BOOKWORM

Notes for CAPTAIN BLOOD by Rafael Sabatini

Instalment 1

quo quo scelesti ruitis
first line of Epodes #7 of Horace

Where, where O madmen are you rushing to?

Sabatini's use of quotations and words/phrases in other languages
although Sabatini had an unusual background and education, in his day, (& right up to before WW II) a good education for an upper-class youth would include Greek, Latin and French, & might even stretch to German or Italian in a more cosmopolitan family. He would naturally expect from his readers a familiarity with the classical writers. But the English vocabulary he used came from sheer joy in the language.

James II of England
was he as unlikeable as Sabatini suggests? Well, finally only God can decide that, but unless one is a dedicated Jacobite most people have little time for the Stuarts, & a poor opinion of James II.

wikipedia covers the topic fairly extensively, with links to Monmouth etc. & lots of fine pictures. Pictures are always a treat!

Sabatini was sensible enough to see that Monmouth's rebellion & the Jacobite cause were fine jumping off places for tales of danger, derring-do & damsels to be wooed. He was also too sensible to be a Jacobite. He mined this rich vein more than once:
Anthony Wilding & the Captain Blood books;
The Lion's Skin, The Gates of Doom, & The Stalking Horse, besides sundry short stories.

"Miss Blake and Mrs Musgrove" [either Sabatini got the spelling of the second name wrong or the typesetter did; it should be Musgrave]:
from King Monmouth A History of the Career of James Scott "The Protestant Duke" by Allan Fea:

"The day after his appearance in Taunton, a procession as original as it was pretty, awaited at his Grace's lodgings, with twenty-seven banners; one of which foretold the regal position which shortly was to be adopted, viz., the letters "J. R." worked upon a golden ground, fringed with lace. The bearers of these colours were their manufacturers, the young girls (aged between eight and ten) belonging to seminaries kept by a Miss Blake and Mrs Musgrave." &
"The incident was afterwards satirised in a song called 'The Glory of the West, or the Virgins of Taunton Dean, who ript open their silk petticoats to make colours for the Army of the Duke of Monmouth.'"

Perkin Warbeck (1474 – 23 November 1499) was a pretender to the English throne during the reign of King Henry VII of England.

armigerous ~ bearing heraldic arms

Sir Martin Frobisher (c. 1535 or 1539 – November 22, 1594) was an English seaman (from Wakefield, Yorkshire) who made three voyages to the New World to look for the Northwest Passage.
As an English privateer/pirate, he collected riches from French ships. He was later knighted for his service in repelling the Spanish Armada in 1588. [an odd choice for the forebear of a lady from Somerset, unless she, too, had parents from different regions of England. RH]
~ note from wikipedia

Catholics and Trinity
During its early life, Trinity was exclusively for the Protestant Ascendancy class. Following early steps in Catholic Emancipation, Roman Catholics were first admitted in 1793 (prior to the equivalent change at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford). In 1873, all religious tests were abolished, except for the Divinity School. However, it was not until 1970 that the Roman Catholic Church, through the Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid, lifted its policy of disapproval or even excommunication for Roman Catholics who enrolled without special dispensation, at the same time as the Trinity authorities allowed a Roman Catholic chaplain to be based in the college.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Trinity+College,+Dublin

Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter (24 March 1607 – 29 April 1676) is one of the most famous admirals in Dutch history. De Ruyter is most famous for his role in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century. He fought the English and French in these wars and scored several major victories, the best known probably being the Raid on the Medway. [we get a date for Peter Blood before the action RH]
Trivia:De Ruyter has great great grandchildren still living in London.
~ note from wikipedia

"Peace of Nimeguen"
The Treaties of Peace of Nijmegen (Négotiations de Nimegue or Négotiations de la Paix de Nimègue) were a series of treaties, signed in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, August 1678 - December 1679, ending war between various countries, including France, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Brandenburg, Sweden, Denmark, the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, and the Holy Roman Empire, during the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678). [we get another date for Peter Blood before the action RH]
~ note from wikipedia

"Mr. Pollexfen, the Judge-Advocate" ~ The chief prosecutor at the "Bloody Assizes" was Sir Henry Pollexfen, who was "a leading member of the committee which drafted the Bill of Rights."[The Antidiscrimination Eighth Amendment; Journal article by Laurence Claus; Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 28, 2004]

"I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles." ~ "I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles." actual words of Judge Jeffreys, mocking an unfortunate innocent [quoted in Samuel Rawson Gardiner, A Student’s History of England, from the Earliest Times to 1885 637 (Longmans, Green, and Co. 1891) (1891); Mackintosh, at 638; Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second 575 (1878) (1848), at 586.]

pimento
In general use the word refers to the large, red, heart-shaped chili pepper (Capsicum annuum) which grows on a plant, not a tree. But here Sabatini intends the more localised use meaning Allspice, Pimento dioica (L.), an evergreen tree belonging to the Myrtle family. The tree is native to the West Indies. The usage is probably not unusual to persons familiar with this part of the world, but someone from the Orient needs clarification of the point.

"Escurial" ~ El Escorial, whose full name is El Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial, the royal monastery of St Lorenzo of Escorial. It consists of a monastery, church, royal mausoleum, a palace intended as summer and autumn residence of the court, college, library, art-galleries, etc., and it was begun by Philip II of Spain. The French call it the Escurial, & the English follow suit. [Sabatini chooses the French/English spelling over the authentic Spanish.]

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