The Blast That Tears the Skies (2012) (34 page)

I first began studying the age of the Anglo-Dutch wars, including the Battle of Lowestoft, thirty years ago, and it would be impossible to enumerate and thank all those who have contributed over the years to improving my knowledge and understanding of the events recounted in this book. Some of the greatest debts are to those who died well before my time. For example, the first detailed account of the battle that I read (and which still stands up well) was in
The Navy of the Restoration
, published in 1916; its author, Arthur Tedder, went on to become a Marshal of the Royal Air Force and Eisenhower’s deputy supreme commander, thus proving that turf wars and cutthroat denigration of those in differently coloured uniforms need not always characterise inter-service relations. Sir Peter Lely (1618-80) painted a series of portraits of the British admirals who commanded during the battle, and standing before the ‘flagmen of Lowestoft’ in the Queen’s House at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, provided much of the inspiration for my pen-portraits of the likes of Sir William Penn and Sir John Harman (although sadly, the museum no longer displays the entire series).

Returning to the more immediate and specific debts I incurred in writing this book: Frank Fox provided me with much valuable information about the battle of Lowestoft and in particular about the loss of the
London
, giving me an early sight of his excellent paper on the subject which is intended for publication in the
Transactions of the
Naval Dockyards Society
(www.navaldockyards.org). Thanks, too, to Dan Snow and Richard Endsor for a lively discussion about the presence of women aboard the
London
at the time of her destruction. Gijs Rommelse of the Netherlands Military Institute provided me with useful material on the Dutch aspects of the battle. As usual, David Jenkins ensured that my ships did not behave in impossible ways. Finally, once again I owe great debts to my agent, Peter Buckman, to my publisher at Old Street, Ben Yarde-Buller, and to my partner Wendy, who fights the corner of the female characters in the series with a tenacity that would have done credit to Cornelia Quinton.

J. D. Davies

Bedfordshire

‘Gowrie Day’ 2011

J. D. Davies was born in Wales and now lives in Bedfordshire. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on the seventeenth-century navy. His
Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare, 1649-1689
, won the Samuel Pepys Award in 2009.