black sails: 2.04 dinner scene

[sea_changed]

I’ve been going through my drafts in order to back things up in case tumblr implodes, and I remembered I wrote up this beast of a thing probably a year ago and never posted it. It’s deeply indulgent of my own brand of obsessive rewatching, historical pedantry, and wild headcanon extrapolation, but hopefully there is stuff in it that’s interesting to people who are not me. (I’ve also cross-posted to tumblr.)

So, with no further ado: Thomas shouting Bible quotes at his father! What if the Hamiltons were suspected Jacobites! Miranda stealing scenes she has a single line in! Musings on the British political climate in the early 18th century! And more.

Thomas: Father, how was your travel from the country?
Alfred Hamilton: Wet.

Calculating how long it would take to get places in the 18th century is always sort of uncertain unless you have first-hand data, but I do happen to know that in the early 18th century getting from London to Edinburgh took about two weeks by public coach: assuming that the Hamiltons’ estate is near the actual town of Ashbourne, which is a little more than a third of the way between London and Edinburgh, and assuming Alfred Hamilton travels in his own carriage, I’d say it would probably take maybe five days or so.

Also, I love the little gesture Thomas gives to Miranda after Alfred has passed: it’s gesturing for her to go first but paired with his little head tilt/grimace it’s very much a “well, here we go” kind of look.

AH: Well, I think you're most optimistic about the Admiralty's willingness to outfit these ships you assume you can procure. But as for the rest of it, it seems like a reasonable proposal. Do you agree, Lieutenant?
James: Yes. Yes, I would, sir.

To be annoying for a moment, I’d like to point out Alfred Hamilton would be referred to, as Thomas is, as “my Lord,” not “sir.”

AH: I see. Well, then, perhaps we can discuss the one element you so conveniently elected to ignore. What about the pirate raiders of Nassau?
TH: I want to put them to work.

The look James and Thomas share before Thomas tells his father he wants to put the pirates to work is utterly fascinating to me; the little head tilt Thomas gives right after the look is equally so. The scene before, when James straight-up calls Thomas a coward, is such an interesting beat in their relationship: it obviously sets up the magnificence of James’s speech later in this scene, but I’m also really interested in the way Thomas reacts to it. We already know that his general disregard for what other people think is one of his defining character traits, but that this extends beyond “people” in the general sense but also to people he cares for personally is an interesting character note. (It also potentially says interesting things about his and Miranda’s relationship--is she the (seemingly singular) exception to this? Or is she not?)

AH: To work? At what?
TH: Tilling, harvesting, coopering, building, smithing, fishing.
AH: What are you talking about, Thomas?
TH: I intend to secure them pardons. A blanket amnesty for any man who will accept it, in exchange for his allegiance, his renunciation of violence, and his labor.

I love the way Thomas glances away as he’s listing what work he’ll have the pirates do: it’s a great moment of uncertainty in his expression, though not in his words or tone of voice.

Also, as a side note, I feel like Thomas’s list of tasks are actually pretty well thought-out: there’s fishing, which is a basic, immediate subsistence task; tilling and harvesting, which are more permanent self-reliant activities; and then coopering and smithing, which are skilled, permanent-settlement kinds of jobs. (Plus building, which spans across all three of these.) Thomas wants to make the Bahamas a permanent, self-sustaining colony, which it had never been up to this point, and aside from the practicality of getting former pirates to do all this (hopefully you have a cooper and a blacksmith (and maybe tinsmith) on those ships with you and some ex-pirates who’re interested in apprenticing, dude), he seems to have a good understanding of what he needs, at least in theory.

AH: What a piece of work you are.
TH: You asked me to formulate a plan. That's what I've done.
AH: I asked you to formulate a plan that would secure the support of the Navy in our efforts. Support without which there is little chance of reversing the catastrophic downward trend in revenue from the Bahama territories.

In fact the Bahamas never made much money for their proprietors at all, though there was some money to be made early on in ambergris, whaling, and sea turtle-hunting.

