Charles Sydney Gibbes was born on 19 January 1876. His birthplace was the small town of which is more or less in the centre of the United Kingdom. He came from Yorkshire which is the largest county in England. Yorkshire people profess that their county is the most magnificent in the kingdom. They sometimes allude to Yorkshire as ”God’s Own County.”

Gibbes grew up in an industrial town called Rotherham. His father, John, was a bank manager of the Old Bank in Rotherham. Gibbes had several siblings and some of them died young. Gibbes was raised in a Christian household. His family were Protestants like over 90% of the people in Great Britain at the time. Gibbes went to a local school. He then attended Aberystwyth University for a year before applying to Cambridge.

Gibbes was a bright boy and very sincere. His family thought that he should become a minister of religion. Gibbes went up to Cambridge University. This was no small achievement at the time for a middle class boy from a town without a tradition of university education.

Gibbes enrolled at St John’s College on 27 April 1896. In those times it was not unusual to start university in the middle of the academic year. These days it would be impossible. St John’s was and is a fairly distinguished college. He studied Moral Science Tripos. Moral Science was Philosophy and some Theology. Tripos is the Cambridge way of saying a degree with public exams in all three years of the course’s duration. Gibbes came into contact with many upper class undergraduates. His mild Yorkshire accent was frowned on by the nobbier boys. He soon lost his accent and affected something close to a public school accent.  Gibbes added an ‘e’ to his surname. No one else spells Gibbs that way. He had no trouble graduating in 1899.

Gibbs then stayed on at Cambridge to do a course to prepare him for ordination. He was recognised as being high minded and morally upstanding. His appearance and manners were impeccable. There was a more light hearted side to his personality. He enjoyed the theatre. He expressed his attraction to women but nothing came of it.  He was also known to anger. He continued his seminarian studies in Salisbury. He came to believe that he was unsuitable to be a priest.

Gibbes cared about getting things right in every sense of the phrase. He was a little introverted. He was courteous, dependable, unassuming, pragmatic, morally upstanding, honest, austere, rigid, urbane, smartly attired, wise and very mature. He was so rigid in his habits that some wondered whether he bordered on Asperger’s syndrome.

Charles Sydney Gibbes was handy at languages. Having completed his theological studies but deciding against ordination he was unsure what to do with himself. He taught for a while in the UK. Caning was used very freely for minor misdeeds such as being late to a lesson. Gibbes was as ready as others to cane boys for trivial infractions of the rules. This was not seen as being at all inconsistent with the Christian ethic. In 1901 Gibbes, being an adventurous sort, took a position teaching English in Russia. He took ship for St Petersburg. He taught for two notable families there. Later he was employed at the St Petersburg School of Law. The Russian upper crust was coming to recognise the importance of English. Up until that time French had been regarded as by far the most estimable foreign language. However, in the years leading up to the First World War the popularity of English was growing partly due to the Imperial Family speaking it at home. Gibbes became vice-president of the St Petersburg Guild English Teachers. The fact that such a guild existed indicates how numerous such teachers were in the capital.

Gibbes was curious about the mystical side of Christianity. He also wrote down his dreams. He even had his palm read. He seemed to be on a spiritual quest. He attended the Anglican Church in St Petersburg. He found it pallid and unsatisfying. The Orthodox Church seemed to embody the splendid mystery of faith. It was dark yet colourful, it was headily atmospheric and it struck a chord with him.

The Tsarina Alexandra heard about Gibbes. In 1908 he was invited to improve the accent of the Grand Duchesses. As part of his contract he was accommodated in the Catherine Palace. He began with the eldest pair of the Tsar’s daughters. They already spoke fluent English but had slight Russian accents with Irish inflection. This Irish influence came from their Irish nanny Margaretta Eagar. In 1913 he was appointed English tutor to the Tsaervich. He worked together with the Swiss Pierre Gilliard who taught the family French.

Mr Gibbes was aware of his pupils’ shortcomings. He wrote of Olga, ‘she was easily irritated and her manners were a little harsh.’ Some historians such as Greg King and Penny Wilson had claimed that Gibbes was only mediocre as a tutor.

Gibbes was an instant hit with the Tsarevich. Gibbes was old enough to be the boy’s father but would have been a fairly young father.  C S Gibbes later wrote of Alexei, ‘ Disagreeable things he bore silently and without grumbling. He was also kind heated and during the last period of his life he was the only one who liked to give things away. Influenced through his emotions he did what he was told by his father. His mother loving him passionately, could not be firm with him, he got most of his wishes through her.’

Gibbes wrote that the Tsar had ‘a very honest character, a compassionate heart and a hatred for any sort of familiarity.’

In February 1917 the Tsar was obliged to abdicate. The Provisional Government under Prince Lvov assumed power and abolished the monarchy. Incidentally despite his title Prince Lvov was not related to the Romanovs. The Romanovs were then confined to the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Gibbes wanted to live in the Alexander Palace to so he could be closer to the family but the Provisional Government declined his request.

The Bolsheviks launched their revolution in October 1917. The Romanovs were removed to Tobolsk in Siberia.  Gibbes voluntarily accompanied the family. Indeed he had to apply to the Russian Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky for permission to move to Tobolsk. He did so out of a sense of duty. One of the Romanovs maids was Anna Demidova fell in love with Gibbes and made overtures to him. He ignored her and wrote she was ‘ a woman of a singularly timid and shrinking disposition.’ Because Gibbes demonstrated no attraction towards women. Itt has been speculated that he was gay. There is no evidence that he ever had a gay liaison.

The Imperial Family had had all its wealth confiscated. The Romanovs kept some hidden jewels with them. The Romanovs were unable to pay for the services of Gibbes and others. Gibbes and his colleagues chose to serve their master solely out of devotion. Mr Gibbes was in a bad financial situation when another imperial retainer implored him to lend her some money. She was Baroness Sophie Buxhoevden. The baroness was a Dane who had been part of the Romanov household for several years. Gibbes unwisely lent her 1 300 roubles which she never repaid. She later claimed that Gibbes had not lent her anything. Gibbes mentioned this loan in correspondence with Gilliard. He was unlikely to invent this in a letter to a third party.

In April 1918 the Tsar was taken away from his family. He was to be conducted to Moscow and put on trial by the Bolsheviks. The Romanovs put on a farewell party. They expected Nikolai to be executed. Gibbes recalled, ‘It was the most mournful and  depressing party I ever attended. There was not much talk and no pretence at gaiety. It was solemn and tragic: a fit prelude to an inescapable tragedy ‘ Anna Demidova said to him, ‘I am so frightened Mr Gibbes I do not know what to do.’ The Tsarina elected to accompany her husband. With the parents away an even greater responsibility fell on Gibbes’ shoulders. In fact after a few months the parents were returned to their children after a few weeks without a trial ensuing.

Gibbes was later moved to Yekaterinaburg (Sverdlovsk) when the Romanovs were there. It was May 1918 when they travelled by the steamship Rus along the river to Yekaterinaburg. C S Gibbes recalled the last meal the children ate in Tobolsk. Gibbes managed to find some levity even in this grim situation. ‘       It was only on this last evening that we called for the two remaining bottles of wine. It was impossible to take them away and it was agreed that the next best thing to do was to drink them. While we were doing so the new commandant was heard sneaking down the corridor. We had only just time to hide the bottles under the table. He walked in and stood by the door. He gave a quizzical look all around. We felt like schoolboys caaught doing something naughty. Our eyes met and we could not contain ourselves any longer and fell about in wild laughter.      ‘

On the voyage Yekaterinaburg the predicament of the Romanovs became appreciably worse. The Red Army soldiers were openly hostile and insolent. They subjected the family to cat calls. ‘It was dreadful what they did.’ Gibbes adopted son later recalled his father telling him the screams of the grand duchesses haunted him for the rest of his life. ‘’It was his worst memory even more so than learning that the family had been marytred’’ said George Gibbes of his father.  Gibbes was implying that the soldiers fondled the princesses against their will. Was he even implying that they were raped?

However, C S Gibbes was not held in Ipatiev House which the Bolsheviks called the House of Special Purpose. He was not allowed into that house to meet his former employers. Mr Gibbes and Gilliard were housed in a railway carriage. He and Gilliard had come to Yekaterinaburg of their own free will but they were informed that they were not permitted to leave.

Not all servants of the Romanovs showed such fidelity. Baroness Buxhoevoden was one who told the Bolsheviks were hiding their jewels. The jewels were then sequestrated by the Bolsheviks. In gratitude for her assistance the Bolshevisk let this woman go.  She returned to her native Denmark. The other servants of the Romanovs were held as prisoners.

In May 1918 Gibbes and Gilliard were taken out of Yekaterinaburg and held in a nearby town. He and Gibbes had sent messages to the British consul and the Swedish consul pleading with them to intercede with the Bolsheviks to prevent the Romanovs from coming to harm. The British consul assured Gibbes that there was nothing to worry about. Gibbes had to spend a lot of time cooped up with his Swiss colleague Gilliard. Relations between the two frayed at this critical juncture.

Gibbes found out about the liquidation of the Romanovs soon after it occurred. He was devastated. At first he could not believe it. He desperately wished to think that at least some of the family had survived. He went to Ipatiev House and gathered a few relics of the family. He was to treasure these oddments to the end of his days. When the Whites took the town he helped with the inquiry. C S Gibbes and his colleague Gilliard did their best to establish the truth of what happened the night of 17/18 July 1918. Were the Romanovs really killed? All of them? Where were they interred? Gibbes and Gilliard unwillingly arrived at the conclusion that all of the Romanovs had been shot dead. There were rumours within weeks of the killings that one of the family survived – that it was the tsarevich or one of the grand duchesses although not Anastasia. (The Anastasia canard was to come only a few years later.)Gibbes and Gilliard helped the White Russian commission of inquiry into the slayings of the Romanovs. Gibbes and Gilliard also conducted their own inquiry in case the White Russian investigation was tainted by bias. Moreover, an investigation by two foreigners might carry more weight abroad than a Russian one in the midst of a civil war where the two sides had every reason to exaggerate or invent crimes attributable to their enemies. Gibbes and Gilliard had also lost some of their colleagues. Dr Botkin and several of the household staff had also been murdered for the crime of working for the Romanovs. The Reds were  vindictive enough to kill Gibbes’ pet dog. Gibbes and Gilliard visited the Four Brothers Mine where the burnt remains of the Romanovs had been cast. They worked closely with Sokolov – one of the Romanovs’ servants – in investigating the killings.

Charles Sydney Gibbes later fled east as the Reds looked poised to retake the town. He was later captured by the Reds but soon released. The British Army as well as several other armies intervened in Russia to assist the Whites. Gibbes was given an administrative position with the British Forces in Siberia. He left Russia by way of Manchuria. There as a large White Russian community there. He adopted a 15 year old Russian orphan there whom he named George Paveliev. Gibbes finally sailed back to the UK which had had not seen for years. His adoptive son came with him. He later bought a farm for George when the boy had grown up

Gibbes moved back and forth between Manchuria and England. It was not until 1928 that he claimed his MA from Cambridge. He was deeply impressed by the White Russians he knew. This caused him to be baptised into the Orthodox Church. C S Gibbes adulted his late pupil the tsarevich. Finally he was ordained as a monk. He had a tonsure. He wished to take the name Father Alexei but this was refused. He took the name Nicholas in religious contexts. This was in memory of the late Tsar. Gibbes helped to found an Orthodox Church in Oxford.  When he led prayers for the repose of the souls of the Romanovs he would weep before composing himself. Gibbes faith was not just about prayer. He devoted himself to helping the impoverished. He lived as a monk until his death in 1963.

There is still and Orthodox Church in Oxford but it is not in the building that Gibbes had.

Kurt Hahn was a German educationalist.

Hahn was born in Berlin in 1886. He was from a liberal Jewish family. His education was conducted in Germany. He suffered sunstroke as a child and this affected him permanently. He had to avoid hot climates which is why he gravitated to the frigid north.

Kurt Hahn attended a number of universities as was common for German undergraduates at the time. These were Heidelberg, Frieberg and Gottingen. An undergraduate would go to one university for a year, to another for two years and perhaps another for a further year. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford University. Hahn perfected his English. He was very broadminded and happily attended chapel. At that stage he did not convert to the Christian faith. Like many Germans he raved about Shakespeare. He was convinced that Shakespeare’s works were better in  German than the original. In the summers of 1910-14 he took holidays in northern Scotland.

Hahn was in the United Kingdom when the First World War broke out. All voyages to and from Germany were forbidden. He attempted to reach the coast and take ship for the Netherlands. From there he planned to travel to his homeland.

Kurt Hahn was arrested an interned as an enemy alien. After two years an exchange of civilians was agreed between the UK and Germany. German civilians were repatriated to Germany by way of the Netherlands which was neutral.

Hahn then spent the war in a government office in Berlin. His task was to translate British newspapers into German so that his government would have an idea of what the Allies were thinking.

Kurt Hahn came to work for the Margrave of Baden as his private secretary. Max von Baden was a man of liberal nostra. This was unusual for a German nobleman. Von Baden had briefly been chancellor in 1918. He had been one of those who saw that the military outlook was utterly hopeless for Germany and the only sane thing to do was to seek an armistice immediately. The Margrave of Baden is credited as one of those people who ended the First World War.

Hahn had come to develop his own educational philosophy. This was predicated on the teachings of Plato. He wanted a school that provided an education that was both classical and modern. Pupils were to be taught integrity, teamwork and a respect for nature. He wanted to do away with the petty rules of most schools and the overemphasis on academic learning. He aimed to provide a holistic education encompassing sports, camping, music and theatre. Drama played almost no role in formal education at the time. He considered the example of Eton. He saw much that he admired in terms of scholastic achievement and sports. However, he looked askance at Eton’s snobbery, artificiality and frippery.

The Margrave of Baden invited Hahn to open at school at his palace in southern Germany: Schloss Salem. Salem is short for Jerusalem and means ‘peace’ in Classical Hebrew. The name is pronounced ”ZA – lem”.

Kurt Hahn opened his school at Schloss Salem. This has an idyllic setting by Lake Constance. The school was mixed. The uniform was unpretentious and allowed for ease of movement. He also promoted pupils to have power over the others. If a group of boys were found to be misbehaving and one of them was a prefect then only the prefect was punished. This was because he should have been responsible enough to stop it.Hahn was a very generous spirited person who despised national prejudices. He had remained friends with many Britishers despite the First World War.

Hahn used the hymn ”We kneel and appeal to the God of all justice” as the Salem school song. It was in German of course.

Hahn wanted to challenge pupils. He insisted that they must be made physically fit. They must all be imbued with manual skills. They must also provide a public service by learning first aid or helping the fire brigade. His ideas were too reformist for some. In 1923 a reactionary tried to assassinate him.

In the late 1920s the Nazi Party became prominent. Hahn admitted to having some respect for the Nazis discipline and energy but he was a centrist. He was horrified by the Nazism glorification of brutality. He was an outspoken critic of their mindlessness, their thuggery and their philistinism. Hahn recognised that after 2 000 000 deaths in the First World War the last thing Germany needed was another war. The Nazism virulent anti-Semitism worried him since he was Jewish by parentage. The increasing viciousness of the National Socialists alarmed Hahn. Hahn read about a left winger who was kicked to death by Nazis in the immediate presence of his mother. Kurt Hahn then wrote a letter to all past pupils of Salem and said they must either support Salem or the Nazis but they could not support both. The two philosophies were totally incompatible. It was a gallant thing to do but Hahn was a marked man.

Adolf Hitler became chancellor in January 1933. Hahn was immediately arrested and his school was closed down. He had notable friends iin the United Kingdom including the Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald. Ramsay MacDonald was contacted and he interceded for Hahn. After three days the Nazi Government released Hahn at the UK Government’s request.

Dr Hahn travelled to the United Kingdom. He cast around for suitable locations to set up a new edition of Salem. He visited Moray in Scotland. It was an area where he had holidayed before the Great War. He found out about an old stately home in Scotland called Gordonstoun. Gordonstoun House that had beloned to the Gordon Cumming family. Hahn had a look and decided it would be ideal. It was deep in the countryside and therefore far from the distractions and temptations of city life. The huge grounds provided plenty of scope for sports and camping. It was within walking distance of the coast.

Hahn opened his school in 1934. Gordonstoun School began with two pupils. Hats off to this parents who were courageous enough to take a gamble on Gordonstoun. The school grew rapidly.

The boys wore knee length shorts, grey shirts, blue jumpers. They did not wear ties expect on formal occasions. This was a marked contrast to the overly formal and restrictive uniforms of the time. Boys in almost every other school wore hats or caps. Gordonstoun was very go ahead right from the start.

Hahn tried to keep punishment to a minimum. Nevertheless he allowed caning and administered the punishment in person.

Sports were a major part of the time table. Everyone had to learn to sail. It was called seamanship. Everyone had to go on regular camping expeditions. There was also military training. This was perhaps the first outward bound school. Outdoor education was a crucial part of the curriculum. Kurt Hahn wanted sport to be non-competitive most of the time. Oddly he knew little of the Corinthian spirit himself. Hahn did not always practise what he preached and was a fiercely competitive tennis player well into his 50s.

Dr Hahn also made sure that design and technology was in the timetable. Many independent schools sneered at this as being something for the working class. Pupils who could afford Gordonstoun were middle class or upper class. Hahn disliked snobbery but financial reality meant that his school could take very few proletarian pupils.

All pupils were required to join a service. This could be the fire brigade or coast guard service for example.

The school was founded as a Christian school but did not align itself with any denomination. The great majority of pupils were Church of Scotland or Church of England.

Hahn brought some of his colleagues with him from Germany. The school had very little money so some of them had to work for bed and board for the first couple of years. They received no salary! Some of his Jewish pedagogical friends were especially eager to get out of Germany for reasons that do not need stating. The boys of Gordonstoun gained an excellent grounding in German because most of their masters were German!

