John Grisham's 'The Firm' 1991

 

Ted Smart century edition - 1993

On 2nd January 2021, I watched the DVD of the 1993 film and did a Blog on it (linked to Three Days of the Condor) that same evening. I recently bought a first edition, dust wrappered copy of the book 'for a song' in a local second-hand bookseller's emporium. After reading it, I watched (for the third or fourth time) the film again, on DVD. My thoughts?  

John Grisham practised law from 1981 - planning to become a tax lawyer himself, before choosing trial law - for about a decade, and published his first novel, A Time to Kill in 1989. Its sales were not impressive. However, it was his second book, The Firm, which he started to write the day after he had finished his first novel, which came out in 1993, that established him in the front rank of thriller writers.  Apparently, when he sent the draft to his agent, bootleg copies were made and the book was circulated around Hollywood without the author's knowledge. It was purchased by Paramount Pictures for $600,000. The knowledge of this drove the demand for a book deal and Doubleday won the contract. The novel spent 47 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list and  was the No. 1 novel of 1991. The success of both the book and the film led to a 2012 T.V. show, set a decade after the original story. It ran for 22 episodes but for only one Season.

DVD - of 1993 film

The film kept much of the earlier part of the plot, with some scenes directly copying the original - the bugging of the McDeere home, the springing of his brother from prison, even the water sprinkler soaking his colleague Lamar Quinn. There are major changes towards the end though. The exciting scenes when Abby McDeere flies to the Caymans to bamboozle a drugged Avery Tolar and McDeere being chased by the firm's security guys around Memphis are not in the book. Moreover, in the film, McDeere, rather than betray his oath as a lawyer by turning the confidential files over to the FBI, finds a devious legal way to keep both the FBI and the Mafia off his back so he can continue to practise law elsewhere in the USA. Although I felt the last twenty minutes or so of the film was rushed - I would have preferred to see the firm's lawyers being arrested, the boat sailing off with Ray and the girl etc. - I think it was an improvement on the book. The story was somehow 'tighter' (perhaps inevitable, comparing a 148 minutes viewing with a long read) and McDeere's character is more consistent. The problem with watching a movie before the book, is that the actors remain in your mind's eye as you read: Tom Cruise is Mc'Deere; Gene Hackman, Holly Hunter, Ed Harris, David Strathairn and Jeanne Tripplehorn are all excellent castings. The other, smaller roles - such as the actors who played the Mafia duo, the security chief DeVasher and his blonde sidekick, and Eddie Lomax, whose film 'death' was more gruesome than that in the book - cement the viewer's pleasure. 

I shall keep the novel with the DVD and may well return to them again one day. Meanwhile, I have purchased the DVD of The Pelican Brief (1993 film), John Grisham's third novel, which was published in 1992, a year after The Firm.

Maurice Paléologue's 'The Tragic Empress' (Eugénie) 1928

 

Thornton Butterworth first edition - 1928

I first read the name Maurice Paléologue towards the end of Hester Chapman's novel [see my 13th May Blog] on the Empress Eugénie. I looked him up on the Internet and, inevitably, bought this book which detailed the account of his conversations with the Empress between 8th June 1901 and 8th December 1919.  In other words, he knew her from her mid seventies until just before her death aged 95 on Sunday, 11th July 1920 - possibly the term 'faded glory' could be applied to this image of her.

Maurice Paléologue

As is often the case, the author can be nearly as interesting as the subject. Paléologue was a French diplomat, essayist and historian. He was born in Paris in 1859, the son of Alexandru Paleologu, a Wallachian Romanian revolutionary who had escaped to France after attempting to assassinate Prince Bibescu during the 1848 Wallachian revolution. The name became Paléologue in French language spellings. Graduating in law, Maurice joined the French Foreign Ministry in 1880, becoming Embassy Secretary at Tangiers, then in Beijing and later in Italy. A Minister Plenipotentiary in 1901, he represented France in Bulgaria (1907-1912) and the Tsar's Russia (1914-1917). He became General Secretary of the Foreign Ministry in the Millerand cabinet. His most important role came when he was the French ambassador to Russia in July 1914. He hated the Kaiser's Germany and was sure that Russia and France had to be close allies against the former. He promised France's unconditional support to Russia - did he exceed his instructions? He also warned the Tsar that reforms were necessary to pre-empt a revolution. Ignored, he witnessed the February Revolution of 1917, before returning to France. He later wrote several works on Russia, including an intimate portrait of the last tsaritsa, Alexandra. He was called on to give his testimony during the Dreyfus affair and left important notes on the topic.

