Sir Samuel Tuke’s Brush With the Law, 1653–1654: New Evidence

Abstract

In the absence of documentary evidence, the career of Sir Samuel Tuke (c. 1615–1674), distinguished royalist officer during the Civil Wars, author of the cloak and dagger tragicomedy The Adventures of Five Hours (London, 1661), and confidant of Charles II, has only been patchily accounted for. During his continental exile from about 1649 until the Restoration, Tuke attended Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1640–1660), fruitlessly sought an appointment as secretary to James, Duke of York (1633–1701), and served in The Hague as a gentleman-in-waiting to Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange (1631–1660).1 Described by Sir Edward Nicholas as the ‘great oracle’ at Mary’s court, it was as a redoubtable swordsman however that Tuke gained notoriety.2 On 28 July 1653, Nicholas informed Thomas Wentworth (bap. 1613–d. 1665), another military man and duellist, of a grim incident: Col. Tuke sending a challenge to Sr Robert Starismere [sic], they met in Flanders on Saturday was se’nnight; and Sr Robert receiving a slight hurt in the groin or belly (having, even when he fought, so great a fit of the stone on him as Mr Tuke, before they fought, wished him in a friendly manner to put off fighting till he were well of it) fainted with it and continued very ill for a day or two; and then, when all men thought the danger past, he suddenly died to the great sorrow even of Mr Tuke, who (I hear) behaved himself very gallantly, in that business.3