Gordonstoun founded a preparatory school called Wester Elchies in 1936. This was 20 miles away. Boys would attend Wester Elchies from the age of 7 to 13. Thereafter they would go on to Gordonstoun.

Hahn invented a flag for the school with a white and a purple bar. The white denoted purity and the purple honour. The motto is ‘Plus est en vous’ – there is more in you (than you think). Plus est en vous had been seen written on a wall in Belgium and it inspired Kurt Hahn.

The buildings of the school were very widely dispersed over the estate. This compelled boys to walk fast to all activities. Hahn thought this was tremendous for their athleticism.

In 1936 the school welcomed a most distinguished pupil. He was Prince Philip of Greece. Prince Philip had left Greece as a baby and grown up in London and Paris. He was a second cousin of King George VI. Prince Philip was partly of German extraction.

The school was soon attracting pupils from all over the United Kingdom.

Dr Hahn became a British citizen. This was vital since it meant he was not interned in 1939.Dr Kurt Hahn converted to Christianity. He sometimes preached in the Church of Scotland.

Dr Hahn helped to bring more Jewish Germans to the UK. He saved their lives.

Although Dr Hahn’s English was impeccable he had an unmissable German accent. It caused him to receive many frosty stares when travelling by train during the Second World War.

At the outbreak of the Second World War many called for Adolf Hitler to be assassinated. Hahn showed his extreme perhaps inane degree of humanity in saying that Hitler should not be assassinated. Dr Hahn said that shooting people solves nothing. He cited the example of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Gordonstoun recruited a PE teacher who was a refugee from Russia. When he was exasperated with the boys he would recite gobbets of the Bible to calm himself down. This was the only thing they had been taught to do at school in Russia.

In the Second World War the army commandeered the school under the Defence of the Realm Act. The school was moved to Wales for a few years. It returned after the war.

Dr Hahn was prominent in seeking to restore amicable relations between Germany and the UK after the war. He reopened Salem as soon as was practicable. He visited his devastated native land. He arranged many exchanges between Gordonstoun and Salem. Except Salem was said to be haunted by a ghost named ‘Spookie’.

In 1947 Prince Philip wed Princess Elizabeth. This brought publicity to the school. This princess became queen in 1952.

In the 1950s it became the norm for Gordonstounians to spend one of their five years in Salem.

The Prince of Wales and other members of the royal family attended Gordonstoun.

With his former pupil Dr Hahn helped to found the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. This awards people a bronze, silver or gold for achievement. Someone on the D of E scheme must participate in sport, serve their community and go on an expedition.

Dr Hahn also helped to set up the United World Colleges. These exist around the world and provide two years of pre university schooling. One of them is Atlantic College in Wales.

Altyre School was founded about 10 miles away from Gordonstoun. Altyre was very small. For some lessons they had to cycle to Gordonstoun. This arrangement did not last. Eventually Altyre School was closed and a house called Altyre was built at Gordonstoun.

Wester Elchies outgrew its size. So another house was purchased across the river Spey in 1947. It was called Aberlour House. Wester Elchies and Aberlour House were one school on two sites. They were 3 miles apart. Juniors would be at Wester Elchies for three years. They would proceed to Aberlour House for a further three years. Therefater they would go on to Gordonstoun for five years. The prep school began to take girls in the 1950s but Gordonstoun did not.

A levels started to be considered important after the Second World War. Prior to that pupils had sat the schools certificates exams. Gordonstoun took the fateful decision to take A levels which are not a Scottish qualification. Almost every other school in Scotland does Highers which are a uniquely Scottish exam.

The school’s fame spread rapidly. It took pupils from the United States, India, Australia and many other lands.

One of the houses in Gordonstoun is called Round Square. This is because there are no corners in it. Gordonstoun established fraternal links with many schools around the world. They meet at Round Square conferences.

Hahn was loaded with honours. He was made a Commander of the British Empire. He was given the cross of merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In the early 1970s Gordonstoun admitted girls.

Dr Hahn retired in 1953. Except he did not. He returned to Salem and ran a house but taught no lessons.He jogged into his 80s! He died in 1974. He had never married.

Dr Hahn was fondly remembered by his pupils and colleagues alike.

Gordonsount is known as ”Stoun’’ to its pupils. Kurt Hahn is the subject of a number of biographies.  A school in the United States is now named in his honour.

LADY Margaret Bryan – Governess to Queen Elizabeth I.

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Lady Margaret Bryan was born in England. Her year of birth was approximately 1468. She came from an aristocratic family. Her brother was Lord Bourchier. She married Sir Thomas Bryan.

When Lord Bourchier died without sons his sister inherited his estates and moveables. This made her a woman of very considerable means.

Lady Bryan’s husband died when she was in her 40s. As a widow she was able to devoted more of her time to the king’s service.

Lady Margaret was the half-sister of Anne Boleyn’s mother.

Henry VIII had a son with his mistress Bessie Blount. This boy was name Henry FitzRoy. Fitz indicated his unwed birth. Roy is derived from ‘roi’ the French for king. Although no one contemplated Henry FitzRoy inheriting the Crown he was still a notable person. Lady Margaret was his governess when he was little.

From 1525 Lady Bryan was governess to Mary Tudor: the eldest daughter of Henry VIII. Lady Margaret was made a baroness as a reward. She did a superb job and the king was deeply satisfied with her. She was highly capable and managed to curry favour with the right people.

In 1533 Henry VIII declared that Mary Tudor was born outside of wedlock. His marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled. Mary Tudor was enraged. Her father told her to ”lay aside the name and dignity of princess.”

She refused to accept this and insisted that she was the king’s lawful daughter and heir. Lady Margaret had to manage the teenagers moods and fury. Mary Tudor felt rejected and humiliated. She bore herself with a dignity and defiance than inspired admiration even in her enemies.

At the age of 65 she became lady mistress to the baby Elizabeth. In those times the word ‘mistress’ denoted a woman with authority and not a paramour.

When Elizabeth was three months old she was taken away from her mother. Anne Boleyn had breastfed her baby for the first few weeks and was keen to continue. Henry VIII would not hear of this breach of protocol. The child was put into the care of a wet nurse. The woman really in charge was Lady Bryan. She was not the matronly battleaxe that some might fear. Elizabeth was taken to another royal residence in December 1533. Elizabeth spent most of her time at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire.

Anne Boleyn wrote to Lady Bryan very frequently with precise instructions for the child’s upbringing. Lady Bryan carried out her duties sedulously. Anne Boleyn sent her daughter the finest of clothes. The baby was dressed as a tiny adult. This was the way at the time. They made no allowances for children’s need to move more. About 40 pounds a month was spent on garments for Elizabeth. This approximates to 13 000 pounds today! Anne Boleyn seemed to be impelled to confirm her daughter’s legitimacy by making sure always appeared as regal as possible.

When Elizabeth was sent to live at Hatfield House this was also the residence of her half-sibling with Mary Tudor. The 17 year old Mary Tudor naturally resented her baby half-sister. Elizabeth had briefly replaced Mary Tudor in their father’s affections. Elizabeth’s mother Anne Boleyn had brought huge anguish to Mary Tudor and her mother Catherine of Aragon. Although Elizabeth spent most of the time at Hatfield House they sometimes moved to Greenwich Palace. Greenwich is now considered part of London. In those days it was a small port several miles from London.

Around this time Lady Bryan married for a second time. She wed David Soche. She was well past childbearing age so there was no chance that she was going to have a baby of her own to distract her from her job.

Anne Boleyn’s voluminous instructions also laid stess on the need to degrade Mary Tudor. Anne Boleyn emphasised that Mary Tudor was a bastard and had no right to inherit the Crown nor any right to style herself princess. Anne Boleyn’s volatile temperament was notorious. It would be foolish to provoke her. Lady Bryan had to walk a tightrope. She had to keep her mistress Anne Boleyn content because she was the queen. On the other hand it felt deeply wrong to insult Mary Tudor. It was plain that public sympathy was very much on Mary Tudor’s side. Too much aggravation in the family would make for a poisonous atmosphere.

Anne Boleyn’s spitefulness and pettiness did her no credit. She had enough enemies to begin with. She boasted how she would have Mary Tudor serving her as a maid. Her vindictiveness merely earned her more enmity. Anne Boleyn’s outbursts of furious shrieking made her deeply unpopular. Perhaps Lady Bryan was canny enough to see that Anne Boleyn’s haughtiness and mean spiritedness was setting her up for a dramatic fall. That was why it would have been unwise for Lady Bryan to carry out her order to humiliate Mary Tudor with too much zeal.

Lady Bryan’s son was Sir Francis Bryan. He spent much time at court. He knew a youngish woman from an aristocratic Wiltshire family named Jane Seymour. It was possibly due to Sir Francis that Jane Seymour came to the attention of Henry VIII. Henry VIII was infatuated with Jane Seymour. There is little doubt that Sir Francis Bryan kept his mother Lady Margaret Bryan informed of developments. The more the king fell for Jane Seymour’s feminine wiles the weaker Anne Boleyn’s situation became. That was why it would not do to be too closely associated with Anne Boleyn and her cruel treatment of Mary Tudor. Jane Seymour was canny enough to coquette with Henry VIII but she would not yield to her maidenhood. She parried his amorous advances with protestations of maidenly virtue.

Lady Bryan was also a regular correspondent of Lord Chancellor Thomas Cromwell. The lord chancellor was the king’s most important minister. Thomas Cromwell was no friend of the Boleyn family. Lady Bryan may well have been in the know about Anne Boleyn’s coming fall from grace.

Lady Bryan believed in expediency. She encouraged Mary Tudor to be kind to her half-sister. It was not the child’s fault. She tried to persuade Mary Tudor to accept her new diminished status. Mary Tudor was stubborn and held out for a long time. She eventually gave in and appeared to agree that she was downgraded. Her submissiveness caused her father to look more generously on her.

Lady Bryan had to supervise Elizabeth been weaned and put ont dry food. She of course received many very detailed orders from Anne Boleyn about how to do this. Lady Bryan had brought up her own children, grandchildren and royal children. She had vastly more experienced that Anne Boleyn.

When Elizabeth was two years and eight months old disaster struck. Her mother was accused of adultery and witchcraft. For a queen consort to commit adultery was high treason. It was also high treason for a man to have carnal knowledge of a woman of the royal family outside of marriage. The charges were very likely false. Nevertheless, three men were tortured into confessing to committing adultery with Anne Boleyn. The whole affair was probably cooked up by the scheming lord chancellor: Thomas Cromwell. He was a foe of the Boleyn family. Anne Boleyn and her supposed paramours were all put to death. At a stroke he removed Anne Boleyn, George Boleyn and Henry Norris who was Cromwell’s main political rival. There was also a musician called Mark Smeaton with whom Anne Boleyn had probably no more than flirted.

Elizabeth was suddenly downgraded to an illegitimate child. Her mother was declared to be an adultress and a sorceress. Her marriage to Henry VIII was annulled. Some of the Boleyn’s foes people suggested that Elizabeth bore a striking resemblance to her mother’s putative lover Mark Smeaton. In fact that is nonsense. Every unbiased observer noted that the similiarity between Elizabeth and Henry VIII was unmistakable.

This could all be a traumatising experience for a child. Fortunately, Elizabeth was so tiny that she can scarcely have been conscious of the gravity of the situation. She had seldom seen her mother anyway. It was very common for children to be orphaned then because life expectancy was so low. Many women died in childbirth. Therefore Elizabeth may not have been as severely psychologically damaged as we might imagine.

Anne Boleyn had gone to her death with fortitude and protesting her innocence with her very last breath. On the scaffold far from fulminate against her hypocritical, adulterous, vain and murderous husband she had praised him as the kindest king ever! No doubt Anne realised that she had better say something flattering about the man who had ordered her death. Otherwise her daughter Elizabeth would suffer.

As soon as her mother was killed Elizabeth was moved to smaller and less comfortable rooms. She was no longer a princess but a lady. Her clothing allowance was immediately stopped. Within a few weeks Lady Bryan was writing to Lord Chancellor Cromwell insisting that more clothes be sent for Lady Elizabeth. ”I beg you to be good to her and hers that she may have raiment.” The letter went on, ” for she has neither gown, nor kirtle nor petticoat. ”

In fact Lady Elizabeth had received a huge consignment of clothes just before her mother was accused of adultery. It is probable that Lady Bryan was overstating her ward’s lack of raiment to ensure that her complaint was taken seriously.

Shortly after Anne Boleyn’s execution. Lady Bryan approached the king with Elizabeth in her arms and asked if he wished to see his daughter. They king scoffed angrily and doubted that the child was his.

Lady Bryan took Elizabeth to Hatfield. She did her level best to shield the child from the horror that had unfolded. Some of those who had previously harboured a quiet loyalty for Mary Tudor were now only too glad to show their scorn for Elizabeth. As Anne Boleyn had been executed Mary Tudor was back in the king’s good graces. Mary Tudor’s mother had died of natural causes a few months earlier which only gained her even more sympathy.

Lady Bryan described Elizabeth as a ”succourless and redeless creature”. (Succour is help). Lady Bryan had been used to receiving very detailed instructions from Anne Boleyn. With Anne Boleyn dead Lady Bryan had a great deal more autonomy. She did not find this entirely to her liking.

Lady Bryan did not know Elizabeth’s exact status. She wrote indignantly to Thomas Cromwell asking for clarification, ” Now Lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was in to what degree she is in now I know not but by hearsay ”

Sir John Shelton was in charge of Hatfield House. He insisted that Lady Elizabeth dine at the high table as though her status had not been lowered. Lady Bryan had received instructions that Elizabeth had to dine on a less exalted table. She complained that Shelton was disobeying these orders. ”Mr Shelton would have my Lady Elizabeth dine every evening at board of estate. It is not meet [appropriate] for a child of this age.” The real objection was not her age but her illegitimate status. Lady Bryan paid close attention to rank. The order of precedence was everything at court. It was only by being pedantic about such things that she gained favour at court.

Mr was such a high title that it was acceptable to call a knight ‘mister’. Ordinary men did not have the dignity of being called ‘mister.’ Lady Bryan found it very difficult to get along with Shelton. This appears to have been his fault and not hers.

Lady Bryan saw fit to bother the most important man in government with news of Elizabeth’s teeth. ”My lady has great pain in her teeth which come very slowly.” She showed her motherly concern with this sentence.

Lady Margaret Bryan commented on Elizabeth’s development saying she was ”as toward a child of gentle conditions as ever I knew in my life.” ‘Toward’ in those days meant advanced. She expressed a hope that Elizabeth be allowed to be seen on public occasions. The king was at that stage minded to hide Elizabeth as a reminder of the shameful Anne Boleyn.

Thomas Cromwell had much bigger fish to fry. However, Lady Bryan was so formidable that he felt compelled to answer her and take her complaints seriously.

One historian, Agnes Strickland, summarised it as:

”Much of the future greatness of Elizabeth may reasonably be attributed to the judicious training of her sensible and conscientious her governess.”

Eleven days after Anne Boleyn’s decapitation Henry VIII was feeling in the romantic mood! He wed Jane Seymour.

In 1537 Jane Seymour was delivered of a bonny baby boy: Edward VI. Almighty God chose to call the queen to his mercy. She died 12 days after giving birth.

Lady Bryan was made governess of the infant Edward VI. This was a step up because boys were considered much more valuable than girls. Furthermore, Edward VI was undoubtly legitimate whereas in 1536 Elizabeth was declared to have been born to an unwed mother.The infant Edward VI came to live with his sisters. Lady Bryan was in charge of all three of the king’s offspring. Although she clearly had a soft spot for the girls it was made very clear to her that her main responsibility was Edward. He was far more important to the king than both his daughters put together.

Lady Bryan took satisfaction in Edward VI’s luxurious lifestyle, ”His grace was full of pretty toys as ever I saw a child in my life”, wrote Lady Bryan to Thomas Cromwell. By ‘full’ she means he had plenty of them.

When Edward VI was two years old Lady Margaret wrote to Cromwell reporting on the prince’s every little achievement. There is no mistaking the grandmotherly delight in this missive,”The minstrels played and his grace danced and played so wantonly as he could not sit still.”

Lady Margaret still gave Elizabeth presents many of them made by her own hand.

In 1537 the Sheltons were removed from Hatfield. It was relief for Lady Margaret Bryan who has always found Sir John Shelton hard to get on with. It was also a vindication of her. She was superb at her job and he was not. It was a rare victory for a woman over a man.

Lady Bryan taught Mary Tudor and Elizabeth to be good to their brother. They could so easily have resented him for replacing them in their fathers affections. However, they doted on the child.

After a few years Edward VI was moved away to a grander household. Lady Bryan moved with him. He was her sole charge. Elizabeth and Mary Tudor then lived apart. Mary Tudor was well into her 20s and did not need a governess any longer.

Lady Bryan began education with these children. They learnt the rudiments from her. Later on their education was provided by erudite men. It was their general development that was her field.

It appears that she retired in 1452. Her pension was 20 pounds per annum which was handsome indeed.

Lady Bryan served Edward VI so long as her health allowed. She died in about 1552.

=============

CONCLUSIONS

Lady Bryan brought up three monarchs. By all accounts she was brilliant at her job. She was a disciplinarian who was also warm and reasonable. Her responsibilities were very serious indeed. She also had to navigate Tudor politics. Her wards were highly educated, worldly and courtly.

The three monarchs all turned out to be fairly successful in their way. Mary Tudor succeeded in restoring Catholicism though at the cost of her popularity. For Mary Tudor is was Catholicism that mattered so this was a price worth paying.

MR COLOUR

[This is about Mr Edward Green. For ‘Colour’ read

‘Greene]

He was born in 1938. His father was so aghast at the slaughter of the First World War that he became a pacifist. He also joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) at that time. Colour’s mother was a conventional Anglican. Ben Colour had been to Russian with the Quakers’ Famine Relief Mission. He joined the Labour Party and even served as secretary to the Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.

