if they fall within my usual very strict and narrow remits (i.e. seventeenth century, naval, seventeenth century naval, or absolutely anything else whatsoever that interests me), and/or if their publishers are slightly off the beaten track, and/or if I’ve got some sort of personal connection with them. Next week, for example, I’m hoping to have a guest post that fits several of these bills – watch this space – but this week, I thought I’d highlight some titles that can be found in the ‘available for pre-order’ categories of the proverbial tax-lite South American river, plus one that’s just come out.

The first is the intriguingly titled Lawson Lies Still in the Thames, by Gill Blanchard, being published by Amberley in May. This is a biography of one of the most intriguing admirals of the seventeenth century, Sir John Lawson, who moved from being an out-and-out radical under the Commonwealth to become a knight of the realm and staunch supporter of the restored monarchy. I’ve been interested in Lawson since I was working on my doctorate over thirty years ago, and he appears as a character in the third Quinton novel, The Blast That Tears the Skies. He was also the captain of the London, but wasn’t aboard when the ship accidentally blew up in the Thames in March 1665. I’ve blogged before on this site about the wreck of the London, and a lot more work has been done on the wreck since then, so having this book in print will be a big boost to those who are diving on and researching the site. I’ve exchanged emails with the author about aspects of Lawson’s career, and know that Gill has unearthed some previously unknown documents about her subjects, so I’m really intrigued to see what she says about this absolutely fascinating and historically important individual.

My next pick is Resolution: Two Brothers, A Nation in Crisis, A World at War, by David Rutland and Emma Ellis, being published by Head of Zeus in April. If you’re thinking that you’ve never come across Rutland as a surname, you’d probably be right; but the author in question is actually David, Duke of Rutland, and this is the story of one of his family members, an almost exact contemporary of Nelson (and son of the Marquess of Granby, of multiple pub names fame), who died at the age of just twenty-four. If you think Captain Lord Robert Manners sounds a bit insignificant to deserve an entire book, his contemporaries would have begged to differ. These days, one enters Westminster Abbey by the north transept, and pretty much the first thing you see is an unbelievably colossal baroque monument to Manners and the two colleagues who fell with him. I’ve talked to the authors about naval history on several occasions, supplied some research information for the book, and did some critical reading of drafts, so I know that this is going to be a really worthwhile and very readable study, drawing on the superb archives at Belvoir Castle and many other sources.

My final choice in the ‘forthcoming’ category has already been covered on this site, in a guest post from the author himself – so this is a gentle reminder to anyone who hasn’t ordered it yet that Richard Endsor’s book on The Warship Anne is being published in less than a fortnight’s time! The launch party took place at the wonderful Shipwreck Museum in Hastings last weekend; sadly, I couldn’t attend, but there are unconfirmed reports that the author is safe and well, and wasn’t led astray by the ‘usual suspects’ from the nefarious world of nautical archaeology.

And last of all, a book that’s just come out, and which I’ve just finished reading – Jacqueline Reiter’s The Late Lord: The Life of John Pitt, second Earl of Chatham. By coincidence, there’s a connection between this and Resolution, described above: the fourth Duke of Rutland, the second brother covered in that book, was one of Chatham’s closest friends. This is another case where I have to put my hands up and admit that I know the author, but this is a beautifully written, exceptionally well researched, insightful, and very balanced, analysis of the career of a man whose peculiar misfortune was to be the son and brother of far greater men, William Pitt the Elder and Younger. (Note: at this point, do not, under any circumstances, follow this link.) It’s particularly revealing about the controversial Walcheren expedition of 1809, which effectively wrecked Chatham’s career – and for a seventeenth century naval buff, it was fascinating to come across very familiar placenames that are so absolutely central to my own work, such as Vlissingen/Flushing, Middelburg, and Veere (Cornelia Quinton’s home town in ‘the journals of Matthew Quinton’).

