Conservative History Journal

The death of Queen Elizabeth I on March 24, 1603 meant that James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne as James I of England. This brought about the de facto union of the two countries under the Crown.

Of course, the death of a lady who is 105, has lived a good life and died peacefully is not a tragic matter but this news saddened Tory Historian a little. Andree Peel, Agent Rose in the Resistance, who saved 100 or more Allied servicemen, survived Nazi concentration camps and escaped the firing squad, died earlier this month and is being buried today.

Tory Historian cannot help feeling that the manager of the care home where Mrs Peel had lived and died ought not to have been inteviewed if all she could come up with was a completely trite comment that makes one wonder if she actually remembers which one Mrs Peel was: "We are all a bit shell-shocked here. She was lovely - an amazing character with such a strong spirit."

Tory Historian was particularly impressed by the information that some time after her husband's death, Mrs Peel "found companionship with Brian Westaway, a fellow Lampton House resident".

One of the four patron saints of this country, St Patrick is, as far as anyone can establish, an interesting character. It did not surprise Tory Historian to find out that much of the mythology associated with St Paddy was either invented later or has more to do with other characters of the period.

It is, interestingly, enough his death that is celebrated on March 17, other dates being somewhat uncertain. The year, as that great history book 1066 And All That would put it, being completely unmemorable. As the detailed and cautious article on Wikipedia says:

Saint Patrick's Day (17 March) is celebrated both in and outside of Ireland, as both a liturgical and non-liturgical holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland it is a both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation and outside of Ireland, it can be a celebration of Ireland itself.

Tory Historian is immensely grateful to a sadly anonymous commenter on a previous posting on a clerical detective, who has pointed out that the excellent website, Clerical Detectives has moved. Here is the link. Very well worth browsing and following up on suggestions.

... to Thomas Arne, composer of many things, but especially of Rule Britannia, and one of the first people to fight over copyright:

In 1741 Arne filed a complaint in Chancery pertaining to a breach of musical copyright and claimed that some of his theatrical songs had been printed and sold by Henry Roberts and John Johnson, the London booksellers and music distributors. The matter was settled out of court. Arne was certainly one of the very first composers to have appealed to the law over copyright issues.

Two pictures from the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule that broke out on March 10, 1959 and was suppressed swiftly and brutally. These two show a Chinese officer addressing Tibetans after the uprising had been put down and refugees leaving in large numbers. The Guardian has a whole selection of photographs.

Not a round date but Tory Historian likes to celebrate this one. March 5, 1953 was the day when the death of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, one of the greatest mass murderers of all times (probably Mao Tse-Tung was worse but who is counting) was announced. There is some mystery, according to various accounts, not least by his daughter Svetlana, as to whether he did die on that day or the day before. Had he simply had a stroke and his entourage was too scared to do anything about it, hoping that he would simply die and that would be that? Possible.

The picture of the funeral procession does not show the exact truth. As Moscow was filled with crowds who were ordered to process, the side streets were closed off by the police and the secret police. People who tried to get out because of the ever growing numbers found their way blocked and there was a huge crush with unknown numbers killed in it. As Stalin lived, so he died - in a sea of blood.

It is a long time since we linked to a new historical blog that would be of interest to our readers. So here is one, that seems full of goodies, mostly to do with seventeenth century history, which is appropriate, given its name, but also general discussions about the teaching of history in universities and suchlike matters.

US Marines raise the Stars and Stripes above Iwo Jima

The flag was raised four days after the US forces landed on the island and happened after fierce fighting. The photo taken by Joe Rosenthal, who died in August 2006 at the age of 94, won the Pulitzer Prize (deserved for once) and became one of the best known images of the Second World War.

Tory Historian is well aware that two photographs were taken as the flag in the first raising was deemed to be too small, but that does not mean that this was a fake. The marines had fought hard to gain the island and the photograph recorded their courage and determination.

Tory Historian found some exciting news about an archaeological find in the Holy Land, nowadays known as the Middle East or Israel. Well, East Jerusalem, to be quite precise. Setting aside the political implications, which have no place on this blog, it is fascinating to learn:

The excavations conducted by archeologist Eilat Mazar in the Ophel area revealed a section of an ancient city wall of Jerusalem. According to the press release from the Hebrew University, under whose auspices the project was carried out, the dig uncovered the wall as well as an inner gatehouse for entry into the royal quarter of the ancient city and an additional royal structure adjacent to the gatehouse as well as a corner tower. While ancient buildings are not uncommon in the city, the significance of this discovery is the fact that these edifices can be dated to the 10th century before the Common Era — the time of King Solomon, credited by the Bible for the construction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Pottery found at the lowest levels of the dig is dated to this era.

Even more telling is the fact that bullae — seal impressions — with Hebrew names were found, as well as seal impressions on jar handles inscribed with the words “to the king,” which means they were employed by the Israelite state in that time. Inscriptions on the jars, which Mazar says are the largest ever found in Jerusalem, showed them to be the property of a royal official.

