Dan Snow's History Hit - The Great Napoleonic Escape

Episode Date: October 20, 2024

Lieutenant Charles Hare was a young British naval officer who made an extraordinarily elaborate escape from a French prisoner-of-war camp during the Napoleonic Wars... with the help of his English Terrier dog. Captured at just 14, Hare spent years in captivity before devising an audacious plan to flee dressed in the uniform of a French customs officer. He took a convoluted 'trains, planes and automobiles' style journey up the Rhine, through Germany, to the Netherlands and finally back home to England, deceiving both locals and officials of his true identity.This tale of ingenuity and bravery was recently uncovered thanks to Hare's descendants, who recently handed over his disguise and firsthand account to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Curator Dr Katherine Gazzard regales Dan with the story in a world-exclusive story when he visited the museum to see the uniform for himself.You can see Hare's disguise and discover more about his story at a new exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and see it in our new History Hit documentary. Sign up HERE for 50% off for 3 months using code ‘DANSNOW’ to watch it.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal PatmoreOther episodes mentioned in this episode:Thomas Cochrane: The Real Master and CommanderWe'd love to hear from you - what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. This, friends, is a world exclusive. In this episode of the podcast, I have partnered up with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. We have got the astonishing story told for the first time of the great escape of the Napoleonic War. A few months ago, I headed down to the Royal Museums Greenwich. I went into the National Maritime Museum and I met one of the excellent curators, Catherine Gazzard. She showed me a French customs uniform from 1809 in astonishingly good condition. Now, it belonged not to a French customs officer, but to one lieutenant, Charles Hare. He was a young naval officer. He and his crew were captured when his ship took on a French

naval vessel off Cherbourg in 1803. Charles Hare was just 14 years old. He spent years in a prisoner of war camp, but he did not accept his fate. No, of course he didn't. Like every man jack in Nelson's navy, he dreamt of a time when once again he would stand on a quarterdeck, a gently rolling quarterdeck, with a brisk Sal Wesley in his back, round her spit and sail up the solent where his stunts will set, the white ensign taut above him in the steady breeze, red-coated marines at the door of the captain's cabin, deck beneath him scrubbed and holy stone until it gleamed. He dreamt of freedom.

He wanted to be back with the Royal Navy at sea, not obviously festering in some hellish landlocked French fortress. And it's this determination to escape, that's where this story really starts. That's at its root. Because this is the tale of his epic escape across Europe. Dressed in the uniform of a French customs officer. A uniform that's just been handed in

to the National Maritime Museum by his descendants. This, it's so good. This is a story that was entirely, completely unknown. to the National Maritime Museum by his descendants. This, it's so good. This is a story that was entirely, completely unknown until his descendants came forward and gifted the museum not only his disguise, but a brilliant firsthand account that he left. This story is about to enter the canon of British heroic tales.

And you heard it right here first. Please check out the documentary we filmed. It's on History Hit TV. It's our TV channel. Just go and subscribe to History Hit and you'll watch it there. Please go to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and see the actual uniform and the wonderful exhibition there. I've been looking forward to talking about this for months.

Now, here it is. Enjoy. T-minus 10. The Thomas bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. So who was Charles Hare? Charles Hare, on paper, if you're looking just at his naval record, looks like a pretty average Napoleonic-era naval officer.

He is born in Lincolnshire in September 1789. His father is a naval captain, and at the age of 11, he follows his father to sea. That, I mean, sounds young to us, but is completely typical. Very normal. Yeah, very normal. You know, you start your naval education young, you are literally spending your teenage years learning the ropes. A little bit of tragedy kind of early on, his father dies very soon after he's gone to sea, so he kind of loses this sort of figure who would be looking over him

and kind of looking after him. But he goes into other ships, he has several years, you know, beginning this naval education. Then at the age of 13, he's on a ship called Laminerve. It's originally a French ship, but it's been captured. It's now a Royal Navy ship. Until a sort of foggy night in July 1803, when it founders on the rocks near Cherbourg. There's a fierce overnight battle and eventually the ship has to surrender and is recaptured by the French. The entire crew and all the officers are taken prisoner, Hare included. He is just 13 years old. They're marched 500 miles across France to Epinal originally, and then three months later moved to Verdun, which is at that time, it's been taken over as a kind of depot for British prisoners of war, particularly officers. It's perhaps not the prison camp that

