The Silk & The Sea

Unraveling the Mystery of the Palmwood Wreck.

Beneath the Wadden Sea off the coast of Texel lies a seventeenth-century Dutch merchant ship with an extraordinary cargo, including a silk gown so perfectly preserved it might have been folded away yesterday. The ship has no name, only a wreck number. The dress has no owner. The cargo has no explanation.

This book offers one.

Recovered by Dutch divers and studied by the specialists at the Kaap Skil Museum, the objects of the Palmwood Wreck have baffled historians for more than a decade. Why were these particular treasures together on one ship? Who packed them? Who lost them?

Following the cargo back to its origins, Jan Sayer reconstructs the lives behind the wreck across two English embassies in Constantinople, separated by forty years. In 1606, Sir Thomas Glover arrives at the Sublime Porte with a new wife, a royal commission, and a political scheme that will end in disgrace.

In 1647, as civil war consumes England, Sir Thomas Bendysh and Lady Anne sail east with their children, their servants, and a warrant for a royal bed. Waiting for them is Mehmet Çelebi, raised in the Glover household as a boy and trusted by all.

A historical reimagining, a reconstruction, a breadcrumb trail; one possible answer to the question of how these fabulous things came to rest together in the sand.