The New TV Series ‘Crusoe’ has featured Daniel Defoe fighting for Monmouth. It is TRUE ! Now read of his adventures in this Book. ‘The Adventures of Michael Fane’ Google it for the best on line prices.
Sex, Torture, Bloodshed and Pirates - what more could you ask for?
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When I was writing this tale, my research led me to a certain Daniel Defoe. Dan Foe added the ‘de’ as he was fed up with silly comments about his surname. As a young man he was indeed a ’soldier of fortune’ and fought at Sedgemoor, captured and fined three shillings. He and Mary Tufley had eight children. Defoe was a prolific writer, but he was also a ‘pamphleteer’ and wrote many a anti government propaganda pamphlet. This got him into the stocks or the pillory. He ran up massive personal debts and went to ‘debtors prison’. He spied for England in France as a way of settling his vast debts.
Of all the characters in the book Daniel Defoe is my favourite. He was a ‘rascal’ and I like rascals.
This picture is of Daniel DeFoe in the pillory.
More about this remarkable man.
Daniel Foe (his original name) was probably born in the parish of St. Giles Cripplegate, London. (Daniel later added the aristocratic sounding “De” to his name and on occasion claimed descent from the family of De Beau Faux.) Something that Daniel explains to Michael in my book.Both the date and the place of his birth are not totally known, since sources often giving dates of 1659 to 1661. His father, James Foe, though a member of the Butchers’ Company, was a tallow chandler. In Daniel’s early life he experienced first-hand some of the most unusual occurrences in English history: In 1664, when Defoe was probably about four years old, a Dutch fleet sailed up the River Thames and attacked London. They reached as far as The Tower but somehow managed to escape the blockade by sailing out with no lights in a thick Thames fog. In 1665 70,000 were killed by the plague. That plague was not restricted to City dwellers, it devasted towns and villages for miles around. Some say that God sent a miracle with the Great Fire of London (1666) it hit Defoe’s neighbourhood hard, leaving only his and two other homes standing in the area. All of this happened before Defoe was around seven years old, and by the age of about thirteen, Defoe’s mother had died. Both of his parents were Presbyterian dissenters, had Judge Jeffreys or Percy Kirke known of this he most certainly would not have avoided the Bloody Assize.
One little known fact was that Daniel DeFoe was a capable swordsman, in the famous novel ‘The Black Box’ by W Bourne Cooke there was a chapter devoted to his prowess with the blade ‘Concerning one Dan Defoe’.
He used those skills when he signed up to serve under the cowardly officer Lord Grey of Wark.
In 1684, Defoe married a woman by the name of Mary Tuffley, In 1685, he joined the ill-fated Monmouth Rebellion, but gained a pardon by which he escaped the assizes of Judge George Jeffreys. In 1692, Defoe was arrested for payments of £700 (and his civets were seized), though his total debts may have amounted to £17,000. His protestations were loud, and he always defended unfortunate debtors, but there is evidence that his financial dealings were not always entirely honest! In my book, I forgive him those facts and leave the marriage to Mary until later in his life.
My personal favourite quote from him is used in my novel - ‘The best of men cannot suspend their fate, the good die early and the bad die late.’ I still often read Robinsoe Crusoe, the books title was derived from the graves of two soldiers. One corporal Robinson and a private Crusoe.
