Ponderings

Tag: history

  • England’s Dreaming

    On the 14th July, 1943, the British science fiction writer Christopher Priest was born. He was born and was educated in Cheshire, but he spent his childhood holidays in Dorset. The magic and mystery associated with that county, especially its castles, had a powerful impact upon his imagination. He developed a great insight into this region of England which, unlike the rest of the country, remains timeless, and more authentic.

    When he left school he worked as a clerk in an accountancy firm, but his love of reading never waned, he was an avid reader. The work of H.G Wells and the speculative fiction of J.G Ballard left an indelible impression and inspired him to write his own distinct style of fiction. Priest later became a prolific contributor to science fiction magazines.

    His uniquely prophetic vision of alternate English landscapes acquired a new audience of admiring readers. In 1972 he published his first full length novel. It was entitled “Fugue for a Darkening Island”, and in spite of the plaudits that he received at the time of its publication, in the decades afterwards it was shrouded in controversy owing to the politically contentious subject matter.

    In the 2011 revised edition, Priest amended the text and prefaced it with contextual notes to avoid any unfair accusations of racism. In the novel, the main protagonist is Alan Whitman, a white English man living an otherwise unassuming life on the coast, until global events literally arrive on his doorstep. A refugee crisis from an unnamed African country has a devastating effect on the ordinary people living on the English coast. Hundreds of African refugees in boats pour on to the beaches, in a desperate bid to escape a war primarily engineered by American and European powers. Until this moment, it was just a distant event from a faraway place. However as the drama and the danger worsens, this global crisis becomes deeply personal for every citizen. Nobody emerges unscathed.

    The British public are forced to become an unwitting part of this war, and the sleepy villages are transformed into a new frontier in this global conflict. They recoil in horror, and they are terrified of losing their culture, safety and identity. Consequently they elect a right-wing nationalist prime minister from a party called Reform UK. Once this hardline regime is established the African minority are compelled to create their own political party and militia called the Secessionists. This is in response to the Reform government’s main policy, a campaign of arrests and deportations, including Caribbean families suspected of sympathising or even being in alliance with the rebels.

    Civil war breaks out, and most of the country is engulfed in a conflict between the government loyalists and the African rebels. Even the most peaceful and sedate communities become embroiled in it, and emergency measures are enacted, including rationing. Whitman learns a bitter, harsh lesson as all of this unfolds before him, initially he is indifferent to the situation in Africa, but he is filled with pity when he sees the emaciated state of the refugees arriving on the beaches.

    However these feelings do not last very long, as the country is rapidly plunged into chaos. Amidst the crisis he loses his comfortable middle-class job, his home and nearly loses his wife and daughter. Eventually, Whitman is given the address of a safe house, away from the worst of the fighting. He arrives in a remote location where he descends into a state of deep contemplation.

    This is a prescient and prophetic book, rich in potent imagery. The images are raw and visceral, and illuminate the psychological sensibilities of an island people living under siege. It is clear from the thoughts that emerge from a humbled and pensive Whitman. He ponders his fate. While sat on the shoreline, he makes an important and pithy observation about the future destiny that awaits on the island, opining that “this small British island we lived on, resistant to invasion for so many hundreds of years, a coherent, eccentric, tolerant place rich in tradition, filled with a relaxed regard for history. The British were welcoming to strangers but also cautious of them and sometimes given to pointed but affectionate mockery after they left, but this time crucially, they had allowed a massively disruptive refugee incursion almost by default. Tolerance and eccentricity were luxuries of the past, and the British had revealed themselves as congenitally unable to react moderately to an extreme event”. He continues to reflect upon this theme.

    He looks out on to the horizon, and overwhelmed by its beauty and serenity, remarks

    “That sea, so calm and silver at low tide, was always a symbol for the British, the image of isolation and difference from the rest of the world…Yet the sea also suggested connectedness with that larger world, because the maritime heritage had taken the British out of the world, for good or ill”. It is extraordinary to read this now, considering the fraught political situation of today.

    The book predicted our twenty-first century fears, particularly the prospect of civil war. These fears are evinced so vividly in this book. Priest had the foresight and immense courage to detail the possibly fatal consequences of excessive tolerance and kindness, and the psychological effects of apportioning inappropriate historical guilt. Two years later, he published yet another subversive work of fiction. The novel was called “The Inverted World” which presented human life on a planet measured in miles rather than years. The central protagonist, Helward Mann is a trainee guildsman. He is due to leave the confinement of the creche to serve his apprenticeship.