we might kind of picture. It's very much kind of within the confines of the walled city. The British prisoners have quite a lot of freedom. They just have to sort of check in with the guards. And they're given their word of honour, they won't escape. Exactly. They're given their parole, their word of honour, they won't escape. And essentially it becomes a community in exile. There are, you know, kind of businesses catering to them. It's also where civilian detainees are sent as well. So kind of British civilians who've been living in France are there as well. And so Hare has his first few years in captivity are quite civilised. It's a prolonged French exchange, really. I mean, I'm sure he was frustrated, but the sort of captain, Captain Gahil Brenton, who was his commanding officer when he was captured,

he ensures that Hare is lodging with a French family. So he's learning the language, keeping up with his studies, having, yeah, kind of hopefully a sort of relatively civilised time. It's about kind of late 1805 that things for Hare start going a little bit wrong. So Captain Brenton, who's been looking after him, is transferred elsewhere for health reasons and actually then is eventually kind of sent home. He's one of the few British prisoners of war in this period who manages to get released and sent home. And then in 1806, Hare and other midshipmen from Verdun basically have their parole withdrawn or voluntarily withdraw their parole and are transferred to a fortress known at the time as Saar Libre. It's a historic name and the name it has reverted to now is Saarlouis. Understandably, in the revolutionary period, they weren't so keen on a place named after Louis.

But yeah, so he's transferred there. This is a fortress, a kind of military barracks that has been turned into very much a prison for prisoners of war. And prisoners of war is kind of an, it's quite an unusual thing at this stage, isn't it? I mean, a generation or two before, you wouldn't keep vast numbers of enemy prisoners,

feeding them, clothing them, housing them all in your territory. Yeah, exactly. So the sort of convention through wars up to that point had been, there was an exchange system. This is particularly between European nations. One nation, when they capture prisoners of war, they very quickly swap them with the opposing side. So they get their own people back. You're not kind of wasting resources on keeping people in captivity and you get your own kind of personnel back. It was all highly regulated. Lists would be drawn up to make sure

you were kind of making equivalent exchanges. So if one side releases a captain, they get a captain back. If one side releases a hundred soldiers, they get a hundred soldiers back. Well-established, well-entrenched system. And it does continue even into the kind of early parts of the sort of revolutionary wars

and the Napoleonic wars. So as late as 1801, Thomas Cochrane, who's known to podcast listeners, he is taken as a prisoner of war. July 1801, spends 11 days as a prisoner of war, only four on French soil. Then he's kind of released on his word that he won't go back to sea to Gibraltar. Seven days later, gets his kind of official confirmation of his exchange, and he's straight back on a ship. So that's how efficient the system could be. But then Napoleon, around about 1803, decides that actually he doesn't see the worth of

this exchange system, that actually he thinks there's more value to him in keeping the British personnel that he captures locked up. And actually he feels like he's got enough people that he can afford for the British to be holding on to all the soldiers and sailors that they have captured. And so that leaves poor Hare and others like him stranded indefinitely in French custody. And had he stayed in French custody, he'd have been there till 1814 when Napoleon fell. Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, sort of he just spent more than a decade as a prisoner of war. So you can kind of understand this mounting frustration that he must be feeling, particularly when he's transferred to Sa Libre and is sort of suddenly now confined in a room with 12 other people, facing quite poor food rations, much more kind of limited and

curtailed freedoms, not good conditions at all. And it's clearly during the two and a half years that he spends there that escape becomes something that is occupying his mind, something that he's planning for. And then eventually one, we can imagine it, a hot and, you know, kind of muggy day, perhaps on the 12th of August, 1809, he makes his break for freedom. How common was this to try and work your way back across? We hear about so much in the Second World War, it's such a trope, isn't it? Escaping. Was this something that was practiced in the Pernod Wars? It's the sort of brand new phenomenon because, as we've just discussed, this idea of a prisoner of war facing indefinite detention, that's a new phenomenon. So it becomes this question for all these prisoners, well, how do you respond to this? And what are your

