Major Michel's 'Trevor Hastinges or the Battle of Tewkesbury' 1842

 

Saunders and Otley first edition - 1842

A year after the publication of Henry of Monmouth, Major Michel brought out a second historical novel, this time concentrating on the period some sixty years later. It is not known whether the two books represent his total output, fiction or otherwise. This time the hero is definitely the (fictitious) figure named on the title page. The period covered, 1470-1, is a fraction of what the author calls the intestine feuds between the Yorkists (he refers to them throughout as the Yorkites) and those supporting Henry VI and Lancaster. Similar to his previous novel, the work is uneven, both in terms of style and content. Chapter II breaks off from the flow of narrative to spend 23 pages on a mere History lesson, complete with dates from 1450 to 1470 in the margins. He ends this with At this epoch does our story commence. Admittedly, for any reader not conversant with the period, issues and personnel, it is probably quite useful.

As someone who has shelves full of material, both non-fiction and fiction, on the Yorkists, I found it interesting to read a fervently pro-Lancastrian tale. Although Henry VI and Queen Margaret are depicted 'warts and all ' - one bordering on the imbecilic, the other arrogant, vindictive and tenacious of authority - the author reserves most of his venom for Edward IV. Sunk in debauchery, and utterly engrossed in the pursuit of pleasure...as prompt and energetic in the field, as he was slothful and weak in the cabinet. His brother Clarence is weak to a degree almost amounting to imbecility, he was moved by every idle breath...always the dupe, and eventually became the victim. As for the future Richard III, as the Duke of Gloucester, he is referred to as 'bloody' Gloucester and he does kill Edward, the Lancastrian Prince after the battle of Tewkesbury.

Louis XI is also well drawn - his brow lowering at all the right moments! Major Michel also catches the characters of Louis' brother, the Duke de Berri (who resembled much in character the English Duke of Clarence. Weak and vacillating, he entered with avidity into every intrigue) and the king's sinister henchmen, the cunning Oliver Dain and the hypocritical Abbot de St. Angeli, who meets a thoroughly deserved death in a dungeon. Far too much of Volume I, however, is spent on the barely relevant story of Collette des Jambes, mistress of the Duke de Berri.

The Earl of Warwick, whose accustomed demeanour was that of overbearing arrogance, consequent on the pride of unlimited power...and his brothers, John Neville, Lord Montague and the lukewarm George Neville, the Archbishop of York are compellingly and realistically drawn.  

In some ways, the novel can be read as one long drawn-out tragedy. From the start, the reader knows the result - the Nevilles are defeated and killed at the Battle of Barnet, the Lancastrian Prince, the Duke of Somerset and others are killed during or after the Battle of Tewkesbury. At the end of 1471 the Yorkists reign supreme. What adds to the 'funeral pyre' are the deaths of the fictitious hero, now Sir Trevor Hastinges, due to wounds received at Tewkesbury; the execution of his grandfather, Sir Leonard Hastinges, the old warrior who had fought for Henry V at Agincourt; and the subsequent decline and death of Trevor's lover, Eleanor Lavenham fifteen years later. Trevor's character is summed up succinctly: he gloried in the cause for which he fought; 'twas the cause of loyalty, the cause which his conscience told him sanctified even the curse of civil war. Eleanor eventually dies, a fearful wreck of mortality...misery and madness had done its work.  Only the real-life, but disguised, 10th Baron Henry Clifford is there to be her chief mourner.

The novel has its fair share of 'baddies' - the sneering, base and licentious Nicholas Harpsfield, who had been given the Lavenham estates after the Battle of Towton by a grateful Edward IV and who lusts after Eleanor of Lavenham with imprudent passion; the moody robber chieftain, Lord John de Talbot of Fotheringay - are convincingly drawn. Both die deservedly apt deaths.