On a related note, the Bahamas were granted to the Carolina Proprietors in 1670; if you look at the original list of proprietors, not one of the original eight were still alive in 1705, and looking at their birth years and guessing at Alfred Hamilton’s age (I’m thinking mid- to late sixties, which would put his birth year in the late 1630s), they seem to be of the previous generation to Alfred. All of which makes me wonder if AH’s father, Thomas’s grandfather, wasn’t the one who was originally a Lord Proprietor, and Alfred inherited it from him. (Which is how it worked--when Alfred died, Thomas would’ve inherited the Proprietor title. Which also means that the younger brother whom I have to assume Thomas had is the one who inherited the Proprietorship when Flint killed Alfred--I don’t quite know what to do with that, but I feel like it should be something.)

Which in turn leads me down a whole rabbit hole about the Hamilton family history--when did Hamilton Sr. (Sr.) die? Why was he a Carolina Proprietor? If he died after 1670 or so, Thomas would’ve known him, and possibly even remembered him--what was he like? How is the Hamilton family involved in the whole Civil War/Interregnum/Restoration mess that is the entire middle of the 17th century? If the Earl of Ashbourne title was created post-Restoration, that means they would’ve had to have gone through three earls between 1660 (or so) and 1705, as Thomas says Alfred is the fourth; this is definitely possible, particularly if the title passed through brothers at some point rather than father to son. Either way, it seems almost certain that Alfred wasn’t the original holder of the proprietorship, which leads me to all sorts of musings about the Hamilton family tree.

AH: Support that is almost certain to disappear entirely and for good the moment they hear they are to be associated with a plan to reward men who are in open revolt against the Crown.

I love the little glance Thomas gives to James when his father is on this tirade. I’m not sure what exactly it is--is he embarrassed? worried? just gauging how James is reacting?--but it’s super interesting to me.

I think a lot of interesting stuff can be extrapolated from Alfred Hamilton’s comment about rewarding men who are in open revolt against the Crown: first, of course, the point that’s about to be brought up in this scene about there being a war on, but second, and I think crucially, if you reach back a bit in English history and remember that not fifty years before this England was being run by military dictatorship after that military had cut off the king’s head. This all happened within Alfred’s living memory (as well as the memories of many if not most of the Lords, MPs, and Naval officers Thomas needs to convince to support this plan): Charles I’s head is cut off in 1649 (after seven years of civil war), and Charles II is restored to the throne in 1660. Being in revolt against the Crown is not an abstract or a purely ideological position in the political climate of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, but something that evokes strong and contentious memories.

TH: This is the solution most likely to lead to our desired result. It also has the virtue of being the right thing to do.

I love this line--I think it tells us important things about who Thomas is and how he thinks. This is, logically, the right thing to do--also, secondly, it’s morally the right thing to do. (I do genuinely think Thomas is a very compassionate person who cares deeply about what he believes it; I also think he’s ambitious, and frustrated, and trying to prove himself, and that both those things work side-by-side in his plans for Nassau.)

AH: Oh, for God's sake. Lieutenant, am I right to assume that a proposal such as this--
TH: Don't look at him. Talk to me.
AH: My son is impertinent, Lieutenant. My son is indulged. My son is self-righteous. But he's not stupid.

I feel like “childish” is somehow the wrong adjective to give Thomas and Alfred’s interactions, but little will convince me that they were not having this same conversation in this same way, if about different things, since Thomas was about twelve. It’s in a lot of ways sort of heartbreakingly simple: What do you do to an intelligent and no doubt precocious kid to show your power over them? You ignore them. What do you do when you’re said intelligent and precocious kid and want your parent to see you? You a) work harder and b) shout louder. That they’re still doing this, twenty-five or so years later, is both sad and, from a characterization standpoint, very intriguing.

AH: Perhaps you could explain to me how you intend to distract the queen from her war to issue these pardons.
TH: I wouldn't need her to do anything. A simple act would accomplish the same thing.
AH: Of Parliament? There aren't four votes among the Lords for something as absurd as this.
TH: Sutton, Dunster, Lewis, Form, Philpott. There's five. They're easy. I haven't even opened my mouth to make an argument.

According to Geoffrey Holmes’s British Politics in the Age of Anne, there were 161 voting members in the House of Lords in late 1703, and so presumably the number was similar in 1705. So while Thomas makes his point, he’s got his work cut out for him (either to convince people to vote with him or to convince them to stay home that day) if he actually wants to pass a bill in the Lords, never mind the Commons. (Also, Queen Anne would still have to sign off on a bill even if it passed in both Houses, so the logic here isn’t stellar.)

