Empire of the Seas with Dan Snow

"Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World" is the title of Dan Snow's four-part documentary series currently setting sail on Friday evenings on BBC2, and jolly bracing it is too.

Dan is the son of Peter Snow, through-the-night BBC anchorman for many parliamentary elections, and I half expected Dan to roll out his dad's famous Swingometer to illustrate the shifts in the balance of sea power between Spain, France and Blighty.

As a former Boat Race man himself, Dan loses no opportunity to climb rigging, stand Winslet-like at the prow and man the wheel of various expensive-looking craft that the BBC has managed to borrow.

He also helps the modern Royal Navy to show off several of its more modern vessels, including a simulated raid by a large state-of-the-art fisheries protection vessel on a tiny defenceless fishing boat which the RN boat could easily squash by accident. Maybe there were no Somali pirates around to teach a lesson to...

The series charts the progress of the Royal Navy from the defeat of the Armada to the First World War, and therein lies one of the criticisms that have been aimed at the BBC. Why ignore the contribution of Henry VIII (and earlier regimes) in establishing the early Navy? Daly History Blog argues a similar point.

Cardinal Wolsey suspects that with such high production values (lots of helicopter flypasts as Dan sways on the topmast) the budget would only stretch to four episodes, so the early days had to be cut. See this previous post on Henry VIII's dockyards if you are interested in this period.

Another criticism is the sometimes slapdash treatment of the background politics (as opposed to the naval stuff proper). James Russell points out that the Armada was not simply a revenge mission for Drake's attack on Cadiz (as claimed in episode 1), but in fact it's key objective was to reverse the Protestant reformation and restore the Catholic church.

But Empire of the Seas is very good on how the expansion of the Navy was masterminded by men such as Sam Pepys . I agree with Molly Joyful's blog that the series isn't too gung-ho and highlights some of the less savoury episodes on the seas. These include the sad story of Admiral John Byng, also the subject of a previous post in this blog.

There is also a lavishly illustrated book to go with the series, written by expert naval historian Brian Lavery. Amazon UK are currently offering it at half price which at £10 is incredible value. That leaves a tenner spare for a bottle of rum to go with it.

Pepys tries DIY...and regrets it.

Phil Gyford's Diary of Samuel Pepys blog is a fantastic resource, with many comments and annotations by contributors. In the entry for 7th February 1666, Pepys records what happens when he tries a little Do-it-yourself around the house.

Sam Pepys caught short

Samuel Pepys wakes at 6 a.m. on a freezing December morning in 1664.

No chamber pot to hand, and he needs a wee.

Does he :

a) hang on until one arrives
b) go and look for one
c) use the chimney

Read the answer here.

Bloody Events

This week is the anniversary of several Early Modern events that have something in common...blood

November 13th 1553 saw the trial for high treason of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Dudley, although they were not executed until February the next year. Poor Jane's sentence called for her to "be burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the Queen pleases"'[source:Wiki]. Queen "Bloody" Mary chose beheading, which was nice of her.

November 13th is also the anniversay of the Battle of Turnham Green, 1642, an early stand-off in the English Civil War, in which the Royalists, having sacked the posh new waterside flats around Brentford, attempted to seize control of one of London's most important bus garages, but were rebuffed. The English Civil Wars site tells the story.

Samuel Pepys' diary entry for 14th November 1666 gives an account of an early experiment in blood transfusion. [Press the "Back" button now if you are fond of little doggies]. Eric at the Project History blog relates the grisly facts.

Pepys on Moscow

An evocative description of Moscow from Samuel Pepys' diary entry for 17th September, 1664.

".....walked into the fields as far almost as Sir G.Whitmore's, all the way talking of Russia, which, he says, is a sad place; and, though Moscow is a very great city, yet it is from the distance between house and house, and few people compared with this, and poor, sorry houses, the Emperor himself living in a wooden house, his exercise only flying a hawk at pigeons and carrying pigeons ten or twelve miles off and then laying wagers which pigeon shall come soonest home to her house. All the winter within doors, some few playing at chesse, but most drinking their time away. Women live very slavishly there, and it seems in the Emperor’s court no room hath above two or three windows, and those the greatest not a yard wide or high, for warmth in winter time; and that the general cure for all diseases there is their sweating houses, or people that are poor they get into their ovens, being heated, and there lie. Little learning among things of any sort. Not a man that speaks Latin, unless the Secretary of State by chance."

Moscow can be grim but the Russian sense of humour usually saves the day: check out the funny cosmonaut animation on this website for a heroically ugly hotel.

The Dean of St.Paul's invents bottled beer, 13th July, 1568

Cardinal Wolsey did not drink bottled beer. Why? Because he had been dead for 39 years when Dr Alexander Nowell, Dean of St Paul's is reputed to have discovered the benefits of bottled beer by accident.

According the the History of the Pint,
the Dean had decanted some beer into a bottle for a fishing expedition in 1568. He lost a bottle in the grass and, "when he came upon it again quite by chance a few days later, found it was still perfectly drinkable".

The Mary Rose website discusses the importance of copious supplies of beer to the Tudor navy : seven gallons per man was the norm.

Some interesting"annotations" on the subject of beer in the 17th century have been contributed by readers of the Samuel Pepys Diary blog . Pepys himself records the unfortunate consequences of drinking bad beer in the diary...
"Drinking of cold small beer here I fell ill, and was forced to go out and vomit, and so was well again and went home by and by to bed."(16 March, 1662).

["Small beer" was lower in alcohol than "Strong beer", and so more liable to contamination! ]

Charles II sells Dunkirk to the French, 27th October, 1662.

For this week's post we go back to Charles II's sale of Dunkirk to France on 27th October, 1662. The price was a reasonable 2.5m livres, or around £400,000 (partly paid in installments).

The map on right "Plan de la Ville et Citadelle de Dunkerque" dates from the early 18thC, but the original drawing is believed to date from 1662. This is from the excellent University of Jerusalem Geography dept. historic cities website.
Samuel Pepys makes several mentions of the Dunkirk sale in his diary ("This day come the King's pleasure-boats from Calais, with the Dunkirk money, being 400,000 pistolles." 21-Nov-1662), and there are further contributions from readers of the Pepys diary retro-blog.

Link to previous posts:
Samuel Pepys learns his uncle has died
Indians sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons, 1626

6th July, 1661. Samuel Pepys learns his uncle has died

Samuel Pepys' diary is a fascinating and often earthy record of life in the mid-17th century, from Pepys' point view close to the center of power. It is now available as a 17th Century Blog, a brainwave on the part of Phil Gyford, who has been adding daily entries since 2003. This is a great way to dip into the diary, and there are discussion groups too. Here is the URL: http://www.pepysdiary.com/.

The text comes from the Gutenburg Project, which makes copyright-free literature available (for free) on the Internet - please link to http://promo.net/pg/ .

The portrait at right is in the National Portrait Gallery London (http://npg.org.uk)

Here is an extract from the diary entry for 6th July 1661, complete with a smelly corpse and a will Pepys is keen to see. Is Pepys the source of the phrase "in a pickle"?

Waked this morning with news, brought me by a messenger on purpose, that my uncle Robert is dead, and died yesterday; so I rose sorry in some respect, glad in my expectations in another respect. ..... My uncle’s corps in a coffin standing upon joynt-stools in the chimney in the hall; but it begun to smell, and so I caused it to be set forth in the yard all night, and watched by two men. My aunt I found in bed in a most nasty ugly pickle, made me sick to see it. My father and I lay together tonight, I greedy to see the will, but did not ask to see it till to- morrow. (source www.pepysdiary.com)