What a sight it must have been on a blustery spring morning in 1682: a magnificent 50-gun frigate with a gilded stern and the royal standard fluttering from its top mast. The ship was the H.M.S. Gloucester, storied veteran of the Anglo-Spanish War. Now on royal duty, it was making a run up the coast to Edinburgh to retrieve Mary, wife of the Duke of York, and bring her to London.
Aboard was the duke himself, younger brother to King Charles II and heir to the English throne. He and scores of glittering hangers-on were traveling first class, with choice delicacies to eat, rare wines to drink, and musicians on hand to provide entertainment.
“The Gloucester was party central,” jokes Sean Kingsley, a marine historian and founder of Wreckwatch magazine. “The duke and his cronies were having a fine old time.” Among the junketeers was the indefatigable diarist and social climber Samuel Pepys, who wrote an account of the voyage from his berth aboard one of several yachts that accompanied the Gloucester.
