John Davies (1625–93), a translator from Kidwelly, west Wales, published The New Pope in several editions from 1671, a translation of Gregorio Leti's (1630–1701) satirical account of papal elections, Il ceremoniale historico, part 5. This treatise ridicules the process of papal elections by claiming that superstitions, including ‘a kind of onomancy’, are involved in this process. Leti, an Italian who converted to Calvinism, was an irredeemable satirist who produced a significant number of works criticising and lampooning the Catholic church. Even satirically, then, onomancy – or something resembling it, since the process described here does not convert letters to numbers and perform calculations – was linked to the superstitions of the Catholic church in post-Reformation Britain.

This chapter will look beyond the arbitrary end of the Middle Ages and examine onomancy in Britain during the period c. 1500–c. 1700. I address several questions. What kinds of people owned, copied or used onomancies in early modern Britain? What effect, if any, did the Protestant Reformation and rise of witchcraft prosecutions have on condemnations of and justifications for the use of onomancy? What was the effect of print culture on the text and contexts of onomantic devices? Was onomancy as popular as it had been in the fifteenth century?

[fol. ii r]

¶ Vbi fuit mons est uallis

Et de colle fit iam callis

Heus et strata publica.

Propter casum dire sortis

Debilis est factus fortis

Non per sua merita.

Bellicosus infirmatur,

Alter <Sampson> trucidatur,

<Lamentatur> Anglia.

Symon pro simplicitate

Marchionum feritate

Cadit cesus framea.

Die martis bellum creuit,

Cadit \H/ector, Rachel fleuit

Pro cesis in area.

Comparatur hic Vluxi

Nam pro fide crucifixi

Non timebat milia.

Rexit uigor in Achille

Set et Symon talis ille

Qui pungnat pro patria.

Primus natus <rexit> frenum,

Non permisit alienum

Dare patri uulnera.

Vbi fuit mons (207)

Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 85/167, fol. ii r

¶ Where there was a mountain is now a valley, and from a hill is now made a path, alas, and a common highway.

[4] A strong man is now made weak because a cruel fate has befallen him and not because of his deserts.

[7] A fighting man is made a casualty. Like another Samson, he is slain. England laments him.

[10] Simon is fallen for the sake of honesty, pierced by a spear, through the savagery of the marchers.

[13] On a Tuesday (the day of Mars) the battle took place. Hector fell, and Rachel wept for those cut down in the field.

[16] He is like Ulysses; indeed because of faith in the Crucified he did not ‘fear thousands’.

[19] In Achilles strength predominated, and Simon is such as he, fighting for his country.

[22] His eldest son held on to the reins and did not allow anyone to wound his father.

Dum durauit non expauit

Pater enses set certauit

Propter pacis federa.

Pater prole confortatur,

Proles patrem consolatur

Dum durarent prelia.

Non fuerunt duo tales

In amore speciales

Infra mundi climata.

Abel Ade sociatur,

Abel prius inmolatur,

<Cadit> Adam postea.

In Henrico rosa uernat

Et in rosa si quis cernat

Sat †apererit† <lilia..

Martir fertur per ruborem

Et per album fertur florem

Virgo sine macula.

Dixit quidam, ut Pilatus,

Qui in bello principatus

Tenuit dominia,

‘Redde, redde, comes fortis.

Eris aut pro certo mortis

Datus ad suplicia.’

‘Hunc’, fert alter, ‘occidatis

Vlli uiuo non parcatis

De sua familia.’

Omnes clamant ‘Moriatur!’

Comes instans meditatur

De superna patria.

‘Reddo me omnipotenti.

[25] As long as he endured, the father feared nothing but fought for the peace agreement.

Following the Second Moroccan Crisis, the German Government introduced a new amendment (a ‘Novelle’) to the Naval Law, greatly expanding the size, preparedness and fighting power of their fleet. This chapter follows the passage of this legislation through the Reichstag and contains Watson's analysis of the intent behind this measure. As the opening document makes clear, he was convinced that the bill was motivated by hostile feelings towards Britain. He also outlined his view that, while this increase in the German navy could not be stopped, a firm response by Britain would prevent further such increases [148]. He would continue to make this point in many instances thereafter. A further recurring issue in this period was Watson's perception that the German naval bill was being promoted by an active propaganda effort that sought to win the public by besmirching Britain. This propaganda Watson traced to Tirpitz and the news bureau of the Reichsmarineamt [157, 169], a fact that further reinforced his suspicions of the Admiral and his methods.