    He is destined to work up an almost interminable career ladder in which his final position and destination is unknown. He is sent to the “city”, an urban metropolis functioning solely on tracks. Mann and the other apprentices are commanded by their bosses to maintain the tracks in order to ensure that gravitational forces remain at an optimal level. However he encounters other characters who are determined to sabotage these grand plans. This was yet another prophetic work which predicted the technocratic age.

    At the time of its publication, the world that he depicted would have seemed unrecognisable, surreal and bizarre. However it is a totally different scenario now. In the post-millennial era, it is an eerily familiar landscape. It is a sterile, inhuman and artificial world, devoid of any feeling, particularly love. Only cold efficiency dominates. Notions of family ties, or individuality have been sacrificed to satisfy the ruthless ambitions of the globalist overlords, where human dignity is absent and everyone has been reduced to a machine.

    In 1976, he returned with a book called “The Space Machine”, an homage to his favourite author, H.G Wells. One year later, he returned to familiar territory, his beloved Dorset, with the publication of “A Dream of Wessex”. Priest imagines an England colonised by extreme left-wing and Islamist forces, except a remote part of Dorset.

    Ensconced within Maidan Castle is a clandestine project to recreate an alternate future-past vision of England through the power of psychological suggestion. One of the main characters is David Harkman, who, it is later revealed, is a semi-illusory figure hidden deep within the imagination of another character, Julia Stretton.

    Stretton and Harkman are in love, and in spite of the potential dangers of this mental experiment, they are committed to the recreation of this England. When they reflect on the troubled history that inspired these developments they realise to their chagrin “that the worst result of the Soviet regime was the fact that English culture and society had stagnated. The country was ready for a social revolution of the same scale as the political revolution that had taken place at the end of the twentieth century”. It is eerie to read this book in the light of contemporary events.

    The book demonstrates Priest’s predictive powers of imagination yet again. He explored the concept of Anglofuturism years before anyone conceived of it. Again, nobody at the time would have ever believed that English civilisation would be destroyed by malign political and cultural forces, nor would they have ever believed that technology could be used to manipulate the feelings and thoughts of a demoralised people.

    Priest had an illustrious and productive literary career throughout the eighties, nineties and into the new millennium. His fiction focused on parapsychological themes, and the preoccupations of modern life, a mirror of his literary hero, Ballard. His career was cut short by a diagnosis of cancer, and it prevented him from finishing a biography on the author who ultimately gave him the motivation to write his own brand of fiction. His wife, the author Nina Allan completed the work. Priest died in 2024, but he left a vital legacy which continues to inspire.

  • Magnificent Seven

    On the 30th June, 1688 an extraordinary invitation was issued to the Dutch prince, William of Orange. The letter was composed by the “immortal seven”, six English noblemen and a bishop. They were aggrieved and alarmed by the prospect of a Catholic Monarch, and the harm that this could pose to the constitution, and the possibility that England would no longer function as a culturally cohesive society.

    The petition was addressed to him and his English wife Mary, imploring him to thwart the danger. Catholic monarchies across the continent demonstrated only autocratic rule, and crushed religious dissenters in the most extreme and murderous ways. The alarm was raised three weeks earlier, when the reigning King James II celebrated the birth of a son and heir, James Francis Stuart. However the child was baptised Catholic, which ultimately made his future claim to the throne redundant.

    The King recalled the events that led up to his father’s trial and execution and he feared for his life and his family. The Queen disguised herself as a laundry woman and fled the country with the infant Prince of Wales. The next day the King tried to escape, but was captured by fishermen. He was imprisoned in Faversham, Kent but his guards rescued him and took him back to London.

    The situation in England was grave but this was not the first, nor the last time that the nation faced such an uncertain fate. England had torn itself apart in a series of bloody civil wars, and such a scenario was not unthinkable for the future. It was always an open secret that the King was a practicing Catholic, and this was an affront to most of his subjects.

    His piety was coupled with arrogance, and a belief that he was a devout follower of the “true” faith, calling it “a rod of steel”. His defiant obduracy would prove to be his downfall. The first six months of King James II’s rule were ominous. Loyalists in his Army were dispatched across the country to find evidence of traitorous behaviour within Baptist and Presbyterian communities.

