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J D Davies - Historian and Author

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Journals of Matthew Quinton

FAQs

12/03/2018 by J D Davies

What’s happening with the Quinton series?

Right, that’s a long story… Recently, e-book editions of the entire series, plus print-on-demand versions of the two most recent titles (The Rage of Fortune and The Devil Upon the Wave), have been published by Endeavour Press, who did a great job with them. But Endeavour has encountered ‘a little local difficulty’, leading to the liquidation of the company, a process that rendered all contracts with them void. Don’t panic, though – I was in the fortunate and gratifying position of having several publishers being really keen to sign me, and after lengthy discussions with my agent, we’ve decided to sign up with Canelo, already a very successful e-book publisher with a very strong author list – including two fellow naval writers, Jonathan Lunn and the late Alexander Fullerton, whose work they’ve been promoting with tremendous success. They’ve expressed genuine prior knowledge of, and huge enthusiasm for, the series, so I hope it’s going to be a really fruitful relationship.

There will be a few temporary issues, though, and I’m sorry for these. For one thing, it’ll take Canelo a little while to reformat and republish all the titles, so there’ll be a brief period – hopefully very brief – where none of the Quinton titles are likely to be available as e-books on any platform. For another, Canelo aren’t currently producing print editions. But they’ve got plans to move in that direction in the near future, and are also hoping to make more of the titles available as audiobooks, something I know that many of you will welcome. So the message is…please be patient!

Meanwhile, though, and as if things weren’t complicated enough already, Old Street Publishing retain the traditional print rights to the first six titles – Gentleman Captain through to Death’s Bright Angel – and these should remain available in bookshops, on Amazon, etc.

All this means that I’m changing the information on the ‘contact’ page of this website to reflect the new situation. In a nutshell, this can be summarised as a plea to contact the publishers directly for information on the availability of the Quinton books, rather than contacting me – until things get sorted out and settle down, I’m unlikely to know more than you do!

 

What about availability outside the UK?

Again, please check with my publishers, or else with my agent, Peter Buckman!

 

Piffling

So when will the next Quinton title come out, and what will it be about?

Canelo are very keen to publish further Quintons, but there’s a more immediate priority in the short term (see next question). However, I’m currently hoping to write the next book in the series over the winter…and if it all goes to plan, it’ll contain pirates and will be set in the Caribbean. However, my agent informs me that there might be some piffling little legal reason why I can’t use the obvious title.

 

What about the Tudor naval series you were meant to be writing?

I previously announced (here and here) a new set of Tudor naval stories that Endeavour would be publishing. The good news is that Canelo are very keen on this idea – so much so that we’ve agreed to recast them as a trilogy of conventional novels, rather than the three e-novellas, combined into one print book, which Endeavour would have brought out. In other words, I get a lot more words with which to develop characters and storylines, and to describe some terrific naval action spanning the era from the sinking of the Mary Rose to the defeat of the Spanish Armada! But as I’d already written the first story as a novella, I need to spend a little time expanding it into a full-length novel (i.e. the immediate priority in the short term that I mentioned above), and Canelo need to like the end result. So watch this space!

 

When will your next non-fiction book come out, and what will it be about?

The new Carmarthen record office

Last year was pretty insane, with two Quinton titles and Kings of the Sea coming out in relatively short order. The latter also involved a great deal of work, and after it was published, I vowed that I wouldn’t embark on a new non-fiction project for at least a couple of years or so, in order to give myself a slightly quieter time for a while. But, of course, that doesn’t cover resuming work on an old non-fiction project! So I’ve finally restarted work on my book about the extraordinary Stepney family, which I’d put on the back burner for several years – partly because of other commitments, party because of the closure in controversial circumstances of the record office in Carmarthen, which contained most of the primary material (this blog, passim). I’m certainly not working flat out on this, especially as there’s no contractual deadline and I’m still intent on that slightly quieter time for a bit, but I’d certainly like to finish this sometime in the next 12-18 months, as the primary material in question is now available again, albeit temporarily in Cardiff, not Carmarthen. Of course, there’ll then be the search for a publisher, but I’ll worry about that in due course – as I’ve been working on this book on and off for about 20 years, simply finishing it will be the main objective!

Of course, sod’s law dictated that the moment I decided that I wouldn’t begin work on new non-fiction books for a couple of years, the ideas for two or three really juicy projects occurred to me. But I’m being good and keeping them on the back burner for the time being!

