Drawing up the sluices

Soldier, politician and spymaster, Sir William Brereton - perhaps best remembered for besieging Chester during the Civil War - died 350 years ago today. As a youngish man, he travelled abroad, and kept detailed and interesting notes of his journeys, sometimes of local military tactics.

Brereton was born at Handforth, Cheshire, but lost his father when only six. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and then, when 23, was created a baron by Charles I. A year later he was elected MP for Cheshire but relinquished his seat so as to travel - to Holland, Scotland and Ireland. He married twice, once to Susannah who died in 1637, leaving two sons and two daughters, and once to Cicely, who also bore him two daughters (according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). A staunch Puritan he advocated major reform of the Anglican church.

Brereton was re-elected to Parliament in 1640, and opposed the King on policies in many areas. After the outbreak of civil war in 1642, he was appointed a major-general of Parliament’s forces. He is recorded to have had particular skills in the areas of espionage and siege warfare. His greatest triumph is said to be the siege and capture of Chester, which took over one year to complete.

Brereton was one of very few leaders allowed to retain his military command and his seat in Parliament after the Self-Denying Ordinance. With the war over, Brereton was rewarded with Eccleshall Castle and the tenancy of Croydon Palace, the former home of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1652. He died on 7 April 1661, according to Wikipedia, and further biographical information is also available from the Spartacus Educational.

During his travels, Brereton kept journals, and these were edited by Edward Hawkins and published by the Chetham Society in 1844 under the title, Travels in Holland, the United Provinces, England, Scotland and Ireland, 1634–1635. Parts of the diary were republished in North Country Diaries by the Surtees Society in 1915. Both volumes are freely available at Internet Archive.

It is said that Brereton learned warfaring tactics abroad, in Holland, and there is some evidence of this in his diary, such as when he notes: ‘Mr Goodier told me of a strange deliverance of this town besieged, wherein the famine and pestilence raging, the town not being able to hold out any longer, the country was drowned by drawing up their sluices and cutting the banks, and the night following the wall in one place, convenient for the enemies to enter, fell down and broke down (a great breach); the noise whereof and the sudden eruption of the water took such impression of fear, and occasioned the apprehension of some further danger by some further design; whereupon they broke up their siege, and left the town. For this strange preservation a solemn day of thanksgiving kept yearly in this city.’

Here is Brereton’s first diary entry in 1634 (taken from the 1844 volume), and this is followed by a long entry in 1635 (taken directly from University College Cork website which has the Irish parts of the journal online).

17 May 1634.
‘We departed from London by water; we came to Gravesend about eight of the clock In the evening; we came in a light-horseman [small boat]; took water about three clock in afternoon. A dainty cherry orchard of Captain Lord’s, planted three years ago, near unto Thames, not forty roods distant. The stocks one yard and a half high; prosper well; but I conceive the top will in a short time be disproportionable to the stock. Very many of the trees bear. It is three acres of ground; planted four hundred and forty-odd trees. An old cherry orchard near adjoining nothing well set: this year the cherries sold for £20: it is but an acre of ground: the grass reserved and excepted. A proper ship came from Middleborough on Saturday at noon, 17 May.

Stiff N.W. wind all Sunday; turned E. on 19 Monday morn. Passed by Gravesend on Monday about four. Captain Boare went from Gravesend on 15 May; went to Rotterdam; returned thither 20. Another ship came in twenty-four hours from Brill to Gravesend.

A delicate kiln to burn chalk lime; it is the Duke of Lenox, near Gravesend, upon the river side; it is made of brick, narrow at bottom, round, and wider at top; it is emptied always at the bottom; they hook out so much as is cold, until they pull out fire, and then cease. It is supplied with fire and chalk at top; one basket of sea-coals proportioned to eight of chalk; the fire extinguisheth not from one end of the year to the other. When it is kindled, fire is put to the bottom: it is sold for a groat, one hoop burnt. The pit is in the side of an hill, which is thirty yards high; one of the workmen fell (with whom I conferred) from top to bottom, not slain, but bruised and still sore. An horse stuck by the fore-legs, and held and cried out like a child, and stuck until he was helped up by men.’

21 July 1635
‘We went home about eight hour, and came to Ballihack, a poor little village on this side the passage over the river of Waterford, which here is the broadest passage said to be in Ireland, and a most rough, troubled passage when the wind is anything high. Here last day the boat, wherein my Lord of Kildare came over, was in danger to be run under water by carrying too much sail, and running foul upon the passage boat. Down this river come all the shipping for Waterford. Here we saw the Ninth Whelp lying at anchor, to guard the fleet which now is ready to go hence to Bristoll fair. Sir Beverley Newcombe is captain of her, and is now at Waterford. They say there are about fifty sail to go to St. James fair at Bristoll. The Irish here use a very presumptuous proverb and speech touching this passage. They always say they must be at Bristoll fair, they must have a wind to Bristoll fair, and indeed it is observed they never fail of a wind to Bristoll fair; yea, though the fair be begun, and the wind still averse, yet still do they retain their confident presumption of a wind. It is most safe here to hire a boat to pass over in, not with horses, which is rowed over with four oars. I paid for the hire of it 2s. This is a full mile over. The passage boat which carries your horses will not carry at one time more than two or three horses. Here is far better coming into the boat and landing than at Port Patricke, but less and worse boats. On Munster side is good lodging and accommodation.

This day we passed over the land of a gentleman whose name is [. . .]. He died about seven days ago of a gangrene; his fingers and hands, toes and feet, rotted off, joint by joint. He was but a young man, of above 1,000£ per annum, and married an old woman, a crabbed piece of flesh, who cheated him with a 1,000£ she brought him, for which he was arrested within three days after his marriage.

We came to Waterford about three hour, and baited at the King’s Head, at Mr Wardes, a good house, and a very complete gentleman-like host. This town is reputed one of the richest towns in Ireland. It stands upon a river (called Watterford River), which maintaineth a sufficiently deep and safe channel even to the very quay, which, indeed, is not only the best and most convenient quay which I found in Ireland, but it is as good a quay as I have known either in England or observed in all my travels. A ship of three hundred may come close to these quays. This quay is made all along the river side without the walls, and divers fair and convenient buttresses made about twenty yards long, which go towards the channel. I saw the river at a spring tide flow even with the top of this quay, and yet near the quay a ship of three hundred ton full loaden may float at a low water. Upon this river stand divers forts and castles which command it. At the mouth of the river is there a fort called Duncannon, wherein lieth my Lord Esmond’s company, consisting of fifty good, expert soldiers. Here is also a company of fifty soldiers, which are under the command of Sir George Flowre, an ancient knight. These are disposed of in the fort, which is placed without the gate towards Caricke, a pretty little hold, which stands on high and commands the town. There stands upon this river the Carick twelve mile, hence, and Clonmell about eight mile thence; hither (as I have heard) the river flows. There is, seated upon this river also Golden Bridge, and there is a passage by water from Cullen [?] and Limbrecke. This is no barred, but a most bold haven, in the mouth whereof is placed an eminent tower, a sea mark, to be discerned at a great distance; yet this river runs so crooked as without a W. or N.W. Hence went a great fleet to Bristoll fair, who stayed long here waiting for a wind.

This city is governed by a mayor, bailiffs, and twelve aldermen. Herein are seven churches; there have been many more. One of these, Christ Church, a cathedral; St. Patrick’s, Holy Ghost, St. Stephen’s, St. John - but none of these are in good repair, not the cathedral, nor indeed are there any churches almost to be found in good repair. Most of the inhabitants Irish, not above forty English, and not one of these Irish goes to church. This town trades much with England, France, and Spain, and that which gives much encouragement hereunto is the goodness of the haven.

This town double-walled, and the walls maintained in good repair. Here we saw women in a most impudent manner treading clothes with their feet; these were naked to the middle almost, for so high were their clothes tucked up about them. Here the women of better rank and quality wear long, high laced caps, turned up round about; these are mighty high; of this sort I gave William Dale money to buy me one. Here is a good, handsome market-place, and a most convenient prison that I ever saw for the women apart, and this is a great distance from the men’s prison. Herein dwells a judicious apothecary, who hath been bred at Antwerpe, and is a traveller; his name is (as I take it) Mr Jarvis Billiard, by whose directions and good advice I found much good, and through God’s mercy recovered from my sickness. After I had dined here, I went about four or five hour towards Caricke, where I stayed at a ferry about a mile from Waterford a whole hour for the boat, wherein we and our six horses were carried over together.

Hence to Caricke is accounted nine miles, good large ones, but very fair way, and very ready to find. We came to Caricke about nine hour. We lodged at the sign of the Three Cuts at Mr Croummer’s, where is a good neat woman. Here my disease increasing, I wanted good accommodation.

Here is my Lord of Ormond’s house, daintily seated on the river bank, which flows even to the walls of his house, which I went to see, and found in the outer court three or four hay-stacks, not far from the stable-door; this court is paved. There are also two other courts; the one a quadrangle. The house was built at twice. If his land were improved and well planted, it would yield him great revenue; for it is said he hath thirty-two manors and manor-houses, and eighteen abbeys. This town of Carick is seated upon the bank of a fine, pleasant, navigable river, but it is a most poor place, and the houses many quite ruinated, others much decayed; here is no trade at all. This hath been a town of strength and defence; it is walled about, and with as strong a wall, and that to walk upon, as is West Chester; the church in no good repair; nor any of the churches in this country, which argues their general disaffection unto religion. Here in this town is the poorest tavern I ever saw - a little low, thatched Irish house, not to be compared unto Jane Kelsall’s of the Green at Handforth. ‘Twixt Waterford and this town are many spacious sheep-pastures, and very fair large sheep as most in England; the greatest part of the land hereabouts is converted unto this use.’

Wicked worldly thoughts

‘This morne my wife began, after her old manner, to braule and revile mee for wishing her only to wear such apparrell as was decent and comly, and accused mee for treading on her sore foote, with curses and othes; which to my knowledge I touched not.’ This is Adam Eyre - whose funeral took place 350 years ago today - a Yorkshire yeoman who is remembered chiefly for his diary and its vivid domestic details.

