J D Davies - Historian and Author

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

The Rage of Fortune

When Two Tribes go to…Conferences

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To start with this week, some long-awaited and exciting news – The Rage of Fortune, the prequel to the Quinton series, has just been published as an e-book by Endeavour Press, and is available from the various Amazon Kindle stores! I’ve mentioned this a number of times in this blog (notably here and here), so won’t go into detail about the plot here. Suffice to say it’s an old-fashioned swashbuckler set against a backdrop of real historical events at the end of Elizabeth I’s reign, and that its protagonists are Matthew’s eponymous, larger than life grandfather, the eighth Earl of Ravensden, mortal foe of Sir Francis Drake, and his much younger, feisty French bride. I hope you’ll enjoy their adventures both in their own terms, and for the additional information they provide about the complex ‘back stories’ of Matthew and his family!

And now for this week’s post…

***

History is a pretty clannish world. Its practitioners define themselves, or are defined by others, as specialists in a particular period or theme, and even today, there are still hints of a barely definable ‘caste system’. (‘You’re a medievalist? Have you taken something for that?’ ‘You’re an art historian? Did you wipe your feet as you came in?’) As for me, I belong to the ultimate pariah sect, naval historians, who are still sometimes perceived by other branches of the subject as gung-ho retired admirals in blazers, endlessly refighting the minutiae of Trafalgar or Jutland. Now, like all stereotypes, this doesn’t bear serious scrutiny (I am not, and have never been, an admiral, the blazer recently went to a charity shop, and Hugh Evan-Thomas did absolutely nothing wrong, OK??), but it does provide ample material for both abiding misperceptions and jolly interdisciplinary banter. In my case, of course, I’m something of an oddity even within the world of naval history: not only do I specialise in the seventeenth century, the preserve of a small, beleagured band who have to spend much of their time explaining to lay audiences exactly where their period fits (‘No, it’s a long time before Nelson; no, it’s a long time after the Spanish Armada; and yes, seriously, the Dutch were the enemy’), but I also write historical fiction, which casts me well beyond the pale as far as some ‘serious’ historians are concerned – although are the likes of David Starkey and Niall Ferguson still considered as serious historians these days? It’s so hard to keep up…

So it was with some trepidation that, last week, I made my first venture into the world of court studies, by attending and speaking at a conference at the National Maritime Museum. This focused principally on Greenwich Palace, and was held to mark the reopening, and 400th anniversary, of the Queen’s House. Would this strange interloper from a different tribe receive a ‘Wicker Man’ fate, I wondered? Nothing could have been further from the truth. The court studies crowd were a friendly, welcoming, enthusiastic bunch, albeit quite an eclectic one, with a fair sprinkling of art and literary historians, plus one culinary historian. The papers were uniformly fascinating, and my own, on how Charles II’s plans for Greenwich fitted into his aspirations to ‘the sovereignty of the seas’, was very well received. Inevitably, there was quite a lot on Anna of Denmark, but that was OK with me as I’d developed an interest in her when writing Blood of Kings; and after all, any queen consort who can quaff beer with the best of James VI&I’s court is fine in my book. But the talks ranged widely, and it was equally interesting to hear the aforementioned culinary historian describe one astonishing feast consumed by Henry VIII and his court at Greenwich in 1527 (when ‘supper’ lasted until dawn), and Jacqueline Riding, whose book Jacobites hugely impressed me, talking about the political and cultural importance of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’s’ court at Holyroodhouse during his six-week stay there in 1745. (I’ve got a distinctly left-field Jacobite series lurking in my ‘to do’ pile – or rather, in the ‘to pitch to publishers’ pile.)

One of the most important things I took away from the conference, though, was the exciting emphasis in court studies on ‘royal space’ – breaking away from a narrow focus on, say, the internal layouts of royal palaces, to consider the totality of the space used by the court, including parks, forests, factories, etc, as well as the lives and work of all those, no matter how humble, who worked for or otherwise were in direct contact with a royal court. This certainly fits well with my own work, and with some of the issues I’ll be exploring in my forthcoming book Kings of the Sea. The Stuart royal yachts were certainly prime examples of ‘royal space’, as were events like ship launches, which became elaborate court ceremonies, often attended by many of the most prominent people in the country. There was also considerable enthusiasm for my points about the naval nature of Charles II’s court – indeed, some of the other delegates had already come to that conclusion, having arrived at it from completely non-naval directions.