 

Couldn’t your website do with a makeover?

Definitely. I hope to address that in the near future.

 

Favourite band?

The Motors.

(Don’t ask)

 

Favourite crisp flavour?

Smoky bacon.

 

Favourite colour?

Scarlet.

 

Favourite team?

Scarlets, obvs.

 

OK, forget rugby, I meant favourite football team?

Stenhousemuir.

(Long story.)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Canelo, Journals of Matthew Quinton, Stepney family

Merry Christmas from the Restoration Navy!

20/12/2017 by J D Davies

A festive re-post from the very first Christmas of this blog, namely 2012…

***

Henry Teonge, a Warwickshire clergyman, was fifty-five when he first went to sea as a naval chaplain, presumably forced into the job by the extent of his debts. In 1675 he joined the Fourth Rate Assistance, commanded by William Houlding, which was despatched to the Mediterranean as part of Sir John Narbrough’s fleet, operating against the corsairs of Tripoli. Teonge kept a lively diary of his time aboard the ship, and during his subsequent service on the Bristol and Royal Oak. This is one of the best contemporary sources for the nature of shipboard life in the Restoration navy, and I’ve used it often during my research for the Quinton books. For example, several of the ‘menus’ for officers’ meals in Gentleman Captain were taken straight from Teonge, while my description of Matthew Quinton’s Christmas at sea aboard the Seraph in The Mountain of Gold was based closely on the following passage in the diary – his account of Christmas 1675 aboard the Assistance, near Crete.

24 Very rough today. No land yet. Our decks are washed for Christmas.

25 Christmas Day we keep thus. At 4 in the morning our trumpeters all do flat their trumpets and begin at our Captain’s cabin, and thence to all the officers and gentlemen’s cabins; playing a levite at each cabin door, and bidding good morrow, wishing a Merry Christmas. After they go to their station, viz. on the poop, and sound three levites in honour of the morning. At 10 we go to prayers and sermon ; text, Zacc. ix. 9. Our Captain had all his officers and gentlemen to dinner with him, where we had excellent good fare: a rib of beef, plum puddings, mince pies, &c. and plenty of good wines of several sorts ; drank healths to the King, to our wives and friends; and ended the day with much civil mirth.

Zacchariah Chapter 9, Verse 9 reads (in the King James version that Teonge would have used) ‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.’ (The first part of the verse was later used for a famous soprano solo in Handel’s Messiah.) Teonge records no specific New Year festivities, although he did write a poem as a special New Year’s present for Captain Houlding. William Houlding, a former East India Company captain, held several important commands in Charles II’s reign, including that of the London in the 1673 campaign, and died on 20 September 1682.

A NEW-YEAR’S GIFT TO OUR CAPTAIN.

ACROSTICON.

W — hen Phoebus did this morning first appear,

I — nriching with his beams our hemispheare,

L- eaving the darksome night behind him, and

L — onging to be at his meridian;

I — magine then the old-year’s out of date,

A — new one unto Jove let’s dedicate—

M— an should not be like an old almanack.

H – eavens guide you, sir, that Paul’s words may be true,

O — ld things are done away, all things are new;

U — nto the rich endowments of your mind,

L — ift up your noble courage: Fortune’s kind

D — irections bid you forwards; your Assistance

I — s beggd by Mars for th’ Trypolenes resistance-

N — ‘er man more fit bold acts to undertake,

G — od with his blessings make you fortunate.

On 6 January, Teonge recorded the hilarious festivities for Twelfth Night.

6 Very rough weather all the last night, and all this day.  We are now past Zante; had we been there this day, we had seen a great solemnity ; for this day being Twelfth Day, the Greek Bishop of Zante doth (as they call it) baptise the sea, with a great deal of ceremony; sprinkling their galleys and fishing-tackle with holy-water. But we had much mirth on board, for we had a great cake made, in which was put a bean for the king, a pea for the queen, a clove for the knave, a forked stick for the cuckold, a rag for the slut. The cake was cut into several pieces in the great cabin, and all put into a napkin, out of which every one took his piece, as out of a lottery. Then each piece is broken to see what was in it, which caused much laughter to see our lieutenant prove the cuckold, and more to see us tumble one over the other in the cabin, by reason of the rough weather. 

And with that glorious mental image of the chaplain and officers of the Assistance laughing uproariously and falling over each other (and, presumably, the great cake), I’ll wish you all the compliments of the season and a very Happy New Year!