Born in 1614 in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Eyre married Susannah Mathewman in 1640. During the Civil War, he was a commissioned captain in the Parliament’s army, under Fernando, Lord Fairfax. In 1651, he styled himself a gentleman, and purchased crown lands at Blandesby Park, in Pickering, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, though he went into debt to do so. Although the date of his death is not recorded, it is known that he was buried on 6 April 1661, probably at Penistone in Yorkshire.

A short biography for Eyre can be found at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (although log in is required); and English folk: A Book of Characters, by Wallace Notestein, available at Googlebooks, has a chapter on Eyre. Also there’s an article about him in the spring 1994 edition of Journal of Social History, available at JSTOR. However, almost all the information about Eyre is sourced from his ‘dyurnall’, a diary, covering a period between 1647 and 1649. Apart from recording his mediation in local quarrels, it provides vivid descriptions of domestic disharmony.

Jeremy Boulton’s home page at the University of Newcastle website has a few select entries from Eyre’s diary. The full text, however, was included in Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries published by the Surtees Society in 1877, and this is available online at Internet Archive. Here are a couple of extracts.

8 June 1647
‘This morne my wife began, after her old manner, to braule and revile mee for wishing her only to wear such apparrell as was decent and comly, and accused mee for treading on her sore foote, with curses and othes; which to my knowledge I touched not; nevertheless she continued in that extacy til noone; and at diner I told her I purposed never to com in bed with her til shee tooke more notice of what I formerly had sayd to her, which I pray God give mee grace to observe; that the folly of myne owne corrupt nature deceive mee not to myne own damnacion. After diner I went to Bulhouse where I had bidden an Ale for Antho. Crosland, and got him 29s. 6d. I spent myselfe 1s. 5d., and lent Raph Wordsworth of Waterhall Dalton’s ‘Justice of Peace’ [a law book]. I received a note from Jos. Eyre to be at Castleton on Thursday next at the cort. I signed a note for payment for 2 waynes by the towne.’

6 August 1647
‘This morning wee went to the wayre in the Wayre field, and Christofer Marsden came, and would have made a rescusse for working in our owne ground; and sayd ye stream was the king’s, and hee had as much right in it as I; and gave mee other ill language; wherupon, as soone as hee was gone, I went and cutt the boughes which grew on this syde his fence. Then came his wife and gave somewhat better words, yett tarte enough. Then at noone I went home, and received for 2 loads of meal out of the new arke 1l. 18s. 10d.; and Thomas Marsden having pinned a peice of wood in the wayre, came and made mee standing for my meare in the old stable. Then I went up to them again, and sent 1s worth of ale; and at night payd to Jo. Goddard for this week’s work 5s; his sonne 3s; and Tho. Marsden 6d.

This night my wife had a painful night of her foote, which troubled mee so that sleepe went from mee. Wherupon sundry wicked worldly thoughts came in my head, and, namely, a question whether I should live with my wife or noe, if shee continued so wicked as shee is; wherupon I ris and prayd to God to direct mee a right. And, after I read good counsell of Lawrence concerning the assistance of Angells, and the Devil, and our owne wills provoking to him. I prayed God again to direct mee, and so slept til morne quietly, praysed by God.’

Herbert goes to war

Albania’s Greatest Friend: Aubrey Herbert and the Making of Modern Albania is being published today (at least according to Amazon’s website) by I B Tauris, a leading publisher of non-fiction books on history, politics and international relations. The book is based on the diaries and papers of Aubrey Herbert, a young aristocrat - said to be the inspiration for Sandy Arbuthnut, the fictional hero created by John Buchan - who travelled extensively to Albania before the First World War, and did much to help it become an independent nation. Some of Herbert’s First World War diaries are freely available online.

Herbert was born at Highclere, near Newbury, Berkshire, in 1880. He was the second son of the 4th Earl of Carnarvon, a landowner, British cabinet minister and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. After being schooled at Eton and studying history at Balliol College, Oxford, he became an (unpaid) honorary attaché in the diplomatic service, firstly in Tokyo and then in Constantinople. Subsequently, he travelled extensively, mostly in the Turkish provinces, learning to speak half a dozen languages. In particular he became a passionate advocate of Albanian independence, visiting the country many times.

In 1910, Herbert married Mary Vesey, daughter of Viscount de Vesci, and they would have four children, the youngest of whom married Eveyln Waugh. In 1911, Herbert became a Conservative Member of Parliament for the Yeovil Division of Somerset, a constituency which he held till his death. With the outbreak of the First World War, Herbert, despite poor eyesight, obtained a commission in the Irish Guards. He was wounded and taken prisoner in France, but escaped. Subsequently, he worked for military intelligence, involved in the Gallipoli Campaign, among others, and in negotiations with the Turks. In the last months of the war he was head of the English Mission attached to the Italian Army in Albania, and held the temporary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

Herbert was twice offered, unofficially, the throne of Albania, once before the war when he declined, and once after, when circumstances conspired against him. However, his efforts are considered to have helped Albania become an independent nation in 1913, and to its becoming a member of the League of Nations in 1920. He died young, from blood poisoning after a dental operation in 1923. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia and a website about Exmoor National Park. It is widely assumed, says Wikipedia, that Herbert was the inspiration for the character Sandy Arbuthnot, a hero in several John Buchan novels.

While abroad, Herbert was an inveterate diary keeper, and some of his diary material has recently been collated and edited by Bejtullah Destani and Jason Tomes for Albania’s Greatest Friend: Aubrey Herbert and the Making of Modern Albania: Diaries and Papers 1904-1923. The book - which according to Amazon is due out today - is being published by I B Tauris.

Here is Tauris’s publicity for the book: ‘Impeccably aristocratic and eccentric in a uniquely English tradition, Aubrey Herbert was at first sight an incongruous champion of Albanian nationalism, to say the least. Tall, slender and slightly stooped, with a moustache and heavily lidded eyes, Herbert wore a monocle and had white patches in his hair caused by an attack of alopoecia in 1911. Within England - let alone abroad - he cut a colourful figure.

But Herbert was also an acclaimed linguist, intrepid traveller and an outspoken and independent thinker, who became enthralled by the Balkans on his first visit to the region in 1904 as honorary attache at the British Embassy in Constantinople. From that time until his death in 1923, he was indefatigable in campaigning for the Albanian cause. He returned frequently to the country and gained respect as an expert on the region, even being honoured with repeated requests that he assume the Albanian throne. Albania’s Greatest Friend charts Herbert’s involvement with Albania over the course of his life, in his own words, through his own extensive diaries and letters.

It paints an authoritative portrait not just of a remarkable Englishman but also sheds fresh light on the wider Albanian national movement and a fascinating period in European history.’

As early as 1919, though, Herbert had published Mons, Anzac & Kut (Hutchinson & Co) based on, and quoting from, his diaries, with an introduction by Desmond MacCarthy, a literary critic working for the New Statesman. The full text of this book is available online at the Great War Primary Documents Archive.

Here is Herbert’s own preface:

‘Journals, in the eyes of their author, usually require an introduction of some kind, which, often, may be conveniently forgotten. The reader is invited to turn to this one if, after persevering through the pages of the diary, he wishes to learn the reason of the abrupt changes and chances of war that befell the writer. They are explained by the fact that his eyesight did not allow him to pass the necessary medical tests. He was able, through some slight skill, to evade these obstacles in the first stage of the war; later, when England had settled down to routine, they defeated him, as far as the Western Front was concerned. He was fortunately compensated for this disadvantage by a certain knowledge of the East, that sent him in various capacities to different fronts, often at critical times. It was as an Interpreter that the writer went to France. After a brief imprisonment, it was as an Intelligence Officer that he went to Egypt, the Dardanelles and Mesopotamia.

The first diary was dictated in hospital from memory and rough notes made on the Retreat from Mons. For the writing of the second diary, idle hours were provided in the Dardanelles between times of furious action. The third diary, which deals with the fall of Kut, was written on the Fly boats of the River Tigris. [. . .]

This diary claims to be no more than a record of great and small events, a chronicle of events within certain limited horizons - a retreat, a siege and an attack. Writing was often hurried and difficult, and the diary was sometimes neglected for a period. If inaccuracies occur, the writer offers sincere apologies.’

And here are a few diary extracts, culled from the text in Mons, Anzac & Kut.

23 April 1915
‘I have just seen the most wonderful procession of ships I shall ever see. In the afternoon we left for the outer harbour. The wind was blowing; there was foam upon the sea and the air of the island was sparkling. With the band playing and flags flying, we steamed past the rest of the fleet. Cheers went from one end of the harbour to the other. Spring and summer met. Everybody felt it more than anything that had gone before.

After we had passed the fleet, the pageant of the fleet passed us. First the Queen Elizabeth, immense, beautiful lines, long, like a snake, straight as an arrow. This time there was silence. It was grim and very beautiful. We would rather have had the music and the cheers . . . This morning instructions were given to the officers and landing arrangements made. We leave at 1.30 to-night. The Australians are to land first. This they should do to-night. Then we land. . . Naval guns will have to cover our advance, and the men are to warned that the naval fire is very accurate. They will need some reassuring if the fire is just over their heads. The 29th land at Helles, the French in Asia near Troy. This is curious, as they can't support us or we them. the Naval Division goes north and makes a demonstration . . . The general opinion is that very many boats must be sunk from the shore. Having got ashore, we go on to a rendezvous. We have no native guides. . . The politicians are very unpopular.’

25 April 1915
‘I got up at 6.30. Thoms, who shared my cabin, had been up earlier. There was a continuous roll of thunder from the south. Opposite to us the land rose steeply in cliffs and hills covered with the usual Mediterranean vegetation. The crackle of rifles sounded and ceased in turns. . . Orders were given to us to start at 8.30 a.m. . . The tows were punctual. . . We were ordered to take practically nothing but rations. I gave my sleeping-bag to Kyriakidis, the old Greek interpreter whom I had snatched from the Arcadia, and took my British warm and my Burberry. . . The tow was unpleasantly open to look at; there was naturally no shelter of any kind. We all packed in, and were towed across the shining sea towards the land fight. . . We could see some still figures lying on the beach to our left, one or two in front. Some bullets splashed round.

