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The Turn of the Cards
You know the scene. Perhaps it’s in a 1930s cop movie, or maybe it’s a 1970s Cold War thriller. In either case, there might well be a moment where a bespectacled drone leads our hero into a huge, dark...
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Remembering War During War: Recalling the Anglo-Dutch Wars During the First...
I’m typing this blog on the 70th anniversary of D-Day, during a period when the centenary commemorations of the First World War are already well under way. Moreover, we’re only a year away from the...
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Remembering War During War: Recalling the Anglo-Dutch Wars During the First...
In the last post, I noted how various events of the Second Anglo-Dutch war – notably the Dutch attack on the Medway in 1667 – were recalled during the First World War, exactly 250 years later. Of...
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Criticism of Naval Historical Fiction: a Guide for New Authors
A very quick posting this week, as unforeseen domestic circumstances have knocked my work schedule for six (apologies to my American readers for that impenetrable cricket reference)… Because of this,...
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Mea Maxima Culpa
Like most people, I don’t particularly enjoy being proved wrong. But in the particular instance I’m blogging about this week, I’m absolutely delighted to admit that I’ve been well and truly in the...
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Texel 341, Part 1
Today, 11 August 2014, marks the 341st anniversary of the sea battle known in Britain as the Battle of the Texel and in the Netherlands as the Battle of Kijkduin. (The date was 21 August on the...
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Texel 341, Part 2
And now for Part 2 of my account of the Battle of the Texel/Kijkduin, 11/21 August 1673…the same caveats apply as last week! *** Ironically, one aspect of the original strategy agreed by Charles and...
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Texel 341, Part 3
And now for the third and final part of my account of the Battle of the Texel/Kijkduin, 11/21 August 1673. Apologies for the week’s delay in posting this – twenty-first century real life always trumps...
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Laugh, Torquemada- Damn You, Laugh!
I went to the Historical Novel Society conference in London on Saturday. This was a very jolly affair, for all sorts of reasons – it was good to see old friends and meet new ones, to have a delegate...
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Homage to Caledonia
And so it belongs to the ages: the most momentous event in the history of the United Kingdom, and certainly of Scotland, for many decades. If you can be certain of one thing at this very moment, it’s...
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Vanished Empires
gentlemenandtarpaulins:My recent trip to Scotland meant that I missed blogging about the 350th anniversary of the conquest of New Amsterdam in 1664, and the subsequent establishment of New York and New...
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The World War I Commemorative Hog Roast with Bouncy Castle
At some point in the future, historians are going to look back at the various ways in which the centenary of World War I is being commemorated in the UK at the moment, and I suspect many of them are...
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A Matter of Faith
gentlemenandtarpaulins:Another reblog of one of my early posts this week. I’ve nothing really to add to this piece, on the importance of getting the importance of religion right in historical fiction...
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Dead Admirals’ Society, Part 3
‘Hang on’, you say, ‘where are Parts 1 and 2, then?’ Well, in the relatively early days of this blog, I posted a couple of items under this title and promised that at some point in the future, I’d do...
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Dead Admirals’ Society, Part 1
gentlemenandtarpaulins:As promised, here’s my reblog of the first post in my ‘Dead Admirals Society’ series, with number 2 to follow shortly. I hope to put up a new post in this series next week....
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Dead Admirals’ Society, Part 2
gentlemenandtarpaulins:…and here’s the reblog of Part 2… Originally posted on Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: A few more memorials this week – and by popular demand (OK, that’s one of you, and you know who...
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Dead Admirals Society, Part 4
Some new memorials today, in what will be the final post in this series for a few weeks – next week, I’ll return to other matters! *** In the summer, I gave a talk on Cornwall’s place in naval history...
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Keeping Up with the Joneses
Just in case anybody didn’t know, I’m [a] Welsh, and [b] an author of naval historical fiction. Now, the world contains quite a lot of Welsh people. The world also contains a lot of authors of naval...
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Flash Pepys, Saviour of the Universe
gentlemenandtarpaulins:Another re-blog of one of my early posts today – I’m about to lock myself away in a Landmark Trust property for a week so that I can complete the sixth Quinton novel without the...
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The Rage is Coming!
Cue drum roll…cue trumpets… Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce that the next ‘Journal of Matthew Quinton’, the sixth book in the series, will be entitled The Rage of Fortune. But this is a...
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