By Paul M. S. Hopkins

[A version of this article appeared in the Essex Magazine and East Anglian Life in August 2003. Copyright Paul M. S. Hopkins. It may not be reproduced electronically or in hard copy without permission]

The state of the oyster crop on the English coast was a world away from 17th century high politics or London literary life but, as Paul M S Hopkins recounts, the versatile Sir Samuel Tuke took it all in his stride

'ALTHOUGH the British oysters have been famous in the World ever since this island was discovered, yet the skill how to order them aright has been so little considered among ourselves that we see at this day it is confined to some few narrow creeks of one single county.'

This unhappy state of affairs was reported in 1667, as justification for the newly formed Royal Society turning its attention from higher-flown areas of knowledge to 'the Generation and ordering of Green Oysters, commonly called Colchester oysters', and including a paper on the subject in its first official history.

The Royal Society had 'fetched their intelligence (on oysters and also on saltpetre-making and the techniques of dyeing) from the constant and unerring use of experienced men of the most unaffected and more unartificial kinds of life', the history declared. It sounds like a description of a long-booted, oil-skinned plodder round the mudflats of the Colne estuary. But the essay has always been attributed to an Essex man of a very different kind.

He was Sir Samuel Tuke, lawyer, soldier, courtier and author of the most successful new play of the early Restoration theatre. Samuel had his local credentials all right. Three generations of his family had owned Layer Marney Tower, where his widowed great-grandmother entertained Queen Elizabeth. After the house was sold, Samuel's father kept the tenancy of part of the estate and this was where, in all probability, Samuel was born around 1615 (there are no parish registers to prove or disprove this, unfortunately).

By 1635, when Samuel was entered at Grays Inn to complete his education, his father was living at Frating. Layer Marney and Frating are both close to the Colne, on opposite banks, and when Samuel, many years later, got down to writing his paper for the Royal Society, he supplied information about the oysters of both sides.

At Tollesbury, near Layer Marney, they were green in summer only, whereas oysters at Brightlingsea, down-stream from Frating, were green in summer and winter, he reported.

Plenty had happened to Samuel between his youthful explorations of the creeks and writing his paper. The move to London to study law had by no means been the end of his connection with Essex.

When the Civil War broke out between Cavaliers and Roundheads, Samuel joined the king's army and fought at Marston Moor and elsewhere, becoming a colonel of horse. He resigned over a quarrel with another officer, but rejoined and took part in the Royalist defence of Colchester in 1648. He acted as one of the commissioners for the besieged when the town capitulated to the Parliamentarians and was bitter about the way the defenders were treated.

The collapse of the Royalist cause sent Samuel abroad. He spent time in the entourage of Henrietta Maria, widow of the executed Charles I. However, the queen's efforts to get him a job with her son, the future Charles II, failed.

But Samuel had his own way of gaining royal favour. In preparation for the return to England, he penned 'a Character of Charles the Second written by an Impartial Hand', which was 'exposed to Public View for the Information of the People' on April 30, 1660, four weeks before Charles himself landed.

In this piece of seventeenth century public relations 'spin', he praised Charles for his 'knowledge of language and his true friendship to literature and men of learning', which was true enough, and added: 'It is possible that in the heat of his youth he may have rendered to the powerful charms of beauty, yet I am certain that for many years he hath been so chaste and cautious that I have not heard the least whisper of any indecent gallantry'!

The Merry Monarch was duly received home with acclamations. At first, Charles put Samuel's diplomatic skills to use in missions to France, but after a couple of years Samuel felt he was getting nowhere and should retire from court. Then Charles, who had been putting his skill in languages to work reading Spanish plays, dropped a hint that he would like to see an English version of one attributed to the leading dramatist Calderon.

Samuel took the hint and retired to a villa in Surrey, as guest of a future Duke of Norfolk, where he wrote The Adventures of Five Hours. It was a smash hit. The first production set a record for length of run that survived to the end of the century. It was revived over and over again and printed many times.

Whether it was as a companion in exile, PR man, go-between with the French, playwright or expert on oysters that Samuel Tuke earned his knighthood and an immediately following baronetcy is not clear - there were no 'for diplomatic services' type citations when titles were granted in the 1660s.

Today, Samuel's oyster paper and his puffery for Charles are remembered only by scholars, and he is just one among many in the diaries of John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys. But his one play, The Adventures of Five Hours, is back in print - perhaps the start of the way back for the 'unaffected and unartificial man of experience' who pleased his king by writing it.

Paul Hopkins's edition of Sir Samuel Tuke's The Adventures of Five Hours is published by Ituri

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