Conservative History Journal

Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of one of the most prolific writers of excellent popular fiction, of which Tory Historian approves, as readers would have realized. Georgette Heyer, whose fan club maintains a very elegant website, was born on August 16, 1902 in Wimbledon, which is somehow appropriate.

She died, an immensely successful author, on July 4, 1974 in London. Known largely for her Regency novels, she also wrote highly amusing, if somewhat ridiculous detective stories, mostly about Superintendent Hannasyde and Sergeant, later Inspector, Hemingway. There were also other historical novels but these are not so well known. (Wikipedia lists them all.)

The Regency novels are highly entertaining and rely on very accurate information that Georgette Heyer collected assiduously. She was clearly influenced by Jane Austen and, while not being as great a writer as the latter, she is considerably better than most authors of historical romances.

The Regency world of Ms Heyer, a slightly higher one socially than that of Miss Austen, is vivid and is never merely a modern world with a few tushes and gadzookses added to them. In fact, there are very few tushes and no gadzookses at all but the details of dress, habit, behaviour, food and so on are accurate as anyone who reads contemporary accounts and diaries can see. Even professional historians have been known to recommend Ms Heyer's romances.

Her detective stories, while mostly very silly and never as popular as the romances, also give a clear picture of the upper middle class and middle class world of England some years before and some years after the Second World War. In her descriptions of post-war England she shows herself to be considerably more accurate than the more highly regarded but hopelessly outdated and nostalgic Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh.

Tory Historian finds it particularly admirable that Ms Heyer's dating and time scale in the detective stories is always accurate. To prove this, two novels, which have many of the same characters some years apart, are particularly recommended: "They Found Him Dead", published in 1937 and "Duplicate Death", published in 1951.

And we used to be proud of them. Indeed, many an academic on both sides of the Atlantic has referred with a knowing smile to his or her career in the hush-hush part of the Second World War and the only annoying part of it all is that it is not always possible to find how true the individual claims are.

All of a sudden these people have become known as spies, a term that has a distasteful aspect and programmes about people who fought the enemy through gathering and analyzing vital intelligence are full of disdainful verbal grimaces.

Tory Historian once sat through a completely pointless talk, which asked whether Raoul Wallenberg, the one undoubted hero of the Second World War and victim of the other totalitarian state, could have used his position as a Swedish diplomat to supply information to the Allies as well as rescuing Jews in Hungary.

In the end, the speaker had to admit that he had no evidence for any of his speculation. But the question that was left in the mind of the audience, made up as it was from analysts, writers and former practitioners of the intelligence service is why that should be a problem. The war was fought to be won and intelligence was an important weapon.

Now the subject of wartime agents has cropped again in what sounds like a shock-horror story produced by CNN. Apparently, the famed chef Julia Child and Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg

served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The full secret comes out Thursday, all of the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this week released a list of the names found in the records, will make available for the first time all 750,000 pages identifying the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives.

Two books arrived in the post today for review in the Conservative History Journal. Both are published by Politico's, no longer the domain of one Iain Dale, and both are about very recent British political history.

There is Norman Fowler's "A Political Suicide", subtitled "The Conservatives' voyage into the wilderness", a cautionary tale to both the Tories and Gordon Brown's Labour. I have only glanced through it and, thus, cannot tell whether Lord Fowler shoulders any of the blame. Some lucky reviewer can find out and tell the rest of us. Incidentally, I never cease to be amazed by the propensity modern politicians have for keeping diaries that seem to record very little of any interest. (Miaow!)

Secondly, we have "Challenge to Democracy" by Ronald McIntosh, who was the director general of the National Economic Development Council (Neddy) from mid-1973 till 1977. The sub-title of this tome is "Politics, Trade Union Power and Economic Failure in the 1970s" and who would know that better than Mr McIntosh, though I do not suppose he could have done anything.

Well, readers, who would like to review these books for the Conservative History Journal, either the print version or the blog? If you do please e-mail me on szamuely_AT_aol.com.

Being an historian by training and interest (though not, sadly, by employment) I have always found it odd that people should not be interested in history. But it’s about people and what they do and why they do it. How can it not be interesting? The usual reply consists of a list of unrelated and rather dull topics that passes for history these days in schools.

