Richard III - A Ruler and His Reputation

 

Bloomsbury first edition - 2015

Richard III: A Ruler and his Reputation by David Horspool

Bloomsbury, 2015, hardback, 322pp, ISBN 978-1-4279-0299-3, £20.00.                                                    Also available as an e-book ePDF: 978-1-4729-0301-3, ePub: 978-1-4729-0300-6.

David Horspool’s book is a model of balanced judgement with a commendable facility of style. One can almost refer to it as an intelligent person’s guide to the enigma that is Richard Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III. He eschews equally the ‘Black Legend’ and the ‘Maligned Monarch’ that has bedevilled so much of our thinking. With 28 pages of Notes, 9½ pages of Bibliography and a 10 page Index, Horspool, who is the History Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, has produced an important addition to any Ricardian’s shelves.

Horspool states that his book aims at ‘neutrality’ (p.5), but I would argue that is too anaemic a word. Rather, his account is a pleasingly objective one – a rarity in the historiography of Richard III. He rightly points out that ‘part of the fascination of Richard is that he has become a myth, a model of evil or of wronged righteousness, depending on the storyteller.’ (p.6) Horspool is not afraid to highlight the wilder comments of other historians: dismissing Paul Murray Kendall’s view that Richard and Anne had known each other well in childhood as ‘fantasy’ (p.50); caustically taking Michael Hicks to task at least twice – ‘It is tendentious to argue, as one reputable historian has done, that “the man who maltreated the frail old Countess of Oxford was potentially capable of murdering the Princes in the Tower”’ (p.103), and ‘Richard as a “serial incestor” turns out to be an ingenious modern version of the bottled spider, the duke whose every move conceals a dastardly motive, with as much basis in reality.’ (p.107) Surely, Horspool is correct when he avers that too many read back the drama in Richard’s brief reign into the life that preceded it. Contemporary or near contemporary sources are also summarily dealt with: the Crowland Chronicler writes from a position of ‘settled hostility’ (p.215) with a ‘suspect light’ (p.219) and ‘personal distaste’ (p.257) on most issues; while the blessèd Sir Thomas More is simply biased.

Part of Horspool’s strength in argument is the stylistically deft touch he applies: ‘The Duke of York’s power was one with an expiry date.’ (p.27); ‘In the absence of the Duke of Somerset, the king [Henry VI] did not become his own man, he merely attracted a new puppet master.’ (p.29); ‘…but added to constant movement in the case of the York children was near constant apprehension.’ (p.40) – with occasional shafts of humour: on Richard’s finding of his future wife: ‘It seems more likely that if the subterfuge really did take place, the discovery of Anne was more a case of retrieving a concealed asset than a lost love’ (p.105); ‘Subscriptions to a Duke of Buckingham society, would not, one suspects, raise enough for a dinner, let alone an excavation.’ (p.196)

Accepting that ‘for a king who spent just over two years on the throne, [Richard] has received an extraordinary, perhaps even an unsustainable, level of attention and range of opinion’, Horspool concludes that ‘reconstructing Richard is often an exercise in admitting our ignorance…and deciding on the balance of probabilities” (p.3). Research is not helped by the fact he had a near invisible childhood and even in his ‘formative years’ as the Duke of Gloucester, ‘he is frequently missing from the record.’ (p.3) Whilst the imprint that Richard left on his time was impersonal, ‘the personality that lay behind those acts is thus ripe for speculation’ (p.4), Horspool argues that many of the contradictions in Richard’s personality can become more explicable if one sticks closely to chronology. Richard seems to have been able to adapt to change in an often changeable world, and one of this biographer’s main themes is the role that chance played in his life: ‘the sense that nine times out of ten, events would have taken a different course, is perhaps the main element in the “mystery” of Richard III. As much as disputes over facts or interpretations of motive, it is chance that makes his life so inexhaustibly interesting.’ (p.16)

