Name To a Face

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The known facts concerning the loss of HMS Association and three other men-of-war off the Isles of Scilly during the night of 22/23 October 1707 are faithfully represented in this novel, as are the circumstances of the theft of an emerald-and-diamond ring from Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell’s body when it was washed up at Porth Hellick. There is no evidence either way as to whether this was the same ring later supposed to have been returned to the Shovell family.

Francis Gashry is a genuine if minor historical figure. He thrived under the patronage of Admiral Sir Charles Wager, whose Cornish estate he ultimately inherited. Born in Stepney in 1702, the son of a Huguenot perfumer, he held a number of posts at the Admiralty before securing his most lucrative appointment as Treasurer of the Ordnance. He served as MP for East Looe from 1741 until his death in 1762.

William Borlase, the famous Cornish antiquarian, was rector of Ludgvan from 1722 until his death in 1772. The construction of an extension to the rectory early in 1736 (to accommodate Borlase’s growing family) might well have obliged him to lodge a visiting antiquarian at his brother Walter’s house, Castle Horneck, on the outskirts of Penzance.

Historians are increasingly inclined to doubt that King Edward II died, as generally supposed, during his imprisonment at Berkeley Castle in 1327. His son and successor, Edward III, is now believed to have met his father in secret on at least one subsequent occasion and to have been successfully blackmailed by an Italian priest who possessed evidence of the former king’s survival. Where, when and how Edward II actually died no one can say.