Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian has been a little busy and has therefore been remiss in welcoming the new Princess of Cambridge. Of course, TH is delighted that she will be known as Princess Charlotte - an excellent name that has not been used by the royal family for a little while,perhaps because of the sad fate of an earlier princess of that name, daughter of George IV. Let us not forget, though, how popular she was.

Tory Historian managed to miss the Duke of Edinburgh's 90th birthday but can do no better than to link to an article by that excellent journalist, Ruth Dudley Edwards. It is mostly about the difference between the Duchess of Cambridge, a seemingly sensible, balanced individual on the one hand and the Princess of Wales (Princess Di, as she is known to the media) and the Duchess of York (Fergy, as she is known to the media). Both of these, as the article points out, were "vulnerable, ill-educated and rather dim young women" with Diana possessing more than her fair share of manipulativeness.

So affected was Oprah by Sarah's despair at having appeared on television drunkenly offering access to ex-husband Prince Andrew for vast sums of money and subsequently at her exclusion from the royal wedding, that she decided to help her rebuild her life. So Oprah has financed Finding Sarah, a reality-TV series in which experts ("We're here to help") advise Sarah on how to make a real beginning to her new journey. This requires that along with the watching millions she learns "why I kept self-sabotaging all these years". She's "moving on with strength and positivity". Sarah speaks fluent American gobbledygook.

One can imagine the gritted teeth at Buckingham Palace, where the Duke of Edinburgh has celebrated his 90th birthday by holding a charity reception and chairing a conference of military colonels. While he's been reducing his more demanding commitments on the grounds that "it's better to get out before you reach the sell-by date", he works on. And as his erstwhile daughter-in-law shares newly remembered childhood hurts, Prince Philip remains tight-lipped about what it was like to grow up rootless and virtually parentless and to have to abandon the promising naval career he adored in order to be a consort. His generation believes in duty and doesn't whinge, which is why he and the Queen found the behaviour of soul-barers Sarah and Princess Diana bewildering.

Yesterday was the anniversary of both Charles II's birth and, more importantly, his astonishingly peacerful entry into London in 1660 at the start of his own long and rather controversial reign. Well, it has attracted a great deal of controversy then and since.

Through London Historians Tory Historian can link to an excellent article on the subject by Tom Sykes.

Francesco Giavarina [Venetian Ambassador to England] was not alone in waking up on the 30th May with a hangover and the creeping realisation that someone would have to pay for the party. On Tuesday 29 May 1660, his thirtieth birthday, Charles Stuart returned to London for the first time since he left as a boy at the start of his father’s long and bloody civil war. He rode into a city which a decade previously had looked on unblinking as Parliament severed his father’s head from his body and the nation from its monarchy. He had attempted to return before, but many plans and plots came to nothing. Even his invasion at the head of a Scottish army had failed. It had taken the death of Oliver Cromwell two years earlier, the crumbling of Parliamentary authority, and a distinct lack of options for his time to come.

Tory Historian has been reading three different books at different rates. Firstly a collection of Victorian detective stories, edited by Michael Cox, consisting of some very well known works, some not so well known and some quite obscure, which is always a joy to find. Even the least well known and the weakest of the writers (not always the same thing) display an ability to manipulate style that is seen only among the best nowadays. And, as ever, it is astonishing how many of the stories are not about murder but fraud or robbery, all too often of jewels but sometimes of money, which comes in both paper and gold.

Tory Historian possesses a slightly battered copy of If It Had Happened Otherwise, a book of counterfactuals, published in 1931, in which the best essay is undoubtedly by Mr Guedalla who envisages European history after a Moorish victory at Granada.

And finally, Monarchy Matters by the Director of the New Culture Forum, Peter Whittle. This one has only just been started so little can be reported apart from that it is enormously interesting. TH cannot help quoting a paragraph or two, found by random leafing through, on the Royal Family and the general thirst for celebrity:

Diana had always understood the need for visibility - the need to be seen to be doing what you were doing. Even though she died before the celebrity age took proper hold, it was obvious that she had a well-developed instinct for the headline or the arresting photograph. There can be nobody left in the country who does not know of the attention she paid to Aids sufferers or the victims of landmines. Her friendship with fashion and showbiz stars epitomized by the image of her comforting Elton John at the funeral of the fashion designer Gianni Versace, added to her lustre as a sort of international celebrity. In this kind of atmosphere, those who went about their duties without the aid of stardust simply could not compete. The hundreds of public engagements carried out by Princess Anne every year, and her decades of work for theSave the Children Fund, now go largely unremarked and uncovered by the media. Even the Prince's Truyst - which, since it was first established by Prince Charles, has gone on to become one of the most important and successful public endeavours of its kind ever to be initiated by a member of the royal family - has still not been accorded the recognition it is due.

This blog wishes Prince William and Kate Middleton, soon to be Princess William (not Princess Kate) every happiness in their difficult future. Below is a picture taken by TH in the Mall yesterday afternoon.

It would be wrong of Tory Historian to ignore Her Majesty the Queen's 85th birthday today. As ever she is working, handing out Maundy money at Westminster Abbey.


Here is another, much earlier picture of the Princess Elizabeth and the Princess Margaret broadcasting to the children of Britain and the Commonwealth from Windsor in 1940 at the height of the Blitz.

It is not entirely clear to Tory Historian why International Women's Day, ignored in Britain since beginnings a century ago, should now be celebrated across the land. It is, however, satisfactory to know that March 8 is also the anniversary of Queen Anne's ascension to the throne after the death of her brother-in-law, William III, after a hunting accident. He was thrown from his horse who had stumbled into a mole's burrow. William's collar bone was broken and the complicating pneumonia carried him off.

The Jacobites now had another toast to drink: not just "the King over the water" but also "the gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat", that is the mole.

Curiously enough, the other William who had conquered England, though somewhat more bloodily, also died as a result of a fall off a horse.

June 2, 1953 saw the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, a day most people imagine as rather glorious, though, apparently it rained steadily. Well, what do you expect in England in June?

Here is an archival footage in which TV and film coverage are spliced as can be seen by the sudden appearance of colour about a third of the way through.

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 choice in spices and Indian food.

There was then a discussion among the British guests as to the origin of the dish, one person opining that it was created for the coronation of either Victoria or Edward VII with ingredients from every member of what was then the Empire.

Tory Historian remained doubtful, having been convinced some time ago that it was created for the coronation of Elizabeth II. It seems that TH was right. The dish was, indeed, created for the Queen's coronation banquet by Constance Spry (not exactly a florist as Wiki has it by a woman who changed the whole concept of flower arranging and formal cooking in this country) and the chef Rosemary Huyme.

It does, indeed, consist of cold chicken, mayonnaise and curry powder or paste with various additions, like raisins and almonds that were, possibly, seen as exotic in post-war Britain. Of course, one can have a rather grand recipe as supplied by Sophie Grigson.