Cecil Louis Troughton Smith, known by his pen name Cecil Scott "C. S." Forester, was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic wars. The Hornblower novels A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours were jointly awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1938. His other works include The African Queen and The Good Shepherd.
The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement that took place on 21 October 1805 between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).
Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester. He later became the subject of films and radio and television programmes, and C. Northcote Parkinson elaborated a "biography" of him, The True Story of Horatio Hornblower.
Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet, was an English geographer, linguist, writer and civil servant best known for term as the Second Secretary to the Admiralty from 1804 until 1845.
Post-captain is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of captain in the Royal Navy.
Admiral of the Fleet James Gambier, 1st Baron Gambier, was a Royal Navy officer. After seeing action at the capture of Charleston during the American Revolutionary War, he saw action again, as captain of the third-rate HMS Defence, at the battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars, gaining the distinction of commanding the first ship to break through the enemy line.
HMS Ajax was an Ajax-class 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the British Royal Navy. She was built by John Randall & Co of Rotherhithe and launched on the Thames on 3 March 1798. Ajax participated in the Egyptian operation of 1801, the Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1805 and the Battle of Trafalgar, before she was lost to a disastrous fire in 1807 during the Dardanelles Operation.
Hornblower and the Hotspur is a Horatio Hornblower novel written by C. S. Forester.
In the Battle of Cape Finisterre off Galicia, Spain, the British fleet under Admiral Robert Calder fought an indecisive naval battle against the combined Franco-Spanish fleet which was returning from the West Indies. Failing to prevent the joining of French Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve's fleet to the squadron of Ferrol and to strike the shattering blow that would have freed Great Britain from the danger of an invasion, Calder was later court-martialled and severely reprimanded for his failure and for avoiding the renewal of the engagement on 23 and 24 July. At the same time, in the aftermath Villeneuve elected not to continue on to Brest, where his fleet could have joined with other French ships to clear the English Channel for an invasion of Great Britain.
Admiral Sir Robert Calder, 1st Baronet, was a British naval officer who served in the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. For much of his career he was regarded as a dependable officer, and spent several years as Captain of the Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis. However, he is chiefly remembered for his controversial actions following the Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1805 which resulted in his court-martial. Though he was removed from his sea command, he was retained in the Navy and later served as Commander-in-Chief of the base at Plymouth.
The Commodore is a Horatio Hornblower novel written by C. S. Forester. It was published in the United States under the title Commodore Hornblower.
HMS Renown was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was to have been named HMS Royal Oak, but the name was changed to Renown on 15 February 1796. She was launched at Deptford Wharf on 2 May 1798 and served in 1800-1801 as the flagship of Sir John Borlase Warren, initially in the English Channel.
Hornblower in the West Indies, or alternately Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, is one of the novels in the series that C. S. Forester wrote about fictional Royal Navy officer Horatio Hornblower.
HMS Berwick was a 74-gun Elizabeth-class third rate of the Royal Navy, launched at Portsmouth Dockyard on 18 April 1775, to a design by Sir Thomas Slade. She fought the French at the Battle of Ushant (1778) and the Dutch at the Battle of Dogger Bank (1781). The French captured her in the action of 8 March 1795 during the French Revolutionary Wars and she served with them with some success then and at the start of the Napoleonic Wars until the British recaptured her at the Battle of Trafalgar. Berwick sank shortly thereafter in a storm.
Hornblower and the Atropos is a 1953 historical novel by C.S. Forester.
A Ship of the Line is an historical seafaring novel by C. S. Forester. It follows his fictional hero Horatio Hornblower during his tour as captain of a ship of the line. By internal chronology, A Ship of the Line, which follows The Happy Return, is the seventh book in the series. However, the book, published in 1938, was the second Hornblower novel completed by Forester. It is one of three Hornblower novels adapted into the 1951 British-American film Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N..
"The Last Encounter" is a short story by C. S. Forester, notable as providing the final chapter in the life of his fictional naval hero, Horatio Hornblower. It first appeared in the 8 May 1966 Sunday Mirror. The following year it was published together with the unfinished novel Hornblower and the Crisis and another short story, "Hornblower and the Widow McCool".
The Croisière de Bruix was the principal naval campaign of the year 1799 during the French Revolutionary Wars. The expedition began in April 1799 when the bulk of the French Atlantic Fleet under Vice-Admiral Étienne Eustache Bruix departed the base at Brest, evading the British Channel Fleet which was blockading the port and tricking the commander Admiral Lord Bridport into believing their true destination was Ireland. Passing southwards, the French fleet narrowly missed joining with an allied Spanish Navy squadron at Ferrol and was prevented by an easterly gale from uniting with the main Spanish fleet at Cádiz before entering the Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean was under British control following the destruction of the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798, and a British fleet nominally under Admiral Earl St Vincent was stationed there. Due however to St. Vincent's ill-health, operational control rested with Vice-Admiral Lord Keith. As Keith sought to chase down the French, the Spanish fleet followed Bruix into the Mediterranean before being badly damaged in a gale and sheltering in Cartagena.
Loyalty is the seventh film of the British TV film series Hornblower, based on the books by C. S. Forester, particularly Hornblower and the Hotspur. It was released on 5 January 2003, nearly four years after the first four films and nine months after the next two films.
Duty is the eighth and final episode of the British TV series Hornblower, based on the 1962 book Hornblower and the Hotspur by C.S. Forester. It was released on 6 January 2003, a day after episode 7: Loyalty.