It has been obvious for some time that what excites people is narrative history, which is, presumably, the reason for the popularity enjoyed by popular history books and TV series in the last few years. Of course, as Andrew Roberts pointed out to me in an interview for the Conservative History Journal, this popularity may not last and can be replaced at any time by any other subject.

For all of that, it is clear that there are many people out there who want to know about history and feel cheated by its non-teaching at schools. This influenced Civitas a couple of years ago when it decided to reprint the old children’s classic, “Our Island Story” by H. E. Marshall.

I re-read it in its hardback version and thought it was a pity that the new edition was quite so heavy to pick up, what with thick glossy paper and rather thick cover. It was meant to be for children who would find it difficult to manoeuvre a hefty volume of that kind. This might well have been sorted out in the paperback edition.

There was something of a surprise as I did not remember how much of the history Henrietta Marshall wrote was actually based on literature, most notably, of course, Shakespeare’s plays. There are many quotations from the plays as well as other poetry.

Poetry, of course, is a great incentive for learning history, especially if it is of the more heroic kind and those plays have been inspiring debates for centuries. However, none of that is history in the acceptable sense of the word. It is more a reflection of the way teachers wanted children and young people to see their own national development.

Browsing through some second hand books at a summer fair recently I came across a slim tome I had not heard of before. It is by Peter Mandler, the Cambridge historian and is entitled “History and National Life”, complete with that famous picture of the young Walter Raleigh listening to the stories of an old salt on the cover.

This is an interesting topic and I shall enjoy reading the book and reporting on it, despite the rather poor review by Roger Spalding published in the Institute of Historical Research.

Yet more apologies for a prolonged silence. Other matters have intruded.

Today we should turn our attention to those astonishing people, the scientists and engineers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century; the people who made this country truly great.

The reason for that is because August 9 is the anniversary of the birth of Scottish engineer, architect and stonemason, Thomas Telford. The son of a shepherd, who died soon after his birth, he was apprenticed to a stonemason at the age of 14 and was largely self-taught.

The list of his achievements make one feel rather dizzy. He built important roads, canals and bridges in England, Wales and Scotland. He was called the “Colossus of Roads” by his great friend, the poet Southey, one the Lake Poets in his early life and a Poet Laureate later on. Presumably, the idea of two cultures simply did not occur to these people.

When you have read Thomas Telford’s biography have a look at the list of the Men of Science Alive in 1807 - 08, pictured in the group portrait above.

This is a posting that celebrates great people so there will be no moaning and tearing out of hair because these days our universities and firms find it hard to recruit British students who could get anywhere near studying or practising science and engineering.

Tory Historian spent an hour or so last Thursday in the National Portrait Gallery, which is open late on Thursdays and Fridays. On the top floor the small room that is given over to temporary exhibitions on one theme is filled with images of Charles I before his execution, during it and as the glorious martyr afterwards. The exhibition is on till mid-December and is well worth seeing.

The Parliamentarians probably over-reached themselves when they tried, condemned and executed the King, thus turning a problematic and not very popular former ruler into a martyr for all times. (Tory Historian seems to recall talk of the same thing happening with Saddam Hussein after his execution but it has not. That man was beyond simply unpopular – he was hated in a way Charles I was not except by very few.)

There is deliberately very little about Charles and his Scottish wars or disagreements with Parliament or, for that matter, the religious, constitutional and political problems he allowed to grow in the years before the Civil War. Many of the portraits that relate to the period can be seen in the large room devoted to the subject.

The theme in the special exhibition is the fascinating one of propaganda and the way opinion can be swayed. Charles was not a popular king but the notion of raising Parliamentary rebellion may not have appealed to many people either. Still, there had been rebellions before – some successful, some not so much.

The issue here was the trial and execution. Charles was actually put on trial and accused of being “a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable enemy of the commonwealth of England”. This was the shattering new idea that the squires of England, who sat in that Parliament thought of: that the king could be tried because there was a law and a constitutional order that was superior to him.