As we were all jumping into the sea to flounder ashore, I heard cries from the sergeant at the back of the tow. He said to me: “These two men refuse to go ashore.” I turned and saw Kristo Keresteji and Yanni of Ayo Strati with mesmerized eyes looking at plops tha the bullets made in the water, and with their minds evidently fixed on the Greek equivalent of “Home, Sweet Home.” They were, however, pushed in, and we all scrambled on to that unholy land. The word was then, I thought rather unnecessarily, passed that we were under fire.’

26 April 1915
‘At 5 o’clock yesterday our artillery began to land. It’s a very rough country; the Mediterranean macchia everywhere, and steep, winding valleys. We slept on a ledge a few feet above the beech . . . Firing went on all night. In the morning it was very cold, and we were all soaked. The Navy, it appeared, had landed us in the wrong place. This made the Army extremely angry, though as things turned out it was the one bright spot. Had we landed anywhere else, we should have been wiped out.’

28 April 1915
‘I got up at 4 a.m. this morning, after a fine, quiet night, and examined a Greek deserter from the Turkish Army. He said many would desert if they did not fear for their lives. The New Zealanders spare their prisoners.

Last night, while he was talking to me, Colonel C. was hit by a bit of shell on his hat. He stood quite still while a man might count three, wondering if he was hurt. He then stooped down and picked it up. At 8 p.m. last night there was furious shelling in the gully. Many men and mules hit. General Godley was in the Signalling Office, on the telephone, fairly under cover. I was outside with Pinwell, and got grazed, just avoiding the last burst. Their range is better. Before this they have been bursting the shrapnel too high. It was after 4 p.m. Their range improved so much. My dugout was shot through five minutes before I went there. So was Shaw’s . . .’

11 a.m. All firing except from Helles has ceased. Things look better. The most the men can do is to hang on. General Godley has been very fine. The men know it.

4.30 p.m. Turks suddenly reported to have mounted huge howitzer on our left flank, two or three miles away. We rushed all the ammunition off the beach, men working like ants, complete silence and furious work. We were absolutely enfiladed, and they could have pounded us, mules and machinery, to pulp, or driven us into the gully and up the hill, cutting us off from our water and at the same time attacking us with shrapnel. The ships came up and fired on the new gun, and proved either that it was a dummy or had moved, or had been knocked out. It was a cold, wet night.’

Anne Chalmers in London

‘I have reached a most venerable antiquity,’ wrote Anne Chalmers in her diary on turning 17. She was in London with her famous father, Dr Thomas Chalmers, being a tourist and enjoying the waxworks in Westminster Abbey and the sounds of street sellers. She died 120 years ago today.

Anne Chalmers was born in 1813, to Thomas Chalmers and Grace Pratt who had married the year before. They moved to Glasgow in 1815, and had five more daughters, and to Edinburgh in the 1820s when Chalmers was appointed to the chair of theology at Edinburgh University.

Anne married Dr William Hanna who later wrote a biography of her father - Memoirs of Dr Chalmers - in four volumes. Anne died on 27 March 1891. There is very little information about her online (the photo is taken from National Galleries of Scotland Commons), although there is plenty about her father - at Wikipedia for example - who was famous in his day as a social reformer and the first moderator of the Free Church of Scotland.

Stewart J Brown’s biography for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required) concludes as follows: Chalmers has remained a controversial figure since his death. For some biographers, including his son-in-law, William Hanna, Chalmers was a saintly figure, a man of deep piety and evangelical conviction, whose main concern was the salvation of souls and who chose to lead a pure remnant out of a corrupt establishment in 1843. For others, such as the mid-twentieth-century historians Andrew Drummond and James Bulloch, he was the ‘evil genius’ of the nineteenth-century church, a middle-class ecclesiastical politician whose poor-relief programmes brought hardship to the labouring orders and whose ambition for power and unwillingness to compromise led to the unnecessary break-up of the national church.’

For a few months in 1830, Anne and her mother accompanied Chalmers to London where he was to give evidence before the Commission on Pauperism. Anne kept a diary of the trip. This was edited by her daughter and published in 1922 ‘for private circulation only’ by The Chelsea Publishing Co. as Letters & Journal - Anne Chalmers. The full text is available at Internet Archive.

Here are a few paragraphs from Norman Maclean’s foreword to the book (also published separately in The Scotsman): ‘It was fortunate that the letters written by Anne Chalmers to her life-long friend Anne Parker (afterwards Lady Cardwell) were preserved, and also her journal of the year 1830, for they gave intimate and vivid glimpses of one of the greatest of Scotsmen Dr. Chalmers. . . She lived all her life among the men who create opinion and mould events. . . The diary . . . gives glimpes of a vanished life. It is not often that a young lady describes the effect of mixing her drinks.

This is Anne’s description of the fatal course: “During dinner I experienced a sensation I never had before. I had only drank a little wine and a very little champagne, and taken a draught of beer, as I thought, but I am sure now it was strong ale. I felt as if my head was chaos, and something appeared to be rushing with immense force and rapidity through it ; but still I continued mechanically, though a sense of shame and horror overpowered me. My advice to every Scotsman is to beware of asking beer in London, for they invariably get either ale or porter!” . . .

The visit that most impressed her was one to Coleridge. The poet talked for half-an-hour on Irving and the Book of Revelation. “The effect of his monologue was on me like that of listening to entrancing music. I burst into tears when it stopped, and we found ourselves suddenly in the open air.” ’

And here are two entries from early on in the diary itself, the day of her birthday and the subsequent day.

5 May 1830
‘Wednesday, the 5th of May, is my birthday. I have reached a most venerable antiquity. Papa, Mamma, and I walked to Westminster Abbey and were conducted over it by the guide. We saw the tombs of many of the kings, nobles, and poets of former days, and wax figures of Charles II, a Duke of Buckingham, Queen Elizabeth, William and Mary, Ann and Nelson (who is like life). Elizabeth has a most disagreeable expression of countenance. Mary and Ann are good-looking. Among other tombs we saw that of Mary Queen of Scots. Her figure is represented in a recumbent posture on it. We also saw the monuments of Edward I, Henry III, Richard II and his queen, the two princes who were murdered in the Tower, Milton, Dryden, Chaucer, Watts, Horner, etc. In one of the apartments stand the chairs on which the King and Queen sit when they are crowned. To that of the King is fixed the Scotch stone on which the Kings of Scotland were once crowned before it was taken from Scone by Edward I. The architecture of this Abbey is splendid. We were in the chapel in which Divine service is performed twice every day. A genuine Scotchman who had been making the round of the Abbey and making remarks with great simplicity on what he saw, here inquired earnestly, ‘But whaur’s the pulpit; whaur does the minister and the precentor sit?’ After looking round the room he was satisfied as to the position of the pulpit. After leaving Westminster we walked through St James’s Park and sat down by the pond in the centre of it, paying a penny each for the refreshment of chairs. The road between St James’s Park and the Green Park resembles the Meadows very much. We were a little fatigued by our excursion, and sat quietly for the rest of the day in our lodgings, to which we began to get somewhat reconciled and accustomed.

In the evening Mr Irving and Mr Nisbet called. When Mr I. was told it was my birthday, he said, ‘Dear child, may it come often.’ He is grieved about the illness of his little dear child! ‘There was nothing extravagant about his appearance. He seems to believe in Mary Campbell’s [a speaker of tongues] miraculous gifts.’

6 May 1830
‘Heard as usual in the morning the varied intonations of the London cries, from the staccato of the old clothes man to the long of the men selling boxes. To-day for the first time I saw a Bishop in his lawn apron. He was a fine-looking man, upon whose countenance a pleasing smile was lighted up as he crossed the street to speak to a gentleman. This last turned out to be MrLockier, who called on us and told us it was the Bishop of London we had seen, a very talented man. Walked through the Horse Guard House and by the side of St James’s Park and through the court of St James’s Palace, where Papa showed us the identical spot at which he had received a curtsey to himself alone from Queen Charlotte many years ago.

We dined with Lord Barham. I was particularly interested by a Mrs O’Brien, who seems a compound of talent, naivete, and gaiety. She is the most lovable person I ever saw. I like Lord Barham. He looks melancholy, and though he is not old, he has laid three wives in the grave. His last wife died about six months ago. It is customary here to hang the escutcheon of the family painted on a black ground on the walls of the house when the head of the family dies.’

Trowps deuouring my hay

One of Britain’s early diarists, Walter Powell, was born 430 years ago this day. He appears to have been a reasonably successful businessman, acting as a steward for the Earl of Worcester, among other occupations. Though his diary - which covers half a century - is little more than a list of events, these are often surprisingly interesting, as when Powell records, during the Civil War, ‘Trowps deuouring my hay’.

Walter Powell was born on born 25 March 1581, into a Welsh family that claimed to be of Norman origin. He married Margaret Evans in 1604, and initially they lived in Llanarth but then moved to Llantilio in 1611. Powell worked as a steward for the Earl of Worcester, and for some other estates. He also leased a mill, it seems, for at least two decades.

Powell died in 1655 (or 1656 according to the modern dating system), and is remembered largely because he left behind a diary. This was edited by Joseph Bradney and published by John Wright, Bristol, in 1907 as The Diary of Walter Powell of Llantilio, Crossenny in the County of Monmouth, Gentleman, 1603-1654. It is largely made up of single line entries recording events, but does provide information on his family, farming and estate work, and makes brief references to the effects of the Civil War. The full text is available at Internet Archive.