***

This blog will return in 2018 with more news of my new Tudor naval series, plus updates on the Quinton Journals. Thanks to all of you for your support – especially to those who have read one or more of my books this year! I really appreciate your support and feedback. 

 

Filed Under: Naval historical fiction, Naval history Tagged With: henry teonge, Journals of Matthew Quinton

The Devil Upon the Wave – Teaser Trailer

02/07/2017 by J D Davies

To mark the publication by Endeavour Press of the new Quinton title, The Devil Upon the Wave, I’m delighted to provide a treat for my loyal readers and followers of this blog – namely, the first few pages of the book.

***

Here, Painter, let thine art describe a story,

Shaming our warlike island’s ancient glory:

A scene which never on our seas appear’d,

Since our first ships were on the ocean steer’d.

Make the Dutch fleet, while we supinely sleep,

Without opposers, masters of the deep.

 

Anon., Fourth Advice to a Painter (1667)

 

*

‘By God,’ says he, ‘I think the Devil shits Dutchmen.’

 

Sir William Batten, Surveyor of the Navy; words reported by Samuel Pepys in his diary, 19 July 1667

 

 

PROLOGUE

The Gunfleet Anchorage

October 1671

 

‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.’

Tom Butler, who uttered these words, did not look like a religious man. The pursed lips, formed into a permanent kiss, and the grey bags beneath his eyes gave him the look of a libertine; and, every now and again, if the fancy took him, that was what Tom Butler was, sometimes for months at a time. In faith, then, he was not really a religious man at all. But his pronouncement as we stood at the stern, watched the men on the yard unfurling the main course of the Elsinore Merchant to catch the strengthening south-westerly breeze, was as solemn as any by a bishop. It led me to wonder which lord he meant: the Lord on high, or the lord who stood before me. Religious he might not be, but a lord Tom most certainly was, despite the rough seaman’s shirt and breeches that he and I both wore as disguise. Indeed, one day, if God willed it, he would rule an entire kingdom. For Thomas Butler, Earl of Ossory, was son and heir to the Duke of Ormonde, the vice-king of Ireland.

Thomas Butler, Earl of Ossory, by Sir Peter Lely (National Portrait Gallery)

‘A fair wind for it, Matt. A fine breeze to carry us over to avenge England’s greatest shame. Just as they had a fine, fair breeze for it four years ago.’

‘Amen to that, My Lord Ossory.’

I looked out over the waist of our ship. To all but the very keenest observer, she would appear an innocent flyboat, a merchantman with her course set for Rotterdam. Yet that one solitary keenest observer might note that by the standards of innocent merchantmen, her crew were somewhat brisk. The course was sheeted home a little too efficiently, the ship’s head steered a little too precisely. The crew on deck was distinctly large by the standards of any such innocent merchantman, making a voyage to Rotterdam; and that was without counting the two hundred soldiers and seamen concealed in the hold. True, the Elsinore Merchant was as low in the water as a ship notionally carrying a cargo of salt from Maldon could be expected to be. But she carried no salt: instead, her commodious hold also contained enough weaponry and ammunition to sustain a small army, and a full set of canvas, enough to outfit one of the largest men-of-war in the world.

‘You still think it’s an insane scheme, Matt?’

My Lord of Ossory knew me too well. We had known each other for years, since the days when we were both penniless exiles in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. We had both married Dutch women; and, if anything, our wives were even better friends to each other than we were.

‘Then why am I here, Tom?’

‘Ah, well, Matt Quinton, there’s the rub. Why are you here? This was my insanity, God help me – mine alone. To bring her back to the haven from which she was taken. To bring her back in triumph. To avenge the humiliation. To redeem England. To exculpate our king. My idea. My folly. If God so wills it, my death. But why are you here, Matt?’

I looked out. To larboard, the low, featureless shores of Essex and Suffolk were beginning to recede behind us. To starboard, there was only the gently swelling sea, dotted with some small hoys, flyboats and ketches, under a grey spring sky. A sea that led to the mouth of the Maas, and the harbour of Rotterdam, where the Elsinore Merchant was notionally bound. But to reach Rotterdam, the ship would have to pass through the haven of Hellevoetsluis: or, as English seamen knew it, Hell-vote-slice. That harbour contained many ships, but only one of them mattered to Englishmen. Only one ship burned a word into English hearts, just as Calais was said to have been burned into the heart of Bloody Mary.

