YOUNG Cloudesle Shovell went to sea when just a lad, overcoming the obvious disadvantages of his ridiculous name to rise rapidly in the British navy. In 1689 he survived unscathed a little skirmish with the French near Bantry Bay, and was made an admiral and given a knighthood for his troubles. But he almost came to grief in a very major storm in November, 1703.
Admiral Shovell's flagship, the Association, was anchored in the port of Harwich at the time, and he and his crew escaped disaster only by raising anchor and letting the wind take the ship out into the open sea to ride out the tempest. Association finally found shelter in Gothenburg in Sweden, but others were less lucky: several thousand sailors lost their lives around the English coast that night.
Sir Cloudesley, however, was less fortunate in another incident a few years later. Returning from Tonlon in 1707, the Admiral's fleet was shrouded in thick fog for days on end, which made it difficult to keep track of its position. After some days of sailing blind, the navigators placed it in the vicinity of Ile d'Onessant, an island off the coast of Brittany; instead it turned out they were beside the Isles of Scilly, off the southwest tip of Cornwall, and the error was discovered in the worst way possible. Association, still the Admiral's flagship, struck the Bishop and Clerk rocks and sank in minutes. Eagle and Romney followed, and ultimately four of the party of five warships floundered, with all aboard, it seemed, being drowned.
But not quit all. These sad events took place exactly 289 years ago, on October 22nd, 1707. For many years afterwards it was assumed that Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell had shared the same fate as the 2,000 other men who died that night. Thirty years later, however, an old woman of the islands made a confession on her deathbed: Sir Cloudesley Shovell, she said, had been thrown ashore from the wreck while still alive, but she had murdered him on the beach for the sake of an emerald ring upon his finger.
The 57 year old Admiral may well have had some rueful recollections as he lay half drowned upon the shores of Scilly, waiting for fate to deal the final blow. Twenty four hours previously he had been approached by a sailor who claimed to have kept his own reckoning of the ships' positions during the foggy passage. He placed the fleet correctly near the Isles of Scilly - but private subversive navigation of this kind by inferior ranks was forbidden in the navy, and Sir Cloudesley had hanged the unfortunate sailor on the spot for mutiny.