New ideas are not necessarily popular and this one was not, followed as it was by King Charles’s apparently noble martyrdom during trial and at the execution. The subsequent oppressive rule by Parliament did not endear the cause to people and the Royalists profited by it.

Etchings and woodcuts of Charles’s execution, real and imaginary, were widely available, though their production and distribution was actually banned in the country. They were brought in from the Continent, many, interestingly enough, from Holland, a country that had only recently emerged from its own war against the King of Spain.

As the notes to the exhibition say:

Royalist propaganda avoided difficult political and constitutional issues and focused attention on a sympathetic image of a devoted king suffering for his people.

Once again apologies for light posting. Other preoccupations, including dental appointments have been eating into time. Matters will improve. Well they can scarcely get worse.

In the meantime there is only about 30 minutes left to remember the birthday in 1866 of one of the most delightful children's writers, Beatrix Potter. There can be no question but that what she wrote was masterful conservative tracts encased in easily understood stories with enchanting illustrations. Anyone who thinks otherwise should compare the lives of Benjamin Bunny and Peter Rabbit or find out what nearly happened to silly Jemima Puddleduck who was saved in time by the wise and traditionally minded dog, Shep.

Tory Historian was once wandering round the National Portrait Gallery - the theme of tomorrow's blog - on a quiet day when the keeper of the Early Twentieth Century Gallery was predisposed to chat. He was eloquent in his admiration for Beatrix Potter and compared her very favourably with all the swaggering First World War generals and officers.

Tory Historian is back in harness after a gap when time had to be devoted to a serious piece of work. An interesting anniversary needs to be noted. As Historic-UK.com points out for July 22, on this day in 1946 bread rationing was introduced in Britain, more than a year after the war ended. Unlike other European countries, this one managed to get through the six years of war without bread rationing and a year after the end it was introduced. How is one to explain this/

The website says rather blandly: "The shortage is blamed upon a poor harvest and drought." Hmm. Not on the socialist government that was in charge of the country?

This is not an anniversary any conservative can relish but neither can any historian ignore the beignning of the French Revolution, an event that changed the history of Western Europe and, in its wake, probably most of the world, whether for better of worse, we can argue about.

As the complete quotation from "A Tale of Two Cities" sums up:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it ws the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we
were all going the other way.

Tory Historian has something of an interest in popular and children's literature of the past and never ceases to marvel at the high quality of writing. Take Sexton Blake, the Sherlock Holmes for the masses (though, let's face it, Holmes was very popular, as well). As this website rightly says, Blake was a publishing phenomenon for most of the twentieth century.

He was quite clearly a more exciting imitation of Sherlock Holmes, what with living in Baker Street and having a housekeeper called Mrs Bardell (a touch of Dickens there) and that assistant, Tinker, who starts off as a young lad but grows up and drives cars and flies aeroplanes. The adventures are truly bad - Blake is always described as being incredibly brilliant, much ahead of anyone in the world in his ability to think and understand but invariably finds themselves in messy situations almost anyone could have foreseen. But the escapes are always exciting. One can quite see why the short stories and books are so popular.

Tory Historian has just acquired a 1960 edition of a 1920 story, complete with typical 1960s cover of a really bad and irrelevant photograph. What was it about paperback publishers of those years that made them go for that rubbish by way of cover illustration?

The novel was called "The Mystery Box" in the first place and "The Case of the Bismarck Memoirs" in the reprint. What struck Tory Historian is the language of this book that was aimed at the popular market. Would any really popular writer (and I don't mean Booker Prize winners) nowadays get away with writing like this:

Blake nodded and continued his examination. The discovery of the ecutcheon and the coat of arms had stimulated his interest:ut rather suggested that the unknown person who had once owned this flask was connected with some honoured and titled family. The flask itself was too exquisitely designed and the engraving too costly for it to have been bought at an ordinary shop; it had no doubt been specially designed bor the person whose initials it bore: or he may have received it as a present.

Colin Jones in his book, “Paris – Biography of a City”, already mentioned once by Tory Historian, describes an interesting example of a misunderstanding arising from best intentions.

