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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.
History Today rightly points to the most important event in modern history that happened on this day in 1956: Khrushchev's so-called secret speech (it was, actually, secret in most of the Soviet Union and, theoretically, other Communist countries though the text had reached the West), which, once and for all, undermined the legitimacy of the Communist system even with people who believed in it.
It was an extraordinarily dangerous and daring thing for Khrushchev to do. Solzhenitsyn believed that he spoke out of ‘a movement of the heart’, a genuine impulse to do good. Others have pointed out, more cynically, that it tarred other party leaders with the Stalinist brush, to the ostentatiously repentant Khrushchev’s advantage. It deflected blame from the party and the system on to Stalin’s shoulders. A few months later it was announced that the congress had called for measures ‘for removing wholly and entirely the cult of the individual, foreign to Marxism-Leninism… in every aspect of party, governmental and ideological activity.’On the whole, I am inclined to the second explanation. Call me cynical, if you like, but the deflecting of the blame is exactly what happened and Khrushchev's rivals were eased out of their position. Then again, none of them were imprisoned or shot, which is was a great advance in political methodology.
The two pictures I have chosen illustrate quite well where Nikita Khrushchev, himself a veteran of purges, the Ukrainian collectivization and of the Moscow metro construction, fitted. Maybe he did suddenly decide that he had to do something to make up for the blood on his own hands. Maybe.
As is well known the first woman MP actually to take her seat in the Commons was a Conservative, to wit, Nancy Astor. This blog has mentioned her a few times before, naturally enough, here, here, here and here. It is, however, worth recalling her career yet again, as today is the anniversary of her Maiden Speech. Thus, on February 24, 1920 was the first time a woman spoke in the House of Commons.
The immediate reason given by the Pope was that he felt that his health, physical and mental, was failing and he did not think he could do the work he was assigned by God, well enough. Given that Popes are not supposed to resign, this was immediately dismissed as being merely an excuse. His predecessor went on despite his obvious growing frailty, say those who find the argument unpersuasive. Others, and TH without being RC, agrees with them feel that, perhaps, there needs to be a form of retirement even for the occupier of St Peter's Chair when he feels that his powers are no longer adequate to the immense task.
Then the article goes on to discuss the various scandals that have dogged the Pope's tenure, first and most important being the child abuse one, which had gone on for some decades and which was first properly investigated under Benedict.
Scandal from a source much closer to home hit in 2012 when the pontiff's butler, responsible for dressing him and bringing him meals, was found to be the source of leaked documents alleging corruption in the Vatican's business dealings, causing an international furore.TH has never been able to understand that furore. Was anything proved beyond the fact that His Holiness had hired the wrong man to be his butler?
Then we get an account, which is surely to the Pontiff's credit of his visit to the site of a Nazi death camp and his effort to confront the evil that is in his country's past. Scrupulously, we are told that while he was a member of the Hitler Jugend, which was compulsory, he was not a member of the Nazi party and his family had opposed Hitler (though, presumably, not strongly enough to suffer some of the truly horrible punishments). So much for the "Nazi Pope" that we sometimes get from rabid Germanophobes.
Finally, there is the "scandal" of the Pope quoting "a 14th century Byzantine emperor as saying Islam had only brought evil to the world and that it was spread by the sword". The inevitable riots followed and a nun was killed. Apparently, the scandal was not the fact that there were bloody riots in response to a historical or political comment but the comment itself.
Naturally, TH looked up the last Pope who had resigned, Gregory XII in 1415, during a serious muddle in the papacy and the time of many Popes.
Gregory was elected the pope of Rome in 1406 with the understanding that he would quickly resign if the pope of Avignon, Benedict XIII, would do the same. After a decade of negotiation and maneuvering, in which a third pope was elected, Gregory finally stepped down and became a bishop. When Benedict refused to resign, he was excommunicated, and Martin V was elected in 1417 as the sole pope.
Because Gregory XII’s resignation was part of a brokered settlement, a more appropriate comparison to Benedict’s situation might be Pope Celestine V, who resigned in 1294, Housely said. Celestine was a hermit when he was elected pope and he quickly quit to return to solitude after “he found the office too onerous,” he said.
The resignation will take force from February 28, in the middle of Lent. We shall be watching that chimney again.
Yesterday we remembered the last Plantagenet King; today we celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Accession to the Throne. It came about considerably more peacefully than that of Richard III or Henry VII but much of the language of the Proclamations dates back to those historic days with some allowance being made for the Commonwealth whose Queen she is, too.
Meanwhile, here are two videos to watch and enjoy. The first is of the Queen arriving in London and the Proclamations being ..... proclaimed:
The second is of more general pomp and circumstance:
There can be little more said on the subject until we hear definitely on whether Leicester Cathedral will reinter the bones and what kind of ceremony will be put together. However, there is some interest in the reconstruction of King Richard's face on the basis of the skull and using advanced computer technology together with older fashioned wax modelling.
The article in the Independent seems to have been written by someone who has not seen the famous portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, the starting point of Inspector Alan Grant's investigation in Josephine Tey's excellent Daughter of Time.
All known portraits of Richard III were painted after his death and do not show him in a particularly flattering light, which suited the Tudor’s dynasty’s portrayal of him as one of the great villains of history.
In fact, the fascinating aspect of the reconstruction, pace the journalist in the Independent is how close that face is to the portrait. Either those who worked on the reconstruction were influenced by the portrait or the latter was very life-like.
