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Last autumn I attended a conference (as I do from time to time) on Dickens and Russia, parts of which were fascinating. Others, mostly profound academic analyses of Dostoyevsky's debt to Dickens considerably less so.
However, one astonishing account to emerge was the story of Dickens's supposed meeting with Dostoyevsky in 1862, first written about by Stephanie Harvey in the The Dickensian in 2002. The story was picked up by the two most recent biographers of Dickens, Michael Slater in 2009 and Claire Tomalin in 2011. However, when American reviews of the biographies started appearing and the meeting between two giants of nineteenth century literature was mentioned, the Dostoyevsky scholars bestirred themselves, asking the obvious question as to why nobody had ever heard of such a momentous event. They also asked what language the two spoke to each other and what on earth was the supposed Kazakh academic journal whence Stephanie Harvey culled her information. At least two of those questions should have been asked by the Dickens biographers but was not.
Anyway, the story became quite farcical with Stephanie Harvey's sister writing a letter to the editor of The Dickensian to tell him that the lady had suffered a near-fatal car crash and could no longer communicate with anyone and lots of egg on everybody's face.
Last week the Guardian published an interview with the perpetrator of the hoax, one A. D. Harvey, whom I actually know or knew in his short stint as the editor of the Salisbury Review. He would hover round the place and propound all sorts of historical facts that he had gleaned in various libraries and archives. I am ashamed to say that I did not appreciate his writings as they tended to be of the "look what I found in this archive" variety with no particular conclusions or analyses.
It now transpires that in all that time Arnold Harvey was engaged in the creation of a number of mythical personalities: writers, poets, historians who would produce articles promoting and and praising each other's work. The Dickens-Dostoyevsky meeting can be described as the most successful of these hoaxes and as Mr Harvey says, if it had not been for American Dostoyevsky students, he would have got away with it. In fact, for many years he did.
Here is the whole story of the uncovering of Arnold Harvey, the latter day James Macpherson who merely "translated" Ossian in some detail in the venerable pages of the TLS. I am afraid I found the story too exquisitely funny to be able to sympathize with Professor Naiman's apparent distaste for A. D. Harvey's behaviour or to accept his pity for the man. In my view Arnold Harvey definitely has the last laugh on all those editors and scholars who blithely published and quoted his spurious writers and historians. Who can be so heartless as not to laugh at the sight of egg on the face of pompous Dickens biographers?
Tory Historian finds on Londonist's excellent blog that the British Library will be celebrating the anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta in excellent style next year:
the four surviving copies of Magna Carta will be united for the first time, marking the 800th anniversary of the landmark legal document’s signing. During a three-day event at the British Library, visitors and scholars will get to see the quartet in one room. Currently, the Library holds two copies, while the others are at Salisbury and Lincoln Cathedrals.Sadly, it is not clear who and how will be able to view this astonishing exhibition apart from scholars.
A new double biography of those two nineteenth century giants, Gladstone and Disraeli. The Great Rivalry by Dick Leonard is published by I. B. Tauris and concentrates on the rivalry that shaped British politics for several decades. It is not, by any means, the first time the rivalry has been written about and the two men's differing personalities and backgrounds have been covered before. To be fair to the author, Dick Leonard, he says this in the Introduction; why the publisher needs to produce such inaccurate hype is unclear.
My first reaction was that Dick Leonard was an unlikely man to write about these two politicians, he being a Fabian, a former Labour MP and a man who is responsible for the unduly favourable light in which the European Union is viewed by some of this country's media. However, I note that he has written a number of books about British Premiers, most of whom were not and could not be socialists.
And here, just to make a change and have a break from all the rejoicing is the text of Dr Johnson's response to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress, entitled Taxation is No Tyranny. The great sage, incidentally, was unimpressed by the yearning for liberty by a group of slave owners.
Legislation that gave women the right to vote on the same terms as men received its Royal Assent on July 2, 1928. Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 is sometimes referred to as the Fifth Reform Act or the Equal Suffrage Act but that is its proper title.
Or so I was reminded by Mike Paterson of London Historians. Two of them died on this day, Spencer Compton, the Earl of Wilmington in 1743 and Sir Robert Peel in 1850 as well as the man who, according to some, should have been Prime Minister, Joseph Chamberlain in 1914 (a good time to go). As against that, one, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Lord Home of the Hirsel, was born on this day in 1903. You win some and you lose some.
Each man's death diminishes me. John Donne's words echo in my mind as I think of the death, first heard of late last night, of Professor Ken Minogue (whoever called him Kenneth except as a joke?), a towering intellectual and writer, a man who thought deeply about our society, our basic ideas and our political structures, and expressed his ideas lucidly and entertainingly. He was also a friend of whom I was very fond and with whom I spent many hours, eating, drinking, talking, laughing and joking. His death definitely diminishes me.
With his permission I shall quote Ed Feulner's account of Ken's last hours:
Last night Ken Minogue and I shared the duties of the chair. I did the thanks, and Ken the introduction of Allan Meltzer, who spoke to us via teleconference. Over dinner, Ken was in great humour, telling us about the next book he was working on, etc. Earlier in the week he had given a fine paper, and yesterday afternoon he chaired a session with that fine, delicate and yet steady hand that made him so beloved to all.Sad though it is to think of the book that will not be finished, there is some pleasure in the description of Ken working, talking, being on top of the world to the last. And there is pleasure in knowing that his other books and articles, essays and recordings are with us. RIP Ken.
This morning 8 of us were on a bus tour looking at iguanas, sea lions, birds, etc, and enjoying ourselves immensely. Then we went back to the town of San Cristobal, had sandwiches and an hour later left for the airport. Westholms, Lals, Feulners, Fr. Sirico and Ken Minogue.
After our lunch, we went to the Galapagos airport, where the group was split between two flights to Guayaquil, an easy hour-long flight back to the mainland (on an Airbus, not a small plane.) Ken and many of the others were on the other flight.
Our flight landed first at Guayaquil. The other plane ten minutes later. We were collecting our luggage when we heard the horrible news that Ken had been stricken on the plane (a heart attack, we assume). There were four MD s on the plane, including two from the MPS meeting. They tried everything, but to no avail.
