Quicksilver Reading CompanionIn a tavern on the mudflats of Sheerness, Daniel Waterhouse discovers King James II being accosted by local fishermen as the monarch attempts a desperate, undignified flight from England.
“king of england in waterfront bar fight” — Stephenson’s annotation: “Apparently this is not far from what really happened. I have inserted Daniel Waterhouse and made up the details.”
“your Sven Forkbeard, or your Ealhmund the Under-King of Kent” — Daniel contrasts the modern, refined King with ancient warrior-kings like Sweyn Forkbeard, a Viking who became King of England in 1013, and Ealhmund, an 8th-century ruler of Kent.
“Richard Lionheart’s duels against Saladin before Jerusalem” — A reference to the Third Crusade’s legendary rivalry between the English King and the Ayyubid Sultan, which became a staple of chivalric romance.
“blowout fracture henry” — From the original wiki (pollock): “…was noted, with professional interest, by the tavernkeeper, who didn’t look directly at it… he’d endured a blowout fracture of the left eye-socket.
Following a blow to the orbital rim by an object too large to enter the orbit, it is relatively common to see the eye itself become sunken and restricted in its motion. The fellow eye moves normally but the eye in question stops at some point. This is likely to cause double vision in the mind of the affected and a question as to the direction of gaze in the mind of the observer. This pattern was recognized early.”
“masque at the Banqueting House” — The Banqueting House in Whitehall was the primary venue for elaborate court entertainments; it is also famously the site where James’s father, Charles I, was executed.
“the mouth of the Medway” — The River Medway was a vital naval artery; its mouth was the site of a traumatic 1667 event where the Dutch navy sailed into English waters and burned the fleet at anchor.
“Descartes had abhorred the idea of a vacuum, and held that what we took to be empty space was really a plenum” — Cartesian physics argued that the universe was entirely filled with matter (a plenum), meaning motion could only occur through the direct contact of particles in a “vortex.”
“Like King Canute, he would have to wait for the tide.” — King Canute is a legendary figure who supposedly set his throne by the sea and commanded the tide to stay back to prove to his flattering courtiers that a king’s power is nothing compared to God’s.
“syphilitic Papist despot” — Anti-Catholic sentiment was the driving force of the revolution; “Papist” was a derogatory term for Catholics, while “syphilitic” refers to persistent rumors about James II’s health and his many mistresses.
“Ailesbury, the Gentleman of the Bedchamber” — Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury, was one of the few loyalists who stayed with James during his flight; the Gentleman of the Bedchamber was a high-status role involving personal service to the King.
“looked like a Cavalier hunting-party pursuing a Roundhead” — This evokes the English Civil War, where “Cavaliers” supported the monarchy and “Roundheads” supported Parliament, highlighting the generational scars still present in 1688.
“the chain that was stretched across the river” — Known as the Medway Chain, this massive iron defensive barrier was intended to protect the English dockyards at Chatham from naval invasion.
“Upnor Castle” — Stephenson’s annotation: ‘The castle is a real place and the description grounded in reality. The fictional part, here, is in linking it to Louis Anglesey, Earl of Upnor, who is a made-up character.’ Upnor Castle famously failed to stop the Dutch in 1667.
“William of Orange” — The Dutch Stadtholder and nephew of James II, William III was invited by English Protestants to invade and take the throne to preserve the “liberties of England.”
“When the Dutch had sailed up here in ’67” — The Raid on the Medway remains one of the most humiliating defeats in British naval history, where the Dutch captured the English flagship, the Royal Charles.
“Popish Plot hysteria still lay in the future” — The Popish Plot was a fictitious 1678 conspiracy that alleged a Jesuit plan to assassinate Charles II, leading to the execution of at least 22 innocent men.
“Tower of London—the unspoken message being that no one cared if it blew up” — Beyond its role as a prison, the Tower of London served as the nation’s main gunpowder magazine, making it a literal powder keg in the heart of the city.
“But Flamsteed had let them grow” — John Flamsteed was the first Astronomer Royal; he spent decades meticulously mapping the stars to solve the problem of finding longitude at sea.
“sixty-foot refracting telescope, supported by a mast scavenged from a tall ship” — These aerial telescopes were built without tubes to avoid the immense weight and sagging that came with the extremely long lenses required to minimize optical distortion.
“two Hooke-designed, Tompion-built clocks” — Thomas Tompion was the greatest clockmaker of the age; these specific clocks were commissioned for the Greenwich Observatory to see if the Earth rotated at a constant speed.
“along the Prime Meridian” — While the Prime Meridian was not internationally standardized until 1884, the line was effectively established at Greenwich by Flamsteed’s transit instrument.
“They were singing a song, Lilliburlero, that had become universal” — Lilliburlero was a satirical political ballad with a catchy tune that mocked Irish Catholics; it was said to have “sung a deluded King out of three kingdoms.”
“Kepler mentioned that the earth was not, in fact, at the center of the universe.” — Johannes Kepler provided the mathematical proof for the heliocentric model and discovered that planets move in elliptical, rather than circular, orbits.
“He walked down to the Thames and woke up a waterman” — Thames Watermen were the taxi drivers of early modern London, essential for navigating a city where the river was often the fastest “highway.”
“The noun “shop” had been verbed; people went “shopping” now.” — This period saw the rise of consumerism in London, as the city moved away from open-air markets toward permanent retail spaces with glass windows.
“High Church priests exalting the sacraments above the rabble” — High Church refers to a faction of the Church of England that emphasized ritual and the divine right of kings, often clashing with the more austere Puritans.
“drunken mudlarks lighting out in torrid pursuit of real or imaginary Jesuits.” — Jesuits were often the boogeymen of English politics, frequently accused of being secret agents for the Pope or the French King.
“it housed the Royal Mint” — The Royal Mint operated inside the Tower of London for over 500 years, providing a secure location for the nation’s bullion and coining machinery.
“We are entering into Traitor’s Gate!” — Traitor’s Gate was the water entrance to the Tower of London, used to bring in prisoners accused of high crimes against the state.
“the other Sir Elias Ash-mole” — Elias Ashmole was a polymath and alchemist whose personal collection formed the basis of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
“A painting of Hermes Trismegistus” — Hermes Trismegistus was the mythical founder of Hermeticism, a tradition of ancient wisdom that heavily influenced Renaissance and 17th-century occult science.
“welcome back from Dutch exile” — The philosopher John Locke fled to the Netherlands in 1683 to escape political persecution, returning to England on the same ship as the future Queen Mary II.
“Nicolas Fatio de Duilliers” — Nicolas Fatio de Duilliers was a brilliant Swiss mathematician who became Newton’s closest companion and a key figure in the development of gravitational theory.
“I know you have oft been at Bedlam with Hooke.” — Bedlam (Bethlem Royal Hospital) was London’s asylum; Robert Hooke was the architect who designed its palatial new building at Moorfields in 1676.
“In a few years Mr. Hooke will learn to make a proper chronometer” — The quest for longitude required a clock that could keep perfect time on a swaying ship, a problem that would not be fully solved until the mid-18th century.
“shoot one of the flumes under London Bridge” — Shooting the bridge was a dangerous maneuver where boatmen navigated the fierce rapids created by the narrow arches of Old London Bridge during tidal shifts.
“the man who is responsible for the Bloody Assizes” — The Bloody Assizes were a series of trials following the failed Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, resulting in hundreds of executions and thousands of people being sold into slavery in the West Indies.
Original annotations by: bornstein, stephenson, pollock, quillman