    However, in spite of this campaign it soon became apparent that there was no substantial evidence to suggest any plot of sedition or insurrection. The real threat to the sovereignty and political independence of this country came from France, and more specifically from the French King. The Dutch could become vital allies, and many commentators admired the enterprising culture which allowed commerce to thrive. Samuel Pepys observed that, “in all things, in wisdom, courage, force, knowledge of our own streams and success, the Dutch have the best of us.” The Dutch also permitted religious tolerance, practiced superior hygiene, developed an ingenious and envious education system and provided relief for the poor.

    William was determined to restore Protestantism to England. He sent his soldiers to London, instructing them to demand that the King rescind his right to the throne. On the 23rd December King James II joined his wife and son in France. Six weeks later, William claimed the throne as his. Upon succession, both William and Mary made a promise under oath that their reign was “according to the statutes in parliament agreed on”. The coronation ceremony was a defining moment in English history.

    The presiding Archbishop declared that, “happy we, who are delivered from both extremes: who neither live under the Terror of Despotick power, nor are cast loose to the wild’ness of ungovern’d multitudes”. As soon as he delivered that speech, the congregation burst into applause. It was an immense relief to the assembled audience that England would no longer tolerate religious bigotry, and this was sealed by the acts of Parliament. We owe an immense debt to the courage of those seven gentlemen who helped to preserve the cultural and religious foundations of our country.

  • Shooting the Elephant

    On the 25th June, 1903 the author George Orwell was born. Orwell was the literary pseudonym of Eric Blair and he was born into a lower middle-class English family in India. All of his ancestors had deep and enduring connections to the British Empire. He returned to England for his education at the age of five. He won a scholarship to Eton in 1911 and although he loathed it, his nascent literary skills were honed at this august institution. He became a prolific contributor to the in-house magazine.

    When he left Eton he found employment as a military policeman in Burma. This heady experience informed and shaped his political perspective. He acquired a very real and visceral understanding of imperialism and the effects, both direct and indirect on the psyche and sensibility of the British people. It politicised him in a truly profound way, even more significantly than his school days at Eton when he was embedded with the sons of the English elites.

    Orwell’s formative years coincided with seismic historical events, and shifting epochs. Concepts of nation, and Empire were subverted throughout the twentieth century. The presence of the British in South and East Asia was fraught and complicated. The British sent administrators and military personnel to a region of the world steeped in culture and heritage. Over time, they developed a great affection for these places, and many sought to preserve and conserve the history of this fascinating corner of the world. In spite of their valiant efforts they were not always appreciated by the local people. They were met with resistance, which sometimes turned violent.

    Orwell was frustrated and even confined by this contradiction, complaining that he “was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible”. It inspired him to write a polemic entitled “Shooting an Elephant”, based on his work as a military policeman in a rural enclave of Burma.

    The essay details an incident involving an unruly elephant threatening the villagers. He is reluctant to kill this magnificent but dangerous beast but in the face of an angry and terrified populace he is coerced into shooting it. The tale itself is an allegory of the British Empire. The Empire focussed upon bringing the benefits of British political systems to enable other countries to develop and thrive, but in practice only served to alienate.

    It remains a bitter irony that this was a project initially conceived to revitalise the world. However it altered the nature of the countries that were colonised in a fundamental and irrevocable way, and ruined the ambitions of enterprising young men seeking fortune and adventure.

    However the failures of the Empire are actually overstated, and the benefits are often ignored. It is easy to castigate a historical entity in hindsight. Modern commentators, lacking the lived experience of the Empire builders, enjoy criticising it. It is almost a fashion, resulting from ignorance and cynicism. The same tired tropes are constantly reiterated. It is tiresome to even attempt to counter them.

    However one important distinction must be made, between English nationalism and British imperialism. These two concepts are polar opposites, and Orwell was one of the first writers to explain the difference. Orwell loved England, its culture, its history and its people. He loved the quaintness of “stamp collectors, pigeon fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts players and crossword-puzzle fans”. And, in spite of his numerous adventures and travels over the world, he longed to return to the familiarity of England, “the sleekest landscape in the world”. The British Empire was an early incarnation of globalism, and the neo-liberal economic experiment. It is like that lumbering elephant and it needs to die.

  • The Sailor King

    On the 20th June, 1837 King William IV died. He reigned over Great Britain and Ireland for a mere seven years. He was also one of this country’s oldest Monarchs, as he was 64 years old when he ascended to the throne. His succession was regarded as inauspicious and concerning, as his personal life was in disrepute. His reputation was marred by his womanising, and rumours of illegitimate offspring.