Scott's legacy looms large again - the supernatural plays its part in the eastern tower at the manor of Gatebury; an old crone plays her part, too; there are caves and secret passages. At one point, reference is made to Ivanhoe's Front de Boeuf; and Ashby de la Zouch is the rendezvous for the Lancastrians prior to the Barnet campaign. Michel is good in describing both the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, particularly the latter.

Again the weaving of fiction with fact is, by and large, competent. However, as with his previous novel, it gets bogged down in slightly repetitious byways and jumps to a totally different scenario  e.g after the long period describing matters in France, suddenly in Chapter IX we are confronted with the tears of the widow of Lavenham...Who is she?! There are clunking sentences - As mentioned in a previous chapter. Michel also feels the necessity (as in his previous novel) to extol the virtues of women per se. Was he writing with someone particularly in mind?

The author, as in Henry of Monmouth, feels the need to comment on his own contemporary affairs.

Alas! the short-sightedness of Man! There are those in my native land, who would gladly unsheath the sword in civil war; there are those, who, regardless of what the history of our own country teaches, caring not to look at the fearful example set us by a neighbouring state, would throw England into convulsion to establish some theoretic or visionary scheme! What benefits so great would compensate for one collision between hostile armies in our native country? Is there a man bold enough, or bad enough, to say, that aught could compensate England for such a curse? Michel asks, Was England free when the head of Charles rolled on the scaffold? Was France free when Louis the Sixteenth perished?...Is France now more free than when she ejected Charles of Bourbon from the throne? He castigates Cromwell - the tyrant rule of a soldier chief...to what height of crime and eventual wretchedness did not ambition carry him; and the unmitigated despotism of  Charles II. He takes a swipe at the Chartist legions.

Towards the end of the book, Michel explains the aim of his novels: the author is desirous throughout any work that may issue from his pen, truly to delineate all historical facts connected with the times of which he may treat; that those who read his pages may rise from their perusal with a more ample and faithful knowledge of such events as he may have endeavoured to describe, than they had previously possessed. The author abjures the beaten track, which delineating historical characters under false colours, betrays the readers into an ignorance more gross, than even an absolute want of knowledge could produce. Fair enough. In fact, I think he achieves his aim.  

It is ironic that whilst the Earl of March was the hero in the author's previous novel, his namesake (now Edward IV) is clearly cast as a villain in this one.

Major Michel's 'Henry of Monmouth or the Field of Agincourt' 1841

Saunders and Otley first edition - 1841

If I am about to read a book (novel or non-fiction) by an Author I have not come across before, I usually try and find out a bit about him/her.  There are two or three excellent sources to go to for nineteenth century works. Begun in 2007, At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837-1901 provides a biographical and bibliographical database of 19thc British fiction. The database is hosted by the Victorian Research Web and contains entries for 22,670 titles, 5,155 authors, and 710 publishers as well as information about genres, illustrations and serializations. It has rarely 'failed' me. Yet, as far as Major Michel was concerned, not only did the database not have a separate heading on him but it had placed 'his' two novels - Henry of Monmouth and Trevor Hastynges - in another author's list! Admittedly, the names were remarkably similar: Nicholas Michell (1807-1880) was a Devonian, who wrote both verse and novels and earned a place in the Dictionary of National Biography. I emailed Troy J. Bassett, the Associate Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, who runs the Database and is the author of The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Three-Volume Novel (2020) - which I have just ordered! - who emailed back to say, You are quite correct: the five books are written by two different men...the former [Nicholas Michell] is reasonably well known, but the latter is not. I did some looking, but I didn't find much on the mysterious Major. So, back to square one.

