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Tory Historian has been reading the small World's Classics edition of James Woodforde's diary, entitled Diary of a Country Parson and fell to wondering whether any research has been done about the country parson and his family. The heavily edited tiny book is fascinating and frustrating in about equal measures.
Well, Mr Google is everyone's friend, even Tory Historian's. There is, thankfully, a Parson Woodforde Society, which appears to be flourishing and has produced a number of works about the man himself as well as publishing his complete diary in 17 volumes. How can one find time to read them all?
This comes from the Preface to David Gilmour's excellent biography of Curzon:
Curzon's reputation thus survived the first two verdicts of history. In the early 1930s, however, Lord Beaverbrook launched an assault on it that lasted for nearly 30 years and ensured its virtual destruction. In a series of racy and tendentious books the newspaper tycoon directed a crescendo of abuse culminating in the allegation that his victim had been 'inconsistent, unreliable, untruthful and treacherous'. His principal charges were that Curzon had 'changed sides on almost every issue during his long career' and that he had given Asquith 'an absolute pledge' that he would not serve under Lloyd George in 1916.These are particularly odd charges as in his own lifetime Curzon was often attacked for being too inflexible.
Beaverbrook's judgements were accepted with a strange lack of inquiry by some distinguished historians, who repeated his statements and in some cases developed them so that it soon became almost obligatory to describe Curzon as a 'turncoat' or 'deserter' always joining the winning side. Pre-eminent among them was A.J.P.Taylor, who portrayed him as 'one of naure's rats', a weak and irresolute figure who in 1922 'deserted Lloyd George as successfully as he had deserted Asquith'. Another highly respected scholar, A.M.Gollin, took up the theme of Curzon's 'political somersaults', claiming that before the First World War 'he often advocated certain definite policies, only to change his mind at the last moment and reverse his course'.
It was not till the late 1960s when Kenneth Rose published his biography of the late Viceroy and Foreign Secretary and David Dilks his two volumes on Curzon in India that there was even a partial rehabilitation. We then went through a period of too many historians refusing to see anything good in an unashamed imperialist, despite his interesting and sensitive descriptions of Persia and Central Asia and his well known determination to preserve Indian culture.
Why exactly would any reputable historian follow the lead of a somewhat disreputable newspaper magnate in historical matters?
Tory Historian's absence has been occasioned in part by interested reading about the debates in the Conservative Party in the early twentieth century (of which more in future postings). The return was going to be a happy one, perhaps with a note about the fact that today is the great Benjamin Franklin's 305th birthday.
Instead, TH is furious. How can one not be when one of the main Sunday newspapers publishes a sycophantic interview with Eric Hobsbawm, the historian who has been a member of the CPGB all his life, who still regrets the collapse of the Evil Empire a.k.a. the Soviet Union and who, undoubtedly, tailored his historical writings according to his ideology. Do these people have no shame?
Arthur Boutwood's book naturally led Tory Historian to the work of E. H. H. Green, the historian of the Conservative Party and its ideas, who died tragically young in 2006. His Ideologies of Conservatism denies that the Conservative Party is a party with no ideology. Its beginning, much to Tory Historian's delight, is an account of the fierce ideological battles waged within the party when it appeared to be in crisis in the early years of the twentieth century.
When was this written?
There were, of course, Conservative policies, but there was no productive Conservative thought, certainly no systematized Conservative thought. The changes which created our modern political world were governed by conceptions which were not Conservative, and were brought about by forces which owed none of their strength to Conservative ideals.The answer is 1913 in a book called National Revival - A Re-statement of Tory Principles by Arthur Boutwood, apparently anonymously though it was hardly a profound secret.
Tory Historian is aware that "awesome" has become one of the most fashionable slang words meaning, roughly speaking, "pretty good". This is rather a pity as the word should be used only when describing people like Captain Frederick Gustavus Burnaby (1842 - 1885), modestly described by Wikipedia as a "traveller and soldier". And so he was, as well as a superb writer of two classics of travel literature: A Ride to Khiva and On Horseback Through Asia Minor.