It is not, therefore, entirely wrong to write a blog about Nicolson, especially as I have just finished reading Derek Drinkwater's Sir Harold Nicolson and International Relations - the Practitioner as Theorist, a book that has doctoral thesis written all over it. It is, nevertheless interesting though convincing only intermittently about the importance of Nicolson's contribution to the theory of international relations. A good deal of the time Nicolson, lucid, knowledgeable and passionate, still wavered as to what he really believed in, thus annoying and frustrating friends and allies (as well as opponents).
Nevertheless, the book is a useful study and analysis of all Nicolson's pronouncements in print, in manuscript (the unpublished parts of his diary) and on the radio and many interesting conclusions can be drawn from it. (Let us not forget that the Marginal Comments that he wrote for many years in the Spectator are all available on line now.)
In an early chapter of the book there is discussion of Nicolson's view of "old" (pre-First World War) and "new" (post-First World War) diplomacy and he found both wanting as we have all done ever since. Indeed, this discussion raises the issue whether diplomacy and democracy, particularly in the age of mass communication that can whip up emotions very quickly, are compatible.
Expanding Nicolson's ideas about the two kinds of traditional diplomacy, Drinkwater writes:
He [Nicolson] identified two contrasting conceptions of diplomacy and argued that a compromise between them constituted the soundest approach to diplomatic intercourse. The first was the German "warrior or heroic" theory, whose exponents perceived diplomacy as war by other means. The second was the British "mercantile or shop-keeper" theory, whereby diplomacy is seen as an aid to peaceful commerce based on the assumption that there exists a middle point at which the negotiators can reconcile their conflicting interests.Of course, it could be argued that this is just a long-winded way of saying "speak softly and carry a big stick".
In his book Diplomacy, which remains a classic on the subject, Nicolson compiled a list of sixteen qualities of both the ideal diplomat and the ideal diplomacy. It is, apparently, known in diplomatic theory as the "Nicolson test". Here is the list:
truth, accuracy, calm, patience, good temper, modesty, loyalty, intelligence, knowledge, discernment, prudence, hospitality, charm, industry, courage, and tact.Hmm. Those of us who have met diplomats and have studied the outcome of some of their activity would be hard put to acknowledge that few of them have even half of those qualities. It remains a very useful list.
However TH can fully agree with one point that Professor Colls makes: George Orwell, despite his loudly proclaimed preference for socialism, was in reality a conservative. Indeed, this has been mentioned in a previous blog on Dickens and Orwell who shared certain attitudes.
Here is a list of other buildings in the City and along the Strand that survived the Great Fire. TH thinks that a Sunday will have to be spent investigating them very soon.
Yes, it is that day again. We celebrate the Battle of Waterloo.
On June 14 as the defences of Port Stanley faltered and Mount Tumbledown was captured, a ceasefire was declared in the Falklands. On the same day the commander of the Argentine garrison in Stanley, Brigade General Mario Menéndez surrendered to Major General Jeremy Moore.
During the night, Major General Moore sent back the following signal:
Major General Menendez surrendered to to me all the Argentine armed forces in East and West Falkland together with their impedimenta ... The Falkland Islands are once more under the government desired by their inhabitants. God Save the Queen.The casualties were: 255 British deaths, 649 Argentinian (though there is some debate about that) and 3 Falkland Islanders. 11,000 Argentinians surrendered in, apparently, bad state of health and nutrition, giving the British commanders some extra headaches.
It so happens, that I was reading this two days ago as I was finishing Charles Moore's monumental first volume of Margaret Thatcher - the Authorized Biography. A long review will be posted very soon.
Guildhall Library will be holding an Open Day on Saturday, July 20 with a number of interesting talks listed, all of which are related to their collection. There is not one event on that list that I would not recommend or want to attend. Better start planning my visit now.
This is wonderful news for all historians: the Spectator has "scanned and digitised copies of the magazine from July 1828 to December 2008 can be browsed online using the beta Spectator Archive. Everything in the last five years can of course be found on spectator.co.uk".
I have just tried looking up articles from the late sixties and the system works. The articles and letters in question appeared on my screen both as text and as scanned pages. Of course, the archive in the basement of the building in Old Queen Street is a great deal more interesting to peruse. Digitisation is all very well and very useful but I trust the Spectator will never even consider getting rid of that.
The British Museum was established by an Act of Parliament on June 7, 1753. As a frequent visitor to that splendid place, Tory Historian can feel nothing but gratitude to the long-living Sir Hans Sloane (1660 - 1753) , physician, collector, naturalist and the man whose will led to the establishment to what must be the finest museum in the world. (TH is prepared to fight all comers on that subject.) Gratitude is also due to the Parliament of the day whose far-sightedness enabled the museum to come into existence.
Incidentally, Sir Hans seems to have been an excellent doctor as well:
An innovative doctor, Sloane promoted inoculation against smallpox, the use of quinine (a treatment for malaria) and the health-giving properties of drinking chocolate mixed with milk.By the time he died in Chelsea
his collection amounted to more than 71,000 objects. Chiefly natural history specimens, the collection also included:
23,000 coins and medals 50,000 books, prints and manuscripts a herbarium (a collection of dried plants) 1,125 'things relating to the customs of ancient times'.
That became the nucleus of the new museum.The British Museum opened to the public on 15 January 1759 . It was first housed in a seventeenth-century mansion, Montagu House, in Bloomsbury on the site of today's building. Entry was free and given to ‘all studious and curious Persons’.
With the exception of two World Wars, the Museum has remained open ever since, gradually increasing its opening hours and moving from an attendance of 5,000 per year to today's 6 million.
Indeed, that is likely to grow. 
Historical myths are hard to understand. Why is Jack the Ripper so fascinating? We have had far worse cases of serial murders since yet none to excite quite so much interest. Why is Watergate seen as the epitome of political corruption in the United States when there have been far worse developments in the last two or three years alone? Actually, we probably know the answer to that and it has something to do with the political make-up of the American media.
In Britain the acme of political scandal remains the Profumo affair of 1963, which did not, as it happens, bring down a government, no matter what some hacks say. It led to the resignation of the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan and contributed to the feeling that the Labour Party was bound to win in 1964. In fact, despite the long Conservative dominance, the many scandals and difficulties, the Conservative Party under Sir Alec Douglas-Home very nearly won that election.
