Historian of old ships, storms and ideas. New book is A Dangerous Game on Thomas Cochrane. Also teaching non fiction writing at @OxMst
W14, London
Joined May 2008
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The great @CapelLofft is the hero of our household this morning for writing such a magnificent review of my new book for The Times.
I wrote this book with my whole heart. The more I came to know Thomas Cochrane the more I admired him. He really was an extraordinary man.
Peter Moore retweeted
Just finished @petermoore ‘s new biography of Thomas Cochrane, A Dangerous Game. Virtually inhaled it.
The telling if Cochrane’s exploits & adventures is up there with Patrick O’Brian, which is fitting as Cochrane inspired Master & Commander’s Jack Aubrey.
Highly recommended!
There's a very 1763 flavour to this story. Odd to see two such different historical figures as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and John Wilkes having the same legal problems.
If the police can obtain unlawful search warrants against a former prince, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s High Court victory against @ThamesVP should concern every citizen, regardless of their views about him.
I know the devastating consequences of police failures.
During Operation Midland, search warrants were obtained against me, former Home Secretary Lord Brittan & former head of the Armed Forces Lord Bramall. The judge was misled, and Sir Richard Henriques subsequently identified 43 police errors.
Now, more than a decade later, another police force has obtained search warrants that the High Court has ruled were unlawfully issued.
Have the police learned nothing?
If this can happen to a former prince, a former Home Secretary & a former head of our Armed Forces, what hope is there for ordinary teachers, doctors, nurses & others without the money or influence to challenge the police?
Andrew’s case is not Operation Midland. An unlawful warrant does not prove the allegations against him are false, nor that police deliberately misled the judge.
But it raises profoundly troubling questions about police accountability.
Thames Valley Police must explain what went wrong, why it happened and who is responsible.
The police are not above the law & justice must not be a privilege reserved for those who can afford to fight for it.
The most worrying question is how many ordinary people may have suffered similar injustices without ever having the means to challenge them.
@FACTukorg
telegraph.co.uk/royal-family…
Or maybe it's just because it's someone whose learning is grounded in reading books vs someone who spends a lot of time on the Internet.
Peter Moore retweeted
Wonderfully erudite review of The People's Emperor by David Todd in the LRB - I'm mentioned in the same breath as AJP Taylor and Walter Bagehot, possibly not a compliment, but I'll take it as one: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n18/…
Totally floored by this. The world's greatest naval historian, NAM Rodger, has reviewed A Dangerous Game in the new TLS. He comes to a judgment on Cochrane's guilt in the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814 and then concludes with this.
This whole conversation is absolutely, broadside-shatteringly, dog’s bollocksingly amazing – and also full of great good humour. @Tonisenior is now to be ranked high among the Gods as far as I am concerned and thank you @Roger_Moorhouse too. Cochrane is on History Book Buffs!
In which I harangue the great but penitent @Roger_Moorhouse about why he needs more sails in his reading matter. The brilliant A Dangerous Game, by @petermoore @HoleLubbers
Delighted to make the front of @TheScotsman today, pointing out the absurdity that while Edinburgh has a grand memorial to Nelson it has nothing at all for Lord Cochrane – that greatest of all Scottish sea captains, champion of democracy, enemy of slavery, scourge of imperialists
Peter Moore retweeted
This is something we can all get behind …
Why Scotland's real-life 'Master and Commander', Thomas Cochrane, deserves a statue in Edinburgh – Peter Moore trib.al/UFomwaJ
Peter Moore retweeted
New book on the way! A decade-plus in the making. And it's coming into the world with the most absurdly glorious honour guard. Couldn't be happier. press.princeton.edu/books/ha…
This was tremendous fun. Including sea battles galore – Pallas vs Minerve, Speedy vs El Gamo – and various bits of Cochrane's life that ended up in the 2003 Master and Commander film. I think I might have given my verdict on the Great Stock Exchange Fraud too.
Latest episode with me, Charles, Charles, Diana but most importantly @petermoore on Thomas Cochrane! youtu.be/MyL1YeeSD9A?is=tMiY…
Peter Moore retweeted
On Monday I'll be talking all things Spencer/Windsor on the latest @MongersPodcast and then interviewing @petermoore about his fantastic, cutlass rattling, rip roaring, Hornblowing account of the life of Thomas Cochrane.
So naturally I thought it important to dress for the part.
Cochrane has a fair claim to being one of the most mythologised figures of modern times.
> He made no plan to spring Napoleon from St Helena.
> He didn't pluck a dog out of an explosion vessel at Basque Roads.
> Goodness knows when Napoleon called him 'Le Loup des Mers' ...
Peter Moore retweeted
The Smoke Of Battle, The Gallant Speedy
1972 Montague Dawson (English, 1895-1973)
This print depicts a battle on May 6, 1801 – a naval engagement between the 32-gun xebec-frigate EL GAMO of the Spanish Navy under the command of Don Francisco de Torres and the much smaller 14-gun brig HMS SPEEDY under the command of Thomas, Lord Cochrane. ELl Gamo was subsequently captured.
The skirmish is notable for the large disparity between the size and firepower of EL GAMO and SPEEDY Inches the former was around four times the size, had much greater firepower and a crew six times the size of SPEEDY, which had a reduced crew of 54 at the time of the engagement.
This battle inspired Patrick O’Brian in his novel Master and Commander, where, as the first major battle led by his main character Jack Aubrey, in a very similar manner, the brig HMS SOPHIE escapes from and then lures and captures the Spanish Xebeque-frigate CACAFUEGO.
vallejogallery.com/item/mont…
CC: @Jellenne
Dazzling issue – Kathryn Hughes' review of the new Anita Brookner bio is a superb piece of criticism.
Also, elbowing his way to the front of the pages, is my Lord Thomas Cochrane. 'A Dangerous Game must surely be the last word on a man who was once a national hero.' Out today!
Out now! Literary Review's September 2026 issue, featuring
Kathryn Hughes on Anita Brookner
Richard Vinen on Eric Hobsbawm
@wendholden on Barbara Cartland
Howard Davies on government debt
Andrew Preston on Francis Fukuyama
and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk
Peter Moore retweeted
After a crushing defeat on 1 September 1870 at the battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian war Napoleon III was taken prisoner. “I see that my career is broken," he wrote to his wife, "my name has lost its lustre. I am in despair" You can read an excerpt from The People's Emperor about the defeat here: unseenhistories.com/napoleon…
Peter Moore retweeted
A chat with historian @petermoore about his book A Dangerous Game: Thomas Cochrane’s Life on the Edge.
In it we discuss the pursuit of happiness, how the 1800s rhyme with today, as well as honor in war.
Listen here.
youtu.be/oaR6ZrmoMZw?si=qSDp…
Peter Moore retweeted
Look what just arrived. Already started and love the cut of its jib…. @petermoore
Very grateful to have been invited on this very wise and convivial podcast to talk about Cochrane, Patrick O’Brian and ‘dropping the marmalade jar moments’ while researching. Out soon, I think.