His biography (which included unsuccessfully contesting a seat in Birmingham in the Tory-Democrat interest) is one that could not be invented. Only reality can produce so much activity in one person, who also found time to sit for a wonderful portrait by Tissot that is in the National Portrait Gallery. Who could possibly believe that the languid young man stretched out in that portrait could have achieved all that he had? Here is a little more about his literary work.
Thanks to one of Colonel Burnaby's admirers who is also a reader of this blog, Tory Historian has found out about Mrs Burnaby (1860 - 1934) who became later Mrs John Frederick Main and Mrs Aubrey Le Blond. She seems to have been as awesome (in the true sense of the word) as her first husband, becoming a leading mountain climber and the first President of the Ladies Alpine Club. She wrote about her mountain climbing under her different married names and made a number of films of snow sports in the Alps. She is generally considered to be the first woman film-maker. Le Blond evidently did not think her filmmaking of any great significance as she fails to mention it in her autobiography, perhaps because her life encompassed so many other activities: as well as writing and photographing, she lectured, travelled widely, worked in the Service de Santé Militaire in the First World War, and was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1933.Tory Historian can only regret that the lady did not turn her attention to British politics. She would undoubtedly have been a Tory like her first husband.
Tory Historian rarely makes predictions (better not say never but hardly ever will do). One reason is the silliness of predictions found in many books. Books on politics, particularly those that deal with slightly volatile regions are notorious - the vagaries of publishing are such that by the time a book comes out everything would have succumbed to events.
Even more entertaining is reading confident predictions made by critics of yore. Take H. Douglas Thomson's Masters of Mystery, which TH finished on New Year's Eve (with some sliding into 2011). There are several predictions in it, some more serious than others, which are very funny. Among them there is the highly contentious but clearly tongue-in-cheek assertion that the detective story cannot develop as it has already reached perfection. As Mr Thomson himself seems less than impressed with a number of the Golden Age classics, this is clearly a jocular farewell to the reader.
Of more seriousness is his contention that Miss Marple, Agatha Christie's greatest creation, has no real future as a detective. Ha! Even more peculiar is his assertion that with the growth of historical teaching and scientific exploration of evidence historical fiction has had its day. It is possible, that the lack of historical teaching has reversed that trend but TH is very doubtful that it actually happened. Not only has historical fiction been flourishing, it has spread into what might be called literature (with Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall about Thomas Cromwell winning all sorts of literary prizes) and into detective fiction as well with very many detective story writers deciding (often unwisely as has been pointed out on this blog) to set their tales in past times.
Tory Historian wanted to see the year out with some spectacular birthday or anniversary. Nothing much seems to have happened on December 31 and the birthday of Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, hardly seems worth celebrating.
So let us look to December 30, the birthday of one of the finest poets and writers, Rudyard Kipling. Happy 145th birthday, Mr Kipling.
Happy New Year to all readers.
History Today enters into its 61st year with an interesting looking issue.
Tory Historian has just finished another book that might be of interest to people who are interested in conservative history and its ramifications. The Third Marquess of Londonderry and his second wife, Frances Anne Emily Vane-Tempest, une femme formidable according to all including Disraeli, spent several months in Russia in the winter of 1836-7, visiting St Petersburg and Moscow as well as a few smaller places, attending many balls, dinners and receptions, being friendly with the Emperor Nicholas I and his family as well as a large number of Russian and foreign aristocrats and generally exploring many sights and events.
Lord Londonderry, the Lord Stewart mentioned in several of Georgette Heyer's novels, a distinguished soldier and diplomat who had, as an "uncompromising Tory", fallen foul of The Times by the early 1830s, published an account of the trip together with various thoughts and ideas about Russia and her Empire. Tory Historian has not read it yet but it is generally described as being rather dull and formal. Well, it would be, one supposes.