The significance of this extraordinary find is that it provides new proofof the existence and power of the Davidic monarchy, the Israelite state that it led, and the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish presence in Jerusalem. These new discoveries, along with those of a previous dig in a different area of the city of David, contradict contrary Palestinian claims that the Jews have no claim to the area. They also debunk the assertions of some Israeli archeologists who have sought to portray the kingdom of David and Solomon as an insignificant tribal group and not the regional empire that the Bible speaks about. Indeed, Mazar believes that the strength and the form of construction required to build these structures correlates with biblical passages that speak of Solomon’s building of a royal palace and of the Temple with the assistance of master builders from Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon). Moreover, contrary to those who speak of the Jewish presence in the city as a passing phase in ancient times, the discovery of Jewish seals, which speak directly of an Israelite state, proves that what Mazar has found are not the remains of a Jebusite fort conquered by the Jews but rather of a great city built by David and his son Solomon.

The latest edition of the Conservative History Journal is definitely out. I have a copy in front of me as I type. It's full of goodies: clever and controversial ones. How can anyone resist an admiring article about Lord Liverpool and an iconoclastic one about Winston Churchill? So, you all want to know where and how one can get a copy (except those of you who are already members of the Conservative History Group and have therefore received it or will do so shortly).

The CHG address is: PO Box 279, tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 4WJ. You can either join the Group at the price of £15 per annum or send £7.50 plus £1 p&p just for the Journal. Hurry, hurry. Stocks do not last for ever.

No, this is not one of those peculiar games people play in which one is supposed to put together the most unlikely concepts into one sentence but an account of Tory Historian’s jaunt to Leicester last week-end.

The pretext was an exhibition of what was billed, justifiably as it turned out, as the largest collection of German Expressionist art in the UK. In Leicester? Tory Historian was somewhat surprised but also fascinated by the tale behind the collection.

The exhibition was marking the beginning of that splendid collection: in 1944, a most unlikely moment in history, the then Director of the Museum, Trevor Thomas, put together an exhibition of German Expressionist art, having talked various German refugee collectors, whom the wise British Government of the day had interned, to lend the splendid works they had managed to bring out of their country.

The exhibition was, astonishingly, successful both with critics (the local newspapers were rather proud of having such an outstanding and imaginative art gallery director) and the public. The gallery collection was started by several painting purchased from the exhibition and continued to grow, becoming world famous, though not so very well known among British art visitors.

The most recent addition to it was a large and fascinating collection of German Expressionist works, particularly of prints, put together by a businessman who had been born in Leicester, Michael Brooks. Tory Historian is delighted to see that the old tradition of businessmen spending money on art or architecture to honour their own city is alive and well. One must tip one’s hat to Michael Brooks and the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery who appreciated the gift.

The rest of the day was taken up by walking round Leicester and seeing the Cathedral (a little disappointing) as well some superb churches, the most exciting of which was St Mary de Castro.

Possibly the most exciting part of that walk for Tory Historian was the discovery that the City and the good burghers of Leicester clearly never abandoned their loyalty to the one they call King of England, Richard III. He is supposed to have been buried somewhere in the City or, perhaps, thrown into the ditch just outside it in the charming way those Tudors behaved. The story is quite convoluted as this article explains and the truth remains unknown.

There are several memorials as well as streets and schools named after the last Plantagenet King. This statue shows him as a young (well, he was youngish though not for those days) and romantic hero with nary a sign of a hump. Eat your heart out, Will.

Near the remains of the castle there is a board, put up in 1985, at the 500th anniversary of the year when two kings visited Leicester. It is quite clear which one the city saw and still sees as the rightful one: Richard III is described as King of England who rode into Leicester some time before the fateful battle of Bosworth Field; Henry VII came to the city on the evening of August 22, after he had “vanquished” Richard and brought his body with him. One can imagine the sullen burghers of Leicester watching the arrogant invader as he rode in with the body of the rightful Kind in the baggage van.

The Conservative History Journal is actually at the printer. Phew, I hear people saying. Yes, it will be available very soon. In the meantime, the idea of a journal on line has taken a step forward. Jerome di Constanzo, writer, journalist and un vrai conservateur, has answered my call and sent me this article on the Gordon Riots, an important episode in English history but one that is, as he says, little known.
Except perhaps for a few Roman Catholics in Britain, the Gordon riots of 1780 are today almost forgotten by the majority of the British people. This was the last anti-Catholic uprising, which, during a short week gave London a vision of how it might be to live through the Terror.

On 2nd June, around 50, 000 people, led by the Protestant Association leader Lord George Gordon MP, marched on Parliament House under banners demanding “No Popery” and with a petition against the Papists Act of 1778, which had been introduced by Sir George Saville, and which sought to reintegrate Catholics into the army and to remove a number of legal disabilities. The demonstrators saw this Act as revoking the Popery Act of 1698 consequently being a reconsideration of the Glorious Revolution’s political settlement.

While Gordon was inside Parliament presenting the petition, the demonstrators started to attack the carriages and people trying to enter Westminster. Violence spread – that evening the Sardinian and Bavarian Embassies’ chapels were vandalised. Moorfields close to the City, with its strong but poor Irish Catholic population, became the theatre of a real anti-Catholic hunt with 100 houses burned down and destroyed. Like the Bastille less than ten years after, Newgate prison was largely destroyed as were the houses of the Lords Rockingham, Devonshire and Saville. The rioters, no doubt to give courage to their enterprises, also raided the gin distillery of Langdale in Holborn and after a free pint at the Spaniards Inn in Hampstead, went on to destroy Kenwood House, the home of the Lord Chief Justice, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield.

