The Battle of All the Ages

by J. D. Davies

  The yacht came alongside the Royal Charles and secured to her larboard side, allowing me to board her by way of the entry port.

  The flagship’s great cabin was very much like a court room. The portly Duke of Albemarle sat behind a table, his back to the stern windows; beyond them, the bow wave of the Royal Sceptre surged at the cutwater as she kept her station astern of the flagship. Albemarle seemed entirely intent upon the papers in front of him. Prince Rupert was at the stern, at the larboard side, looking out at the fleet, apparently oblivious to everything that was happening in the cabin. I took a deep breath. I had new responsibilities now, or soon would have: the responsibilities of a father. And yet I was about to do the most irresponsible thing I had ever done in my life. Somehow, though, it was if I could hear my grandfather whispering in my ear.

  ‘Courage, boy. Remember, above all, that you are a Quinton.’

  And fortunately, I was not the last and only Quinton. Tucked into my sleeve was the note that my brother had sent to me from Whitehall, just before I set off for the fleet.

  Finally, Albemarle looked up and acknowledged my presence.

  ‘Sir Matthew,’ he said, politely enough. ‘Your appearance is somewhat… shall one say, unanticipated? You were expected back long before the fleet sailed from the Buoy of the Nore. Your absence forced us to appoint a new captain for the Royal Sceptre - Captain Marks, a good man. I do not intend to put him out to accommodate you. You are welcome here aboard the Charles as a supernumerary or volunteer, but you cannot expect special privileges, and certainly not a cabin –’

  ‘No, Your Grace.’

  To my surprise, I found contradicting a Duke, the Captain-General of England no less, an easy thing to do; very much akin to reprimanding a naughty child, in truth. And I would need practice at that.

  ‘No? No? You dare ‘no’ me, Quinton?’ Incredulity at my interruption gave way to rage. ‘I am Albemarle, by God! How dare you, a jumped-up, insolent gentleman captain, say nay to me! I will –’

  ‘No, Your Grace. I will have back the command of the Royal Sceptre. As I recall, Captain Marks is a Devon man, is he not? A client of yours, Your Grace, who fought under you during the wars in Cromwell’s time? Another member of your Devon coterie?’

  Albemarle’s fat face was a vivid red.

  ‘God’s blood, Quinton, I will have you court-martialled for this – you and that gross incompetent Harris, who couldn’t tell the French fleet from the Spanish and deserted his command to go up to London with you –’

  ‘No you will not, Your Grace. You see, any action you take against us will force my brother, the Earl of Ravensden, to bring certain papers to the attention of His Majesty and the Lord Chancellor, as head of the judiciary. The papers consist principally of affidavits, taken and sworn by the Reverend Francis Gale, while we were in your native Devon.’ It was easy now: out poured all my hatred of this man who hated me, and whom I held responsible for the death of my friend Will Berkeley. ‘Papers relating to the collusion of Ludovic Conibear, the navy agent at Plymouth and another client of Your Grace’s, with the notorious Dutch privateer, Captain Kranz, the so-called hell-hound. Papers which connect Conibear directly to the murder of Nathaniel Garrett, whose unwitting testimony was one of the principal causes of the division of the fleet. Testimony which you chose to accept, Your Grace, despite it being the unsupported, second-hand account of just one man. Papers which prove that many of the gentry of Devon, including some of your own family, knowingly bought wine smuggled from France by Kranz and Conibear, in contravention of the embargo imposed by the Privy Council. And papers which implicate Your Grace in an attempt deliberately and unjustly to smear Captain Harris as another principal mover in that unfortunate calamity –’

  Albemarle slammed his hands on the table, pulled himself to his feet and leaned forward menacingly, his vast bulk shaking with rage.

  ‘You damnable, impudent, arrogant pup – I have had men shot for much less –’

  ‘Sit down, George, and be silent.’

  Prince Rupert’s strong German accent made the reproof seem even more abrupt and brutal than it was. The Prince turned away from the stern windows, and stepped toward Albemarle.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sit. Be silent, you great blockhead.’