In the Preliminary chapter on The Tragic Empress Eugénie, he wrote: The notes which follow were set down whilst I was under the immediate impression left by the conversations which they reproduce. My own recollections will thus be found in their first form and their original animation; and for their exactness this is the best warranty. Maurice was seemingly possessed with a remarkable memory and ear for dialogue. Before accepting everything he wrote at face value, it is worth repeating what two contemporaries recalled about his personality.

An Austrian diplomat in 1911: ...about 50 years old, unmarried, [he is] prominent, vivacious, well educated, but displays a fantastic imagination and is an author of novels. [He] permits his novelist's imagination to run away with him when he interprets insignificant military or political events, and, for those who do not know him well, he is therefore dangerous as a source of information...

The British ambassador to Moscow in 1914: He is a very cultivated man, a writer of light romances, as well as books of a more serious vein; but...his vivid imagination is apt to run away with him and disposes him to take a fanciful and exaggerated view of the political questions with which he has to deal.

So, a pinch of salt might be needed when reading the exactness of his conversations with the Empress. Certainly, Hester Chapman used a fair amount of his account to give substance to her portrait.

There is more than a touch of the novelist in his descriptions of the Empress over the eighteen years he met up with her. In 1901, [she] still retains the traces of her former beauty. The face has kept its fineness, with the modelling of the features clean-cut as on a medal...the lively, close-set eyes shine with a hard, sombre gleam, where one detects the artifice of the black pencilling that underlines the rim of the faded eyelashes. Her rigid and erectly-held shoulders, do not so much touch the back of the arm-chair...from her whole person, in fact, there springs a curious impression of majesty, of something hieratic, and of ruin. In 1919, I was struck by her shattered physique. She is now ninety-three and a half, and so is entering on the last lap of the earthly cycle. Under the crown of snow-white hair, the colour of her face is livid, the skin wrinkled and deeply furrowed, and the cheeks hang loose; the lips are colourless, the nostrils pinched, the eyes deep-sunk in their sockets, and the eyeballs glassy and fixed; her neck is fleshless, her hands are the hands of a skeleton. But I could see at once that this pitiful frame was still dominated by a spirit at once energetic, tenacious and proud.

Empress Eugénie in 1920

The conversations ranged over the events of the last eighty years as, increasingly, the Empress sought to explain Napoleon III's and her decisions on the great debated topics of the original coup d'état and the subsequent Second Empire. If Maurice did not embellish or add, then her memory was superb and her knowledge of contemporary politics and leading figures exemplary. Of course, she tried to justify her husband's and her actions, but often admitted their mistakes - particularly hers. Always at the forefront was her dedication, not just to the Emperor, but to the honour of France. That is what made the events of 1870 so tragic in her eyes and why she hailed the defeat of the Kaiser. She could say I must do the Republic this justice: it was better prepared for the events of 1914 that we were for those of 1870... She clearly adored her son, the Prince Imperial, and was shattered by his death in South Africa. Equally clearly, she hated Prince Napoleon (Plon Plon) and despised the Kaiser William II - he is incorrigible. He listens to nobody; he only listens to himself; he intoxicates himself with his own words...Oh, how he hates England!  On the other hand, she revered Queen Victoria and Delcassé.

After reading  Paléologue's book, I felt I 'knew' the Empress much better, but I recalled the comments about the author's imagination running away with him and the fact that the Empress had been dead over half a decade, so could not proof read it! 