In the Second World War colour’s father became was an outspoken opponent of military action. His principle stance alienated many of his dearest friends. Mrs Colour said it was tremendous because the Colours knew who their real friends were. Mr Ben Colour was even gaoled for two years for his anti war activism.

Colour moved to Scotland in 1942. He was soon enrolled in a prep school called Craigflower. It was whilst in North Britain that Colour became interested in presbyterian church governance. He was later to form the view that the Reformation in Scotland had been admirable since it originated in the broad mass of the populace and was enacted for lofty motives. He contrasted that with the English Reformation where the Crown imposed the Reformation on an unwilling majority and did so for the narrowest  and ignoblest of personal reasons.

Colour went to Eton at the age of 13. The school was of course Church of England. It came to the time when as an Etonian it was suggested that Colour should be confirmed. Colour told his housemaster that he would not be going forward for confirmation since he was a Presbyterian. His housemaster was very surprised and mildly disapproved. Most boys at Eton were Anglicans. There were a few other Protestants, some Catholics and Jews.

Colour was a self-confessed eccentric. Eton in the 1950s was a surprisingly broad-minded place.

Religious debate was heated in the Colour household. His elder sisters became Catholics.

Colour did his National Service. He enlisted in the Royal Navy. This was a highly unusual choice for an Old Etonian. He greatly enjoyed his three years in the senior service.

He then went up to Oxford. He attended Wadham. Again this was an uncommon choice for a boy from Eton. However, his subject was more predictable: Classics.

Wadham was then run by the legendary Maurice Bowra.

Colour applied to the Colonial Office. He was going to be a district commissioner in the New Hebrides. In the end that did not transpire.  Colonialism’s loss was education’s gain.

Colour finished his degree and was offered a position tutoring the son of a belted earl. This peer had a huge estate in North Britain. Colour travelled with his pupil between the United Kingdom and Sweden.

After a few years as a private tutoRr he became a schoolmaster. He taught at Magdalen College School. He was asked to do some private tutoring on the side. Therefore he started a little extra tutoring. He was asked to provide tutors for subjects he could not teach. He sourced such tutors.

Over time his tutoring business grew and grew. It came to pass that he was unable to discharge his duties to the school. He decided to resign from MCS and run his tutoring business fulltime. He had fallen into this career.

He set up the tutorial college that bears his name. The college was the first of its kind. It has many imitators but no equals. Its officeholders have antiquarian titles such as usher and same. Pupils pay bills called battels. These battels were calculated in the most wonderfully anachronistic units – guineas. A guinea was one pound and one shilling, i.e. GBP 1.05. The college seemed to founded on the premise that being old fashioned was a virtue.

He had handmade paper brochures. There were weekly tea parties – symbolic of the old world decency that pervaded the college.

Colour’s College was in its heyday in the 80s and 90s. In the Noughties Mr Colour was reaching retirement age. He was ably assisted by his registrar Nick.

Colour’s achieved outstanding results. This is not simply a matter of many A* s. The college took some very bright pupils, plenty of average ones and more than a few pupils with academic difficulties. For some pupils an E grade was a major accomplishment. Colour would take pupils of all levels of aptitude and do the best to enable that pupil to achieve the maximum that he or she could.

Mr Colour was unique. His tranquil demeanour and unfailing mannerliness won him many admirers. He is so devoted to his college that his is why he is a lifelong bachelor.

Colour College experienced a fillip in the 70s. Many pupils were expelled for taking drugs. Some boys had been booted out of public school for such trifling offences as growing their hair. Schools went mixed. This led to girls and boys getting into compromising positions. Some were kicked out of school for that. Colour took such pupils. Two-thirds of his pupils were boys. This is partly because they were more likely to be excluded from school. However, by no means all pupils there were expellees. Some chose to leave school because they preferred to enroll at Colour’s. Colour’s took an increasing number of pupils from overseas such as Russia. The college was unique and inimitable.

Mr Colour worships in the Free Church of Scotland. The nearest church is in London. He has no petty denominational prejudice. He worships in Oxford Cathedral. He is a strict sabbatarian and will  not answer the phone on Sunday. Indeed he is an adherent of the Lord’s Day Observance Society. He says grace before meals. His moral rectitude does not preclude enjoying wine as Our Saviour did.

To step into Colour’s abode is to step back in time. The decor and layout is decidedly old world. The ambience is unashamedly 19th century. It is like a time capsule of traditional decency. He lives in a multi storey flat on Pembroke Street. It is adorned with judiciously chosen and carefully arranged Victorian bric a brac. Portraits of Protestant divines grace the walls

MARGARETTA EAGAR. GOVERNESS to the Romanovs.

Margaretta is known for having been governess to the last Tsar’s daughters. These were Tatiana, Olga, Anastasia and Maria. She published a book entitled Six Years at the Russian Court.

She was born in Ireland. She came from the city of Limerick.

Margaretta was a Protestant which made her a minority in Ireland and a tiny minority in Limerick. She was one of ten children. She spent some time in Belfast and qualified as a nurse. She ran an orphanage for a while.

She was recruited specifically to be a governess to the Grand Duchesses. She courageously moved to Russia despite never having been there and speaking not a phonem of Russian. Miss Eagar’s first impression of Russia was positive,

”I may say here that the Russians are sympathetic and kind to a degree, and they are always willing to help a stranger in any way in their power.”

She worked as a governess to the Imperial Family from 1898. At 35 Margaretta Eagar was considered middle aged. She had ample relevant experience. She was unmarried and at the age of 35 it was assumed that she would always remain unmarried. Being a spinster was a prerequisite of the position.

The Tsar’s four daughters picked up a Hibernian lilt from their Irish governess. Protestants were more acceptable than Catholics in Russia. This is because the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church had an frosty relationship since the schism of 1054. The Russian imperial family sometimes wed Protestants but they never wed Catholics.  As Margaretta Eagar noted some Orthodox Christians even attended Protestant worship sometimes:

” Many Russian people go on Easter Sunday to the English and Lutheran churches. ”

She lived at Susvina Dacha which was 4 or 5 miles from the Peterhof Palace. She spoke French which she found useful in communicating with many officials. French was the principal foreign language in Russia at the time.

Miss Eagar’s role was childcare more than education at that stage. Their Imperial Highnesses were all very little. However, she spoke English to them which they knew from their parents. She also did some basic literacy with them. Looking at Margaretta Eagar’s own writing there is no doubt that she was a highly intelligent woman. University education was scarcely available in Ireland for women. Even then it was effectively impossible for all but the wealthiest girls to access tertiary education.

Nikolai II has gone down in History as uncaring towards his subjects who suffered horrifically under his misrule. Miss Eagar had a different take on him. She found him considerate towards the lowliest of his subjects:

”When an Imperial train stops at a station, a deputation of the principal persons, headed by one called the Stavosta or Elder, presents the Emperor with bread and salt. Shortly after the accession of Nicholas II., he found that the poorer villages and communities were unable to afford the expense of the gold plate, and yet could not bear to be outdone by the richer villages. He therefore issued a decree that henceforth bread and salt should be presented only on wooden or china dishes. This is very characteristic of his thought for his poorer subjects.”

Miss Eagar was a hit with the princesses. She writes with blatant fondness about her former pupils.  It is hard to remember that these people we see in sepia tinted photographs and who were so adulated were real people with foibles, fun and weaknesses. In her colourful prose the Grand Duchesses come alive as the little girls they really were:

”In the picture gallery here is the finest collection of Rembrandts extant. One of these represents the visit of the Trinity to Abraham. I was one day looking at it, trying to make out what it meant, when the little Grand Duchess Olga ran up to me, and, putting her hand in mine, asked me what I was looking at. I told her ; she then looked at it earnestly, and suddenly burst out laughing, exclaimed : ” Oh ! What a very funny picture a man holding a leg of mutton in his hand, and carving it with a knife, and a bird sitting at the table.” The bird, needless to say, was one of the angels.”

The daughters of the Tsar behaved badly sometimes like other children. It was their governess’s duty to deal with this. She recalled some squabbling between them:

” Once there was a cinematograph exhibition for the children and some friends. One picture showed two little girls playing in a garden, each with a table before her covered with toys. Suddenly the bigger girl snatched a toy from the little one who, how- ever, held on to it and refused to give it up. Foiled in her attempts, the elder seized a spoon and pounded the little one with it, who quickly relinquished the toy and began to cry. Tatiana wept to see the poor little one so ill-treated, but Olga was very quiet. After the exhibition was over she said, ” I can’t think that we saw the whole of that picture.”

Do not imagine that royalty are perfect. She recalled that the girls sometimes hit each other. Margaretta was fondest of Tatiana whom she found to be the most intellectually inquisitive. The governess read her charges many stories such asAlice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Both of these tales are by the Oxford Maths don Lewis Carroll (real name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson).

Margaretta came to speak Russian. She got along well with her Russian colleagues. She was much older than most of them and they came to her for advice.

”  The maids in the nursery used always to tell me if any man paid them attentions, More About the Children. 267 and just for all the world like an anxious mother, I used to make enquiries about his character, temper, position in life, and whether the would-be suitor could give his wife a home of her own  ”

She recalled that the princesses were very solicitous towards even their maids. When a maid left to get married they had a farewell party for her.

”         The other girls gave a little party to celebrate her leaving us, and the young man was amongst the guests. When the girl heard that he had arrived her grief broke forth again. She realised that the time of parting had come, and the children cried most bitterly. Little Tatiana Nicolaivna took a sheet of paper and a pencil, and wrote with great difficulty a letter which I trans- late : ” Vladislav, Be good with Tegla. Tatiana.” She placed this letter in an envelope and printed in large letters on the envelope, Vladislav, and sent it to him by the housemaid. ”

Margaretta Eagar accompanied the Imperial Household on voyages across the Baltic Sea to Denmark. Nikolai II’s mother was a Danish princess. She also went with them on the Imperial Train on journeys to Russian Poland. She also travelled with them to Yalta and cruised in the Black Sea with them. In Crimea she had the chance to visit some of the cemeteries that contained the mortal remains of British soldiers who had died in the Crimean War only 50 years before. Not a few of these Britishers were Irishmen.

Miss Eagar had an inquiring mind. She was conscious of complexity. She wrote that she was very aware of the ethno-religious diversity of the Russian Empire. She commented on the different habits of Tatars who were Muslims. Back then a lot of ethnic minority people in Russia did not speak Russian. Their religious customs made a huge difference at the time. She heard the anti-Semitic attitudes of the Romanovs to which she did not seem to object even privately.

Miss Eagar had the opportunity to observe some of the mightiest men in the world up close. Here is what she had to say about a remarkably cordial meeting between the Tsar and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany:

” On our way to Poland we paid a visit to Potsdam, to the German Emperor and Empress. On arriving we found the troops drawn up in a line, and the Emperor himself met us at the station. The band played the Russian National Anthem, and the two Emperors walked along and inspected the regiments. The Emperor of Russia shook hands with the officers and congratulated them. He and the Empress then went off to lunch at the palace, but we stayed in the train till after lunch, when a carriage arrived and took us up to the palace. The German Emperor is very like his portraits  ”

She also got to meet an in-law of the Romanovs: King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. The Tsarina Alexandra was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and therefore a first cousin of Edward VII. Margaretta Eagar was understandably timid about meeting her sovereign. Contrary to his uncaring public image she found her king to be benevolent:

”  The King frequently spoke to me, too, and called me ” My Irish subject.” He has very winning manners and great tact. He has a marvellous memory. This year he sent me, in memory of the birth of the Czarovitch, a brooch, in green enamel, because I am Irish. They say he never forgets any- thing, and I know he never forgets to be kind. ”

Margaretta was allowed occasional holidays back to Ireland. She then went to Kilkee, Co Clare which is a seaside resort.

Relations between the Hohenzollerns were very warm. Because of the First World War it is hard to remember just how well royal houses got on beforehand.

” The Crown Prince of Germany paid us a visit, and became very intimate with his little cousins.”

Do not misunderstand the word ‘intimate’ here. It is not hinting at any improper behaviour.

Though the overthrow the Romanovs was some years off Miss Eagar wrote of the increasing frequency of revolutionary violence. Even she made some criticisms of the way the Tsar governed. Naturally she sympathised with the family she worked for an denounced revolutionaries as demons.

She left the imperial employ in the summer of 1904. She stated that this was for personal reasons. It could be that she was dismissed because she was British. All Irish people were British citizens at the time since the whole of Ireland was a portion of the UK at the time.  In 1904 the Russo-Japanese War began. The United Kingdom openly sympathised with Japan. This made it impolitic for the Romanovs to employ a woman of that nationality.

She did not leave the Romanovs immediately after the outbreak of this war. It was a few months later. She recalled that the Romanovs were actuated by genuine patriotism and were prepared to make a few sacrifices themselves. Despite their extremely exalted statues they were not too grand to do war work:

”            After the war broke out the children, even little Anastasie, worked at frame knitting. They made scarves for the soldiers, and Olga and Tatiana crocheted caps indefatigably.” 

Yet the children were not above the vindictive feelings that war inspires:

”  It was very sad to me to witness the wrathful vindictive spirit that the war raised in my little charges. One of the illustrated papers had a picture of the baby children of the Crown Prince of Japan. Marie and Anastasie came running across to see the picture, and wanted to know who those queer little children were. I told them, and with a look of hatred coming into her sweet little face Marie slapped the picture with her open hand. ” Horrid little people,” said she ; ” they came and destroyed our poor ships and drowned our sailors.”  ”

Despite the unhappy circumstances of Miss Eagar’s departure the Romanovs faithfully paid her her pension. She corresponded with her girls for many years. There is no doubt about the genuine affection between them. Had the war not intervened she probably would have lasted many more years with them. She was an excellent governess for several reasons. Margaretta was respectable and smartly dressed. She knew how to behave. She was deferential and mannerly. Miss Eagar was able to take charge of these children despite their lofty rank. She handled bad behaviour with aplomb. A natural authority enabled her to win the respect of her wards. She was academically able and she could entertain children.  It helped that she was a nurse and solicitous for their health. Margaretta maintained warm and constructive relation with the Russian nannies and other servants. They perceived her as an ally and not an enemy. This is partly down to her tact and emotional intelligence.

Perhaps personal reasons did play a role in Miss Eagar leaving the Romanovs. She missed Ireland and frequently mentioned her native land in her book.

She published Six Years at the Russian Court.  This remarkable book is lively and closely observed. It is a superb window on the family life of the Romanovs. It is set before the haemophilia of Tsarevich Alexei was known. He was born only weeks before Margaretta left Russia. Therefore these were fairly carefree years for the family. They were not haunted by the fear of illness, death and revolution. This memoir is filled with charming apercus. She gives a whistle stop tour through Russian History and she describes the lifestyles of all levels of society. She treats her readers to her judgment on different members of the Romanov family. She had this to say about the Dowager Empress (mother of Nikolai II).

”  The Dowager Empress is a very attractive person. She has the full rich voice, and the excessive tact which belong to the Danish family, as well as their youthful looks. ”

The Tsarina approved of the idea of publishing Six Years at the Russian Court which came out in 1906. She said it was necessary to rebut many of the calumnies printed about the Romanovs. Whether she Tsarina saw the manuscript is doubtful. Presumably she would not have liked so much information about their private life being revealed. The book is almost entirely flattering but it mentions some shortcomings. Eagar defended her erstwhile employers on many points. She even said the government was not all responsible for the Kishniev Pogroms.

Maragretta Eagar never married.She moved to London and ran a boarding house their in Holland Park. Her business was not a success and she died relatively poor.

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

EARLY LIFE

Jones was born at London in 1746. His father hailed from Wales. William Jones grew up bilingual in Welsh and English. He may be regarded as belonging to both Wales and England.

William Jones father was a mathematician of great repute. He invented the usage of Pi to denote 3.14.  Jones’ father died when the boy was three. Jones was raised by his mother. For a bourgeois family they lived in straitened circumstances.

William Jones enrolled in Harrow School at the age of 7. These days Harrow does not admit boys until they have attained the age of 13. 7 was young even by the standards of the 18th century to start at Harrow.

Jones excelled academically. He found the curriculum that consisted of Mathematics, Latin, Ancient Greek and Hebrew to be far too unchallenging. The headmaster remarked that Jones knew more Greek than he did himself. He decided to teach himself a few languages. With the aid of textbooks he soon mastered Persian. He then proceeded to learn Arabic. Jones also taught himself Chinese. He was to attain absolute fluency in Chinese despite never going to China. He learnt more and more tongues – ancient and modern – just for fun. He was a phenomenal autodidact. There was no doubt that he was a prodigy. He wished to attend university but did not have sufficient means. His outstanding intellectual prowess won him a scholarship.

Jones was very taken by the Roman author Cicero. Cicero taught that one should never waste a minute. Jones was convinced by this dictum and used every moment for self-improvement. He was forever studying and writing. This accounts for his compendious writing.

Harrow School educated some boys for free who were from the parish of Harrow. Other pupils were known as ‘foreigners’ in that they came from outside that parish. The great majority of pupils were ‘foreigners’ in that sense and Jones was among them. Almost all the so-called foreigners paid fees. Jones was one of the very few foreigners who was educated gratis. This was owing to his prodigious intellectual gifts. William Jones was a prodigy. He certainly had an outstanding inherent aptitude his jaw dropping attainments required very strenuous effort. He was known to be extremely industrious. He seemed to vindicate the 10,000 hours theory. That is that a person only achieves excellence in something by fully concentrating on studying it for at least 10 000 hours.

Harrow School was unruly like most British public schools at the time. The boys played their own rough sports. This included Harrow Football. Football has not been codified nationally and each school played its own version of the game. There was plenty of bullying. The school was Anglican and the boys were required to attend worship in the Church of England. This did not make them all more moral. Many of them skipped lessons to ride to the hounds. Masters were constantly struggling to get boys out of taverns where the schoolboys were betting on cockfights and getting themselves stocious drunk.