obligations? Should you be sort of meekly accept your fate? Is that in some ways the honourable thing to do? There's still a hangover of this kind of parole system where you've sort of meekly accept your fate? Is that in some ways the honourable thing to do? There's still a hangover of this kind of parole system where you've sort of given your word as a gentleman that you'll patiently wait to be exchanged, won't escape. So actually, do you withdraw your parole and say, no, actually now the best thing I can do for my country is do whatever I can to at least make life difficult for the French in trying to keep me captive

and hopefully get home and resume service. And so you have all these prisoners kind of weighing up this decision and a sort of increasing number do decide to sort of take the risk of trying to escape. It tends to be younger men. It's worth saying Hare is 19 years old by the time he escapes. You know, it's his teenage years that he's spent in prison. And a lot of those who escape are that age. I think partly they're conscious that they're missing out on a really crucial period of their careers and their lives by being stuck in prison. And perhaps also there's the kind of recklessness of youth comes into it as well. And so it tends to be these sort of midshipmen like Hare and

lower ranking personnel who are facing the worst conditions and who have the most reason to try and escape. And there are quite a number of different escape attempts, everything from scaling down walls with rope. There are other disguises that are used. People describe themselves as laundry women, or farmers are a good one, peasant farmers. If you can get a forged American passport, that's always really useful. But Hare seems to be unique in disguising himself as a French officer, and perhaps with good reason, because it was an incredibly dangerous thing to do. Most prisoners who were caught in the act of escaping some were unlucky and were executed or faced very kind of harsh punishments, but mostly they were just taken back and reconfined in the prison. Whereas had

Hare been captured impersonating a French officer, he would have known that that would be considered espionage and the punishment would be summary execution, pretty much. Probably not a trial, just sort of shot on the spot, potentially. You mentioned his age. I wonder also, in 1809, there was no sign of the war coming to an end. In fact, Napoleon was riding high. He defeated Austria, Prussia, Russia. He looked like he was dominant in Europe in 1809. We now know the war didn't have that many more years to run, but at the time, you must have thought, look, I'm going to be here forever. I've got to get out of here. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, and you have to wonder how much kind of news the war is reaching here in the prison camp, but certainly the sense he must be getting is Napoleon having this sort

of really kind of strong control over so much of Europe with no sign of that stopping. So yeah, I think he must have felt like he was in for the long haul. Summer of 1809, Napoleon defeats the Austrians, doesn't he, again at Wagram. He hasn't invaded Russia yet, so maybe he thought, I've got to get out of here, I've got to get home, otherwise I'm going to languish for my whole life here. Okay, but he is unusual among prisoners of war in the method he chooses to make his escape.

Tell me about that. Yes, yeah. So the details of this are a little bit vague. We do have his account of his escape, but he sort of leaves a bit to our imagination. But it seems that somehow he has enough of a good relationship with the prison guards that he's able to sort of go out into the town and somehow he makes contact with the local customs office.

And customs officers are really important for reasons that I'm sure we'll get onto. But he makes contact with them and a customs officer there agrees to help him out. Whether money changes hands, whether favours change hands, who knows that customs officer might have known someone who was a French prisoner of war in Britain. So maybe there was a kind of understanding of, well, I'll help you if when you get back to Britain, you help my relative. That kind of agreement did happen. But whatever arrangement they come to, this customs officer agrees to supply Hare with

a uniform that he can wear, so he will be dressed as a customs officer. Also forged papers, forged order papers that identify him as a customs officer called Lieutenant Wallow, so a kind of whole false identity for him to adopt. And the customs officer also coaches Hare on common questions and what the expected responses would be. So if Hare meets other customs officers or is questioned or is talking to anyone, he can sort of sound convincing. And of course, he spent so many years in France, presumably he does speak very fluent French,

presumably little trace of an accent, and he can pass himself off effectively as a customs officer, thanks to this disguise. They had to really trust each other. One was about to commit a major crime, the other one was guilty of treason. Yes, yeah. Well, I mean, customs officers, they were notoriously poorly paid and there are plenty of instances of them being corrupt and sort of allowing a bit of smuggling here and a bit of that there. So maybe it's kind of an extension of that sort of moral flexibility.

