A stain in the blood : the remarkable voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby : pirate and poet, courtier and cook, king's servant and traitor's son / Joe Moshenska.

London : William Heinemann, 2016.

©2016

xix, 553 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

On 16 August 1628, five battle-scarred English ships sailed through the narrow entrance of the harbour on the Greek island of Milos. Dropping anchor, the 25-year old captain banqueted with the local lord before sitting down to write an account of his journey - an account that would transform him entirely. Sir Kenelm Digby was known as one of the most extraordinary Englishmen who ever lived: a trusted advisor to the King, a pioneering philosopher and scientist, a friend and patron to Ben Jonson, Thomas Hobbes and van Dyck, and a thinker whose ideas are as relevant now as they were during his own troubled times. He was also widely known as the 'son of a traytor and husband of a whore': a man who witnessed his father's gruesome execution for high treason, and the lover of the most celebrated beauty of the age, Venetia Stanley. In an attempt to clear his name, and on a quest for personal glory, Digby assembled a fleet and set sail for the Mediterranean. His journey - encompassing fevers, mutiny, piracy, daring rescues and heroic sea battles - is a great and terribly overlooked adventure, and a prism through which to view England during one of the most pivotal periods in its history. A Stain in the Blood is the story of a remarkable life, and of a journey that helped to shape a nation. It is a revelatory first work of non-fiction by one of the brightest young writers and thinkers of today.

English

November 16, 2017

Includes bibliographical references and index.