AH: An argument to abet sedition in times of war?
TH: A war, sir, to ensure that a Protestant sits on the throne of Spain.

Alas, this line doesn’t actually make any sense--Archduke Charles, whom England was supporting in the War of the Spanish Succession, was in fact a Catholic. (The other contender for the Spanish throne was also Catholic--that was, for once, not the point, at least of that particular facet of the war.)

However, in England, the war was very much about ensuring that a Protestant sat on the throne of England: the Act of Settlement, which dictated that only a Protestant could rule England, had been passed in 1701, the same year as the outbreak of the war, and in 1705 they were still less the twenty years removed from the Glorious Revolution, in the which the Catholic king was deposed in favor Protestant successors. In addition, it was a hot-button issue because Queen Anne had no living children (despite the fact that she had given birth or miscarried no fewer then seventeen times), and, as the former King James II had died in exile, also in 1701, the next person in line for the throne under the traditional method after Anne died was James II’s son, also named James (he’s the “Old Pretender” Hornigold references back in season one). He was Catholic, however, and so the Act of Settlement was passed to exclude him from inheriting the throne. (It’s a lot more complex than that, obviously, but that’s generally what was going on.)

Beyond my pedantry over it, however, I’ve never quite known what to do with that line--I’ve seen people read it as sarcastic or dismissive, but it’s never landed that way to me. The only way I can make it make sense is to connect it directly to Thomas’s next line (We are fighting a war in the service of the son of God...) and read it jointly. In that case, Thomas would not only be saying that they are fighting a holy war, or at least one one religious grounds--which is already intriguing enough--but that they are fighting specifically a Protestant holy war.

I find this particularly interesting in light of the fact that Thomas is one of the few characters who mentions religion much at all in Black Sails, and that he does so with some frequency (besides the examples in this scene, I’d also point specifically to the “The New World is a gift, Lieutenant, a sacred opportunity to right our wrongs...” line in 2.03). Even characters like (London-era) James and Miranda, who almost certainly are Anglican, and likely quite religious by modern, much more culturally agnostic standards, hardly mention religion at all. Thomas, however, seems by his comments to be staunchly religious, and while it could already be assumed that this is a Protestant, Anglican religiousness (the Hamiltons would not be where they seem to be in terms of political power if they were anything but), reading these two lines together, which is really the only way I can make sense of them, throws an interesting light on all of this.

AH: Thomas, if I were a rival of this family, I would be shouting from the rooftops that any man who proposes to pardon a traitor in times such as these is himself a traitor.

In musing over what political parties Alfred and Thomas belonged to, I would say that Thomas is a Whig, except that I’m even more certain that Alfred is a Tory. Despite the fact that we see Thomas and Alfred agree on practically nothing, they’re certainly far from estranged, either personally or politically (see: the fact that Thomas is doing this project at all), and I sincerely doubt that Alfred would suffer a son outwardly belonging to the other party. So I have to assume Thomas is a Tory, though I think he would be socially connected much more to the Whigs. (I’d guess Peter Ashe is almost certainly a Whig, for instance.) Though this also raises interesting questions about the extent to which Thomas outwardly defies his father and the extent to which he defies implicitly or symbolically (his salons, for instance).

Regardless, I think Alfred being a Tory provides a really interesting explanation for his fixation on Thomas’s plan being treasonous and seditious: namely, if Alfred is a Tory, he’s under increased suspicion of being a Jacobite, or supporter of James II, and in the paranoid atmosphere of the early 18th century, being even slightly suspected of being a Jacobite is extremely dangerous. If I were a rival of this family, I would be shouting from the rooftops that any man who proposes to pardon a traitor in times such as these is himself a traitor--or rather, if the Whigs hear we’re pardoning traitors, what other traitors will they think we’re inclined to pardon?

(This also potentially brings up interesting questions about how closely tied the Hamiltons are to the Scottish background implied in their surname: there was a significant Jacobite base in Scotland and among Scottish families, and even if their branch of the Hamiltons was fairly far removed from the Scottish branches, just the name could increase suspicion.)

