Set initially in Bideford in North Devon during the reign of Elizabeth I, Westward Ho! follows the adventures of Amyas Leigh, an unruly child who as a young man follows Francis Drake to sea. Amyas loves local beauty Rose Salterne, as does nearly everyone else; much of the novel involves the kidnap of Rose by a Spaniard. Amyas spends time in the Caribbean coasts of Venezuela seeking gold, and eventually returns to England at the time of the Spanish Armada, finding his true love, the beautiful Indian maiden Ayacanora, in the process; yet fate had blundered and brought misfortune into Amyas's life, for not only had he been blinded by a freak bolt of lightning at sea, but he also loses his brother Frank Leigh and Rose Salterne, who were caught by the Spaniards and burnt at the stake by the Inquisition.
Title
The title of the book derives from the traditional call of boat-taxis on the River Thames, which would call "Eastward ho!" and "Westward ho!" to show their destination. "Ho!" is an interjection or a call to attract passengers, without a specific meaning besides "hey!" or "come!" The title is also a nod towards the play Westward Ho!, written by John Webster and Thomas Dekker in 1604, which satirised the perils of the westward expansion of London. The full title of Kingsley's novel is Westward Ho! Or The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, Rendered into Modern English by Charles Kingsley. This elaborate title is intended to reflect the mock-Elizabethan style of the novel. Kingsley dedicated the novel to Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, and Bishop George Selwyn, whom he saw as modern representatives of the heroic values of the English during the Elizabethan era.
Themes
Westward Ho! is a historical novel which celebrates England's victories over Spain in the Elizabethan era. The novel based its premise around the real life Preston Somers Expedition which took place in 1595. This was a daring raid in which the Spanish inland colonial city ofCaracas in South America was captured and plundered by English privateers led by Amyas Preston and George Somers. Although originally a political radical, Kingsley had by the 1850s become increasingly conservative and a strong supporter of British imperialism. The novel consistently emphasises the superiority of English mercantile values over those of the Spanish. Although originally written for adults, its mixture of patriotism, sentiment and romance deemed it suitable for children, and it became a firm favourite of children's literature. A prominent theme of the novel is the 16th-century fear of Catholic domination, and this reflects Kingsley's own dislike of Catholicism. The novel repeatedly shows the Protestant English correcting the worst excesses of the Spanish Jesuits and the Inquisition. The novel's virulent anti-Catholicism, as well as its racist attitudes to native peoples, has made the novel less appealing to a modern audience, although it is still regarded by some as Kingsley's "liveliest, and most interesting novel."
The book is the inspiration behind the unusual name of the village of Westward Ho! in Devon, the only place name in the United Kingdom that contains an exclamation mark. J.G. Ballard, in an interview with Vanora Bennett, claimed that being forced to copy lines from the novel as a punishment at the age of eight or nine was the moment he realised he would become a writer.