However, undoubtedly the highlight of my time in Greenwich was the opportunity to have a tour of the Painted Hall’s famous ceiling, which is currently being restored. So, doing my best George Osborne impression in hi-vis jacket and hard hat, I ascended the scaffolding, and for the first time had the chance to study close-up the glorious art that I’ve so often stared at from the ground. Our tour guide was entertaining and knowledgeable, and it was fascinating to learn just how big a job the restoration will be (quite a lot of it, sadly, making good some of the botched ‘restorations’ of earlier times). So here are a few of the pictures I took – enjoy!

Up close and personal with the ceiling of the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich
The huge, but now sadly faded, stern of a man-of-war
Restoration under way- huge respect for all involved in this vast project!
A detail in one corner of the ceiling portrays John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal
Queen Mary II, founder of the Royal Hospital Greenwich, at the centre of the ceiling. A naughty restorer has signed his name right in the middle of Her Majesty’s decolletage.
King William III
A detail from the decoration fringing the ceiling, showing just how great the need for restoration is
My personal favourite- John Worley, one of the first Greenwich pensioners (admitted in 1705, aged 81), who was used by the artist Sir James Thornhill to model for ‘winter’. Worley was Welsh, and is mentioned in ‘Britannia’s Dragon’. Despite his age, he was in trouble with the authorities several times for being drunk and disorderly – but even so, he lived to be 96!

Merry Christmas from the Raging Quintons!

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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.

A New Era

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At long last, after having to keep things under wraps for some time, I’m finally able to reveal some really exciting news!

Firstly, great news for all Quinton fans – the series continues! Next year, the 350th anniversary of the Dutch attack on the Medway, will see the publication by Endeavour Press of the seventh book in the chronological Journals of Matthew Quinton, set against the backdrop of the astonishing national humiliation which many regard as the worst defeat in British history. And I can now reveal that the title of the new book will be…

Random picture to increase tension - the Dutch in the Medway, by William Schellinks
Random picture to increase tension – the Dutch in the Medway, by William Schellinks

…wait for it…

The Devil Upon the Wave.

(The title is derived from one of the most famous ‘one-liners’ in Pepys’s Diary, namely his colleague Sir William Batten’s scatological comment on 19 July 1667 – ‘By God, says he, I think the Devil shits Dutchmen’.)

It’s very early days in the process of writing the story, but Matthew will certainly be at the heart of the drama in the Medway, and also engaged in action in the open sea, albeit not quite in the way one might expect. There’ll also be an encounter with one of the most famous figures in the whole of naval history!

As an aside, this might be a good time to mention the fact that a lot of exciting events will be happening in the summer of next year to mark the anniversary of the Dutch attack, many of them, naturally, in the Medway area. I’m involved in a number of events, including a major conference in Amsterdam which I’m helping to organise, so expect many more updates on all of this in due course.

Returning to the Quinton series, though…

Long-time readers of this blog and fans of the series will know that I’ve also written a book set at the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, with Matthew’s eponymous grandfather as its central character. I’ve not said anything about The Rage of Fortune for some time, because a number of editorial and contractual issues arose with it, and these have delayed publication far beyond its intended appearance in 2015. But I’m delighted to be able to announce that these issues have finally been resolved, and that Endeavour Press will be publishing The Rage of Fortune in both e-book and print-on-demand formats in the near future. I hope to provide a more detailed ‘taster’ of the book on this site soon!

Finally, Endeavour will also be publishing a second, shorter, Quinton ‘e-story’, following on from the series prequel Ensign Royal (which, as I indicated a couple of weeks ago, is now available again). Provisionally titled Quinton and the Princess, this, too, is set before Gentleman Captain, the first book in the main series. Which Princess, you ask? Well, fans of the recent TV series Versailles might have an idea! We’re hoping that this story will come out well before the end of next year, and regular updates will be provided on this website.