In particular, (and a hot potato within present Ricardian debate), this is argued in Horspool’s approach to Richard’s relationship with the North. He suggests that it was a pragmatic rather than an emotional connection. That Richard became a magnate whose power base was in the north is incontrovertible. That he came to rely on that affinity after he seized the throne is also true. He spent a lot of time in the north, ‘but as a boy and as a young man it was not his choice to go…as a king he spent about 60 per cent of his time south of Nottingham…the north remained important, but not to an overwhelming degree…he was not a “northern king” except by force of circumstance.’ (p.50) Horspool points out that Richard could as easily have been a “Welsh king” if he had become Edward’s long term representative in Wales. After Warwick’s/Clarence’s first rebellion, Edward IV’s rewards to Richard included establishing a genuine sphere of influence for his brother in Wales (Chief Justice of North Wales and in February 1470, Chief Justice of South Wales).” As with so much in Richard’s career, a series of unpredictable incidents had given him a role – he might have been known for a special affinity with Wales not the North. ‘Neither region was, in truth, any more “natural” a base for him than anywhere else.’ (p.66) Richard’s guiding principle was to extend his influence, mostly in the north, but elsewhere as well. Much of his activity may have been in response to changing circumstances (deaths of rivals, unpredictability of war), but Horspool uses the historian Seeley’s well-known comment on the British Empire being acquired ‘in a fit of absence of mind’ to contrast it with Richard’s ‘sustained bout of presence of mind’ in assembling his ‘empire’.

Horspool also emphasises Richard’s ruthlessness, pointing to the undoubted influence of Warwick: ‘Richard’s formative years were spent in the orbit of a supreme practiser [sic] of late-medieval realpolitik.’ (p.47). He  refers to an example in March 1471, when the eighteen year-old argued, unsuccessfully, that Martin de la Mere (who had clashed with Edward IV at York) should be killed. Horspool’s Richard is a figure who achieves his goal by a mixture of luck and ruthlessness. Richard’s ‘first public act as an adult prepared him for a professional life of violence and the use of law as an instrument of implacable, though sometimes very personal, royal will.’ (p.60) In January 1469, he had presided over a commission of oyer and terminer at Salisbury, which had led to Thomas Hungerford and Henry Courtenay being hanged, drawn and quartered. ‘[Richard] was born into, and died in, a time of violence, uncertainty and strife.’ (p.24)

Richard had experienced at first hand the consequences of allowing a deposed king to live and the lessons of 1471 were clear. Horspool clears him of involvement in Prince Edward’s death and argues that it is surely beyond doubt that it was Edward who ordered Henry’s demise: ‘…not only is there no proof of (Richard’s) guilt: it is untenable that he could have committed the crime unless his brother the king meant him to.’ (p.92) So, did Richard order his nephews’ deaths? ‘The short answer is that we don’t know. All the ingenious theorizing and posthumous mudslinging that have made the fate of the “Princes in the Tower” a historical cause célèbre depend on the lack of concrete evidence.’ (p.180) However, Ricardians may well take issue with Horspool’s summary: ‘The conclusion seems difficult to avoid, that Richard didn’t show that the princes were alive, because they weren’t…the balance of probabilities is very firmly for the princes’ premature death… (p.182) The fate of Edward V and Richard of York mattered to contemporaries very much, and if we want to understand Richard and his time, it should therefore matter to us (p.165)…Richard’s short reign was dominated by a struggle to prove his legitimacy. If it was a crisis of legitimacy that eventually brought his downfall, its origins surely lie in the alleged murder of Edward V aged twelve, and his brother Richard of York, aged nine.’ (p.186)

Although Horspool reiterates the contemporary view that a strong king made for a strong country (‘the pre-condition for over-mighty subjects is an “under-mighty ruler”’), he does charge Richard with one grave crime:  the killing without trial of Lord Hastings – ‘any competent prosecutor could secure a conviction against Richard for murder’, (p.158). By then, he had made too many enemies to turn back – ‘the throne was the only seat in the country that could offer him some protection’. (p.160)

Horspool’s Richard is a man with an acute sense of honour and personal dignity but not the ‘light touch that served subtler rulers’, such as Edward IV and Louis XI. ‘By a combination of bad luck, bad timing and bad judgement, Richard eventually faced a formidable coalition of foreign powers gathered against him. Although domestic opposition would remain important, it was Richard’s unsuccessful handling of foreign policy – his inability to inhabit the role of European as well as English monarch effectively – that turned out to be the most serious failure in his short reign’. (p.191) Other mistakes included the appointment of his nephew, the Earl of Lincoln, to the presidency of the Council of the North in July 1484, rather than his old rival, the Earl of Northumberland. Richard ‘did have a choice to make, and he probably made the wrong one’ (p.223) Moreover, in the aftermath of the so-called Buckingham Rebellion, there was ‘if not a vacuum in local government, then a significant void.’(p.202); the plantation of outsiders was bound to cause resentment. All Richard’s actions can be seen through the prism of wanting to attract support and his time simply ran out.