In his introduction Bradney says: ‘It might be wished that [Powell] had said more about the Civil Wars, and, in particular, the siege of Raglan. On the 25th of May, 1646, a few days before the siege began, he was committed to prison in Raglan Castle for an offence he does not name. The siege began on the 3rd of June, and on the 8th of June, on account of his age, he was allowed by Lord Worcester to depart, the besiegers also permitting him to go home. . . During his absence his house in Penrhos had been plundered by the Parliamentary forces. Safe at home again he settled down to business as though no disturbances were taking place in the kingdom, his diary containing the usual notes as to lending money, collecting rents, and attending sessions.’

Bradney also makes this comment: ‘It is worthy of note that his daughter Anne, who was bom at the vicarage 23 May, 1611, married her husband John Watkins 11 June, 1621, she being therefore only slightly over 10 years of age. Her husband was baptized 2 June, 1609, so that he was but a trifle over 12 years old, both younge as the Diarist observes.’

Here are a few verbatim entries from Powell’s diary, from 1611, being exactly four centuries ago, and from 1645-1646, during the Civil War.

1611
‘I removed from lanarth to the viccarage of lantilio gressenny to dwell 27 Apr.
and I had a graunt from mr Sterrell of the ffarme for 21 yeares 13 Maij.
My father fell sicke 5 Junij, & died 19 Junij
Sould the house & lands late Rosser d’d wayth to Wm Sr Hughe for 1ooli ijs 23 Jan’ij.
John Evans & my sister his wief came to liue togeather as man & wief 24 Jan’ij.’

1612
‘this was the greatest yeare of ffruite that eu’ i saw. I made 50 hogsheades of sider of the tieth of both p’ishes.’

1645
‘4 Apr’, Prince Rupert at Bergeveny
6 Apr’, received the sacram’t at lanarth
5 May, mr John Powell’s testam’t
15 May, Jo: Charles & Jane Wms maried.
24 May, Moore Jones was buried, Conisbye’s trowps deuouring my hay meadowes.
3 July, King Charles at Raglan & 10 July at Cardiff
18 July, the affray wth Grossem’t men for Stedda’s
19 July, I brought present to the kinge at Raglan
21 Julij, Howell Jones wief died & my children removed to lanvapley
2 Aug:, tieth demised to Rich: tho: d’d, & Phe’ d’d John.
1 Sept’, Rendevous at Perlleny, I was not there
2 sept’, siedge at hereff’ removed after 6 weekes
7 sept’. The king at Raglan againe
10 sept’, Bristow taken by the p’liam’t lost by Prince Rupert.
24 sept’, Edward John James Watkin died
2 octobr’, leeches vsed p’ Bray to me, & Chepstow was taken p’ p’hament.
13 & 14 octobr’, Washington at Bergeveny
20 octob’, my sonne Richard went to Bristow & 8 die was imprisoned at langely coming back.
24, my daughter margaret brought to bedd of her first sonne.
3 Novemb’, m’ris Bray at my house.
7 Novemb’, I myself removed to lyve in Penrose.
9 Novembr’, my daughter Blaunch died.
12 Novemb’, Elenor James widow buried
23 Novemb’, John Evans & An Young hurt at tregare
27, the p’liamt army at my house, Collonell Morgan coming from Gloucester towards Bergeveny.
12 decembr’, my wief removed to Penros to dwell.
18 decemb’, hereff’ taken p’ p’lam’t by Coll: Morgan.
19 decemb’, Valentine Jones lewis prison’ to Raglan.
17 Jan’ij, Tho: lewis my man’s father slayne.
16 m’cij, at Vske w’th maghen
14 m’cij, Collonell Charles P’ger2 at lanvapley to burne my hay.
19 m’che, I payd 28s at Raglan p’ muskett
23 m’cij, m’ris Nelson’s oxen plundered.
26 m’cij, hay burnt at lantilio by the souldiers of Monmoth.’

1646.
‘29 M’cij, I & my wief rec’ sacram’t at lanarth
1 Apr’, Tho: & Besse my serv’ts maried.
18, my sonne Richard abused at Grossemount by Bissley & Tho: Chr’; do’r Bray died.
10 May, Lucas hurt by Tho: James Jo: Howell.
17 May, I received the sacram’t at lanarth.
25 May, I was comitted prison’ at Raglan to the marshall of the Garison, where I remayned close till 8 Junij p’xo.
29 May, my house was plundered at Penros by the p’liament forces.
3 Junij, the siedge at Raglan began. Raglan yealded vpp 19 Augusti p’xo.
8 Junij, I was suffered to come out throughe the leaguer.
9 et 10 Julij, Wm loup at my house, & he allowed contribuc’on & quartering to Andr’ lewis & his sone.
sould black horse to Rich: Band 5li
21 Julij, at Vske contra g’ll’m p’ le taxac’ons
30 Julij, Goodrich castle taken for ye p’liamt
6 Aug., Gen’all ffayrfax came to the leaguer.
19 Aug:, Raglan Castle yealded vpp.
21 sept’, Charles came from Bristow to my house.
24 Sept’, I was at Sadlebow hill.’

‘Too many Chinks’

Today is the centenary of the birth of Ron Hubbard, the controversial figure who developed Dianetics and founded the Church of Scientology. In his day he had a huge following, and his church or cult grew at exponential rates, at least until undermined by legal and moral challenges, leading him to spend the last years of his life as a recluse. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that he kept a diary through his life, but as a teenager he did write one when in the Far East, and campaigners against the cult have seized on those diaries to undermine his claims about the spiritual influence the trips had on the ideas that led to Dianetics and Scientology.

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was born on 13 March 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska. His father was in the navy for a while, and his mother worked as a clerk for the state government, but the family moved around a lot during Ronald’s childhood. During the last years of his schooling, he lived mostly with his grandparents in Helena, Montana, apart from some time in Guam, South Pacific, where his father was stationed. He studied civil engineering at George Washington University for a couple of years but then dropped out.

During the 1930s, Hubbard developed a skill at writing in various genres for pulp fiction magazines, particularly science fiction, and is said to have associated with writers such as Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. His first full-length novel, Buckskin Brigades, was published in 1937, many more followed. During the late 1940s, Hubbard started publishing works about a system of mental health, called Dianetics. After his book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health became a best-seller, he gave up fiction and focused on promoting Dianetics, writing more books, delivering many lectures and launching various research organisations. The Church of Scientology, founded by Hubbard in 1954, became the most popular and famous of these groups.

Hubbard’s ideas continued to be popular throughout the 1960s and 1970s, establishing many hundreds of churches, missions, and groups around the world with membership rising to six million. However, increasingly Scientology ran into all kinds of legal problems, and eventually Hubbard became a recluse living in various different locations around the world. He had married three times and had had seven children when he died of a stroke in 1986. Wikipedia has a very extensive and well-referenced biography, noting many of the contradictions between official Scientology versions of Hubbard’s life and the facts. For a Scientology view of the man see the official Ron Hubbard website, and for an alternative view see Russell Miller’s Bared-Faced Messiah (available on Chris Owen’s website) or A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack.

While still a teenager, Hubbard made two trips to China. Later the trips were to be mythologised as the source of some of the wisdom that went into the spiritualism in Dianetics and Scientology. But at the time, Hubbard was keeping a diary, and much is made of this by critics of Hubbard and Scientology’s stories about him. Here are three paragraphs from Wikipedia’s text summarising the two trips and the records of those trips in his diary. (The original source of the diary material is given by Atack in his book as ‘exhibits 62, 63, 65, Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153’; and the photo of Hubbard’s diary is also taken from Atack’s book.)

‘Between 1927 and 1929 Hubbard traveled to Japan, China, the Philippines and Guam. Scientology texts present this period in his life as a time when he was intensely curious for answers to human suffering and explored ancient Eastern philosophies for answers, but found them lacking. He is described as traveling to China ‘at a time when few Westerners could enter’ and is said to have spent his time questioning Buddhist lamas and meeting old Chinese magicians. . . Hubbard’s unofficial biographers present a very different account of his travels in Asia. Hubbard’s diaries recorded two trips to the east coast of China. The first was made in the company of his mother while traveling from the United States to Guam in 1927. It consisted of a brief stop-over in a couple of Chinese ports before traveling on to Guam, where he stayed for six weeks before returning home. He recorded his impressions of the places he visited and disdained the poverty of the inhabitants of Japan and China, whom he described as ‘gooks’ and ‘lazy [and] ignorant’. . .

Between October and December 1928 a number of naval families, including Hubbard’s, traveled from Guam to China aboard the USS Gold Star. The ship stopped at Manila in the Philippines before traveling on to Qingdao (Tsingtao) in China. Hubbard and his parents made a side trip to Beijing before sailing on to Shanghai and Hong Kong, from where they returned to Guam. Scientology accounts present a different version of events, saying that Hubbard ‘made his way deep into Manchuria’s Western Hills and beyond - to break bread with Mongolian bandits, share campfires with Siberian shamans and befriend the last in the line of magicians from the court of Kublai Khan.’

However, Hubbard did not record these events in his diary. He remained unimpressed with China and the Chinese, writing: ‘A Chinaman can not live up to a thing, he always drags it down.’ He characterized the sights of Beijing as ‘rubberneck stations’ for tourists and described the palaces of the Forbidden City as ‘very trashy-looking’ and ‘not worth mentioning’. He was impressed by the Great Wall of China near Beijing but concluded of the Chinese: ‘They smell of all the baths they didn’t take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here.’ ’

If I had been a monster

Today is the 150th anniversary of the death of the great Ukrainian poet, artist and nationalist, Taras Shevchenko. He was exiled for a decade by the Tsar for subversive writings against Russian domination of Ukraine, and on being released started to keep a diary. This has been called a ‘living portrait of the implacable revolutionary’.

Shevchenko was born a serf in the village of Moryntsi, then in the Russian Empire (now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine) in 1814. He was orphaned at 11, and grew up in poverty, but was taught to read by a lay church person. From the age of 14, he worked as a houseboy for his owner, Pavel Engelhardt, in Vilnius and then St Petersburg. Having noticed a talent for drawing, though, Engelhardt apprenticed him to the painter V Shiriaev. Through him he met other Russian and Ukrainian artists, including the famous painter and professor Karl Briullov. A portrait of the Russian poet Vasilii Zhukovsky by Briullov was sold in a lottery to raise funds to buy Shevchenko’s freedom in 1838. That same year he enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg.

