Conservative History Journal

First, I have to report that yesterday I went to the National Film Theatre to see a rarely (well, hardly ever) shown British film The Reluctant Widow, based on one of Georgette Heyer's Regency novels. Both Wikipedia and IMDB give a bizarre misinterpretation of what happens in the film, even calling the heroine Helena when she is Elinor. It is a little perplexing why anyone should put up a plot summary of a film they had not seen or know anything about. The summary of the book's plot shows that the film kept close to it with a few changes, some of which work and some of which are superflous.

Georgette Heyer disliked all that she heard about the film or saw when it was being made and she refused to see the finished product or sell the film rights ever again. That is a great pity as her books really cry out for dramatization. The film had all the Heyer atmosphere and characteristics as well as being highly entertaining (as are the novels). In addition, and Miss Heyer would have appreciated this, it is meticulously researched as far as design, clothes, uniforms, architecture and views of London is concerned. The Art Director responsible for that was Carmen Dillon, a woman of great stature who made her name in what was then a man's world, was the Art Director on some of the best known British films like The Importance of Being Earnest (for which she won the Best Production Design Award in Venice) and Richard III as well as winning the Oscar for the Art Direction of Hamlet, the first woman ever to do so.

The plot, which revolves round espionage during the 100 Days with an urgent despatch to the Duke of Wellington in Brussels stolen in London and having to be retrieved by the hero and, as it turns out, the heroine, inevitably takes one back to the subject of Waterloo. (Though, it would seem that the book's plot is about Wellington's plan to march in the Peninsula in 1813. Unquestionably, I shall have to read the book.)

Fortunately, there are many events and exhibitions that have to do with the anniversary and an excellent one is a free exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, entitled Wellington: Triumphs, Politics and Passions.

As one would expect, much of the exhibition revolves round various portraits from very early ones to the famous 1844 daguerreotype. One of the big draws is the panoramic view of Wellington's state funeral in 1853 by Henry Alken and George Augustus Sala, which will be displayed in full for one hour on Thursday, June 18. At present one can see sections of it in the display case and in full on the screen above.

The funeral was watched by an estimated million and a half people and, as the notes say, reminded people of Wellington's days of glory, the somewhat more ambiguous record as a Prime Minister having been forgotten. One can draw certain parallels with the Churchill funeral of just over fifty years ago, as this blog wrote about it on the day of the anniversary. There is one important difference between the two farewells, both to great men, both symbols of their age: Wellington's victory in 1815 ushered in an age of British supremacy in the world in matters political, economic and ideological; Churchill's victory in 1945 saw the end of that age. Farewell to him was also a farewell to that.

Shirley Williams, Vera Brittain’s daughter, loved it, having feared initially that it would sanitise her mother, who “absolutely wasn’t a straightforward romantic heroine”. And indeed Alicia Vikander does convey Vera Brittain’s rather humourless intensity — even if she is, inevitably, luminously beautiful to Vera’s own pale prettiness. Actually, if I might party-poop a bit, what I balked at in the film was its relentless visual appeal — even the front had a period drama look to it — and the sentiments of the time have been given a contemporary spin to appeal to our own sensibility.

Tory Historian was quite excited by the prospect of a film about George VI, the Abdication Crisis and the beginning of the Second World War. All these events were within living memory (still) but, because of the lack of historical teaching in schools, are not as well known as they ought to be. A viewing was in order as soon as possible and a few subsequent discussions. Tory Historian has been somewhat discouraged both by the film and, especially, by the discussions. Sentimentality seems to overwhelm the need or desire to study history.

The forgotten war, as it is known, especially in Britain, began on June 25, 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. Astonishingly enough, it was the UN that mobilized forces to support South Korea but then the USSR was temporarily exercising an empty seat policy. Undoubtedly, it would have stopped any UN action, otherwise. According to recent books on the subject of Soviet espionage in the United States, Soviet penetration of the Manhattan Project, which allowed Stalin to build an atom bomb considerably faster than anyone had expected also enabled him to give North Korea the go-ahead for its invasion.

The picture is being republished with the full consent of the Department of Defence. Their policy is to allow all reproduction of photographs that is their property. It is of Pfc. Julias Van Den Stock of Company A, 32nd Regimental Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division with M1 or M2 Carbine, resting on a Chinese Communist bunker with a Soviet DP light machine gun, along the slope of Hill 902 north of Ip-Tong.