At the age of 17 Jones published a poem entitled Caissa on chess. Here are the first few lines:

Of armies on the chequer’d field array’d,
And guiltless war in pleasing form display’d;
When two bold kings contend with vain alarms,
In ivory this, and that in ebon arms;
Sing, sportive maids, that haunt the sacred hill
Of Pindus, and the fam’d Pierian rill.

==================

OXFORD

William Jones went up to Oxford University. He was admitted to what is widely believed to be the most ancient college: University College. Legend had it that Univ (as University College is known) was founded by King Alfred the Great in 871. Univ now acknowledges that this claim is specious. The truth is that Univ was founded by William of Durham in 1249. Jones signed the college register on 16 March 1764. He was then aged 17. These days undergraduates always begin in October. In the 18th century they could join in any term. A Bachelor’s degree did not necessarily take three years. It could take slightly less for an exceptionally hardworking undergraduate and it often took a little longer than three years.

Jones had the misfortune to attend Oxford when the university was at its lowest ebb. Although Oxford was the only university in England besides Cambridge its reputation internationally was not good. There were some very bright and studious boys at Oxford. The best of the dons worked sedulously and published some magnificent tomes. However, more than a few undergraduates were admitted simply because they could pay the fee. There were no academic admissions criteria as such. The undergraduates were expected to be able to write Latin and Ancient Greek competently. All university ceremonies were conducted entirely in Latin. In order to matriculate at the university people had to swear an oath that they accepted the king as head of the Church of England. Roman Catholics could not do this in good conscience and so were effectively disbarred from the university. The Scots universities also discriminated against Catholics but those universities at least had a richly deserved reputation for intellectual achievement at the time.

Although the 1760s was perhaps the most inglorious chapter in Oxford’s history William Jones was lucky to be a member of one of the few colleges that bucked the trend. The man who had just been elected Master of Univ was Nathan Wetherell. Wetherell was a forward looking man who insisted on keeping academic standard rigorous. He would tolerate none of the lassitude and philistinism that blighted other colleges.

On 31 October 1764 Jones was awarded the Bennet scholarship. He did not take part in other college activities. He seems to have studies sedulously so much that he had no time for recreation.

All undergraduates lived in their college throughout their time at the university. They were required to attend chapel every morning. This was Anglican worship and even those who belonged to other Protestant denominations such as Baptists or Church of Scotland had to attend Anglican services. The wealthier boys lived a charmed life. The affluent tended not to show up to lectures and only attended tutorials because they were sent down (expelled) if they did not. These rich undergraduates often spent their days riding to the hounds, gambling and whoring. Opium had lately been introduced as a recreational drug. It was entirely legal to sell it as a narcotic. A few undergraduates indulged in this fashionable vice.

The impecunious undergraduates often worked as servitors. A servitor acted as a servant to a rich boy. William Smithson (founder of the Smithsonian Museum) was one such undergraduate who was compelled to work as a servitor at this time.

Undergraduates had to wear subfusc for all university activities. This meant a white shirt, bowtie and dark suit with a gown. Despite this subfusc in the 18th century was not quite what it is today. These activities where they wore subfusc included lectures and meals (if they chose to attend) as well as compulsory occasions which meant chapel and tutorials. At dinner undergraduates had to wear a smart coat, a white shirt, a cravat, silk stockings and a wig or powdered hair.

Some undergraduates played sports in their free time. Cricket, football, real tennis, boxing, wrestling and rowing were among these. There was no compulsion to join in any sport.

Dons would hear essays read aloud at classes. Several undergraduates would be at a class. After the essay or written translation had been read the don would ask the other undergraduates to critique what they had heard. This is called a dialectic. Two opposing views were expressed on the same set of facts. The Socratic method was often used. A don would chair the discussion and encourage the youth who had read an essay to defend his work. Tutorials took place a couple of times a week. A don would set his undergraduates essays for each tutorial as well as issuing reading lists. Because so much of the curriculum consisted of construing ancient languages into English a don would ask one undergraduate to translate the text aloud. After a few lines of a poem or a page of prose he would then ask another undergraduate to take over. The boys had to stay on their toes because they never knew exactly when the don would ask another one of them to take over the construction of the text from Latin or Greek into English.

Undergraduates had much latitude in what they studied. All boys at Oxford had to do some Latin and Greek. No one had a claim to being educated unless he could hold his own in his languages. An undergraduate could dip into Modern Languages such as French, Italian, German and Arabic. History was studied but this was mainly Ancient History studied through the Classical Languages. The same went for Philosophy. Theology was also available. Sciences and Mathematics existed but were not popular. Medicine and Law only existed as postgraduate degrees. Art and Music did not exist as university subjects.

Examinations were oral and conducted in Latin. After three years or so an undergraduate would be quizzed by dons on his studies.

Degrees were unclassified. That is to say that an undergraduate either passed or failed. There was no system whereby an undergraduate was awarded a First class degree, a Second class degree, a Third class degree and so on. Degree classification was only introduced in the early 19th century.

Aristocratic undergraduates often lounged around Oxford for a year or two. They commonly went down without graduating. They had acquired a little polish and felt no need to pick up a degree.

Jones met a Syrian in London named Mirza. William Jones he brought this man to Oxford at his own expense. He used this man to help him learn Arabic. There was already a Professorship of Arabic at Oxford but Jones does not appear to have taken any instruction from an Oxford don in the subject. Edward Gibbon was among those who dipped into Arabic whilst at Oxford.

William Jones was notable as one of the most brilliant undergraduates of his day. The obvious course for him would have been to seek a Fellowship. A fellowship meant being a Fellow of a college. The Fellows of a college are the governing body. The Fellows were mostly the dons but some of them performed other roles such as being bursar (in charge of the college’s money) and some held various administrative positions. A Fellowship was a very coveted position and often held for life.

If Jones was awarded a Fellowship then he would have been made with a decent income and a place to live. However, it seemed like it not to be for two reasons. Fellowships were usually only  open to those who were ordained in the Church of England. Jones was an Anglican like almost all of the middle and upper classes but he was not especially religious. Quite a few fellows were ordained priests not because they were religious minded but simply for the sake of their careers. Jones showed no inclination to become a clergyman. The Master of Univ, Wetherell, was broadminded and decided to engineer Jones’s election to the Fellowship anyway. The serving Fellows voted as to who would be allowed to become a Fellow.  Jones was not unique in becoming a Fellow while he was not a clergyman. William Scott was another Univ Fellow who had not been ordained.

Despite not being in holy orders he was awarded a Fellowship. It had been offered to him on 12 April 1766. This was a very remarkable accomplishment because he had not become a priest and even more astonishingly he was still an undergraduate! Such a thing is impossible now but at the time this accolade was very rare indeed for an undergraduate but was occasionally granted. The other reason it is extraordinary that he became a fellow is that fellowships were seldom awarded on merit. 18th century Britain was an extremely unequal society and nepotism was frank. Dons openly said that they granted Fellowships to a young man because he was a relative or as a payback for a favour. Jones came from a penurious family and had not relatives with any sway. Because he was one of the ablest Oxonians of his generation he was made a Fellow. Fellows were usually required to resign their Fellowships if they married. The stipend was to support bachelors and not families.

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AFTER OXFORD

Jones then secured a job as tutor to the seven year old George, Viscount Althorp. Lord Althorp was the eldest son of Earl Spencer. This was the dynasty that was to later include Princess Diana. As in Lord George Althorp was her ancestor. Viscount Althorp was being prepared to enroll at Harrow School. This choice of school was possibly influenced by Jones himself being an Old Harrovian.

Jones later tutored  Lady Georgiana Spencer. Lady Georgiana was the sister of Viscount Althorp. William Jones taught Lady Georgiana writing. She became the Duchess of Devonshire. She is featured in the film The Duchess where she is played by Keira Knightley. The Duchess of Devonshire was very self-possessed and had to negotiate a miserable marriage plagued by her melancholic husband’s affair with the duchess’ dearest friend. The Duchess of Devonshire’s affair with Hon Charles Grey did not make matters easier. Could it have been Jones’ introducing her to classical literature gave her some notion of how to live such a complex love life?

Fellows usually did some tutoring in their college. Jones never did this because he was too busy tutoring the children of Earl Spencer. Nor did Jones hold any offices at Univ. He regularly visited and stayed overnight. There were guest rooms to enable old members of the college to do this. He would use the Bodleian Library which was one of the very few places in the United Kingdom that houses works in Persian and the other languages he was studying.

Jones became known as an Orientalist. To some extent Oriental Studies  was founded as a subject in the UK because of the trail he had blazed. Jones was so renowned that the King of Denmark visited him. Denmark possessed some territory in India until the 1860s which why Indian Studies were of intense importance to the Danes. In his free time Jones translated texts from Persian to French. He did this for ‘Nader Shah’s History’ which was originally penned by Mirza Mehdi Khan Astarabadi. King Christian VII of Denmark had requested this because Indian Studies mattered to him on account of possessing Indian territory. Jones translated the poems of Hafez into French verse. It was ‘Histoire de Nader Chah’ which was a treatise on Oriental poetry.

In 1772 he published a work entitled, ”Poems consisting chiefly of translations from the Asiatic languages and two essays on the poetry of the Eastern nations and on the arts commonly called imitative”. It is a typical 18th century mouthful of a title. In his essay on Eastern poetry Jones gave a very contemporary view of the importance of the natural world to poetry, ‘Now it is certain that all poetry receives a very considerable ornament from the beauty of the natural images.’  In this same essay Jones expressed the unusual opinion that harshness and even ugliness have their place in poetic inspiration, ‘We must not believe that the Arabian poetry can please only by its description of beauty.    Since the gloomy and terrible objects which produce the sublime when they are aptly described are nowhere more common than in the desert and stony Arabia. Indeed we see nothing so frequently painted by the poets of these countries more commonly  painted as Wolves and forests, rocks and precipice and wildernesses.’ He speculated why Arabic poetry focussed so much on two regions – Yemen and Kashmir. Kashmir is not an Arabic speaking region but being part of the Muslim world it was known to Arab poets. Moreover, the educated minority in Kashmir sometimes wrote Arabic because most of them were Muslims so they needed to read Arabic in order to study the Holy Koran in its original version. Jones’ educated guess was that Yemen (Arabia Felix as Westerners called it) and Kashmir were places of exceptional sublimity. He waxed lyrical about their cool, calm air, flower laden verdant vales and aromatic plants.

At the age of 22 he temporarily gave up poesy. He turned his formidable intellect to law.

He valued oratory and translated the Ancient Greek jurist Asias’s work ”On Causes concerning the law of succession to property in Athens.”

Jones later went to London and read for the Bar. In those days there were no Bar exams as such. A youth who spent a couple of years at the bar doing odd jobs for barristers and eating dinners in the hall of his Inn of Court would be considered to have picked up a working knowledge of the law. He was a member of Middle Temple.  He was called to the Bar and quickly achieved renown.

Jones was appointed a puisne judge. Puisne is pronounced ‘puny’ and is a low ranking judge. He served on a circuit in his paternal Wales. In the Principality he was seen as standing for the common man against the wealthy and well connected. Perhaps this is owing to his own difficult start in life. He had been a shoo in to serve in the Welsh judiciary since Welsh was his mother tongue. In the 18th century not everyone in Wales spoke English. Jones often had to hear evidence in Welsh.

Sir William Jones was hugely respected as a scholar of jurisprudence. His work on bailments was celebrated.

Jones taught himself Persian and received only a few lessons in the language. In 1771 he published a book entitled ”Persian Grammar”. This book was so highly regarded that it became the standard work on the subject for a further century.

Since 1772 he was a member of the Royal Society. The Royal Society was for men of the most outstanding erudition. Most of them were scientists but some of them were learned in the Humanities or jurisprudence. Since 1773 he was a member of Samuel Johnson’s literary club. Dr Johnson had acquired fame for publishing the first English dictionary.

Jones was a man of advanced opinions. He might even be termed a radical. He joined the Society for Constitutional Information. This organisation did not simply collate and disseminate information about the functioning and misfunctioning of British Government. It also pressed the case for far going reform.

William Jones found himself in accord with the demands of American reformers in the early 1770s. He met Benjamin Franklin in Paris to see whether the aspirations of the Thirteen Colonies could be satisfied within the British Empire. Both men were keen to avoid bloodshed and neither was an extremist. If it did come to a fight not all American reformers were not sure that those who sought independence would win. If an independence movement was defeated then the cause of reform would be hugely set back both in America and the UK. Jones was a most acceptable to the Americans as an interlocutor because he was known to share their opinions. In the end it was impossible to find a peaceful solution. William Jones outspoken advocacy of American independence did not help his career. He was impolitic enough to publish a tract expressing his view that London ought to make major concessions to American opinion.  This was ”Principles in Government: a dialogue between a scholar and a peasant.” William Jones believed that most men ought to have some say in the government of their country.

Jones spoke Portuguese, English, Welsh, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Danish, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish and Arabic. He was eager to learn Indian languages.

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IN INDIA

Jones wanted to be appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Calcutta. It was March 1783 when he was informed of his promotion. He was finally appointed to the senior bench at the age of 37. It was difficult to induce British judges to seek posts in India because the voyage was lengthy and dangerous. Moreover, the Indian climate and tropical diseases meant that Britishers seldom survived long in the Subcontinent. This is why the judges who sought to sit on the Indian bench were often second raters. It was staggering that a man of Jones’ talents was willing, nay, eager to serve in India.

He was a superb poet but published just one volume of his own verse. He translated poems from other language into French verse. Some have criticised his translations for being unfaithful to the original. He felt that ”Asian poetry can revitalise  European literature which has subsisted too long on the same images.” Jones did little to preserve the rhythm of rhyme scheme of the poems he rendered in French and English.

.

As Jones was about to leave the United Kingdom he realised that he had better settle his personal life. William Jones married Anna Maria Shipley. She was well got since her father was the Bishop of Llandaff. Llandaff is just outside Cardiff so the Welsh capital was within his see. Dr Jonathan Shipley was therefore the foremost churchman in Wales.

In 1783 the British Government finally accepted that the United States was independent. Jones known sympathy for American independence was no longer a barrier to promotion. In March 1783 he was knighted under the Fox-North Coalition. His knighthood was in recognition of his meritorious service as a judge. Moreover, it was felt that a knighthood was apposite to the dignity of the senior bench. Jones finally secured the appointment he craved to the Supreme Court in Calcutta. He had pined to serve as a judge there because it was an advance in his legal career but it would also open a treasure trove of Indian literature for him. India held the same place in the British imagination as Egypt had in the Ancient Roman imagination. India was a gigantic and mysterious country. Its civilisation was venerable yet decayed. India held out many sensual temptations. The Britishers felt they had must to teach the Indians but also much to learn from them. There is no question that Jones was exhilarated to be voyaging to the land that had long entranced him. In 1783, before setting sail for India, he resigned his Fellowship. Univ expected its Fellows to do this if their income became so high that it was unconscionable for them to receive a stipend from the college.

In 1783 he went took ship to Calcutta. It is now called Kolkatta. The perilous four month voyage took him around the Cape of Good Hope. Sir William and Lady Anna Maria Jones landed in India in September 1783. Calcutta was the capital of British India. At that time the Honourable East India Company handled the United Kingdom’s relations with India. The Mughal Empire ruled northern India. The Mughal Empire had sold some land to the East India Company. The East India Company owned some ports on the coast of India as well as ruling most of Bengal. Bangladesh did not existed that the time. West Bengal and Bangladesh were united back then and simply called Bengal. The East India Company then governed perhaps 10% of the territory of what is now the Republic of India.

The Calcutta Supreme Court building where Jones sat still exists. It is now called Kolkatta High Court.

Sir William had been an open proponent of American independence. He favoured political reform at home. However, he was convinced that such nostra had no application to India. Jones wrote to a Virginian diplomat Arthur Lee, ‘ I shall never cease thinking that rational liberty makes men virtuous and virtue, happy. Wishing therefore ardently for universal liberty. But your observation on the Hindus is too just.  They are incapable of civil liberty. Few of them have any idea of it and those who have do not wish it. Though I must deplore the evil but know the necessity of it. They must be ruled by an absolute power.   I know the necessity of it. And I feel my pain much alleviated by knowing the natives themselves as well as from observation are happier under us than they were or could have been under the sultans of Delhi or petty rajahs. ’ 

Jones’s view found some agreement amongst Indians. One Bengali Brahmin who concurred was  Pudev Mukuvpaday. This view is deeply unpopular now so Indians are not eager to bring this to public attention. The East India Company did not wish to change Indian Law unless it was exigent to do so. That would anger the people of India and possibly spark a revolt. Therefore the British judges wished to know as much as possible about the traditional laws of India.

In 1784 he co-founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The purpose of this society was to promote the study of Indian languages and the appreciation of India’s ancient and magnificent civilisation. The society had a journal called Asiatick in which monographs were published.

Sir William’s Persian was to stand him in good stead. This is because the official language of the Mughal Empire was Persian. The courts of the East India Company also administered justice in Persian.

Sir William was so smitten with India that he composed hymns to the Hindu pantheon. One of the most celebrated poems that he wrote as though he were an ancient Hindu Brahmin  was A Hymn to Ganga. Jones composed this ode to a goddess imploring her to bestow her favour on the British Raj. This is ‘A Hymn to Ganga.’

What name sweet bride will best allure

The sacred air and give thee honour due

 Vishnu Bidy Mild Pishmasu

Sweet Surunaga Trishutapor 

 By that I call its power confess

 Its power confess with growing gifts thy suppliance

Who with all sails in many a light oared boat

On thy jasper bosom float

 No frown dear goddess on a peerless race with a liberal heart and martial grace 

 Wafted from a colder isles remote

As they preserve our laws and bid our terrors cease 

 So be their darling laws preserved in wealth in joy in peace. 