On 7th June the army was given the order to fire on the groups who refused to disperse; martial law was imposed. The unruly mob was no longer solely against Catholics but also against authority in general. Once the violence had started other discontents came into play; those pro and anti war in America, as well as the victims of the poor economic situation helped to take this opportunity to destabilise Prime Minister North’s government. Tempted by this general radical movement, the Whig Charles James Fox declared that he would “much rather be governed by a mob than a standing army”.

When the Bank of England was attacked the following day, the army answered firmly. Around 285 people were killed and several hundred wounded. Many rioters were arrested; subsequently 25 were found guilty and executed. Lord George Gordon was arrested for high treason, but was found not guilty.

Later the same year the general election saw Charles James Fox win the prestigious Westminster seat with a large majority and given the title of “Man of the people”. The riots had been disastrous for British foreign relations with Catholic continental nations because of the destruction of various embassy chapels, and an important treaty of alliance with Austria failed.

Similarities could be found indirectly between the riots and the French Revolution. The rivalry between Fox and North, the extreme ambition of the first, his wish to discredit the second, and his preference for mob rule could have carried Britain’s political system to the same chaos as the French Revolution.
For Edmund Burke this time proved turbulent. He vividly remembered his house being guarded in case rioters targeted him because of his Catholic family background and because he was still suspected of being a latent Catholic. He lost his seat in Bristol later that year because of the anti-Catholic movement. Certainly he had during this period looked at evil straight in the eyes. In his Reflections, he referred to the Gordon riots when introducing the extreme and violent criticism made against the monarchy in France, just ten years after the mob devastations of London. He compared the revolutionaries in France with Gordon and how the British system dealt with this kind of extremist character. He ridiculed Gordon’s conversion to Judaism “the Protestant Rabbin”, who although being held “fast” in Newgate – the prison that his mutinous friends had destroyed – was given “a liberty, of which he did not render himself worthy by a virtuous use of it”. Burke concluded this part by proposing an exchange between Gordon and the Archbishop of Paris – not an innocent joke. In 1791, the year of the Reflections on the French Revolution, Parliament voted for the Catholic Relief Act following the new immigration of Catholic clergy escaping the Revolution in order to practise their faith freely.

All the questions discussed in the Reflections revolved around the Glorious Revolution. Were the death of absolutism and the achievements of parliamentary rule made manifest by the exclusion of Catholics? Interestingly this question is still relevant today for many progressivist thinkers – the modern take being without religion the world could be better.

On the other hand, Burke purposed to achieve the promises of 1688: the complete freedom to believe. The Reflections were an answer to Doctor Price and his pamphlet which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Revolution of 1688. From this point of view, the Reflections weren’t just 1688 versus 1789, but about a certain perception of the Glorious Revolution: so in fact 1688 versus 1688.

One of this blog's most faithful readers called my attention to this article in the Guardian about Mrs Thatcher that takes a few snipes at the lady on the basis of what there is on the newly posted private papers. The truth is that even the Grauniad finds it hard not to be overawed by her.

Once we get past all that stuff about her diet (actually, it does not sound all that unabalanced though the lack of carbohydrate makes one wonder) we come to the Guardian's main complaint.

The papers also show that her 1987 "no such thing as society" remark, which for many critics defined the immoral truth of Thatcherism, was not off the cuff but was her view as early as 1979.

Morality is personal. There is no such thing as collective conscience, collective kindness, collective gentleness, collective freedom. To talk of social justice, social responsibility, a new world order, may be easy and make us feel good, but it does not absolve each of us from personal responsibility.

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 has to plead ignorance of a rather curious coincidence: both Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Randolph Churchill, his father, died on January 24, seventy years apart. Lord Randolph died in 1895 at the age of 45. By this time his political career had turned to failure and his health steadily deteriorated, though whether it was tertiary syphilis that killed him, as it was believed for a long time, remains questionable.

There is little that needs to be said about Sir Winston Churchill, unless it is to debate his achievements or lack of them. TH believes there will be rather a controversial article in the still delayed Conservative History Journal.

The two pictures are not the usual ones. TH happens to be rather fond of that arrogant little seven-year old and of Lord Randolph as a spider.

Tory Historian is back from Mitteleuropa and has finished reading the recent biography of Arthur Ransome by Roland Chambers, entitled for a rather inadequate reason, The Last Englishman. The reference is to the period immediately after the Bolshevik coup when Ransome was writing somewhat misleading letters to his mother describing himself as the last Englishman left in Petrograd or Moscow. Actually, there were quite a few still and new ones, such as Robert Bruce-Lockhart arrived. The title is as misleading as the letters were.

The sub-title is The Double Life of Arthur Ransome. That is of greater interest. Ransome is known to most people as a superlative writer of children's adventure stories and books about sailing and fishing. A harmless old chap is the way somebody described him to TH.