148. Hugh Watson, Germany N.A. No.5/12

Berlin, 8 February 1912

The German Naval Estimates, Increases and General Trend of Opinion

I have the honour to submit to your notice that in the speech delivered yesterday, opening the Reichstag, His Majesty the Emperor spoke of a strengthening of the naval and military defences of the German Empire.

No details of increases were given, and at the present moment there is no official pronouncement on the subject.

The following are, however, the heads under which the press prophesy the increases are to be placed:–

• (a.) Formation of a third battle squadron of eight ships, to be kept permanently in commission (reported on in my letter No.2 of the 26th January last).

• (b.) Addition of one armoured ship per annum to the present shipbuilding programme of the Fleet Law, and therefore in addition to the shipbuilding programme as contained in the summary of the naval estimates of 1912, published in the North German Gazette immediately before last Christmas. Another proposal urges the building of an additional armoured vessel every alternate year.

• (c.) Increase in number of submarines.

• (d.) Formation of a school squadron for torpedo-boat destroyers.

[fol. 77v]

¶ Nequit stare set rotare fortuna mutabilis

Per quam scita mors uel uita uenit admirabilis.

En iam primus set nunc ymus flos florum militie

Regnat modo ruit modo, pacem zelans Anglie.

Heu uir fortis Montis Fortis, corpus tuum moritur,

Denudatur, mutilatur, per partes diuiditur.

Amputatur capud, datur, mulieri mittitur.

Non uilescit nec sordescit, Baptiste coniungitur.

Set mens fortis hora mortis [non] morte percutitur.

Sullimatur, coronatur, in celis recipitur.

Hoc monstrauit, hoc probauit sol priuatus lumine,

Terre motus, orbis totus tunc percussus fulmine.

Die martis marce Martis transit in uigilia

<Par> amici dominici cum sua militia.

Deridebat et pedebat scutifer ignobilis,

Male sonans quasi plorans necem plangens comitis.

Laus sit Deo nil ab eo post exisse dicitur.

Tumens uentre gemens mente derisor confunditur.

Symon ergo mortis ergo fac ne nos concuciat,

Te tutore te ductore Christus nos suscipiat.

Nequit stare (219)

Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Kk.4.20, fol. 77v

¶ The changeable wheel of Fortune, by which is made the awesome decree of death or life, will not stay still but revolves.

[3] Lo, the greatest now and not the least, the flower of the flowers of knighthood, at one moment rules and at another is cast down, ardent for the peace of England.

[5] Alas, Montfort, you strong man, your body dies, is stripped, mutilated and split into parts.

[7] Your head is cut off and given away, and is sent to a woman. It has become neither debased nor sullied; it is associated with the Baptist.

[9] But at the hour of death a strong conviction is not struck down by death. It is exalted, crowned, received in heaven.

[11] This was shown, this was proved, by a sun deprived of light, by an earthquake, by the whole world then hit by lightning.

[13] On a Tuesday (die martis) he passes from the field of Mars with his army in the evening like a friend of the Lord.

[15] A lowly squire mocked and farted, making a foul sound like weeping to lament the earl's violent death.

[17] Praise be to God, nothing afterwards is said to have come out of him. With swollen belly and groaning mind, the one who mocked is confounded.

[19] Therefore, Simon, make it so that death may not shake us so that, with you as our guardian and leader, Christ may receive us.

