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Horatio Hornblower

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Horatio Hornblower, 1st Viscount Hornblower, GCB (4 July 1776 - 12 January 1857) is a fictional character depicted as an British naval officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, originally the protagonist of a series of novels by C. S. Forester, and later the subject of films and television programs. The character is iconic in Age of Sail traditional naval fiction. There are many parallels between Hornblower and real naval officers of the period, especially Thoman Cochrane and Horatio Nelson. The name Horatio was not inspired by Nelson, but rather by the character in William Shakespeare's "Hamlet".

Life

According to Forester, Hornblower, the son of a doctor, was born on July 4, 1776 (the date of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence) in the village of Worth, Kent. He was given a classical education, and by the time he joined the Royal Navy at age seventeen, he was well-versed in Greek and Latin. He was tutored in French by a penniless French emigré. He is also an expert mathematician, which serves him well as a navigator.

Described as "unhappy and lonely", Hornblower is chiefly characterized by his reserve and self-doubt. He regards himself as cowardly, dishonest, and, at times, disloyal. His sense of duty and a drive to succeed make these characteristics undetectable by everyone but him. His introverted nature continually isolates him from the people around him, including his closest friend, William Bush, and his wives never fully understand him. His introspection makes him a very self-conscious and lonely man, and the enforced isolation of a captain in the Royal Navy makes him lonelier still.

He suffers from severe seasickness (like Horatio Nelson) at the beginning of each of his voyages and plays excellent Whist; he is tone-deaf and finds any music an incomprehensible irritant. He is philosophically opposed to capital punishment, to the extent that he contrives an escape for his personal steward when he is condemned to hang at the yard-arm in Hornblower and the Hotspur.

As in the novels of Frederick Marryat and Patrick O'Brian, many of Hornblower's exploits are based upon those of Horatio Nelson and Thomas Cochrane. Brian Perett has written a book The Real Hornblower: The Life and Times of Admiral Sir James Gordon, GCB, ISBN 1557509689, that presents the case for a different inspiration, James Alexander Gordon.

A "biography" of Hornblower, called The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower, was published in 1970 by C. Northcote Parkinson.

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Early career

Hornblower's early exploits are many and varied. He fends off fire ships which interrupt his first (disastrous) examination for lieutenant. Still only an acting lieutenant, he is given command of the sloop La Reve, which meets a Spanish fleet during fog, resulting in Hornblower's capture and imprisonment in El Ferrol[1]. He is finally confirmed as a commissioned lieutenant while still a prisoner of war. His daring rescue of some fishermen is rewarded by his release. As a junior lieutenant, he serves under a captain suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He organizes Nelson's funeral procession along the Thames and has to deal with the near-sinking of the barge conveying his namesake's coffin. Later, he recovers sunken treasure from the bottom of Marmorice Bay with the aid of pearl divers from Ceylon, and has his ship gifted out from under him to the King of the Two Sicilies for diplomatic reasons. On his return to England, he finds his two young children dying of smallpox. He later makes a long, difficult voyage round the Horn to the Pacific, where he supports a madman, El Supremo, in his rebellion against the Spanish. He captures a much more powerful frigate, then reluctantly cedes it to El Supremo to placate him. When he finds that the Spanish have switched sides in the interim, he is forced to find and sink the ship he had once taken. When he returns home, he becomes dangerously attracted to his well-connected passenger, Lady Barbara Wellesley, the young sister of Arthur Wellesley (later to become the Duke of Wellington).

Later career

After these exploits, he is given command of HMS Sutherland, a seventy four gun ship of the line. While waiting at his Mediterranean rendezvous for the rest of his squadron - and its commander - to arrive, he carries out a series of raids against the French along the south coast of Spain. He later fights a French squadron of four sail of the line which have slipped the blockade. His ship is very badly damaged and, with two-thirds of its crew incapacitated, he surrenders to the French.

He is sent with his coxswain, Brown, and his injured first lieutenant, Bush, to Paris for a show trial and execution. During the journey, Hornblower and his companions escape, and after a winter sojourn at the chateau of the Comte de Graçay, sail down the river Loire to the coastal city of Nantes. There he recaptures a Royal Navy cutter, the Witch of Endor, mans the vessel with a gang of slave laborers and escapes to the Channel Fleet.