He was not actually completely harmless. Far from it. In fact, the sub-heading ought to be The Triple Life of Arthur Ransome. Before Russia there was Ransome the Bohemian man of letters whose marriage was beginning to fray at the edges and who had become embroiled in an unfortunate court case with Lord Alfred Douglas. Then there was Russia whence he reported during the First World War and the 1917 Revolution, where he became very friendly with various Bolshevik leaders, particularly Karl Radek and where he, apparently, aided and abetted the Cheka in various ways. Finally, there was Ransome the writer of the Swallows and Amazons books, the countryman, the sailor and fisherman.

Which one was the real Ransome? As usual, the answer has to be all of them. Tory Historian had known about the triple strand before, in particular, about the friendship with the Bolsheviks and had often wondered how Ransome felt as his friends fell victim to Stalin. For he did not talk about it even if he did write a few obituaries of Old Bolsheviks who had died as "traitors".

This book, however, goes further and shows that Ransome had clearly helped the Cheka by trying to extract information, spreading propaganda and bringing out diamonds and money for various organizations in the West. There is some talk of him being recruited by MI5 as well but the evidence for him doing anything for them is scant to non-existent.

Questions remain. How did Ransome manage to miss or ignore the terrible cost that Lenin's great adventure as it appeared to him was imposing on the people of Russia en masse and individually? While many ignored what was happening in the cities and out in the countryside but paid attention to their friends' tribulations, Ransome did not even do that. When his great friends, the journalist Harold Williams and his Cadet politician wife Ariadne Tyrkova, were in danger Ransome seemed unaware of the fact or did not consider it important. Did he react the same way when, later on, his great friend Karl Radek abased himself at one of the show trials?

How did Ransome feel when he described the unfortunate shortages, blaming them on everything and everyone except the Bolsheviks, when he knew that the leaders had plenty of food and lived in luxury? Did he not think there might be something wrong about large sums of money (smuggled out first by him, later by his second wife) being sent abroad to set up Communist organizations when large parts of the country were starving?

Roland Chambers raises many of these questions but provides no answers because he can find none. For these reasons as much as Ransome's cantankerousness, he seems to end up disliking the subject of his biography with some intensity.

Well, that is all very well and possibly that is what happens to all biographers. But Tory Historian cannot help thinking about those wonderful children's books that have inspired and entertained generations. No matter what one knows about the author, they remain as good as ever.

Tory Historian is off for a few days to the old K und K, otherwise known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Two days in Vienna, three in Budapest, then back to Vienna and London on Saturday evening. In the meantime, it may not be possible to post. This is a good opportunity for readers to take a hand and suggest a few ideas for what ought to be covered by this blog and the secondary one, meant to be for longer pieces, in the next few weeks. Offers of articles are encouraged. TH looks forward to some very interesting ideas.

Tory Historian is a big sniffy about that dead tree media outlet that calls itself the Conservative History Journal and would like to see more discussion on the blog. Having sighted the lady who is described by many as the greatest Conservative (or any other) Prime Minister of the twentieth century yesterday evening, TH would like to ask readers for their opinions on who was the greatest Conservative Prime Minister in history.

Temporarily, anyway, as a trip to Central Europe is looming next week. In the meantime, it is worth noting that today is the very sad anniversary of the day when we knew that there would be no more Christies for Christmas. Dame Agatha Christie, one of the greatest and certainly the most widely read detective story writer died on January 12, 1976, having written 83 books under her own name and that of Mary Westmacott. Tory Historian has read but one short story by M Westmacott. It was very readable. The general opinion is that the Westmacott novels and plays are good middle-brow stuff and higher praise than that is difficult to find when discussing literature.

Here, incidentally, is a handy list of all Christie's detective stories that also tells you who does the detection (well, more or less).

Two Christie curiosities were published shortly before the lady's death: a Miss Marple novel, which is rather good, Sleeping Murder and a very bad Hercule Poirot one, Curtain. There is no question, she really hated Poirot by this stage. Both novels were written forty years earlier but put aside for posthumous publication, though it is not clear why that should be so with Sleeping Murder. As it happens both came out prematurely, so to speak.

Christie's books, the good, the bad and the rather weak, all stay in print. It is hard to tell what it is about her work that attracts so many people. The style is largely pedestrian but absolutely clear and correct - the books are often used for teaching English and, one must admit, often there is a good deal of light irony. She could write considerably better as she demonstrated in the delightful story of her life as Sir Max Mallowan's wife, Come Tell Me How You Live. The actual autobiography, published the following year, is far less interesting.

The stories move at a cracking pace though some of the plots creak just a tad. Others, of course, dovetail perfectly. The characters tend to be one dimensional but highly entertaining. And don't even mention time lines or dating. For someone who helped at archaeological digs she is very cavalier with dates and lapses of time in her novels. As against that, she often uses archaeology and archaeologists in the novels. When one thinks about it, the process of working out what there is in a dig and what it means is very similar to the process of working out what happened when a crime was committed.

There is a great deal more to say about Dame Agatha and no doubt Tory Historian will do so on some future occasion. Now it is time to recall the lady who has given more pleasure per page of writing to more people all over the world than anybody else.

She has also inspired books about her [scroll down]. Last year there was Elena Santangelo's Dame Agatha's Shorts (no it is not a little tale of Dame Agatha's career as a footballer) as well as Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, which proved to be less than revealing, though the book also included two hitherto unpublished and unknown Poirot short stories.