Shevchenko’s first collection of poetry - Kobzar - was published in 1840; epic poems and plays followed. In the mid-1840s, he made several trips to regions that are now modern Ukraine and, disturbed by the conditions he found there, produced an album of etchings of the historical and cultural ruins. Also, he began to write increasingly subversive material against the Tsarist regime. In 1847, he was arrested with others interested in bringing more freedom to Ukraine, and was exiled as a private with the Russian military Orenburg garrison at Orsk near the Ural Mountains. Tsar Nicholas I, confirming his sentence, added: ‘Under the strictest surveillance, without a right to write or paint.’

Shevchenko remained in exile for a decade, to 1857, though the Tsar’s ban on his artistic work was never more than lax, and he produced both sketches and writing during the period. In 1859, he was allowed to move to Ukraine, but then was arrested and ordered to return to St Petersburg. He continued to write poetry, etch and paint, but ill-health got the better of him, and he died on 10 March 1861. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia, and at the Taras H Shevchenko Museum & Memorial (in Toronto), and Encyclopaedia of Ukraine.

Encyclopaedia of Ukraine provides this assessment: ‘Shevchenko has held a unique position in Ukrainian intellectual history, and the importance of his poetry for Ukrainian culture and society cannot be underestimated. His Kobzar marks the beginning of a new era in Ukrainian literature and in the development of the modern Ukrainian language. Through his poetry, Shevchenko legitimized the use of Ukrainian as a language of modern literature. His poems’ revolutionary and political content found resonance among other captive peoples. The earliest translations of his poems - mainly into Polish, Russian, Czech, and German - appeared while he was still alive. By the 1990s parts of the Kobzar had been translated into more than 100 languages. Shevchenko’s poetry has also become a source of inspiration for many other works of literature, music, and art.’

For less than two years, in 1857 and 1858, after being released from exile, Shevchenko kept a diary. The Encyclopaedia of Ukraine says ‘it is of great value in interpreting his poetic works and an important source for studying his intellectual interests and development.’ Yevhen Kirilyuk, a Member of the Academy of Science of Ukraine, wrote in 1961 that this diary is ‘a wonderful human document which provides us with a living portrait of the implacable revolutionary and the significance of the development of engineering and science, which would inevitably bring an end to the old order’. And Professor W K Matthews of the University of London wrote (in Forum magazine, 1989) that the diary is ‘particularly illuminating on the notable change in his psychology which was the inevitable outcome of ten physically and morally degrading years of exile in the Kazakh steppe.’

Matthews continues: ‘Like Shakespeare, another author with a defective early education, Shevchenko was an uncommonly sensitive and impressionable man, quick to learn, and able to transform acquired knowledge to his own use and to give it the stamp of his unique genius. A sober study of Shevchenko’s poetry convinces us of this, even though we can easily pick out its folk-song elements. But as we read his ‘Diary’ we continually marvel at the variety of his interests and information, the maturity of his understanding, his balanced judgment in the fields of literature and aesthetics, and his high moral standard. . .

What drew Shevchenko to the Russian revolutionaries in his latter days was an unrelenting hatred of established authority - both that of the landowners and that of the Russian government. These had been the twin sources of his miseries from his birth. And how intense those miseries could be we realize, for instance, from the pages of his Diary, in which he complained on 19th June, 1857: ‘If I had been a monster, a murderer, even than a more fitting punishment could not have been devised for me than that of sending me off as a private to the Special Orenburg Corps. It is here that you have the cause of my indescribable sufferings. And in addition to all this I am forbidden to sketch’. To these words he subsequently adds the scathing remark: ‘The heathen Augustus, banishing Naso to the savage Getae, did not forbid him to write or to sketch. Yet the Christian Nicholas forbade me both.’

A myriad of mountains

Xu Xiake died three hundred and seventy years ago today. He was an intrepid traveller exploring his native China with pen in hand, so to speak, recording the details of his journeys with literary flare and a romantic style. He also made significant geographical discoveries. Extracts (all too few of them) of his travel diaries are available in English in Julian Ward’s academic analysis - Xu Xiake (1587-1641) - The Art of Travel Writing.

Xu Xiake was born in today’s Jiangyin of East China’s Jiangsu Province. As a boy, he studied ancient classics but rather than taking the imperial exams, he developed an interest in history and travel books, and in travelling. During his lifetime, he journeyed with his servant Gu Xing all over China, mostly or very often on foot.

China Culture lists Xu Xiake’s main contributions to geography as: a detailed and scientific study of the karst landform; correcting some mistakes of the records on the source and waterways of Chinese rivers; observing and recording the species of many plants, explicitly putting forward the influences that landform, temperature, and wind speed might have on the distribution and blooming of plants; conducting a survey on the volcano relics of Tengchong Mountain; and a detailed depiction of the phenomenon of terrestrial heat, the earliest of its kind in China. He died on 8 March 1641. A little more biographical information is available at Wikipedia and The Smithsonian Magazine.

Xu Xiake recorded his travels in great detail. These notes were later arranged by a friend and prepared as a manuscript, but this suffered through the ages and was only printed in 1776 when part was already lost. Not till 1928, was a modern version of the diaries printed, by the Commercial Press in Shanghai.

Julian Ward first saw a version of the diaries in Xi’an in 1988, and then decided to research them further for his PhD at Edinburgh University - An Analysis of Literary and Philosophical Aspects of the Travel Diaries of Xu Xiake (1587-1641) - completed in 1996. Subsequently, in 2001, Curzon Press published Ward’s Xu Xiake (1587-1641) - The Art of Travel Writing, which is an extensive academic analysis of Xu Xiake’s diaries, and, unfortunately, contains all too few substantial passages from the diaries themselves. After a chapter on ‘The History of Chinese Travel Writing’, other chapters focus on subjects such as ‘Coveting Strangeness’, ‘Old Certainties and New Discoveries’, ‘Mountains and Caves’. The extensive bibliography lists various Chinese language editions of his diaries, the earliest of which is the 1928 edition.

The following two paragraphs are extracted from Ward’s book:

‘The present text of Xu Xiake’s diaries has more than 600,000 characters, of which the early trips to famous mountains constitute 50,000 and the journey to southwest China well over 500,000 characters. Popular myths surrounding his method of writing have arisen from romantic descriptions in contemporary biographies, which played on the image of the sensitive man at one with Nature. . . [One biographer wrote:] ‘After travelling for several hundred li, he would clamber up a broken rock to a withered tree and burn pines in order to gather together some tassels. He would then dash of a record of his journey, which was as good as a writing manual or a great work of art, something which even the greatest writers could not have improved.’

For much of his long journey, Xu managed to write his diary entries on the day in question. There were also, however, several instances when he had to wait several days before finding an opportunity to write up his experiences. On one such occasion, at a temple in Guizhou, he elaborated: ‘Entering a hall to the rear, I went up to a clean table and, using the ink and paper I was carrying, proceeded to write up several days of my journey. The jumbled chaos of my lodging was no match for the cleanliness and exclusion of this place. The monk, Tanbo, was most solicitous, bringing me tea and snacks from time to time. In the afternoon, two big and two small elephants came by, stopping in front of the temple for a long time . . . I was quite intoxicated in drafting my diary.’ ’

And here are three further (undated) samples of the translated diary taken from Ward’s book.

In Hunan
‘Since Cold Water Bay, the mountains and the sky had opened out, broadening the field of vision, while on either bank of the river water-eating rocks hove in and out of view, each one a sensual and visual feast. On entering the Qiyang region, the rocks took on a strange form and a shining appearance: as we passed through the region, they gradually presented a lofty form till by the time we had reached here, they seemed to surge out of the earth. On entering Xiangkou, the mass of towering interwoven cliffs was transformed into precipitous cliffs, rearing up into the sky.’

In eastern Yunnan
‘At the front of the courtyard was a flowering cassia tree whose mysterious fragrance floated all round, filling up the distant hills and valleys. Previously when I had passed through the valley and circled the ridge I had marvelled at its scent, thinking it to be heavenly fragrance descending in the distance, never imagining it was produced by blossom. The sweet-smelling cassia and the colourful chrysanthemums made me think about this secluded region and I regretted there was no monk with whom I could share it.’

In Guizhou
‘Followed the mountain path to the northeast and entered a bamboo thicket: towering trees and layered cliffs, above and below mysterious, crossed crags and penetrated the azure, as if in another world. It was like this for five li, then the cliff to the west sloped down from the summit falling to great depths to create a valley, in the middle of which was a marsh of still water, dark and deep blue. Slid into the water from the base of the rocks, but there was no ebb or flow: it was a truly ancient secluded pool, hidden in the valleys of a myriad mountains.’

Cecil Harmsworth King

‘She comes across in the newspaper and on television as an aggressive sort of woman, creating enemies wherever she goes. This is not at all the sort of impression she makes in the flesh.’ This is Cecil Harmsworth King, mid-20th century media mogul and Labour Party backer, writing in his diary about Margaret Thatcher a few years before she became leader of the Conservative Party. King, born 110 years ago today, had great political influence in his day, but was forced to resign after plotting to unseat Harold Wilson. His reputation took a further dive with the publication of his diaries in the 1970s because some found he had betrayed confidences.

King was born on 20 February 1901 into a privileged family, and was educated at Winchester and Christchurch College, Oxford. He married Agnes Margaret in 1923, and they were to have four children. His uncle, Lord Rothermere, employed him on the Glasgow Record and then on the Daily Mail, and in 1926, on the Daily Mirror. When Lord Rothermere disposed of his shares in the newspaper organisation in 1931, King began to assert a growing left-wing and anti-establishment influence on the political direction of the Daily Mirror. In 1951, he became chairman of Daily Mirror Newspapers Ltd, a post he held until becoming chairman of International Publishing Corporation (IPC) in 1963. A year earlier he had divorced Agnes and married Dame Ruth Railton, founder and musical director of the National Youth Orchestra.