Let's go there. Why was a customs officer such good cover? You know, we kind of talked about the situation of the war, but actually the really important dimension of the war by this stage is the economic war, because essentially Britain and France have reached this kind of stalemate. It's often described using the analogy of the elephant and the whale. Napoleon and his army are the elephant, this, you know, sort of great power on the land. Britain and its navy is the whale's great power at sea. Both are so strong in their own element, but they're kind of stuck in that situation. And so they sort of turn increasingly to try and cripple each other's economies.

And the sort of key moment in that story is November 1806, when Napoleon makes the Berlin Decree, which is where he says he's going to blockade British trade. And initially, this is greeted with derision in Britain. I think it's hilarious, because of course, the traditional way that you enforce a trade blockade is you send your very powerful navy to block up all the enemy ports. And of course, with Britain having the upper hand at sea, that's a sort of a laughable thing for the French to attempt. But of course, what Napoleon has realised is that actually, he doesn't need to attack British shipping directly, because a huge market for British goods is Northern Europe and he controls all of Northern Europe. So by sort of sending his customs officials to all the ports and along all the rivers around Northern Europe,

he can essentially ban, outlaw all trade in British goods. It's worth saying we're talking here not only about goods that are manufactured in Britain and that come from Britain directly, but also everything from Britain's colonies that's being funneled through Britain and then out to the continent. Indian, Muslim and all that stuff, completely banned. Exactly. All of that trade is banned. And so the soldiers on the front line in this kind of economic warfare are going to be the customs service, these customs officers who are going to be sort of enforcing this trade blockade. And so they are stationed everywhere.

And river traffic is the way of trade. So deep in the entrails of Europe, in the heart of Europe, down the Rhine, down the Danube, down the Oerde, all the German, you'd have customs officers opening up casks of things and looking, poking around little harbours. And so you'd have seen them everywhere. Yes. Yeah. So one of my colleagues has described, you know, the customs uniform that Hare has as the early 19th century equivalent of a high visibility, you know, kind of outfit. It's something that, you know, kind of on the surface looks very conspicuous. I mean, it's got this huge plume of feathers coming out the top of a hat, but it's something that was so ubiquitous and people were so used to just seeing these people sort of going about their business and, you know, sort of poking their noses in it

here, there and everywhere. Hotter and I'm, trying to get lifts on vessels going here and there. Exactly, exactly. It was just kind of... Hiding in plain sight. Exactly, part of the furniture. And thank goodness he spoke good enough French and had been tutored by this crooked cop. Absolutely. So take me back to August 1809. What do we know, the blow by blow, about the escape? Well, so 12th of August 1809 is escape day. Hare doesn't tell us exactly how he gets out of the prison. It perhaps isn't as heavily fortified as we might think of as a Second World War prison camp. So sneaking out past the guard or perhaps even slipping the guard a bit of money to turn the other way is very much possible. And then again, his friend in the customs service has been very helpful and has hired a trustworthy, importantly,

trustworthy carriage driver to be sort of waiting for him just around the corner from the prison, climbs in the carriage and there, stashed in the back, is the customs uniform. He describes as this carriage is spiriting him out of town. He sort of changes in the back of the carriage, taking off his prison clothes, putting on the customs uniform. He even mentions that he sort of throws the prison clothes into a cornfield as they sort of race by. And that carriage has been hired to take him as far as the River Rhine, and his sort of planned route is to go up the Rhine. It takes a couple of days for them to reach the Rhine, and there's a few kind of hairy moments along the way. Through the intrigues of a French customs house or douane office, I got out of prison at Sarre

Libre in the province of Lorraine on the 12th of August 1809, having previously provided a carriage horse and driver, in whom confidence might be placed to convey me as far as Mainz, together with a suit of uniform of the French Corps de Douane. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. This is the story of Charles Hare. More coming up. This is the story of Charles, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. So the first place they stop where they need to, you know, get some refreshments, attend to the carriage horses, is this small, what is now a German town called Torli. And there the carriage driver is attending to the horses and says to Hare, well, you walk on ahead and I'll catch up

with you and meet you at these crossroads on the other side of town. And so clearly this moment of walking through town on his own is where this reality sets in for Hare. And he sort of has this moment of realisation. He must have known kind of academically before he set off that what he's doing is very dangerous, but I think the sort of reality of it really hits home. Because actually, if he's caught impersonating a French officer, the punishment is instant execution, pretty much.