Lady Londonderry's diary, on the other hand, is delightfully informal and full of interesting information and rather catty comments as well as some realistic descriptions of roads, inns and Russian houses. Though it had been seen by various people and excerpts published here and there, the full volume was not in print till 1977. The Journal was edited by W. A. L. Seaman (Chief Archivist of Tyne and Wear Archives) and J. R. Sewell, who do not appear to like the lady or her husband. In the introduction, which is not as informative as one would like it to be (for instance, we never find out what possessed the Londonderrys to travel home through Poland, various parts of Germany and France in the worst part of the winter) they quote every disparaging reference they can find, though they also quote Disraeli's admiring one. In their anxiety to show up Lady Londonderry's ignorance or silliness they make several mistakes in the notes.
On the other hand, it is the Journal itself that is worth reading and marvelling over.
It has been said that the 1920s and 1930s were the Golden Age of the detective story. Tory Historian has always found that rather hard to accept as all too many of those novels are either completely unreadable or utterly preposterous, such as the adventures of Colonel Gore.
The same period may be said to be the Golden Age of the essay, short, long or full-volume length as H. Douglas Thomson's Masters of Mystery is. Mr Thomson also edited a collection of Mysteries in 1934, which included every well known name and some rather unexpected ones. Mr Thomson writes with a ponderous and elaborate with that is very much of the period but one that many a literary undergraduate has attempted then and since. If the reader can get beyond that, there is a good deal of interesting information and acute analysis in the book.
The epitaph to the volume is a quotation by Lord Balfour, the Conservative politician:
Overwork means undue congestion of certain lobes of the brain. In order to draw the blood from these lobes, other contiguous lobes must be stimulated. A week in the country merely means that you brood on your work. Detective novels act like iodine on a gum and serve as counter-irritant.Tory Historian has to admit that the pseudo-medical explanation is not very impressive but any excuse to read detective stories is a good thing.
Tory Historian has been a little remiss with postings recently so an early new year resolution is in order. In the meantime a very Merry Christmas to all readers of this blog.
Tory Historian admires Daniel P. Moynihan for many reasons, not least for being the sort of Democrat that seems to be extinct now. This quotation that dates back to 1969 merely confirms that.
Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good.Of course, he uses the word "liberal" in the modern American sense. A true old-fashioned liberal has a very healthy skepticism of anything to do with government, particularly its claims to do good.
One can pick up very interesting and somewhat random information from detective stories. Tory Historian was re-reading Dorothy L. Sayers' novels and, indeed, reading her essays. One of the early Wimsey novels was The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, whose plot revolves round the problem of who died first, General Fentiman or his sister Lady Dorland.
The General's body is discovered in the Bellona Club in the early evening of November 11. Wimsey is asked to find out when he had died but immediately discovers a number of odd facts. He cannot find a single club servant who had seen the general come in on the morning of that day. But there is something else.
Wimsey looks at the general's clothes as sent back to his flat and is surprised to find something missing: a poppy. It is inconceivable, he argues correctly, for someone like General Fentiman to walk about on November 11 without a poppy. However, it is obvious that he does not expect the general or, presumably, anyone else to be wearing a poppy on November 10. Clearly, the habit of wearing the poppy for weeks before actual Remembrance Day developed somewhat later than 1928.
On the whole Tory Historian would prefer not to have the picture of London's Mayor at the top of this website. The organization, the King James Bible Trust, is entirely praiseworthy and TH hopes that many readers will look at the site, bookmark it and note whatever events it organizes to promote a wider knowledge of the book that changed the Anglosphere's understanding of the world and religion. Can one really think English-language literature or politics without the King James Bible or, as it is often known, the Authorized Version?
