The Dark Frigate opens on the eve of revolution. The 1640s were to see the ascension to power in England of Oliver Cromwell, who drove Charles I from the throne and ushered in a nearly twentyyear period of Puritan rule. As the country prepares for war, the political struggles on land are mirrored by the tumult at sea, where bloodthirsty pirates continue to terrorize oceangoing craft. Once associated with the dash and daring of such men as Sir Francis Drake—who thrilled the English populace with his attacks on Spanish galleons during the late sixteenth century—piracy has, by the middle of the seventeenth century, lost all tinge of glamor.

As the book begins, young Philip Marsham is forced out of a tavern in Southwark, where he has been recuperating from an illness. He teams up with two rather unsavory companions, one of whom leads him...