Let’s Go Fishing by Katherine Pym

Release date July 1, 20017

I wrote “The End” on my first draft of Pillars of Avalon, a story of 17^th century Newfoundland, Canada. When I first started this project, I thought this would be difficult since settlers in the New World struggled to stay alive. They hunted, fished and peeked over big boulders to see if wild savages lurked in the distance, waiting to scalp them. 

How could I write a full novel of almost 95,000 words on episodes of crude survival that would numb the reader over time? It would make them think: Boy, I’m glad I didn’t live then. What a pain!

Then I came upon Sir David & Lady Sara Kirke. They were wine merchants living in London. King Charles I gave David and his brothers carte blanche (in the form of a letter of marque) to pillage and destroy French settlements along the Canadian coast. 

I thought, Oh good. A pirate story. I’ve always liked heroes with a slightly wicked bent. If one is too good, he/she is boring. 

But David Kirke was more than a king sanctioned pirate. While he pillaged and set ships afire along the St. Lawrence River, he was also a businessman. He saw opportunity wherever he went. One of those places was Ferryland, Newfoundland, where the fishing was supreme-o.

Fishing on the grand banks NL with icebergs

Men returned to England after a season along the grand banks and enthused how the waters teemed with fish. The cold waters were so crowded that to breathe, the fish jumped into fishing boats just to get away from the overwhelmingly packed seas. 

London and Dartmouth merchants leased ships of sail and traded goods like wine, clothing, and farm implements from England in exchange for dry salt fish and cod-oil. No money was to exchange hands. To transport money was illegal. Everything was traded, or supposed to be. When you see or read pirate stories, their chests filled with silver and gold coins, (if they are law abiding fellows) the money would have come from Spain or Portugal, France or any port of call in the Mediterranean. 

But I digress: 

Crude Fishing Equipment

Closer Look at one end

Boats with 5 men fished daily in the late spring to early autumn months. They were expected to haul in over 300 cod a day using the most primitive of tools. (In high summer, 1000 fishing boats could be in the water at the same time.) Cod could be as heavy as 120 lbs (54.43108 kg). Nets were apparently not used. Seins were used for the smaller schools of fish, like herring. 

Depending on the day and who did what, a fisherman would use this primitive device to haul upward to 100 fish per day. One would think the hemp line would slice through a leather glove and cut your hand. 

Every day, fish would be brought ashore to be processed. The fish would be gutted and beheaded by men called ‘Headers’. Cod livers would be thrown into barrels for cod-oil. The Header pushed the gutted fish to the ‘Splitter’ who opened the fish and removed the spine.

Notes have come down through the ages how quickly this could be done, up to “24 score in half an hour”.  If a team of gutters and splitters processed fish for 10 hours, that’s 9,600 fish per day—that’s one team. 

After the fish were gutted and salted, they were washed off in sea water, then laid flat on a rocky shore or flake. A flake is a low table covered with pine boughs or such which allow air to pass around the fish and dry uniformly. Boys would stand by, waving a large enough object to keep the flies away since maggots would destroy a dry salt crop.  

Fish Flakes covered with Cod

The calculations are like this: 

In the summer months, a period of 8-10 weeks, a crew of 5 would be expected to catch and cure 200 quintals (quintal=112 lbs or 50.80234kg of salt fish). That is an amount of 22,400 lbs/10,160.47kg of fish in a season. At 11 shillings per quintal (17th century prices), the merchants would garner several thousand pounds sterling per fishing boat per season. If a merchant owned several fishing boats, the numbers are staggering. 

Sir David & Lady Sara Kirke saw the potential and eventually went into the "sack" trade, where goods were traded for fish. They exploited this when they moved to Ferryland in 1638, and by the time of Sara's death in 1684 or 1685, she was a wealthy plantation owner. 

So, that’s one story line, but how many fishing tales are good for a long novel? Well, I found a whole bunch of other stories that filled the breach, which I will relate in another blogspot post. Very exciting.

