Re-creating a seventeenth-century sea officer
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Introduction
Naval historians of the mid-and later eighteenth century Navy have long been aware of the importance of the Admiralty records in the Public Record Office. Biographies such as Ruddock MacKay’s Hawke and Dudley Pope’s At 12 Mr Byng was Shot have used the Admiralty letters, minutes, orders, ships logs and muster books.1 Similar sources have been used by John Owen, Ruth Bourne, David Francis and J.C. Hugill as well as in studies of major naval actions at Quiberon Bay and Trafalgar.2 A variety of works, ranging from combined operations in the West Indies in the 1740s to naval administration under Walpole and in the West Indies, as well as studies of Nelson’s navy, have used the Admiralty papers.3
Compared with the number of studies of the eighteenth century Navy, the seventeenth century Navy has been rather neglected. With the exception of Bernard Capp, David Davies, Sari Hornstein and John Ehrman. Few seventeenth-century naval historians have used the PRO admiralty papers.4
The relatively few seventeenth-century published naval biographies display very little awareness of the Admiralty records. The latest biography of Prince Rupert as well as Richard Ollard’s biography of Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, omits ‘any mention of the Admiralty papers’.5 The same criticism also applies to Richard Ollard’s earlier biography of Sir Robert Holmes.6 Though the book sets out to describe ‘Holmes’s long and fascinating career’, the account of his naval career actually finishes in 1672 when Holmes resigned his commission. The next twenty years of Holmes’s life is covered sketchily in twenty-four pages. Ollard’s usage of manuscripts is limited to the Coventry papers, the British Library and the National Maritime Museum. His only PRO source is SP 29 (State Papers Charles II). Consequently Ollard missed a great deal of information about Holmes in the Admiralty papers7 and the War Office papers, which would have yielded further insights into Holmes’s career.8
While governor of the Isle of Wight, Holmes was accused in 1684 of false musters, which caused him to challenge the competence of the courts-martial and to demand that he be tried by twelve fellow field officers of his own rank. ‘Whether the court sat at all we do not know, still less its final composition’ Ollard writes.9 But in fact this information does exist among the War Office papers, which show that the court-martial was held in the Horse Guard on 27 May 1684. It also shows that Holmes got his way as the courts-martial consisted of his peers, that the matter was thoroughly investigated and that Holmes was able to explain his position.10
Seventeenth-century sea battles, such as those of the Second11 and Third Dutch Wars, have not been studied as much as eighteenth-century naval battles. Where they have been looked at, the sources used have nearly always been the same: the printed Calendar of State Papers Domestic or the originals in SP 29; H.T. Colenbrander and the important series of Navy Record Society Publications such as Sandwich’s Journal, Allin’s Journal and the Journals and Narratives of the Third Dutch War.12 However, Anderson’s comment that the other contemporary sources in the PRO (which he could not see because of the war)’would not add very much further information’ is incorrect.13 The Admiralty papers contain Captains’ logs for the battles of Solebay 28 May 1672 and the Texel 2 July 1673, which complement the printed NRS volume as well as letters to the Navy Board.14
E.B. Powley used the Admiralty papers, though not thoroughly, for King Williams’s War 1689–90. The only major published account of the important battle of La Hogue by Philip Aubrey makes extensive use of the surviving ships’ logs in ADM 51 and 52, but neglects other important material in the same series.15
Seventeenth-century naval historians may not use the PRO Admiralty papers, but the same thing cannot be said of political historians. Dr Paul Hopkins briefly used the Admiralty records in his book on Scottish politics after 1688.16Henry Horwitz worked on the Admiralty Board minutes (Adm 3) and letterbooks for 1679–1683 for his biography of Daniel Finch Second Earl of Nottingham.17 J. Kent Clark Goodwin Wharton’s biographer used both ADM 3 and the ships’ logs in ADM 51 for Wharton’s period of service as an Admiralty Commissioner in the late 1690s.18
