Westward Ho!

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After a time, Amyas fits out a ship and prepares to go with Drake to Virginia, but before they sail, the Spanish Armada arrives off English shores. Amyas, with his ship, joins the rest of the fleet in that famous battle. After twelve terrible days, the Armada is defeated and almost every Spanish ship destroyed. Amyas, however, is not satisfied. Don Guzman is aboard one of the Spanish ships, and although Amyas pursues him relentlessly, he has to sit by and watch a storm tear the Spaniard’s ship apart. Amyas curses that he himself was not able to kill Don Guzman and thus avenge his brother’s death. Copywork: "Good heaven! how that brave lad shames me, singing here the hymns which his mother taught him, before the very muzzles of Spanish guns; instead of bewailing unmanly, as I have done, the love which he held, I doubt not, as dear as I did even my Rosalind. This is his welcome to the winter's storm; while I, who dream, forsooth, of heavenly inspiration, can but see therein an image of mine own cowardly despair." OR Battles (as soldiers know, and newspaper editors do not) are usually fought, not as they ought to be fought, but as they can be fought; and while the literary man is laying down the law at his desk as to how many troops should be moved here, and what rivers should be crossed there, and where the cavalry should have been brought up, and when the flank should have been turned, the wretched man who has to do the work finds the matter settled for him by pestilence, want of shoes, empty stomachs, bad roads, heavy rains, hot suns, and a thousand other stern warriors who never show on paper. Kingsley wrote, "It is in memory of these men, their voyages and their battles, their faith and their valor, their heroic lives and no less heroic deaths, that I write this book; and if now and then I shall seem to warm into a style somewhat too stilted and pompous, let me be excused for my subject's sake, fit rather to have been sung than said, and to have proclaimed to all true English hearts, not as a novel but as an epic (which some man may yet gird himself to write), the same great message which the songs of Troy, and the Persian wars, and the trophies of Marathon and Salamis, spoke to the hearts of all true Greeks of old." Charles Kingsley's Views on Things

Amyas spends time in the Caribbean coasts of Venezuela seeking gold, and in the process finds his true love, the beautiful Indian maiden Ayacanora. During the return journey to England, he discovers that Rose and his brother Frank have been burnt at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition. He vows revenge on all Spaniards, and joins in the defence of England against the Spanish Armada. When he is permanently blinded by a freak bolt of lightning at sea, he accepts this as God's judgement and finds peace in forgiveness. Kingsley, Frances Eliza (ed.) Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of his Life (Henry S. King, 1877) a b c d Krueger, Christine L. (2014). Encyclopedia of British Writers, 19th and 20th Centuries. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-0870-4.Davis, Wes (11 March 2007). "When English Eyes Are Smiling". The New York Times . Retrieved 25 September 2016. Words to look up: calumy, unexpugnable, duenna, predilection, monopoly, redolent, unwonted. "A certain human fondness for the carotid artery and the parts adjoining" means he had no wish to get his throat cut. "It befell on this wise" means it happened like this.

What does Rose's father ask Amyas to do? Why does Amyas hesitate to say yes? Chapter 15. How Mr John Brimblecombe Understood the Nature of an Oath Narration and Discussion: Why does Salvation Yeo now seem to be more at peace? What do you think of "a short death and a merry one?"

CHAPTER VII

Narration and Discussion: Sir Walter Raleigh says to himself, "I would be good and great--When will the day come when I shall be content to be good, and yet not great, like this same simple Leigh, toiling on by my side to do his duty, with no more thought for the morrow than the birds of God?" Is it better to be good, or to be great? Can you be both? Chapter 12. How Bideford Bridge Dined at Annery House Kingsley dedicated the novel to Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, and Bishop George Selwyn, whom he saw as modern representatives of the heroic values of the privateers who were active during the Elizabethan era. A little literature: You can read more about Spenser in Marshall's English Literature, or in any book about English literature. Before you read: This chapter jumps ahead five years, to 1580, and a great deal has happened in that time. The first part of this book is set in the English county of Devon, in southwest England, which is the only county to have both a north and south coast. It is known as a very seafaring place; Plymouth is on the south coast.

Kingsley was living at Northdown Hall in Bideford when he wrote Westward Ho!, one of his favourite haunts was the beach and the pebble ridge where he used to employ quarrymen to move large boulders so he could examine the marine life underneath’. A prominent theme of the novel is the 16th-century fear of Catholic domination, [5] and this reflects Kingsley's own dislike of Catholicism. [4] The novel repeatedly shows the Protestant English correcting the worst excesses of the Spanish Jesuits and the Inquisition. [4] Narration and Discussion: Describe the encounter on the river from the point of view of someone (or something) besides the sailors. Chapter 24. How Amyas Was Tempted of the DevilTo conquer our own fancies, Amyas, and our own lusts, and our ambition, in the sacred name of duty; this it is to be truly brave, and truly strong; for he who cannot rule himself, how can he rule his crew or his fortunes?"