‘It was not misrule that threatened Richard. It was a challenge to his right to rule, and a credible challenger to make such a claim.’ (p.230) If Richard could defeat Henry Tudor in battle (Towton and Tewkesbury must surely have come to his mind), then time and security would be gained. However, (at Bosworth) ‘it may be a tactical miscalculation rather than a failure of moral leadership that really let Richard down.’ (pp.246-7) – the marsh that hemmed Northumberland in from attacking Oxford’s flank as the latter moved against the king’s right wing.

Horspool’s Richard between 1483-1485 is a tragic figure: on Edward IV’s death, Richard might ‘have been envisaged as the ideal figure to steer the young king through his early years…being a powerful, experienced and trustworthy figure on the model of William Marshal’. (p.143) Why did he risk everything for a tilt at the crown? Horspool carefully puts forward an understandable case for the defence: Richard’s prestigious appointments could be taken away by new king or his advisers. His Neville properties were not wholly secure – George Neville died as Richard entered London, which left the latter with no legitimate heritable claim to a swathe of his northern estates. His finances were shaky: the campaign against Scotland and the acquiring and retaining of estates had drained his resources. Richard simply realised that he had to remove Woodville influence or his own power, sooner or later, would be eclipsed. When that proved impossible as Protector, he decided to aim higher.

Horspool’s verdict on Richard’s rule is sympathetic but damning for all that. ‘It had taken Henry VI around twenty years of incompetence and eventually incapability to lose the support of a significant proportion of the nobility…Richard did it in just two years…not because he was incompetent, nor because his rule was so tyrannical as to be intolerable. It was because he never established his legitimacy to the satisfaction of enough of his subjects, particularly the most powerful…[his] failure meant that he had no chance to redeem his kingship…his record of failure cannot be overturned.’ (p.266)… ‘In the end, of the two mottoes associated with Richard, it was not “Loyauté me lie” that proved to be his undoing. It was “Tant le desirée” (I have longed for it – for glory, for the rewards of chivalry – so much) that led him to death.’ (p.249)… ‘Richard was ambitious, ruthless and occasionally impulsive. He was also a pious man of destiny, who retained a faith in the code of chivalry. He may at least…have convinced himself of the rightness of his cause…Richard III believed in his own publicity. Very likely he also died believing in it.’ (p.250)   

Scott Mariani's 22nd Ben Hope Thriller

 

Avon paperback original - 2020

Scott Mariani's latest Ben Hope thriller arrived from Amazon UK on Thursday 26th November, in the late afternoon. I finished it during Friday. I had looked forward to it since June, when I had gulped down The Pretender's Gold. It did not disappoint. In fact, The Demon Club is one of his best. I don't think it is just because it is freshest in my mind, but that it is a rattling good yarn. With settings in West Sussex, Surrey and more briefly in the Fort William area, Aragon and the Isle of Man, much of it is believable - even if the central premise and the blazing finale seem far fetched. 'The art of the possible' is a useful mantra to hang thrillers on.

Once again, Hope remains firmly in the centre of the plot, although there are far-away explanatory scenes between other characters, both good and bad. Charged with killing another ex-SAS soldier (or his new Scottish policewoman girlfriend will be shot), Ben track Jaden Wolf down, but then they both work together to bring down a Satanic cult, with its base in Surrey and a membership of the Great-but-not-Good, who worship the ancient Egyptian god Thoth. Even Hope is not superhuman and his Le Val partners, Jeff Dekker and Tuesday Fletcher (both fascinating characters in their own right) are, unbeknown to Him, able to rescue his girl Grace Kirk, from the evil cult's clutches. Moreover, Hope has several moments of weakness and despair (worrying about his girlfriend and his sister's safety) with recourse to bottles of Scotch. The mutual respect for his buddies shines throughout the book. 

The scene in the Isle of Man, where Hope and Wolf meet Vincent Eritas ('Veritas' - gettit?!) is splendidly eerie/creepy, even if his lair is really beyond belief. There are plenty of bodies along the way: six in Spain; two who were about to kidnap Grace; four in West Sussex, and well over fifty at the denouement at Karswell Hall and its lake island. All deserved!