In the summer of 1934, Leslie Craigie, the British Government's chief diplomatic advisor on arms limitation, wrote to Ray Atherton, the longserving Counselor at the American Embassy, ‘It is unfortunately the case that since the London Naval Treaty was concluded in 1930 a very serious deterioration in the international and political outlook has occurred.’ Craigie wrote in the midst of lengthy preliminary negotiations between the British and the Americans (led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's confidant, Norman H. Davis) held in advance of a projected naval arms limitation conference scheduled for 1935 and intended to carry forward the Treaties of Washington (1922) and London (1930) for another six to ten years [120–27, 130–41, 143–6]. They were conducted amid war and rumours of war and thus had an unpromising backcloth. Since the 1930 conference, Japan had witnessed two Prime Ministers assassinated, other civilian leaders cowed into silence and several senior naval officers who had supported the Treaty system forced into early retirement. Worse still, a rogue element in the Japanese Army, supposedly guarding a railway concession in Manchuria, had provoked the ‘Mukden Incident’ with Chinese troops in September 1931. This was a major step on the road to Pearl Harbor, one compounded by the abjectly weak response of the League of Nations and the United States to an event of militaristic opportunism, if not of outright aggression. It was followed in January 1932 by a Sino-Japanese clash in Shanghai, occasioned by local patriotism but leading to the use of overwhelming force by the Japanese and much suffering for the local population; the western powers helped to stitch up a shaky peace. It was no longer clear who really spoke for Japan. A few months later Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and quickly made his intentions clear internally and on the European stage. In Italy, Mussolini, dormant for a decade, was moving towards a seizure of Abyssinia, accomplished in 1935 [125, 132, 134, 141, 145, 146].

The London Naval Treaty of 1930 was due to terminate on 31 December 1936, at the same time as the landmark Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, and there was provision for another conference in 1935, with London again nominated as the venue.

The Emergence and Consequences of the Anglo-German Naval Rivalry

Unbeknown to most people at the time, the year 1897 marked a turning point in Anglo-German relations. In June of that year a ministerial reshuffle in the German government led to the appointment of new set of officials dedicated to revolutionising the Reich's place in the world. Unwilling to accept Bismarck's dictum that Germany was a ‘saturated’ European power with no further desires for expansion, they sought instead to transform their country into a ‘World Power’ (Weltmacht) capable of challenging the three global super-states, ‘Greater Britain, Continental Russia and Pan-America’.

Most prominent of the new appointees was the new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and future Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow. His avowed goal, articulated in the slogan Weltpolitik (‘world policy’), was to embark upon a new and dramatic foreign policy designed to ensure that Germany attained her ‘place in the sun’. Although it was never Bülow's intention to antagonise Britain, his method of implementing Weltpolitik – involving Germany ostentatiously in any global problems that arose anywhere in the world – would nevertheless ultimately arouse suspicions in London as to Germany's hostile intent. However, the probability is that very little would have come of these suspicions were it not for the actions of another of the new appointees, Admiral Alfred Tirpitz, the new Secretary of State at the Imperial Naval Office (Reichsmarineamt).

If Bülow was the most prominent of the new appointees, Tirpitz was certainly the most important of them, at least in so far as Anglo-German relations were concerned. The reason for this was that Tirpitz came to office with a very particular agenda in mind. Viewing the United Kingdom as Germany's ‘most dangerous naval enemy’ and the one against whom Germany most urgently needed ‘a certain measure of naval force as a political power factor’, he concluded that German naval expansion should be directed against Britain. As he put it: ‘the military situation against England demands battleships in as great a number as possible’. As a result of this thinking, he set out to transform Germany's naval position. In place of the existing meagre force of coastal defence ships and small cruisers, he sought to build a battle fleet capable of confronting the Royal Navy in the North Sea.

By the beginning of 1920 the situation of General Denikin's Volunteer Army appeared grave and it was likely the White forces would be thrown back into the Crimean Peninsula which would now be their only refuge. Admiral de Robeck, strongly committed to the White cause, argued that the Crimea should be held at all costs, if only because it might serve as a diversion and prevent the whole of Bolshevik strength being employed against Poland in the west or prevent the Bolsheviks moving through the Caucasus into Asia Minor. There was also a humanitarian motive, a natural reluctance to abandon those whom the British had hitherto supported to Bolshevik vengeance [51]. Both de Robeck and General Milne, commander of the ‘Army of the Black Sea’, believed the situation might yet be salvaged if British troops, even a small number, were committed to bolster the White Russian forces at Odessa, Novorossisk, the Crimea and Baku. British forces at the latter would permit the Navy to resume control of the Caspian Flotilla, now in the uncertain hands of the fledgling Azerbaijan Republic [54, 55]. The Admiralty authorised de Robeck to proceed to the Black Sea with all available ships and prepare to send a party to take over Denikin's ships in the Caspian, but delayed a decision on holding the Crimea [52, 53]. The Cabinet decided, however, that no British troops would be moved to defend any Russian ports or territory [56]. Nonetheless, the British would carry on an evacuation from Novorossisk to the Crimea in order to fulfil the guarantee made by Sir Halford Mackinder, British Commissioner for South Russia, concerning the safety of Russian officers’ families and children [57]. De Robeck pointed out, however, that this would not be a real fulfilment of the Mackinder guarantee, for the women and children would not be in a place of safety since the Crimea might fall in a few weeks. He therefore made arrangements for the eventual evacuation of refugees beyond Russian territory [58]. De Robeck had doubts about the wisdom of sending a navy party to the Caspian unless British troops could occupy Baku and the safety of the Batoum–Baku railway could be guaranteed. Nevertheless, in April the Admiralty ordered the detachment to the Caspian.