By 1814 Napoleon had become largely unpopular in Paris (and probably in the rest of the country), not least because of the constant economic crisis, caused partly by the strict control he imposed on such things as bread prices and tried to impose on British imports and partly by the expense of his endless military campaign. (The strength of his secret police and the iron control of all publications and organizations did not help either.)

So his first defeat in 1814 caused distress only because for the first time since the seventeenth century Paris was invaded by foreigners. Otherwise, Parisians were not all that bothered by l’Empereur’s exile. Here is where a certain misunderstanding arose, as Professor Jones describes.

When the allied troops had entered Paris for the first time in 1814, many of them wore a white cockade to signify their peaceful intentions towards Parisians. Thinking that they would show the invaders their appreciation for this gesture, many Parisians wore the white cockade in return. However, Bourbon sympathizers among the troops imagined that by wearing these cockades, the Parisians were showing their undying support for the Bourbon cause (white being the monarchy’s ceremonial colour). This misunderstanding led the allies to imagine that Paris was massively pro-Bourbon and pro-Restoration. The years after 1815 would show how wrong this was. Indeed the regimes which followed Napoleon produced a nostalgia for his rule which his rule had done relatively little to justify.

... a book that looks extremely interesting: "Between the Thin Blue Lines", edited by Jean M. Lucas. It is a story of the rise, powerful presence and gradual decline of the Conservative Party Agents. Not only do I intend to read it immediately but I shall be looking for someone to review it for the Conservative History Journal.

In the meantime, the book is published by Trafford Publishing, a Canadian firm, and is available in Britain from Miss Lucas herself (jeanlucas_AT_uwclub.net).

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This question has been exercising various people's minds ever since it has been decreed by the literary powers that be that Buchan is rather an inferior writer. There is no explanation why people still enjoy reading him and why his books keep being reprinted but that sort of thing does not bother the powers that be.

Tory Historian is a Buchan fan as has been explained before. Tory Historian is also a fan of Gertrude Himmelfarb's the redoubtable historian of political, social and liteary ideas. (She is also the sister of Milton Himmelfarb, wife of Irving Kristol and mother of William Kristol. What on earth did all these people have on their cornflakes? A remarkable family.)

The point is that Gertrude Himmelfarb has written a fascinating essay on John Buchan. Published in "Victorian Minds" in 1968 as "John Buchan - the Last Victorian", it was reprinted in 2006 in "The Moral Imagination" as "John Buchan: an Untimely Appreciation". It is an interesting and well-argued essay even if Tory Historian does not agree with everything in it.

Naturally enough, the question of anti-semitism comes up (just after the question of racism, a slightly more complex issue) and, on the whole, Professor Himmelfarb finds that though there is a certain amount of passive anti-semitism in the novels, as was common in those halcyon pre-Nazi days, Jews are not necessarily the villains and, anyway, there are various extenuating circumstances.

There were, in fact, Jewish rag dealers and pawnbrokers, Jewish Communists and financiers in England at the time, an England that was far more ethnically homogenous than it is now.

Yet it is disconcerting to find that the plot of one of his most successful novels, Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), centers [sic] upon an international conspiracy devised by Jewish anarchists and Jewish financiers led by a "little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake" who is avenging himslef for centuries of persecution.

Not one, not two but three books on the go. One was lent Tory Historian by a friend in Paris, whence the book bag came back with more volumes in it than it had departed with. It is a collection of essays by Christopher Hitchens, erstwhile left-wing and now rather right-wing though not precisely conservative scourge of all and sundry.

Entitled "Love, Poverty and War", it is well worth reading for the evisceration of Michael Moore if nothing else. But, as it happens there are numerous fascinating pieces, not least on Winston Churchill, Rudyard Kipling, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, David Irving and Mel Gibson. Sometimes Hitchens goes strangely astray in making serious errors of omission and commission. But mostly it is pure unadulterated intellectual joy. Not for those with weak nerves.

For serious reading there is Mitzi Auchterlonie's "Conservative Suffragists", a seriously underrated subject so far. In general, not enough has been written about women in the Conservative Party and on that side of the political divide, though in many ways they achieved more than their much-trumpeted colleagues on the left. This book should balance matters out somewhat. There will be another posting about it.