Generally, though, my reading is on the back burner at the moment, which is always the case when I’m writing a new book. But the good news is that the next Quinton novel, The Devil Upon the Wave – set against the backdrop of the Dutch attack on the Medway, 350 years ago this June – is well on course, and should be finished quite soon! More updates as and when available.

 

The Tailed Men are Coming! The Tailed Men are Coming!

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Oliver Cromwell as a 'staartman' (Rijksmuseum)
Oliver Cromwell as a ‘staartman’ (Rijksmuseum)

Yes, a bonus post this week – and following on from the last one, ‘The Butterboxes are Coming! The Butterboxes are Coming!’, which used one of the principal insults seventeenth century Brits directed at the Dutch, I thought I’d even the score by using one of the worst Dutch insults for us. Goddeloze staartman, the godless tailed man, has obscure origins, but it’s certainly a level above butterboxes in terms of inventiveness – and contemporary Dutchmen may wish to revive it when British naval history’s finest hit Amsterdam in June! That’s the reason for this extra post: I’m now able to publicise details of the big international conference to mark the 350th anniversary of the Dutch attack on the Medway.

Jointly organised by the Vrienden van de Witt (NL) and the Naval Dockyards Society (UK), the conference will be held at the Marine Etablissement (naval barracks) in Amsterdam on 23-24 June 2017. Conference proceedings will be held in English. The keynote speakers are Dr David Onnekink (Utrecht University) and Professor Henk den Heijer, (Professor Emeritus, Leiden University); the summary and conclusions will be provided by Professor John Hattendorf (US Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island).

The conference will address a wide range of themes, including the causes and course of the second Anglo-Dutch war, early modern naval warfare and ideologies, the Dutch and British navies, dockyards and other naval facilities in the two countries, Dutch amphibious tactics during the Chatham attack, British responses to that attack, and the legacies and commemoration of the Dutch raid. I’ll be talking about ‘Chatham and the Stuart Monarchy’, looking at how much damage – physical and psychological – the attack caused to Charles II’s state, at some of the myths which grew up around the action, and how it contributed to a change in the ‘naval ideology’ espoused by Charles and his brother. This is very much a part of the work I’m doing at the moment for my chapter in the forthcoming book on Western Naval Ideology, 1500-1815, which I’m co-editing with Alan James and Gijs Rommelse, to be published by Routledge.

Other speakers are: Dr Marc van Alphen (Netherlands Institute of Military History, The Hague), Dr Richard Blakemore (University of Reading), Dr Ann Coats (University of Portsmouth and the Naval Dockyards Society), Dr Remmelt Daalder (Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam), Dr Alan Lemmers (Netherlands Institute of Military History, The Hague), Dr Philip MacDougall (historian and author, NDS), Erik Odegard (Leiden University), Dr Gijs Rommelse (Utrecht University, Fellow of the Scheepvaartmuseum), Professor Louis Sicking (Leiden University/Free University), and Dr Chris Ware (University of Greenwich).

A booking form for potential UK delegates is available on the Naval Dockyards Society website; potential Dutch delegates, please sign up via the Vrienden van de Witt.

***

Some more announcements of forthcoming events, too…

First, the eminent Dutch naval historian Dr Gijs Rommelse will be speaking at King’s College London on 21 February, his topic being ‘Mirroring Seapower: A Cultural History of Dutch-British Naval Relations’. This is open to all, and you can register for it (and find out further details) here.

Second, I’m thrilled to announce that, as part of the Medway Festival taking place around the 350th anniversary of the Dutch attack, I’ll be speaking at Gillingham Library at 7.30 on 8 June, my subject being ‘The Dutch are Coming! Writing Fact and Fiction about the Anglo-Dutch wars’. I’ll be signing my books, too!

 

The Butterboxes are Coming! The Butterboxes are Coming!

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…butterboxes, of course, being one of the principal terms of neighbourly respect (umm…) that seventeenth century Brits used for the Dutch. They were certainly coming in 1667, culminating in the famous attack on the Medway in June, and they’re coming this year, too, for the 350th anniversary! So I thought I’d use this blog to highlight some of the events that are taking place this summer, and to flag up how I’m getting involved.