He spent 11 years there and never returned to the British Isles. Jones was to make his name as an Indologist. That is to say a scholar of all things Indian.

In India he wrote under the nom de plume Youns Uksfardi. This was a humourous soubriquet. ‘Youns’ is a Persianised version of ‘Jones’. ‘Uksfardi’ is the Persian for ‘from Oxford.’ This indicates Sir William Jones profound attachment to Oxford.

Persian song of Hafez. It is in the Northern Anthology of Literature.

”     Sweet maid  if thou wouldst charm my sight and bid these arms  thy neck enfold /

That rosy cheek that lily hand would  give thy poet more delight /

Than all  Bukhara’s   vaunted gold  /

 than all the gems of Samarkand /

Boy let yon liquid ruby flow /

And bid thy pensive heart be glad /

Whatever the frowning zealots say /

Tell them their Eden cannot show/

A stream so clear as Ruknabad/

A bower so sweet as Mauzalay/ 

Oh when these fair perfidious maids whose eyes our secret haunts infest

 Their dear destructive charms display  each glance my tender breast invades/

and robs my wounded soul of rest

 / as starters seize their destined pray/

In vain with love our bosoms glow/

Can all our tears, can all our sights new lustre to those charms impart?

 Can cheeks where living roses blow

/ where nature spreads her richest dyes  /

Require the borrowed gloss of art

Speak not of fate ah change the theme

And Talk of odours and talk of wine/

Talk of the flowers that round us bloom/ 

It is all a cloud it is all a dream

 To love and joy thy thoughts confined

Nor hope to pierce the gloom/ Beauty has such resistless power 

That even the chaste Egyptian dame sighed for the blooming Hebrew boy /

For her how fatal was the hour 

When  to the banks of Nilus came a youth so lovely and so coy /

But ah sweet maid my counsel hear/

You should attend when those advise whom long experience renders sage

While music charms the ravished air /

While sparkling cups delight our eyes/ 

Be gay and scorn the frowns of age/

What cruel answer have I heard?/ 

And yet by heaven I love thee still /

Can aught be cruel from thy lip? 

Yet say how fell that bitter word from lips which streams of sweetness fill /

Which naught drops of honey sit/

Go boldly forth my simple  lay whose accents flow with artless ease  /

Like Orients pearls in random strung/

Thy notes are sweet the damsels say

But far sweeter if they please

The nymph for whom these words are sung.   ”

Jones arrived in India not knowing any Sanskrit. He was soon to become a master of the language. He was taught by a pandit – a Hindu priest. Sanskrit is an Ancient Indian language which is used for Hindu prayers and rituals. It was no longer a spoken language even in the 18th century but all the Hindu holy texts are in this language. Jones read the Vedas voraciously. Soon he was well versed in the Hindu scriptures.

Sir William Jones had mixed feelings about the people of India. ‘The Indians are soft and voluptuous but artful and insincere at least to the Europeans whom to say the truth they have had no great reason to admire for the opposite virtues. But they are fond of poetry which they have learnt from the Persians. ’ His verdict about the Indians is not entirely flattering. Looked at objectively, is it possibly at least partly fair? India had a poetic tradition dating far back before much interaction with Persia. Yet Jones has a point. Northern India in the 18th century was imbued with Persian cultural influence. Indeed the Taj Mahal was designed by an architect from Persia. The Muslim educated classes wrote Persian as much as their own languages. The Hindu educated classes also wrote Persian but to a lesser extent than their Muslim compatriots. Persia’s borders were not clearly defined at the time. Those whom Sir William called Persian might well be classed as living in what we call Afghanistan today or even Pakistan. Urdu was the language of most North Indian Muslims. Urdu is a blend of Persian and Hindi.

Sir William said the Persians ‘…The general character of the nation is that softness and love of pleasure, that indolence and effeminacy which have made them an easy prey to  all the western and northern swarms that have from time to time invaded them. Yet they are not wholly void of martial spirit. And if they are not naturally brave they are at least extremely docile and might with proper discipline be made excellent soldiers.’ 

Sir William preferred Greek poetry to Persian. He likened Homer and Thedosy to each other:

‘I am far from pretending to assert that the poet of Persia is equal to that of Greece.  But there is a very great resemblance between the works of those two extraordinary men. Both drew their images from nature herself without catching them and  painting in the manner of the modern poets the likeness of a likeness.’ 

Sir William nonetheless exalted Persia’s contribution to world literature. He speculated as to why this country had so much to give:

‘ But the greater part of them in the short intervals peace that they happen to enjoy constantly sink into a state of inactivity and pass their lives in a pleasurable yet studious retirement and this may be one reason why Persia has produced more writer of every kind and chiefly poets than all Europe together to pursue those arts which cannot be cultivated to advantage without the greatest calmness and serenity of mind.’ 

Despite being very opinionated about these lands Jones never visited Persia nor Arabia.

Jones composed a hymn to the Hindu love goddess. He was aware of the erotic character of much Indian Literature. In his translations of Indian texts he often omitted passages which he felt were too sexually charged for British sensibilities.

Jones delved into philosophy. He  wrote of Francis Bacon’s triad of memory, treason and imagination.

Sir William was scintillated by the interconnection between European and Indian languages. He coined the term Indo-European languages. British poets after Sir William drew upon Orientalia to revivify their writing. They learnt new metaphors and similes from Indian Literature. European Romanticism learnt much from Indian poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley were deeply affected by the erudition of Sir William. Think of ‘Kublai Khan’ by Coleridge. In Shelley’s case this may have been particularly so partly because Shelley attended the same Oxford college as Sir William, namely University College, Oxford. Mary Shelley, the daughter of Percy Bysshe Shelley, was also profoundly influenced by work that Sir William had brought to the attention of the Anglosphere. Robert Southey was to owe much to the trail blazed by Sir William. Lord Byron also drew greatly on Sir William’s erudition. Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, read Jones avidly and was persuaded by his judgments on Persian and Arabic literature.

Sir William continued to translate Indian and Persian works into English, French and Latin. Being a jurist he was fascinated by the ancient Indian codes of law. He also studied Sharia Law avidly. Sharia Law was much more humane than English Law back then. Sharia Law prescribed capital punishment for fewer offences than English Law at the time.

Sir William set himself the gargantuan task of writing a Digest of Hindu Law.

Sir William was obsessed with India and expressed huge admiration for India’s cultural accomplishments. Despite this his overall verdict was that he believed in ‘The decided inferiority of most Asiatic nations.’ 

Some have belittled Sir William’s accomplishments. They say that his achievements have been overly vaunted by Britishers who are eager to big up the positive side of their involvement in India. It is noted that much of endeavour to codify Hindu and Islamic Law was simply replicating work already completed by Hindu and Islamic scholars. Jones was unique in translating these texts into European tongues.

Jones also read work from pre-Islamic ideas. He was perhaps too steeped in the Enlightenment to fully appreciate the eras he was studying. He had the greatest of respect for the civilisations he was studying. Only later did British scholars tend to be prejudiced against Indian learning as inherently less worthy of admiration than European endeavours.

It is partly due to the manifold publications of Sir William that the Indian Insitute was later founded at Oxford University. This institute was dedicated to studying the languages and academic achievements of India to prepare men for the Indian Civil Service. The Indian Institute exists long after the British Raj has gone the way of Nineveh and Tyre. It still provides a place to study South Asia.

Sir William Jones is memorialised in the chapel of University College, Oxford. There a relief statue entitled ‘Sir William Jones and the pandits’ depicts Sir William conferring with eminent Hindu scholars. A statue of him there bears a plinth inscription setting forth his manifold accomplishments. The statue shows Indian scholars sitting at his feet as he taught them. It has the words engraved on it ‘He formed a digest of Hindu and Mohametan laws.’ ”Mohametan” was what Muslims were called at the time. It is an allusion to the final and greatest prophet of Islam: the Prophet Muhammad Peace and Blessings Upon Him. This author is a particular fan of Sir William because the present author is also a Univ old member and an Indophile.

The notion that Sir William ‘gave’ laws to the Hindus has been scorned by an Indian academic named Rajiv Malhotra. ‘The Battle for Sanskrit’ is Malhotra’s tome on this vexed question. Malhotra insists that Jones was a pupil of the Indians and not the other way around.

Sir William Jones was said to have command of 13 languages. He could also converse in a further 28. A working knowledge of 41 languages meant that Sir William Jones can be classed as a hyperpolyglot. He was a polymath. Jones even studied Indian Botany and drew plants. He was fascinated by fauna and owned a lemur because it was an especially Indian animal. He was grief stricken when his pet went the way of all flesh. He was acclaimed as jurist as well as a linguist.

He died in 1794. Sir William is interred in Calcutta. His grave can be found at South Park Street Cemetery. Sir William is surely the most revered Welshman in India. Besides the memorial to Jones in Univ College Chapel there is almost a memorial to him in the St Mary’s (the University Church) on Oxford High Street.  Two memorials to him on the same street: it is a measure of the high esteem in which his prodigious accomplishments are held. The Univ memorial to Sir William was intended to be erected in Calcutta Cathedral. (Forgive the usage of 18th century spelling). It was commissioned by Lady Jones, Sir William’s widow. However, for some unclear reason the said marble memorial was never transported to Hindustan and was therefore put in Univ instead. The Univ memorial is tendentious. Some say that he is shown as the master and the Indians are his pupils as he is on the chair. But this may be a misreading of the artistic message. Sir William is taking notes. This is cultural cross-fertilisation. Sir William made it very plain that he exalted India’s intellectual feats. The Indian men appear to be thinking about what they are about to say. The interpretation of this relief statue as being demeaning to Indians is perhaps projecting later prejudices onto a work of the 1790s. Subsequent British administrators, notable Lord Thomas Babbington Macaulay, were of the foolish opinion that the Britishers did not need to be schooled by the Indians.

There is a memorial to him in St Paul’s Cathedral. His statue has him with Hindu laws under his arm. Even those who consider Sir William’s attainments to have been overstated must own that he was a very distinguished jurist and a peerless ployglot.

Only 30 years after his death he was largely forgotten. Since the 1950s his reputation has been rehabilitated. Lord Teignmouth published a very admiring biography of Sir William in 1804. G Cannon published the edited letters of Sir William in 1970. He is the subject of several recent books.

PIERRE GILLIARD – tutor to the children of Tsar Nikolai II.

Gilliard he was  was born in Switzerland in 1879. He grew up in Vaud which is a Francophone canton of Switzerland. He attended the University of Lausanne. Incidentally his surname is pronounced ”JEEL   yar”.

He moved to Russia in 1904 to be the French tutor to the Duke of Leuchtenberg. The duke was a cousin of the Tsar. Gilliard described his trepidation on first sighting Russia. It was a hair raising time to arriving in Russia. The country was reeling from defeat by Japan. The empire was in the throes of an attempted revolution. It took a valiant – or foolish – man to accept a post in Russia. He was initially brought to the Black Sea where the family was wintering. Later Pierre Gilliard travelled with them by train to St Petersburg which was then the capital of the country. They had a mansion at Peterhof  – the suburb that was the imperial residence. The ‘precepteur’ had very high status because the French language was considered more important in international intercourse than English at the time.

The Tsar heard about Gilliard and hired him. Gilliard was at first to tutor the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana. The others were considered too young to be tutored by a man of his intellectual calibre at that time.

Monsieur Gilliard described the first time he ever met the imperial family, ” I was taken up to a small room, soberly furnished in the English style, on the second storey. The door opened and the Tsarina came in, holding her daughters Olga and Tatiana by the hand. After a few pleasant remarks she sat down at the table and invited me to take a place opposite her. The children sat at each end.  ” M. Gilliard started residing at Tsarskoye Selo which lies 13 miles south of St Petersburg.

Pierre Gilliard was an astute judge of character. Any private tutor has to have some emotional intelligence. He quickly got the measure of Grand Duchess Tatiana, ‘She was essentially well balanced with a will of her own though less frank and spontaneous than her sister Olga. Tatiana knew how to surround her mother with unwearying attentions and never give way to her own impulses.’ 

Gilliard recalled that the grand duchesses took turns in keeping their mother company. They did not find the duty entirely congenial. Teenage girls are wont to clash with their mothers sometimes and this family was no exception.

As the years rolled on Gilliard started to tutor the younger children as well. Gilliard later came to tutor the Tsarevich as in the Tsar’s son. Tsarevich was born with haemophilia. He advised against excessive frippery toward Tsarevich Alexei. Gilliard described the Imperial Family’s situation as being one of ”fatal isolation”. Along with just about every other commentator he castigated the impostor monk Grigorii Rasputin as a baleful influence. He wrote of Rasputin, ”This man’s evil influence was one of the principal causes of which the effect was the death of those who thought they could regard him as their saviour.” Gilliard was also adamantine in his insistence that there was no impropriety between Rasputin and Her Imperial Majesty.

Gilliard noted how the Tsarina showed him great respect notwithstanding her own exalted rank. ”   I will give one detail which illustrates the Tsarina’s anxious interest in the upbringing of her children and the importance she attached to their showing respect for their teachers by observing that sense of decorum which is the first element of politeness. While she was present at my lessons, when I entered the room I always found the books and notebooks piled neatly in my pupils’ places at the table, and I was never kept waiting a moment.      ” It is a superb example to follow. If parents wish their children to do well in their education the parents must lead by  being courteous to the tutor. If the parents treat the tutor in an offhand manner so will the pupils and their education will suffer.

Gilliard was later given a request. ‘That year the Tsarina informed me a few days before I left that on my return she proposed to appoint me tutor to Aleksey Nicolaievich, The news filled me with a mingled sense of pleasure and apprehension. I was delighted at the confidence shown in me, but nervous of the responsibility it involved. ” This sums up how many tutors feel when they are offered an assignment with a notable family. Try to bear this in mind if you are hiring a tutor.

Monsieur Gilliard got along well with the Tsarevich. Tsarevich Alexei became his main charge. This was partially because the education of boys was thought to matter more than that of girls. Furthermore, the elder sisters had reached marriageable age and their academic formation was considered complete. Gilliard recounted a typical day of tuition:   ” Lessons (at the time my pupil was learning Russian, French, arithmetic, history, geography and religious knowledge. He did not begin English until later, and never had German lessons) began at nine o’clock, and there was a break from eleven to twelve. We went out driving in a carriage, sledge, or car, and then work was resumed until lunch at one. In the afternoon we always spent two hours out of doors. The Grand-Duchesses and, when he was free, the Tsar, came with us, and Aleksey Nicolaievich played with them, sliding on an ice mountain we had made at the edge of a little artificial lake. He was also fond of playing with his donkey Vanka, which was harnessed to a sledge.. ”

Pierre Gilliard was sagacious enough to realise that not everyone is cut out for scholarly distinction. He also candidly admitted that he achieved only very modest success with the princesses. ”     With the exception of Olga Nicolaievna, the Grand-Duchesses were very moderate pupils. This was largely due to the fact that, in spite of my repeated suggestions, the Tsarina would never have a French governess.…  Olga Nicolaievna did not fulfil the hopes I had set upon her. Her fine intellect failed to find the elements necessary to its development. Instead of making progress she began to go back. Her sisters had ever had but little taste for learning, their gifts being of the practical order      ” To some extent their limited learning is due to their tutor. Perhaps M. Gilliard is seeking to shift the blame. However, we should partly take him at his word. Parents ought to take a tutor’s advice to heart. He proposed that the family engage a French governess and his suggestions was repeatedly rebuffed.

The Swiss gentleman tried to introduce a more informal regime for Alexei when in private.

”        I noticed that the boy was embarrassed and blushed violently, and when we were alone asked him whether he liked seeing people on their knees before him.

“Oh no, but Derevenko says it must be so!”

“That’s absurd!” I replied. “Even the Tsar doesn’t like people to kneel before him. Why don’t you stop Derevenko insisting on it ?”

“I don’t know. I dare not.”

I took the matter up with Derevenko, and the boy was delighted to be freed from this irksome formality.  ”

As if tutoring a future head of state was not daunting enough Gilliard had he added challenge of tutoring a boy with haemophilia.

As a little digression it is fascinating to read Gilliard’s closely observed analysis of Nikolai II’s personality: ”     The Tsar was shy and retiring by nature. He belonged to the category of human beings who are always hesitating because they are too diffident and are ever slow to impose their will on others because they are too gentle and sensitive. He had little faith in himself and imagined that he was one of the unlucky ones. Unfortunately his life seemed to show that he was not entirely wrong. Hence his doubts and hesitations.        ”

Gilliard married Alexandra Tegleva  in 1922. She had been the nurse of the Romanovs.

In February 1917 the Romanovs were ousted. In October that year the Bolsheviks seized power. The Romanovs were state prisoners and were sent to Siberia. Gilliard was sent with them. They went to Tobolsk and later Yekaterinaburg. In the spring of 1917 the imperial children fell ill and their heads were shaved. This was a very great sacrifice for the grand duchesses in which girls were all expected to have very long hair. Gilliard was allowed to photograph them all like this. He was one of the only people permitted to take photos of the family. These photos of the front and back of their heads would later become crucial in identifying the skulls of the Romanovs.

In the spring of 1917 Gilliard was living at Tsarskoye Selo – the imperial village near St Petersburg. Like the Romanovs he was a prisoner of the Provisional Government but well treated. ‘Our captivity did not seem likely to last long. There was talk of transfer to England.’

In 1918 the imperial family was moved to Yekaterinaburg. They were in the custody of the Bolsheviks. A civil war was raging in Russia between the Reds (Bolsheviks) and the Whites. The Red officer in charge of the Romanovs was Yakolev. He spoke excellent French and treated the Romanovs and Gilliard reasonably. Then he was replaced by someone much less sympathetic.

