The 36-year-old John Brownrigg is an experienced seaman from Newcastle. Although he officially holds the position of coxswain on Dream Chaser, he is one of the most indispensable crewmembers in the day-to-day running of the vessel, as well as maintaining the sails and rigging. Generally good-natured, he is known to be hot-tempered at times, especially with regards to the love-hate relationship that has developed between him and William Benton. A committed Jacobite, he was a sailor on a privateer vessel which took the Old Pretender, James Stuart, from France to Peterhead in Scotland, although they arrived too late for the battle.
The Pyrate Chronicles
The Pyrate Chronicles website serves two purposes. Firstly, it presents the historical background to the books series. Secondly, it provides detailed information on the Golden Age of Piracy in general. The Pyrate Chronicles book series tells the story of a group of pirates who find themselves on a desperate journey to return to familiar lands after inadvertently sailing into a mysterious mist. It is pirate fanstasy set to a historical background. This website is a work in progress, constantly being added to.
The Republic of Pirates
The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard
In the early eighteenth century, the Pirate Republic was home to some of the great pirate captains, including Blackbeard, “Black Sam” Bellamy, and Charles Vane. Along with their fellow pirates—former sailors, indentured servants, and runaway slaves—this “Flying Gang” established a crude but distinctive democracy in the Bahamas, carving out their own zone of freedom in which servants were free, blacks could be equal citizens, and leaders were chosen or deposed by a vote. They cut off trade routes, sacked slave ships, and severed Europe from its New World empires, and for a brief, glorious period the Republic was a success.
The pirate quartermaster
The term quartermaster can be confusing, as the meaning can vary according to the context. The quartermaster on a naval vessel stood watch next to the helmsman and was responsible for maintaining the ship’s course, whereas in armies on land, a quartermaster was an officer who supervised logistics and requisitions, managed the stores and barracks, and distributed supplies and provisions. A pirate quartermaster had numerous, less well defined responsibilities, which could vary from ship to ship.
The term quartermaster might derive from the title of a German royal official, the Quartiermeister. This term meant ‘master of quarters’, where ‘quarters’ refers to lodgings or accommodation. Alternatively, it could have been derived from ‘master of the quarterdeck’, the deck where the quartermaster was positioned on a naval vessel. Both terms might have developed independently in the navy and army. The French and Dutch naval titles were quartier-maître and kwartier-meester.
Hark the Thundering Cannons Roar
“Satisfied Benton wouldn’t cause any further trouble, Captain Ironside turned to Faustus, who was merrily humming a rendition of Hark the Thundering Cannons Roar to himself.”
This tune was newly composed by Christopher Fishburn in circa 1683, perhaps specifically for the original version of this song, An Excellent New Song, On the late Victories over the Turks. The overly long title became later known by several closely related titles, most of them derived directly from the ballad’s first line: ‘The Cannons Roar’, ‘Hark the thundering Cannons roar’ and ‘Hark I hear the Cannons roar’. Other names existed – ‘The reward of loyalty’, ‘Wealth breeds care’ and ‘Vienna’, for example – but none of were very common. The notation for the tune appeared in several different sources during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and surviving versions vary only slightly in their melodic details.
The Great Northern War (1700-21)
Prelude to war
At the time the war broke out, Sweden was one of the most powerful countries in Europe. The French writer Voltaire (1694-1778) called it the ‘Famous War of the North.’ From 1560 and 1700, the Swedes had built up a Baltic Empire under great leaders such as Gustavus Adolphus with their small but professional army, including occupying the provinces of Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia in the east and Western Pomerania, Wismar, the Duchy of Bremen, and Verden, as well as parts of Denmark and Norway in the west. By the end of 17th century Sweden had an empire which nearly circled the entire Baltic Sea. Charles XII took over throne of Sweden as absolute monarch at the age of fifteen and his neighbours saw weakness and their chance to reclaim some of the lost land. The west-looking Peter I of Russia wanted a port in the Baltic, previously taken over by the Swedes in Treaty of Stolbovo (1617).…