On 21 November 1918, the American Admiral William S. Sims stood on the quarterdeck of the dreadnought USS New York, flagship of an American force under Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, US Navy, which had constituted the 6th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet. From that viewpoint Sims watched the German High Seas Fleet steam to Scapa Flow to surrender to Admiral Sir David Beatty and his Grand Fleet. This suggests an intimacy in Anglo-American naval relations, forged by wartime collaboration since April 1917, and in truth there was a sense of warmth between the two English-speaking navies from which Britain's other allies were excluded, less by deliberate policy than by cultural difference.

Sims’ account of the wartime relationship, however, reveals an Anglophilia not shared by other American officers, who were highly critical of the Royal Navy's lack of a formal Admiralty staff and its supposed inability to conduct offensive operations against the Imperial German Navy. To a certain extent, these criticisms were valid, though Americans lacked an appreciation of the realities of the situation and approached maritime warfare with a rather inflexible doctrine. There were, however, deeper and darker issues separating the two navies. The rise and rise of the United States Navy in the wartime years had a double impetus – that nation's burgeoning economic strength, greatly accelerated by wartime trade with, and financing of, Britain and her allies, which led to a soaring national pride and expanded moral, strategic and commercial horizons; and the call of the normally pacific President Woodrow Wilson, angered by British blockade policy and determined to curb it (and regain the domestic political initiative), for the US Navy to be ‘incomparably the greatest in the world’. Will and means were thus united in 1916 and a programme launched that would enable the US Navy to match the Royal Navy in strength by 1919.

American performance was disappointing in terms of wartime construction but, from 1919 to 1922, a vast fleet of dreadnoughts, carriers, destroyers, submarines, submarine chasers and other auxiliaries was turned out. Moreover, America's hitherto minuscule mercantile marine was considerably enhanced, a powerful post-war challenge to the Red Ensign's global dominance.

The books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings (known in the Middle Ages as the four books of Kings or ‘Kingdoms’) are grouped together in the Hebrew Bible as the ‘Former Prophets’. They chronicle the history of Israel and Judah from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian Exile in 560 bce. Their history of composition is complex: while Noth argued in 1943 that Deuteronomy–2 Kings was the work of a single redactor writing shortly after 560 bce, it is now generally agreed that there are multiple layers to this redaction, and that each book can be thought of as having its own distinct identity. At the same time, it is clear that the historical books do cohere by means of a ‘narrative arc’ that runs from the settlement in Canaan to the establishment of the monarchy and ends with its dissolution and the destruction of Jerusalem. The book of Ruth, which is among the ‘Writings’ in the Hebrew Bible, was placed between Judges and 1 Samuel in the LXX, where it belongs chronologically, as it is set in the time of the Judges. However, it was probably written later than the other books, and is different in genre, best described as ‘a finely crafted short story’ or even ‘a narrative text in poetic form’. Within this larger unit – sometimes known as the Deuteronomistic History – is ‘the David story’, which runs from 1 Samuel to 1 Kings 2 and is one of the most masterful narratives in the Hebrew Bible: von Rad considered it the beginning of ‘genuine historical writing’ in Israel, while Alter describes it as a reimagining of history of Shakespearean stature and breadth. Most notable is its close focus on human concerns and individuals: Nelson lists the main themes as ‘political tensions, family dysfunction, the relationship between the sexes, and the use and preservation of power’. There is much here to interest medieval Icelandic readers, who themselves had an ambivalent relationship to the institution of kingship and whose own storytelling tradition shares many of the same themes and the same ‘secular’ or ‘history-like’ style.

