Conservative History Journal

Unfortunately the National Gallery exhibition, Rebels and Martyrs – The Image of the Artist in the Nineteenth Century closed yesterday and Tory Historian, preoccupied with other matters, did not manage to see it until the last day.The verdict: so-so. Some very nice pictures that we do not get to see very often, such as paintings by the Nabis group (though nothing by the Pre-Raphaelites who, though active later, had somewhat similar ideas)...

For various reasons Tory Historian is not a great fan of Stanley Baldwin (possibly that attitude has grown out of a long-held conviction that Lord Curzon ought to have become Prime Minister in 1923).All the same, one must give credit where it is due and this is an excellent summary of what ought to be the mainspring of conservative political thinking: "A government is not in power, it is in office, put there by the will of the people."Let...

One of Tory Historian’s many weaknesses is an almost insuperable lack of interest in the actual military history of World War II. That is balanced by an abiding fascination with the politics around the various agreements before, during and after, particularly if these involved shenanigans to do with the great dictators. Thus of the three anniversaries to be marked today – start of the Blitz (1940), start of the Battle of Stalingrad (1942)...

Tory Historian sometimes finds it difficult to take the “martyrs” of the British labour or revolutionary movement seriously. There seems to be so few of them and so many potentially difficult situations are resolved peacefully in this country. Long may that continue.Take the Tolpuddle Martyrs, for instance. Six of them and all came back after being deported. All that oppression during the French wars, real though it was, pales into insignificance...

Tory Historian was brought up by an historian father, who had an overwhelmingly high opinion of western civilization and its progenitors, the Greeks of ancient times. Inevitably, the battles against the Persians, Thermopylae, Marathon, Salamis and Plataea were all names, familiar as household words (as the Bard said about another great battle).Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae. Well, to be quite precise, the anniversary...

Michael Barone is one of the leading commentators in the United States and he seems to be something of an Anglophile. At least, he writes frequently and, usually, with approval on aspects of British life.Here is his response, rather than review, to William Hague’s much lauded biography of William Pitt (readers will need to scroll down). Barone is greatly taken by Hague’s description of Pitt’s constant emphasis on the need for a long-term...