    However William’s succession was a surprise. When his brother King George IV died, there were no surviving heirs. William spent most of his life serving in the Royal Navy. He was dispatched to sea at the age of 13, and was expected to rise through the ranks. However he never applied himself. His only serious dedication was to carousing.

    He was vulgar, arrogant and profligate with money. His strait-laced family were ashamed and horrified by his antics, and tried in vain to rein in the worst of his behaviour. Ironically, his bluntness appealed to Whig sensibilities. The King’s lack of decorum was perceived as a refreshing change to the apparent pretension of his predecessors. The reports of the day stated that he was,

    “A little old, red-nosed, weather-beaten, jolly looking person with an ungraceful air and carriage”. His coarseness contrasted quite markedly in contrast to the civility and poise that characterised the Kings and Queens who reigned before him.

    He was viewed as an asset to the Whig cause. They believed that they could use his image as the common man with the common touch to bolster their support. The tactic must have worked. Five months later, the Tory government collapsed and a new Whig administration was established.

    The new King truly was without pretension, he refused to move out of Clarence House after he was crowned. His reasoning was bluff and pragmatic, it was his home while he was still the heir and there was no real benefit or purpose for him to relocate to Buckingham Palace. He even conjectured that the Palace could be repurposed and converted into Army barracks. He also dreaded the coronation ceremony. He considered it tasteless and unnecessarily expensive.

    The Tory government was disgusted by the crude attitudes of the Monarch, and it was only under extreme duress that he acquiesced to their demands. He agreed to hold the ceremony, but shamefully it was the discounted version. It cost less than a fifth of George IV’s and the occasion was dubbed the “Half Crownation”. All of the sacred, ancient rites were deliberately truncated, and the King visibly mocked the solemnity throughout the service.

    A month later, the newly restored French King was forced into exile after violent demonstrations erupted in Paris. He was sent to Scotland, where he was protected by the novelist and ardent Monarchist Sir Walter Scott. William understood that his own position was never guaranteed, as history proved that his subjects were not always kind or forgiving to those who preceded him.

    On the 22nd November 1830, the Northumbrian aristocrat Earl Grey was installed as the new Prime Minister. He was elected on a mandate for Parliamentary reform. Inequality was entrenched throughout the Kingdom, and the Tories symbolised the worst trappings of inherited wealth and privilege.

    Fearing revolt and insurrection, the Whig government passed three Reform Acts which helped to suppress any nascent revolutionary fervour. Two years after this legislation received Royal Assent, in a bizarre twist of fate, fire broke out in the Houses of Parliament and the physical restoration of this towering symbol of democracy became an urgent necessity.

    The King lived long enough to witness his realm enjoy the fruits of liberty and freedom, but by the spring of 1837 his health began to deteriorate. His niece, the future Queen Victoria was barely eighteen years old when he died. Another chapter of British history closed, and a new era began.

  • Dreams of Wessex

    On the 2nd June, 1840 the English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy was born. Many readers have admired him throughout the ages as one of the best chroniclers of “Deep England”. This is a concept which evokes much more than a sense of a specific place and time, it is the encapsulation of a feeling of innocence and wonder, and a yearning to return to a simpler existence.

    Hardy was born in Dorset. The location of his birth is significant. All of his novels were set in the South West of England, he referred to this corner of England as Wessex. This was the archaic name for a region which encompassed the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and Berkshire. Hardy was essentially a pastoral writer, illuminating the climate and landscape of the furthest fringes of England.

    He defended this parochial style by declaring,

    “It is better for a writer to know a little bit of the world remarkably well than to know a great part of the world remarkably little”.

    He left Dorset to train as an architect in London, but he felt lost and homesick. Increasingly despondent, he retired to the college chapel to ponder his fate. Then the ghost of William Wordsworth appeared to him, almost like a talisman to guide him on his future path. This was seared in his memory as the unmistakable, yet shadowy figure of the poet appeared, “lingering and wandering on somewhere alone in the fan-traceried Vaulting”. He took this as a sign that his destiny did not actually lie in architecture. He knew that he had to pursue his literary ambitions, just as Wordsworth illustrated the magic and mystery of the Lake District, Hardy endeavoured to bring out the majesty of the West Country.

    Both were part of the Romantic tradition, a form of cultural conservatism rooted in place. They understood that the landscape moulded the people who lived, worked and depended upon it for their sustenance. It was precious and there was an urgent necessity to preserve it, as it was so much more than a random patch of land, it defined their identity, perceptions and outlook on life.