Just to complete the posting here is the beginning of what, in Tory Historian's opinion, is the best film about the Korean War: The Manchurian Candidate.

Tory Historian was browsing through YouTube (yes, technology has reached even TH), looking for films of historical content and importance. No sign of any excerpts from The Young Mr Pitt on which there was a posting before.

So, Laurence Olivier it has to be. There are many possibilities but here is one of Tory Historian's favourites: the St Crispin's Day speech. No, this is not the right day for it, but could anyone ever better Sir Larry in Shakespeare? He managed to make it sound like ordinary every-day speech.

Tory Historian was very excited at the news, which, for some reason was only on AFP, in English and in French, that a cache of early twentieth century films were found in Poland, in a parish building in the city of Sosnowiec.

There were these two metal boxes, left by the film buff priest, Father Jerzy Barszcz, who had been collecting films since just after World War II until his death in 2004. Or so it appears from the story. There are a few gaps in it, though.

For instance, where are the more recent films? He cannot have collected only early twentieth century ones. Did he ever show the films? Why did it take five years after his death to open those metal boxes? And why were some of them dubbed or sub-titled into Czech, as the French version of the story has it?

All of that pales into insignificance at the news that one of the films appears to be "a 1929 German version of the Sherlock Holmes adventure "The Hound of the Baskervilles" by Richard Oswald", which was officially considered to be 'lost'. How terrifying must that be.

… even though it has become very difficult to find copies without pictures of actors either from the 1981 TV series or the recent film on the cover. The film, “Brideshead Revisited”, has had more or less uniformly bad reviews on both sides of the Pond, comparison being made with the TV series that had started the careers of Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews and Diana Quick and featured such luminaries as Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Claire Bloom. It also featured another talented young actor, Nickolas Grace, but more of him anon.

The TV series is being touted as a gold standard against which the new film is being found wanted. No critic, so far as Tory Historian can make out, has made a reference to the book “Brideshead Revisited”, though Christopher Hitchins had a long article in the Guardian. In it he discussed, with great erudition, Waugh’s language, the Catholic aspects of the novel (Hitchens finds that a tad distasteful) and the significance of the Great War. He clearly finds the film very inferior and damns the TV series with faint praise:

The directors Charles Sturridge and Michael Lindsay-Hogg achieved their 1981 success by gorgeous photography, of course, and also by generally inspired casting. The locations, plainly, required little or no embellishment. And the music was suitably ... well, evocative. But most of all, they were faithful to Evelyn Waugh's beautiful dialogue and cadence, both in set-piece scenes and in sequences of languorous voice-over in Oxford and Venice and - perhaps decisively - in the opening passage, where the melancholic Captain Charles Ryder hears the almost healing word "Brideshead" spoken again: "a name that was so familiar to me, a conjuror's name of such magic power, that, at its ancient sound, the phantoms of those haunted late years began to take flight".

And I, Tiresias, have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;

Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a ‘character’, is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. … What Tiresias sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem.

I took you out to dinner to warn you of charm. I warned you expressly and in great detail about the Flyte family. Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love, it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you.

Tory Historian was somewhat underwhelmed by the news that Keira Knightley, one of our least talented young film actresses was going to play the notorious Duchess of Devonshire in a new film, directed by Saul Dibb, whose claim to cinematic fame (if that is what one means) is the 2004 “Bullet Boy”, which somehow escaped Tory Historian’s attention. Apparently it was another gritty, hard-hitting picture of ghetto youth in the East End. It may have been good but it may also have been extremely bad. Either way, it says little about Mr Dibb’s ability to understand history.

Naturally, Tory Historian is not a great fan of the duchess in question, a great Whig hostess and politician manqué. It would seem from the reviews and previews that Mr Dibb has little understanding of the duchess’s importance in history and, indeed, of the entire historical period. Instead, he has produced a film that purports to be the story of Diana, Princess of Wales in beautiful eighteenth century costume.