Monsieur Gilliard was with the imperial family in exile in Yekaterinaburg. For a while in May 1918 the children were separated from their parents. Pierre Gilliard had to take over the role of father figure for a while without arrogating to himself any pretension of imperial status. The children and Gilliard were not informed by the Bolsheviks where there parents had been taken. In his diary on 3 May Gilliard wrote, ‘Where are they? They could have reached Moscow by now.’ That Easter was the first the children celebrated in the absence of their parents. Gilliard wrote in his journal ‘everyone is in low spirits.’  This was particuarly ironic since Easter was the most joyous time of year for ardent Orthodox Christians. After a few weeks the Tsar and Tsarina were brought back to Yekaterinaburg. Gilliard was alarmed at the attitude of the Red soldiers guarding the Romanovs. They were vulgar and drunk on duty. The Romanovs were subjected to many crude insults. Gilliard’s account has been disputed by other witnesses who claim that the Bolsheviks guarding the Romanovs treated them reasonably.

Monsieur Gilliard was fortunate not to be executed along with the Romanovs. Several of their household staff were shot dead with them. Gilliard remained in Yekaterinaburg because he realised it was about to be recaptured by the Whites. The imminent recapture of the city was the reason the Bolsheviks had decided to wipe out the Romanovs.

Pierre Gilliard wrote of the killings, ‘    The inevitable fulfilment of the climax of one of the most moving tragedies humanity has ever known… the last stage in their long martyrdom… death refused to separate those whom life had banded so closely together… All seven united in one faith and one love… It was the mercy of God that all died together… the innocents were saved from a fate worse than death       ‘

No one can fault Gilliard for lack of loyalty. However, he seemed to focus so much on the travails of the Romanovs that he ignored what everyone else in Russia was suffering. He does not appear to have asked himself why the Tsar was so detested.

Once the Whites took the city Gilliard volunteered his services to help the White commander Sokolov with his investigations into the murder of the Romanovs. The corpses of the Romanovs had been partially burned and thrown down a shaft in the Four Brothers Mine. They had later been recovered and reburied. By the time the Whites were able to stage an investigation the cadavers were unrecognisable. Gilliard and other family retainers were given the unenviable task of trying to identify articles of clothing from the bodies to see if these corpses really were those of the Romanovs.

Russian was in bloody tumult due to the civil war. Public transport was virtually non-existent. The Red Army, White factions, the Green Army, foreign interventionists and many bandits roamed the country. Gilliard was trapped. He married a Russian who had been a nanny to a cadet branch of the Romanovs.

Gillard and other faitthful servants compiled their own report into the murders of the Romanovs. They took their boxes of files with them when they left Yekaterinaburg. They also had boxes of personal effects belonging to the Imperial Family. In January 1920 Gilliard and some of the Romanovs other staff managed to flee Russia by travelling to China. They spent time in Harbin. This city was a magnet for White Russians who had fled their country. There Gilliard wrote, ‘   They were in a state of great agitation for the situation grew daily more precarious and it was expected that any day the  Chinese Eastern Railway might fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks. Bolshevik spies were beginning to swarm all over the station and its surroundings. What was to be done with the documents of inquiry?   Where could they be put in safety. ‘  Gilliard implored the British consul and the French consul to assist him in taking these documents of inquiry out of the country. He was astonished that both refused. The Romanovs were widely reviled in Europe and the British and French governments had to take account of that. Finally a White general Janin took possession of the documents. China was also in turmoil. Warlords roamed the country. Gilliard and his party finally managed to take a train to Vladivostock – one of the last Russian cities in White hands. There he and his companions boarded a French ship Andre le Bon and sailed to Marseilles.

In 1920 Gilliard was finally able to return to western Europe. He initially lived in Paris where he lived in Hotel du Bon Lafontaine. It was the same building as another retainer of the Romanovs, Sokolov. It was on Rue des St Peres. A few years later he moved back to his homeland Switzerland. He was deeply impressed by the fortitude the Romanovs had displayed in their terrible circumstances. Gilliard later published a book about his experiences entitled Thirteen Years at the Russian Court. He wrote in his autobiography, ” My mind was still full of the poignant drama with which I had been closely associated, but I was also still deeply impressed by the wonderful serenity and flaming faith of those who had been its victims.”

Thirteen Years at the Russian Court is a superb sources on the Romanovs. Gilliard heard countless private conversations. He knew them on a personal level. Despite his obvious regard for the family he did his best to remain objective in his book and largely succeeded. Gilliard wrote gorgeous prose that spills onto the page like a musical score. His diaries also providing an unparalleled insight into the final years of the dynasty.

Gilliard moved back to Switzerland. He became a professor at his alma mater.

Gilliard met the woman who claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia. He at first suspended judgment. Having very carefully examined her he reached the certain conclusion that the claimant was an impostress.

1. Gilliard was a very good tutor. This does not mean he was a perfect tutor otherwise he would have done better with pupils of low ability and low work ethic. The fact that the family kept him for 13 years speaks for itself.

You can read Gilliard’s account in ‘Thirteen years at the Russian Court’ and ‘Le Tragique Destin de Nicolas II et sa famille .’

Louise Lehzen was born in Germany in 1784. (Nota Bene: her surname is pronounced ”LAY zen”)She was a Christian and belonged to the Lutheran Church like most of her nation.  In fact her father was Lutheran pastor. She grew up in an ambience of erudition. She grew up in the village of Lagenhagen near Hanover. Her family had high social status but little money. Louise was obliged to work as soon as she reached adulthood. Aristocratic women either married as soon as they came of age or else lounged around and waited to get married. Lutheran spent much of their time hobnobbing with the gentry but not actually being part of the gentry.

Louise worked as a governess for an aristocratic Marenholz family. They were highly impressed with her and provided her with a glowing reference. She was dignified, learned, well dressed and totally respectable. She was a very positive influence on the children.  She was good looking and clever. However, she seemed to have no sense of humour.

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THE BACKGROUND OF QUEEN VICTORIA.

In 1819 Princess Victoria of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld sought a governess for her daughter Feodore. Princess Victoria came from one German ducal house and had married into a royal family of a very minor German state Amorbch. To be more accurate her name was Marie Luise Victoria but she was always known by the third of her forenames. Her husband Prince Emrich Charles of Leinigen was much older than her. She had had two daughters and her husband had died young. Louise began acting as a governess to the two girls. Then Princess Victoria married Prince Edward the Duke of Kent. This Edward was the younger brother of the King of the United Kingdom. Therefore she became the Duchess of Kent. The couple had a daughter whom they named Victoria. Henceforward all references to Victoria will be to the daughter and not the mother. Queen Victoria’s mother shall be called the Duchess of Kent henceforth.

The Duchess of Kent arrived in the United Kingdom in her 30s and she spoke limited English. At that time a woman in her 30s was regarded as middle aged. It is no easy thing to immigrate to a country in middle age especially if one is unable to speak the language fluently. The Duchess of Kent never got over the feeling of being an outsider. She did not know British court protocol and sometimes felt confused and homesick.  Unsurprisingly she sought out a Britisher whom she could trust to show her the ropes. She came to put her faith in one of her husband’s equerries. The Duke of Kent had an army officer as his equerry (right hand man). He was John Conroy of the Royal Horse Artillery. Conroy was an Irishman and fiercely loyal to the Duke of Kent. Conroy entertained the whimsy that his wife was the natural daughter of the Duke of Kent. Only a couple of years after the Duchess of Kent arrived in the country her husband died. This made her much more dependent on Conroy than before.

John Conroy was much more than a majordomo. He was there to maintain relations between the Duchess of Kent and the government. He was so close to her that many muttered that the two must be having an affair.

A tutor was sought for Feodore. Dr Kuper was consulted. He was the Lutheran minister at the chapel in St James’ Palace. Dr Kuper knew the von Marenholz family and they recommended the redoubtable Louise Lehzen.

The year that Louise Lehzen became governess to Feodore – 1819 – was the year that Victoria was born. Not many people know that Queen Victoria’s name was actually Alexandrina Victoria. Among the family she was known as ‘Drina’ -short for ‘Alexandrina.’

Louisa Lehzen therefore was first of all the governess to Feodore – the elder half-sister of Queen Victoria. This is because Queen Victoria’s mother was married to a German nobleman and had two children from that marriage. Queen Victoria’s mother’s first marriage was ended by bereavement. Feodore was 12 when Louise Lehezen became her governess.

Queen Victoria was born on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace. This was where she spent most of her childhood. Louise Lehzen proclaimed the infant to be ”a splendid baby.”

Victoria’s father died in 1820. At this time his daughter was a baby.

Louise was chosen for this post for several reasons. She was German. The family believed she would obey them. She was of the Reformed denomination. There was much anti-Catholic animus in the UK at that time.Louise Lehzen was as much part of the family as it was possible for a commoner to be. She spent Christmas with the family. It was her duty to teach her charge table manners. Upper class children were not permitted to dine with their parents until such time as they had acquired social graces.

Louise tutored Feodore until the child reached the age of 14.Louise Lehzen was noted for being a disciplinarian. However, she never used physical correction. In this respect she was well ahead of the times. Incidentally Feodore’s name was sometimes spelt Feodora at the time which is why it shall be spelt both ways in this text.

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LOUISA LEHZEN BECOMES GOVERNESS TO PRINCESS VICTORIA.

Louise was invited to the tutor to Victoria. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward Duke of Kent. At that time Victoria’s uncle was king. However, he had no legitimate children.

As a baby Queen Victoria’s nursemaid was Mrs Brock. While the future monarch was in the cradle Louise read to her.

Queen Victoria’s grandmother the dowager Duchess of Coburg recalled   ”In the morning sometimes she does not want to get out of bed preferring to tell all sorts of tales. Lehzen takes her gently from her bed and sits her down on the thick carpet, where she has to put on her stockings.       ”

Queen Victoria had been a slow developer as a baby. She was almost two before her mother  had been able to record ”Heute Morgen ist meine geliebste Kind Victoria allein geganen.” (This morning my dearest child Victoria walked on her own.”

Then Louise Lehzen was told to tutor only Victoria. At that time Victoria was 5. As her uncles had no legitimate children. They had reams of children born out of wedlock. Those who were unnuptially solemnised were disbarred from inheriting titles. Therefore it was becoming more and more likely that Victoria would inherit the crown. If her uncles suddenly became the father of a legitimate child then that would change.

Sir John Conroy said that Lehzen had been given this role because, ”  the governess being entirely dependent on the Duchess of Kent she will entirely obey the latter’s will      ”

Louise and Victoria became very close despite the 35 year age gap between them. Louise did not seem to want much money. She tutored this child because she loved her. The two became inseparable. It was blatant that Victoria had more of a bond with her tutor than she did with her mother. Louise urged her ward to be strong minded and to resist the influence of her mother.

Victoria shared a bedroom with her mother. The mother retired later than the child. Louise stayed in the room until her mother came to bed.

Queen Victoria has gone down in history as ”The Widow of Windsor”. However, this is highly misleading. Victoria lived to the age of 81 and her life is evenly divided into two halves before and after the death of her husband Prince Albert. She had a mournful demeanour in the 1860s after her husband died when Victoria was only 41. During her girlhood and youth she was known for her frivolity. Louise Lehzen’s joie de vivre made her a boon companion of Victoria.

Queen Victoria later recalled her upbringing by Louise Lehzen. Writing about herself in the third person she wrote, ”She never for the thirteen years she was governess to Princess Victoria ever left her. The princess was her only object and her only thought. She was very strict and the princess had great respect and even awe of her but that with the greatest affection.”

Victoria was fixated with her huge collection of dolls. It is an obsession that her descendant Elizabeth II later shared. Louise Lehzen as a good governess was willing to share in her charge’s hobby. She took a very keen interest in Victoria’s scores of dolls and the minutiae of their dress. Louise Lehzen made outfits for them and she also taught needlework to Victoria. Victoria did not have the tranquil temperament needed for needlework.

Victoria’s upbringing was very Germanic. Her mother was German and spoke English imperfectly. Many of the household were Germans such as Dr Stockmar and a lady in waiting named Baroness Spath.

George IV was mindful of Louise superb service. He ennobled her making her Baroness. It was unheard of at that time for a woman to be awarded a title in her own right. A woman might inherit one from her father or attain one through marrying her husband. It was not until the 1950s that another woman would be granted a hereditary title like Lehzen was.

People became covetous of Louise’ closeness to Victoria. Some sought to have her sacked. As a tutor she had to set an example of absolute morality. She was unmarried and she must not coquette with men. Some people tried to have her sacked by slandering her: saying she was having a liaison with a male courtier.

Victoria much latter recalled her upbringing by Louise, ”We lived in a very simple manner. Breakfast was at half eight, luncheon at half past one, dinner at seven to which I cam generally when there was no large regular dinner party.” Louise Lehzen had to inculcate table manners into her ward. Like most ruling class children Victoria was not permitted to dine with her parents until she had mastery of table etiquette. Louise had to uphold some rules that Victoria disliked. Victoria was to be given a minimum of sugary and meaty dishes. This is just as well since Victoria was inclined to plumpness. Had she been allowed to indulge her sweet tooth then she would have been obese.

When Victoria was seven years of age she was given a team of two Shetland ponies by the Marchioness of Huntingdon and a phaeton (horse drawn carriage). This phaeton was just large enough for her an Lehzen to sit on it. Of course Lehzen being her favourite person, even more so than her mother, it was with Lehzen that Victoria chose to travel in her phaeton. This tiny coach had to have a coachman who was  ”A liliputian postillion in a livery of green and gold with a black velvet cap.”

Louise had the very important and worrying task of preparing Victoria to be queen. She had to inform Victoria that she would probably be queen. Victoria had not realised this when she was little. Victoria’s uncles realised how excellent Louise was and what emotional stability she provided for their niece.

Louise was in charge of the cultural part of Victoria’s education. This meant dancing, music and art. She had done some basic literacy and numeracy with her. This was no easy task as Queen Victoria later admitted: ” I was not fond of learning as a little child and baffled every attempt to teach me my letters up to five years old -when I consented to learn them by their being written down before me. ”  It is notable that the age when Victoria began to learn to read was when she was put in the charge of Fraulein Lehzen.

One of the many challenges facing Louise Lehzen was to get along with the other tutors. She had to be singing from the same hymn sheet as them. Yet Louise also had to assert her primacy and guide Victoria in a manner that was natural for the governess. She managed to maintain cordial relations with the other tutors and this was a considerable feat.

A clergyman called Dr Davys taught the girl the harder subjects. The Reverend Doctor George Davys was a fellow of Christ’s College,  Cambridge. In those times the title ‘doctor’ for anyone other than a medical man was for an honorary doctorate in divinity and not for a PhD. Substantive doctorates did not exist in the United Kingdom at the time. Rev Dr Davys was also the vicar of a parish in Leicestershire which was 100 miles from London. He necessarily neglected his parish because he had to devote most of his time to his royal pupil. He paid another clergyman to discharge his duties to the parish. This  was not an uncommon practice at the time. Rev Davys was later promoted to be Bishop of Peterborough by Queen Victoria. This was in recognition of his meritorious service.

Rev Davys had to teach the future monarch to speak English properly. Queen Victoria’s mother spoke to her in her Germanic English. The child therefore picked up some Germanisms such as saying ”so” as ”zo” during a pause in her speech. The queen’s mother did not realise the golden rule of bilingual child rearing. One parent speaks the language that he or she speaks fluently to the child. The other parent should speak the other language that he or she speaks fluently to the child. Victoria’s father was long dead but there were other native speakers of English about.  Soon enough the princess spoke flawless English. She was then smart enough to tackle History and Geography.

Rev Davys was responsible for her religious upbringing. The mid 19th century was to be an epoch of spirited debate in the Church of England. The Oxford Movement was talking off at that time. That was an intellectual movement of those who believed that the Church of England should revive its Catholic traditions while still remaining outside the Roman Catholic Church. Davys was a conventional Anglican clergyman. He was not a member of the Oxford Movement nor was he an outspoken Protestant either. He found his pupil to be exceptionally pious.

Thomas Steward, a writing master at Westminster School, was also brought in to teach Victoria. Mr Steward taught Victoria arithmetic, writing and Geography. She took to this like a duck to water.

A Lutheran clergyman Henry Barez helped Victoria with German writing.

Victoria also had a riding master. She was taught to dance by a woman since it would not do for a man to teach her terpsichoreanism.

Richard Westall was her drawing  master. Westall was a Fellow of the Royal Academy – which is a huge accolade for an artist. Victoria adored drawing and showed a considerable aptitude for it.

Mr Sale taught her singing and music. Her instrument was the pianoforte. He was an organist as St Margaret’s Church, Westminster. Victoria was a gifted songstress but she was not keen on the piano. Victoria was not a biddable pupil. When he told her that in order to ameliorate at the gay science she must practise she slammed lid of the piano down ”there is no must about it” she declared regally.

Victoria’s lessons were from nine thirty to eleven thirty. She had afternoon lessons from 3 pm to  5 pm. After that she learnt English, French and poetry. She spoke French decently but found grammar taxing. She had Religious Instruction once per week with Reverend Davies. This was especially needful for the person due to be head of the church. Music and dancing were weekly lessons too.   Victoria had plenty of lessons in German. Although she spoke German before English she found that German grammar was a headache.

Louise Lehzen or the Duchess of Kent accompanied Victoria to every lesson. This enabled Lehzen to keep an eye on what was being taught and her pupil’s level of attentiveness and effort. Moreover, it allowed her to go over any difficult topics with Victoria later. Victoria even had lessons on Saturday but not Sunday. She spent an hour letter writing on Saturday.

Another governess sometimes stood in for Louise. She was the Duchess of Northumberland.

Louise Lehzen had the formidable task of presiding over this team of tutors. They did not always see eye to eye with each other. She also had to intercede for them with their pupil. One of the most challenging task for a governess or governor is to maintain a co-operative relationship with other members of the household staff.