    Hardy declared,

    “There exists a great background, vital and wild, which matters..”

    Similarly, Wordsworth waxed lyrical about the magic of the Northern landscape in his book, “A Guide Through the District of the Lakes”. He imagined a lone walker wandering the lakes and fells. He described how this solitary pilgrim of nature felt overwhelmed by the beauty that surrounded him. As he contemplated the landscape, he experienced a kind of epiphany, as if encountering the sublime.

    In one passage he recalled that as “the winds sweeping over the lakes, or piping with a loud voice among the mountain peaks…(he) may think of the primeval woods shedding and renewing their leaves.” This distinct landscape was haunted by the footsteps of other lone travellers, who also trod the same paths.

    The land resonates with the memory of these wanderers. Wordsworth felt their presence and described the “low breathings coming after him”. The profound sense of the elemental reverberates throughout the work of Wordsworth and Hardy.

    The haunting memories of Egdon Heath were revealed within Hardy’s powerfully affecting novel “Return of the Native”. In his imagination, he thought that the Heath “had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities”. Hardy maintained that all of the land possessed this tragic possibility. Hardy’s childhood on a bleak, windy corner of England left an indelible impression on him.

    Outsiders were oblivious to the reality of such an existence, for them, on the surface at least, country living was benign and bucolic, unaware that horror and drama are buried beneath, and arise at the most inopportune time. When they least expect it, the characters soon succumb to their fate. Hardy lived through a time of dramatic change, the late Victorian era when England was on the cusp of modernity. He was deeply sceptical of the supposed benefits of industrialisation. In his eyes it simply destroyed rural communities and people lost their connection to the land. He maintained that it was natural to remain on the land and to eke out an existence despite the hardships.

  • Butterfly On A Wheel

    On the 30th May, 1744 the acclaimed English poet, satirist and essayist Alexander Pope died. He was renowned for his sardonic wit. He was also a fierce critic of the Whig party, an indomitable political force which dominated British politics for six decades. Its prominence in the political sphere was embodied by its leader and Prime Minister, the gargantuan, statuesque figure of Sir Robert Walpole.

    Whig supremacy was immortalised in British history. It was remembered in historical records as the Restoration of Political Stability. However, one party rule is always fraught with danger. Sixty years of unlimited power can wreak immense damage, and ultimately ruin a country. It took almost a century for the Tories to seize the reins of government back from the Whigs.

    Whigs and Tories were bitter enemies and polar opposites, both ideologically and culturally. They emerged as parliamentary factions during a period of immense political turbulence. They battled with each other during the most tempestuous times, through the heady years of the Civil Wars, the Interregnum, the Restoration and the reign of the Hanoverian Kings.

    The origins of their names were coined as insults, “Whiggamore” was a derogatory term for Scottish Presbyterians and “Tory” was an equally demeaning term for an Irish outlaw. Inevitably, this ugly and hostile political climate marred politics and damaged the reputation of politicians. Politics was soon tainted, and it was no longer an honourable or noble pursuit. The culture, society and the sensibilities of this nation were impacted in irrevocable ways and a vicious political divide continues to reverberate today.

    Political debate was poisoned in this febrile atmosphere. Civility, politeness and cordiality was cast aside. Instead, vulgarity was given a free rein. In spite of the overarching impact of the Whigs on the rest of society, Pope remained a traditionalist, a Tory and a Roman Catholic. His influential status as a wit, and an outsider alarmed the Whig establishment.

    However the Whigs employed their own polemicists to denounce the Tories who were castigated as “Dumb Dogs, Jesuitical Dogs, Dark Lanthorns, Baal’s Priests, Damned Rogues, Jacks and Villains, the Black Guard and the Black Regiment of Hell”. Whigs were deeply suspicious of the political motives of the Tories, and utilised black propaganda and propagandists in an attempt to counter the threat of any Tory resurgence.

    Whigs were characteristically arrogant and entitled. Their greatest hope was that the Tories would never darken the corridors of power ever again. Whigs associated the Tories with religious piety and tyranny. They were afraid that they were still loyal to the House of Stuart. Many believed that they were sympathetic to the Jacobite cause, the campaign for the last surviving heir in the Stuart dynasty, James, to succeed to the throne.

    At that time political detractors condemned James as the “Old Pretender”. Whigs had a genuine fear that all of their precious freedoms and liberties that they reaped from the Glorious Revolution would be reversed if the Tories replaced them. However Tories disliked the Whigs for their historical connection with Scottish dissenters and they were terrified of the spectre of Puritanism and the downgrading of the Established Church. They did not want the Church of England to lose its privileged status.