There is a History lesson, ranging from the Hellfire Club of Sir Francis Dashwood in the eighteenth century through to Aleister Crowley and his early twentieth century collection of occult clubs, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Order of Thoth and, now, the Pandemonium Club. It is certainly pandemonium when Hope and Wolf, bolstered by Dekker and Fletcher plus Reaper Rigby, another old flame from the SBS, blast their way to take control of fifty or so flabby, unfit, unhealthy men in their middle age and above, whose idea of exercise was a leisurely round of golf and whose main form of cardiac workout was watching innocent people (usually young girls) get violently put to death just for fun. Members included one who was a likely Prime Minister in waiting; another was M.P. for Worcester; others were senior police officers, politicians and lawyers. And all perished in a deserved inferno in the banquet room of Karswell Hall because the helicopter carrying their Grand Master and his evil henchman to 'safety' was pinged by Ben Hope and crashed into the roof of the Hall. Very good riddance! I am not a conspiracy theorist (apart from China's role in the Civid-19 pandemic), but it doesn't take much imagination to think there are these occult groupings round the world, which include amongst their members men (it's nearly always men) who lead important and 'upright' lives in the legal, political and other commanding positions in Society.

So, thank you again Scott Mariani. I can't wait for the 13th of May 2021, when the next Ben Hope, as yet unnamed, thriller lands on my doorstep.

James Ross's 'Henry VI'

 

Allen Lane first edition - 2017

Henry VI A Good, Simple and Innocent Man by James Ross    Allen Lane (Penguin Books), 2016 hardback, 118 pp. ISBN 978-0-141-97834-7                   £12.99

Having been brought up on two block-busters (Bertram Wolfe at 400 pages and R.A. Griffiths at a massive, hernia-inducing 976 pages), both published in 1981, it was some relief to be reading James Ross’s mere hundred odd pages on Henry VI. Would this succinct survey align itself with Griffiths’ well-intentioned, credulous and merciful monarch who lacked political experience and astuteness; or would it favour Wolffe’s more critical approach towards a king whom he argued was vindictive and perverse as well as inept?

Ross makes the obvious point, if not always adhered to by other ‘historians’, that if “it is difficult enough for biographers to grasp the personality and character of great figures of the twentieth or twenty-first centuries…it is far more difficult for medieval historians to grasp the personality and character of those living five hundred years before, even that of a king.” However, Ross’ work is character-driven and all the better for it. His most interesting chapter is entitled ‘Behind the Façade’ and what sombre reading it makes. One quotation from K.B. McFarlane – Henry’s “second childhood succeeded first without the usual interval” – is typically apt.

Henry’s early years were inevitably dominated by the war with France and the political rivalry of his uncle Humphrey, duke of Gloucester and his great-uncle Henry, Cardinal Beaufort. His ceremonial    and formal role began in 1429, when he was crowned King of England at Westminster. It was the death of his elder uncle, the duke of Bedford, in September 1435 that forced Henry “into closer involvement in the active ruling of his kingdoms”. However, powerful personalities continued to dominate him throughout his reign: Bedford, Gloucester and Beaufort were succeeded by the dukes of Suffolk and Somerset and Henry’s wife, Margaret of Anjou. Late medieval kings were expected to govern personally, yet “carelessness, lack of attention to detail and sheer incompetence were the hall marks of the king’s involvement in government”, for which, seemingly, he had little interest. This biography perhaps should have been subtitled ‘The occasional king’.

Ross does not exclude Henry entirely from the decision-making, even when Somerset seemed to be responsible for the direction of policy. He argues that Henry must take “the lion’s share” of the blame for the prioritization of domestic expenditure over overseas defence and the failure to give military leadership. He was the only medieval king of England (apart from Edward V) not to lead an army in  war against a foreign enemy.  Henry was simply devoting what energies he had to his soul. Piety was to be the keynote of his kingship. “Put kindly, Henry had a deep, sincere and prominent faith; put unkindly, his was an excessive, consuming and compulsive religiosity.” Perhaps, as Ross suggests, the only tangible achievements of his reign were the founding of Eton College (1440), King’s College, Cambridge (1441) and the endowment of a new Library at Salisbury Cathedral (1445).

In early August 1453 Henry took leave of his senses; they would never be fully recovered. The illness was probably catatonic schizophrenia – “no adult king of England before this date had ever fully lost his mental faculties”. The obvious, really only, choice to govern in the king’s stead was the duke of York. The end of the latter’s Protectorate in February 1456 also marked the end of effective government and the slide into further factionalism and civil war was entirely predictable. It is hard to counter R.L. Storey’s comment that “if Henry’s insanity had been a tragedy, his recovery was a national disaster”. The crown’s policy towards York and his followers bordered on the incoherent. Edward’s victory at Towton “turned Henry, over the next decade, successively into a fugitive, a prisoner, a puppet, and finally a victim of murder”. Henry had become “a stuffed wool sack lifted by his ears, a shadow on the wall, bandied about as in a game of blind-man’s buff, submissive and mute…like a crowned calf” (George Chastellain, 1471).