And that word was:

Chatham.

I smiled. ‘You know the reason, Tom. You were in Ireland, but I was there.’

Yes, I was there. I could still remember the heat on my face from our burning ships. I could recall the shame I felt at the sight of the Dutch flag flying proud from the ramparts of Sheerness fort. I remembered the brutal humiliation that our country had suffered. That I had suffered: the very personal crosses which I bore from that fateful summer of 1667. And that was why I sailed with Tom Butler now, on a scheme so insane, so suicidal, that any man of reason would have rightly decried it as the brainchild of lunatics.

Our collective madness began in high summer, some three months earlier, almost exactly four years after the catastrophe at Chatham, in a high room: a dark, stifling chamber in the round tower of Windsor Castle, atop its vast, overgrown mound, the Thames and Eton College just visible through smears in the grime caking the tiny windows. For some unaccountable reason, the king was thinking of making Windsor his permanent summer residence, rather than doing what any rational man would have done, namely, deciding it was better to stay in Whitehall after all and tearing down the entire rotting pile.

Windsor Castle in 1670

Tom Butler and I were standing over a table, looking down upon a chart of the mouth of the river the Dutch called the Maas. Across the table from us stood a tall, dark, ugly man wearing a simple shirt and a large black wig. If anything, Charles Stuart, King of England, was scrutinising the chart even more intently than we were.

‘There are almost no guards, Majesty,’ said Tom. ‘A few elderly marines. Some ship-keepers. No more. And of course, the Dutch will not be expecting such an assault.’

‘But they will still have men-of-war in the roadstead,’ I protested.

‘A thirty-gunner or two, perhaps,’ said Tom, confidently. And only one thirty–gunner will be more than sufficient to blow us out of the water, I thought. ‘That’s what our intelligencers suggest. Otherwise, their fleet will be laid up for the winter. What ships they’ll have in commission will be far to the north, at Texel and the Helder.’

I thought of objecting, but the king nodded vigorously, and I knew better than to challenge the royal nod. Yet this was strange. Indeed, it was strange beyond measure. Charles the Second, normally the most practical and sceptical of men, was not raising the objections that jostled within my head, each squabbling for precedence over the other. Objections that would usually have issued from his royal mouth, long before they reached mine.

Charles II by Mary Beale, 1670

‘You could rig her within an hour, while holding off the Rotterdam militia?’ said the king.

‘Jury rig only, Majesty, but enough to get her out into the roadstead. Then, a simple matter to take her out as far as our escorts. If you give us a brace of fourth rates, that is.’

‘But—’ I began.

‘The day will be chosen carefully,’ said Tom. ‘A spring tide. Sufficient for even her great draught.’

‘But the wind, Tom,’ I said. ‘All depends on an easterly, or a northerly, in that roadstead.’

And there, of course, was the great, terrible flaw in Tom Butler’s plan. It may be that the Dutch would be unsuspecting enough to believe that the King of England would not attempt such a thing. It may be that the defences were as weak as Tom believed them to be. It may be that we could erect jury rig in an hour. It may be that only a hundred or so men would be able to take to sea a ship usually crewed by eight hundred. It may be that the tide would be right. It may be that a million angels could dance on the head of a pin.

But nothing on this earth could determine the wind.

I looked at the king. I had known Charles Stuart for many years now, and knew him as most men did: the arch-cynic, the libertine, the fornicator. I also knew him as a consummate seaman, who could handle a helm as well as any pilot, and design a hull as well as any master shipwright. I knew the other Charles Stuart too, the one that fewer men saw, the brutal, vicious, amoral creature that would readily destroy hundreds of lives with the stroke of a pen. But I did not know the Charles Stuart who spoke now.

‘We shall trust in God,’ said the king, with the simple, unarguable finality of a martyr on the way to the stake.

That unsettling certainty, that uncharacteristic display of faith from the least religious monarch ever to occupy the throne of England, won over even me, Matthew Quinton, brother and heir of the Earl of Ravensden, scion of a family that, with only a very few exceptions, had never been noted for its piety. And that was how I came to be standing on the deck of the Elsinore Merchant with my old friend Tom Butler, Earl of Ossory, bound for the Dutch coast, there to board, seize, and bring back to England, one ship, thereby most certainly triggering immediate war between the two countries.

But this was not just any ship. It was one of the greatest ships of all, which was towed away from Chatham four years before, in the most abject defeat the English crown had ever suffered.