Looking back on the events, sordid though they were, one can say that the actual scandal did not amount to much: the Secretary of State for War, the glamorous Jack Profumo married to the beautiful actress Valerie Hobson, slept a few times with a young call girl, Christine Keeler, who had associates in the seedy underworld, and who might have also slept with the Soviet Defence Attaché. Of course, there was more to it than that. The Profumos may have been glamorous but their life style was distinctly louche, as was that of their various friends, such as the Viscount Astor at whose home Profumo met Keeler. The circle around Christine Keeler and her friend Mandy Rice-Davies was full of criminals and there was the dubious role played by the "society osteopath" and many other things, Stephen Ward, who was charged with living off immoral earnings and committed suicide as the trial came to an end.
Numerous books have been written on the subject, this, by Richard Davenport-Hines, which has some controversial comments in it, being the latest. There were summaries of the scandal in the various obituaries in 2006 when Profumo died. (Telegraph, Guardian, Independent and New York Times)
Fifty years ago today, Jack Profumo was finally forced to admit that he lied to Parliament and to his immediate associates about his affair (if one can call it that) with Christine Keeler and he resigned. On the one hand, he, like many other politicians, hung on in there for three months, hoping that the storm will pass; on the other hand, he made no attempts to come back into politics but devoted the rest of his life to charitable work in Toynbee Hall.
When the TLS asked various people in 1977 to name the most under-rated writer of the twentieth century, two respondents, Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil named Barbara Pym, born 100 years today. This revived and enhanced the publishers' and the literary world's influence in her clever, witty and rather low-key writing, which reminds one a great deal of Jane Austen's.
Barbara Pym wrote about women of the mid-twentieth century, who had varied lives, often careers though equally often not, an interest in the Church of England and its parish doings and a penchant for unsuitable men (a characteristic they shared with their creator). Though they are not strong on plot, they are beautifully crafted (an old-fashioned virtue in writing, one sometimes feels) and alternately very funny and sadly wistful. They also provide a fascinating picture of certain parts of English life in the two decades after the Second World War.
The DNB entry on her does Miss Pym (she was never a Ms) full justice.
Coronation Day. On History Today's website the redoubtable Lord Wakehurst's short film about the day Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. You can also watch this one and many other videos of the Royal Family on the The Royal Channel.
Tim Stanley's article in History Today says what we all think: a good funeral creates and propagates myths. He tries to lay to rest some of the myths that surround Margaret Thatcher on both sides but one cannot help feeling that it is a lost cause. At least, in her case, there are arguments, discussions and books that are more or less objective being written now. Not so with Churchill or not so for a good long time after his funeral.
As Tim Stanley rightly says, Churchill's funeral produced no discussions, no debates, only a general mourning across the country as people were saying goodbye to their own youth but also to a certain period in the country's history whose end, ironically, Churchill had helped to bring about.
It took a little time for some historians to start recalling that in his lifetime and during his active period as a politician Churchill was very unpopular in his party and in the country. Even after the war during which he had led the country to victory against many odds he managed to lose two of the three elections he fought as leader of the Conservative Party and barely won the third one.
Churchill's overwhelming popularity that amounts to secular sainthood for many people emerged and flourished in the decade between his enforced retirement and his death. It is interesting that there were no discussions about his political legacy while Thatcher's legacy remains a matter of furious debate.
Tory Historian finds it extraordinary that those in the culture industry (and it has become an industry though not all of it creates anything) should have such a sneering attitude to the businessmen and women who have made the money that made much of our cultural heritage possible. According to many of them the proper person to subsidize their activities is the taxpayer whose opinion is never asked and who contributes the money involuntarily. The alternative, they so often pronounce, money contributed voluntarily by the person who made or earned it, makes that lucre somehow tainted.
One has to admit that with government cuts, though they do not go far enough in TH's opinion, this attitude is changing. Even the BBC, usually the leading apostle of the ideology of sneering at people who actually make money, has put up a fascinating article about Sir William Burrell,
celebrated as an art lover and philanthropist. He left a wealth of objects to the people of Scotland in the magnificent Burrell Collection.The reason who could collect and then leave that wealth of objects was because he had been a highly successful shipping merchant.
"It was often said he was ruthless, but that's not the right word," says maritime historian Martin Bellamy, Head of Research at Glasgow Museums. "He was an innovative business operator with an inspired commercial mind.The rest of this fascinating article tells of the business Sir William built up and of the art collection he amassed. One cannot help wondering at the naiveté of the people who work in the BBC who seem to be astonished and feel the need to repeat several times that Burrell's activities as an art collector and philanthropist would not have been possible without his activities as a ruthless and imaginative businessman.
"He was a typical Victorian entrepreneur. He exploited the world of opportunities that the British Empire created.
"Burrell took over a modestly successful family business and expanded it enormously."
Burrell's secret was his ground-breaking operation of a type of trade called 'tramp shipping'.
Unlike liners which followed a set route of destinations, tramp ships did not have scheduled deliveries. They sailed to whatever port their cargo took them.
While a ship was unloading, the captain would make arrangements to find the next job. This led to delays and meant ships often sailed only part full. But Burrell had a solution.
"He travelled the world and set up a network of agents," says Bellamy. "They would do the work of the captains and secure the next cargo before his ships arrived.
BBC2 will be showing a programme on this great man this evening at 9 but only in Scotland. However, it will be available across the UK for seven days on iPlayer.
History Today blog informs us that the two winners of the 2012 Wolfson History Prize are Christopher Duggan for Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini’s Italy and Susan Brigden for Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest. Both sound very interesting and are hereby added to the notional pile of books to be read.
Self-explanatory, I think.
The biggest criticism is that too many of the exhibits are modern and unexciting paperbacks even though the British Library must have original copies of first editions of all crime books, which are of greater interest.
The entrance to the exhibition (just above the escalator) has a quotation from Monsignor Knox and his famous Decalogue, which laid down all the rules that good detective writers (especially Agatha Christie) proceeded to break.
The rest of this long posting is on the secondary blog (for long postings)
The rest of this long posting is on the secondary blog (for long postings)
A real-life paper copy of the West Midlands History Magazine that analyzes Enlightenment, its people and organizations in that part of the country. The article on Industrial Enlightenment is fascinating. More goodies to read.