Few would disagree with Ross that here was one of the least able and least successful kings ever to rule England. Henry may have been born great and had greatness thrust upon him, but he never achieved greatness. One can also concur with the author that it is hard not to feel some sympathy for Henry – “a decent man placed by accident of birth in a role to which he was entirely unsuited” . Perhaps Sellar and Yeatman’s 1066 and All That has a valid assessment of Henry VI: “When he grew up, however, he was such a Good Man that he was considered a Saint, or alternatively (especially by the Barons) an imbecile.”           

As with all the volumes in this excellent Penguin Monarchs series, there are some very useful Notes and Further Reading, and pertinent colour illustrations. I noticed only one typo - in the Family Tree: Cardinal Beaufort died in 1447 not 1477.

Tony Pollard's 'Edward IV'

One of my long-standing interests is Fifteenth-century England and, in particular, the life and reign of Richard III. I have been a member of the Richard III Society since 1973 - nearly 50 years! Far longer than Richard himself was alive. For the past decade or so, I have been writing reviews on relevant books and the reviews have ended up in the Society's Bulletin. For this and the next Blog, I am posting what I wrote on Edward IV and Henry VI. I am now reading Rosemary Horrox's book on Richard III.

Allen Lane first edition - 2016

Edward IV The Summer King by A. J. Pollard            Allen Lane (Penguin Books), 2016

hardback, 134 pp. ISBN 978-0-141-97869-7                   £12.99

Tony Pollard’s biography, in the excellent series ‘Penguin Monarchs’ (we look forward to Rosemary Horrox on Richard III, due in 2017), is ideal for at least two audiences. First, as an introduction to a monarch, whose ‘sun’ has been certainly overshadowed by the far briefer reign of his younger brother, both in popular imagination and book sales; and, secondly, for those readers, who with considerable knowledge of Edward IV of their own, would value a refresher course – an opportunity to test their own understanding of a figure who Michael Hicks has argued ‘has always been a controversial king’.

Pollard, whose postgraduate research was under Charles Ross’ supervision, and who has written books and articles on the 15th. century over several decades, is steeped in the period’s vicissitudes and its personalities. With only 106 pages at his disposal, he must perforce canter - but what a stimulating ride. From his excellent Preface (‘Edward IV was a usurper…a ruler who rarely looked beyond the short term, his own close circle and his own immediate ends.’), through a succinct detailing of contemporary and near-contemporary appraisals, to his own summary The End of Summer, chapter after chapter gives the bare narrative bones of Edward’s life and reign, clothed in invaluable analysis of motives, failures and successes. Pollard’s Edward is a man of precocious military talent (Mortimer’s Cross, Towton, Losecoat Field, Barnet and Tewkesbury); seemingly in his youth with ‘a penchant for aristocratic widows’ and ‘an excessive sexual appetite’ throughout his life; a leader with no master plan, whose regime’s shape emerged and changed by trial and error, but whose frame work was clear: England was to be ruled through those he believed he could trust.

Pollard argues that Edward’s ‘clandestine marriage proved to be the pivotal event of the reign’; in subsequently allowing and encouraging his wife’s family to make powerful marriages and providing many of them with important offices of state, Edward ‘had created a new faction about his person, a counterpoise to the Neville interest’. This support, not only jarred with the Earl of Warwick, but with Clarence and, with dire consequences, with his younger brother Richard of Gloucester.  Pollard does not shy away from charging Edward with serious shortcomings: the speed with which his position crumbled in 1470 was caused by the king’s inability to rise above factional politics and the internal divisions this exacerbated. However, his successful return in 1471 was due to his decisive actions: ‘He had out-thought and out-manoeuvered his enemies at every stage…He who had dared had won.’  Edward’s early death would come as no surprise these days. The self-indulgence of ‘a gross man addicted to conviviality, vanity, drunkenness, extravagance and passion’ (Crowland), ‘in food and drink…most immoderate’ (Mancini); meant he had not lived long enough to establish his dynasty successfully (compared with, say, Henry VII). Pollard ends his survey with a splendid final line: ‘For Edward IV, tragically, summer’s lease had all too short a span’.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            It is good news that Cora Scofield’s 1923 book The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, republished in 1967, is available again in a reprint by Fonthill Media. Charles Ross, rightly regarded it as ‘a piece of sustained and meticulous scholarship’. Ross’s own biography (1974), together with the works of Keith Dockray (1999), Michael Hicks (2004) and Hannes Kleineke (2009) are also all ‘main courses’ worth turning to after reading Pollard’s aperitif. 