Hornblower faces a court-martial for the loss of the Sutherland but is "most honorably acquitted." Among the honors he receives is a knighthood. When he arrives home, he discovers that his first wife Maria has died in childbirth and that his infant son is in the care of Lady Barbara. He marries Lady Barbara, the widow of his deceased former commander, after a decent interval and lives as a country squire in Kent.

Freedom from this purgatory comes when he is promoted to commodore and sent on a mission to the Baltic, where he must serve as a diplomat as much as an officer. He foils an assassination attempt on the Russian Czar and is influential in the ruler's decision to resist the French invasion of his vast country. He provides invaluable assistance in the defense of Riga against the French army, where he meets Carl von Clausewitz.

He returns ill with typhus to England, yet soon after his recovery goes off to deal with mutineers off the coast of France. After taking the mutinous ship, he sets up the return of the Bourbons to France, and is created a peer as Baron Hornblower. When Napoleon returns from exile at the start of the Hundred Days, Hornblower is at the estate of the Comte de Graçay, and leads a Royalist Guerrilla movement; after capture by the French he is about to be shot under an earlier warrant for his execution when news arrives of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.

After several years ashore, he is sent to be the Commander-in-Chief of the West Indies. He foils an attempt by veterans of Napoleon's Imperial Guard to free Napoleon from his captivity on Saint Helena, captures a slave ship, and encounters Simón Bolívar's army. He becomes Admiral of the Fleet, then retires to Kent.

His final achievement is when he assists a man claiming to be Napoleon to travel to France. That man turns out to be Napoleon III, the nephew of Hornblower's great nemesis and the future president (and later emperor in his own right) of France. For his help Lord Hornblower is created a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and in 1850 he receives his final honour by being created Viscount Hornblower and Baron Maidstone of Boxley. He eventually dies at his home in Kent in January 1857 at the age of eighty.

Forester offers two different brief summaries of Hornblower's career. The first was in the first chapter of The Happy Return, which was the first Hornblower novel written. The second occurs mid-way through The Commodore, when Czar Nicholas asks him to describe his career. The second account is incompatible with the first. The first account would have made Hornblower about five years older than the second. The second account is more nearly compatible with the rest of Hornblower's career, but it omits the time he spent as a Commander in Hornblower and the Hotspur. There are other discrepancies as well such as the accounting of his role in the defeat of a Spanish ship-of-the-line in the Mediterranean. In one account, he distinguished himself as Lieutanant and in another he is a post-Captain with less than three years seniority. It appears that these discrepancies arose as the series matured and accounts needed to be modified to coincide with his age and career.

The Hornblower novels

The novels, in the order they were written:

  1. The Happy Return (1937, called Beat to Quarters in the US)
  2. A Ship of the Line (1938, called simply Ship of the Line in the US)
  3. Flying Colours (1938, spelled Flying Colors in the US)
  4. The Commodore (1945, called Commodore Hornblower in the US)
  5. Lord Hornblower (1946)
  6. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (1950, collected short stories)
  7. Lieutenant Hornblower (1952)
  8. Hornblower and the Atropos (1953)
  9. Hornblower in the West Indies (1958, Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies in some US editions)
  10. Hornblower and the Hotspur (1962)
  11. Hornblower and the Crisis (1967, unfinished novel and short stories, Hornblower During the Crisis in some US editions)

 
In chronological order:

  1. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (collected short stories)
  2. Lieutenant Hornblower
  3. Hornblower and the Hotspur
  4. Hornblower and the Crisis (unfinished novel and short stories, Hornblower During the Crisis in some US editions)
  5. Hornblower and the Atropos
  6. The Happy Return (called Beat to Quarters in the US)
  7. A Ship of the Line (called simply Ship of the Line in the US)
  8. Flying Colours (spelled Flying Colors in the US)
  9. The Commodore (called Commodore Hornblower in the US)
  10. Lord Hornblower
  11. Hornblower in the West Indies (Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies in some US editions)

 
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, Lieutenant Hornblower and Hornblower and the Hotspur were compiled in one book, variously titled Hornblower's Early Years, Horatio Hornblower Goes to Sea, or The Young Hornblower. There are also simplified "cadet" collections of the Hornblower books for children.