Also a gem of a book: The Odd Thing About the Colonel, a collection of articles and essays by one of the greatest of conservative journalists of the twentieth century, Colin Welch, sent to me, very kindly by his daughter, Frances Welch, herself a formidable historian.
Last year Tory Historian wrote an angry and scathing posting about the mess that Tate Britain (the Tate to many of us, harrumph) had become. Well, there was some good news in the Evening Standard today. According to the Director, Penelope Curtis,
A complete rehang of the collection at Millbank will give visitors a chronological history of British art, says director Penelope Curtis — and throw up some exciting juxtapositions.One worries a little (well, TH does) about those "exciting juxtapositions" but displaying the British art collection and in a chronological order (just like they used to do in the dear old days gone by) sounds like an excellent idea. On the other hand, it does not sound like a particularly radical one. Is that not what Tate Britain is for?
Tory Historian was reading some of the essays in H. R. F. Keating's splendid collection, Agatha Christie - First Lady of Crime and found a highly entertaining one by Emma Lathen (really two formidable ladies, Mary Jane Latsis and Martha Hennisart). Entitled Cornwallis's Revenge, it analyzes Christie's technique and her extraordinary popularity, especially in the United States. In fact, posits Ms Lathen, it is the return battle of the War of Independence and it has made the outcome somewhat doubtful.
In 1781 Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown and, for all practical purposes, the Revolutionary War was over. The viscount went on to a distinguished career in India, the rebels became preoccupied with the problems of forging a new political state, and the world assumed that British domination over the colonies was at an end. There the matter rested until 1920 which saw the publication of the first American edition of The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Now, fifty-six years later, any detached observer on these shores would have to admit that the second British Expeditionary Force had been considerably more successful than the first.Heh! That would be the force led by General Hercule Poirot, ably assisted by Brigadier Jane Marple and Lieutenant-Colonels Battle and Race. I think we might forget about the Beresfords for the time being.
Calling all those interested in history in the West Midlands (the historic counties of Shropshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire) and those who might think of visiting: there is a new site, called History West Midlands. It is an independent site (not attached to any academic institution, I assume) and gives a full list of events that could be of interest to anyone interested in the history of that area. In addition, the first issue issue of History West Midlands Magazine, that deals with the fascinating topic the West Midlands Enlightenment is now available to download or to order. Good reading.
This article came my way for reasons that are a little hard to explain. It goes into some detail about peer reviews of different kind in scientific journals. To be honest, most of the argument is a little beyond me and if there are any scientists among this blog's readers they might like to enlighten the rest of us.
However, the article did turn my attention to a rather peculiar development among some journals and, especially, publishers who are insisting on what they call "peer review" in arts and social sciences. This, I maintain, is not just completely unnecessary but is actually harmful.
When I was still editing the printed version of the Conservative History Journal I was asked once or twice whether the articles were peer-reviewed. Until then it had not occurred to me that history articles could be. Factual inaccuracy, if not caught by the editor, is usually pointed out by some alert reader while interpretations one can argue about but they do not come under the rubric of peer review. That would imply that certain interpretations ought not to be published as they are somehow outside the peer consensus. That, as far as I can make out, is exactly what is happening with some publishers. At least one person I know has had trouble after the publisher had accepted her book with peer reviews because her writing was "outside the academic consensus" according to one reviewer. The publisher seems to be in a dither.
My reply was that CHJ is not peer reviewed and nor is it. Mistakes can be picked up and interpretations should be varied. I recall going through an article about Margaret Thatcher's premiership that was really rather hostile to her policies and achievements. I disagreed with every word but corrected only the grammar and punctuation as necessary. Maybe I tightened the text up a little but left all the arguments I considered wrong-headed in place. That, in my opinion, is what an editor does. Running off to a bunch of peer reviewers is not the answer.
Having thought about the subject I realized that a couple more points need to be made. One is that peer review looks at methodology. Any editor of a history journal or of a history book should be able to see whether the methodology makes sense and whether too many relevant facts and developments had been left out. I presume that is not so with science publications as no editor or a journal could understand the methodology of all branches of research. Therefore, peer review makes some sense.
On the other hand, as we have seen with the scandal that surrounds a good deal of the so-called "climate change science" and, specifically, with the e-mail controversy (or scandal) to do with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, in any controversial subject peer review can be and is used to prevent a break in the consensus.
I am hoping there will be comments on this piece as I would like to start a discussion. It is important for the future of history writing whether we accept the need for peer reviewing or not.
No, this is not to Margaret Thatcher but by her to Ian Gow, who was assassinated by the IRA (well, murdered is as good a word but I prefer assassinated) on July 30, 1990. Mrs Thatcher's tribute was published in The House Magazine in October, 1990, not long before her resignation. Here it is reprinted on PoliticsHome.
The intention is to write a long piece about the first volume of Charles Moore's authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher, Not for Turning, and I have started reading it. Unusually, the Preface is fascinating as it describes how the whole project came about and Lady Thatcher's own attitude and behaviour. Much of it Mr Moore told us at the launch, which was held, rather grandly in the Banqueting House in Whitehall, beneath the Rubens ceiling with the speakers standing by the window through which Charles I had stepped out to the scaffold. (But I digress.)
It is, however, fascinating to read how little interest Lady Thatcher had in self-analysis or in examination of her past life. In this she was the exact opposite of Sir Winston Churchill: for her the deed was the only thing that mattered, not its description (accurately or otherwise) afterwards.
Like all remarkable leaders, she had a great egotism. She always believed that she, and she alone, rescued Britain from its post-1945 years of semi-socialist decline. She believed that the "-ism" which derived from her married name would make a permanent different to the history of human freedom.But she was not at all touchy, or even anxious, about what history might say about her.A remarkable case of self-confidence. How many other leading politicians could show anything similar?
History Today has a wonderful timeline of English and British monarchs. You click on one of them and get a brief summary (with a couple of dates) and their immediate predecessors and successors. You can then click on the name and get a list of articles on the monarch in question that is in the magazine's online archives. Then you have to subscribe to get to the archives but even without that subscription one can have a great deal of fun.
Today, as every school child ought to know, is St George's Day, something that, according to Ed West, became a matter for celebration in the 1990s and then for purely commercial reasons. True, to some extent, but a little unfair. The Scouts, for instance, always celebrated the day. St George remains the Patron Saint of several countries and organizations - in fact, he is a very busy sort of saint.