Louise never smacked Victoria. This was incredibly humane at the time. Bear in mind that severe beatings of entirely children for trifling wrongdoing was par for the course at the time. Even royal children were usually soundly whipped. The young Victoria was not an easy child to care for. She frequently through tantrums. Her governess’ firm but patient attitude won the child around.

Victoria spent most of her free time with Louise. They walked around the grounds. Victoria attended to her dozens of dolls or ‘babies’ as she called them.There was 132 dolls at one stage. Victoria had them as characters from stories and plays and would act out the tales with these dolls. Louise was willing to meet Victoria on her own level and join in these childish games.

Victoria recognised that her antics were sometimes deplorable. ”I am shocked… I hope to become a good and obedient child. I want to hear Mamma say ”I am pleased.”     ”

In 1830 Louise began to keep a ‘Good Behaviour Book’ about Victoria. This was a misnomer as the said book mainly recorded misbehaviour. Victoria confessed to being ”very ill-behaved and impertinent to Lehzen.” This Good Behaviour is an excellent example of Louise as the superlative governess. Her record keeping was efficient. She was always forcing her pupil to reflect on her conduct. Note how Victoria referred to Lehzen by her surname – without the word Miss in front of it. This is how aristocrats alluded to their servants.

Louise had to walk a tightrope. She had to chide Victoria and maintain control over her without being insulting or smacking her at all. Victoria was sometimes insolent. It is a testament to Louise’s judgment and diplomatic skills that she managed to control Victoria’s bad behaviour and gradually improved it without offending or alienating her wayward and recalcitrant pupil. Tutors, governesses and governors often face this quandary. They are either too hard or too soft. They are bound to be criticised from one angle or other. They cannot win.

George IV was so elated with the way that Louise Lehzen was bringing up her niece that he ennobled her. For a woman to be given a title in her own right was unheard of at the time. George IV was King of Hanover as well as of the United Kingdom. Louise was made a baroness in Hanover.

In 1830 George IV died. The new king was William IV. He was also an uncle of Victoria. William IV was married to Adelaide but they had no children. Mrs Martha Wilson was a Lady of the Bedchamber. This was a crucial court position. Louise Lehzen was canny enough to form a cordial relationship with Mrs Wilson.

Victoria was not allowed to attend her uncle’s coronation. She was very hurt and letdown. She cried for hours – seeking consolation hugs from Louise. She always turned to Louise for moral support and not her mother. Despite this no one claimed that Louise attempted to turn Victoria against her mother. Victoria’s unfilial outlook was of her own making.

On one occasion Louise put a chronological table into Victoria’s history book. The teenager remarked ”I am closer to the throne than I thought.” It would be astonishing if she had not known she was second in line to the throne. Perhaps she was unaware that her uncle William IV was so old compared to most monarchs. The king was becoming ever more infirm and the succession could not be long. This even shows Louise’s astuteness and sense of History. Although she did not teach academic subjects besides German there is no doubt that she had a formidable intellect.

Louise was fascinated by History. This is unsurprising bearing in mind she worked in a family which had made History for centuries. She and Victoria often discussed it informally. Victoria sympathised with her ancestress Mary Queen of Scots who was seen to be womanly by comparison to Elizabeth I. Victoria described Mary Queen of Scots as ”a model of perfection.” It shows great broadmindedness that she favoured a Catholic over a Protestant especially as her heroine had been convicted of high treason. Louise told Victoria that she would profit from the example of Elizabeth I who was more hard headed. ”I can pardon wickedness in a Queen but not weakness” said Lehzen.

As Queen Victoria entered adolescence Sir John Conroy became an increasingly important influence in her household. Conroy had been the confidante of her late father the Duke of Kent. Sir John Conroy came to have sway over the Duchess of Kent. Victoria’s uncle, King William IV, was a fan of Conroy. The king believed that Louise Lehzen could not possibly be up to the task of preparing Victoria to be head of state. The king insisted that Sir John Conroy be given a greater role in the tutelage of Victoria. Unfortunately, Sir John loathed Louise Lehzen. This was probably at least in party due to envy of Louise’s closeness to the future monarch. Fraulein Lehzen did not have an amicable relationship with Sir John Conroy but this was a reflection on Conroy and not on her. He was unable to establish a co -operative relationship with any of his colleagues. For instance Sir John Conroy described Leopold King of the Belgians as ”as great a villain as ever breathed.” Conroy called Victoria’s cousin Ernst Duke of Coburg ”a  heavy handed humbugged German. Immoral” which evinces some Teutonophobia. Conroy called Baron Stockmar, ”a double face villain.” That he called Louise Lehzen ”a hypocritical and detestable bitch’‘ says more about Sir John that it does about Fraulein Lehzen. Conroy was sychophantic to the Duchess of Kent and viciously envious of anyone else whom he thought might win her respect.

John Conroy detested another member of the household Baroness Spath. Baroness Spath was also German and assisted Louise Lehzen. Conroy managed to have Spath dismissed for supposedly being a gossip. Lehzen was too important to be sacked. The dismissal of her friend made Louise Lehzen revile Conroy even more. Happily, Baroness Spath was found a position on the household of Princess Feodora in Germany. Victoria was worried that John Conroy would contrive an excuse to get rid of Louise Lehzen. Louise was Victoria’s boon companion. Victoria was worried because Conroy had the Duchess of Kent wrapped around his little finger.  The Duke of Wellington was not alone in believing that Conroy was the paramour of the Duchess of Kent. As Victoria aged she became more independent minded. She was ever closer to Lehzen and the Duchess of Northumberland – her other governess. She turned more and more against Conroy and even against her mother.

The real reason for Conroy’s loathing for Louise Lehzen is laid bare by his statement, ”While eating her Mistress’s bread in the Palace that infamous woman wholly stole the child’s affections and intrigued with King William and Miss Wilson.” It is blatant that Sir John Conroy was merely jealous of the close relationship between Louise Lehzen and the princess. There is one thing that even Conroy agree on: Victoria loved her tutor. Note that when Louise Lehzen kept William IV informed about his niece Victoria’s progress this is regarded by Sir John Conroy as a conspiracy. Louise was convivial and thus managed to have productive working relationships with various courtiers such as Miss Wilson (Lady of the Bedchamber). The paranoiac Sir John Conroy regarded this as scheming.

Sir John Conroy devised the Kensington System for the upbringing of Victoria. The Duchess of Kent (Victoria’s mother) came to be persuaded that Sir John’s ideas were wise. He said that Victoria ought to be kept away from her louche uncles. They were notorious voluptuaries known for their languor and dissipation. Her uncles had private lives which can charitably called ‘colourful.’ Their interests consisted of gluttony, gambling, alcohol, opium and adultery. None of these were edifying for an impressionable adolescent.

There was some logic to Sir John’s approach in shielding Victoria from the immoral conduct of her uncles. On the other hand if Victoria was to be apprised of affairs of state she needed to spend time with her uncles. Despite their scandalous private lives these men knew much of public business. Some of Sir John’s critics felt that he merely wished to line his pockets by maintaining his post for as a long as possible. He was suspected of pecculation from the Duchess of Kent’s finances. Certainly his family had been relatively poor compared to the rest of the upper class when he entered royal service. By 1837 they were very well off indeed.

One Victoria’s younger uncles was the William, Duke of Clarence. The Duke of Clarence was anxious that Sir John Conroy had too much control over his niece. The duke’s wife, Adelaide, wrote to Victoria’s mother not to permit, ”Conroy too much influence over you but keep him in his place. …He has never lived in court circles or in society so naturally he offend sometimes against traditional ways for he does not know them. .. In the family  it is noticed that you are cutting yourself off more and more with your child..” This William Duke of Clarence was later King William IV.

Victoria’s education was not solely academic. She was brought on trips around the country. One of the failings of her grandfather George III was that he rarely left London and almost never ventured outside of South-East England. Victoria visited Oxford in 1832. This was not simply to see and be seen. It was enabling her to know her future realm.

Lehzen was certainly successful in inculcating a lifelong love of learning into her pupil. Queen Victoria had a lively intellectual curiosity. She was also an extraordinarily prolific diary. She started her journal at the age of 13 under the tutelage of Miss Lehzen. It started on 31 July 1832 and was initially to record her tour of Wales. Victoria wrote an average of 2 500 words in her diary each day. This was a huge amount considering how busy she was to become as a sovereign and a mother of nine children. Her articulacy and his inquisitiveness are at least partly attributable to her governess. The queen was even more productive than we realise because many of her diaries were burnt by her family after her death. They edited the diaries and only published the less controversial and less personal passages. The unexpurgated diaries will of course have been longer than anything that the public has read. Louise is always ”dear Lehzen” in the diary.

Queen Victoria’s diaries are full of her heartfelt affection for Louise. Her voluminous diaries are surprisingly candid and emotional. Louise was the golden standard of both friendship and service for Victoria. The queen demanded her later friends and servants lived up to this but no one quite managed it. Louise’s presents to her pupil were always the most appreciated because they were chosen with the most care.

In her teens it became more and more obvious that Victoria would be queen. The United Kingdom had not had a Queen Regnant as opposed to a Queen Consort for well over 100 years. Victoria’s uncle Prince Charles of Leinigen was anxious that the teenager would be unable to fulfil her role unaided. He suggested a regent in the shape of Sir John Conroy. Conroy was a man of vaulting ambition and unequaled vanity. He jumped at the idea and may well have been its author. It did not come to pass.  Even when Victoria was very ill Sir John entered her bedroom and demanded that she promise to make him regent. Louise Lehzen gave Victoria the confidence to refuse.

Conroy put it about that Victoria was weak-minded, slothful and totally unsuitable for monarch. He put down all these shortcomings to Louise’s misgovernment. As Victoria had to be queen a long regency was called for. This was a means of extending his control and lining his pockets.

Lady Flora Hastings became a companion of Victoria. This was by order of William IV. This was intended to reduce the influence of Louise. But Victoria was still closest to Louise and had little time for Lady Flora. Victoria came to hate Victoire Conroy – daughter of John Conroy. Conroy was trying to insinuate his daughter into the princess’ household.

From Lehzen’s point of view John Conroy was villainous. Conroy had his qualities but he is widely acknowledge to have been tactless and inept. It shows had superb Louise was that she managed to retain her position despite the enmity of John Conroy.

Louise was given many presents by Victoria. Victoria also made sure her governess had a prominent role in her rites of passage. For instance, she sat in the front row at Victoria’s confirmation. William IV refused to allow Conroy to enter the Chapel Royal for the event. The Duchess of Kent thought that Victoria’s confirmation made her an adult in some senses. Victoria was 16 and easily old enough to wed by the law of the time. The duchess wanted to put Louise out to grass. Victoria stuck up for Louise and insisted that she stay. In her diary Victoria wrote,  ”I will become a dutiful and affection daughter to Mamma. Also to be to dear Lehzen who has done so much for me. ”

In August 1835 Victoria toured Great Britain. Lehzen accompanied her. The governess helped the princess pass the time by reading to her.

Louise was said not to be a good looking woman. Her nose was her worst feature. Nevertheless she was admired for her hairstyle and her tastefully demure clothes. Victoria insisted on imitating Lehzen’s hairstyle.

Louise had to nurse Victoria through a serious illness in the winter of 1835. She had to liaise between Victoria and Dr Clark as a physical examination of her by a male doctor was unacceptable. Conroy used the illness as a chance to attack Louise – blaming her for her pupil being unwell. Later Dr Clark ”restored her [Victoria] to her necessary peace of mind” said Lehzen. Victoria in her diary remarked on Louise’ solicitousness, ‘‘      Dear Lehzen has been so unceasing to me in her attentions that I shall never be able to repay her but by my love and gratitude. She is the most affectionate, detached and disinterested friend I have and I love her dearly for it.     ”  Victoria’s feet were cold as a result of her sickness. Louise took it upon herself to rub Her Royal Highness’ piggies to keep them warm.

Once Victoria recovered she began to take light exercise. A couple of times a week she would go for bracing walks. She liked to perambulate on Hampstead Heath. Hampstead Heath was then very much on the edge of London. Louise always accompanied her. They sometimes visited the Zoological Society of London as it was then called. We would now simply say ‘the zoo’. It had been opened only a few years before: in 1828. Naturally her governess was always with her. As Victoria blossomed into womanhood her governess was there as more of a chaperone. Victoria must never be alone with a man lest some rumour spread abroad that there had been any impropriety between her and a member of the opposite sex.

Victoria’s uncle Leopold was increasingly influential in her life when she was in her teens. Leopold knew that the way to Victoria’s heart was through Louise Lehzen.  Victoria was then 17 and it was time to consider whom she might wed. Leopold was eager that Victoria should marry her first cousin Prince Albert. If Leopold was to persuade Victoria to marry Prince Albert then he must first persuade Louise of Albert’s merits. He wrote to Baroness Lehzen, ”          I talk to you at length and speak through you to Victoria. For years Victoria has been treated as a mere subject for speculation. Her youth gave opportunities for a thousand avaricious schemes. Only you and I really care about her for her own sake. We were systematically persecuted because it was particularly feared that the child might grow fond of us. The chief plan has been since 1828 to drive you away. Had I not stood felt you might have followed Spath.   Her 17th birthday marks an important stage in her life. Only one more year and the possibility of a Regency vanishes… This is the perfect time for us who are loyal to take thought for the future of the dear child. ” Leopold then emphasised that Victoria should marry Prince Albert forthwith.  He went on to laud Prince Albert for his ”pure unspoilt nature.”

Louise Lehzen was circumspect about Victoria getting engaged to Albert. There was no need to rush into it. Other suitors should be considered. Some said that Louise had less high minded motives for wishing Victoria to tarry. If Victoria wed then Victoria was most certainly a grown woman and would have no need of a governess. Louise would lose her position at court. If Louise could not prevent marriage altogether she could at least delay it and draw her handsome salary for a few more years yet.

In May 1837 the nation jubilated Victoria’s 18th birthday. Louise Lehzen was prominent in the celebrations. There was bunting hung across High Street Kensington: this was just around the corner from Victoria’s domicile at Kensington Palace. Victoria was driven out of her palace in a coach to greet the elated crowds. Whom did Victoria choose to have beside her as she accepted the acclamation of her well wishers? It was not her mother but Louise. ”The demonstrations of loyalty and affection were highly gratifying” wrote Victoria in her trademark priggish style.

In 1837 William IV died. Victoria was proclaimed queen at the age of 18. Victoria quickly dismissed Sir John Conroy. He said he must be given a pension of GBP 3 000 per annum which was a jaw dropping sum at the time as well as a noble title. His impertinent insistence was rejected.

On the day Victoria ascended the Throne she wrote in her diary, ”My dear Lehzen will ALWAYS remain with me as she is my friend and she will not no situation but with me and I think she is right.”

Victoria moved into Buckingham Palace. Kensington Palace was too small and old fashioned for her. Louise came with her. She was made private secretary. She had the power to pay for bills or withhold payment. Victoria gave her mother, the Duchess of Kent, an apartment at the far end of Buckingham Palace. Louise’s bedchamber was right beside Victoria’s and had a connecting door.

Sir John Conroy had charge of Queen Victoria. He had a personality clash with Louisa Lehzen whom he described as ”a detestable bitch”. Such foul language was strong indeed for a more genteel era. This vulgar outburst reflects on Conroy and not on Louisa Lehzen.

Victoria was very eager to be shot of John Conroy. John Conroy demanded a massive pay off of GBP 10 000. Victoria’s mother had made promises to Conroy that her daughter would pay him this enormous gratuity and elevant him to the peerage. Victoria used Louise to convey messages to the Prime Minister that Conroy was not to receive this staggering sum nor was he to be made a peer of the realm. Conroy tried to browbeat Louise to no avail.

It was only when Victoria became queen that she slept alone. Up until that time Louise had slept in a bed at the foot of Victoria’s four poster bed. Victoria still wrote her journal as Louise had encouraged her to do in her girlhood. Only Louise was permitted to peruse Her Majesty’s inmost pensees.

Louise attended Victoria’s coronation. This was extremely sought after. Only a few hundred people could cram into Westminster Abbey and few had a good view of proceedings. The Prime Minister at the time, Viscount Melbourne, was high in laudanaum throughout. This derivative of opium was entirely legal as a recreational drug at the time.

One of Louise’s few failings is that she was perhaps too supportive of Victoria. She always backed Victoria’s wishes when sometimes Louise ought to have told her that she was in error.

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PRINCE ALBERT.

Victoria was told by the Prime Minister that she ought to wed. Louise tried to tell her not to marry. She should remain single like Queen Elizabeth I. Like most people Victoria wanted to marry and refused to be a virgin queen. Her choice fell upon her dear first cousin – Prince Albert. She married this German prince in 1840.

Louise Lehzen maintained her position. Her pupil still had much to learn. Louise Lehzen was a bosom companion and mentor as well. As many very serious duties were thrust upon Victoria it was reassuring to have a trusted figure from her childhood still with her. Louise Lehzen was granted the title Baroness. It was almost unheard of for a woman to be given a title in her own right. A woman might inherit a title or marry into such a title but to be awarded a title for her own merits was an astonishing feat.

Unfortunately for Louise Lehzen one of the most influential figures at court was Lady Flora Hastings. Lady Flora ”was violent against Lehzen” (in the metaphorical sense) as the Morning Post newspaper reported. Lady Flora Hastings was later the subject of much controversy. She was unwed and was accused of having a romantic liaison with Sir John Conroy who was a married man. Victoria too readily believed this because she disliked Lady Flora and abominated Sir John. Lady Flora ill and this was taken to be due to pregnancy. A whispering campaign against her made life unbearable. She summoned doctors to examine her physically. This was a very drastic measure for the time. In the early 19th century doctors (all male) almost never performed a physical examination on a female patient. They verified that she was not with child and indeed that she was as pure a virgin as the day that she was born. The luckless woman was indeed very unwell and died a few months after this false scandal erupted. As Conroy was a sworn enemy of Louise Lehzen he claimed that the specious claim that Lady Flora had been pregnant was first made by Louise. Lady Flora Hastings’ family was a wealthy and very notable one. It is unlikely that the bogus claim that Lady Flora was copulating was started by Louise but nevertheless Conroy managed to have Louise labelled as a calumniator.