So although I did not quite know why, I knew that I would fight, and if necessary die, for this most impossible of causes: to bring back our king’s flagship, towed out of the Medway by the Dutch, to England’s eternal shame.

We would rescue the Royal Charles, and redeem our country.

 

So just what ‘very personal crosses’ does Matt Quinton bear from the summer of 1667? And what befalls the desperate mission to retrieve the Royal Charles? You’ll have to get hold of a copy of The Devil Upon the Wave to find out!

 

The Royal Charles at Hellevoetsluis in 1672, by Abraham Storck

Filed Under: Naval historical fiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: Dutch in the Medway, Journals of Matthew Quinton, Medway 350, The Devil Upon the Wave

Amsterdam Good Time, Part 1

28/06/2017 by J D Davies

And so it continued. Not content with fireworks, rowing contests, schoolchildren’s chain-making competitions, and exhibitions galore, it was finally time for the historians to have their four-penn’orth about the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Medway, which was why I spent last weekend in Amsterdam, attending a conference jointly organised by the Naval Dockyards Society and the Vrienden van de Witt.

Marginally too large to smuggle aboard the Eurostar

In truth, I don’t need much persuading if a trip to Amsterdam is in the offing. I’ve loved the place since I first went there, well over thirty years ago, when I was working on my doctorate. I knew I could hardly work on seventeenth century naval history without seeing things from the Dutch side, so I swiftly became well acquainted with the Rijksmuseum, the Scheepvaartmuseum (the Dutch national maritime museum), and the great churches, not to mention many rather less renowned landmarks. One of these was a little bar which floated my boat for some unfathomable reason, and to which I return every time I’m in Amsterdam, including this one. It’s nothing special – indeed, in some respects, it’s a bit insalubrious – and it hasn’t actually changed at all in the thirty plus years since I first went there (possibly one of the reasons why I like it), but it’s very central, never particularly full, and always seems to be playing exactly the music I like, i.e. almost nothing written since The End of Music, which, of course, took place in approximately 1990. And no, I’m not going to tell you what it’s called or where it is, in case you all start going there. But it provides a haven for a breather between my regular destinations, which on this trip, included the likes of the Rijksmuseum, the Oude and Nieuwe Kerks, and the Kok secondhand bookshop, plus a new discovery, the wonderful ‘secret’ Catholic church of Our Lord in the Attic.

Turner Prize? More like the Turnip Prize, IMHO

(The visit to the Oude Kerk was a bit frustrating, largely because it currently contains what has to be one of the daftest ‘modern art’ installations I’ve ever encountered – and there’s a lot of competition for that title, says Mr Grumpy Old Man. This one consists of what are essentially large rectangles of gold wrapping paper laid out over the floor, thus obscuring many of the fascinating grave slabs and forcing visitors to play a game of human chess, i.e. having to move to the right or left if someone else is approaching along the same vertical line.)

I’d not been to the Rijksmuseum since its huge refurbishment some five years ago, and was duly impressed by the new look. But like all great international museums, visiting it is still a slightly frenetic experience, thanks principally to the vast tour parties on their ‘see the Rijksmuseum in five minutes’ excursions – and invariably, that means setting up a colossal siege line in front of The Night Watch. However, that’s only marginally less hectic than the rest of the floor devoted to the Dutch ‘Golden Age’, the seventeenth century, which unfortunately includes the naval displays, my principal target. Still, most tourists are significantly smaller than me, and only relatively few needed to be hospitalised as I manoeuvred myself into poll position in front of the glorious works of art by the van de Veldes et al. However, I’m not sure that the Rijksmuseum refurbishment has been kind to the naval material. The sternpiece of the captured Royal Charles, for example, now hangs above a door, and it’s not possible to get as close to it as it was in the old incarnation, where it was alongside a mezzanine. But otherwise, it’s still possible to wander through huge swathes of the museum, including, for example, the ship models room, and encounter very few people, while of course, I’m not going to complain too much about any national museum that devotes an appropriate amount of space to naval history. (Are you listening, British Museum?)

