Details
For reasons unknown, Sir Deakin Killigrew failed to attend his father’s funeral, although travel boat from St. Pol, the port of Morlaix, to Fowey, the port nearest Gleys, would have taken but a few hours. He leaves the trip until November, preferring a longer sea-route to (probably) London, and then an even longer land route to Cornwall through war-torn southern England.
Sir Deakin Killigrew is the only son of Killigrew of Gleys. At the time he appears in the novel he is said to be about fifty, suggesting a birth date of c.1592. Sir Bevil Grenville claimed to have known him – possibly at Oxford. Grenville was born in 1595 and took his degree at Exeter College, Oxford in 1613. As Sir Deakin seems to be without political, religious or military affiliations, it is difficult to see what he was knighted for. From the time of his marriage he appears to have lived in Brittany, with both his children growing up there. The family would have spoken French, English and Cornu-Breton.
Sir Deakin Killigrew is formally presented to the reader in Chapter V. Sir Deakin and Delia Killigrew, along with their servant Jacques, are lodged in the upper room of the Three Cups inn, with Luke Settle and his gang plotting their murder from the room below. Sir Deakin is a wealthy, deformed and tubercular man. As Jack Marvel enters the upper room he is preparing a ‘liqueur’ in a silver saucepan, but the entry distracts him and in a rage he sweeps all the equipment from the table, beats Jacques with his fists and falls coughing to the ground. Delia looks on unconcerned. It is the most bizarre scene in the novel and very difficult to interpret.
Sir Deakin is also clever, cunning and courageous, as his escape from Settle and his murderous associates demonstrates. Death holds no fear for him as his body has never allowed him to live and he is far from sorry to flee its deformity.