  ‘But I am Albemarle –’

  ‘Indeed you are, Your Grace. But I am Rupert. Prince Rupert. I was born in the palace of Prague Castle, to the King and Queen of Bohemia. My brother is the Elector Palatine of the Rhine, one of the select eight who choose the Holy Roman Emperors. I am cousin to Charles, King of England, whom you restored and who made you Duke of Albemarle, as you might recall. Who are your brothers and cousins, George? And where were you born, pray? Great Potheridge, was it not? Why, in lowly Prague they speak of nothing but Great Potheridge, of what a mighty and noble city it is.’

  Albemarle’s mouth opened and closed, but no words emerged. The Duke swayed on his feet, staring impotently at Prince Rupert. Rage battled against deference. But the sometime George Monck, younger son of an obscure Devon knight, had no refuge. Albemarle had brought royalty back to the British kingdoms, and that very fact ensured he could make not even the slightest protest against a scion of the blood royal he had elected to restore.

  ‘Your Highness,’ he said, and bowed his head slightly. Thus did the proud and powerful Duke of Albemarle acknowledge defeat.

  ‘I propose that we adopt a different view of the present situation,’ said Prince Rupert. ‘I suggest that while Captain Marks has many excellent qualities, they surely do not exceed those of the heir to Ravensden, a man knighted for his astonishing valour in the Lowestoft fight. And as the Royal Sceptre seconds our flagship, it is surely only right that a man of honour, from one of the finest families in the kingdom, should command her. I suggest that Captain Marks should be compensated with the command of the next frigate sent to cruise off Heligoland, where he will stand a better chance of taking wealthy prizes – perhaps even a fat Dutch Indiaman or two. You concur, Your Grace?’ Albemarle waved a flabby hand, but said nothing. ‘Very well. Sir Matthew, return to your command. God willing, very soon we will be avenged on De Ruyter and the Hollanders.’

  * * *

  Back aboard the Royal Sceptre, I was huzzah’d to the heavens. Men waved their Monmouth caps and dangled from the shrouds, shouting themselves hoarse. Even a number of the toughest old veterans in the crew were in tears. However, Francis Gale, who had returned to the ship before it sailed from the Buoy of the Nore, quickly disabused me of the notion that their enthusiasm might have been born entirely of love for me.

  ‘A sign of His Grace of Albemarle’s entire lack of grace,’ he said. ‘Who but he would have thought it suitable to appoint a Devon man, and a former rebel at that, to command a crew made up chiefly of Cornishmen, the stoutest Cavaliers in the kingdom? And even if they were not, they would hate a Devon captain on principle. I suspect that Captain Marks found his chaplain a trial, too. He seemed to me to have anabaptistical tendencies, which is probably why he appeared not to find my sermon upon our God-given duty to baptise infants entirely to his liking. Upon which subject, Sir Matthew, I give you and Lady Quinton joy of your news.’

  The stolid Captain Marks had disembarked into the Bezan only a few minutes before. He did not seem sad to be going, although whether that was because of the antipathy of the chaplain and crew or because of the presence of the wholly amoral Lord Rochester and his accursed monkey remained to be seen. The beast in question, still attired in its miniature lieutenant’s baldric, glowered at me from the top of a quarterdeck demi-culverin, seemingly the one living creature aboard the ship that was not delighted by my return.

  I looked about me. It was good to feel the gentle rise and fall of a deck beneath my feet, good to see and hear the wind in the sails, good to smell the tar and the timber. It was good to have abandoned the yellow uniform. In short, it was good to be a king’s captain again, to be sailing into battle against the enemy, and to contemplate father
hood. I even felt benevolent toward Lord Rochester’s monkey, and patted the creature on its head.

  The ungrateful beast bit me.

  Chapter Twenty

  25 JULY 1666

  There happened of late a terrible fray,

  Begun upon our St James’s Day,

  With a thump, thump, thump, thump, thump

  Thump, thump, a thump, thump

  Where Rupert and George for Charlemaign

  Swing’d the Dutch again and again

  (As if they had been the French or the Dane),

  With a thump, thump, thump, thump, thump

  Thump, thump, a thump, thump

  Sir John Birkenhead, A New Ballad of a Famous German Prince and a Renowned English Duke, Who on St James’s Day One Thousand 666 fought with a Beast with Seven Heads, call’d Provinces… (1666)

  ‘The Dutch are a shambles,’ said Lord Rochester. ‘Even I can see that, by God.’