‘Ninety-nine!’ (This caption is respectfully dedicated to all members of the 1974 British Lions touring party)

***

Tomorrow, I’ll blog about the conference programme itself. There was one massive timing glitch during it, though – but it most certainly wasn’t the fault of the organisers. When I sat down after giving my paper, I checked my emails, and came across a piece of information that I wish I’d known about earlier, so I could impart it to the audience. (OK, yes, that’s an euphemism for ‘indulging in shameless self-publicity’.) This was the news that the new Quinton novel, The Devil Upon the Wave, had become available on Amazon that very afternoon. Naturally, the book focuses heavily on the Dutch attack on the Medway, but it also places Matthew among the defenders of Landguard Fort as they try to beat off yet another Dutch onslaught, and also takes him to sea, albeit this time aboard the Dutch fleet, where he confronts a terrible dilemma and a huge personal tragedy. Several real historical characters make ‘cameo appearances’, among them King Charles II, Samuel Pepys, and Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, while fans of the broader Quinton family may welcome the return of the enigmatic Uncle Tris, Matt’s outspoken elder sister Elizabeth, his dour Dutch brother-in-law Cornelis, and, of course, his feisty wife Cornelia. As a special treat and ‘teaser trailer’, next Monday’s post on this site will provide a free preview of Chapter One – and for a book set against the backdrop of the events of 1667, it’s most definitely not what you’re going to expect!

Filed Under: Naval historical fiction, Naval history, Uncategorized Tagged With: Amsterdam, Dutch in the Medway, Journals of Matthew Quinton, Medway 350, Rijksmuseum, Second Anglo-Dutch War, The Devil Upon the Wave

I’m a Doctor – Why Can’t I have a Tardis?

19/06/2017 by J D Davies

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.

***

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!

 

Filed Under: Naval historical fiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: Journals of Matthew Quinton, Medway 350, The Devil Upon the Wave

Merry Christmas from the Raging Quintons!

19/12/2016 by J D Davies

For the final post on this site in 2016 – and wasn’t that just the most nondescript year ever? – I thought I’d provide a Christmas treat for all loyal readers of both this blog and my books. I mentioned recently that Endeavour Press will soon be publishing the long-delayed Quinton prequel, The Rage of Fortune, focusing on the adventures of Matthew’s eponymous grandfather, the eighth Earl of Ravensden, at the end of Elizabeth I’s reign. So I’m delighted to be able to publish the first ‘teaser trailer’, in the shape of an extract from the book!

Whenever I’ve done this before, I’ve always published the first chapter of a new title. But I can’t do that this time…not only is the first chapter of The Rage of Fortune decidedly ‘left field’ in terms of both style and content, it also contains a significant number of examples of the eighth Earl’s distinctly un-aristocratic language, which might not be entirely appropriate reading matter in Christmas week. As it is, the extract I’ve chosen has two ‘expletives deleted’, but I’ve censored those in order not to offend the sensibilities of any vicars or maiden aunts who might be looking over your shoulders as you read this.

The passage which follows is one of many in Rage that are based on real historical incidents – in this case, the astonishingly daring dash through the Straits of Dover in 1599 by a squadron of Spanish galleys commanded by Federico Spinola, brother of the much more famous Ambrogio. Justinus of Nassau, the ‘Bastard Orange’ as Earl Matthew calls him, is another real historical figure, an illegitimate son of William the Silent, Prince of Orange. Randal Gray, the historian of Spinola’s operations, opens his account of this event thus:

‘In these parts has happened that which hardly would have been believed, that six galleys known to be coming out of Spain and so long looked for should pass through the Narrow Seas and recover harbour without any hurt.’ So wrote Sir Robert Sydney, Governor of Flushing in the Netherlands, to Sir Robert Cecil, Queen Elizabeth l’s Secretary of State, on 13 September 1599. Eleven years after the ruin of the ‘Invincible Armada’, Spanish galleys commanded by 28-year-old Federico Spinola of Genoa had humiliated the combined navies of England and Holland. And Spinola was to pass the Straits of Dover not once but twice, in a manner comparable with the Channel dash of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in 1942.’

And so, having set the scene, I’ll hand over to our two narrators: first a mysterious Hungarian mercenary who calls himself Laszlo Horvath, then Matthew Quinton, Earl of Ravensden. Season’s greetings to one and all!

***

‘Six galleys,’ he cries. ‘Six [expletive deleted] Spanish galleys, and they’re running the Straits!’

It is my first sight of galleys. They are very different to the high-hulled English and Dutch ships struggling to get clear of the Road of Calais. They have long, low hulls, with pronounced beaks in the bows. They have single masts, which carry the triangular sails that the sailors call ‘lateens’. At the sterns, they have curious structures which resemble half-upturned sea-shells. Half way along their decks are squarer upperworks that resemble small castles. From these protrude several large guns, only a little smaller than the great guns mounted in their bows.