 PILLARS OF AVALON will be released July 1, 2017. 

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Many thanks to WikiCommons, public domain and

Pictures of fishing lines, page 26, Fish Into Wine, The Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth Century by Peter E. Pope (University of North Caroline Press, 2004

The Death of King Charles II by Katherine Pym

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 Last time, I mentioned King Charles II's death and how nasty it was. Happy New Year to you with this macabre tidbit. May 2016 treat you better than 1685 bestowed upon the poor king.

King Charles II, Older but Healthier

First, a little about him…

After his father was beheaded, King Charles II went into exile where he learned to keep his own counsel. He loved sex. Prompted by others, his revenge extended to only a few of the regicides, but he took no joy in it.

Charles took a long time to come to a state decision. He’d put it off with a wave of his hand, and play with one of his women. He loved spaniels, and several romped in his private chambers, soiling the floors so that no one could walk across the room in a straight line.

Even though he reigned in a Protestant country, while on the run in 1651 after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester, Charles was protected at their peril by Roman Catholics. For a few hours, Charles hid in a priest hole, very snug and claustrophobic, while Parliament men searched for him. By the end of his trek through England and into exile, Charles had gained a high regard for Catholics and Catholicism.

But I digress.

While Charles reigned, he did not confide in many. He was considered an enigma by both his contemporaries and those who study him. He had a kind heart. His nature made people comfortable. They confided in him, wanted to be near him. But when Charles wanted to be alone, or was tired of the subject, he’d pull out his watch. Those who knew of this would quickly state their business, for soon their king would walk away.

Charles loved reading (not political or religious). He brought great strides to the theatre sector, and he enjoyed science. In 1660, he approved a charter for The Royal Society. The group of great minds, Isaac Newton for one, met at Gresham College in London City. Experiments took place there, including draining the veins of a dog into the veins of another dog. The results amazed those curious people.

So, we come to his death…

Physician's Tool

‘He fell sick of a tertian fever’, but the official cause of death was: Uremia (per dictionary.com—“a condition resulting from the retention in the blood of constituents normally excreted in the urine.”), chronic nephritis and syphilis.

On the evening of February 1, 1685, Charles went to bed with a sore foot. By early morning, he was very ill with fever. His physician (Sir Edmund King) tended to his foot while a barber shaved his head. Suddenly, the king suffered apoplexy. His physician immediately withdrew sixteen ounces of blood.

Sir Edmund took a big risk, and could have been charged with treason. The protocol was to get permission from the Privy Council prior to a bloodletting the monarch.

For several days, Charles was tormented by his physicians. As a private man this must have been difficult. Surrounded by more physicians than could gain his bed, they attempted to remove the ‘toxic humours’ that penetrated his body.

17th c - Hooke's Microscope

He was bled and purged. Cantharides plasters were stuck to his bald pate, which caused blistering. They attached plasters of spurge to his feet, then red-hot irons to his skin. Besides the large number of physicians crowding his bed, His Royal Highness’ bedchamber was filled to the walls with spectators (family members and state officials).

They gave the poor king “enemas of rock salt and syrup of buckthorn, and ‘orange infusion of metals in white wine’. The king was treated with a horrific cabinet of potions: white hellebore root; Peruvian bark; white vitriol of peony water; distillation of cowslip flowers; sal ammoniac; julep of black cherry water (an antispasmodic); bezoar stone from the stomach of a goat. He was forced to drink boiled spirits from a human skull.”

After days of this, he apologized for taking so long to die, then added, “I have suffered much more than you can imagine.”

Finally, on February 6, 1685 “the exhausted king, his body raw and aching with the burns and inflammation caused by his treatment, was given heart tonics, to no avail. He lapsed into a coma and died at noon on February 7.”

His death is considered by historians as “iatrogenic regicide”.

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I give thanks to:

Royal Poxes & Potions, The Lives of Court Physicians, Surgeons & Apothecaries, by Raymond Lamont-Brown.

