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Historical person

Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald

1775–1860

Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, was a Royal Navy officer famous for daring attacks during the Napoleonic Wars. A reforming member of parliament, he was convicted in the 1814 stock-exchange fraud, expelled from the navy and later pardoned, though he always denied involvement. Cochrane subsequently commanded the navies of Chile, Brazil and Greece in struggles for independence. His tactics and career strongly influenced later fictional naval heroes.

Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe’s Devil includes Cochrane in the wars of Chilean independence. He also served as a major inspiration for C. S. Forester’s Hornblower and Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey, whose exploits borrow from his real actions. Fiction often celebrates audacity and injustice while simplifying the legal and political controversies surrounding him.

Julian Stockwin’s A Sea of Gold is set after the Corunna evacuation, Kydd enters London society and forms an alliance with the daring frigate captain Thomas Cochrane.

Series

Series featuring Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald (2 series)

Thomas Kydd in Order

by Julian Stockwin 27 books 4.2

The Thomas Kydd series follows a Guildford wig-maker pressed into the Royal Navy in 1793 and traces his rise from inexperienced landsman to admiral. Across twenty-seven novels, Kydd learns the work of the lower deck, crosses to the quarterdeck and commands increasingly important ships during the French Revolutionary…

All books in this series

Kydd

3.9

Artemis

4.1

Seaflower

4.2

Mutiny

4.1

Quarterdeck

4.2

Tenacious

4.3

Command

4.2

The Admiral’s Daughter

4.0

Treachery

4.2

Invasion

4.0

Victory

4.3

Conquest

4.2

Betrayal

4.0

Caribbee

4.3

Pasha

4.2

Tyger

4.5

Inferno

4.1

Persephone

4.2

The Baltic Prize

4.2

The Iberian Flame

4.3

A Sea of Gold

4.3

To the Eastern Seas

4.3

Balkan Glory

4.5

Thunderer

4.4

Yankee Mission

4.3

Sea of Treason

4.2

Admiral

4.4

Sharpe in Order

by Bernard Cornwell 26 books 4.3

The Sharpe series follows Richard Sharpe from service as a private soldier in India to command in the British Army during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The novels place him at the Siege of Seringapatam, Battle of Assaye, Siege of Gawilghur, Battle of Trafalgar, British attack on Copenhagen,…

All books in this series