They are a glorious sight. Their banks of oars move in unison, propelling them swiftly through the calm waters. Even in Calais, amidst all the noise of our own activity, we can just make out the sound of their drums, beating out the rhythm for the rowers. We can see the morning sun glinting on the armour of the hundreds of soldiers lining their decks. And we can see the red and gold banners of Spain spilling out as the galleys create their own breeze, while our ensigns of Saint George hang limply.

‘God’s blood,’ he cries –

 

Matthew, Earl of Ravensden

 

‘God’s blood, send us a fair wind!’ But we had not a whiff of one. Not one [expletive deleted] whiff. ‘Master Carver! Can you not but find us a breath or two of breeze, man?’

Even as I uttered the words, I knew they were hopeless. Carver had men adjusting the topsails every few minutes, the main courses nearly as often, but no matter what he did, there was no wind. We caught no breeze off the land. We found no hint of a westerly even when we were out beyond the shelter of Grease Ness.

My ships, and those of the Bastard Orange, were making a knot or two, if that, as we struggled to make any way at all. Even the Dutch cromsters, trim little war-craft with lateen sails at their mizzens, could make but poor progress. And out at sea, in the very centre of the Strait of Dover, the six great galleys were doing a good twelve knots. I’d served with enough men who’d been slaves in the galleys, and knew from them that to keep up this sort of speed, the rowing masters would be pushing the oarsmen to the very limit. I could imagine the whips cracking on flesh, the blood and sweat of the men as the sweeps cut the water. They could not maintain such a tempo for long. But then, they did not need to. The night and the mist had given them the advantage of surprise, the calm now gave them the advantage of speed, and in truth, the Straits of Dover form but a very small stretch of sea. The galleys’ bow waves of white foam were all too visible to we slugs becalmed at Calais, a sure sign that they would soon be past us. But as I clung on to the foremast shrouds, waving my fist at the distant enemy, I knew it was even worse than that. For if we had no wind, then neither did Leveson, Raleigh and Tom Howard over in the Downs. They would be doing the same as us, trying somehow to find a decent breeze and sea-room, but like us, they would be failing. The Spanish admiral, whoever he might be, was both bold and lucky, and in fighting at sea, those are the only qualities an admiral needs.

The Battle of Sesimbra Bay, 1602, which also featured Spinola's galleys, and which also appears in The Rage of Fortune
The Battle of Sesimbra Bay, 1602, which also featured Spinola’s galleys, and which also appears in The Rage of Fortune

But as I watched the impressive sight of the galleys, rowing through England’s private lake as though they owned it, a suspicion grew upon me that the Spanish admiral had more qualities than those alone. This was not some chance raid, not some hare-brained mission dreamed up on the spur of the moment like so many of the expeditions of, say, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. Or Matthew of Ravensden, come to that, if I am honest. A voyage so daring, with such high stakes and high risks, required meticulous planning and preparation. It required careful rehearsal of different options: for instance, the possibility of sending galleys into the English Channel in winter. Suddenly, the fight that had nearly done for my Merhonour, and forced us into Nantes to repair, made perfect sense, although the thought was not a pleasant one. God alone knew what a Spanish admiral so efficient and so ruthless – for sending a galley full of several hundred men into northern waters in November, when it would most likely be swamped by the sea, was ruthless beyond measure – yes, God alone knew what such an admiral might achieve.

There was only one consolation. I looked over to the Dutch flagship, and could see Justinus of Nassau clearly, standing there on his quarterdeck. He had buckled on his breastplate, but he wasn’t laughing now, by Christ. He was as still as a statue, staring at the huge galleys as they moved away inexorably, out into the North Sea. Oh, they’d be a threat to England, all right – Drake hit that particular nail well and truly on its head – but they were ten times the threat to the Bastard Orange’s upstart rebel republic, with its entire economy dependent on sea-trade and all its main ports standing on shallow waterways where galleys were in their element. If the Spanish admiral got safely into Sluys, as he was now nearly bound to do, the Dutch were in more shit than the gong-farmers of Cheapside.

The balance of the war had just changed, there was no doubt of that.

Filed Under: Naval historical fiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: Elizabeth I, Galleys, Journals of Matthew Quinton, Spinola, The Rage of Fortune, Tudor

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