Monson was a late-Elizabethan seaman and naval commander, retired under a cloud in 1616, who occupied his retirement in composing a number of works on naval affairs.
In this volume are Monson’s accounts of the naval operations from Drake’s voyage of 1585 to the Cadiz Expedition of 1596. Oppenheim’s introductions amount to a detailed nava1 history of the period.
VOL BOOK I.Contents (continued), Notes to the Cadiz Voyage (continued), The Islands Voyage, A.D. 1597. The fleet prepared under Lord Thomas Howard, A.D. 1599, Voyage of Sir Richard Leveson to the Azores, A.D. 1600, Sir Richard Leveson in Ireland, A.D. 1601, Voyage of Sir Richard Leveson and Sir William Monson, A.D. 1602, Voyage of Sir William Monson, A.D. 1602., The fleet prepared under Sir Richard. Leveson, A.D. 1603, Voyage of the Earl of Cumberland to Puerto Rico, A.D. 1598, Places taken during the War, A.D. 1585-1603, Private Adventurers and their Prizes, A.D. 1585-1603, The Advantages of keeping a fleet on the Coast of Spain in the Time of War, The names of the ships the Queen left at her Death, To Sir Robert Cecyll about the Reformation of the Navy CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. How to get Intelligence on the Coast of Spain and at the Azores, Some Observations about the Queen's ships, The Disasters of some of King Henry VIII.'s ships, The Advice of the Council of War concerning withstanding the Invasion of A.D. 1588, Exceptions to some points of the Advice, The Queen's Death and the Advantages of the Peace that ensued, A Farewell to the Gentlemen to whom the Author dedicated this Book. Index. Maps.
Biography
Michael Oppenheim was born in 1853 and brought up in London. He qualified as a surgeon and served as such in merchant ships for a number of years, an experience that seems to have engendered his interest in maritime and naval history. Between 1891 and 1894 he wrote a series of articles for The English Historical Review which were subsequently consolidated into his ground breaking book on The History of the Administration of the Royal Navy…From 1509 to 1660, published in 1896. In the same year, he edited a volume on the navy under Henry VIII for the Navy Records Society, later editing the five volume of Monson Tracts. He also wrote substantial chapters on maritime history for eight volumes of the Victoria County Histories. Despite having had no formal training as a historian, Oppenheim became a remarkably shrewd analyst and critic of historical sources. However, criticism of his work, and his being denied access to Pepys’ papers at Magdalene College, Cambridge, caused him to abandon plans for a continuation of the history of administration to 1714, and in 1914 he abandoned writing altogether. He died in Italy in 1927.