  ‘We should not underestimate them, My Lord,’ I said. ‘They will still fight like tigers.’

  ‘Too many bloody Dutchmen in the world,’ said Musk. ‘That’s what I say, at any rate. Like that beast in legend, whatever its name was. Keep cutting off its heads, and still it grows new ones and comes back at you. Dutchmen are like that, Dutchmen are.’

  The two fleets were converging very slowly in light winds on the hot, hazy morning of Saint James’s Day. With what breeze there was coming from the north, we had the weather gage. With that advantage in our favour, we edged south-east toward the disorganised Dutch line. Whether it was bad ship-handling, which I doubted, or another consequence of their endemic petty jealousies between the provinces, which I very much suspected – in either event, there were great gaps between the Dutch squadrons. Their line, too, was barely worthy of the name, resembling instead a ragged half-moon.

  Consequently, our van squadron was engaged long before we were: nearly four hours before. We could see and hear the gunfire as the White Squadron blazed away, but it was as though we were spectators at a bear-baiting.

  ‘Allin will be well content,’ I said after two or perhaps three hours. ‘He has his own squadron at last, and the Zeelanders give way before him!’

  Even through the smoke, which hung over the battle thanks to the negligible breeze, it was apparent that the lighter Dutch ships were struggling to withstand the onslaught from Sir Thomas Allin’s more powerful batteries. The likes of the Royal James, Royal Katherine, Saint George and Unicorn, some of England’s mightiest ships, blazed away to formidable effect. Unlike in the previous battle, the sea was calm enough to ensure that our fleet’s lower gunports could be open from the beginning, and our superior weight of shot was literally murderous.

  ‘Now,’ said Francis Gale as we finally closed the Dutch in the centre, ‘let us pray that God favours those of us under the red banner too.’

  Our trumpets sounded, the drums beat, and the King’s Prick sailed into battle. Lovell’s Marines massed on deck, came to attention, then dispersed to their action stations. The catcalls that had once greeted their appearances on deck were no more. They had been tested in battle, and the seamen knew their worth; the yellow-coated soldiers were Sceptres now.

  We were the Royal Charles’s second, and there was never any doubt where we were bound. The huge stern of the flagship filled the ocean dead ahead of us, but just to larboard of her, I caught glimpses of a familiar vast Dutch ship flying a huge command flag. It was the Seven Provinces, and De Ruyter himself.

  There were shouts from our lookouts, and another from a young man over on the larboard side of the quarterdeck.

  ‘One of her seconds is wearing, Sir Matthew! She’s coming for us!’

  Julian Delacourt, this, the new lieutenant of the Royal Sceptre. Son and only heir to an impoverished baron of Munster, he was an eager but impossibly young lad of nineteen, with a mop of jet-black hair. He had lively eyes and a winning smile, so unsurprisingly, the Earl of Rochester swiftly took an unhealthy interest in him. However, Delacourt seemed more than able to look after himself: indeed, he had an easy wit about him that allowed him to hold his own when trading puns with the noble poet. Delacourt even delighted in describing himself as the second lieutenant of the Sceptre, Lord Rochester’s monkey, naturally, being the first.

  ‘Very well, Mister Delacourt! To your station, and God be with you!’

  He went down into the ship’s waist, sword in hand, and began to shout encouragement to the gun crews as they rolled their cannon into position.

  ‘He’s no Kit Farrell,’ said Francis, ‘or rather, Captain Farrell. And we sorely needed one, Sir Matthew, what with the new draft of men brought in by the press to make up our numbers – a gaggle of feeble landmen, with not a single seaman among them!’

  ‘He’ll do, Francis. God willing, he’ll do, and they’ll do.’

  The oncoming Dutchman was a high-sided Amsterdammer with sixty guns or so.

  ‘Wind’s too light for him to try a boarding attack,’ I said. ‘So there’s just one thing he can do.’