Bradecote and Catchpoll sleuth again, thanks to Sarah Hawkswood

 I see my last Blog on Sarah Hawkswood's Bradecote and Catchpole Mystery Series was published on 28th August. Her latest, the seventh, River of Sins, arrived promptly on 19th November and it was a relief to turn to something lighter after the 'heavies' of recently.

Alllison & Busby first edition - November 2020

The story is set in Worcester during July 1144, just a month after the previous tale. Thus, it is still firmly in the midst of the Anarchy, the Civil War between the supporters of King Stephen and the Empress Matilda. However, it could have been the late 10th to the 13th centuries. There is only one reference to the wider picture and it is as late as page 228 in a book of 283 pages. Here De Mandeville is still causing the king trouble...Robert of Gloucester has a wary eye on us, but since I [Sheriff William de Beauchamp] favour the Empress for all that I am Stephen's sheriff, I hold off. However, the Play's the thing, and Hawkswood, who describes herself as a 'wordsmith', is a skilful story-teller.

The relationships of Undersheriff Lord Bradecote, the lord sheriff's Sergeant Catchpoll and Walkelin, the latter's assistant are further developed from the earlier novels - into increasingly mutual respect. The story is a pretty grisly affair, commencing with a women - Ricolde, The Whore of Worcester - being found axed to death on an island in the River Severn. The twist and turns of the plot appear quite fresh and natural (a criticism against Susanna Gregory's last few Cambridge tales is that they have become 'tired') and a motley crew of characters all stand the test of 'are they real? It could be argued that letting the reader know who the murderer was at the start of the book was a wrong move by the author, as we also then know that the trio are off on goose-chases for most of the ensuing story. However, we don't know who the murderer had become and the blind-alleys are actually very interesting.

I see Mystery People - the online website for writers and readers of mystery - gives Hawkswood's books the thumbs-up: A series that started well and growers stronger all the time. Both characterisation and historical detail are impeccable and the plot is intriguing and cleverly interwoven.

As I have written in previous Blogs, I enjoy a well-written series. The characters become surrogate 'friends', particularly if they are allowed to develop whilst keeping their foibles. Matthew Bartholomew may be coming to the end of his creator's career in Cambridge, but Bradecote et al still have interesting lives to portray.

The next book in the series - Blood Runs Thicker - will be published on 18 March 2021. I, for one, will be looking forward to that date.

Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey

 I have just finished reading Nicola Upson's ninth book in her series using the real-life detective writer Josephine Tey as one of the main characters. 

                                                Faber & Faber first edition - 2020

Quoting from the dust jacket's blurb: December 1938. Storm Clouds hover once again over Europe. Writer Josephine Tey and Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose gather with friends for a Cornish Christmas, but two strange and brutal deaths on St Michael's Mount - and the unexpected arrival of a world-famous film star, in need of sanctuary - interrupt the festivities. Cut off by the sea and a relentless blizzard, can Josephine and Archie prevent the murderer from striking again?

Once again, Nicola Upson proves that she can 'spin a yarn'. There's no great or deep insights into the detection side of things, but she builds up a believable cast of characters on the way.  Like nearly all her previous stories, Upson brings in real-life people and often uses real-life events (if usually altered to fit her tale) to good effect. Here, Marlene Dietrich joins the others at a planned Christmas retreat which goes horribly wrong. The two murders, and murderers, are quite different. The first, a spur of the moment, rush-of-blood to the head between two old friends who have long lived on the Mount; the other a killing based on events many years ago, and set out in the 'prologue' chapter. There are one or two little plot twists which greatly added to the story, if not the suspense.

2008

I have been collecting Nicola Upson's Tey series ever since the first volume An Expert in Murder came out in 2008. Set in London's theatreland in 1934, the link with two murders appears to be Josephine Tey's play Richard of Bordeaux. I wrote to Upson in March 2009, to congratulate her on her debut, sending her some of Tey's signatures from some of her first editions I had collected.  She wrote back a thank-you letter, saying she was currently on the last chapter of Book 3 and was about to launch No. 2. Sure enough, I bought them as they appeared - Angel with Two Faces (2009) and Two For Sorrow (2010). A fourth one - Fear in the Sunlight (2012) soon followed.

                        2009                                      2010                                       2012

 

I have enjoyed all the books, whether set in Cornwall and its Minack Theatre; researching the Finchley baby farmers with the subsequent hanging of two women in 1903; or joining Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville in the North Wales village of Portmeirion; the character studies, settings and murder plots are well done.