This is rather a shame because Amanda Foreman’s biography, “Georgiana”, on which the film is supposed to be based, was an extremely readable and well-researched book, even if the author seemed to accept that the Whigs were somehow speaking for the people and in favour of democracy, both notions somewhat anachronistic. She does not make much of it but it keeps bubbling up. Interestingly, Dr Foreman has complained about the Diana link but that has not stopped her from trying to cash in on what she must, presumably see, as a potentially very successful film.

The film, based on reviews and previews, seems to concentrate on the duke’s long-standing affair with the duchess’s friend, Lady Elizabeth Foster and then throws in the duchess’s late and somewhat catastrophic affair with Lord Grey. (Yes, he of the Reform Act in his younger incarnation. Tory Historian was stunned.)

Charles James Fox does get a look-in but nothing seems to be made of Georgiana’s involvement in politics, or of either the American or, more importantly, the French Revolution. One wonders how they deal with the insistent theory that she and Fox had an affair.

What is particularly ridiculous is the repeated reference to the “disturbed” and “unhappy” duchess, just like Diana. Even allowing for the fact that the ultra-skinny and expressionless Keira Knightley can play only disturbed and unhappy (did she bother to look at those wonderful portraits of the duchess, one wonders) this seems a daft way to talk.

There is no evidence for disturbance or unhappiness, except on occasion. Yes, her marriage was arranged and she was very young. That was the normal state of affairs in her circle and she married up, becoming the holder of a very grand title and enormous wealth. Was the marriage happy? Probably not but there was no expectation of that.

There is no evidence that Georgiana did not fit in very well with the rather dissolute Devonshire House way of life, doing what other ladies of her station in life did: spend a great deal of money on clothes and entertainment, drink and gamble, play politics and travel. How is any of that rebellious or going against what society expected from her?

Her involvement in Whig politics brought all sorts of rather brutal attacks in the Tory press, just as the Whig press attacked brutally ladies who were involved on the other side. Those were not sensitive days.

Her affair with Grey ended badly because she had a child (very bad luck) and her husband refused to have anything to do with her bastard while his own were brought up in the household. This was not necessarily the pattern with all such families so one can feel some compassion. Even more compassion goes out to the duchess because of the painful and disfiguring disease that she suffered from for some years afterwards but it is not clear whether the film deals with that.

Of course, historical films are rarely accurate and often use their theme to comment on other matters. Carol Reed’s “The Young Mr Pitt” simplified a complex biography and emphasised the theme of beleaguered Britain fighting an aggressive Continental empire. It was made during the Second World War, after all.

What is the aim of “Duchess”? Diana is hardly a figure of importance more than ten years after her death, though the sentimentalization of all things public, which many call dianafication is still with us. That has more to do with other people’s attitudes than with her own rather nebulous personality.

Why not try to make a good film out of the Duchess of Devonshire’s spectacularly interesting life story that would not make her into a victim of society and would include all the really scandalous aspects of her life (and her sister’s, the Countess of Bessborough)? Of course, one would have to have someone else play her. Someone who could act and make an attempt to resemble the original.

Tory Historian took advantage of the NFT’s Laurence Olivier season in which “Henry V” has been given pride of place with a certain number of disclaimers by critics who, over the years, have had to acknowledge with pursed lips that, despite its heroism and emphasis on patriotism, the film is superb. Some of us might think that contrariwise, the heroism and patriotism add to the quality of the film but that is probably why we are not film critics.

Made during the war, with Olivier taking time out from his service with Fleet Air Arm, it does emphasise patriotic ideals, in particular ideals of England. As it happens, none of that was invented by the film-makers – the lines, the images, the concepts are there in Shakespeare’s play, which is what makes them so interesting.

Cinematically the film is mesmerizing, beginning and ending with a panorama shot of Elizabethan London, carefully recreated from contemporary prints. Famously, Olivier accepted and incorporated into the film the sheer theatricality of the play. We start with a raucous performance of “The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France”, during which the Chorus, played by Leslie Banks, urges us to expand the play in our imagination to take in England and France, and opens out first into the Boar’s Head Inn, where Falstaff is dying, then the two courts, the armies and the battles themselves. William Walton’s music spreads through the film.

The opened up scenes are not realistic in any sense, showing the castles, the fields, Princess Katharine’s enclosed garden and everybody’s costumes as illustrations from the Book of Hours. The faint artificiality of Technicolour adds to the imagery’s beauty.