This pre-existing resemblance may explain why a mid-thirteenth century Icelander chose to translate into Old Norse-Icelandic the books from Joshua to 2 Kings (including Ruth) which are now known as Stjórn III.

It is not always safe to date an administrative process, let alone an institution, from its earliest documentation. Records go missing, or their archival sequence can be lost through subsequent rearrangement. The Navy Treasurer's Declared Accounts to the Exchequer begin at Christmas 1546, seemingly in direct consequence of the restructuring of the naval administration earlier that year. Naval accounts do, of course, survive in profusion before this date, but the almost unbroken series running from Robert Legge's account for the year ending Christmas 1547 [I.80] might be taken as a new beginning. In fact, as the foot of this account shows, Legge had submitted an account for the previous year, but that is now lost. The 1546/7 roll has also become detached from its successors and so now has a random piece number, while the first item in the sequence is not really part of it.

All the accounts printed here, though expressed with some prolixity, are mathematically simple. However, they cannot be read as straightforward statements of receipt and expenditure; in common with the practice of the time, their purpose was rather for the accountant (here the Treasurer or Victualler) to demonstrate that he had discharged his own financial liability to his superior (here the Crown). Therefore any arrears from the previous account are added in on the charge side or recepta along with the actual sums received [as II.89]. Against this is set the discharge or expense, and if that exceeded the charge the account was said to be in surplus (superplus) [as I.81]. If on the other hand the discharge fell below the charge, he was said to be in debt [as I.87], because the difference represented the Crown's money still standing on his books. Making and copying the accounts was a lengthy process, so this was set in hand well before the terminal date, with the result that a ‘postscript’ or super had to be added, which might include additional charges. More often it deducted administrative expenses (such as the costs of writing the account itself and the audit) which whittled away the charge. Items might also be written off at this point. Sometimes the accountant achieved a perfect balance of charge and discharge, in which case he declared himself equalis or ‘quit’ [as I.80].

The Descent into War

The origins of the changed relationship between Britain and the United States, from interdependent trading partners to enemies in the War of 1812, can be found in the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which had ended the previous Anglo-American War. Heated debate in Britain over future trade with its former American colonies often focused on the extent of American trade with the British West Indian ‘sugar islands’, as did the influential writer Lord Sheffield. Nevertheless, in time, a mutually beneficial ‘Atlantic economy’ had reasserted itself – each country became the other's major customer and source of supply. American wheat, flour, rice, timber, tobacco and raw cotton found outlets in Britain and its overseas territories, while the United States, as a predominantly agrarian economy and growing market for British manufactures and re-exports, became crucially important to Britain's economic development. By 1810, although America had an adverse balance of trade with Britain, often resented by contemporary American commentators, its merchant navy of over a million tons carried over 90 per cent of its overseas trade, and earned more than enough to produce a favourable balance of payments for the United States.

However, a French declaration of war on Britain in 1793 meant more frequent contact between American merchant vessels and warships of the Royal Navy, as Britain imposed maritime blockades on France, and neutral American vessels sought to gain the trade denied to French shipping. American shippers increasingly maintained that ‘Free Ships’ meant ‘Free Goods’ which were not subject to British ‘stop and search’, or confiscation of cargoes as broadly defined contraband. Furthermore, the Royal Navy would soon seek to ease its perpetual manpower shortage by impressing apparently British seamen – but often, in fact, American citizens – from American merchant vessels, sufficiently often to strain diplomatic relations . By 1807, of the 55,000 seamen engaged in American overseas trade, no less than 40 per cent were British born. Between 1803 and 1812, the Royal Navy may have impressed as many as 6,000 Americans. Neither nation could afford the loss of so many trained seamen. The forcible British seizure of four men from USS Chesapeake, a United States warship leaving an American port in June 1807, brought war very close.

The first time I met James Simpson, I found him in the form of a single printed sentence: If literary history and criticism is, as I believe it should be, ancillary to the complex history of freedoms, then this is a narrative of diminishing liberties.

It happened, I think, sometime in the fall of 2003. I was a young doctoral student in the English Department at Harvard. James had just been hired as the department's new medievalist and was soon to arrive on campus. His Reform and Cultural Revolution had been published a few months before, and everyone said it was supposed to be bodacious stuff: a field-changing, boundary-crossing, nose-tweaking book, a whisper in the ear of early modernists and many others. I liked the sound of that, and I wanted to know what I was in for at the hands of this new teacher. So I bought the book, hauled it over to Widener Library, opened to paragraph one, and found that sentence: If literary history and criticism is, as I believe it should be, ancillary to the complex history of freedoms, then this is a narrative of diminishing liberties.

