Gentleman Captain (44 page)

The naval career of Matthew Quinton is essentially an amalgam of those a number of real gentleman captains of the 1660s. In this, the first of his adventures, the most influential real-life models for Matthew were Captains Francis Digby, second son of the Earl of Bristol; William Jennens (an uncle of Sarah, the future Duchess of Marlborough); and George Legge, later Lord Dartmouth, who (like Matthew) lost his first command within weeks. The character of Godsgift Judge is equally fictitious, but again, he is based on a very real type: the former Commonwealth captain, trying desperately to convince the new royal authorities of his loyalty, appears frequently in the pages of Pepys's diary. Judge is based most closely on Richard Haddock and John Lawson, both of whom had radical antecedents but conformed to the restored monarchy. Unlike Judge, neither betrayed their new loyalty; both died as knights of the realm. I explored the tensions within the Stuart officer corps in some detail in my two non-fiction books,
Pepys's Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare, 1649–89
(2008) and
Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: The Officers and Men of the Restoration Navy
(1991).

There was no conspiracy to unseat King Charles II and restore the Lordship of the Isles, the history of which (and of its downfall) is as described by the Countess of Connaught. Nevertheless, in the tense and profoundly unstable years between 1660 and 1663, there were many real or rumoured conspiracies to overthrow the restored monarch and bring back the Republic. The most serious was the Fifth Monarchist rising in London in January 1661, which anticipated the imminent rule of Christ on Earth. The period is well described in Ronald Hutton's
The Restoration,
while contemporary London itself is splendidly evoked in Lisa Picard's
Restoration London.

The tensions between the Clans Campbell and Macdonald following the execution of the Earl of Argyll, and the history of the lordship of the Isles, were essentially as they are described in this book (leaving aside my invention of an entirely fictitious Ardverran sept). Colin Campbell of Glenrannoch is also an invention, but he was intended to be a rather older and more martial incarnation of John Campbell, later the first Earl of Breadalbane. There are many accounts of the tragic conflict between
Campbell and Macdonald: I used Oliver Thomson's
The Great Feud
and various older histories of the individual clans. Glenrannoch is also a representative of two very real historical types, the young Scots who flocked south to the court of King James I and VI, and the Scots who served with distinction in all the great European armies during the 'Thirty Years War' of 1618 to 1648. The Countess of Connaught is based on no particular historical character (although the 'flight of the earls' in 1607 remains one of the most important and poignant moments in Irish history). However her home, Ardverran Castle, was inspired by four very real fortresses on or near the Sound of Mull:: Ardtornish, Duart, Tioram, and above all Mingary, where the remains of a Commonwealth warship only a little smaller than the
Jupiter,
wrecked during the little-known 'Glencairn rebellion' of 1653–54, still lie among the rocks beneath its walls.

The birlinn is well described in
The West Highland Galley
by Denis Rixson; these direct descendants of Norse longships were still being built in the eighteenth century. Unlikely though it may seem, the free library in the depths of the Highlands, where Francis Gale learned of the Countess's significant connection to the papal curia, actually existed (although it was not founded until 1680). It still does, although I have taken the liberty of transplanting it some hundred miles west from its actual location at Innerpeffray in Perthshire.

Prince Rupert's charge at Naseby, and the storming of Drogheda, both happened essentially as described, although the latter in particular causes controversy to this day: recent 'revisionism suggesting that Cromwell did not order the massacre of the women and children in the town, the line taken by Francis Gale, has caused considerable soul-searching in the Irish Republic and beyond. Tom Reilly's
Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy
is at the centre of this controversy.

The Byzantine structure and politics of the Dutch state during the seventeenth century were essentially as I have described them, although for the sake of clarity, I have simplified some of the even more complex realities of the situation. Good guides to the subject are Maarten Prak's and Diane Webb's
The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century: The Golden Age
and Jonathan Israel's monumental
The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall.

Matthew Quintons grandfather and father, the eighth and ninth Earls of Ravensden, are both based to an extent on real people: the former equally upon George Clifford, fourth Earl of Cumberland, and John Sheffield, second Earl of Mulgrave, both of whom sailed against the Spanish Armada; the latter upon Lucius Carey of Great Tew in Oxfordshire, the second Viscount Falkland. Earl Matthew's extraordinary folding compendium is based on the so-called 'Drake's Dial', an exhibit at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Ravensden Abbey, the Quinton family's crumbling hotchpotch of a mansion built out of an erstwhile monastery, really exists: I have been there. Unfortunately it is not in the real Ravensden, a quiet and pleasant Bedfordshire village, but in approximately half a dozen other locations scattered across England and Wales, each of which provided one aspect of the whole.