Scott Mariani's 'The White Knight' 2023

 

Harper North paperback edition - 2023

In his latest Ben Hope thriller, the 27th in the series, Scott Mariani is back on form. I agree with at least one other reviewer, that the most recent books perhaps had indulged themselves too much with descriptions and the history of the country Hope found himself in - for instance, Afghanistan. Now, the concentration is on what a thriller writer does best - carry the reader with him on car chases, airplane rides, witnessing helicopter crashes and plenty of gun fights and knife slashings. From John Buchan to the Bourne trilogy, a chase has to feature. No wonder, one of Mariani's favourite sayings appears to be back in the day.

It feels as if this time there are more references inserted relating to Hope's previous adventures. The novel begins with his response to an SoS from Valentina Petrova, the grand niece of Hope's old friend, the multi-billionaire Auguste Kaprisky. The last time the reader came across the pair was in The Moscow Cipher (2018), where Hope had to rescue the then 12 year-old Valentina and her father Yuri (who has died with his wife in an accident by the time of The White Knight); Auguste  - the man who never laughs - had by then already helped Hope in an even earlier tale. Now, the old man was critically ill in his private hospital, in a coma and not likely to live. His well guarded chateau had been overcome (an inside job?) and a chess set stolen! Why? That's for Hope to find out. He is alone for the first part of the story, which moves from Miami and the Bahamas to Berlin and Rome. Needing extra support to guard Auguste, Valentina and their home, Ben calls on a vetted team which is accompanied by his old mates Jeff Decker and Tuesday Fletcher, from their tactical training centre base at Le Val. When Jaden Wolf, an old adversary in The Demon Club (2020), but now a fast friend, turns up to help, any long-term reader knows the opposition won't have a chance..

There are further reference to past characters, two of whom were one-time 'flames' of Hope's: Grace Kirk the Scottish policewoman, central to Hope's success in The Pretender's Gold (2020) and who also figured in the next novel, The  Demon Club (2020),  and whom he suggests he intends to see again at the end of The White Knight; and Abbie Logan, the pilot and charter business owner based in Australia's Northern Territory, who helped Hope in The Silver Serpent (2022). As with all the other Hope girlfriends, they hadn't lasted. At least he seemed to be getting nostalgic (or was that just the author?) This latest story has no romance and features three very different types of woman: the 17 year-old, feisty Valentina, the running scared German Mia Brockhaus, and the ice-cold killer Candi/Miss Voss. Hope helps two and kills one!

As often with a Ben Hope novel, Scott Mariani is alive to, and inserts, today's - often worrying - issues. Hope and the reader learn about the shadowy and deeply evil The Forum, from watching a USB on which Auguste, fearing for his life, had recorded a face to camera monologue. Deeply ashamed of his own early and  hesitant involvement, he details the unspeakable crime against humanity about to be unleashed by the 15 members, led by the Englishman, Sir Simon Asquith. Past members include figures from the all-powerful top banking families, members of the nobility and some of the richest and most influential magnates and leaders in the world...including a former British Prime Minister and a United States President...(no guessing who they might be!)  The plan? To eliminate fifteen sixteenth of the world's population. Some plan; but we know they can't win against Hope, Decker, Fletcher and Wolf. And they don't.

Anthony Trollope in the Oxford World's Classics series

Reading Graham Handley's brief biography of Anthony Trollope stimulated me to look again at my collection of the latter in the pocket Oxford World's Classics Series. As much for my benefit as anyone else's, I have scanned the covers and now reproduce them below. Those who know me will not be surprised to read that I have only collected the first published editions and with their dust wrappers. Grant Richards started the series in 1901, with a batch of ten (W.E. Gladstone would have loved them - being so perfect for his well-known habit of carrying books around in his pockets - but he departed this mortal coil three years too early.) Richards went bankrupt and handed the project over to the Oxford University Press in 1905/6, but I don't think they had dust wrappers for some while. I have two or three books in those first thick dark green covers. Few seem to have survived. Then, around the time of the Great War, came the thinner, white wrappers with blue text and illustrations on the front - the earlier Trollopes have these. They were followed, around 1930, by the charming maps of the world; then single colour, more restrained wrappers from about 1938; and, finally, more individualistic and colourful illustrations.

