aBurntShip

                      An interview with Mark Beattie- Edwards  Was pleased to interview Mark Beattie-Edwards of the Nautical Archaeology Society ( NAS) by email as a follow up to my earlier  Save the London appeal  post. From my original piece : The 'London' had taken on board men and provision ready for fighting, then moored near Southend  when its magazine  suddenly exploded on 7th March 1665. Samuel Pepys' Diary entry for the following day describes casualties of "above 300" , which is still the accepted figure, and reported the "ship breaking all in pieces" . The latter claim is not quite accurate, the blast impact caused a major part of the ship  to split away and sink 2 miles from its moorings,  The wreck of  the 'London' was re-discovered in 2005 lying in the mud of the Thames Estuary. The London never got to fight in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.  1) It has been a year since this bl...

                                      Book Review  'The King's Revenge' , about Charles II attempt to punish those that he held responsible for the execution of his father Charles I, was first published in 2012. The first book devoted wholly to the regicides appears to be Mark Noble's 'The Lives of the English Regicides;And other Commissioners of the Pretended High Court of Justice. Appointed to sit upon their Sovereign, King Charles I' from 1798. Since 2012 Charles Spencer's .'Killers of the King ' (2015)  and James Hobson's ' 'Charles I Executioners' (2020) have been published. Following a discussion in The British and Irish Civil Wars Facebook group on this subject, thought that it was time to highlight 'The King's Revenge' .  Kings had been removed from power and killed before 1648, in both England and Scotland. This book shows that the trial of Charles I, opening on 20th J...