TH: We are fighting a war in the service of the son of God, and it is treason to offer forgiveness to any man who would seek it? What in the hell is it you think we're doing here?

I already talked about this line above, but it’s so eternally interesting: it says so much not only about how Thomas sees the War of Spanish Succession--as largely if not solely a religious war--as well as how he sees his work in Nassau as equally religious in nature, and, extrapolating further, that he subscribes to a fundamental religiousness in England and her empire. He’s arguing that not only is England is fighting a war in Christ’s name, but that this defines England morally: England is acting upon its intrinsic moral Christian imperative by fighting the War of Spanish Succession, and therefore it’s hypocritical not to extend that Christian morality to the other extensions of England’s will, in this case the government of its colonies. Obviously this has massive implications for how he views the Bahamas project, which we’ve already seen glimpses of: see again “The New World is. . .a sacred opportunity for us to right our wrongs”--not only are the Bahamas to be governed according to the Christian principles which are at the heart of England itself, but they are a God-given opportunity to correct what is wrong (e.g. non-Christian, non-moral) about England itself.

AH: This isn't your goddamn salon, Thomas, and I don’t care to be lectured to.
TH: If you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
AH: I don't want to hear it.
TH: I know you don't.

If you listen under Thomas’s line, you can hear the second part of Alfred’s that Thomas talks (shouts) over: I don’t care to be lectured to, which ties directly to I don’t want to hear it/I know you don’t. Clearly Thomas does this sort of thing at least semi-frequently, and Alfred is well aware that Thomas both disagrees with him and sees himself as morally superior to Alfred. However, in light of the fact that Thomas is still saying these things--and that Alfred is still more or less handing him the opportunity to do so--I wonder how both Thomas and Alfred see these conversations/shouting matches. In light of how brutally and catastrophically Alfred disposes of Thomas when he hits the threshold of being too inconvenient, that would indicate that Alfred sees Thomas as largely harmless, even in his proselytizing.

Thomas’s line is a slight misquoting of Matthew 6:15: But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (In the King James Version, which is the one Thomas would’ve actually known, it reads But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.) I don’t have much to say about that that I haven’t already said re: Thomas and religion, except to say that Thomas shouting Bible quotes across the dinner table to his father remains a peak Moment, and I feel like we should talk about it more.
Also, Thomas talking about fathers forgiving (what would be perceived as) their children’s sins is downright eerie, considering everything that we know is about to happen.

Finally, I wonder endlessly what actually went on at Thomas’s salons: James’s comments in 2.02 (”...that half the Royal Society attend but most deny,’’ “he talks about the need to rethink things, systemic things”) are endlessly fascinating, as are the bits of info we get here and in the next scene. I don’t have anything good to say about it at this juncture, I just wonder a lot.

AH: Lieutenant. I'll ask you once again: am I to assume by your silence that you are in agreement with this proposal?
Miranda: The lieutenant has dutifully expressed his reservations--
AH: Madam, you have done enough to damage the good name of this family. I would ask that you keep both your mouth and your legs firmly shut--
JM: I support it.

There’s so much going on here. First, that Alfred goes back to ignoring Thomas after Thomas has, if not quite won that round, that certainly said something that seemed to hit home for Alfred. (It’s also after Thomas has made a moral point--I know you don’t--in parallel to the first time Alfred begins addressing James rather than Thomas--It also has the virtue of being the right thing to do.) But mostly, I love that Miranda steps in the deflect from James here: it’s her sole line throughout this entire scene, and throughout the scene, including these beats, I find it fascinating how absolutely scared she looks: James is uncomfortable, yes, but Miranda is frightened. Her tiny bitter smile after Alfred starts insulting her just breaks my heart: the way she stops talking the moment he interrupts her kills me as well. She’s clearly afraid of Alfred, in a way that Thomas isn’t.

But she still speaks up, which I love: she’s clearly been filled in as to what happened in the previous scene, and she’s standing up for James to try and deflect from him, as well as tell Alfred what he wants to hear (that James, and thus the Navy, are not on board with Thomas’s plan). Everything from her tone to her expression to her words themselves are so carefully calculated to be unobtrusive and pleasant and conciliatory: she’s so good at this, and it still doesn’t do her any good. I wonder, genuinely, how many similar dinners she’s sat through, and how many conversations(/arguments) she and Thomas have had about how to deal with his father.