There is, throughout the play, an image of England and of the English King that is essentially different from France. The French King is not an unattractive personality but he is weak and has been buffeted by history. The Dauphin is a fool and a braggart, a man who causes trouble through his thoughtlessness. The French nobles have no link with the people. The only truly attractive character is the Herald as he becomes more and more impressed by Henry.

England, on the other hand, is its people; the King is the King of all and the yeomen are as important if not, indeed, more important than the nobles. Although, the core of the play is England as reality and as idea, there is a kind of a proto-Union in the delightful vignette of the four captains: Gower, Fluellen, Jamy and McMorris, representing the four parts of it. They dispute, quarrel and drink together and there is an undying link between them.

In the night before the battle, the French nobles and the Dauphin sit in their own tent and alternate between dismal premonition and braggadocio. The Dauphin, spends not a minute of his time on his troops – they are there to serve him and the nobles. If anything is mourned it is the destruction of its flower at Crecy, though the lesson of that has not been learnt by anyone except the King of France. The heavy and heavily decorated armour in which the knights have themselves mounted onto their unfortunate horses symbolizes France in the same way as swiftness, lightness and, above all, ingenuity symbolize England.

In the night before the battle, Henry leaves his nobles without a single complaint from them, puts on a cloak and walks through the camp, making sure he visits every tent (“a touch of Harry in the night”). He talks to soldiers as well as captains; he listens to their complaints and to their fears; he meditates on the duties and responsibilities of kingship, in some ways echoing his own father’s thoughts on the head that wears the crown lying uneasily. Of course, he does not have his father’s bad conscience, having inherited rather than usurped his position. Nevertheless, he acknowledges his responsibility for whatever horrors might come in the morning.

There is an interesting discussion between two soldiers in which one expresses the view that if the King’s cause be wrong (the very fact that an ordinary soldier can think such a thing is astonishing) he will pay a heavy price for the battle and its outcome:

I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing when blood is their argument?

Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his own.

O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposèd numbers
Pluck their hearts from them.

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile
This day shall gentle his condition:

Tory Historian, as most readers of this blog know, is addicted to films, particularly films of a certain vintage. It has always been a matter of some sadness, therefore, that so much of the film industry is and has always been in the grip of left-wing and socialist delusions.

Many of the best American films of the thirties show the evils of capitalism and capitalists, coming out on the side of the “little man”, that being the acceptable left-wing version at the time of straightforward socialism. (The idea of those big studios who destroyed anyone who got in their way coming out on the side of the "little man" is quite amusing but there is an interesting history behind all that.)

One can trace similar trends in British and Continental cinematography. In France, with the rise of the Front Populaire films that were much more obviously propaganda were made right up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

We know about the Communist infiltration of Hollywood. As Ronald and Allis Radosh have shown in their “Red Star over Hollywood” all those accused of being Communists were, indeed, that. Moreover, they used the hearings to shout their own propaganda, thus actually losing some support among their colleagues who preferred to stand on a position of free speech.

The situation now is well-known. There is no left-wing idiocy that Hollywood and the rather dilapidated British film industry will not embrace. And yet, and yet. It seems that no matter which way you turn it is conservative ideas that make good films.

Take, for example, “High Noon”, which is supposed to be a symbol of resistance against McCarthyism (only self-obsessed Hollywood types could talk about resistance against something so pathetic). Once you see it, you realize that it is nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it is no different from “Rio Bravo”, John Wayne’s supposed response to it. Well, actually, it is a little more conservative in its attitude, being a hymn of praise to individualism, courage against heavy odds and the need to use guns when necessary.

Both films display another conservative principle, as does “On the Waterfront”, the most openly anti-socialist film – human nature is complex and simple solutions do not work.

What of the many British films made in the late forties and fifties? Some are dark thrillers like “The Noose”, others are more light-hearted comedies and social dramas. By and large, they are morally ambivalent about crime, even murder. Above all, they show the British society in its heyday of socialism, the time all good Labour people hark back to, as being grimly dull and oppressive. It is individual endeavour that is celebrated, even if in a slightly back-handed way.