Many Patronages of Saint George exist around the world, including: Georgia, England, Egypt, Bulgaria, Aragon, Catalonia, Romania, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Iraq, Israel, Lithuania, Portugal, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia, as well as the cities of Genoa, Amersfoort, Beirut, Botoşani, Drobeta Turnu-Severin, Timişoara, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg im Breisgau, Kragujevac, Kumanovo, Lebanon, Ljubljana, Pérouges, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Rio de Janeiro, Lod, Lviv, Barcelona, Moscow and Victoria, as well as of the Scout Movement[3] and a wide range of professions, organizations and disease sufferers.
April 23 is also the birth- and death- day of William Shakespeare. Actually, nobody is too sure on which day he was born but he was baptized on the 26th so it is fair to assume that he was born shortly before that. The parallel of his birth and death has always pleased people.
April 23 also happens to be the day W. J. M. Turner claimed as his birthday but there is no real evidence for that. He was baptized on May 14 and that is all we know definitely. Still, it would be pleasant to think that the greatest English playwright and one of the greatest English artists were both born on St George's Day.An even more interesting anniversary is a round one. We are celebrating the 90th anniversary of the real founding of the 1922 Committee, a little emasculated recently, but still something of a fighting force in the Conservative Party. As Lord Norton of Louth explains here:
The 1922 Committee derives its name from the fact that it was formed by some MPs who were first elected in 1922. Led by the MP for Lowestoft, Sir Gervais Rentoul, they decided to create a body ‘for the purpose of mutual co-operation and assistance in dealing with political and parliamentary questions, and in order to enable new Members to take a more active interest and part in Parliamentary life’. As new MPs, they had little knowledge of Parliament. There was no party structure, other than the whips, within the House to assist. The new Tory Members showed feelings, in Rentoul’s words, of ‘ineffectiveness and bewilderment’.Many things to celebrate, then. You will forgive me, however, for putting up the most obvious sequence for this day.
A preliminary meeting was held on 18 April 1923, at which Rentoul explained the purpose of having a Committee, and the Members then adjourned until 23 April. At this second meeting, the principles on which the body was founded were agreed and the meeting elected officers and an Executive Committee. Rentoul was elected chairman. It was also agreed to meet each week – on Mondays at 6.00 p.m. – when the House was sitting. The first of the scheduled meetings was addressed by the Chief Whip, Leslie Wilson, who offered his assistance and that of his colleagues. The Committee also set up a series of Sub-Committees, though these were superseded in the next Parliament by formal backbench Committees set up by the Party Leader.
An interesting article by Richard Overy and an equally interesting discussion in History Today about the use of the word Nazi, not even nowadays to describe anything and everything some people of the left persuasion happen to disagree with but in the period the party was in power: 1933 - 1945. Well worth reading.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield. It was also and for the same reason Primrose Day, created by the Conservative Party to honour one of their greatest and certainly most influential leader.
Lord Lexden, the eminent historian of the Primrose League, has an excellent article on ConHome, in which he draws on his knowledge of the first great popular political organization to suggest that something along those lines could be done to honour Margaret Thatcher.
While Lady Thatcher was the first and so far only woman to lead the party, Disraeli was the first and so far only Jew. But in both cases, initial status as an outsider did not prevent - indeed may well have encouraged - the securing of a deep place in Tory affections.It would be hard to repeat the success of the Primrose League for many reasons. Still, Lord Lexden argues his case persuasively.
And Disraeli's case shows that if only someone can hit on a happy form of commemoration, it ought to be possible to do something genuinely popular, which would make up for some of the present weaknesses in Conservative organisation and the dramatic fall in party membership. A party that cannot call on large numbers of committed activists labours under a severe handicap. Perhaps some genius among the readers of ConservativeHome can even think of a project that will bring UKIP activists flocking back to the Tory colours.
Those who try to depict Margaret Thatcher as a great radical leader uninterested in the historic Conservative heritage often claim that she repudiated the one nation tradition. But in reality she drew heavily upon it. Her patriotism, for example, cannot be understood without reference to it. Tories (sadly) no longer hold a great festival on 19 April, but the values it expressed live on vigorously. We should start thinking what we shall do on 8 April 2014, the first anniversary of Lady Thatcher’s death.This blog will be ready to assist should these ideas be taken seriously by the party.
While on the subject of Dizzy, I have been wondering why he had not been given a state funeral. After all, his great rival, Gladstone was as was, surprisingly enough, Lord Palmerston. I am sure Queen Victoria would have loved to attend a state funeral for her beloved Dizzy.
Apparently this was proposed but Lord Beaconsfield turned it down in his will. Here is a list of people who have had a state funeral. Only four Prime Ministers, one of whom, the Duke of Wellington, was given what, by all accounts, was a shambolic state funeral for his achievements as a military commander.
You can't read the whole article on the net (unless you subscribe) but I thought I'd boast of my article in History Today about the early Russian embassies to London.
Tory Historian was delighted not only with the choice of music for Lady Thatcher's funeral (her choice) but the fact that the two readings were from the Authorized Version of the Bible. What a pleasure to hear those sonorous words again. It is one of the finest pieces of English writing and, as Adam Nicolson points out in his excellent history of how King James Bible was created, it was written to be read out. Sound was everything. The words, pregnant with many meanings, also had to be sonorous.
It so happens that TH is also reading one of E. C. R. Lorac's post-war detective novels, Policemen in the Precinct, the precinct being that of a cathedral, or, to be quite precise a Norman abbey in Paulborough in the Midlands. It starts with discussions of a death. The woman most feared and hated in the precinct because of the way she spread nasty rumours has been found dead of a heart attack (but we know better, do we not?).
Mrs Lilian Mayden is not exactly mourned by anyone but many turn up for her very fine funeral in the abbey, including the one woman who feels sorry for her and who has known her since schooldays, Mrs Alison Bentham. She even finds herself shedding tears but knows that it is the ceremony that invokes the emotions.
As a ceremony it was as near perfection as humanity can attain: every movement, every cadence, every phrase was right with the rightness only attainable by age-old tradition and expert direction.How else can one describe the funeral on Wednesday at St Paul's Cathedral?