    These parties were not just ideological opposites, they also represented entirely separate and distinct constituencies. The Whigs were popular with the new mercantile class who were liberal and internationalist in their outlook. However Tories represented the old guard of landed gentry who resisted change and regarded continuity as a form of virtue.

    Pope disliked the Whigs intensely. His favourite method of satire was to lampoon authority figures, puncturing their pomposity, pretension and earnestness. He was the literary equivalent of Hogarth. Hogarth employed familiar elements in his paintings, including the use of cartoonish caricature, comic exaggeration and grotesque. He illuminated the seedy decadence of the rich and privileged in the most garish fashion. It was tremendously evocative and effective.

    Hogarth was obviously more than a painter, he was a polemicist and one of the greatest political artists in this country. His work continues to resonate even today. Many other artists have used his techniques, and continue to do so. Satirical portraits of authority illustrated a pertinent point. They were revelatory. It was clear that the rapid urbanisation of Britain did not improve the lives of ordinary people, it simply made them feel more detached and alienated from their traditional communities.

    The growth of metropolitanism had a deleterious effect on cohesion in this country. Then, as now the urban sophisticates were the chief beneficiaries of it, but for most people it had little or no impact on their everyday struggles. Pope was inspired to compose “The Dunciad” as a reaction to the fulsome praise accorded to the people he perceived as frauds, charlatans and poseurs. He loathed the fakery and the manipulative tactics employed by these people, who in his eyes were simply cynics and svengalis, using devious tricks solely to enhance their social status and to enrich themselves.

    He expounded,

    “Hell rises, Heav`n descends, and dance on Earth:

    Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage and mirth,

    A fire, a jigg, a battle, and a ball,

    `Till one wide conflagration swallows all”.

    Pope derided the fashion for scientific learning at the expense of the imagination. The trend for acquiring knowledge for its own sake seemed empty.

    In his mind, the gilded life of the intellectual had little merit or value, but for the Whig elite these were the favoured people who had the necessary skills which they could deploy in their progressivist quest. In contrast, Pope and his fellow Tories looked upon these self-appointed experts with disdain, they were not special or even that interesting. In their eyes, they were simply soulless bores and sycophants.

    They had a cold and calculated ethos which offended the poetic sensibilities of the traditionalists. This was exemplified by the pragmatic attitude of King George I. The new King was perceived by the Tories as a Whig puppet who supported their militaristic endeavours. George saw his role as purely diplomatic, he cared little for the pomp, pageantry and ceremony that his predecessors enjoyed. He had great suspicions about the Tories, and loathed how they once fawned over the Old Pretender.

    The King was deeply unpopular with vast swathes of the British public, who viewed him as a foreign interloper. He seemed to embody the worst stereotypes of Germans, which are immediately recogniseable even today. He had a spare utilitarian approach and was exacting and almost pedantic about tiny details. Even his remote, often cruel relationship with his son was remarked upon, one quipped that, “the Hanoverians, like pigs, trample their young”. The Prince of Wales, the future King George II was the polar opposite.

    King George II was cultured, vivacious and absorbed the culture and heritage of his adopted country. His outlook was romantic, as opposed to the crude rationalism of his father. Consequently, his court attracted literary luminaries like Pope. However there was a sordid side to the King’s court. One notable Whig politician, John Hervey was aware of this dark side, and was busily making a compendium of it.

    His devious subterfuge attracted the ire of Pope, who was inspired to write the “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot”. This was a satirical poem with a heavily disguised portrait of Baron Hervey at the centre of it. Hervey is “Sporus”, a malicious, dangerous, absurd and sexually perverse figure.

    In the poem he despairs of the callousness of Sporus and his determination to destroy a revered figure, proclaiming,

    “Let Sporus tremble-”What? that thing of silk,

    Sporus, that mere white curd of ass` milk?

    Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?

    Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?”

    Pope was so enamoured by the King that he was prepared to overlook his obvious flaws for the sake of maintaining the continuity, stability and tradition of the Crown. Pope’s battle to save the soul of this country is still being fought today, but rather tragically it appears that the heirs of the Whigs, the liberals, the globalists and the cold hearted pragmatists are winning.