The volumes below are all first publication editions, although some have Lists at the back with later dates. I have placed them in The World's Classics order of printing, with the original publication date in book form in brackets.

No.251 - 1923 (1866)              No.252 - 1924 (1867)

  

No.268 - 1925 (1857)              No.279 - 1924 (1863)

No.298 - 1926 (1858)                 No.305 - 1926 (1860) 

No.317 - 1928 (1881)                No.341 - 1929 (1848) 

No.342 - 1929 (1881)              No.357 - 1930 (1876)

No.391 - 1931 (1877)              No.397 - 1931 (1861) 

Nos.398-399 - 1924 (1867)

Nos.423-424 - 1935 (1862)

No.444 - 1936 (1884)

Nos.447-448 - 1937 (1869)

Nos.450-451 - 1937 (1873)

Nos.454-455 - 1938 (1876)

Nos.462-463 - 1938 (1880)

Nos. 468-469 - 1938 (1864-5)

Nos.472-473 - 1939 (1864)

Nos. 475-476 - 1939 (1871)

Nos.492-493 - 1944 (1878)

No.502 - 1946 (1879)              No.503 - 1946 (1883)

No.504 - 1946 (1872)             No.505 - 1946 (1866 & 1867)

No.507 - 1948 (1869)

I therefore have 30 of the 38 published in the Oxford World's Classics series. Naturally, I would like to get the other eight (and a dust wrapper for Volume II of Ralph the Heir).

Those novels still needed are:

No.140   1907 The Three Clerks

No.217   1918 The Warden

No.272   1924 The Vicar of Bullhampton

No.278   1924 Miss Mackenzie

No.336   1928 Sir Harry Hotspur

No.343   1929 Cousin Henry

No.443   1936 Lady Anna

Nos.484-485   1941 The Way We Live Now

+ No.239  Trollope's Autobiography

Graham Handley's 'Anthony Trollope' 1999

 

Alan Sutton first edition (paperback) - 1999

I read this 'pocket' biography at one sitting, on a sunny mid-May afternoon relaxing on a recliner on the front lawn. The author, Graham Handley, has pedigree - as the editor of Trollope the Traveller and seven of the novels, as well as contributing to the Oxford Readers' Companion to Anthony Trollope and publishing a critical study of Barchester Towers, Here he has provided a stimulating aperitif for fuller fare on the great man. As I have remarked in a previous Blog, I am very partial to a Trollope; The Warden and Barchester Towers still figure highly in my 40 Best Books. I hope it won't be too long before I re-read them, along with Dr. Thorne, Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington and The Last Chronicle of Barset.

Hadley packs a tremendous amount of information and comment into his 103 pages. I start with his excellent Conclusion:

Trollope's characteristics were many, various, warm and at times overpowering. Perhaps his outstanding quality was his critical zest for experience which embraced practical life experience and the life of the imagination, both being charged with his abundant and remarkable energy. He worked hard, he wrote hard, he played hard. A conservative who loved the good things in life, he was also a radical who queried their abuse...he loved engaging with people and he created people; he hated corruption, and attacked it uncompromisingly in an age which witnessed gigantic swindles...he loved tradition and an ordered and moral way of life, but he was receptive to change.

A few points Hadley reminded me of: the fact that Trollope regarded Thackeray very highly; his friendship with George Eliot; the importance of the American Kate Field in his life; the effect of his year in Ireland; his political incorrect (for readers of today) views on race in his writing on the West Indies, which he visited in 1858-9; his failed attempt to get elected as an M.P. for Beverley and its effect on him; his increasing concern about his weight. I also hadn't fully realised the failings of his son Frederick in Australia, which Trollope visited on two occasions. 

Reading the biography has not only made me determined to read the Barchester series again, but to try for the first time the two Irish novels, Orley Farm and the Palliser series. So, so much to imbibe!