The news in yesterday's Evening Standard that among those invited to Lady Thatcher's funeral are her old "friends and colleagues" the Lords Howe and Heseltine (what glorious revenge to make them listen to all those eulogies) reminded me of the time I took over the editing of the Conservative History Journal.
The issue came out in summer 2004 and naturally enough we had to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 1979 Conservative victory that was to become momentous in the history of the country and the Conservative Party. I decided to ask some of Margaret Thatcher's colleagues to write short pieces about her. For reasons I can no longer recall, only two were approached, the Lords Tebbit and Howe. Both agreed with alacrity and sent me their pieces (in hard copy, being true Tories).
The time has come to republish them. This is what Lord Tebbit wrote:
Margaret Thatcher took office as Prime Minister of a country possessed by both hope and fear. The Heath government had been defeated following its failure to defeat a miners’ strike in 1974. The Callaghan government fell in 1979 , following the “winter of discontent” during the strike of local government workers. Many voters hoped she would go the same way. Rather more hoped she would not - but many even of these feared that she might.
Foreign embassies were reporting to their governments that Britain had become ungovernable. Multi-national companies had all but ceased to invest as the English Disease, a lemming-like propensity to strike, savaged businesses. The vast stateowned sector of industry gorged itself on taxpayers’ money with no prospects of profitability.
Inflation was endemic and conventional wisdom held that it could be restrained only by a state sponsored “prices and incomes policy”, that is either voluntary or state control of prices and incomes.
During Margaret Thatcher’s term British industrial relations changed from the worst in the developed free world to the best.
She went on to win two further elections, defeated the unions’ “nuclear option” of a miners’ strike, and was brought down not by an ungovernable nation - but an ungovernable cabinet.
In the meantime inflation had been controlled by monetarism - not incomes policy - and foreign investment had poured into Britain. The financial haemorrhage of the nationalised industries had been stanched. After privatisation they became profitable corporation taxpayers.
Living standards soared, millions of the “working classes” had become homeowners and shareholders and Britain’s occupational pension schemes were the envy of Europe.
In passing Margaret Thatcher defeated Argentina, bringing down the junta and by a military operation pursued with purpose, skill and daring, established that Britain still had the will and power to defend unilaterally its people and its interest.
She left a great deal still undone, having had neither time - nor enough competent Ministers with courage to resolve other issues. Neither education, the Health Service, nor the welfare system were properly reformed. Local government finance reform was botched by Christopher Patten. Reform of the European Community was sabotaged by Geoffrey Howe. Nor did Thatcherism cure the sickness of the permissive society, which has - as some forecast - become the yob society of the 21st century.
Abroad Margaret Thatcher stiffened the resolve of President Reagan to defeat the challenge of the Soviet Union and bring a decisive victory in the Cold War. Thatcherism” was widely adopted throughout the world.
So much achieved - so much more to be done.
Who can argue that it was a fine piece in Tebbit's inimitable style? The same could be said for the piece sent to me by Lord Howe, which had been typed on a typewriter with the paper clearly torn out of the carriage with fury. There was a corner missing. Perhaps, he had been chewing it.
This is what the article said:
No government, in my judgement, did more in the last quarter of the twentieth century to change the shape of our world. Some mistakes, of course - but overall it was fundamental and enduring change for the better.
Margaret Thatcher’s most important domestic achievement was the dismantling of the unspoken, but crippling, compact between state ownership and monopoly trade unionism. Almost as crucial was the recovery of control over the public finances and the key switch of Britain’s tax structure away from on which positively obstructed enterprise.
The real triumph was to have transformed not just one party but two - so that when Labour did finally return, these changes were accepted as irreversible. The irony is that Thatcherism might never have survived at all, had it not been for John Major’s success in consolidating it.
The one sadness is that Michael Heseltine might have done better still, by securing as well the European role for Britain, which Ted Heath had made possible.
As editor, I was overjoyed to have these two pieces, so clearly in furious disagreement with each other. (We editors are a heartless race.) Readers were pleased. Not so Lord Howe, who wrote to me soon after the journal's publication. He thought I ought to have warned him that his contribution was going to go in next to Norman Tebbit's.
We interrupt the non-stop broadcast of matters to do with the late great Prime Minister to bring news of a stunning archaeological find in the City of London. As the BBC put it yesterday, entire streets of Roman London are being uncovered. The preservation of the many objects and parts of buildings has led to people referring to this as the "Pompeii of the north" and it is assumed that our knowledge and understanding of Roman London will be transformed.
One of the most important finds, as today's article in the Evening Standard explains, is a batch of about 100 wax tablets "which are written records and which experts hope will reveal the names of Roman Londoners and the streets they lived on". A directory of Roman London. What could be more exciting?
Interestingly, the site was supposed to have been thoroughly excavated in the fifties when the Temple of Mithras was found. It seems not.
The Roman temple of Mithras — dating from the 3rd century AD — was discovered in 1954 and experts from the Museum of London Archaeology believed that the surviving parts of the temple had already been fully excavated and dismantled, and that no other remains would have survived the extensive building work of the Fifties and Sixties.The remains of the temple will now be moved back to where they were found in the first place and the new discoveries properly exhibited. Eventually. Oh yes, and Bloomberg will have their new headquarters.
However, they were astonished to discover even more of the temple, including walls to the vestry and other finds which will help to put it into context.
“All the 50 archaeologists who are working on site at the moment know they are unlikely to see one like it again,” said project manager Sophie Jackson. “Why the site is so incredibly important is the quality of the preservation of the archaeological finds that are normally lost or decayed on other sites.”
Finds include the second Roman door to be discovered in the capital, a complete amber gladiator amulet, the largest ever collection of good luck charms in the shape of phalluses and fists, and a giant decorated piece of leather that is believed to be part of an item of soft furnishing, and which is without parallel in the known Roman world.
Although Lady Thatcher has been out of action for some years and has not even made any public appearances for the last couple of them, her presence was something many of us took almost for granted and found reassuring. Her death has temporarily united the Conservative party in grief and admiration and somewhere behind that unity are the thoughts that her political "defenestration" in 1990 left a wound that the party has not yet healed. It is a bigger wound than the Maastricht debates and quarrels of the Major years. Will the lady's death finally heal that wound?