  • Hallowed Meadows

    On the 20th May, 1864 the English poet John Clare died. His work was largely neglected in his lifetime. It was only during the twentieth century that his work was re-evaluated and re-incorporated into the canon of English poetry. He was renowned as a nature poet, and was revered for his fierce defence of the English countryside. Clare sought to protect the dignity of the agricultural workers who laboured ceaselessly to save it from the pernicious effects of modernisation and industrialisation.

    Clare maintained that the English landscape was sacred and that every native Englishman had and kept a pact with the land that was sacrosanct. All of this changed with the introduction of the Enclosure Acts, laws which were only enacted to benefit wealthy landowners.

    Clare saw the destruction first hand, he saw the total desecration of the fields in his native Northamptonshire. Trees and hedges were uprooted, fens were drained and pastures were ploughed. His response was both caustic and uncompromising, it was undeniable that this was both an abomination and a profanity. Clare was only fourteen when these laws were implemented. The legislators justified these as methods that would increase yields.

    However, the old way of life rapidly vanished as swathes of precious land were privatised for profit. In his poem “Helpston Green” he opines,

    “But now, alas, your hawthorn bowers

    All desolate we see

    The tyrant’s hand their shade devours

    And cuts down every tree.”

    The fields were no longer the property of hard working, humble smallholders, they became the sole preserve of the rich, indolent elites.

    These shallow, avaricious interlopers had no concept of the divinity in nature, it was simply another resource to exploit, and to further enrich themselves. These new landowners considered their new acquisition as yet another commodity. It was this casual dismissal of centuries of diligence and devotion which shocked him the most. When he learned that his favourite elm trees were to be condemned, he remarked that “I have been several mornings to bid them farewell”. He knew that the dedication of cultivation of these ancient trees was more than work, it was a vocation. In English folklore trees are divine and almost akin to holy totems.

    Clare was fragile, and vulnerable. He suffered greatly with his mental health and spent most of his life in asylums. This mental fragility threatened to overshadow his legacy as a poet. However it must still be acknowledged that in spite of his emotional difficulties, his tremendous insight and lucidity shines through his poetry.

  • Magic Kingdom

    The 6th May, 2023 was a momentous and historic day. At Westminster Abbey, the coronation of King Charles III was observed by a select, and special circle of spectators while the rest of the United Kingdom watched the occasion unfold live on their television screens.

    It was a glorious day filled with profound meaning and significance. It was also extremely emotional. British people had endured a great deal of grief after the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Her long reign represented a kind of stability and continuity that united all of the generations. Many people found themselves reflecting upon the events that led up to this day.

    The late Queen remained such a fixture in all our lives, in good times and bad, that her absence felt like a spiritual and emotional void. However, she still seemed a rather remote figure. The political impartiality required of the Monarch made her appear emotionally distant and cold. She rarely expressed a view on anything, and took a pragmatic approach to any crisis. This sort of no nonsense attitude endeared her to some, but alienated others.

    The then Prince of Wales, in contrast, felt and thought deeply about various subjects. Religion, art, music, architecture and the natural world were just a few subjects that still occupy a place in his heart. He wrote, and continues to write vast tracts and elegies devoted to these issues. When he acceded to the throne he made an implicit promise to his subjects that he would continue to pay heed to these things.

    It is apparent that he views himself as more than the Head of State and the Head of the Church of England, to him both these things are more than symbolic. It is obvious that he takes these roles seriously.

    The KIng has a deeply moral world view, and his pronouncements give him the air of a seer or a prophet. His place in our society is something sacred, this was evident during one particular part of the coronation service. The King was anointed with holy oil, oil that was consecrated in Jerusalem, although this was not shown on camera. Still, for some viewers with a degree of imagination this gave the King a bond to something eternal and transcendent.

    The ageing King, in poor health and struggling to cohere his duty as Monarch and religious leader in a time of great flux nonetheless perseveres. This is admirable and impressive. It is also almost heroic, when there is so much to disunite us. He is a central part of our culture, our history, our identity and our mythology and that is why he is still important.

  • The King Is Not Dead

    On the 1st May, 1700 the English poet and playwright John Dryden died. He was the first Poet Laureate, an honourable title that was bestowed upon him by the office of the newly restored Monarchy. His work eventually defined Restoration England, and his appointment heralded a triumphant return of English culture after the sterile and barren years of Cromwell’s Puritan regime.

    Dryden understood the powerful allure of Monarchy, and the spell that Kings, particularly the Stuart King, Charles II had over the populace. This prevailed despite the violent schism that tore the nation in two. The divide between religious dissenters and loyalists sparked the English Civil Wars, yet a sizable part of the population was committed to the King.

