Details: By: Brian Vale; AOS Naval Non-Fiction - Biographical

The True Life Of A Naval Legend

Lord Cochrane was a dominant figure in the maritime history of the early nineteenth century. While still a child he held commissions in both the army and navy, and he made his name in 1800 when in command of a small sloop he captured a Spanish frigate. His subsequent naval career was at turns brilliant and controversial, the latter aspect inflamed by his political career as a radical and his attempt to have his own admiral court-martialled. This was followed by his involvement in a Stock Exchange fraud in 1814, which led to his expulsion from the navy.

No matter - he went to Chile and commanded their fleet in the war of independence against Spain. Later he led the Greek Navy against Turkish control in 1827 before being accepted back into the Royal Navy in 1832 as an admiral. A brilliant tactician and supreme egoist, his own version of his life has been the established version for over a century and a half. But by going back to original documents, objective contemporary accounts, and the work of the few scholars who have investigated incidents in Cochrane's life, a different picture emerges: a complex figure, who saw things in stark contrast and who could exhibit extreme paranoia