The news is that Margaret Thatcher has died peacefully at the age of 87. There will be much more to write on this blog and other outlets but, in the meantime, here are two news stories: the BBC and the Daily Mail.
The day President Reagan broke Tecumseh's curse.
Word comes of an entirely praiseworthy series of events in April (which is almost upon us though you would never believe it from the weather): a celebration of the Huguenots in Spitalfields. There will be talks, walks, seminars and exhibitions. It all promises to be most interesting. There will also be blogs on some of the events.
A friend who is a true Conservative reminded me that this appeared very recently in the Daily Mail (can't find the link):
Newly released documents show that in 1981, Bruce Forsyth asked Margaret Thatcher to do the same [as Hugh Grant was asking.] She replied: ‘I share your feelings about the need to maintain standards... but equally it is of crucial importance to keep the press in this country free from government interference. I do not think it is possible to draft a law to deal with these matters. The real sanction, of course, is not to buy the offending paper or magazine.’That ought to be the true Conservative position.
On March 26, 1484 the first English version of Aesop's Fables was published by William Caxton who was using his own translation from French. It was one of the first secular books printed in England. It is not a round anniversary but, somehow, it seems appropriate to recall the early stages of publishing. Should one note that England was ruled by Richard III at that time?
All of these are by good friends of mine so an interest is hereby declared.
First off is a book that should appeal to all students of the Conservative Party and its members, which its author, Nigel Meek, describes as a geek's delight. It is called Conservative Party Politicians at the Turn of the 20th/21st Centuries and deals with their attitudes, behaviour and background. It is full of data, facts, figures and numbers crunched and uncrunched.
Dr Meek has also pointed out that "serious quantitative researchers might also be interested in the original dataset’s dedicated page at the Centre for Comparative European Survey Data’s website as well as its listing on the Economic and Social Data Service’s website". Not my best friend could call me a serious quantitative researcher but I am sure there are some among the blog's readers. I do find the conclusions of some interest as they explain things that might otherwise seem peculiar to those of us who have been watching the shenanigans in that party.
A less serious but equally informative book is by Cedric Pulford, a journalist of many years standing and very wide experience (wider than most hacks') whose views on the Leveson Report and subsequent legislation are not fit for this blog, as it tries to be family friendly. The book is the story of his life in journalism, entitled Journalism My Way and could not be a more entertaining read.
I opened it at random to find a suitable quote and what do I see on page 170? "The partition of Cyprus could not have been more bad-tempered." Ha! We ain't seen nothing yet.
Finally, very unusually for me, a novel: L: a novel history by Jillian Becker who has had an extraordinary career as a writer and a fighter against terrorism before that became fashionable. I still cannot think of a better book on the Baader-Meinhof gang than her Hitler's Children.
This is a novel that shows an alternative history of Britain, one in which Thatcher lost and the Labour radicals won. (Fantasy, I know, but the ideas are of interest.) Jillian has been kind enough to say that our many discussions, often well into the night, in true political fashion, about revolutions in Europe have helped to crystallize many of her thoughts. That is enough, surely for people to read this newly reprinted paperback.
Whenever one reads hyperventilating attacks on present-day politicians and their lack of fiscal probity as compared to past ones, one can be certain they come from people who have no knowledge of history. Let us set aside the particularly notorious cases such as Charles James Fox or David Lloyd George. Let us look at a man who is known for being less than honest in politics but not particularly dishonest in financial matters: Winston S. Churchill.
I have just finished reading Douglas Murray's excellent biography of Lord Alfred Douglas, Bosie (here is an excellent review of it by Miranda Seymour) and Churchill makes several appearances in it.
Oscar Wilde's Hyacinthus and "golden boy" outlived him by forty-five years and had a fascinating if chequered life, clouded by what seems to be hereditary mental problems and, of course, the famous case. Douglas Murray makes an excellent case for Bosie's poetical talent (I, for one, am going to find a collection and read it), for his initial loyalty to Wilde and for the unfairness of De Profundis, which has influenced so many writers in their analysis of the relationship. Wilde, himself, resumed his life with Bosie as soon as he came out of prison. Murray even manages to make sense of the complicated relationship between Bosie and Robbie Ross, usually the hero of the Wilde story (but then, he wrote much of it).
The book details Lord Alfred's "litigious and libellous" career that lasted from 1909 to 1924, the last of these being the case brought against him by Winston Churchill.
In 1921 Douglas
claimed that Winston Churchill was guilty of war profiteering and that while First Lord of the Admiralty he had, with the help of high profile Jews, conspired to murder Lord Kitchener. They had allegedly succeeded in 1916 when Kitchener was on board the Hampshire. The ship had been sailing for Russia where, according to Douglas, Kitchener would have replaced the 'Bolshevik Jews', who were then setting up the revolution that would come in the following y ear, with 'loyal men of British birth', thus 'nipping the Russian revolution in the bud'.Churchill at first ignored this farrago of nonsense, arguing, quite sensibly, that few people read it and by suing he would give unnecessary publicity to a little-known periodical. But in 1923 Douglas went further and publicly accused Churchill of war profiteering by publishing a false report of the Battle of Jutland in order to help some financiers (no doubt of Jewish origin, Bosie having become a virulent anti-Semite) to make money on the New York Stock Exchange and getting paid for this by Sir Ernest Cassel, a well known financier and philanthropist who had, as a matter of fact, converted to Catholicism just as Lord Alfred had done. Churchill's alleged reward was furniture that was worth £40,000.
Furthermore, the accusation about Kitchener's murder was repeated with fanciful details of a time bomb on board of the Hampshire.
This time Churchill had to sue. The case came to court in December 1923 and the first thing to be made clear was that by the time of the Battle of Jutland, Churchill had no connections with the Admiralty (this being post-Dardanelles) and could not have produced the false report.
According to Wikipedia:
As the attorney-general stated in court, on Churchill's behalf, there was no plot, no phoney communiqué, no stock market raid and no present of fine furniture.The phrase is accurate enough in words but not entirely so in reality. As Douglas Murray writes:
When Churchill took the stand he volunteered much information about his private finances so that the defence could not make anything of them. He admitted that Cassel had given him £500 as a wedding present in 1908 and t hat, after the battle of Jutland, Cassel had furnished him with a library. None of this information had come out in the Morning Post case [when Douglas first aired his accusations and was found to have some justification for them] and many members of the public were unaware that such gifts were commonplace for politicians.The truth is that many members of the public and the media are still unaware that such gifts have always been commonplace for politicians.