Wiki-commons public domain

Secret Service, Spies and Underhanded Dealings by Katherine Pym

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17^th century England was volatile. The Stuarts ruled most of this century. There was civil unrest. One king was beheaded outside the Banquet House in London. Cromwell died on a cold and dreary night. His body was embalmed and dressed as an emperor’s; then whisked away to be buried (due to a noisome stink). His son was considered weak, so King Charles II was returned from exile. After he died (a pretty horrible way to go, by the way, which I should probably tell you about one day) his brother took the crown but as a Roman Catholic, he lost it almost immediately and was pretty much kicked out of England. After almost two centuries of kings and queens in religious battles, by the end of the 17^th century, true-blue Protestantism held sway. The rest is history (as I swipe at my sweaty brow). 

During all these different reigns, there was a lot of Espionage.

King Charles II

King Charles II professed to be Protestant and returned to England with great pomp and ceremony. His new populace greeted him with exuberance along the roads and into London. Everyone who hated him last week, loved him today. 

Our new king was not a stupid man.  He understood people are fickle. He fully expected to be assassinated or beheaded as his father was. While in exile, his life was often imperiled. Men had conspired against him. One example: During the Cromwell years, his spymaster orchestrated a plot where Charles and his brother, James, were to be lured out of exile and back to England. The plot was to kill both brothers the minute they disembarked onto home soil. Thankfully this plot failed but espionage in England had turned really devious. 

Men in power used good spymasters. Cromwell’s was John Thurloe, a brilliant man. He created a network of spies (men & women) who infiltrated the most royal of houses. His net was vast. His spies could be located in every English county, overseas, i.e., in Charles II’s exiled court, in the Americas, and the far Indies. 

John Thurloe

Thurloe compiled lists, sent spies into enemy camps, had men tortured and killed. One such fellow, Samuel Morland, confessed to witnessing a man ‘trepanned to death’ at Thurloe’s word.  (Dictionary.com states the following definition to trepan:  “a tool for cutting shallow holes [in this case the skull] by removing a core.”)  Really really painful and a horrid way to go.   

Commonwealth spies infiltrated homes, churches, and businesses to destroy the royalist enemy, and under Charles II’s, his government did the same.  Their goal was to destroy nonconformists, or “fanaticks”. Plots were a part of political life. 

After the Restoration, Thurloe was dismissed, but not executed for crimes against the monarchy (Charles I and II). He was released in exchange of valuable Commonwealth government documents. 

King Charles II placed Sir Henry Bennet as the Secretary of State and overlord of England’s espionage, who in turn brought in Joseph Williamson, another man born to this work. He took the bull by the horns and enhanced the processes Thurloe had begun. 

Joseph Williamson

Williamson built a brilliant spy network.  He allowed informers who, for money, turned on associates.  He burrowed spies into households, businesses and churches.  He used grocers, doctors and surgeons, anyone who would send him notes against persons who were against the king. He had men overseas watch for any plots. Informants were literally everywhere. 

His tools were numerous.  Williamson loved ciphers and cipher keys.  Known as Mr. Lee in the underworld, he used the Grand Letter Office for ciphered messages to pass back and forth between the undersecretary’s office and spies. He expected his people to keep him informed by ciphered letters at the end of each day, and passed through the post office. 

Williamson obtained ambassador letters, had them opened and searched for underhanded deceit. He developed a system of local informers, letters and money crossing palms.  Under Thurloe, the secret service received £800 per year. Under Bennet, the money doubled. Most of the annual budget was spent on spies to keep them alive. 

As a result, most plots failed. Besides Williamson’s expertise and doggedness, most plotters employed too many people. Everyone around the countryside knew of one plot or another, a family member probably involved. Because of Williamson, these plots dissolved before they were brought to fruition. 

Spies seem to be a part of every decade, every century. Today is no different but electronics have replaced ciphered notes sent to spymasters through the post offices.