Throughout, I have attempted not to twist the known historical record too far, but the story of Roger le Blanc's escape from France meant giving Marie-Madeleine, the famously loyal wife of Nicholas Fouquet (whose downfall took place as Matthew describes it), a distinctly more promiscuous character than she actually possessed. Conversely, Charles II and Catherine of Braganza did spend the first part of their honeymoon at Hampton Court; during the spring of 1662, most of the king's navy was indeed in the Mediterranean or in Portugal; and the whirlpool of Corryvreckan is still just as much a feature of West Highland waters as it was in Matthew Quinton's day.

Several of the lavish meals served to Matthew and his fellow officers were actually consumed, albeit not aboard any frigate named
Jupiter;
in several cases, I have taken the menus almost verbatim from the diary of Henry Teonge, who served as a naval chaplain in the 1670s and who always displayed a particular interest in the fare placed in front of him. Similarly, Malachi Landon's doom-laden readings of the astrological charts are taken from the journals of a contemporary seaman, Jeremiah Roach, who served
as a lieutenant in the 1660s and eventually rose to command. For Roach, as for many others of the time, astrology was seen as an essential and entirely legitimate adjunct of the science of navigation.

Although its author does not appear in person in this book (an omission that will be rectified in the next of the series), the influence of another contemporary diary, that of Samuel Pepys, pervades this story and heavily influenced some of the descriptions and assumptions within it. However, the demands of the plot forced me to take some liberties with the precise order of certain events in April and May 1662, notably the birth of the Princess (later Queen) Mary and the dating of Easter. I did so with a clear conscience, particularly in the case of the latter–bearing in mind quite how many liberties have already been taken with it by organized Christianity since at least the time of the Council of Nicaea!

Finally, I have not been able to find a definitive origin for 'The White Rose', the wonderful Cornish lament that was sung at James Vyvyan's funeral and which I first heard many years ago on a memorable winter's evening in the ethereal surroundings of Truro Cathedral. The song seems to date from at least the eighteenth century, and its subject matter suggests that it was originally a paean to the House of York, in whose name Cornwall last rose in arms in 1497. Even if a performance of it after a sea battle in 1662 proves to be an anachronism, I am perfectly content to leave it where it is.

The origins of
Gentleman Captain
lie in the academic research into the history of the seventeenth century navy that I have been undertaking for well over twenty-five years. What began as a cathartic piece of light relief from supposedly more 'serious' writing rapidly took on a very serious (and often all-consuming) life of its own, and as both Matthew Quinton and his creator took their first tentative steps, a number of influences soon began to shape both our journeys. I began my teaching career in Cornwall, spending several years learning to love that ancient land and its ferociously independent people, so it seemed fitting to cast the
Jupiter
s crew as the heirs of An Gof and Flamank, and (perhaps) the fathers of Trelawny's 'twenty thousand':
meur ras dhywgh hwi.

Next, a special but belated 'thank you' to the crews of the Clyde Fleet Tenders operating from HM Naval Base Faslane between 1988 and 1994. They introduced a very green Sub-Lieutenant RNR (CCF) to the scenic splendours and complex navigational challenges of the west coast of Scotland, and to much else besides - notably the merits of a bewildering array of malt whiskies, the elastic nature of licensing hours in isolated fishing harbours and the graphically anatomical reasons why one should steer well clear of a certain town in Argyll. The voyages of the CFTs instilled in me a love of those splendid, wild places that many subsequent visits have confirmed and deepened.

A number of old friends read drafts of the book and made many constructive comments. Ann Coats, Peter Le Fevre and my jacket artist, Richard Endsor, kept up their formidable reputation as probably the most knowledgeable, supportive and witty 'discussion group' working in any era of naval history. Their unfailingly generous and selfless input into both this novel and my non-fiction books on the period has been above and beyond the call of duty, and truly in the spirit of the original musketeers: 'all for one, and one for all'! But for illness, Frank Fox would have been counted with them. However, his contribution to my understanding of the layout and capabilities of Charles II's warships, and to the scholarship of the Restoration navy as a whole, was already incalculable.

Having taught me to sail long ago, David Jenkins again kept me afloat by ensuring that my passages about sailing did not stray from the realm of fiction into that of downright implausibility. Similarly, Sheena Boa and Christina Webb ensured that the exertions of Matthew Quinton's steeds did not exceed the capacity of any horse, then or now. My agent, Peter Buckman, displayed unwavering faith in the book, and Becky Senior, my editor at Old Street, provided many perceptive insights and rigorous but always constructive criticisms. Finally, though, my greatest debt is to Wendy, my sternest critic and strongest supporter, who read all of the drafts and acted as a surrogate stepmother to Matthew Quinton and the other characters. I dedicate this book to her, with gratitude and much love.

J. D. Davies
Bedfordshire
February 2009