Hester W. Chapman's 'Eugénie' 1961

 

Jonathan Cape first edition - 1961

Many, many years ago, I bought a paperback by this author. I still have it (the hinges aided by discreet sellotape) with my name and date of purchase on the flyleaf - Christmas 1961. I had just completed my first term in the Lower Sixth and the History course was The Tudors and Stuarts. The book? The Last Tudor King: A Study of Edward VI (Grey Arrow). I assume I read it, but I have no real recollection of that. I quote the mini biography on the back cover of the paperback as it suggests Chapman had quite a varied life, hardly an 'academic' one! The daughter of the headmaster of Durnford Prep School *, she had a private education and subsequently became a mannequin in Paris; later in London she had several jobs, as a secretary, telephone operator, typist, companion, daily governess and schoolmistress. During the Second World War she worked for the Free French and the American Red Cross and as a waitress in a canteen at Combined Operations. Her interests include historical research, foreign travel, cinema and theatre, dress, and interior decoration. How did she find time to write all her novels and non-fiction books?! Chapman, who was born on 1st January 1899 in Dorset and died on her birthday in 1976, had an unusual middle name - Wolferstan.

Every so often, whilst reading Hester Chapman's historical romance, I had to remind myself that it was fiction rather than factual. Her gift for character drawing and dialogue came across as entirely natural, backed up with realistic narrative. The reader (at least this one) felt as if they really were at the places and events described. As it was a novel, the author had no need to produce her sources; however, four pages from the end, she refers to those interviews with Paléologue. Fortuitously, I have just purchased, through EBay, that very source: The Tragic Empress. Intimate Conversations with the Empress Eugénie 1901-1911. I have already dipped into the book and am looking forward to reading it in due course.

Eugénie, naturally, dominates the story; but it is mainly through the first hand reminiscences of her close, and long-suffering companion, the Bombay born (in 1809) but of English stock, Miss Cordelia Flowers - known to the Empress and others as Flora. She is based on a real governess, # and Chapman weaves her naturally into the various ups and downs of the Empress' life. The Prologue focuses on 1879. Napoleon III and family have been in exile in England since the tragedy of 1870. The Emperor has now been dead six years, the Empress is waiting for news of her son, the Prince Imperial, apparently safely kept away from any fighting in the Zulu War in South Africa. The dreaded news arrives - the Prince has been slain.  The Empress sits in a room: the hands were clasped, the eyes open under a coronet of white hair sculpturally, perfectly arranged: not a lock was displaced...then he saw the clear line of the face, the black slope of the eyebrows, the curved mouth. Only the eyes had colour; they were blue, deeply shadowed, and set in the look that he was ever after to associate with a gorgon's stony glare. 

The story then retraces Eugénie's life from her youth in Spain as the daughter of the widowed Countess de Montijo and sister of the prettier Paca. Again Chapman draws attention to the future Empress' most marked feature (apart from her golden-red hair; she was teased and called carrots at her English boarding school) - her eyes were as hard and glittering as jewels - the eyes of an idol; they commanded the attention accorded a work of art rather than that roused by a living creature. Napoleon is but one of the scores of men who fall, occasionally unwillingly, under her spell; at least one of whom commits suicide and another goes to his death in Mexico. She felt compassion but not love for Napoleon III; a deep possessiveness for her son; a pleasure but rarely more for the adulation of others; and retained a life-long love, almost passion, for the Marquis de Alcanizes - for whom she had attempted suicide, and to whom she had offered herself before marrying Napoleon. 

Chapman has the famous author Prosper Mérimée say, whoever marries Eugénie will have his hands full... and the novel bears this out. The early romantic vision the young Spanish girl has for Bonapartism suffers a rude shock when she actually meets the great Napoleon's nephew, a most unprepossessing figure. She marries him, but is not in love with him. He continues to have his many affairs, particularly after she is told she can never have any more children due to the extreme danger of another childbirth. Chapman exhaustively (almost exhaustingly occasionally) follows the Imperial couple through the heady days of the 1850s and 1860s, developing a fascinating picture of those febrile times. Orsini tries to assassinate them; the disastrous Mexican adventure leads to increasing public hostility at home; and all the while the odious, jealous Plon-Plon, Napoleon's cousin, does his best to destroy the public's liking for the Empress. The latter's birth, on 5 May 1826, coincided with an earthquake, an ill omen by all accounts, though she came to believe it might have meant that she was destined to "convulse the world". Perhaps, both were accurate!