King was involved, during 1968, in a bizarre plot to replace the government of Harold Wilson with a coalition led by Lord Mountbatten. The conspiracy failed very early on, and King was forced to resign as chairman of IPC. After retirement, he contributed articles for The Times, and worked on his autobiography and on his diaries. These latter, though, were ill-received by some for revealing too many confidences. In the last years of his life, he moved to Ireland with his wife, and he died in 1987.

There is surprisingly little online information about King, especially given the extent of his influence, for a generation or so, within British media and political circles. Wikipedia and Spartacus, though, both have short articles. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has a longer bio, but requires a subscription or UK library card log in.

In 1970, Sidgwick & Jackson published King’s With Malice Toward None: A War Diary (edited by William Armstrong). In the next few years, Jonathan Cape published two volumes of The Cecil King Diary, one covering the years 1965-1970, and the other the years 1970-1974. Here are a few entries from the latter, in which Murdoch and Thatcher and the three-day industrial week all make an appearance.

28 January 1971
‘Lunch with Dennis Hamilton and Hussey at The Times. Both very friendly and it was nearly three o’clock before I got away from Ken Thomson and others. First, Fleet Street. Denis had done his best with The Guardian but they insist on maintaining their independence, in spite of now moving into the red on both papers together. The obvious move is for The Times in London, The Guardian in Manchester and The Scotsman to co-operate with news and other services; but Richard Scott, the chairman of the trustees (and Washington correspondent!) of The Guardian will have none of this. It is thought The Sketch will fold in the next few weeks. It has been making a small contribution to overheads but is doing so no longer. . . Murdoch is threatening to start a new evening paper if the News and the Standard merge. It would be a sort of evening News of the World. The Sunday Telegraph is losing a lot of money, and The Observer in serious financial trouble. The Mirror has lost all its character and has become an imitation Sun. The unions continue as militant, short-sighted and irresponsible as ever. I have been told recently . . . that the Central Branch of the paper workers is politically dominated by a group called the International Socialists . . . [and that] these Socialists get money from China via Ceylon and that this is well known to the Special Branch. The Times has done quite well out of its increase in price to 1s and its losses are now manageable.

The Sunday Times has bought Wilson’s book on his six years in office. He is receiving £260,000 and the book will be out about May. Denis thinks he is going to tell all (why not make sure - for that money?) and he certainly goes to town on George Brown. The Times has bought Rab Butler’s memoirs. According to Denis he was very dependent on his first wife for decision and courage, but had a built-in sense of timing and a feel for politics all his own.’

13 January 1972
‘Dinner at home last night for Mrs Thatcher [three years before she would become leader of the Conservative Party] and others. She comes across in the newspaper and on television as an aggressive sort of woman, creating enemies wherever she goes. This is not at all the sort of impression she makes in the flesh. She is attractive, highly intelligent and very sensible. She says the so-called liberals (the left-wingers, the long-haired, and all that group) are determined to get her out of office and will doubtless succeed.’

14 December 1973
‘So the balloon has begun to go up. The PM announced yesterday that we shall be going on to a three-day industrial week to save electricity during the current trouble with the miners, the train drivers and the power engineers. There is to be a mini-Budget on Monday, despite all the denials. The PM put it all down to the miners and hardly mentioned the oil embargo. In fact, as Lord Robbins writes in the Financial Times today, this trouble was coming on us anyway, even if there had been industrial trouble and no oil embargo. I dare say one of the reasons for the three-day week (and how is to be enforced?) is to cause short-time working and so bring pressure on the miners and railwaymen from their fellow unionists. I doubt if this will work - the resentment is more likely to build up against the Government - and rightly so. Ted’s call for national unity on the box last night could not have been flatter or less inspiring.’

My unprofitable life

Henry Martyn, a missionary with a talent for languages, was born 230 years ago today. He didn’t live much past his 30th birthday, but on that birthday, 200 years ago, he was writing in his diary about his unprofitable life, and pleaded with himself: ‘If I cannot act, and rejoice, and love with the ardour some did, oh, let me at least be holy, and sober, and wise.’

Martyn was born in Cornwall on 18 February 1781. He studied at Cambridge, and, because of a facility with languages, was persuaded to forego the law in favour of missionary work in India. He went in 1806, but was only to live for another six years. In that time, he translated the New Testament into Hindi and Persian, and revised an existing Arabic translation. He also translated the Psalter into Persian and the Prayer Book into Hindi.

In 1811 Martyn left India for Persia with the aim of undertaking more translating work there. But he fell ill on the way, and died the following year. His extensive diary was edited by Samuel Wilberforce and first published as Journals and Letters of Henry Martyn B. D. in 1837 in two volumes by Seeley and Burnside. Christian websites say the book has been called ‘one of the most precious treasures of Anglican devotion’. Wikipedia has more biographical information, as does the Fulcrum website.

Journals and Letters of Henry Martyn B. D. is widely available on the internet, at Internet Archive, for example, and Project Canterbury. Here is Henry Martyn in India, sailing up the west coast from Goa to Bombay.

10 February 1811
‘Somewhat of a happy Sabbath; I enjoyed communion with the saints, though far removed from them; service morning and night in the cabin.’

11-16 February 1811
‘Mostly employed in writing the Arabic tract, also in reading the Koran; a book of geography in Arabic, and Jami Abbari in Persian.’

17 February 1811
‘A tempestuous sea putting us all in disorder we had no service; for myself, having had two nights’ rest broken from the same cause, I was fit for nothing during the forenoon; in the afternoon I had an affecting season in prayer, in which I was shewn something of my sinfulness. How desperate were my case without grace, and how impossible to hope even now without such strong and repeated assurances on God’s part, of his willingness to save! Indeed it is nothing but his spirit’s power that enables me to believe at all the things that are freely given us of God. I feel happy when reading that the enjoyments of heaven consist so much in adoration of God. This is as my heart would have it. I would that all should adore, but especially that I myself should lie prostrate. As for self, contemptible self, I feel myself saying, let it be forgotten for ever, henceforth let Christ live, let Christ reign, let Him be glorified for ever.’

18 February 1811
‘Came to anchor at Bombay. This day I finish the 30th year of my unprofitable life, an age in which Brainerd [an American missionary to Native Americans who, as it happens, also died as a young man] had finished his course. He gained about a hundred savages to the gospel, I can scarcely number the twentieth part. If I cannot act, and rejoice, and love with the ardour some did, oh, let me at least be holy, and sober, and wise. I am now at the age, &c.’

20 February 1811
‘Mr C_, the chaplain for Surat, called on me. I talked very freely with him about the views of the Bible Society, the duty of labouring for the natives, and in short, almost every subject connected with the ministry. He was very candid, and showed a simplicity and gravity that pleased me much. At four went to dine at Mr B_'s. A religious discussion took place at dinner, which lasted the whole time I was there; the Advocate-General chose to express his incredulity respecting eternal punishment, which Mr B controverted, but in so prolix a way, though on the whole well-directed, that it did not appear convincing, so I took upon myself to consider the chief points of discussion; freedom of discussion produced great familiarity, insomuch that I ventured to give him advice about the necessity of praying and keeping the sabbath, &c. and acting up to the light that he had received, that he might receive more, proving to him that in the gospel, the apparent severity of God in punishing sin, appeared reconcilable with the exercise of mercy.’

1 March 1811
Called on Sir J Mackintosh, and found his conversation, as it is generally said to be, very instructive and entertaining. He thought that the world would be soon Europeanized, in order that the gospel might spread over the world. He observed that caste was broken down in Egypt, and the oriental world made Greek, by the successors of Alexander, in order to make way for the religion of Christ. He thought that little was to be apprehended, and little hoped for, from the exertions of missionaries. Called at General Malcolm’s, and though I did not find him at home, was very well rewarded for my trouble in getting to his house, by the company of Mr _, lately from R_. Dined at Parish’s, with a party of some very amiable and well-behaved young men. What a remarkable difference between the old inhabitants of India, and the new comers. This is owing to the number of religious families in England.

15-16 March 1811
‘Chiefly employed in the Arabic tract, writing letters to Europe, and my Hebrew speculations. The last encroached so much on my time and thoughts, that I lost two nights sleep, and consequently the most of two days, without learning more than I did the first hour. Thus I have always found, that light breaks in, I know not how, but if, stimulated by the discovery, I think of forcing my way forward, I am always disappointed. I can learn no more than what God is pleased to teach me. With pleasure let me acquiesce in the method of my God. Constantly let me be reminded of my helplessness, and my dependence upon him. Walked at night with a Jew of Bussorah, whose name was Ezra, by the sea side. Besides the Hindoos and Mahometans, there were some Persians adoring the setting sun. My companion, though one of the highest order, as I judged from his appearance and complexion, knew next to nothing. He said they expected the restoration to Jerusalem every day.’

18 March 1811
‘A rope-maker just arrived from London called upon me. He understood from my preaching, that he might open his heart to me. We conversed and prayed together.’

Reinforcements received

It is 1942, and wounded are pouring into Palestine because the hospitals in Cairo are overflowing. The Countess of Ranfurly, whose husband is a prisoner of war in Italy, is helping at a Jerusalem hospital, being taught to shoot, and scribbling in her diary whenever possible. But she is also enjoying society. She confides in her diary, for example, how, dining with the Duke of Gloucester, she suggests the rubber shortage is worse for women than for men, and then, embarrassingly, is obliged to explain her point - ‘I said it may become difficult to obtain elastic girdles and that bras are very dependent on elastic, but I dodged mentioning needs further south.’ Weeks later corsets arrive in the post from India, from the Duke; and the Countess then tells her diary about how she fretted over the wording of a thank you telegram. The colourful Countess died ten years ago today.

Hermione Llewellyn was born in 1913, and brought up on her grandfather’s estate in Baglan, Wales, by apparently dysfunctional parents: her father was a gambler and her mother a manic depressive. They separated when Hermione was still a teenager. Her elder brother, whom she adored, was killed in an air crash. After studying secretarial skills, she went to Australia in 1937, and became the personal assistant to the Governor of New South Wales. There she met Daniel Knox, 6th Earl of Ranfurly.