Tory Historian's favourite of these studies remains the very French and intellectual Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? by the psychoanalyst and literary critic, Pierre Bayard. Professor Bayard not only thought Poirot got it wrong but explained at great length why though there is some evidence that he might have been playing games with the reader of the kind he accuses Dame Agatha of doing.

Tory Historian would not be happy at my use of the "p" word but then I am not very happy at Tory Historian not posting for so long. Words will be exchanged.

Anyway, I am proof-reading the Conservative History Journal, so progress is being made. It will be a corker, though I say so myself.

On Christmas Day Tory Historian went for a walk through Holland Park and Kensington Gardens, both of which looked splendid in the winter sunshine. Near the Italian Gardens at the Lancaster Gate end of Kensington Gardens there was a memorial tablet just inside the flower beds that TH had not noted before.

The tablet was to William Forsyth, quondam Head Gardener of the Royal Park of Kensington Palace (when it was still a royal palace and park) after whom the genus Forsythia, examples of which surrounded the tablet and will be flowering in a couple of months, was named.

A man like that needs some attention, thought Tory Historian. The Concise Dictionary of National Biography had a short entry:

FORSYTH, WILLIAM (1737 – 1804) gardener; succeeded Philip Miller in the Apothecaries’ Garden, Chelsea, 1771; superintendent of the royal gardens at St James’ and Kensington, 1784; published ‘Observations on the Diseases &c of Forest and Fruit Trees’, 1791, and ‘ Treatise on the Culture of Fruit Trees’, 1802; thanked by parliament for tree-plaister.

Horticulturist. Born in Old Meldrum (Aberdeenshire), Forsyth moved to London in 1763 to work from the Earl of Northumberland at Syon Park, at the time the parkland was being paid out by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Thereafter he moved to the Physic Garden in Chelsea, becoming its Curator in 1771. He brought about considerable development of the garden, with much replanting and the exchange of plants and seeds internationally. In 1774, Forsyth created what is thought to be the first ever rock garden in Britain, using lava brought from Iceland by Sir Joseph Banks and unwanted stone from the Tower of London. In 1779, he was appointed Superintendent of the Royal Gardens at Kensington Palace and St. James' Palace. In this position he did much to cultivate fruit and vegetables, restoring many old fruit trees to health. This he achieved with his 'plaister' (plaster), which consisted of a mixture of cow dung, urine, powdered lime, wood ashes and sand used to seal the wounds on trees after branches or cankerous growths were removed. Forsyth promoted this mixture as a complete remedy, promoting new growth, and was awarded the great sum of £1500 by the Government for his formula in an attempt to improve the quality of the oak trees in the royal forests, which was required for building ships. He published a number of early works on horticulture, including the very successful Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit-Trees (1802), which ran to numerous editions.

He was a founder of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1804 and the genus Forsythia is named in his honour.

Merry Christmas to all.

Tory Historian merely points out that today is the 205th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Disraeli, later Earl of Beaconsfield, first (and so far only) Jewish born Prime Minister of Britain, the creator of the modern Conservative Party, according to some, and the man who distorted Conservative foreign policy, according to others. Tory Historian hopes that readers will weigh in with comments.

Tory Historian has been a tad busy but has now returned with a few interesting dates to be celebrated or, at least, remembered this week. (Tory Historian also vows to keep this blog up to scratch in the coming year and, indeed, to introduce a few novel ideas, painful though that might be.)

December 16 is an important date in the history of the Anglosphere. The Americans mostly remember a certain event in 1773 when a number of colonists improbably disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded British ships, opened the chests of tea and threw the contents into Boston harbour. Their main complaint was that tax raised on the tea trade and taxation in general. Sad to say, by the time the American War of Independence, or the Third English Rebellion was over, those who remained, the loyalists having made their way to Canada or back to England, found themselves paying more in tax than ever before. Here are some eyewitness accounts, probably somewhat over-excited by the events and here is Walter Russell Mead on the relevance of those tea-parties to present-day United States.

Mead also mentions the really important event of December 16 (though it is hard to work out from his account whether this was the old calendar or the new) - the passing of the English Bill of Rights, which ought to be the cornerstone of the British Constitution (together with such constitutional legislation as the 1701 Act of Settlement and the 1707 Act of Union as well as numerous electoral reforms and, not to be forgotten, the 1679 Habeas Corpus). Sadly, things have changed but, Tory Historian is sure, those constitutional settlements will triumph over arrogant power once again.

December 15, 1791 saw the United States Bill of Rights become the first ten amendments to the US Constitution. Based largely on the English Bill of Rights, its provisions are still part of that estimable document, despite many attempts to undermine them.

December 17, 1778 saw the birth of Sir Humphrey Davy, inventor of the safety lamp for miners, who also discovered sodium, magnesium, calcium, barium and strontium, one of the finest of England's scientists and inventors whose influence on developments in the world was incalculable.

But let us end on a more ambivalent note: on December 18, 1946 Attlee's government won the vote (unsurprisingly, given the huge Labour majority after the 1945 election) that allowed them to nationalize just about every part of British industry. A defeat for the Anglosphere? Only temporarily.