Instant death awaits me by the decrees of Bonaparte is what he writes in his account. As soon as I reached the end of the town, I fully felt the imprudence of my conduct in thus losing sight of my driver. Alarm seized me, lest this driver should betray me to the police. Taken in a military habit, bearing arms or false papers, instant death awaits me by the decrees of Bonaparte. And he describes having almost, I think what we would kind of recognise as a panic attack. He's suddenly walking through the town and becomes paranoid that every passerby is staring at him, becoming more and more alarmed. He's looking at the woods he can see in the distance and he thinks about, what if I just

make a run for it? Sort of abandon this whole ruse, just, you know, run for it, hide there till night time, maybe that's the way to do it. But he says, no, there's too many people, I'll be too conspicuous if I suddenly run off. So he kind of musters all the composure he can gather, walks slowly to the edge of the town, and then, you know, he says it's 10 minutes of agony and apprehension, and eventually he hears the kind of rattling of his carriage approaching. With wandering eyes, I explored the surrounding country, contemplating in what direction security might be hoped for. Spying a wood at a distance, I decided one instant to take to my heels, and then conceal myself till night. But I was too much the object of attention to affect this

in safety. Not being molested, I regained confidence, and with all the composure I was master of, I slowly walked on the high road, until happily after ten minutes of agony and apprehension, I had the indescribable comfort of hearing the approach of my carriage. This moment of drama is over. And he's there in a green uniform with a big, huge belt buckle shining away and a huge plume of green feathers. I mean, he did look incredibly conspicuous. Yes, yeah.

And also worth mentioning, had with him a dog as well. Oh, right. He'd somehow, earlier as a prisoner, actually back when he's at Verdun, Yes, yeah. And also worth mentioning, had with him a dog as well. Oh, right. He'd somehow, earlier as a prisoner, actually back when he's at Verdun, had adopted or been given a pet dog. He describes it as an English terrier. I think quite pointedly that it's an English dog, even though he's in France. And this becomes his pet, his, you know, sort of companion,

I'm sure a source of a lot of solace for him while he's a prisoner. And of course, when he escapes, he's going to take it with him. And so, yeah, if we have to imagine him sort of walking through this little German town with a little dog running around him, and he actually talks about the dogs being a sort of vital ally in his escape as well. That's also comfort and a useful distraction sometimes. A comfort animal. Yes. And distraction. So if someone did stop and ask for his papers, he's got a little cute dog he can Exactly, exactly.

Pretend he's a bit distracted. Exactly. I see where he's going with it. Clever. Yeah. So he gets a bit distracted. Exactly. I see where he's going with it. Clever. So he gets the Rhine. Yep. And then it should be easier, I guess, at that point, because you're on, there's so much traffic on the Rhine, the great artery of Europe, you're going to get to Rotterdam at the end. I mean, I think that's what he was hoping. He is slightly frustrated when he arrives at the Rhine and finds that actually many of the river conveyances, many of the riverboats, have actually all been requisitioned by the French army, the transporting troops. So he has to kind of improvise a little bit and find whatever

small boats he can to sort of continue each leg of the journey. So the first one he finds that he picks up at Mainz is a market boat that's delivering vegetables. He says it costs him a lot of money as well. He says at great expense, he purchases passage on this market boat, stopping at all these little tiny towns and villages, delivering vegetables, until eventually that takes him as far as Beauport. And there he picks up another boat that takes him as far as Koblenz, and he continues along the river in this kind of stop-start fashion. I wonder how he got the money to spend. I mean, again, it's something that he doesn't explain in his account, but I think it's

pretty obvious that escaping was something he'd been thinking about for a long time and planning for a long time. And what we often find with prisoners in similar situations who also attempted to escape is they would over months, if not years, be squirreling away little bits of money. Maybe they were making things and trying to sell them to the sort of local people or doing jobs or something, or obviously a bit of stealing perhaps here and there, to sort of build up a cache of money that they could then use for an escape. So he's making his way up the Rhine. And again, as a customs officer, it probably wouldn't be that unusual, catching a ride up the Rhine, snooping about, looking at people's holds for any contraband.