Libertas is a conservative American website devoted to films and film-making. There is a discussion on it at present about why it is that so many of the Hollywood mainstream films, made according to Hollywood’s ideas by Hollywood’s darlings bomb while films that are dismissed by all the biens pensants attract audiences of enviable size.

The answer may be that those despised films tell a better yarn. Or it may be that Dirty Harry, the main blogger, is right in that the films of gratuitous sex and violence, no moral grounding, no heroes, no-one to cheer for are actually seriously out of date as well as being establishment in its worst form. What audiences want is something completely different, something that is new. Or, perhaps, old.

There are some comments and disagreements as to whether it is movement forward or backward that is being approved of. The truth is that there is no real movement forward or backward, except maybe in terms of technology and technique. The same ideas come around again and again. This is what the more successful films tap into now as they have always done.

From the general to the particular. Tory Historian went to the Riverside Studios on Easter Sunday evening to see “A Foreign Affair”, one of Billy Wilder’s better known efforts. (Incidentally, how is it that no matter how many Billy Wilder films one sees, there is nary a dud one?) The film, which takes place in post-War Berlin, has just been kind of remade into a dud vehicle for George Clooney and Cate Blanchett, “The Good German”.

Let us focus on the original. Its main theme is simple: a group of Congressmen and one Congresswoman arrive in Berlin some time in 1946 or 47 (certainly, after fraternization had been allowed) to check on the American troops’ morale. They find that morale is very high, not least thanks to the fraternization with Germans, particularly the fräulein, and to some extent, other Allied personnel, particularly the Russians. Congresswoman Phoebe Frost, from Iowa, decides to do something about it and all sorts of romantic complications ensue with an ending that is not entirely straightforward.

The Congresswoman is played delightfully by Jean Arthur, one of the best comediennes, and the hero, Captain Pringle, by John Lund (who?). Then there is Marlene Dietrich, who plays her usual part, a development of Lola-Lola from “The Blue Angel”. She is a world-weary nightclub chanteuse, irresistible to men, with a past but determined to have a future. In this case, her past appears to include a long-standing affair with a Gestapo general and a position at the very top of the Nazi hierarchy. An interesting part for Dietrich who had spent the war entertaining American troops, because, in her words, “it was the decent thing to do”.

What is so fine about the film is its understanding of all the characters. Unlike the modern version (well, kind of version) the Americans are shown in a good light, if somewhat lax on questions of black market and chatting up German young ladies. The politicians are of little interest except for Miss Frost, who turns out to be honourable beyond her political convictions. The Germans are having a hard time and one can almost see them as victims until there is a little nudge from the Director that reminds one of why exactly they are in the position they are in.

Nobody is completely bad and nobody is completely good. Even the singer, the nearest we have to a bad person, given her past, is allowed one speech in which she describes what her life and that of other German women had been for the previous three or four years. Of course, had she been saying it to a British woman politician (hard to visualize) rather than an American one, she might have had a reply along the lines of: “Oh so you’ve been bombed out? Well let me tell you what happened to us in London or Plymouth or Coventry.” But even the British politician would not have been able to talk of starvation and the city being over-run by Russians.

If anyone is a hero, it is the colonel who is a secondary character. He knows a good deal of what is going on but disregards petty problems with his eye on the main task: to find the remaining Nazi leaders and to rebuild a country and a nation. Maybe playing baseball and being allowed to shout at the referee is a slightly simplistic way of changing children’s attitudes. And maybe not.

Through the complexity of various human emotions and reactions, the colonel and his subordinates assert definite truths of freedom, human endeavour and ordinary existence, all conservative ideas. Made in 1948, “A Foreign Affair” and its optimism for Germany as well as America may have seemed a little doubtful. But the colonel was right. Germany was reconstructed on acceptable principles.

Today, our readers will be intrigued to learn, is International Women’s Day. What better day there is to write about one of the greatest woman writers in the English language, one who was, moreover, according to Professor Marilyn Butler, a conservative in her outlook.

In her “Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries” Professor Butler contrasts Jane Austen with Maria Edgeworth, the latter being a representative of the Enlightenment while Miss Austen harks back to a different set of ideas. While appreciating that changes are happening in the world she describes, Jane Austen, nevertheless, glorifies the old-fashioned community of the countryside with a responsible “leader” at the head of it.

