Cloudesley Shovell

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the English rock band see Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell .

Sir Cloudesley Shovell, portrayed by Michael Dahl

Sir Cloudesley Shovell ( 1650 - October 22, 1707 ) was an English admiral.

Coming from a seafaring family, Shovell volunteered for the Navy at an early age. There he served in the naval wars with Holland and in the Nine Years War against France, received his first command in 1677 and became rear admiral in 1690. He was defeated after the Battle of Bantry Bay (1689) on May 16, 1689 in Portsmouth to the Knight Bachelor ("Sir") and took part in the battles of Beachy Head (1690) and Barfleur / La Hogue (1692). In 1696 he was promoted to Admiral of the Blue by Queen Anne , and in 1702 to Admiral of the White . In the same year he brought the Spanish treasure fleet to England, which Admiral Sir George Rooke had intercepted at Vigo . Together with Rooke and Prince Georg von Hessen-Darmstadt , he conquered the fortress of Gibraltar in 1704 . Also in 1704 he became Rear Admiral of England , and in 1705, finally, Admiral of the Royal Navy . In the same year he took part in the siege of Barcelona .

In the summer of 1707 he led the British fleet in the siege of Toulon . On the return voyage from Gibraltar to Great Britain on October 22nd at around 7.30 p.m., 4 of 21 ships from Shovell's fleet ran aground off the Isles of Scilly, west of Cornwall , on cliffs. All four leaked and sank within a few hours with the entire crew. There were 1,450 deaths. The cause is an inadequate position determination and ignorance of the longitude , the fleet thought it was far from the cliffs in the English Channel , but incorrect maps and navigation tables are now also accepted. Shovell was also killed in the accident, he was later buried in Westminster Abbey . According to a legend, the day before he had hanged a sailor who had pointed out the navigation error. Shovell's actual cause of death is unknown. He might have drowned, according to a story from the Isles of Scilly, he died at the hand of a beach pirate .

literature

• Hattendorf, John: Sir Georg Rooke and Sir Cloudesley Shovel, c.1650-1709 and 1650-1707 , in: Peter Le Fevre, Richard Harding (eds.): Precursors of Nelson. British Admirals of the eighteenth century. London 2000, pp. 43-78.

Individual evidence

1. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 264.