Was he approached by any officials saying, who are you? He is, he is. It's at Cologne, I think, that he says he's, you know, kind of has found somewhere to stay for the night. He's just had his, you know, kind of glass of the local wine. And then suddenly someone comes and summons him to appear before the commissary of police in the local area. He says this is a really notoriously intimidating figure whose job it is to question literally anyone, even a French officer, traveling through the town. And there's another moment where Hare tells us about his kind of nervousness and his apprehension at this interview. You know, again, he's sort of thinking,

can I make a run for it? Is there, you know, kind of anywhere I can escape to? He goes in and he braves this interview and manages to convince the commissary of his credentials and his legitimacy as a customs officer and is allowed to pass on his way. At Cologne, I perceived drawn up on the quay about 300 of the corps de douane under arms to commemorate the great birthday of Napoleon. Their appearance for a few moments could not fail to awaken much trepidation and alarm.

However, my situation excluded choice and mustering together all the presence of mind I was master of, lighted my pipe and with a composed countenance mounted the wharf. Meeting with polite salutations from the officers, who were collected in a body near the landing place, their remarks on the fineness of the afternoon for travelling with the customary civility of Frenchmen. But it's just a kind of, I think, a reminder of which there are so many kind of points in his journey of just the danger that he is attempting. So he continues his journey up the Rhine. It's looking good. It is looking good.

And actually, sort of, he does manage to, in between these moments of danger and drama, find occasional sort of lighthearted moments or sort of entertaining moments. So one of the boats that he manages to work his way onto to travel a bit further is at Dusseldorf, and it's a boat that is being used by a wedding party. A couple have just got married, they're going for a little honeymoon river cruise perhaps with all their wedding guests.

And of course, as soon as he gets on, the brandy bottle is produced and he's co-opted into this celebration. Proceeding about halfway, the party landed on the German side of the river to replenish the bottle and ran like mad people into the town. I could not refrain from laughing most heartily at this.

He has to down several glasses of brandy, join in all the French drinking songs, stopping to run ashore and buy more booze. And he says he has to admit that he found himself laughing, you know, could not refrain from laughing at this drunken marriage. I mean, partly he's laughing probably because he's a bit half- at this point as well. But he is finding the lighthearted moments in what is clearly otherwise a very stressful ordeal. I find that my French improves dramatically when I've been drinking. Maybe that helped. Maybe it helped to escape. So he does make it to the coast. Yes, he does. It takes him about four days, about 250 miles. He is travelling from sometimes as

early as 3am in the morning, he's setting off traveling to late at night. At one point he travels overnight through a thunderstorm. He's heard that there's a ferry that leaves Nijmegen for Rotterdam at 7am. He's like, I want to get there in time, travels through the thunderstorm. His Dutch boatman is taking him ashore, you know, but he keeps urging him on. It's like, no, we must keep going even though the weather's terrible. But yeah, eventually reaches Rotterdam on the 18th of August. And I'm sure that was kind of a hugely kind of celebratory moment and a relief for him. But then he faces the next problem, which is, well, how does he get from this port out to the British warships that are blockading it in the harbour? Who's he going to find that was willing to kind of get out to sea and get him out to those boats? So he kind of realises that actually it's going to take a few days in Rotterdam he's going

to be stuck there for a little while while he tries to sound out different people at the docks and to try and find his route out and so he is looking around for a place to stay and actually this is where his disguise becomes actually a bit of a hindrance because there's a lot of people in Rotterdam who are not happy to be under French occupation and particularly not to have French customs officers poking their heads into all their trade. So the first couple of lodging houses he goes to turn him away and he goes to another one and goes in obviously asks in French, he's still in his disguise, have you got any rooms here? Can I stay here? And the proprietor of this lodging house is an older woman. She turns to her daughter and says in English, tell that Frenchman I have no lodging house is an older woman. She turns to her daughter and says, in English,

tell that Frenchman I have no lodgings for Frenchmen here. And he realises that she's an Englishwoman, I think the wife of a Dutch merchant. And of course, at that point, he sort of is like, well, can I reveal my true identity to you? Nice. And suddenly gains this ally, and she's like, well, now, of course, you can stay.

Importantly, she gives him one of her husband's clean shirts, which he is desperately needed. He would have needed both of those. Yes, yes, he makes point of course you can stay. Importantly, she gives him one of her husband's clean shirts, which he is desperately needed. He would have needed both of those. Yes, yes. He makes point of mentioning that he did not have any spares with him. So best not to think about that in too much detail. Lucky that shirt hasn't survived down the ages. Yes.