There was nothing in John Sutherland's Victorian Fiction (Longman, 1988), on either man, or in any of my other books. The single-page advertisement for Henry of Monmouth at the end of Volume II of Trevor Hastynges has quotations from three reviews of the former: "A good manly work, at once soldierly and scholarly. We consider the account of the battle of Agincourt the very best we have ever met with." (Metropolitan); "It is highly creditable to the talent, the genius, and the research of its author." (John Bull); "An animated and effective narrative." (Morning Herald). Perhaps a deeper look at those three sources might produce information about Major Michel. That he was in the Army there can be no doubt. One of his most heartfelt passages is worth quoting in full:

"...but weak are they all  (the pauper being left thousands, the lover being told he is loved...), to the ecstatic pleasure which the soldier feels when returning from captivity, he sees by the ready hand of his comrades, by the ready cheer of his men, the satisfaction they enjoy for his return! - Oh, that I, who indite these pages, could have felt such bliss. Oh! that by gallant deeds I could have merited such a reward.. Are there none who read my pages, who have felt, as I do, a yearning after fame, which must be denied. I am a soldier; would I never been so. Fame is to be gained, but not by the British soldier of to-day...Since England was a country when was such a peace? - when a peace of twenty-five years' duration? (1815-1840)...But now my hopes have perished; my heart beats strongly when I listen to the tale of glorious deed, the tear glistens in my eye. - Alas! all to me is past. Hang on Major, the Indian Mutiny, the Crimean War etc. are not far ahead.

In some ways the title is a misnomer, even though Henry - by now King Henry V - is well described and a participant in the novel's scenes involving the Southampton Plot, the Siege of Harfleur, the Agincourt campaign and the Wooing of Princess Catherine. In his Preface, the author states: It was originally intended that the Earl of March, who was de jure Sovereign of England, should be the undoubted hero of the tale; but as it proceeded history forbad the truth. Dead, as when living, Henry of England usurped the claim of precedence, and thus were these volumes entitled "Henry of Monmouth, or the Field of Agincourt". Notwithstanding this, I feel that, at the very least, the Earl of March is a joint hero. Agincourt also takes up but a small portion of the novel.

The mixture of fact and fiction - usually called 'faction' - is not really a problem, although it can be a little confusing. More problematical is that the author (perhaps to fill the dreaded three-decker) gets bogged down in passages which could have been cut to the story's advantage and the flow of the narrative. All too often it is not the highway of Henry V but the byways of the Earl of March, who seems to have a penchant for being captured, by both brigands and young ladies. Sir Walter Scott's influence looms large throughout, with the tales of secret passages, dungeons and, particularly, a tournament.

There are several 'heroes' spread across the tale. Owen Glendower is clearly admired: Patriotism like the snow-ball in its course, gains fresh solidity from its onward progress. Such was the love Glendower bore towards his native land...little can the cold and calculating many understand the inward pangs that rend the heart of a banished patriot. David Gamme, the real-life warrior is well described, but Mary his daughter is fiction - the real life one being Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam (d.1454); whilst Constance de Hugueville, who is passionately pursued by the Earl of March and who marries him at the end of Volume III, is fictitious. March, in fact, had married Ann Stafford, daughter of the Earl of Stafford and another descendant of Edward III. Moreover, the marriage had occurred before the Agincourt campaign. No matter Major, you tell a good love story.

There is a walk-on part for Sir John Oldcastle, who delivers a powerful Lollard sermon - And what is the antichrist of Rome? is he not clay, yea, and viler than clay, for he deludes the souls of men? With his abominations he defiles the Christian world... - before being arrested. I found that I occasionally got lost trying to recall 'who was who' amongst the French cast; it did not help that there were more than one 'baddie', or shades of badness!

Major Michel regularly wears his heart and trenchant opinions on his sleeve. To give but one example: It is a remarkable feature in the history of Paris, that in every age she has sided with the rebellious faction, or the party opposed to her sovereign! Vide the days of the League and of the Fronde, and lastly the history of the French revolutions of 1789 and 1830. More were just round the corner!

I quite enjoyed the read. Michel was not feted to join the ranks of the first-rate, but he constructs a worthy tale. Let's hope it helped to palliate the lack of excitement in his army career. 

