Shōgun

John Blackthorne is a restless English pilot who went to sea seeking a new life and destiny.

The story of John Blackthorne is based on the life of William Adams, an English pilot and adventurer born in Gillingham in 1564.Adams was trained as a navigator by shipbuilder Nicholas Diggins. He spent his youth in troubled times. England was still a small country, while Spain had vast colonies in the Americas.&nbsp;The Catholic king of Spain wanted to get rid of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth and replace her with a Catholic queen. When the Spanish Armada attempted to invade England, Adams joined the queen's navy and, as captain of one of the supply ships, helped defeat the Spanish fleet in the English Channel in 1588.After this feat, for ten years Adams served the Barbary Company, a merchant company engaged in trade with Morocco and privateering against Spanish and Portuguese ships. Meanwhile, he married Mary Hyn and they had two children, a son and a daughter.

During his time with the Barbary Company, Adams became acquainted with some Dutch traders. At the time, the Protestant English and Dutch were brothers in arms, at war with the Catholic Spanish and Portuguese. And because the Spanish and Portuguese controlled the lucrative trade with Asian, the Dutch and English sought to break this monopoly.&nbsp;Two English privateers, Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish, had already circumnavigated the globe. Both had sailed around South America via the Strait of Magellan and plundered Spanish bases and ships on the west coast of the Americas before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope.&nbsp;In 1598 a fleet in Rotterdam sought to emulate this feat, and Adams decided to try his luck and joined the expedition as a pilot. Many Englishmen were involved, including his brother Thomas and his good friend Timothy Shotten, who had sailed with Cavendish. The fleet sailed in June 1598 with five heavily armed ships carrying 107 cannons and 500 sailors, including many soldiers.&nbsp;

The voyage proved to be very difficult. Delays caused by unfavourable winds led to food shortages and widespread scurvy among the sailors. Skirmishes with the Portuguese in the Cape Verde Islands, west of the African continent, caused further delays. In an attempt to resupply, they landed at Cape Lopez, at the southern end of the Gulf of Guinea, but found no food.&nbsp;The fleet then set sail for the island of Annobón, another Portuguese stronghold. They took the city by force, but encountered stiff guerrilla resistance and were again unable to get enough food to heal the weak and sick sailors. In this condition, the fleet crossed the Atlantic and arrived in the Strait of Magellan, where they became stranded and had to spend the winter.

The cold and hunger proved unbearable for the sailors, who succumbed one by one. By the time spring arrived and the fleet was finally able to leave the strait, it had lost nearly a third of its crew.&nbsp;Sailing north along the Chilean coast, the fleet ran into a violent storm that separated the ships. Eventually, one ship returned to the Netherlands, one ship and its crew were taken by the Spanish, and the crew of another ship was slaughtered by the Portuguese.&nbsp;The two remaining ships, the Hoop and the Liefde, found each other near the island of Santa Maria off the coast of Chile. Desperation was high as both ships had been ambushed by the Mapuches on separate occasions. With their captains and officers killed, they had only about 50 men left. Adams's brother Thomas was among the victims.

After obtaining food from some benevolent Spaniards in Santa Maria, the two ships narrowly escaped the Spanish fleet searching for them. They crossed the Pacific Ocean but encountered a violent storm.&nbsp;The Hoop, with Shotten as pilot, disappeared, never to be seen again. Now the Liefde, with Adams as pilot and second in command behind Captain Jacob Quackernaeck, was on its own.&nbsp;With the captain ill, Adams did his best to steer the ship toward Japan, where they thought they would find buyers for their woollen cloth. The ship finally arrived, in dire condition, at Usuki Bay, about 10 km north of the castle town of Usuki (now Oita Prefecture), in Kyushu, the westernmost of Japan's four main islands.There were only 24 men on board when the ship entered Japanese waters. 6 men died soon after. Many were ill, including the captain. Only a few men could stand on their feet, and Adams was one of them. In this precarious situation, they were at the mercy of the Lord of Usuki.

A Taikō leaves his legacy.&nbsp;Host Emily Yoshida and guests break down episode 2 of FX’s Shōgun. Featuring executive producer and co-creator Rachel Kondo, actor Cosmo Jarvis "Blackthorne," producer Eriko Miyagawa, and director Johnathan Van Tulleken. Creators and cast discuss why some characters' names in the original book had to be changed for the show, why Ishido might be a sympathetic villain, and what Blackthorne sees in Yabushige.

Episode 2 - Servants of Two Masters

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John Blackthorne is a restless English pilot who went to sea seeking a new life and destiny. 

John Blackthorne in a candlelit room opened up to a bright courtyard behind him for FX’s Shogun

John Blackthorne from FX's Shōgun

Close up shot of Blackthorne in FX’s Shogun

John Blackthorne | FX's Shōgun

The Anjin

Historical Background

Lost at Sea

Episode 2 - Servants of Two Masters

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