And even more good news…I know that readers have been struggling to get hold of copies of the fourth Quinton book, The Lion of Midnight, and that copies of this have been turning up on Amazon, etc, for absolutely ridiculous prices. (Rumours to the effect that all of these copies seem to be being sold by a shifty Welshman living in Bedfordshire are, of course, entirely unfounded.) Fortunately, Endeavour have just released the new e-book edition, while Old Street are reprinting the print version, so The Lion should be readily available again very soon.

So all in all, these are exciting times here at Quinton Towers, so it’s undoubtedly a good time to thank all those of you who’ve read the books. It’s great to receive feedback, and most of the comments I get from readers are hugely positive, giving me a very powerful incentive to carry on writing!

The Beast, You Say? No, Sorry, Wrong Number

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Happy New Year, everybody! And what an anniversary-rich year it promises to be, even in comparison with 2015 and 2014. The World War I commemorations will include the poignant centenaries of the Somme and Jutland; I hope to be involved in, or at least a witness to, some of the latter, and will report back as and when the time comes. Tudor and Stuart historians, lovers of literature – well, pretty much everybody, really – will overdose merrily on the shenanigans surrounding the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. And for those of us who dabble in the late seventeenth century, there’s the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London to look forward to.

Actually, of course, the latter is just one of the 350th anniversaries of the extraordinary events of the year 1666, which attracted considerable attention from contemporaries because it included the Biblical ‘number of the beast’. Thus many expected disasters and extraordinary events, and they certainly got them during what John Dryden described as the annus mirabilis: not just the Great Fire, but two colossal naval battles, the ‘Four Days’ Fight’ from 1-4 June (Old Style / Julian Calendar) and the ‘St James Day’ Fight’ (25-26 July), as well as the attack on the Dutch Frisian islands that became known to the British as ‘Holmes’ bonfire’ and to the Dutch as the ‘English Fury’. Plans are afoot to commemorate the latter on Vlieland and Terschelling, but there seems to be nothing planned on the British side to mark the battles – apart from by the small, beleagured, widely scattered band of Restoration navy nuts, who’ll be raising lonely glasses to toast the immortal memories of, umm, Sir William Berkeley, and the others who fought and died in those titanic, but now almost forgotten, conflicts.

All of the above impacts hugely on my own plans for this year. The most recent Quinton novel to be published, The Battle of All the Ages, focuses on the Four Days’ Battle and the St James’ Day Fight, while the next one in the chronological series, Death’s Bright Angel, due to be published this summer, begins with ‘Holmes’ bonfire’ and culminates in the Great Fire (and as I’ve mentioned before on this blog, if you think there’s no naval dimension to the Great Fire of London, you ain’t seen nothing yet…). More on that anon, as Death’s Bright Angel is going to be a very unusual book in some respects – effectively two books in one, with the fictional story followed by an extensive historical essay that will reveal some explosive new evidence about aspects of the Great Fire. If all goes according to plan, too, this will be a bumper year for Quinton fans, following last year’s fallow period (for which apologies once again): The Rage of Fortune, the prequel set in the period 1598-1602 and featuring Matthew’s eponymous grandfather, the swashbuckling eighth Earl of Ravensden, is currently scheduled for publication as an e-book on 10 May.

Otherwise, I plan to spend much of the year researching and writing my new non-fiction book for Seaforth Publishing, Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Royal Navy, due for publication in the summer of 2017 to coincide with next year’s massive 350th anniversary, that of the Dutch attack on the Medway in 1667. I’ll also be reviving the hashtag #2ADW350 on Twitter, to ‘live tweet’ the naval events of 1666 on their anniversaries. And, yes, if the need arises for further blogs about the Carmarthenshire archives situation, The Ladybird Book of Online Campaigning and General S*** Stirring remains at hand.

Winner of 'Britain's Got Wigs', 1689
Winner of ‘Britain’s Got Wigs’, 1689

Finally, a plug for one more 2016 anniversary that might otherwise go unnoticed. 13 April marks the 300th anniversary of the death of Arthur Herbert, Earl of Torrington, one of the most controversial naval officers of the seventeenth century. Denounced by Pepys for gross immorality (which, let’s face it, is a bit liked being denounced by Donald Trump for having a dodgy mullet), Herbert commanded the British fleet in the Battle of Beachy Head, 1690, which the French claim as one of their few naval victories over the rosbifs, and is credited with originating the term ‘fleet in being’. So if you need an excuse to raise a glass on 13 April, you now have one!

