Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian cannot praise highly enough the current exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Constable Portraits - the Painter and his Circle. Despite several tragic tales behind the portraits, it is a happy exhibition because of the light in the pictures and in the sitters.Constable is the compleat English painter. His landscapes seem to be England and many a person who had never seen the country arrived here convinced that everything...

Tory Historian is bemused. There are airy references to the Speaker who was expelled in 1695 for taking bribes but no explanation as to the mechanism whereby this was achieved.The Daily Telegraph gives a swift summary of some of the highlights in the history of that venerable institution. Well, highlights and low lights: In the years before 1560, seven speakers were beheaded and one was murdered.The office of speaker was first held by Sir...

When King Charles I entered the House of Commons on January 4, 1842 1642 (shame!) to arrest five members who had criticized him in what he felt was a treacherous manner, Speaker William Lenthall, not known until then for his particular courage or ability to control the House sat in his Chair, looked around, noted that the "birds" had, indeed, "flown" and said to the King: May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.Which...

Alistair Cooke, the man who has forgotten more about Conservative and Tory history than most of us ever hope to learn and a frequent contributor to the Conservative History Journal, reviews David Torrance's "We in Scotland: Thatcherism in a Cold Climate". The story is somewhat different from the way it is usually presented in the media but that is not surprising. Oh, by the way, David Torrance is also a contributor ot the C...

… than the detective novels of the so-called Golden Age, that is the twenties and thirties. To be perfectly honest, even Tory Historian finds many of them a tad tedious but they have their virtues. The one under discussion is “Colonel Gore’s Second Case” by Lynn Brock (real name Alexander McAllister but also wrote under the name Anthony Wharton), once a very well known and popular writer of detective stories, now barely remembered.Willard...

Yesterday Tory Historian attended a reception where there were British and American guests. One of the plates of canapes had little tartlets with what the waiter cheerfully explained was coronation chicken. American guest drew back, alarmed by the yellow colouring.Tory Historian explained equally cheerfully that it was merely cold chicken in mayonnaise, adding as an afterthought, with curry powder. It is, in fact a matter of some wonder to TH why this dish so redolent of the fifties should have survived into the age of far greater...

For various reasons Tory Historian is beginning to be immersed in Xenophon's account of the march of 10,000. The English version that is under discussion (for a Roundtable later in the year) is the recent translation by Wayne Ambler. Still, there is no harm in looking at alternatives and when the opportunity of acquiring a copy of Rex Warner's translation, published in Penguin Classics for the vast sum of £1.99, Tory Historian could not...

Tory Historian wandered into the newly opened Mediaeval Gallery of the British Museum (well, partially opened) and was suitably impressed. The rooms have been restored to their pre-wartime incendiary bomb splendour and the exhibits are well displayed with many visible that were not in the past. There is a fine attempt to give an overall picture of life from highest to lowest in mediaeval Europe.One question remains and Tory Historian is determined to find the answer: what happened to the Hinton St Mary pavement of which only...

Tory Historian decided that the best way of celebrating Victory Day is to have a good look at one of David King’s books: “Ordinary Citizens – The Victims of Stalin”. As the Bard said: “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now” (from Julius Caesar, as it happens).Most of the book consists of the last mugshots taken in the Lubyanka, the Moscow prison that was (and is) the headquarters of the Soviet (Russian) secret police in its various...

In actual fact, General Alfred Jodl signed the Instrument of Surrender early on May 7 at Rheims but it was due to come into effect late on May 8, after another Instrument had been signed in Berlin at the Soviet insistence. To this day, the Soviet Union Russia celebrates Victory Day on May 9. Wikipedia gives the timeline here and he...

Although it is the twenties and thirties that are considered to be the golden age of detective story writing, Tory Historian, on the whole, prefers their Victorian and Edwardian predecessors. One reason is the more leisurely and better written style (with some exceptions on both sides).Then there is the fact that many of the Victorian stories, of whatever length, are about other crimes, not just murder, which is unthinkable either with...

The media and the blogosphere are buzzing with that anniversary. Thirty years ago the Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, won the first of four elections and began a government that proved to be the most radical in its reforms than any since Attlee's 1945 one that sealed this country's socialism.Tory Historian is not going to rehash all the arguments for and against (mostly for as the lady was undoubtedly the greatest prime minister...

Well, new to Tory Historian who was directed to it by a reader. Other readers may recall Tory Historian's gushing praise of the Histories performed by the RSC at the Roundhouse (they had been performed over two years at Stratford's Courtyard before that) here and here.Since then Tory Historian, in company with many of the 250,000 or thereabouts who had seen the Histories, has searched on and off the names of the actors to find out what they are doing now.Well, no need to search. There is now a blog that deals with just that...