Lawson Lies Still in the Thames

Lawson Lies Still in the Thames Synopsis

At the beginning of his diary, on 1st January 1660, Samuel Pepys noted that 'Lawson lies still in the River'. A mere two weeks before, amid rioting in the streets of London and with Parliament under the control of the army, Vice Admiral John Lawson had taken a fleet of twenty-two warships into the Thames and, in defence of Parliament, blockaded the city. Despite being a staunch republican, Lawson would later aid the Restoration of Charles II, and died from wounds received in battle during the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665. This biography charts the tumultuous life and times of an ordinary seaman born in Scarborough who would come to play a major role in the English Civil War, the Restoration, the Anglo-Dutch Wars and the start of the transformation of England into a global political and economic power in the seventeenth century.