Two more books followed - The Death of Lucy Kyte in 2013 and London Rain in 2015. The first atmospherically weaving a story around the Suffolk setting for the infamous Red Barn murder of Maria Marten (who can forget hammy Tod Slaughter in the 1936 melodrama!); the second set during the Coronation celebrations in 1937 London , involving nasty goings-on at the BBC.

    

                                             2013                                          2015

Strangely, Faber brought out the last four books in large paperback format. I hate changes in binding formats - it just does not look right on my bookshelves! The good news is that for the next three books, including The Dead of Winter, the publisher reverted to dust wrappered hardbacks.

    

                                              2017                                        2019

Nine Lessons is set in 1930s Cambridge in the period leading up to Christmas. A serial rapist stalks the streets. The dedication pays tribute to the group of women who survived the real Cambridge rapist and Upson weaves her tale around a creepy and bleak series of events. Sorry for the Dead again uses events of the past - here, it is 1915 - to construct a compelling story on the 1930s Sussex Downs.

It is difficult, after a period of up to eleven years, particularly since I have read so many other novels, to recall in any great depth the storylines of Upson's nine books. None have disappointed me, some I have finished thinking "I really did enjoy that". Nine Lessons I remember being quite creepy; Two for Sorrow being rather sad; Fear in the Sunlight being a fascinating account of the Hitchcocks coming up against Tey, whose novel they were turning into quite a different film. The use of flashback events and real people in her stories works for Upson. I look forward to more. Tey didn't die (albeit far too young at 55) until 1952 and Upson has only reached Christmas 1938!

G. G. Coulton - a Polemical Historian!

 It's nearly a month since my last post - the longest 'gap' yet. There are several reasons for this. First, I have been loading information about my book collection[s] onto an online database called https://www.libib.com/login and have now reached 2,681 added, before having a break. All the Victorian and earlier books in the back bedroom, about half of the books in the Study (17th-21st century History; History series such as Longmans, Oxford and Nelson; Local History and Reference; Castles and Religious Houses; and West Indies books) are on, and in the Library downstairs, I have added Constance Holme, Stanley Weyman, Daphne du Maurier, Josephine Tey, R. H. Forster, Barbara Willard, Mary Webb and others. Since the total allowed is 5,000, and I have just over 8,000 books, I have decided not to add my Puffins and Peacocks and any others of my large collection of fiction and non-fiction paperbacks; or my Oxford World's Classics, Buchan Family and John Meade Falkner collections.

Secondly, I have had to concentrate, for many hours, on preparing the next Accreditation Return (rather like Education's OFSTED) for Ashby Museum. Time I resent spending. Thirdly, I spent longer than I should have done on two books - Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the Autobiography of G. G. Coulton, an Historian mainly of medieval topics and one who I greatly admire. My last Blog, on 28th October, was on Conrad, so just a few lines on Coulton.

George Gordon Coulton was born in King's Lynn in 1858 (the same year as John Meade Falkner!) and educated at King's Lynn Grammar School, Felsted School and St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. He started teaching but then was ordained in the Church of England in 1883. Increasingly uncomfortable with the constraints of the official church and losing his sense of vocation, he took on further teaching jobs with spells abroad in Europe. He began writing articles and reviews as an independent scholar, gaining a reputation as a knowledgeable and skilled historian and controversialist/polemicist. In 1911 he gained a lecturing position at the University of Cambridge. He became a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge in 1919 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 1929. He died in March 1947.

His speciality was the Middle Ages, but he also wrote strongly opinionated articles/books on modern issues such as Pacifism - The Main Illusions of Pacifism (1916) and The Case for Compulsory Military Service (1917), being much influenced by the position in Switzerland. He was a fierce anti-Catholic (probably why I enjoy reading his works!) and engaged in embittered journalistic controversy with Hilaire Belloc, who detested him! He was convinced monasticism was an unnatural institution and he distrusted ecclesiastical potentates. His Autobiography was published in 1943 and is an interesting read.

First edition - C. U. P. 1943

He charts his life's journey through his boyhood, in particular recalling lovingly his early years in (King's) Lynn and Pentney, giving fascinating accounts of public school and university life in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. He either kept very detailed diaries or he had amazing powers of recollection, as he inserts wonderful anecdotes about friends (and enemies!). He taught at Heidelberg, Sherborne, Sedbergh and Dulwich College, never for very long. I can't imagine he was an easy colleague! His last three Chapter titles really sum up his career: History and Controversy, An Extreme Case * and Soul's Ease. His strongly held views come across clearly: I at first entered the historical field frankly as an amateur; and academic officials had every right to receive me critically...but I feel now from inside, even more strongly than when I wandered outside its precincts, that History suffers more than any other Faculty from academic conservatism and pedantry. He published a series of 'controversial' pamphlets during his career, which were tied together in sets.  He is, perhaps, most famous for his three volume Five Centuries of Religion; Chaucer and His England; Medieval Panorama; and Ten Medieval Studies.  