Nor does she think highly of individuals following their own instincts, ideas or understanding. Her heroines achieve happiness only when they accept the judgements of the world. Then again, as Professor Butler refers to glancingly, the world, as represented by Sir Walter Elliott and Lady Russell (well-meaning, though the latter is) or by the Bingley sisters is not precisely accurate in its own judgements.

This is the problem with Jane Austen: it is immensely difficult to fit her into any category. She is largely conservative in her social attitudes but many of her own judgements are too radical even for modern film and TV producers.

Tory Historian is a great Jane Austen fan, having read all her novels several times, most of the early pieces and fragments, a couple of biographies, critical studies (most of them inadequate) and some of the letters. Therefore, the Mills and Boonification of Jane has not been to Tory Historian’s taste.

This is rather a new development in that back in the days the BBC had Sunday tea-time serials, which were not high-profile, there had been several extremely good adaptations of the Austen novels.

Once the “Classic Serial” became a flagship programme, everything has changed. The high-profile films have not helped. Those clever, witty, extremely hard-hitting novels have been turned into romantic mush.

The final insult is the latest film, which turns Miss Austen’s own life into mush. Young(ish) Anne Hathaway, last seen being unable to sustain the supposed main part in “The Devil Wears Prada” is smirking on posters as she is “Becoming Jane”. One wonders what she was before that.

Miss Hathaway tells us that she spent a month in London, reading all Jane Austen’s letters in the British Library. This may even be true. But why is it that neither she nor the film’s director or designer have managed to notice that young ladies of the period did not wear décolleté dresses during the day or go around bare-headed, as shown above in the drawing made by Cassandra Austen of her sister.

At the same time there has been an extraordinary promotion of Miss Austen’s male characters. According to all recent dramatizations, the novels are nothing but love stories with both members of the main couple being of equal importance. Several male actors have acquired the status of a sex symbol by playing in an Austen film or TV serial.

It seems that the modern film-maker finds it impossible to grasp that those novels are about women. The men are secondary, little more than marriage objects. Even when they are of importance in the community like Mr Knightley in “Emma”, they are seen entirely from the heroine’s point of view.

The famous TV series of “Pride and Prejudice” with Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett and Colin Firth as Mr Darcy starts with the young men riding into town (Meryton, one assumes). This places them at the centre of the subsequent plot.

Nothing could be further from the novel, which is about the Bennett family and, famously, starts with them discussing the recent arrival of Mr Bingley about whom they know very little but whom they suspect to be extremely eligible.

“Pride and Prejudice” is a clever picture of contemporary society. Unlike some Victorian novelists, Jane Austen has a clear idea of money. Mr Bennett has £2,000 a year and has been unable to increase that income or to save money for his daughters, largely because of his abdication of responsibility.

Mr Bingley has £4,000 or £5,000 a year and has not yet settled down. His sisters have an income of their own, so their father must have made quite a fortune in his business in the Midlands, something that they do not want to remember.

Mr Darcy is, of course, the representative of the old aristocracy, related to all sorts of people, the owner of a handsome estate that, unlike Mr Bennett, he pays attention to (though when exactly is hard to tell) and has £10,000 a year. This is to be viewed more like turn-over in a modern business rather than clear profit, as the money has to be used for the upkeep of Pemberley, the household, the estate as well as his lifestyle.

No-one can accuse Miss Austen of being a snob. She may not think young girls should follow their own inclination, not being capable of making the right decision, but neither is she exactly enamoured of snobbish creatures like Lady Catherine de Burgh or her toady, Mr Collins.

In the end, it is being a gentleman or one of a gentleman’s family that counts, as Elizabeth famously tells Lady Catherine. But a gentleman has to do his duties as well as enjoy privileges. Mr Bennett is a sad failure in this respect as are numerous other “gentlemen” in the novels. It is the new, rising class of naval officers who are shown to be the real gentlemen in “Persuasion”, not the vain, selfish, stupid baronet, Sir Walter Elliott.

One could go on like this and, possibly, there will be an article in the soon to be published next issue of the Conservative History Journal. At present, all Tory Historian can suggest is that all those who really love Jane Austen’s novels should unite in “reclaiming Jane” from the terrible mush that she has been consigned to recently.