On 7 January 1628, a fleet of ships weighed anchor off the coast of Kent and set sail for the Mediterranean. As fleets go, this one was small. It comprised just two vessels – the Eagle and the Elizabeth and George – fitted out for war. Aboard were around 250 men, overseen by carefully selected mariners, and some 200 barrels of gunpowder imported from Amsterdam. The mission of crew and captains was simple: to vanquish England’s enemies and return laden with prizes. In command of the two vessels was 24-year-old Kenelm Digby, a man whose naval experience was slight. His seafaring was confined to being a passenger but Digby was a believer in the power of books, and he had just the right volume in his pocket. From a stall in London’s St Pauls’ churchyard, he had purchased John Smith’s A Sea-Grammar. If nothing else, it provided a guide to the wonderful terminology of seafaring with its belays, bonits and Drablers – and Digby was a fast learner. Digby was a man of many parts: he was a privateer (or state-sponsored pirate), compiler of recipes, assimilator of foreign tongues (“a great student of the Arabicke language”), collector of objects (antiquities of every kind), thinker and doer. In his extensive writing, and experiments in kitchens and laboratories, he embraced philosophy and alchemy, science and magic, food and flavours. On his death aged 62 in 1665, Digby left behind a library of several thousand books, countless letters and journals, and a fictionalised account of his adventures in elaborately flowery style. On the Greek island of Milos, scribbling furiously and barely eating for a week, he wrote Loose Fantasies, recasting himself as a romance hero in the shape of Theagenes, a character lifted from classical literature. Drawing these sources together, Joe Moshenka (Faculty of English) has produced a masterful narrative – a blend of biography, history and imaginative reconstruction – that focuses in gripping detail on Digby’s foray into the cultural melting pot of the Mediterranean world. A Stain in the Blood: the Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby is the first book to dig deep into the story of an adventurer who, quintessentially English yet endlessly curious, personifies an era when seafaring was opening up routes into boundless possibilities and exotic goods of every shape and form. Sailing south in January 1628, Digby left behind a beloved wife and two sons, the youngest just a few weeks old. He was a man on the make. Despite being well-connected and highly educated, he had a black mark against his name. His father, Everard Digby, had been hung for treason against the crown. Revealed to be a co-conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, Everard was subjected to the most grisly of executions. In front of approving crowds, his heart was ripped out and his genitals sliced off. Everard Digby maintained his dignity right up to the moment he lost consciousness. He professed that he “deserved the vilest death” and made an impassioned plea that wife and sons not be punished for his crime. Everard’s fortitude became legendary but his family lived with a sense of disgrace.
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