Footnotes
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D. Pope, At 12 Mr Byng was shot (1962); R. MacKay, Hawke (Oxford, 1965)
[back to reference 1 in text] - J. B. Hattendorf, England in the War of the Spanish Succession A Study of the English View and Conduct of Grand Strategy, 1702–1712, (NewYork, 1987); J. Owen, The War At Sea under Queen Anne 1702–8 (Cambridge, 1938); R.Bourne, Queen Anne’s Navy in the West Indies (Yale 1939); J.C. Hugill, No Peace Without Spain (1991); D. Francis, The First Penninsular War 1702–1713 (1975); G.J. Marcus, Quiberon Bay (1960); D. Pope, The Great Gamble (1972); ibid, England Expects (1959) [back to reference 2 in text]
- R.Harding, Amphibious Warfare in the Eighteenth Century: The British Expedition to the West Indies, 1740–1742 (Woodbridge, 1991); D. Baugh, British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole (Princeton 1965); D. Crewe, Yellow Jack and the Worm. British Naval Administration in the Age of West Indies, 1739–1748 (Liverpool, 1993); N.A.M Rodgers, The Insatiable Earl A Life Of John Montagu, 4tht Earl of Sandwich (1993) B. Lavery, Nelson’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1793–1815 (1989). [back to reference 3 in text]
- Bernard Capp, Cromwell’s navy: the fleet and the English Revolution 1648–1660 (Oxford 1989); J.D. Davies, Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: The Officers and Men of the Restoration Navy (Oxford 1991); S. Hornstein, The Restoration Navy and English Foreign Trade 1674–1688, (Aldershot, 1991); John Ehrman, The Navy in the War of WilliamIII 1689–1697 (Cambridge 1953). [back to reference 4 in text]
- F. Kitson, Prince Rupert Admiral and General-at-Sea (1998); cf J.D.Davies review of R. Ollard, Cromwell’s Earl A Life of Edward Montagu 1st Earl of Sandwich (1994) in The Mariner’s Mirror lxxxi (1995), 108 [back to reference 5 in text]
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R. Ollard, Man of War Sir Robert Holmes and the Restoration Navy (1969).
[back to reference 6 in text] - PRO Adm 2/1734 f 4v; Commission for Holmes 1 April 1669... [back to reference 7 in text]
- Ollard, 210; David Davies adds new information about Holmes’s role in 1658... [back to reference 8 in text]
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Ollard, 194.
[back to reference 9 in text] - PRO WO 26/6 pp. 36-9. [back to reference 10 in text]
- See now for the Second Dutch War Battles the excellent book by Frank. Fox A Distant Storm The Four Days Battle (Robertsbridge 1996). [back to reference 11 in text]
- Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1665–1667, 1671–3; H.T Colenbrander, ed Bescheiden uit vreemde archieven omtrent de groote Nedarlandsche zeeorlogen 1652–76; 2 vols. (The Hauge, 1919); R. C. Anderson eds, The Journal of Edward Montagu, First Earl of Sandwich, (Navy Recs. Soc, 64 1929); The Journals of Sir Thomas Allin, 2 vols, (Navy Recs. Soc. 79–80 1939–40); Journals and Narratives of the Third Dutch War (Navy Recs. Soc. 86 1946 [back to reference 12 in text]
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Anderson, Third Dutch War, 2.
[back to reference 13 in text] - PRO Adm 1/3545 pp. 197-8, John Dawson, Capt. of the Advice to NB, 18 Aug. 1673; Adm 51/13 Journal 1 Advice; 51/134 Bristol Journal 1; 51/588 Journal 1, Mary Rose; B(ritish) L(ibrary) Additional MS 11606 f. 52 (Fairfax) 28 May 1672. [back to reference 14 in text]
- P. Aubrey, The Defeat of James Stuart’s Armada 1692 (Leicester 1979). [back to reference 15 in text]
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17 P. Hopkins, Glencoe and the End of the Highland War (Edinburgh 1986).
[back to reference 16 in text] -
H. Horowitz, Revolution Politicks The career of Daniel Finch Second Earl of Nottingham 1647–1730 (Cambridge, 1968), 20-38.
[back to reference 17 in text] -
J. Kent Clark, Goodwin Wharton (Oxford, 1984), 271-5, 285-7, 290-3, 309-9, 364-8, 370.
[back to reference 18 in text]