Back in Britain, the couple met again and married in 1939. When her husband was called up for service in the army, Hermione broke the rules by travelling out to the Egypt to be with him; although, once there, she found if difficult to find work. She was expelled from the country, but returned secretly, only to suffer when her husband went missing. Nevertheless, she remained in the Middle East (becoming a favourite among the rich, royal and famous passing through); and Ranfurly’s cook/butler, a man named Whitaker, stayed with her. After three years in an Italian prison, Ranfurly eventually escaped and the couple were reunited. With the war over, Ranfurly worked in insurance, until Winston Churchill appointed him in 1953 to be Governor of Bahamas.

Horrified by the lack of education resources on the island, Hermione asked friends to send unwanted books. Thus, she was able to launch the Ranfurly Library Service in Nassau. The couple returned to Ranfurly’s Buckinghamshire estate in the late 1950s, where Ranfurly took up farming, and Hermione helped develop Book Aid International. By 1994, the charity had sent an estimated 15 million books to over 70 countries. She died on 11 February 2001. Wikipedia has more biographical information.

For much of her life, starting aged only 5, Hermione kept a diary. On returning from the Bahamas, the writer Peter Fleming helped secure her a contract for publication of some extracts. However, she changed her mind about the project, and it was only much later, after the death of her husband in 1988, that she began again to edit the letters and diaries, partly with the help of her friend and neighbour Lord Carrington. Heinemann published them in 1994 - To War with Whitaker - The Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly 1939-1945 - to much acclaim. The Daily Telegraph said the book was one of the ‘most delightful memoirs of recent times’.

In her introduction, the Countess says, ‘Since I was about five years old I have kept a diary. Though I am now eighty, most of these have survived my many adventures and travels and sometimes I glance at them to remember with laughter. . . My diaries, written mostly at night and always in haste, in nurseries, school rooms, cars, boats, aeroplanes and sometimes in loos, expose how we all arrive, helpless, innocent and ignorant; and then, as we step gingerly into the jungle, show how afraid, selfish, show-off and silly we often are. Mine also prove how lucky I have always been. Most of the creatures in my jungle have been extra special.’

Here are a few extracts from To War with Whitaker.

26 May 1942
‘Jerusalem: We had an official dinner for HRH Duke of Gloucester who is staying with us. He is visiting troops all over the Middle East and next month he is going to India. His itinerary is enough to give anyone a stroke. At dinner there was a discussion about the rubber shortage and, stupidly, I chipped in and said I thought this news was worse for the women than for men. HRH fixed me with an amused look and demanded that I explain exactly what I meant. I said it may become difficult to obtain elastic girdles and that bras are very dependent on elastic, but I dodged mentioning needs further south.’

26 June 1942
‘Wounded are pouring into Palestine because the hospitals in Egypt are overflowing. Each day between one and five I go down to a hospital in Jerusalem to help in the wards. I have no training so I do all the odd jobs such as washing soldiers, making beds and emptying things. Today I washed four heads which were full of sand. I am learning a lot about pain and courage and getting used to smells and sights. The soldiers make fun of everything and, even in the long ward where the serious cases are, no one ever grumbles. I cannot describe the courage of these men. Only when they ask me to help them to write home do I glimpse their real misery: some of them are so afraid their families will not want them back now they are changed. They call me ‘Sugar’.’

12 July 1942
‘While we were talking several people joined us and soon an argument began as to whether we can hold the Germans in Egypt and what will happen if we don’t. There was talk of evacuation which I still find rather a sore subject. ‘Lord Byron said women and cows should never run,’ I said. A little man who was standing nearby turned round - he had a red, rather belligerent face: ‘And what use would you be?’ he asked. Robin came to my rescue: She would fight with the rest of us,’ he said. ‘Can you shoot? the stranger asked me. I shook my head - I was beginning to feel foolish. Red Face glared: ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I like that bit about Lord Byron. I’ll teach you to shoot. Be at the police station on the Jaffa Road at six tomorrow.’ He stumped off before I could ask his name.’

13 July 1942
‘This evening I went straight from the hospital to the police station on the Jaffa Road. Red Face was waiting for me in a bare Arab room. I asked his name. ‘Call me Abercrombie,’ he said, ‘it’s as good as any other. Now sit down,’ he continued, ‘I shall tell you all I know. I was taught in America by “G” men and I am a bloody fine shot. Make the gun part of your arm. . . He showed me how to hold it easily in my hand, how to cock it and recock it without moving anything but my fingers and wrist. ‘Never pull the trigger,’ he said. ‘Your gun is like an orange in the palm of your hand. You must squeeze that orange.’ . . .

He took me over to the range. It was dark inside and after the stark Palestinian sun I could not see. ‘There are six dummy men in here,’ he said, ‘stay where you are and use your eyes. Kill them.’ He was unsparing. I shot with my right hand, with my left hand, and with both hands. I hated the noise and blinked my eyes. My wrist wobbled; my mind wobbled. He made me go on. Sometimes I shot in the dark. Sometimes he turned on the light. He bawled. I shot. ‘One, two. One, two. Now left. Now right. Now both together. Squeeze that orange. Keep your eyes open.’ Sweating and shy I plugged on, standing close-to and then far from his life-size dummies. After an hour he told me to return at the same time tomorrow.’

16 July 1942
‘A magnificent parcel, covered in tape and seals, arrived for me from India. Inside were two pairs of old-fashioned corsets with bones and laces. They were sent by HRH The Duke of Gloucester. Nick and I had an argument as to how one should thank one of the Royal Family for a present of corsets. Whichever way we put it looked disrespectful. Finally, we sent a telegram saying: ‘Reinforcements received. Positions now held. Most grateful thanks.’ ’

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the American aviation pioneer and diarist, died a decade ago today. Her life was inextricably bound up with that of her more famous husband, Charles, an extraordinary man who first introduced her to aviation, and with whom she made exploratory flights and wrote books. For many years, the couple never seemed out of the headlines, largely because their first child was kidnapped and murdered amid a frenzy of media attention, but also because Charles took a controversial political stance during the war.

Born in New Jersey, in 1906, Anne was the daughter of Dwight Morrow, a US senator and ambassador. She studied at Smith College, and then, in 1929, married the by-then famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh. He taught her to fly, and they went on many exploratory trips, air surveying and charting new routes, in which she acted as co-pilot, navigator and radio operator. Their first child, Charles, was kidnapped as a toddler, and then killed. The frenzy of publicity eventually led the couple to move to England where they lived in a property owned by Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West, and then to France, before returning to the US in 1939. They had five more children.

During the early years of the Second World War, Charles was accused of being anti-semitic: and he vehemently opposed US involvement. Anne’s family, though, held the opposite view. In order to reconcile the differences, she later said, she wrote a book called The Wave of the Future, arguing that something like Fascism might be inevitable. Earlier, in 1935, she had published her first book, North to the Orient, describing a single-engine aeroplane journey she took over uncharted routes from Canada and Alaska to Japan and China.

After Pearl Harbour, Charles became more involved with the US war effort. Having been refused permission to rejoin the Army Air Corps, he worked as a technical adviser for aircraft manufacturers, and in 1944 persuaded United Aircraft to send him to the Pacific where he improved the performance of fighter bombers and flew around 50 combat missions. After the war, his reputation was rehabilitated with the American government and the public. He was often in Europe, where, it came to light much later, he had had three mistresses and fathered seven more children. He died in 1974.

Anne had continued to write a books after the war. In particular, Gift from the Sea in 1955, an early environmental work, was a national best seller. She suffered a series of strokes in the early 1990s, and died on 7 February 2001. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia and the Charles Lindbergh website.

Anne was an inveterate diary writer, and, from the early 1970s, she began publishing them through Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. The first volume, which covered the years 1929 to 1932, was called Bring Me a Unicorn. Four more collections followed: Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead - 1929-1932 (1973); Locked Rooms and Open Doors - 1932-1935 (1974); The Flower and the Nettle - 1936-1939 (1976); and War Within and Without - 1939-1944 (1980).

Extracts from Anne’s diaries freely available online are few and far between. Mike Eckel’s obituary of her for Associated Press (available at the Charles Lindbergh website) has a few. He quotes from the introduction to Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead - ‘Flying was a very tangible freedom. In those days, it was beauty, adventure, discovery - the epitome of breaking into new worlds’ - and then says, in the same book, she wrote of the pain she and her husband felt after the body of their son was discovered in May 1932.

‘We sleep badly and wake up and talk. I dreamed right along as I was thinking - all of one piece, no relief. I was walking down a suburban street seeing other people’s children and I stopped to see one in a carriage and I thought it was a sweet child, but I was looking for my child in his face. And I realized, in the dream, that I would do that forever.’

Mrs Lindbergh, the obituary continues, who struggled to maintain her family’s privacy, wrote of her disdain for the media spotlight: ‘I was quite unprepared for this cops-and-robbers pursuit. . . I felt like an escaped convict. This was not freedom.’ And, she wrote in her diary that when her husband landed in Paris, he was ‘completely unaware of the world interest - the wild crowds below. The rush of the crowds to the plane is symbolic of life rushing at him - a new life - new responsibilities - he was completely unaware of and unprepared for.’

Three fine horses

Pen and Sword Books has just published the beautifully written and eloquent diary of Charles Crowe, a lieutenant serving in the British Army during the Peninsular Wars. It says the diary is a ‘masterpiece of journalism’ and one of the ‘great military memoirs’. Much of the diary is already freely available online thanks to Crowe’s distant descendant, JJ Heath-Caldwell, who tracked down the second of the two original diaries, and has made the texts available on his website.

Not much is known about Crowe, other than what he writes about in his diary. He was born in 1785 and joined the British Army in 1810, first with the West Suffolk Militia. After moving between regiments several times, he joined the 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot (an Irish regiment) as a lieutenant in 1813. He married in 1818; and later suffered ill health, so that he was stationed in Ireland for the latter part of his military career, before returning to England on half pay.