Finally, a book acquired today: "The Letters of Julian Maclaren-Ross", launched, very appropriately, in the upstairs bar of the Wheasheaf pub in North Soho (and no, there is no such place as NoHo in London). The whole event was organized by the excellent Sohemian Society, one that all conservatives, liberal conservatives and, dare one say it, libertarians should pay attention to.

Fans of Anthony Powell will recall that Julian Maclaren-Ross, who appears a good deal in Powell's memoirs, was also the inspiration for X. Trapnel in the last trilogy of the "Dance to the Music of Time".

In Paris Tory Historian was told by two separate and very different people, both of whom are Parisians, that Sarkozy’s most popular move was his marriage to Carla Bruni. Oddly enough, our own media seems to think otherwise.

Indeed, Peter Allen of the Daily Telegraph has found an article with a delightfully historic parallel: “Carla Bruni is ‘modern day Marie Antoinette’”. Well, not quite, one has to say, if one remembers the scandalous and scurrilous stories that circulated about that silly and unhappy queen.

It seems that Nicolas Domenach, author of the article “Enough is enough” in the magazine Marianne is not one of the French First Lady’s fans.

After referring to the wives of past presidents, Jacques Chirac and Francois Mitterand, Mr Domenach said of the Sarkozys: "They are always pawing each other in public, which might be normal for newly-weds, but he is the president and she is the first lady - and they are not exactly young! The endless photos of Carla cosying up to Nicolas have become nothing more than a
vulgar charade.

"Quite frankly it's overkill and we can't take any more. She is not so much a perfume but a very strong air freshener that we use to cover up unpleasant smells in public places."

The brutal Saxon invaders drove the Britons westward into Wales and compelled them to become Welsh; it is now considered doubtful whether this was a Good Thing. Memorable among the Saxon warriors were Hengist and his wife (?or horse), Horsa. Hengist made himself King in the South. Thus Hengist was the first English King and his wife (or horse), Horsa, the first English Queen (or horse). The country was now almost entirely inhabited by Saxons and was therefore renamed England, and thus (naturally) soon became C. of E. This was a Good Thing, because previously the Saxons had worshipped some dreadful gods of their own called Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

King Alfred was the first Good King, with the exception of Good King Wenceslas, who, though he looked 4th, really came first (it is not known, however, what King Wenceslas was King of). Alfred ought never to be confused with King Arthur, equally memorable but probably non-existent and therefore perhaps less important historically (unless he did exist).

The trip to Paris was very enjoyable, with plenty of excellent food and drink but also many long walks through Parisian arrondissements. In between all this activity the reading matter was a book by Professor Colin Jones, entitled "Paris - Biography of a City".

It is an excellent introduction to the history of this fascinating city and any comparison one might make with a "biography" of London gives one furiously to think as a certain Belgian detective used to say.

One interesting aspect of Professor Jones's book is the reminder that Parisian history has been fierce and violent throughout most of its existence. More so than that of London, whether one looks at the City or London as it expanded. There are many dark aspects to London's history but the almost continuous sequence of riots, revolutions and counter-revolutions, not to mention civil wars that fill Parisian history since the early middle ages far overwhelms our own peccadillos.

It is also worth recalling that Paris was often not just in opposition to the ruler or the many rulers but also in opposition to the rest of the country that occasionally took its revenge. For all of that, Henri IV was right: Paris was worth a Mass. or as "1066 and All That" has it: Paris is rather a mess.

A short break in postings while Tory Historian travels to France to investigate ... well, many things, though not necessary historical ones. However, staying in the Marais district in Paris should yield some adequate photographs for this blog. Back on Saturday evening.

In the meantime, let us remember that tomorrow is the anniversary of the start of the Korean War, that sometimes appears to be the forgotten war of the twentieth century in Britain. Too many people know nothing about it, not even the fact that British forces took a very active part in it.

To be quite precise, the question should be what is it about Ayn Rand’s followers? Supposedly libertarian, freedom loving, objectivist individuals they tend to be the angriest, most intolerant branch of the right or the conservative movement both in Britain and in America (and probably everywhere else, if they exist).

