Summer, 1626, and Europe is ablaze as the supporters of the exiled Elector Palatine, who was also briefly King of Bohemia, challenge Emperor Ferdinand. The Emperor’s new general, Wallenstein, has achieved a crushing victory over the feared mercenary commander Mansfeld at Dessau, but Danish King Christian IV is on the march in Lower Saxony. Amid […]
The Dunkirkers – the 17th century’s forgotten pirates
Eleanor Swift-Hook thinks it’s time we remembered the Dunkirkers, the most feared pirates of the early 17th century. Forgotten by most of us, these privateers operating in the English Channel were, in their time, the terrors of the seas. My mistress, his good mother, with a daughterAbout the age of six, crossing to Jersey,Was taken […]