It is a little sad to read in the little pamphlet that was handed out at the launch that
Each month on average 450,000 people around the world use Google to search for "King+James+Bible", yet only 40,000 of those searches (fewer than 10%) originate in the UK.TH suspects with a deep sigh that it is not because everything about the subject is known to everybody in this country.
One publication to mark the forthcoming anniversary is by the eminent historian Gordon Campbell. It is entitled Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611 - 2011 (reviewed in the Guardian here), a highly entertaining as well as scholarly volume. Among other things, Professor Campbell writes about various editions, which varied from each other until a master text was published in 1769. Before and after that event there were editorial and printers' corrections as well as some highly entertaining misprints.
Tory Historian was particularly taken by this accout:
In the first edition of the KJV designed for private study (1612), as opposed to reading aloud in church, Psalm 119:161 read "Printers have persecuted me without cause": "printers" was a misprint for "princes".Maybe so. But anybody in the writing and publishing business would have agreed with the unfortunate psalmist.
The King James Bible is usually described as the only example of a committee (of scholars in this case) producing something very fine. Its publication was, as it happens, also a political event of great importance. So, perhaps, it is appropriate that there should be the picture of a living politician on the website.
Tory Historian was fascinated by this news item about archaeological excavation at Towton in Yorkshire, the site of one of the bloodiest battles on English soil, fought between the Yorkists and Lancastrians in 1461.
There are the usual arguments about the numbers killed and whether it was worse than Marsden Moor of the Civil War. But that is not the fascinating news. It would appear that archaeologists together with a metal detectorist [sic] have found bronze barrel fragments and very early lead shot. This will, one hopes, be followed up but obviously the discovery changes a number of military historians' calculations about when firearms started replacing bows and crossbows.
On the other hand, one wishes archaeologists had a clearer grasp of what does and what does not change the course of history:
But Sutherland [lead project archaeologist according to the article] is nevertheless unequivocal when it comes to the battle changing the course of English history.Errm, no, not exactly. The Yorkists might have won the throne anyway and Henry Tudor was not that bothered which king he was to overthrow with this French troops.
"Everybody has heard of King Richard III and if it hadn't been for Towton, won by his brother who died early, he would not have taken the throne," he said.
I am now rounding up all possible contributions for the Conservative History Journal (with many thanks to those who have sent theirs). So, any more?
Nobody could really call the last great Whig historian G. M. Trevelyan a Conservative almost by definition though many of his ideas would now be described as conservative with a small 'c'. Here is a somewhat hostile piece about Trevelyan and the Trevelyan family in general by John Vincent, which informs us, among other matters that the famed if outdated historian burned all his personal papers. Tory Historian recalls reading David Cannadine's biography and finding it most interesting as well as surprisingly sympathetic.
Trevelyan published his essay Clio, the Muse of History, in 1913 and in it he wrote:
The dispassionateness of the historian is a quality which it is easy to value too highly, and it should not be confused with the really indispensable qualities of accuracy and good faith.A very useful piece of advice. Trevelyan never pretended to be dispassionate, a state of mind that cannot actually be reached. An historian who describes himself or herself as dispassionate runs the risk of misleading readers and students. However, it is unfortunately true that a number of Trevelyan's critics accused him of lack of good faith, a far worse crime in history writing.
And this account by Nathaniel Morton based on William Bradford's in the Wall Street Journal.
In pursuit of more detective stories Tory Historian came across Lee Jackson's Victorian mysteries, in particular A Metropolitan Murder that starts on the Metropolitan line soon after it opened in 1863, apparently only 3 years after the construction started. No particular opinion of it as yet. The style, which is mostly in the present tense is slightly irritating but the description of mid-Victorian London is fascinating. How good the plot is remains to be seen.
However, Tory Historian was led to Lee Jackson's website, which is very well worth studying. Called Dictionary of Victorian London, it is full of interesting information culled from writings of the period. It may not be exactly Tory or conservative in outlook but cannot fail to appeal to anyone who finds the period and the city interesting.