This is a meaty novel - far too detailed to expect a satisfactory appraisal of it in a short Blog. I feel I understand the main characters in the real-life story better, whilst always remembering that the vast majority of dialogue is fiction, superimposed on an historical background.

Hester Chapman's other novels included: To Be A King (1934), King's Rhapsody (1950), Limmerston Hall (1972) and Four Fine Gentlemen (1977).

Non-fiction: Great Villiers (1949), Mary II, Queen of England (1953), The Last Tudor King (1958), Lady Jane Grey (1962), The Tragedy of Charles II (1964), The Sisters of Henry VIII (1969) and Anne Boleyn (1974).

* One of the few respites for Ian Fleming when he boarded at Durnford prep school was on Sunday evenings, when the whole school would assemble in the hall to hear the headmaster’s wife read tales of exploration and derring-do. Her favourite for a long time was John Meade Falkner’s ‘Moonfleet’, a story of diamonds, smuggling, phantoms and shipwreck. Also enjoyed by the boys were ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’ and the Bulldog Drummond stories. Best of all for Fleming were Sax Rohmer’s novels with fast-paced plots featuring the ‘Yellow Peril’ archetype of the Chinese criminal genius. Fleming later told Raymond Chandler that he ‘was bought up on Dr Fu Manchu’. Other influences included John Buchan and indeed his first novel ‘Casino Royale’ (1953) was described by one reviewer as ‘super-sonic John Buchan’. 

# Miss Flowers belonged to that select band of export nannies and governesses who devoted their lives to reigning over foreign nurseries and schoolrooms and she was to remain in the service of the Montijos until the 1880s. To her Eugenie, even when Empress, was always 'Miss Eugenie'. David Duff, Eugenie & Napoleon III (Collins, 1978)

Mike Leigh's film 'Peterloo' 2018

 

DVD - 2019

Mike Leigh's movie - written and directed by him - was based on the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. It was screened at the 75th Venice International Film Festival and received its UK premiere on 17th October 2018 as part of the BFI London Film Festival, but in Manchester - the first time that the festival had held a premiere outside London. 

Economic grievances had brought into disrepute a political system which allowed and discouraged them. By the early 19th century, previous attempts at Reform having come to nothing, demands grew more radical. Moreover, during 1815 and 1816 the character of the movement for parliamentary reform changed. Through a lack of moderate leaders, extremists emerged - above all, the two great agitators, Henry (or 'Orator') Hunt and William Cobbett, made successful appeals to the masses. Hunt was the principal speaker at the first great mass meeting for parliamentary reform, held at Spa Fields in London in 1816. A huge crowd attended, and Hunt appeared preceded by two men, one carrying on a pike the red cap of the French Revolution, the other a tricolour, the flag of the future British republic. As a result, early in 1817, the government suspended Habeas Corpus, the Act which ensured arrested persons a trial.

Two years later, partly due to a falling off in trade, meetings were held in towns and on the moors in the North to demand reform. Among other demonstrations, a mass meeting was called in St. Peter's Fields, Manchester. Hunt was to be the main speaker. Some 6,000 assembled, bearing revolutionary slogans such as Reform - or Death. There was no disorder, but magistrates watching ordered troops in to arrest Hunt. These were impeded by the crowd. A detachment of the local mounted yeomanry rode in to support the soldiers. Eleven people were killed and over 400 injured. There was an outcry in the press, local and national. This did not stop the government from introducing the Six Acts later that year. Two of these restricted the freedom of the Press, and one the right of public meeting.