Yeah, for some reason the family didn't keep that. But yeah, and then she also connects him with a Danish sea captain who's in port at that time as well. And he sort of becomes another co-conspirator in the escape attempt and actually gives Hare a new disguise to wear. So for a few days, he dresses up as the Danish sea captain's mate. They go about the docks of the town, trying to sound out different sailors to see if anyone will take him out to the British ships. This is also where we have one of the kind of hairy and scary moments of the escape, because his dog goes missing in Rotterdam. He's out and about in the city and suddenly can't find the dog.

He's absolutely beside himself, thinks his faithful companion is lost. But he thinks, oh, well, maybe the dog will find its way back to the lodging house where we're staying. So he works his way back there. And sure enough, he arrives and they're sitting on the front step of the lodging house, wet and shivering from where he's been swimming across the canals, is this little dog and describes this emotional reunion. You couldn't tell whether he or the dog were more excited to see each other again. Thank goodness for that.

Thank goodness for that. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. This is the story of Charles Hare. More coming up. from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades.

Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. And eventually, does he find someone to sneak him out to the blockading British ships? He does. A friendly fisherman does agree to do it, although it's a little bit convoluted because they don't want to leave directly from the port. They want to leave from a sort of quiet part of the coast where they're less likely to be observed. So Hare changes back into his customs uniform disguise and travels actually back up the river a little bit to Dordrecht and then has a carriage ride about 10 miles along the coast until they find sort of a quiet place

where they can depart and eventually sail out. And he describes a daybreak on the 25th of August when he sort of comes in sight of the British ships, and that was an incredible moment for him, I think. Amazing. As a man desperate to rejoin the Navy, here is the Navy. Yes. Wonderful. A blockading squadron, and he doesn't have any trouble convincing them that he's one of them, even though he's dressed as a French customs officer. No, no, he's very lucky. I mean, the fisherman takes him to the nearest ship, which is the Royal Oak, and the captain of that is Captain Amelius Bo Clark, who knew or kind of remembered was an old friend of Hare's father. And so clearly he either looks enough like his father or knows enough information to be able to convince Bo Clark

of who he is and what his true identity is. And so Captain Bo Clark instantly adds Hare to the ship's books. So he's literally back in the Navy that day. He's back on the muster book as a midshipman in the Royal Oak. but also, Bo Clark importantly, gives him some leave. He's earned some time off. And so he transfers to the Agincourt, which is due to sail back to Britain in a few days time. And that takes him to Yarmouth, where the Port Admiral, Admiral Douglas, takes pity on him and pays for his passage up to Grimsby. And then he gets there but says, with only a few shillings in his pocket, he doesn't have the money to hire a horse. So he and his little dog have to walk the

36 miles back to this small kind of Lincolnshire village where he's from. And then he says he arrives at twilight, the sun is setting, and he sort of goes home and finds his mum and his sisters there, who he hasn't seen for nine years because obviously he goes to sea, he's at sea for three years and then a prisoner of war for six. Who knows what they thought about this kind of strange young man turning up in a French uniform at their doorstep but I'm sure once they realised it must have been incredible. I cast no aspersions on the good people of Lincolnshire but I do wonder what they would have made of a French officer just walking down the road. You do wonder that. He doesn't relate. He doesn't relate that, no. I mean, maybe by that point he was, you know,

almost too tired to notice and was just kind of, you know, sort of getting home. Staggering home. Yeah. I walked home to Summer Castle, arriving just at twilight. Here I had the inexpressible happiness of once more meeting my mother and sisters, whose agitated astonishment can be more easily felt than described. What an amazing story. And is this celebrated at the time? Nope, not at all. Partly because of his rank. He's just a kind of anonymous midshipman. The navy has hundreds of them and there are enough of these escapes that it's not a wholly big deal. And people still aren't sure what to make of these escapes. Are they something that is to be celebrated? Are they something that is to be celebrated? Are