Lord Alfred Douglas was found guilty of criminal libel and went to prison for six months, another turning point in his life and literary career. While in Wormwood Scrubs he wrote, when his health allowed him, his last major sequence of sonnets, In Excelsis, a defiant response to De Profundis. His career in litigation and libel was over and he started reassessing, yet again, his relationship with Wilde and other people. In particular, he became more sympathetic to Churchill with whom he exchanged a few friendly notes later. The last of this was a letter in December 1944 from a very ill Bosie in which he pleaded with the Prime Minister not to betray the Poles. Churchill reassured him in his reply that he would not do so and added a hand-written note wishing a recovery. Alas, Bosie never really recovered and died in March 1945. Neither did Churchill stand up for the Poles.
Given the terms on which those two parted, it is questionable whether either would find any joy in the idea of a reunification, though Catherine would, undoubtedly, have seen it as her duty to strive towards it. So, perhaps, she would be happy or, at least, content at being part of the second most popular exhibit in Gallery 1 of the National Portrait Gallery, the first being Richard III, the Tudors' bogeyman.
The story (and here) of the portrait being re-identified (though why it was mis-identified in the first place is a mystery, considering other available portraits) is fascinating but even more interesting is the fact that the portrait, most unusually, is in its original frame, carefully restored, and clearly meant to echo the colours of the painting.
Ten years ago I wrote an article in the Salisbury Review about the fiftieth anniversary of Stalin's death or, at least, the fiftieth anniversary since it was announced. It is not on line so I found it in hard copy and decided to post it with some corrections - after all, some things have changed and, in any case, sixtieth has to be substituted for fiftieth.
Fear is the overwhelming theme of Russian history. People fear the rulers and the rulers constantly fear the people; members of the ruling caste fear both those above and those below; the intelligentsia fears the masses and the bosses. Sixty years ago these strands coalesced. On March 5, 1953 died Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, the dreaded master of Russia and other republics. A man so feared and so adored that his name was pronounced with awe or, else, people whispered nicknames and avoided naming altogether. A man whose closest colleagues sweated (and worse) with fear every time he summoned them. A man, who was so afraid of the people that he rejected the very idea of a home guard in Moscow as the German army rolled forward in 1941, certain that the guns will be turned on him and his immediate entourage.
His death provoked relief but also fear. The authorities were so afraid that on the day of the funeral side streets were blocked off with armoured cars. A sudden wave of panic drove many of the huge crowd to the barriers and hundreds, maybe thousands, were crushed to death. As he ruled, so he died: surrounded by a sea of blood.
In the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe there were changes, immediate but slow. People were released from prisons and labour camps and mutterings of truth began, if only quietly. Hard-line politicians were superseded by others (in the case of the little Stalin of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, it was death that claimed him almost immediately). There were also uprisings in the labour camps that were put down with great ferocity, as was the first major East European revolt, the Berlin uprising of June 1953.
In the free and wealthy West his death was mourned far more. Liberals and left-wing politicians, writers, journalists, academics, entertainers, even the occasional trade union activist saw Stalin's Soviet Union as the shining beacon, the great hope of mankind. To do this, they resorted to greater and more extensive lying than any supporter of the Nazi regime had done. For decades the existence of labour camps and torture chambers, the death of millions of people and destruction of whole sections of the population was all denied.
Each small and carefully controlled revelation from the Soviet Union was greeted with shock and surprise. Those who wrote openly about the Soviet reality were vilified as cold war warriors, reactionaries, fascists. Only slowly has the truth about Communism been accepted. And really, has it? People know it was a nasty regime but there are relatively few discussions even if the South Bank has had to accept rather reluctantly that there was some fear in the Soviet Union as well. Any mention of Communist oppression tends to be dismissed as tiresome and unimportant. It is all finished. Let us not talk about it. How dare you mention it in the same breath as Nazi oppression? After all, the Communists meant well even if it always went wrong.
But we do need to talk about it. The man who died sixty years ago and his influence has distorted European and world politics much more than his equally vicious colleague and enemy Hitler. Yet Hitler's misdeeds are analyzed repeatedly and, more importantly, castigated. Any apologist for Nazism is denounced immediately and rightly. Apologists for Stalin, deniers of the Communist mass murder are still highly regarded or treated with sympathy and understanding. It is their opponents who are vilified. As we know even discussing the socialist roots of Nazism is considered to be beyond the pale, a tribute to the propaganda spread across the world under Stalin's auspices.
They may be divided in Georgia about Stalin (and that has much to do with the political situation there), President Putin may announce that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical catastrophe but there is no excuse for Western amnesia. We must think very seriously about his deeds and their consequences. After all, we are still living with them.
These are the books I am reading or intending to read in the near future (not counting detective stories). Might be of interest.
In no particular order: Jonathan Foreman's Aiding and Abetting, published by Civitas, deals with the many problems associated with the aid industry. Also how to solve them. I would start by abolishing development aid immediately and limit humanitarian aid.
A People Passing Rude, edited by Anthony Cross, possibly the greatest living expert on early Anglo Russian relations: a collection of essays about British reactions to different aspects of Russian culture from the sixteenth century to the twentieth.
Robert Oulds's Montgomery and the First War on Terror, which deals with Monty's early career as counter-terrorist commander in Ireland and the Middle East. I have to admit to not starting on it yet. But I am looking forward to finding out how largely military missions can influence our own counter-terrorist activity. Or so I was told by the author.
Peter King's Reaction, which might tell me what it is conservatives should conserve when all existing institutions are contrary to their ideas and cherished beliefs.
Now this I am really looking forward to reading, having published several of the author's articles: Harshan Kumarasingham's A Political Legacy of the British Empire, which is a study of Power and the Parliamentary System in Post-Colonial India and Sri Lanka.
Dennis O'Keeffe's Edmund Burke, an excellent introduction to the man and his ideas, so influential in the conservative movement.
Finally, the deeply depressing Former People by Douglas Smith, which I shall be reviewing for the Salisbury Review but also blogging here. Come to think of it, I shall be blogging all of them.