The Rage is Coming!

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Cue drum roll…cue trumpets…

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce that the next ‘Journal of Matthew Quinton’, the sixth book in the series, will be entitled The Rage of Fortune.

But this is a ‘Quinton Journal’ with a twist, because the central character is a different Matthew Quinton. Followers of the series will know that one of the biggest influences on the personality of my hero, the Restoration naval captain Matthew Quinton, is the memory of his eponymous grandfather, the eighth Earl of Ravensden, one of Queen Elizabeth I’s ‘sea dogs’. Indeed, Matthew sometimes ‘hears’ asides from what might or might not be the shade of the long-dead swashbuckler, a colleague and rival of the likes of Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. I’d always envisaged a prequel centring on the first Matthew Quinton, and thanks to Ben Yarde-Buller at Old Street Publishing, I’ve now got the opportunity to do it!

The story begins in 1651, just after the Battle of Worcester, the final conflict of the British Civil Wars. The eleven year old Matthew Junior and his twin, Henrietta, are exploring an abandoned corner of their family home when they discover the long-forgotten papers of their grandfather, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Roundhead troops intent on searching for their elder brother, the tenth Earl of Ravensden, who has been seriously wounded in the Cavalier cause. Gradually, though, the papers of the old Earl and of some of those who knew him – including the recollections of his wife, Matt and Herry’s grandmother – start to paint a picture of a very different world: the world of the turn of the seventeenth century, when England was still fighting a seemingly endless war against Spain, when William Shakespeare was writing Henry V and Julius Caesar, and when the whole country was obsessed by the question of who would succeed the ageing Queen Elizabeth.

The Rage of Fortune is set against the backdrop of a series of real historical events. Many still wrongly assume that the Spanish Armada was the only significant naval campaign during Elizabeth I’s war, and that nothing of much note happened after it. This is simply untrue – the war lasted for another 16 years, and Rage places Earl Matthew at the centre of such remarkable, but sadly little known, naval actions as the affairs of the ‘Spinola Galleys’ and the ‘Invisible Armada’, and at the Battles of Castlehaven, Kinsale and Sesimbra Bay. Meanwhile, he and his new French wife are thrust into the heart of the intrigues over the succession to the English throne and of one of the most mysterious incidents in the whole of British history, while being threatened by a mysterious and malevolent enemy who threatens to bring down the entire Quinton family. Rage also provides a startling revelation about the history of one of the principal characters from the Restoration-era books!

I’ve really enjoyed returning to a time period and to themes that I know well. I spent over ten years researching and writing my non-fiction book, Blood of Kings: the Stuarts, the Ruthvens, and the ‘Gowrie Conspiracy’, which provided a lot of inspiration and material for The Rage of Fortune; and I spent many more years teaching Elizabethan and Jacobean England, together with such related European History themes as the French Wars of Religion, Habsburg Spain, and the Revolt of the Netherlands (all touched upon in Rage), to A-level students. So in some ways, writing The Rage of Fortune has marked a return to pastures old! But I’ve also relished the opportunity to learn more about matters that I’d been only dimly aware of until now: for instance, the very brief and somewhat bizarre interlude when both England and the Netherlands became convinced, almost literally overnight, that galleys were the future of naval warfare, even in stormy northern waters, and embarked on programmes of galley-building.

Regular readers of the series will already have come across references in Matthew Junior’s ‘back story’ to some of the other characters who appear in The Rage of Fortune: notably to his grandmother, the ‘imperious termagant’ Louise-Marie, Countess of Ravensden, a distinctly feisty Frenchwoman, twenty years younger than her husband, and to his remarkably long-lived great-great-grandmother Katherine, a former nun. And those regular readers needn’t fear – Matthew Junior will be back in his own right in 2016, the 350th anniversary of both the Four Days Battle (the subject of the most recent published title in the series, The Battle of All The Ages) and of the Great Fire of London, which will play a very significant part in the plot of ‘Quinton 7’, Death’s Bright Angel. 

The Rage of Fortune will be published by Old Street Publishing in the spring or summer of 2015. I really hope that readers enjoy it!