Tory Historian is, understandably, fond of historical mysteries, which term does not refer to the perennial question of who, if anyone, killed the Countess of Leicester, but detective stories written in modern times about older times. One of the curious developments in the detective story genre has been the ever growing number of mysteries that feature real or imagined figures from the past who solve various crimes. We can only assume that detective story writers, as opposed to crime story or thriller writers, have found it difficult to keep up with modern police technology or, maybe, decided that much of that is rather dull. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine too many brilliant amateurs on the job these days.

There are advantages to placing one’s detective story in the past – the need to keep up with the latest police methods, political developments, institutional changes and suchlike boring nonsense disappears. There are also disadvantages – the story and the characters do have to be credible and a good understanding of the period is required.

Critics of detective stories these days are rarely knowledgeable bods as the genre is considered to be too lowly to be given to anyone but some junior literary aspirant. Therefore, the most ridiculously impossible historical mysteries are applauded because they have a few seemingly knowledgeable references to olden days.

David Dickinson, for instance, seems to be highly regarded by the fraternity and sorority of critics. Yet the one novel in the series about Lord Francis Powerscourt Tory Historian managed to struggle through, Death of an Old Master, was full of the most appalling errors, both factual and thematic.

Lord Francis goes to his club to read newspapers and journals that were not published till years later, for instance; there is a constant muddle with titles, something that a novelist whose hero is a rich aristocrat should get right; in one scene Lord Francis comes home to his house in St James’s Square and is described as taking off his coat while his wife comes running out to tell him some important news. Does this rich aristocratic family not have footmen? Apparently not. Neither do they seem to have a nanny for their children or a green baize door between the family and the servants. In fact, they lead the life of a suburban family from the 1950s. The book went straight back to a charity shop.

However, Tory Historian was pleased to find another historical mystery series about the Georgian apothecary, John Rawlings and the great jurist and investigator Sir John Fielding.

There is another series in existence about Fielding by Alexander Bruce (real name Bruce Alexander Cook) and it might be a good idea to try one of those. In the meantime, there is Deryn Lake’s series and, in particular, Death at St James’s Palace, in which John Fielding is knighted. In other words, it takes place in 1761.

In parenthesis, one should note that though British detective story writers love historic themes, it is Americans who often make famous English people into detectives. Both the above writers are American, as was Lillian de la Torre who made Dr Johnson into a detective. Then there is Stephanie Barron, who has written a whole series about Jane Austen detecting, presumably as a sort of Regency Miss Marple.

Death at St James’s Palace comes reasonably highly recommended. Lindsey Davis praises the series in words that make one doubt she has read any of the books; the Yorkshire Post informs us that “Lake brings eighteenth century England to life in a colourful style …. Georgette Heyer …. but with the knickers off”. As usual, one wonders what is missing from that quotation. But knickers off? Ahem, they did not wear knickers in the eighteenth century. Presumably, this means that there is more sex in Deryn Lake’s series. Tory Historian suspects that the author of those words had not read Ms Heyer’s books.

Nevertheless, Ms Lake is described as the Queen of Georgian Mysteries and Maxim Jakubowski, himself a writer, editor, critic and quondam owner of the sadly missed Murder One bookshop, writes that this series is “meticulously researched”.

Well, Tory Historian has to disagree with the great Mr Jakubowski. Death at St James’s Palace is “meticulously researched” in the sense that Ms Lake does seem to have read detailed descriptions of what parts of London looked like at the time or what sort of underwear ladies wore. We know she has done this research because she reproduces acres of it in her own book.

When it comes to understanding how people thought or spoke, Ms Lake is sadly at a loss, preferring a twentieth century speech pattern with the odd eighteenth century word thrown in. Not only gentlemen swear in front of ladies, something that the most cursory reading of contemporary literature (or of Ms Heyer’s truly meticulous novels) would have shown to be erroneous, they all use words and expressions that are simply not possible for the period.

Tory Historian very nearly consigned the book to the charity shop bag when a character in it referred to badly behaved boys as a “bunch of hooligans”, hooligan being a word that came into the English language some time in the mid-1890s, 130 years after the events described in Death at St James’s Palace.

For the moment, however, the decision is to persevere, in the hopes that the plot will develop reasonably soon.

December 1, 1919 saw the introduction of the first woman MP to the House of Commons. Needless to say, she was a Conservative. Nancy Astor was not the first woman to be elected to the House - that had happened in 1918, when Constance Markiewicz was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for one of the Dublin constituencies but, in line with party policy, refused to take the oath and was not allowed to sit in the House of Commons. [Both Wiki links need to be read with great care as there are inaccuracies and omissions but the outline of the two stories are useful.]

That was the first election, held in December 1918, after the Representation of People Act, passed in March 1918 that widened the franchise to all men over 21 and women over 30 as long as they were "either a member or married to a member of the Local Government Register". Women had been allowed the vote in various local elections since the late 1880s.

Nancy Astor's candidacy and election was not, in the first place, an achievement for feminists though, obviously, it could not have happened without years of campaigning by both suffragettes (whose contribution was often counter-productive) and the suffragists, many of whom had been Conservatives. It was all a deal put together by the local Conservative Association but something of a political risk, nevertheless.