She also reacts to Alfred’s comments very different than Thomas does: when Alfred is insulting him earlier in the scene--My son is impertinent, Lieutenant; my son is indulged, my son is self-righteous--we don’t actually see a direct reaction shot of Thomas, but in the two shots we see of him on either side of his father’s comments he has nearly identical defiant, certain expressions, and he seems unruffled afterward. In contrast, Miranda reacts distinctly. It should also be said that while Alfred’s comments about Thomas are dismissive, his comment to Miranda is demeaning in a very different way. He’s willing to argue with Thomas; he’s not even willing to listen to Miranda.

I love too that James doesn’t even let Alfred finish his insult to Miranda before he interrupts. I love the reciprocity of it: Miranda tried to deflect from him, now he’s deflecting from her. In addition, I wonder how often Alfred says things like this to Miranda, and at what point Thomas was going to cut him off or say something about it.

JM: I found his argument persuasive. I find his intent to be good and true. And I find yours wanting, sir. I will be relaying my findings to Admiral Hennessey in short order. And now I think it's time you left, sir.
AH: Gentlemen.
TH: Did you just ask my father to leave his own house?

Obviously James’s speech is great, though I don’t have much to say about it: I do find it hilarious that Alfred actually left, however.
I’m interested in the seeming confirmation that the town house belongs to Alfred: does he live there as well during Parliamentary sessions? Does he have another house in London?

TH: Right now he will be dispatching messages to the Sea Lords, the Southern Secretary, his friends in the Privy Council. He will stop at nothing to ensure that this plan never sees the light of day. And now you're in the line of fire.
JM: People can say what they like about you. But you're a good man. More people should say that. And someone should be willing to defend it.

Once again, James’s speech is so good, and I compulsively clutch at my heart whenever I hear it.

I have yet to discern exactly who they mean when they talk about the “Sea Lords”: for my own purposes I assume it's the Lord High Admiral’s Council, who was running the Navy in 1705. (The Lord High Admiral himself was Prince George, Queen Anne’s husband, but it was largely an honorary title, as he knew little about Naval affairs.) I do find it interesting that later, when James returns from Nassau, he means to go speak with the Sea Lords to go over Alfred’s head to enact their plan: evidently Alfred wasn’t overly successful in swaying their opinion against it.

The Southern Secretary (the full title being “Secretary of State for the Southern Department”) was in charge of England’s American colonies (as well as Ireland, Wales, and Southern England); in 1705 the position was held by Sir Charles Hedges. The Privy Council, of course, is the Queen’s advisory body.

And...scene. Both my heartfelt congratulations and apologies if you made it to the end; feel free to make corrections, ask questions, or argue my conclusions as you will.

Comments

[sidewaystime]

I don't have much to add to this piece of awesome, but:

My headcanons for Thomas and Alfred are pretty consistent in that I think there were three Hamilton sons, that Thomas was the second son (and the smartest one, possibly that he was going to go into the clergy) and that the eldest son died, requiring Thomas to step in to that role. Mostly because Thomas does seem to actually be religious in a way that he incorporates into his whole life (eg everything you cited here + the whole genesis thing + the way Miranda deploys the song of solomon at pastor lambrick which always struck me as an interesting comparison to the genesis story) and because Alfred doesn't seem to know what to do with him in any appreciable way.

[stele3]

Ah, interesting--you raise an excellent point, why would Alfred Hamilton have allowed his heir to be so radical in thought? Well, if he was a spare, then he would a) have more intellectual freedom and b) likely would have gone into the clergy, which explains why religion and faith drive so many of his motivations.

[ETA: Sorry, re-learning how to use LJ-format comments.]

[sea_changed]

My headcanon is extremely similar: I don't see a way that Alfred would be willing to so completely destroy/disappear Thomas unless he had another heir to step in. Possibly if Alfred had a brother with sons? But Thomas having a younger brother seems much more likely. (It also makes me wonder who this younger brother is--presumably Alfred had no doubt that he would be willing to take over as heir.)