Matthew Sturgis' 'Passionate Attitudes' 1995

 

Macmillan first edition - 1995

It is not often I feel out of depth in a book - not because of a lack of knowledge (that's a reason for reading it in the first place), but simply because I am not grasping the subject. It did not start well - there is a four line extract from Walter Pater's 'Conclusion' to The Renaissance between the Acknowledgements and Contents pages:

'Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening.'

Apart from providing the title for this book, What on earth does that mean? The Chapter headings seem rather self-conscious as well: 'Poisonous Honey', 'Impressions and Sensations', 'The Cult of Celebrity', 'Profit and Parody' and 'The Decline of Decadence'.

Notwithstanding all the above, I ploughed on. The first chapter is a very useful exposition of how the writings of Gautier, Flaubert, the Goncourts and Baudelaire affected (infected?) the French cultural scene in the nineteenth century. The position that these writers took up in the decadent world of their imagining was ambivalent. They were antipathetic to bourgeois materialism, yet fascinated by the new luxurious amenities it afforded, and by the prevailing grossness They decried the decadence of society and yet they claimed that as artists they were the most extreme examples of the 'decadent' type...popular success came to be regarded as a sure sign of mediocrity, public abuse and incomprehension the mark of real distinction. Well, I certainly won't abuse them, but incomprehension is an apt word for my approach.

From 1882, Paul Verlaine reappeared on the Parisian scene, with a reputation founded more on scandal than on poetry. I remember watching the 1995 movie Total Eclipse, starring David Thewlis as Verlaine and Leonardo DiCaprio as Arthur Rimbaud, his younger lover. It was billed as 'Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.'  Verlaine certainly came to be seen as the figurehead as 'decadence' asserted itself, first in France and then in England. He was 'made of carnal spirit and unhappy flesh' against society, his homosexuality set him against nature. It was, he claimed proudly, the poet's lot and privilege  to stand accurst. Bully for him.

After 50 pages or so relating the development of 'decadence' in France, the author turns to the English version. Arthur Symons and Havelock Ellis both visited Verlaine in Paris in 1889 and returned home determined to spread the gospel. As an aside (see previous Blogs), Methodism rears its 'negative' head again! Symons was the only son of a 'depressive Wesleyan preacher and his barely more cheerful wife...study irregular verbs as he might during his father's sermons, the insidious message of Methodism got through to him: all earthy delights are subject to guilt'. Symons spent most of the rest of his life reacting to this. Gradually, Sturgis introduces us to others who felt strongly, or otherwise, the pull of the decadent movement: George Moore, Ernest Rhys, W.B. Yeats, Henry Harland, Will Rothenstein, Max Beerbohm, George Davidson, John Gray and Ernest Dowson.

Walter Pater was pulled in as a Muse (his 1873 Studies in the History of the Renaissance occasioned both alarm and excitement in its doctrine 'art for art's sake') , but he fought shy of actual involvement. Above them all towered Oscar Wilde, 'the High Priest of the Decadents' for some, and Aubrey Beardsley who best distilled the 'essence of the decadent fin de siecle'. Here is not the time or space to give an adequate account of their importance. I saw the 1997 film on Wilde, with Stephen Fry a very aptly cast Oscar. My attitude towards Fry probably mirrors the vast majority of the public's opinion of Wilde a century before. Beardsley comes across as a brilliant artist living inside a tragic body. 

John Lane's The Yellow Book and Leonard Smithers' Savoy are given their share of the limelight, the latter shining very briefly. I have three volumes of the former, but only because John Buchan (strangely) wrote for it.

I hadn't realised how 'conservative' Punch was and how regularly and fiercely it drew scorn down on the 'decadents'. It was interesting to read of Richard Le Gallienne and W.E. Henley and their barbs thrown at the 'decadents'.

If this Blog is a little scatter-gunned, it is because I never really settled into the book. I am not a Bohemian by nature, hence my negative feelings for the later Bloomsbury avant-garde group, and find it difficult to engage sympathetically with the 'decadents' or 'symbolists'. No matter; I'm sure reading 'Passionate Attitudes' did me good and widened my outlook.