Early in October 1919 the first Viscount Astor (by birth American but a long-time resident of Britain where the entire Astor family assimilated very quickly) died of a heart attack. This made his son, Waldorf, until then MP for Plymouth Sutton, the second Viscount and he had to resign from the Commons. The Association then had the brilliant idea of putting up his wife who had been closely involved in his political career. The assumption was that there would soon be legislation that would allow those who inherit a title to reject it through various legal methods. In fact, the Peerage Act was not passed till 1963 and Nancy Astor remained an MP till 1945.

The picture above is the proclamation of her victory. Naturally, there are no pictures of her being introduced into the House by David Lloyd George and A. J. Balfour.

A moderately accurate depiction of the first Thanksgiving feast in the City on the Hill. Subsequent events are a different story.

As ever, the Wall Street Journal has published the two usual editorials for Thanksgiving Day.

From 1620 comes The Desolate Wilderness, Nathaniel Morton's account of the Pilgrims' arrival in Plymouth (the one subsequently in Massachusetts.

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and
savage hew.

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.

This has been a somewhat chaotic autumn but I am now on the last stages of that Journal to be sent off to the typesetter within the next 12 hours (D.V.) So, this is the last call. Anyone out there who promised and article and has not delivered (I have your names down in my little black book) or wants to dash off something now, now, now, do so and send it to me at szamuely_AT_aol.com. Otherwise, you can wait for the developments on the blog (or have an article posted on the secondary one).

The secondary blog of the Conservative History Journal is finally in existence. The aim is to post very long pieces on that with shorter links on this, the primary blog. There may well be future technological developments on the site but warnings will be posted.

The first piece on the other blog is a long interview Mark Coalter, a frequent contributor to the Journal, had with Professor John Ramsden in the summer of 2007. The interview has not been published until now. It is now up in its entirety. But just to whet everybody's appetite, here is an excerpt about Professor Ramsden and Lord Willoughby de Broke:

MC: You could always look at Lord Willoughby de Broke

JR: I was responsible for getting Lord Willoughby de Broke’s papers deposited. I was the first person to read them and I went to see the then Lord Willoughby. I said to him, that these are valuable papers which should be deposited somewhere for safety. He asked where, and I took a deep breath and thought where would he like me to say? With one eye on 1911, I suggested the House of Lords’ Records Office as an appropriate place, which he thought a good idea. We then had a discussion about 1911. Bearing in mind that this would have been about 1970 when the conversation was taking place, he engaged me in a long discussion about whether the Parliament Act of 1911 had not, in fact, been a rather bad thing; it would have been much better (he argued) if the House of Lords had retained its power. The Willoughby de Brokes were die-hards unto the very end.

MC: And yet willing to countenance Asquith’s new Peers?

JR: There was a letter in that collection addressed to, I don’t think it was Carson, rather Craig, in Belfast around the time of the so-called Mutiny at the Curragh, in which Willoughby de Broke writes to the Ulster leaders saying that I am at your disposal, I can ride and shoot well and I have many tenants who will come with me. Just like 1642, whereas this was 1911 and he was proposing to raise Warwickshire for the Union! It’s wonderful. I guess Craig’s reply, while it doesn’t quite say calm down, old boy, that’s what it means. Obviously, what the Ulstermen needed was Lord Willoughby riding to the rescue. Instead, they pointed out they could look after themselves in Belfast, as indeed they could.

We have received the following note from Tom Hurst who is working on a thesis on Conservative Party rhetoric:

“Verbal Combat”: The role of Conservative Party rhetoric, 1979-90.

The Ph.D thesis looks at Margaret Thatcher’s public, political rhetoric during the period 1979-90. It is concerned not only with the speeches themselves but also with the process which led to their creation, the manner in which they were disseminated by various media channels and their relationship to government policy.

Any information on the areas discussed above would be much appreciated. Contact: tomhurst06_At_hotmail.com

Comments on this post will be passed on to Tom Hurst as well.

This review is part of a series on books that might be of interest to those interested in conservative history.

Was Frank Johnson a conservative? He most certainly was not a Conservative with a capital C, being, as a journalist, of a somewhat anarchic nature. He was, however, one of those who promoted Margaret Thatcher’s free-market policies and being from an East End working class family (his father had been a baker) he had a natural affinity with many of the IEA’s ideas. But Frank would not have been Frank if that had interfered with his ability to see the funny side of everything, including Margaret Thatcher’s campaign in the chocolate factory.

The Times obituary said that he excelled in “a very English art form”, which would have pleased him as he was, despite his travels to European cities and capitals, a very English person.

A good parliamentary sketch can be high art, but art with a hard-nosed purpose. Sketch writers know they are an important arm of the democratic process. Unless we can laugh at our politicians we can never keep them in order.

Johnson endured cancer with exemplary courage for seven years. He would say of his illness that he bore it "with the stoicism of the London working class from whence I came".

Last Sunday, just before he went into hospital for the final time, he attended the performance of Aida at La Scala in which the tenor Roberto Alagna (as Radames) walked off the stage in a fit of pique after being booed; Johnson immediately filed the story to The Daily Telegraph.

Sometimes one finds definitions of what history is in unexpected places. Well, not that unexpected, as Oleg Khlevnyuk's Master of the House: Stalin and his Inner Circle is a history book that describes the way Stalin gradually and often violently imposed his control on the Politburo while conducting a policy of terror against the population of the Soviet Union.