Similarly, Thomas having an elder brother just makes too much sense for me to headcanon differently. That his career path was originally going to be the clergy makes a lot of sense with what we see of his level of education and religious feeling. (It also explains why he went to Eton and then presumably Cambridge, as to the best of my knowledge first sons weren't sent away to school in the period--public school/university was professional training, and first sons already had a set job to do.) I also tend to headcanon that the elder brother was significantly older, possibly from a different marriage (that Alfred then didn't cut off)--that way Thomas has some kind of caregiver/role model when he's young (who, crucially, has some kind of power to stand up to Alfred--I can't see his mother having any power in this regard, for instance), and possibly is the one to convince Alfred to send Thomas to Eton in the first place. That, plus the fact that he would've been away at school throughout much of his early life, plus the fact that he was never meant to be the heir, (plus of course his irrepressibly stubbornness), lets me understand the canon relationship we see between him and Alfred in the flashbacks.

All of which is an extraordinarily long-winded way of saying, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Thomas is fascinating in this way, because while we know so little we gets hints to so much (as opposed to Miranda, about whom we get nothing that isn't about Thomas. SIGH).

[stele3]

Fantastic meta. I love to read in-depth parsing of dialogue and scenes, so this is right up my alley.

[sea_changed]

Thank you! I love doing this kind of thing, especially for characters I love so much who we get so little about--every moment counts.

[drivingsideways]

I love all of this and it makes me want to dust off several WIPs/ canon AUs in my Folder of Shame. It also makes me want to do a rewatch of the entire show but WHERE IS THE TIME.

[sea_changed]

I know, when I was looking it over it reminded me of about four different half-finished fics sitting in my google docs. And now I certainly want to do a rewatch of at least the flashbacks (somewhat manageable) but also the whole show (ahahahaha).

[yourlibrarian]

I feel like “childish” is somehow the wrong adjective to give Thomas and Alfred’s interactions, but little will convince me that they were not having this same conversation in this same way, if about different things, since Thomas was about twelve. It’s in a lot of ways sort of heartbreakingly simple: What do you do to an intelligent and no doubt precocious kid to show your power over them? You ignore them. What do you do when you’re said intelligent and precocious kid and want your parent to see you? You a) work harder and b) shout louder. That they’re still doing this, twenty-five or so years later, is both sad and, from a characterization standpoint, very intriguing.

I like this observation!

Everything from her tone to her expression to her words themselves are so carefully calculated to be unobtrusive and pleasant and conciliatory: she’s so good at this, and it still doesn’t do her any good.

Yes, perhaps being a woman Miranda was much more aware of the size of the forces against her.

I don't have enough brain tonight to make further comments other than to be delighted to read meta about Black Sails :)

Have you thought about archiving this at AO3?

[sea_changed]

Yeah, I think being a woman in the world the lived in and with the reputation she had made her much more aware, much earlier, of how badly this all could end. (Interestingly, I think that James, as a social-climbing lower-class man who isn't straight, also had a similar view, it was just blinkered by the mad rush of falling in love. Miranda's been in love with Thomas for years; she can see beyond and around it, by now.)

You know, it never really occurs to me to put meta on ao3; I think of it so firmly as a fic archive. I know they've been encouraging tumblr folk to archive fannish writing of all sorts over there, though, so I should consider it.

[yourlibrarian]

True, he can be blind to certain things, plus, as you said, the newness was different.

And yes, definitely! I look for meta regularly and have always been struck by how little there is on AO3 compared to how much there must be out there, even though it's far more searchable. I'm glad that meta_warehouse came along here.

[verdande_mi]

Here via meta_warehouse :)

I’ve had this waiting in a tab for some days now, never having the time to settle in to real in peace and quiet. Thank you for sharing, it’s a great read. Made me want to re-watch all the scenes you speak of. I have only seen the show once, so I don’t remember it all in much detail, but I do remember that this episode made my head spin. There’s so many different dynamics and so much going on between the lines and in looks.

I love all the historical notes you’ve written in, very interesting and it’s great to be able to extrapolate and make connections like you do.

[sea_changed]

Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it. There is truly so much going on in between the lines— I wanted to take a stab at deciphering it.