Naturally, most of the commemorative events are taking place in and around the River Medway, and the local council seems to be doing a good job of organising and publicising many of them. There’s a dedicated microsite, plus two Twitter hashtags, #BoM350 and #TnC350, the latter being the Dutch one – tocht naar Chatham, ‘the trip to Chatham’, is the delightfully jolly Dutch description of their attack! I’ll be using these hashtags throughout the spring and summer, as well as my own, #2ADW350, for the overall 350th anniversary of the second Anglo-Dutch war – tweets with that hashtag will resume in March, work permitting!

The gun battery at Upnor Castle. No passeran...but they did.
The gun battery at Upnor Castle. No passeran…but they did.

Among the events I’m particularly looking forward to are a new exhibition at the always wonderful Chatham Historic Dockyard, the presence of British and Dutch warships in the Medway (play nicely this time, please), a commemorative service at Rochester Cathedral, a river pageant, a rowing race between the two nations, and what should be a spectacular climax to the celebrations, a ‘Medway in Flames’ entertainment on the river. It’ll also be well worth getting over to Upnor Castle, then the principal source of resistance to the Dutch attack, which will have an exhibition (opening in April) and special events. There’s also meant to be an academic conference at the University of Kent, beginning on 30 June, but at the moment, details of this seem to be very sparse.

Unsurprisingly, quite a lot’s happening over in the Netherlands. There’ll be exhibitions at the Rijksmuseum and at the Dutch naval museum in Den Helder, a symposium at the former, and, no doubt, other events still to be announced. I’ll be going over for what’s shaping up to be a fantastic conference in Amsterdam on 23-24 June, jointly organised by the Vrienden van de Witt (NL) and the Naval Dockyards Society (UK); I hope to be able to provide full details of this on this website in a few weeks, but I can exclusively reveal that I’m going to be speaking at it! I’m also making sure that I factor in enough free time to take in the Rijksmuseum exhibition, too. More detail from the Dutch angle can be found on the website of the De Ruyter Foundation, run by Frits de Ruyter de Wildt, a direct descendant of the great admiral. Here you’ll find much more detailed information about the sailing and rowing events, plus the most comprehensive breakdown of event timings on both sides of the North Sea.

Willem Schellinks' drawings of 'the Dutch in the Medway' (top) and the capture of Sheerness fort
Willem Schellinks’ drawings of ‘the Dutch in the Medway’ (top) and the capture of Sheerness fort (Rijksmuseum)

As for what else I’m doing to mark the anniversary… Well, I’ve contributed a foreword to a new edition of P G Rogers’ The Dutch in the Medway, being published by Seaforth at the end of next month. Although Rogers isn’t error-free by any means, his account remains the fullest available in English, and is highly readable. I’ve also written an essay on some of the myths that grew up around the Chatham attack for a new book on Famous Battles and their Myths, forthcoming from Routledge. Above all, I’m currently writing The Devil Upon the Wave, the latest Matthew Quinton adventure, as previously flagged in this blog.  This is proving to be terrific fun to write, and it’s also very instructive – putting oneself into the position of the British defenders of Chatham, and trying to envisage what they would have seen, heard and felt, has already given me plenty of insights into the events of June 1667.

(And before any readers take me to task for referring to ‘British’ defenders, rather than ‘English’ – yes, good morning High Wycombe – I’d point out that about the only bright spot in the sorry saga of the generally supine defence against the Dutch was provided by the heroic sacrifice of Captain Archibald Douglas, who perished in the blazing wreck of the Royal Oak after a doomed attempt to defend her, so my Scottish friends have a perfect excuse to raise a wee dram or two in the general direction of Chatham on 13 June. As if you needed one.)

All in all, then, it promises to be a terrific few weeks in the summer, and a fitting commemoration of one of the most astonishing feats in the whole of naval history. Finally, though, a warning to my British readers: if you know any Dutch people, it might be worth avoiding them during June, as they could well be a bit smug.