Samuel Pepys and the Strange Wrecking of the Gloucester
A True Restoration Tragedy
Format:Hardback
Publisher:The History Press Ltd
Published:30th Sep '21
£20.00
Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.
In 1682, Charles II invited his scandalous younger brother, James, Duke of York, to return from exile and take his rightful place as heir to the throne. To celebrate, the future king set sail in a fleet of eight ships destined for Edinburgh, where he would reunite with his young pregnant wife. Yet disaster struck en route, somewhere off the Norfolk coast. The royal frigate in which he sailed, the Gloucester, sank, causing some two hundred sailors and courtiers to perish.
The diarist Samuel Pepys had been asked to sail with James but refused the invitation, preferring to travel in one of the other ships. Why? What did he know that others did not? Nigel Pickford’s compelling account of the catastrophe draws on a richness of historical material including letters, diaries and ships’ logs, revealing for the first time the full drama and tragic consequences of a shipwreck that shook Restoration Britain.
Fascinating ... Pickford, a historian who also has experience as a consultant for salvage companies, offers an expert study of the actual circumstances of this shipwreck. At the same time, his narrative is extremely readable and well structured. He weaves in some lesser-known aspects of Stuart life, including horse-racing, yachting, and map-making. His extensive archival research enables him to provide poignant details about members of the doomed crew and to give insights into their private lives ... At a more general level, he shows how the media was manipulated even in the seventeenth century, as the Crown tried to control popular opinion and turn all circumstances to advantage
-- Margarette Lincoln, author of London and the Seventeenth CenturyISBN: 9780750997539
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