In his Introduction Dr Khlevniuk discusses the various theories of how Stalinism came about and whether it was inevitable given either/or Russian history and the character of Bolshevism. He clearly does not like the theory of historical inevitability:

But for the historian, it seems to me, the concept of the "iron march of history" is, at the very least, uninspiring. Chronicler of the inevitable - why would anyone wh has read and analyzed tens of thousands of pages of the most diverse documents, who has learned the fates of faceless millions, not to mention hudreds of flesh-and-blood individuals, many of who desperately fought
for their interests and ideals - why would such a person agree with such a characterization?

The idea of inevitability comes when we try to arrange history into some kind of orderly progression. Specific knowledge complicates the picture, revealing the diversity of factors involved in any human endeavour, the complex interplay between historical traditions and the logic governming events as they unfold, between political conflict at the top and social pressures at the bottom, and, in the end, the role of chance.

It is normally in one’s youth that one prefers rather pretentious novels, particularly if they are written in a beautiful and elaborate style, replete with quotations and abstruse references. How clever one thinks oneself to be in one’s late teens and early twenties, reading this sort of stuff before sneaking away for a quick perusal of thrillers or romances (to be disowned and despised). Later in life one finds those pretentious novels to be utterly dull and unworthy of attention.

The one exception to this rule, in Tory Historian’s experience is Michael Innes (though not in his J. I. M. Stewart persona – there the rule applies in full). What seemed utterly dull and pretentious in those halcyon days of intellectualism has, for the last few years, appeared to be amusing and entertaining with quite interesting apercus. Ha, Tory Historian can do pretentious as well.

A recently picked up novel is about the art world (they often are) and forgeries. Silence Observed is highly entertaining and has a remarkable summary of English life early on. John Appleby is now at the top of his profession in Scotland Yard as Commissioner of Metropolitan Police but still finds people approaching him informally about their problems in his club.

He muses on this extraordinary phenomenon:

There are levels of English society in which nearly all professional advice is picked up free. Cabinet ministers murmur their symptoms negligently into the ear of distinguished consultant physicians when the ladies have withdrawn from the dinner-table. Leading Queen’s Counsel know precisely what lies ahead of them when they find themselves on the right hand of brilliant and frequently dis-married hostesses. Top-ranking architects, summoned to indigestible feasts in ancient colleges, commonly take the precaution of bringing a junior staff with them and lodging them in an adjacent hotel.

Tory Historian investigated the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum on Friday morning and a separate blog is called for that institution. However, while waiting for a friend and lulled by the beautiful autumnal weather TH took this picture of Clive silhouetted against the Foreign Office.

The next meeting will take place on November 3, at 6.30 in the Grimond Room, Portcullis House (that's the one that looks like a giant crematorium on the embankment). The speaker will be Ion Trewin, author of Alan Clark: the Biography. All are welcome but you may be encouraged to join the CHG.

The Battle of Hastings, which changed English history, was fought on October 14, 1066 with the Normans (who were not actually French but Norsemen) winning a decisive victory. King Harold II killed as the piece of the Bayeux Tapestry above shows.

Here and here are some serious accounts of the battle, its causes and outcomes. Incidentally, it was not the last successful invasion of England. Henry Tudor invaded with a French army and some disaffected nobles to overthrow King Richard III in 1485.

Tory Historian thinks that the most appropriate account is at the beginning of Chapter II, William I: A Conquering King, in that historical masterpiece by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That:

In the year 1066 occurred the other memorable date in English History, viz. William the Conquerer, Ten Sixty-Six. This is also called the Battle of Hastings, and when William I (1066) conquered England at the Battle of Senlac (Ten Sixty-six).

When William the Conqueror landed he lay down on the beach and swallowed two mouthfuls of sand. This was his first conquering action and was in the South; later he ravaged the North as well.

The Norman Conquest was a Good Thing, as from this time onwards England stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation.

Tory Historian wishes Lady Thatcher, the most important and possibly the greatest British Prime Minister of the twentieth century (Churchill was a great war leader but pretty poor as politicians and something of a disaster as a peace-time Prime Minister), a very happy birthday.

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, fought on October 7, 1571. The Holy League that somehow managed to come to an agreement had a fleet of 206 galleys and 6 galleasses, commanded by Don Juan of Austria, illegitimate son of Emperor Charles V and half-brother of Philip II.

The Ottoman galleys were manned by 13,000 sailors and 34,000 soldiers. Ali Pasha (Turkish: "Kaptan-ı Derya Ali Paşa"), supported by the corsairs Chulouk Bey of Alexandria and Uluj Ali (Ulich Ali), commanded an Ottoman force of 222 war galleys, 56 galliots, and some smaller vessels. The Turks had skilled and experienced crews of sailors, but were somewhat deficient in their elite corps of Janissaries.

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath

(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)

And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,

Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,

And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....

(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

As today is the anniversary of the great Victorian poet's death, Tory Historian decided to post a quotation or two. Naturally enough, there will be no references to valleys of death or canons on various sides, as that poem is a little too well known even by people who have no idea of what it is really about. (Incidentally, the same battle saw the charge of the Heavy Brigade, which achieved its aim with the participants coming back more or less intact. No poems were written about that.)

Here are a few gems, randomly chosen:

He makes no friends who never made a foe.

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.

We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.