Did Leigh's film give an accurate account and did it get across the strong opinions shown in 1819? Yes, I think it did. The story focuses on both sides of the emerging conflict. Perhaps the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo skimped rather on 'extras' (there were very few!) but it highlighted the PTSD of the young Joseph, who returns home in a zombie-like state. The problem for the viewer is that a traumatised state becomes rather boring. I knew what was going to happen to him, almost from the first. Death at Peterloo; so, the final graveside scene was somehow underwhelming. Joseph's home is a meagre dwelling, but with a caring and close-kit family, headed by Joshua and Nellie (Maxine Peake). The other son, Robert, the daughter Mary, and daughter-in-law Esther, all work in a cotton mill. The economic depression turns them against the Corn Laws and in favour of increasing radicalism. The men attend political meetings where local agitators, including John Knight (Philip Jackson - I thought I recognised the actor; he was Chief Inspector Japp in the long-running Poirot series!) rage against the system of government. The local authorities - a rum lot, possibly teetering on caricatures but I didn't need to be convinced (thank you William Cobbett!) - wait for an excuse to arrest the leaders. In London, the Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth ( Karl Johnson - again, memories of another TV series, Lark Rise to Candleford, kept jogging my mind) is determined to stamp out radical politics. When a potato is flung at the Prince Regent's coach (Tim McInnery - oh dear, a far cry from Black Adder's sylph-like figure as Lord Percy Percy and Captain Darling!), Sidmouth has the excuse to suspend habeus corpus.

Two of the local agitators travel to London to hear the famous Henry 'Orator' Hunt, who excels at the meeting but his vanity shows through afterwards (I thought Rory Kinnear was excellent as Hunt). Hunt agrees to travel to Manchester, but has to 'hide' in business Joseph Johnson's home until the Peter's Field meeting.  The film alternates between the gatherings of the marchers and the local magistrates' meetings. I thought this juxtaposition worked, as did the various speeches by local radicals. I read on the Amazon reviews that many thought these were too long and boring and there were two many characters! If you are used to watching the 20 second to one minute efforts on present Soaps, then you are not up to the intellectual effort or concentration needed. The irony is that we live in the age of the masses, for whom these early Radicals fought so bravely - many would turn in their graves.

Another criticism of the film was the paucity of the local militia and the regular army detachment sent in to disperse the mob and grab Hunt. Again, I thought Leigh used very effective camera angles to show the brutality against men, women and children - rather than worry about numbers of actors. The reporters present furiously return to their papers to expose the atrocity, coining a mocking name for it, The Massacre of Peterloo. Meanwhile, the Prince Regent sends his congratulations to the magistrates for suppressing radicalism and restoring 'tranquility'.

I 'bought' the film, and having read Cobbett, in both senses. I can see why it did not do particularly well at the 'box office'; but that's a reflection of the present day public rather than Leigh. I do agree, though, that it ended rather abruptly with too many questions left unanswered. Okay - we know Joseph died with others; but what happened to Hunt? how did the mill owner (shown apoplectic in one brief scene) deal with his returning workforce? were the local radical leaders punished? Mention of the Six Acts would have helped to ram home the fact that, in the short term, the radical movement had failed.

Nicholas Orme's 'Going to Church in Medieval England' 2022 Part I

Yale University Press first edition - 2022

This is a big book, almost hernia-inducing; but it is well worth persevering to the end. After the 406 pages of text, a further 77 follow with a List of Technical terms (a few of which I didn't know: e.g. commination - a service cursing evildoers; and hosel - communion in the form of holy bread); Endnotes - 47 pages of these; Bibliography; and Index.

A useful Foreword sets out Orme's canvas. The focus of the book is on people in church. It examines who organised the worship and religious affairs of a parish: the officiating clergy and the laity who assisted them. It describes the buildings to which people went, and the significance of their shapes and furnishings. It asks how far a parish church helped to mould its worshippers into a community, and how far other factors caused the community to divide into smaller groups. It tries to explore the extent to which parishioners went to church or did not go, what they experienced when they came, and how they behaved in church...

By about 1200 England possessed some 9,500 churches - either in the form of minsters, staffed by groups of clergy, or local parish churches, run by single clergy.  There was a significant increase in the latter after about 900, which came to be known as 'field churches'. Later these were outnumbered by chapels (after capella, borrowed from the church in France that took its name from its famous relic: the capella or cloak of St. Martin.) Being usually small in size, these chapels could be built on town gateways, on bridges and by ferries.