  Sure enough, the Dutchman opened up with a rolling broadside of his upper deck guns. Bar-shot and chain-shot flew through our rigging, severing sheets and shrouds, punching holes through the Lincoln canvas of the sails. Several shots struck the fore- and mainmasts; Richardson, the carpenter, and his crew attended to them like mother hens, determined that the Sceptre’s masts would stand in this battle as they had in the last. Meanwhile the Dutch marines fired down from their tops, although they were close to the limit of their range. I saw several of the new draft cower and shirk, with only the cudgels of some of the petty officers compelling them to their new duties. Directing the petty officers in turn, though, was a familiar frame and voice: Martin Lanherne, the new acting boatswain of the Royal Sceptre, who had ridden fast for London with myself, Francis Gale and my small troop, before proceeding directly to the ship while I learned of my impending fatherhood and faced down my King.

  ‘You, there!’ Lanherne cried. ‘Make fast yonder lanyard, and look lively! That lany – that rope, then, if you prefer! Aye, that rope there, you doltish lubber!’

  It was good to hear his familiar Cornish tones again. I regretted that Lanherne’s new draft of recruits had not accompanied him from the west, though; travelling as they were by cart or on foot, I doubted if they could be even half way to London yet. So our new men would, indeed, have to do. They would either learn quickly, or they would die: for now, the King’s Prick was upon more important business.

  Our Amsterdammer was level with us, barely a few hundred yards away.

  ‘Very well then, Mister Burdett!’ I cried. ‘We know what he’s about now, and have his measure! D’you think good English metal can repay him twice over?’

  ‘That it can, Sir Matthew!’

  ‘And Mister Lovell – can our Marines outshoot those butterboxes yonder?’

  The young Marine officer nodded eagerly.

  ‘Not in doubt, Sir Matthew!’

  ‘Very well, then, gentlemen! For God and the King –’ I raised my sword, then dropped it – ‘Give fire!’

  The larboard battery on the lower deck of the Royal Sceptre opened up. I felt the familiar shock as my entire body shuddered from the blast of the guns and the recoil of the carriages. I caught a glimpse of young Delacourt. He had his hands over his ears, overwhelmed by the shattering experience of his first broadside. In that instant, he looked very young indeed. Meanwhile our own Marines, in the tops and on the forecastle, fired an impressive volley into the enemy.

  Our smoke cleared, and I looked out from the larboard rail toward the Hollander.

  ‘She’s taken a few hits, low down,’ I said to Rochester. ‘Look there, My Lord, how the planking is shattered. God willing, we’ll have hit her below the waterline too –’

  The very sea itself seemed to tremble as the Seven Provinces, just across the water, fired her first broadside. I watched as some of the standing rigging on the Royal Charles snapped, and great shards of timber from her larboa
rd side flew through the air.

  ‘And seamen call those splinters,’ said Rochester. ‘I admire the understatement of the nautical realm.’

  Our flagship responded at once, the deep roar of the cannon-of-seven unmistakeable as they flung their forty-two pound balls across the water. I focused my telescope on the quarterdeck, and caught a glimpse of Rupert and Albemarle, the former waving his sword toward the enemy as though leading a cavalry charge.

  Our own assailant fired again. I felt the impact of her shot in our hull, but instinctively looked up, to see if any of the masts or yards were felled. They stood, but there were shouts from down in the ship’s waist. One of the gun carriages had been struck; the demi-culverin leaned impotently to one side, away from its port. Half of the gun crew lay dead. The head was gone from one of them, while another, a tough Tynesman named Robson, had taken a great splinter through the gut, its bloodied ends protruding out of both sides of his body. The blood and gore of the dead men stained the deck around the carriage. Those of the gun crew that remained alive, Massey, Spence and one of the new landmen, were struggling to right the weapon. Burdett had taken command and was pushing against the carriage with all his might, but he was an old man, well into his fifties…

  Without thinking, I ran down and joined Burdett at the damaged demi-culverin. Seeing what I was about, Musk, Francis Gale and Lord Rochester ran down and joined me. Lieutenant Delacourt hastened to our side. He stared for a moment at the carnage, especially at the terrible sight of Robson’s remains, and turned pale. Then he remembered himself and set to with us as we heaved against the damaged carriage. Small shot hissed all around. Chain and bar shot whistled overhead. Yet none of it mattered. Suddenly that one gun was the most important thing in the whole universe. But the weapon would not move. It was hopeless…