Hornblower and the Atropos, The Happy Return and A Ship of the Line were also compiled into one book, called Captain Horatio Hornblower.

Flying Colours, The Commodore, Lord Hornblower, and Hornblower in the West Indies make up a third omnibus edition called Admiral Hornblower to fill out the series.

Hornblower's shipmates

A list of all the Royal Naval sea-going characters in the Hornblower novels

  • Bailey — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Benskin — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Brown — Hornblower's faithful and burly coxswain, and later domestic servant
  • Buckland — first lieutenant, HMS Renown
  • William Bush — Hornblower's "closest friend" and loyal subordinate. Briefly his superior officer in Lieutenant Hornblower, but happy for Hornblower (and more happily for Bush) to be promoted over him. Hornblower's second-in-command in HMS Hotspur, HMS Lydia, and HMS Sutherland and his flag-captain in HMS Nonsuch.
  • Carlin — second lieutenant, HMS Nonsuch
  • Chump the Negro — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia, missing in action
  • Clay — midshipman HMS Lydia, killed in action
  • Clifton, James — boatswain's mate, HMS Lydia, killed in action
  • Crystal — sailing master of HMS Lydia
  • Dawson — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia, missing in action
  • Doughty — captain's steward, HMS Hotspur, deserted
  • Galbraith, Donald Scott — third lieutenant, HMS Lydia, killed in action
  • Gerard — second lieutenant, HMS Lydia, HMS Sutherland, captured
  • Gerard II — midshipman, HMS Nonsuch, flag lieutenant to Admiral Hornblower, nephew of Lieutenant Gerard
  • Gray — master's mate, HMS Lydia, HMS Sutherland
  • Grimes — captain's steward, HMS Hotspur, listed killed in action, actually committed suicide
  • Hall — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Hankey — surgeon in HMS Lydia, dies before the start of The Happy Return
  • Harper — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia, missing in action
  • Harrison — boatswain on board HMS Lydia
  • Holroyd — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Hooker — midshipman on board HMS Lydia
  • Howell — carpenter, HMS Lydia
  • Hudson — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Hufnell — purser, HMS Hotspur
  • Hurst — first lieutenant, HMS Nonsuch
  • Jenkins — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Jones, John (the Ninth) — first lieutenant, HMS Atropos
  • Keene — captain, HMS Justinian
  • Kennedy, Archie — Midshipman, HMS Indefatigable
  • Knyvett — captain, HMS Lady Jane
  • Laurie — purser's steward/loblolly boy (sick berth attendant), HMS Lydia
  • MacEvoy — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Marsh — gunner, HMS Lydia
  • Montgomery — second lieutenant, HMS Nonsuch
  • Mound — lieutenant, commanding bomb ketch Harvey, killed in action
  • North — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia, missing in action
  • Polwheal — Captain's steward, HMS Lydia
  • Poole — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Price — master-at-arms, HMS Sutherland
  • Prince — midshipman, HMS Atropos
  • Prowse — sailing master, HMS Hotspur
  • Owen — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Rayner — fourth lieutenant, HMS Lydia
  • Roberts — second lieutenant, HMS Renown, killed in action
  • Savage, Howard — midshipman on board HMS Lydia, killed in action
  • Simmonds, Samuel — Lieutenant, Royal Marines, HMS Lydia
  • Simpson — senior midshipman on board HMS Justinian, fights duel with Hornblower
  • Smiley — midshipman, HMS Atropos
  • Smith — fourth lieutenant, HMS Renown, killed in action
  • Somers — midshipman, HMS Nonsuch
  • Sullivan — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia, fiddler
  • Summers, John — master's mate, HMS Lydia, killed in action
  • Thompson — captain of the forecastle, HMS Sutherland
  • Tooms — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Turner — sailing master, HMS Atropos
  • Vincent, Henry — boatswain's mate, HMS Lydia, killed in action
  • Vickery — commander, HMS Lotus
  • Wellard — midshipman, HMS Renown, later drowned
  • Whipple — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Wilcox — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Williams — ordinary seaman, HMS Lydia
  • Wise — boatswain, HMS Hotspur
  • Wood — purser, HMS Lydia

Real Royal Naval officers who appear in the novels

Other real historical figures

Hornblower's ships

Hornblower in other media

External links

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