Bridge chapel at St. Ives

Chapter 2 deals with the Staff of the Church: parish clergy, whose basic word 'rector' meant one who had the absolute 'rule' of his parish, over both the cure of souls and benefice rights. His benefice and home were known as a rectory. An alternative word for him was persona, 'parson'. Deputy clerics were known as vicars. Below them were the chaplains (known in modern times as curates). An interesting section deals with the issue of celibacy, by no means universal in the Middle Ages, whether up front or clandestine. Then there were the deacons, parish clerks and other assistants - often young boys.

Chapter 3, on Church Building, details the point of, and use of, the chancel, nave, transept, vestry, porch and tower. I knew the background to most of this, if not the specific details. Why did churches face East? Whatever the original reason, it came to be rationalised as representing the place where the sun rises and where the earthly paradise lies. Jesus apparently ascended into heaven to the east of the disciples and would return to judge the world from that direction. For that reason Christians were buried facing east so as to rise before him when he arrived. Chancel is derived from cancellus, which means a screened off area. The author rather punctures the idea that most of the mini chapels in the nave and elsewhere were 'chantry chapels'. I didn't know that placing metal cockerel on the spire or roof symbolised watchfulness since such birds crowed in the night. Another interesting section deals with seating (or not) in churches. They seems to be allotted often to keep men and women in separate areas; seating was the invention of the laity, most likely for reasons of comfort and status.  A seat gave a distinct and reserved place in church which, if boarded in, might be warmer. As the popularity of seating grew, it was adaptable to the current understanding of social distinctions. Seating tended to make people's behaviour more uniform, and it eventually made possible the static services with their emphasis on teaching (preaching) that characterised the Reformation. One might summarise a church site as consisting of three zones. The churchyard was the frontier, which anyone might enter at any time. The next zone inwards, the nave, was holier than the churchyard...locked at night but open during the day. Further inside were the chapels and altars, still more restricted in access, and finally the chancel, the most sacred section. 

Chapter 4 concentrates on the Congregation.

The question of how many people attended church is almost impossible to answer. Not until the mid-19th century were anything like accurate figures recorded. It is clear from various accounts that many people refused to attend, quite apart from those who were unable to - such as those with ill-health, or those on the sea etc. Naturally, historians know more about the attendance of the better off. Orme has a fascinating section on (usually ill) behaviour. One's posture in church was one of standing, sitting, kneeling/bending the knee and, less often, lying prostrate. Praying with one's hands together may well have imitated the etiquette of feudalism. There were three main prayers by the early 13th century: the Paternoster (Lord's Prayer), the Apostles' Creed; and the Ave Maria. These three basic prayers formed one of the great continuities in Christian life from about the 1240s until the 1540s. The 'pair of beads' (later the 'rosary') came to consist of 55 beads on a string, made up of five groups of ten beads, each of which was a prompt to say the Ave Maria. Every ten of these was followed by a larger bead at which one said the Paternoster, and the Creed was pronounced when all the beads had been counted. Not being a Roman Catholic, I did not know this.

The 'pair of beads' or Rosary

Books/texts used included the Latin Psalter, the Hours of the Virgin (known as the 'matins book' or primer), as well as other liturgical matter. The Lollards were to bring alternative beliefs in an intellectual way to the forefront of debate after the early 1380. The document of 1395, now known as 'The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards', struck at the heart of several Roman Catholic fundamentals - the denial of the Real Presence in the eucharist; no image veneration; priests could marry; the pope was Antichrist, and so on.

I have now reached page 197 out of 406 pages of text; virtually halfway. A break is needed, simply because the sheer mass of information becomes too much to assimilate in any meaningful way. Orme has delivered a tour de force which is invaluable for coming to grips with the material. His intense sympathy - almost empathy - for his subject is clear and the wealth of his research is made understandable due to his ease of description. I will return, but not just yet!