The thing that startled me, reading that sentence for the first time, was its sheer confidence. I believe, it said. This was a credo, a declaration. This writer had convictions about what literary history and criticism should be. He could name his enterprise in five words: “the complex history of freedoms.” I didn't know exactly what that phrase meant, “the complex history of freedoms.” But I could tell it named something strong enough to give this writer his bearings. Already he had my attention.

He had my attention in part because belief, at that moment, seemed to me especially elusive. I was a working-class Protestant with an ingrained mistrust of established institutions, and I found myself now reading medieval literature at an institution that was very well established indeed. I was skeptical about the whole enterprise, resistant to the possibility that history, or historical scholarship, could make any claims on the business of living in the present. I doubted whether I could honestly say what purpose, truth, or community my own scholarship served.

[fol. 103v]

Vulneratur karitas, amor egrotatur,

Regnat et perfidia, liuor generatur.

Fraus primatum optinet, pax subpeditatur.

Fides uincta carcere nimis desolatur.

¶ Amur gist en maladie, charite est nafre,

Ore regne tricherie, hayne est engendre.

Boidie ad seignurie, pes est mise suz pe.

Fei nad ki lui guie, en prisun est lie.

¶ In presenti tempore non ualet scriptura

Sed sopita ueluti latent legis iura.

Et nephandi generis excecata cura

Nullo sensu preuio formidat futura.

¶ Ne lerray ke ne vus die, ne vaut ore escripture

Mes cum fust endormie e tapist dreiture.

De la gent haye avugle est la cure

Ke el ne dute mie venjance a venir dure.

[fol. 104r]

¶ Resistentes subruunt iniquitatis nati.

Perit pax ecclesie, regnant et elati.

Hoc silendo sustinent improbi prelati

Mortem pro iusticia recusantes pati.

¶ Les contre estanz abatent li fiz de felonie.

Lors perit seinte eglise quant orgoil la mestrie.

Ceo sustenent li prelaz ki se ne peinent mie.

Pur dreiture sustenir nolent perdre vie.

Vulneratur karitas (208)

London, British Library, Harley MS 746, fols 103v–104r

[Latin] Kindness is wounded and love sickens, while treachery rules and hatred is bred. Deceit has gained the upper hand and peace is trodden down, while faithfulness lies bound and utterly helpless in prison.

[French] [5] ¶ Love lies sick, kindness is wounded. Now treachery rules and hatred is bred. Deceit has the upper hand and peace is trodden underfoot. Faithfulness has no-one to lead it and is bound in prison.

[Latin] [9] ¶ At the present day the written word is not valued and the rule of law seems to be hidden away and asleep. And the blind preoccupation of a wicked people has no apprehension of things to come.

[French] [13] ¶ I shall not omit to tell you that the written word is not valued now and justice is hidden away. Blind hatred is the people's preoccupation, for they have no apprehension at all of harsh vengeance to come.

[Latin] [17] ¶ The sons of iniquity strike down those who resist. The peace of the church perishes while the proud hold power. The unprincipled prelates are supporting this by being silent, unwilling to suffer death for the sake of justice.

[French] [21] ¶ The sons of iniquity strike down those who resist. Thus does holy church perish while pride rules it.

‘Men may leif without ane king / Ane king but men may beir no crowne’ (‘Princely Liberality’, Maitland Folio MS).