they something that's a little bit dodgy and dishonourable? It's a little bit of a grey area. He is keen just to get back on with his naval career. I mean, it's significant the timing of his escape. He actually writes on the first page of the account that he writes that his escape aged nearly 20. And that milestone of turning 20 is really important if you're wanting to be a naval officer, because when you turn 20, you become eligible for a lieutenant's commission. There's a sort of minimum age restriction on becoming a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and that's 20. And so Hare escapes seven weeks before his 20th birthday, I think almost knowing that the upcoming milestone is in his mind as being like the thing that lends a bit of urgency to this, you know,

kind of building up of his desire to escape. He gets back to Lincolnshire, but almost instantly he's gathering the paperwork that he needs to apply for his lieutenant's commission. So he goes to the parish church and gets the clerk to write out from the parish register proof of his date of birth, which you need to supply to show that you've reached that age limit of 20 years old. Within only a few months of his escape, in January 1810, he fully qualifies as a lieutenant and is then back at sea trying to make this new promotion and to really sort of make up for lost time, really, having missed out on this huge chunk of his naval career. But I hate to be a doubter here, but how do we know the story's real? Does he leave an imprint

on official archives? He does indeed, he does indeed. So firstly there is his lieutenant's passing certificate, so the record of this qualification, that's in the National Archives and there's a little special note of dispensation that says he has recently escaped from a prisoner of war camp in France which is why his service record is not complete. And then there's also I think my favourite trace of him in the archives is the muster book of the Royal Oaks, so that's the ship that he meets when he leaves Rotterdam. So the muster book is updated every week with who's on board and who's listed on there. And it's actually, it comes right at the end of the August entry. So he's the last name on the list, the last person to join the ship in August. You can see arrived

25th of August, 1809, Charles Hare. And there's a column that's like headed whence. And so it's usually like, what port did this person join out and what ship had they transferred from and in his case it says escaped from Sarlibre French prison captured in Laminerve which is the ship he'd been captured in back in 1803 and so it's a really kind of beautiful little confirmation in the official record that he did arrive on the ship on that day and know, with this story. So this is just such an exciting example of where you've got a tiny little footnote in the official record, so in history, and this discovery made by this family of the diary and the uniform and the objects, that just opens up this real human story behind that.

Yes, we're so lucky and it makes you think about all the other stories that have been lost, all these other kind of anonymous figures, because I think it's perhaps here worth as well thinking about what happens to Hare afterwards and say he's so eager, so desperate to get back to sea. And he does enjoy a sort of reasonably successful naval career for the rest of the war. He's sent out to North America to fight in the War of 1812. He captures a number of sort of American privateers as part of that, also meets a nice Canadian young woman and they get married. But he's still only a lieutenant in 1815. And suddenly there's fewer opportunities for naval officers, the fleet has reduced.

And he's one of the many hundreds of officers who just misses out and his career just kind of stops there. He's still petitioning, He's still writing to senior naval officers saying, is there a posting for me? Is there a chance of promotion? But there's nothing. And so he kind of has this sort of very anonymous fate. It's kind of a useful reminder that for all the kind of celebrity naval officers of the time, there are hundreds and hundreds more who just kind of disappear as Hare does.

And yet, how many of them have an incredible chapter within their story that just doesn't get told because they didn't go on to do other things? Got to write it down, folks. If you do anything amazing, make sure you write it down. Absolutely. And then get several generations of your family to treasure it. Yes.

Because we have a new national treasure now. This guy is going to be one of the great known naval officers of the Napoleonic Wars. It's so exciting. Absolutely. On display at the National Maritime Museum, this uniform, the customs uniform that he used, will be across the gallery from Nelson's Trafalgar coat,

the most famous uniform in history, perhaps. This kind of story that is so well known for anyone who knows anything about British naval history. And suddenly this previously unknown story is right there alongside it. It's really exciting. So it's on display at the Nelson Navy Nation Gallery at the National Maritime Museum. Go to Greenwich, everyone. It is fabulous.

Oh, wait, before we go, one final question. Did the dog make it back to England? Absolutely. He wasn't going to leave his dog behind after all of that. We don't know what happens to it afterwards. Does it go back to sea with him? Does it have a naval career of its own? Or does it enjoy a life of retirement,

hard-earned retirement in the wilds of Lincolnshire with his mum and sisters? Catherine, great to be here at the National Maritime Museum. Thank you for having me. That's great. It's our pleasure, Dan. you