Crowe’s two journals essentially cover the last years, and Wellington’s final campaign, of the Peninsular War between France and the allied powers including Britain. They have now been edited by Gareth Glover, a former Royal Navy Officer, and published by Pen and Sword Books as An Eloquent Soldier - The Peninsular War Journals of Lieutenant Charles Crowe of the Inniskillings, 1812–14. The Pen and Sword Books website says the book was published in October 2010 (but, nevertheless, still asks for pre-orders!), while Amazon considers 1 February 2011 as the publication date.

The publisher’s blurb explains that Crowe did not actually write up his journal until 1842-3, but because he was such a good writer, he was able to embellish the basic journal, describing his thoughts, actions and words ‘in beautiful detail’ and turning the record of his short army career into ‘a masterpiece of journalism’. Crowe does not pull his punches, the blurb adds, ‘he censures officers both junior and senior; he talks openly of the ravages of war, and the pillaging, raping and looting; the horrors of war, describing the deaths and horrific wounds of many in lurid detail, the cowardice and stupidity; and he also describes the mundane in detail nothing is passed over.’ His journal ‘will stand proudly deservedly in the pantheon of great military memoirs’.

More information about Crowe and the book is available thanks to a website maintained by Gareth Glover, the book’s editor. In particular, he explains in some detail how the book was only brought to print through the ‘diligence and sheer tenacity’ of JJ Heath-Caldwell, a distant relative of Crowe. And Heath-Caldwell, himself, also has a website on which can be found the full texts of the two journals.

Here is an example of Crowe’s beautiful diary language and story-telling, taken from the transcripts on Heath-Caldwell’s website.

16 November 1812
‘Vander and I agreed to reverence the day, and a parade for Divine Service had been ordered. I was to have officiated as Chaplain, but the rain was too heavy to allow any but the sailors working the ship to remain on deck. The Master dined with us. When he left our cabin he foresaw a storm, and gave orders accordingly. Late in the evening the Hatchways were closed, and covered over with tarred purlings and a most awful night ensued. The wind blew great guns, and the sea ran mountains high. Our ship pitched and tossed and reeled most furiously.

Sleep was out of question, especially after midnight, when the table broke from the lashings to the floor, and set at liberty all our trunks stowed beneath, which drove slap bang from side to side as the vessel rolled. Thus Cobbold and myself in the lower berths were alternately in dread of unwelcome intruders. I succeeded in catching hold of and securing my own trunk, and was leaning forward to reach Vander’s when Dr Rice, anxious about his case of instruments, dropped from the berth above, and caught my head between his thighs. At this very juncture, the ship lurched suddenly to narboard, so that the Doctor, being rather short, could but just reach the floor, and by clinging to his own berth, save himself from falling backward.

Thus I remained in a pillory without the possibility of withdrawing my head, to the great amusement of our opposite companions. Pinching and thumping availed me not, for the Doctor could not budge a jot, until the ship righted on its way to falling to starboard, which made the Doctor scramble up to save his legs from the trunks, and thus set me free. All of us now could join the hearty laugh, and joke the Doctor’s nimbleness in saving his shanks. Our glee was however, cut short, for as the ship was rising on a lofty wave and appeared to stand on end, a cross wave struck our stern, made every plank and timber quiver, smashed our dead lights, or storm window shutters, to atoms, and shipped much water.

Cobbold and I had now to change our operations, and were obliged as the vessel rolled to either side, to hold up our bed clothes to prevent the water washing into our berths, and were thus employed until the water by degrees found its way under the cabin door to the ship's waste. All this was bad enough, but in the hold, where men and horses were so closely stowed, the scene was horrible! Three fine horses were suffocated, and falling against those next to them, threw them down, and they by their plunging injured others. When the storm mitigated in the morning, so as to allow the hatchways to be partly opened and fresh air admitted some men fainted.

As soon as practicable the dead horses were drawn out of the hold and thrown overboard. But it was a very difficult undertaking to set the other poor fallen and frightened animals again on their legs, during the continued rolling of the vessel. Other ships also threw their dead horses, the most crowded had, consequently, more casualties. There were very many detachments of Dragoons embarked in the fleet, particularly of the Oxford Blues, who lost a very many of their fine black horses. The sea presented a melancholy scene, covered with floating carcases as far as we could see. Our rigging stood well, but some vessels were greatly shattered, and some two or three were obliged to run before the gale, and returned to Plymouth.

Our convoy scudded about in all directions to collect their scattered charge. We maintained our central position. About 3pm Vander descried a suspicious square rigged ship close in shore hugging the wind under easy sail, for we had crossed the bight of the Bay of Biscay, and could discern the Spanish coast. Our Master pronounced the stranger to be an American Man-of-War. This unwelcome intelligence induced us to go down and muster our men between decks, as well as we could, and make them look to, and prepare their arms and ammunition, in case of an attack during the night.

When we returned on deck our Commodore had the signal flying “Look to the strange sail at Windward.” And away went the Brig of War, our Columbine, dashing and splashing in most gallant style through the lofty billows which seemed all to combine to oppose her progress. We watched her with a lively interest, as long as the daylight lasted, then returned to our cabins, and having made as good a meal as the rolling of the vessel would allow, we laid down, sword in hand, prepared for any alarm. Having however, to make up for lost sleep the night before, we soon forgot our cares and anxieties until the morning.’

Write. Read Homer

‘Percy’s birthday. A divine day; sunny and cloudless; somewhat cold in the evening. It would be pleasant enough living in Pisa if one had a carriage and could escape from one’s house to the country without mingling with the inhabitants.’ This is Mary Shelley, who died 160 years ago today, writing in her diary while still a young woman and living in Italy with one of Britain’s most revered poets. Though not a great read, her diaries do provide insight into the literary couple’s life.

Mary was born in London, in 1757, into a highly cultured family - her father was a liberal philosopher, and her mother, who died while giving birth, was a celebrated writer. She was educated privately, but, soon after meeting the young poet Percy Shelley in 1814, eloped to France with him, if only for a few weeks. Back in London, the two lived together, and then, in 1816 after the death of Shelley’s first wife, they married. Two years later, Mary’s novel Frankenstein was published. It was an immediate success.

The same year, the Shelleys moved to Italy, where they lived in various locations. They had three children, two of whom did not survive infancy. Percy himself died in a boating accident in 1822, and Mary returned to England with her only surviving son. She did not remarry, but carried on with her writing, promoting Shelley’s works, and looking after her father and son. She died on 1 February 1851. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia and The Poetry Foundation.

Although Mary Shelley wrote a few other novels, none were as successful as Frankenstein, which, nearly 200 years later, is considered a classic of the Gothic genre. She also wrote many short stories, and kept a diary. A good description of her original diaries, five of them, can be found in Rosalie Glynn Grylls’s biography, Mary Shelley (Oxford University Press, 1938) much of which is available online at Googlebooks.

The first of Mary Shelley’s diaries to be published was one written jointly with Percy in 1814. Its account of their wanderings on the Continent was later put into more of a narrative form by Mary and published in 1817 by T Hookham - History of a six weeks’ tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland - see Internet Archive.

In the 1880s came The Life & Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley by Mrs Florence Marshall (also freely available online at Internet Archive). This contained substantial extracts from Mary’s diaries, and was published by Richard Bentley in two volumes. There have been many other editions, more recently, for example, in 1987, Clarendon Press published two volumes of The Journals of Mary Shelley, 1814-1844, as edited by Paula R Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert.

Mary Shelley’s diaries are not the most enthralling of reads, but they are considered an important source of information not only about her own life but about her more famous poet husband. Here are a few extracts, the first dating from her teenage elopement to France with Percy.

14 August 1814
‘At four in the morning we depart from Troyes, and proceed in the new vehicle to Vandeuvres. The village remains still ruined by the war. We rest at Vandeuvres two hours, but walk in a wood belonging to a neighbouring chateau, and sleep under its shade. The moss was so soft; the murmur of the wind in the leaves was sweeter than Aeolian music we forgot that we were in France or in the world for a time.’

12 August 1816
‘Write my story and translate. Shelley goes to the town, and afterwards goes out in the boat with Lord Byron. After dinner I go out a little in the boat, and then Shelley goes up to Diodati. I translate in the evening, and read Le Vieux de la Montagne, and write. Shelley, in coming down, is attacked by a dog, which delays him; we send up for him, and Lord Byron comes down; in the meantime Shelley returns.’

9 March 1819
‘Shelley and I go to the Villa Borghese. Drive about Rome. Visit the Pantheon. Visit it again by moonlight, and see the yellow rays fall through the roof upon the floor of the temple. Visit the Coliseum.’

12 November 1820
‘Percy’s birthday. A divine day; sunny and cloudless; somewhat cold in the evening. It would be pleasant enough living in Pisa if one had a carriage and could escape from one’s house to the country without mingling with the inhabitants, but the Pisans and the Scolari, in short, the whole population, are such that it would sound strange to an English person if I attempted to express what I feel concerning them crawling and crab-like through their sapping streets. Read Corinne. Write.’

13 November 1820
‘Finish Corinne. Write. My eyes keep me from all study; this is very provoking.’

14 November 1820
‘Write. Read Homer, Targione, and Spanish. A rainy day. Shelley reads Calderon.’

23 November 1820
‘Write. Read Greek and Spanish. Medwin ill. Play at chess.’

24 November 1820
‘Read Greek, Villani, and Spanish with M. . . . Pacchiani in the evening. A rainy and cloudy day.’

1 December 1820 ‘Read Greek, Don Quixote, Calderon, and Villani. Pacchiani comes in the evening. Visit La Viviani. Walk. Sgricci is introduced. Go to a funzione on the death of a student.’

2 December 1820
‘Write an Italian letter to Hunt. Read Oedipus, Don Quixote, and Calderon. Pacchiani and a Greek prince call Prince Mavrocordato.’