Conservative History Journal

Early in the afternoon of January 30, 1649, Charles I, who, apparently, insisted on wearing three shirts so he would not shiver from cold, stepped through the window of Whitehall Palace's Banqueting Hall to the scaffold. His execution did not solve the various issues of the Great Rebellion as Lord Clarendon called it or the Civil War. It was, nevertheless, a shattering event. Kings had been deposed and murdered before in English, Scottish...

It was the most extraordinary event. Many people have written about it and tried to understand it but it remains hard to comprehend. It is not as if Churchill died young, nor had he been in power for some years. In fact, when in power or just politically active, he was not particularly popular, not even as war leader and certainly not after the war. Let us not forget that under his leadership the Conservative Party lost two elections out of three and barely managed to win the third one because the Liberal Party could not stand...

Yesterday's event at the National Liberal Club was very successful: well attended, two fascinating presentations and a largely excellent discussion though there were a couple of contributors who asked the speakers to confirm something that the latter had already said. The event was recorded and as soon as it goes on line this blog will link to it. The account of Asquith's 1915 - 1916 coalition and its eventual failure raised many interesting questions, one of which, in my mind, concerned the Churchill coalition of 1940. In...

We have finally reached the actual date: January 24, fifty years since the death of Sir Winston Churchill (1965) and 120 years since the death of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill (1895). A curious coincidence, which would have appealed to the son. ...

Sir Winston Churchill, one of the best known politicians (or so people think) in this country, a man of many talents and of many flaws, a man who worked hard to create his own myth that has survived better than most others, died on January 24, 1965. The fiftieth anniversary is nearly upon us and, this blog is happy to acknowledge, a discussion is taking place in parallel to the usual mythological pronouncements. This evening, as we have mentioned before, Professor Vernon Bogdanor is giving a talk at the Museum of London on...

All it takes is a few words and phrases: trenches, barbed wire, mud, water, lost generation. And above all, the Western Front. Because nothing else happened in all those years, not the war in the air, no naval battles, no Eastern Front, no fighting in the Middle East or Africa, nothing. There were the trenches, the mud, the water, the barbed wire .... oh I do apologize, I seem to have become stuck in a groove. Melanie McDonagh writes...

There have been several coalition governments in modern British politics (the term is inappropriate for the period prior to the formation of well defined parties) and one is coming to an end. The Liberal Democrat History Group together with the Conservative History Group will be looking at another such coalition that was formed 100 years ago. In May 1915, following political and military setbacks, Liberal prime minister H H Asquith brought senior figures from the opposition parties into his government. The meeting will look...

Another anniversary is due at the end of the month: the fiftieth of the death of Sir Winston Churchill. About a week before that, Professor Vernon Bogdanor will be giving a lecture on his legacy at Gresham College. As you will see if you follow the link, the event is free but is likely to have a great deal of interest. Anyone who is interested should try to get there ear...

Very remiss of this blog not to note the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the great poet, essayist and conservative thinker, T. S. Eliot yesterday. As it happens, I am writing this in London Library, of which he was President from 1952 to 1964 and which has recently benefited greatly from the generosity of his widow, Valerie Eliot. Indeed, the new section of the library is called after the great man though I should have preferred...