    His most devoted followers helped to support him in exile. There was a secret society of Monarchists who would assemble at Ham House in Richmond on Thames. They were called The Sealed Knot, and when the King returned from the Netherlands he rewarded the owner of the property with an annual pension. The belief in the divine powers of the King became so pronounced and ingrained that there were people who believed that even after his demise they could sense his ghostly presence, and some claimed that they could smell the scent of his pipe. The King almost had a cult following. Every Friday, devotees would assemble outside the Banqueting House in Westminster to receive the King’s healing touch. They were convinced that the King’s hands could cure them of the most disfiguring disease.

    The notion of the divinity of Kings had not expired, in spite of all of the political and religious upheavals that afflicted England throughout the centuries. The King had inherited the traditions of the early church, and although he was ostensibly a “Protestant” Monarch he had not abandoned the Catholic past entirely. He merely adapted it. Dryden had a profound insight into the prevailing sensibilities of English Catholicism. He expressed it in perceptive and lyrical terms as the “milkwhite hind, immortal and unchanged”. The root of English spirituality itself remains deeply embedded within the psyche of the English people, even if the practice and form has changed.

    Our ancestors always revered immortal figures, like King Arthur. Arthur was the archetypal eternal King, who had the power to unite a fractious nation. The legend was that he had not actually died, he was merely sleeping and his spirit would revive the fortunes of an island people who suffered repeated invasions and tribal wars. This fanciful legend was incorporated into the literature of the Restoration and indulged by the King, who was fond of theatrical excess. Thankfully, through the patronage of Charles II, we continue to enjoy the artistic legacy of pioneers like John Dryden.

  • A Handful of Dust

    On the 10th April, 1966 the English author Evelyn Waugh died. He was part of a distinctly illustrious literary set. This was a contingent of writers who enjoyed and participated in the decadence of the Jazz Age, but in later life found a much greater meaning and solace in the Church of Rome. This was a distinguished group which also included literary luminaries such as Muriel Spark and Graham Greene.

    In a strange twist of fate, Waugh died on Easter Sunday. He had just returned from a Latin Mass at his local church. The date was significant, representing not the end, but a new beginning. Waugh’s Catholicism was not a sudden epiphany, but a gradual, and often fraught process of re-examination, self-recrimination and ultimately atonement.

    Waugh’s magnum opus, “Brideshead Revisited” is considered to be the primary conversion novel of the twentieth century. It details the long friendship of two Oxford students, Sebastian Flyte and Charles Ryder. Flyte is aristocratic, cultured, but most importantly Catholic, the descendant of an old recusant family living in the fading grandeur of Brideshead Castle. Ryder is from a comparatively ordinary, suburban and provincial family. However he is drawn into this intoxicating, exotic and rarefied world of the Flytes.

    Ryder’s first meeting with Flyte is purely accidental. Flyte is a “hearty”club of Oxford students who have dedicated themselves to high living. The hearties are hedonistic and libidinous. They are seemingly unconcerned by the intellectual rigours of Oxford and instead spend their time eating luxurious dinners, drinking and carousing. Ryder witnesses a dishevelled and shambolic figure vomiting on the lawn outside his room, this is his first and unlikely introduction to Sebastian Flyte.

    Unwittingly, this inopportune encounter leads him on to a path of discovery. The burgeoning friendship also opens up a once hidden corner of England. He discovers the ancient and sublime encapsulated in the grounds of Brideshead. This country pile is a symbol of England’s half buried past. It represents the old religion and the old ways that in spite of numerous attempts to destroy it, have never truly died. There are still traces of it, barely perceptible to us in the modern world, but remain deeply embedded within our history and our culture nonetheless.

    All of Waugh’s novels are profound and moving elegies to old England and the Catholic foundations that built it. Political saboteurs like Oliver Cromwell sought in vain to erase it, but failed. Although Waugh is considered a satirist, his cynicism does not sour his fundamental message. The epicurean antics of the young and foolish are contrasted with sombre scenes of aging, death and transfiguration.

    It is intensely revealing to observe the shallow nature of many of the characters that inhabit his novels. The Roman Catholic Church became a dominant presence in his life because it offered certainty. The moral strictures provided a constancy and comfort which have never wavered in spite of modern, fashionable opinion. This dependence on tradition has inspired many other writers and thinkers, and continues to do so today.