I was a little stunned by the reaction some Randroids (oops, one mustn’t call them that as they get really upset) displayed at Bill Buckley’s death. There was gloating and rejoicing around because the “evil genius” of the right had finally gone. Why? Because as editor of National Review, he published Whittaker Chambers’s rather negative review of Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”.

The story is that Rand had not bothered to read the review but proclaimed a kind of furious fatwa on it and on Chambers, one that her followers have faithfully adhered to ever since. What annoyed her more than anything, or would have done, if she had bothered to read the review, was Chambers’s conclusion that over the whole novel there hangs the miasma of fascistic intolerance and one hears a voice cry “Into the gas chamber, go”.

As a matter of fact, this is not inaccurate and Chambers had very finely tuned antennae for this sort of thing. Rand is intolerant of anyone who is too weak to enter her particular brand of utopia. What will happen to those? Chambers’s conclusion is not wrong.

The hatred for Chambers and Buckley has persisted to the point when Libertarians of the Randian persuasion were seen dancing metaphorically on the latter’s grave. Weird.

Now I have picked up traces of another bitter row. There has been a certain amount of unexplained movement around the conservative film site Libertas. The man, who under the moniker Dirty Harry has been the main blogger on it for a couple of years, has gone and set up his own extremely lively conservative film blog, Dirty Harry’s Place. (Highly recommended, incidentally, for anyone interested in film and shenanigans around it.)

Libertas, meanwhile, is being reclaimed by the founders Jason Apuzzo and Govindini Murty, also founders of the conservative Liberty film festival. So far, the result of that has been twofold. One is that the blog is not updated as regularly as it was under Dirty Harry (and how I understand that problem) and the other is a mega-row on the subject of Libertas and its two founders, now main authors, on its readers’ forum.

I shall pass over the apparent dislike Apuzzo and Murty have engendered in their readers and viewers of the film festival because I know nothing about the truth of it. What was extraordinary is the venom brought out by Apuzzo’s casually critical reference to Rand, “Atlas Shrugged” and Randroids. The posting was about yet another delay in the filming of that book but Apuzzo was less than complimentary about novel and author.

That was enough to invoke howls of rage and cries of betrayal both on Libertas and on Dirty Harry’s Place. If they could, they would boil Jason Apuzzo in oil. But why?

Why cannot one criticize Ayn Rand exactly the same way as one criticizes other authors one agrees with in general terms but not in every way?

For what it is worth, here are my views on the subject: I have never managed to get through her novels, which are turgid and verbose. I know other people find them wonderfully inspiring but there is no accounting for tastes. The idea that they are among the greatest in modern literature with Mikhail Bulgakov, Anthony Powell or Robert Musil out there, strikes me as ludicrous.

I have, however, read a number of Rand’s essays and agreed with almost everything she said. In fact, let me go further. I agree with all the main ideas but find some of the details worrisome. In particular, I find the intolerance, clear in her writings and even clearer in her followers, deeply unpleasant and frightening. But much of her analysis of socialism and hypocritical corporatism is absolutely accurate and it would do our politicians a good deal of good to read those essays.

The point is that her ideas are very simple and straightforward. This makes her very popular and turns her followers into fanatics; it also makes her essays, after a while, uninteresting. When you read the fifth one and find that the same half a dozen ideas are being churned out in exactly the same way, you find yourself putting the book aside with qualified admiration.

Does that make me a traitor to the cause?

Every now and then the Daily Telegraph publishes some truly important stories. Yesterday was such a day when we could read that Dante's "infernal crimes" were now forgiven. Actually, the sub-editor got a little carried away there. It is true that Dante Alighieri was sentence to death in 1302 but it was merely the outcome of the civil war in Florence turning against him and his side.

Dante was born into a noble Florentine family in 1265 and found himself embroiled in a struggle between the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy for control of the city. He is likely to have fought in decisive battles for the city's independence and became a Prior, one of six city leaders, in 1300.

His stint in power came to a bad end, however, when forces loyal to the pope seized power and put him on trial. When he did not appear, he was banished for two years and given a 5,000 florin fine. When he did not pay, he was condemned to death by burning.