This rather blunt reminder to a ruler that the security of his crown is contingent upon the satisfaction of his subjects (a relationship which is here not necessarily figured as symbiotic) is one of two anonymous poems in the Maitland Folio manuscript addressed to kings at New Year. The stern tone reflects elements of sixteenth-century Scots political discourse in which the rights of subjects to resist and depose inadequate rulers were asserted, and the Scots tendency to direct often profoundly didactic literature to monarchs is well-attested. However, this particular poem's temporal setting at New Year introduces another dimension to the familiar advisory tone. It is one of a group of Scots writings addressed to monarchs and presented as New Year poems (also known as ‘strena’ or ‘étrenne’). These are part of a European tradition in which, as Heal puts it, New Year formed an ‘opportunity for the gift of good advice, to friends and family, to readers and, taking advantage of the license of the festival, from counsellors to monarchs’. Not all Scots New Year poems are written for monarchs, but those which are display a marked concern with ‘correct’ regal behaviour, and the sometimes tense relationship between ruler, nation, and subject. This chapter examines a group of poems dating from c. 1500 to 1583, a period covering the reigns (and the minorities) of James IV, James V, Mary, Queen of Scots, and James VI. The anxiety generated by these repeated periods of minority rule is well attested in Scots literature, and Scots New Year poems are no outliers. James IV was the oldest to be crowned, at just 15; James V was 18 months old, while his daughter Mary was only seven days. James VI was 12 months old when he became king. Their reigns were characterised by periods of regency interspersed with (initially) youthful rule, and the literature of the time reflects an associated unease at this frequent turn of circumstance, and a perception that greedy regents, young rulers, and over-powerful counsellors can make the nation vulnerable.

• 1. Imprimis, that the ministers in every diocese be exercised with the study and practice of the Scriptures continually in such sort as hath been accustomed in every several diocese, and that they render an account of their studies and labours to their ordinary so often as they shall be required, till farther order be taken in his grace’s metropolitical visitation.

• 2. Item, that the said ministers do use all painful diligence in catechizing the youth and others of their parish, according to her majesty’s injunctions, and other godly canons in that behalf provided, or else to be censured by their ordinaries as the quality of the offence requireth.

• 3. Item, all non-residents to be called home and constrained to residence upon their charge, so far as the law will warrant. And all those who be lawfully absent from their benefices, to maintain and keep a godly preacher there during the time of their absence, at the discretion of their ordinary, if the living be able to bear it.

• 4. Item, every preacher or expounder of the Word in any church or congregation to be present at common prayer in the said church or congregation, and to receive the communion there four times in the year at the least.

• 5. Item, if any minister be known not to observe the orders of the book of common prayer, in saying the service and administering the sacraments and other rites and ceremonies therein contained, that he be sent for presently and enjoined to reform his disorder, and to certify his said reformation; which if he do not, then ordinary proceeding to be used against him according to law.

• 6. Item, all recusants and specially those of the best sort, to be proceeded against effectually and speedily, so far as the law will yield power.

• 7. Item, those that do not communicate to be dealt withal by the ordinary in such wise and godly manner as shall seem best unto them for their reformation.

• 8. Item, no permutation of any penance to be made by any officer whatsoever without special licence from the ordinary under his hand.

Duckworth was familiar with the Caribbean around Jamaica and San Domingo/St Domingue from his time as interim commander-in-chief six years before, but not so much with the string of islands which stretched north from Guiana to Porto Rico, though as a British sailor he presumably knew a good deal at second-hand and he had been there briefly in 1793. Here there were colonies of six different European nations, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden, besides Britain. Some of the non-British colonies had been conquered already – Surinam, Martinique – but Guadaloupe remained under French control, the Dutch and Swedish islands were still under metropolitan control, and the Spaniards held Porto Rico. So the British had the problem of controlling their own islands, and of holding onto those they had conquered, while simultaneously deterring enemies from fomenting risings and rebellions, or mounting counterattacks. The varieties of political control involved made it possible for privateers to operate, encouraged by the French, and there was always the possibility of major naval interventions from Spain or France, or both, since both had territories where a naval force could be based.

Since most of the fighting at St Domingue had ended after 1796, the region as a whole had become a naval backwater, and Duckworth's task was mainly to suppress privateers, organise convoys, and watch Guadal-oupe and Porto Rico [505–508]. To do this he had a single line-of-battle ship, his own Leviathan, and a varying group of frigates and smaller ships, not all of which were in good condition [509, 514]. Many of his smaller ships were employed in assembling and escorting convoys to Britain and they did not always return. Each colony needed at least one ship more or less constantly present in order to intercept raiders and privateers [506, 507, 522 are examples]. It was also an area of largely unsurveyed navigation, and one of his ships was lost even as he arrived [513]. And, of course, there were hurricanes and yellow fever and slave revolts.

Apart from the continuing and repeated general problems of the region, Duckworth had two particular issues to deal with in his time in office (which was in fact to be only eighteen months or so).