        

                    Methuen first edition - 1908                      C.U.P. first edition - 1938

The Chaucer book deals not only with the poet's life but also is a far-ranging portrayal of the late fourteenth century - King and Queen, Knights and Squires, the Poor, Merry England, Priests and people. Medieval Panorama is exactly the sort of social history book I love delving into, with its chapters on the Village, Nature and Superstition, Cloister Life, the Town, Trade and Travel and so on. Coming in at 321 and 801 pages, these are big books, amply furnished with original source material. They recall similar books - A. L. Poole's Medieval England (2 vols. 1958 ed.); E. L. Cutts' Scenes & Characters of the Middle Ages (1925); J. J. Jusserand's English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (1889); and G. M. Trevelyan's English Social History (1942). I know these are regarded by modern academics as old-fashioned and often misguided - but, I don't care. Narrative History of the old-fashioned sort is readable, unlike more recent tomes, festooned with graphs and charts. I come down firmly on the side (if sides there be) that History is Literature rather than Science - long live C. V. Wedgwood, A. L. Rowse, Arthur Bryant, Peter Ackroyd et. al.!

 

Coulton also published The Black Death, No. 46 in Benn's Sixpenny Library (which also included his enemy, Hilaire Belloc's, Oliver Cromwell!) and, back in 1906, a novel Friar's Lantern. Coulton called it his brief fantasia. It is a polemic, particularly against the Papacy, and I enjoyed it!

            

             Ernest Benn first edition - 1929          James Clarke first edition - 1906

* The penultimate Chapter in Coulton's Autobiography deals with the charge that for nearly thirty years, I concentrated criticism so steadily upon a Cardinal of the Roman Church as to arouse a natural suspicion , except among the few who knew me in private life, that I had some personal grudge to pay off. He further went on: My personal contact with the Cardinal was simply that of an ordinary reader (hardly!) who exercises his right of asking an author civilly for straightforward references, in the face of apparently incorrect assertions. The Cardinal was Abbot Gasquet, whose Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (1888), The Old English Bible (1897), Abbot Wallingford  (1900) and English Monastic Life (1904) so annoyed Coulton. I have a copy of the latter book, which includes a chapter on Nuns and Grace Dieu Priory, Leicestershire. Having researched the history of the priory, I can vouch for Gasquet's slapdash and totally partial writing.

Coulton's main charges came in his Ten Medieval Studies (1906; 2nd. ed. 1915; 3rd. ed. 1930):

                                              Beacon paperback edition - 1959

Gasquet, with others like Mgr. Robert Benson, was castigated with references throughout the book, but was particularly dealt with in the Appendix II: A Rough List of Misstatements and Blunders in Cardinal Gasquet's Writings (nearly 200 of them!). The Appendix runs from page 203 to page 270 in the paperback and, even if only half are proven, the mound of errors is appalling. Coulton in his Autobiography states: I shall not live to see it myself, but I am credulous enough to believe in the final victory of reason, however tardy (Truth the Daughter of Time?!), and to imagine a world in which the healthy initiative of writers, and the willing response of readers, will make cheating in History as disreputable, and therefore as rare, as cheating at cards. 

The magisterial Dom David Knowles wrote in his Cardinal Gasquet as an Historian (1956) that he was in the first place unusually inaccurate...from c.1900 Gasquet's pages crawl with errors and slips... towards the end of his life, his capacity for carelessness amounted almost to genius; and notes that he was not an intellectually humble man and he showed little insight into his own limitations of knowledge and training.  Knowles is clear: the academic victory lay certainly with Coulton.

Even the present respected Catholic Historian, Eamon Duffy, has said - Cardinal Gasquet, a great Benedictine historian, was both a bad workman and not entirely scrupulous about what he said. So you can be a churchman and a lousy historian.

G. R. Elton, the great Tudor Historian, simply wrote in the Bibliography of his England under the Tudors (1955) that Gasquet's work on Henry VIII and the Monasteries is best ignored.

So, Coulton can lie peacefully, perhaps smugly, in his grave!