Victoria had a soft spot for the elderly Whig Prime Ministers. Victoria used her extensive powers of patronage to grant court positions to Whig ladies. The Tory Party did not like this. The Tories were in the ascendant and clamoured to have Tory ladies appointed to court positions. Louise Lehzen was said to be part of a Whig cabal.

An anonymous pamphlet was circulated in London entitled ‘Warning Letter to Baroness Lehzen from beyond the grave.’ It was as though it was written by the late Lady Flora Hastings. It accused Baroness Lehzen of having far too much influence on Victoria and poisoning her mind.

Prince Albert moved to the United Kingdom. He was displeased to see Louise had as much influence over Victoria as he did. Despite her earlier misgivings Louise saw that Prince Albert was a suitable match for Victoria. Prince Albert and Victoria began spending much time with each other to see whether a marriage really could work. Louise professed herself to be delighted when the couple were plighted.

Not everyone was over the moon when Victoria’s engagement to Prince Albert was announced. Some accused Lehzen of bringing in yet another German into the court. The previous five British monarchs had married Germans so the British Royal Family could not be much more German than it already was. Baroness Lehzen was a useful scapegoat for those who disapproved of the Queen’s decisions but preferred not to attack the Queen directly.

The following piece of doggerel expressed the prejudice harboured by not a few:

He comes the bridegroom of Victoria’s choice

The nominee of Lehzen’s vulgar voice

He comes to take for better or for worse

 England’s fat queen and England’s fatter purse. 

One thing everyone can agree on is that for good or ill Baroness Lehzen had a great deal of sway with Victoria.

When it came to Victoria’s wedding say she had herself dressed by Baroness Lehzen. Louise did not usually perform this lowly task but on that day of all days Victoria wanted her governess’s personal touch. The wedding took place in the Chapel Royal which is a very small place of worship opposite St James’ Palace. Royal weddings were not large or extravagant affairs at the time.

Prince Albert at first found Lehzen useful. She  knew Victoria better than anyone. She was a vital conduit for telling the Queen things that he did not wish to vouchsafe himself. Yet he quickly became wary and resentful of someone who was closer to his wife than she was. Albert was a man for whom the expression ‘serious’ might have been invented. He was an intellectual and unsmilingly sincere. He wished to be kept abreast of affairs of state. He was aghast that Victoria would consult the Prime Minister and Baroness Lehzen on political questions but not him. He could understand the Queen seeking the counsel of her PM but her governess? He was envious.

Despite the initial romance there were teething problems in the marriage. Prince Albert wrote, ”I could not be more unhappy.” Like many grooms he was having cold feet. The trouble was this was AFTER he had married Victoria. He reflected on the enormity of the duty he had assumed and the unclear parameters of a prince consort’s position.

The Queen became pregnant within weeks of her bridal night. Albert was not the only one who disliked Baroness Lehzen’s might. A courtier called Mr Anson wrote, ”       Lehzen is taking advantage of the Queen’s illness to complain about the Prince’s conduct at a moment when due to natural excitability it could not fail to work strongly on the Queen’s mind. She is always in the Queen’s path always pointing and exaggertaitng every little fault of the prince, constantly misrepresenting him.        ”

Perhaps it was Anson and not Baroness Lehzen who was unfair. Albert was not universally liked. His English was not fluent at first. He was haughty, humourless and too convinced of the inferiority of all things British. Prince consorts are often disliked for their wish to expand their role.

His Royal Highness Prince Albert disliked the fact that Lehzen’s bedroom adjoined that of Albert and his wife. He was stunned that Baroness Lehzen ran the household. The Master of Horse, the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Steward all reported to her. She was in charge of money. His privy purse was disbursed to him by Baroness Lehzen which he found to be deeply degrading. He accused Baroness Lehzen of laxity and profligacy. Here there is some merit to his allegations. British royal palaces were notoriously badly run in the 1830s. A palace was run by several teams of servants who did not co operate with each other. One team was to clean the inside of windows and another to clean the outside. Another team laid fires and still another lit them and another cleaned them afterwards. Teams of servants were always arguing it was another team’s duty to do something and not their own duty. Pilfering of candles, coal, firewood, food and wine was rife. Security was very slack. One homeless boy stole into Buckingham Palace and lived there for weeks. In the nighttime he would emerge to steal food. In the day he hid in chimneys. The palace was often cold for lack of fuel or because the fires had not been set or lit. The place was untidy and unclean.

He succeeded in having her position downgraded. She had some role in the upbringing of Queen Victoria’s first child who was also named Victoria! Queen Victoria was so elated with the way that Baroness Lehzen had raised her she naturally wished her governess to superintend her own children.

Prince Albert wrote of Louise Lehzen to Baroness Stockmar, ”Lehzen is crazy, stupid intriguer, obsessed with the lust of power, who regards herself as a demigod, and anyone who refuses to recognise her as such is criminal. I declare to you s my and Victoria’s true friend that I will sacrifice my own comfort, my life’s happiness to Victoria in silence, even if she continues in error. But the welfare of my children annd Victoria’s existence as sovereign are too sacred for me not to die fighting rather than yield them as prey to Lehzen.” This speaks volumes for Baroness Louise Lehzen’s might that Prince Albert accorded such a high priority to getting rid of her. She perceived herself as being important because she was important. She was due to play a crucial role in the upbringing of Victoria’s children who were babies at the time this letter was written.

Prince Albert became obsessed with having Louise dismissed. He wrote, ”The Queen has more fear than love for the baroness and she would really be happier without her though she would not acknowledge it.      ” Albert was fooling himself.

Years later Victoria wrote in the third person, ”  It was not personal ambition at all but the idea that no one but herself was able to take care of  the queen and also she did not perceive till later that before leaving the Queen she told herself that people flattered her and made use of her for her own purposes.     ”

Lord Melbourne believed that if  Victoria were forced to choose between Albert and Baroness Lehzen she would choose the latter: ” Albert cannot argue that if he put it in a matter implying that either the baroness must go or he would not stay in the House owing to the Queen’s obstinacy and determination of her character her reply would be ” in this alternative you have contemplated the position of living without me, I will shew you that I can contemplate the possibility of living without you.” Poor Albert could do nothing but fume and dub his enemy House Dragon.   ”

Victoria was eternally indebted to Baroness Lehzen. Queen Victoria mainly credited Lehzen with giving her the courage to stand up to Conroy’s bullying.

The Prince Consort became adamant that Baroness Lehzen must be retired. He wrote, ”All me disagreeableness comes from one and the same person and this is precisely the person Victoria chooses as her friend and confidante.  ” Baroness Louise Lehzen asked that the income from the Duchy of Cornwall be used to fund the nursery. Her Majesty the Queen agreed. Albert was incensed. He correctly observed that theretofore the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall had been entailed to the Prince of Wales. Indeed that is the case today. Edward VII, then an infant, was the eldest son of Albert and Victoria. The eldest son of the monarch is usually styled Prince of Wales.

Finally Victoria was cajoled into letting Baroness Lehzen go. Victoria wrote in her journal, ”Our position is different to that of other married couples. A is in my house and I not in his. I am ready to submit to his wishes as I love him so dearly.”

In 1842 Prince Albert succeeded in having Louise put out to grass. Queen Victoria awarded Louise Lehzen a very liberal pension of 800 sterling a year. For modern values put two zeroes on the end then multiply by two. On 30 September 1842 Louise Lehzen left the palace at dawn. The consummate professional, she was much to dignified to make a scene. Albert was then exultant. Baroness Lehzen returned to her native land. She remained in epistolary contact with Her Britannic Majesty. Queen Victoria always replied promptly to My Dear Lehzen. Baroness Lehzen never married. She died in 1870.

John Cheke was the tutor of Edward VI.This surname is pronounced ”cheek”. John Cheke was born in 1514. Sir John Cheke, as he became, was famous for being a most eminent scholar of Greek.

John Cheke’s father Peter Cheke was an esquire which meant he was part of the gentry. That is to say they were  minor landowners but did not had an aristocratic title or a knighthood. An esquire was a man who could employ the personal services of a manservant. A manservant was not a man working on the esquire’s farm or in his business. A manservant was to serve the esquire food, fetch his shoes and so on. An esquire would have other men in his employ for more impersonal tasks. Peter Cheke had an administrative position at the University of Cambridge. John Cheke later wrote he was brought up by the Bishop of Chichester. It is unclear what he meant by this. It is possible that the man who later became bishop had taught him.

John Cheke went to St John’s College, Cambridge. John Cheke was immediately recognisable due to his red hair. While he was up at Cambridge he came into contact with the teachings of the Dutch scholar Erasmus. Erasmus never visited Cambridge but his beliefs were well known among educated men. Erasmus strongly criticised corruption and unbiblical practices within the Catholic Church without actually advocating breaking away from the Church. Simony and the selling of indulgences were particular bugbears of Erasmus. He sought internal reform of the Catholic Church and not the Protestant Reformation i.e. setting up a separate church. Cheke found himself in agreement with the Dutchman’s critique of the Catholic establishment. Cheke was made  fellow of the college at the incredibly young age of 15. These days someone would be lucky to be made a fellow at the age of 40. A fellow is a member of the governing body of the college. The fellows chose the head of the college. The fellows are most lecturers but they can also be other employees o the college of eminent graduates of the college.

Cheke was ordained a Catholic priests. All education in the country was provided by the Roman Catholic Church. Fellows of Cambridge and Oxford colleges had to be priests.

In the 1530s England was in religious ferment. The country had been staunchly Roman Catholic. In 1533 the king took the country out of the orbit of Rome. The Church of England was created. The Catholic Church was outlawed in England. Cheke happily went along with the Reformation. It was risky not to do so. From being a Catholic priest he became an Anglican priest. Anglican is the adjective of the Church of England.

Cheke’s fame as a lecturer and scholar grew. He was an authority on the Greek orator Demosthenes. He was renowned for his translations of Greek texts including the Gospel according to St Matthew. The king awarded him an exhibition for his studies. This was an honour but also money to live off. To give himself more gravitas John Cheke grew a beard.

There was a tendency among academics to use Latin and Greek terms in English sentences even when this was unnecessary. Cheke warned against this pretentiousness and wrote,               “I am of this opinion that our own tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges; wherein if we take not heed by tiim, ever borowing and never paying, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt”.      At that time it was commonplace for people to write even personal letters to each other in Latin. Cheke wrote to his friends in Latin even when these were English friends.

Roger Ascham was one of Cheke’s undergraduates at Cambridge. Ascham later  wrote The Scholemaster which was a book on pedagogues. In it he lauded Cheke. Ascham had been ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire and a weekly correspondent with Cheke.

John Cheke was known to have Protestant beliefs. Henry VIII endowed some professorships in 1540. Cheke was made the first ever Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. A regius professorship is one set up by the monarch. Richard Cox was the tutor of Henry VIII’s only son Edward VI. Henry VIII asked the Archbishop of Canterbury  (Thomas Cranmer) to recommend another tutor for the prince. This was because Cox was increasingly busy with ecclesiastical work. Archbishop Cranmer recommended John Cheke.

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CHEKE BECOMES PRAECEPTOR

In 1544 Cheke was appointed tutor to Edward VI.  A 19th century biography of Cheke by John Strype tells the tale: ”Henry VIII calling him thence July 10 1544 as judging him a fit person to be a schoolmaster to his son Edward.”

John Cheke was at first deputy to Richard Cox. As the state papers say he was given this post, ”for the better instruction of the prince and diligent teaching of such children as may be appointed to him. ” His official title was the Latin word ‘praeceptor’ which means tutor. They even used the word praceptor when speaking English.

Cheke was only 30 when he was given this most demanding of positions. He had already held the chair of Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. A regius professorship is a chair endowed by the Crown. There are very few regius professors indeed.

Cambridge was regretful at having to part with so distinguished as scholar as John Cheke.

Edward VI was the only son of Henry VIII. Therefore the boy’s education was prospectant to him being king. Edward VI was then 7 years old. Cheke was to teach the prince Religious Studies, languages and a little Science. At that stage Edward VI spent much of his time at a royal residence in Hertford. That house is no longer in the possession of the royal family.

Edward VI could be seen as an emotionally damaged child. His mother had died soon after Edward VI was born. He was brought up until the age of 6 as effectively an only child which was highly unusual at the time. Two stepmothers appeared on the scene and were then got rid of: once by execution. When the boy was born his father was 46 which was a very old father for the time. His father was distant and irascible. Worse was to come with Edward VI seeing his father, two uncles and his beloved stepmother all die before he was 13. This may explain why he was inured to death: even his own.

Henry VIII called his only surviving son ”the greatest person in Christendom.” Henry VIII was egregiously vain even for a 16th century monarch. The scale of his boast gives some idea of the expectations placed on Cheke’s shoulders. If Edward VIII failed to shine then Cheke may well pay a very heavy price.

Katherine Parr was Henry VIII’s last wife. She wed him in 1543 when he was 52 years old. The king mellowed in his dotage. Henry VIII was not particularly old by modern standards – he died at the age of 55 – but he was by 16th century standards. Furthermore, his infirmity left him mentally obtunded. His much younger wife Katherine Parr persuaded him to allow his daughters Mary and Elizabeth to return to court whence they had been banished years before. Henry VIII had declared that both of his daughters were illegitimate and had no right of succession but they were still notable persons in the pecking order. Katherine Parr took especial interest in the education of hertwo younger step children. Katherine Parr did not concern herself overmuch with Mary Tudor because Mary Tudor was 27 when Katherine Parr married Henry VIII. Mary Tudor was almost as old as Katherine Parr.

Edward VI grew very fond of his stepmother Katherine Parr. He addressed her as ”most dear mother” and he was appreciative of what his stepmother had done to advance his education. In 1546 at the age of 9 he wrote to her: ”I received so many benefits from you that my mind can hardly grasp them” and his mind could grasp a lot!

Katherine Parr had a very high opinion of John Cheke and Richard Cox whom she described as ”God’s special advocates.”

John Cheke was given the task of reforming the pronunciation of Greek letters. He said he would be ”merry on the bank’s side without dangering himself at sea.” This metaphor was because others were engaged in tendentious doctrinal work. The monarch was fickle and had a violent temper. People who were found to have altered relgious doctrines in a way the monarch found displeasing could be executed.

Cheke worked alongside Richard Cox. Cox was willing to birch his royal pupil. Dr Cox spent less and less time with the prince because Cox was called away to his church duties.  Cheke’s title as tutor was ”First Instructor”. Dr Cox was known to be conceited and distant. The prince found Cheke to be kinder.

Edward VI had glasses: one of the first people in the British Isles to do so. The prince also had plenty of toys. He also had various relics of his late mother who died 12 days after giving birth to him.  The prince also learnt musical instruments.

Edward VI learn to be write fluent Latin. The prince also had Jean Belmain as his French tutor. Edward VI even wrote an essay entitled ”Against the Papal supremacy” in French. The theological content was much to the liking of his English tutors. There were other specialist tutors too. Edward VI was taught Spanish and Italian but not by John Cheke. Cheke did not speak those languages. The prince also learnt to play the lute and another musical instrument called the virginal. Although Cheke did not teach Edward VI those subjects Cheke was still responsible for superintending the other tutors.

Cheke though taught the boy Geometry. Edward VI was bought a globe. He showed a lively interest in Geography. He was given coins from many different realms to examine. This use of realia in the classroom was ahead of its time. The prince began to grasp fiscal matters. The prince began to keep a diary under Cheke’s supervision which he called hisChronicle.  One annalist wrote of the education that Cheke provided to Edward VI; ” Qua neque Cyrus nec Achilles neque Alexander neque ullus unquam Regum politoremque sanctioremque accepit.” (”Not even Cyrus, not Achilles, nor Alexander nor any other king had a more polite or holier education.”)

Since John Cheke was devoting most of his time to his young pupil he could only visited Cambridge occasionally. His university teaching necessarily played second fiddle to his royal duties. Besides teaching Edward VI he also taught Elizabeth. At this time there was some uncertainty as to whether Elizabeth should be regarded as illegitimate or not. At this time Elizabeth was coming back into her father’s good graces. Edward VI was becoming fond of his half-sister Elizabeth. They began to write to each other regularly as well as occasionally visiting each other.

Edward VI had some classmates. These were Charles Brandon and Henry Brandon. Charles Brandon, the elder brother, later inherited the title the Duke of Suffolk. These boys were also second cousins of Edward VI. The purpose of them studying with him was manifold. It allowed him to have playmates. These boys were not princes but they were close to it. They would also be some of the mightiest magnates in the kingdom. It would do well for him to build a rapport with them from an impressionable age. Furthermore, if Edward VI died young as often happend (and indeed transpired) there was some chance that one of these lads who inherit the English Crown. They were not far down the line of succession.

Barnaby FitzPatrick was also Edward VI’s classmate. FitzPatrick’s father was a peer of the realm. One historian claimed that Barnaby FitzPatrick was the prince’s whipping boy. That is if Edward VI did not behave then Baranaby would be caned instead because the prince could not be caned. The teacher hoped that Edward VI would be so upset by the sight of another child being beaten that he would behaved himself in order to save the other boy being beaten. This story is probably specious

It would appear that Edward VI found John Cheke’s lessons to be more enthralling than those of Richard Cox. Cheke invited notable academicians to visit the prince and discuss the latest learning with him. Walter Haddon, the poet, came to court to give a recitation to Edward VI. This was quite something for a child who was not yet 7 years of age. The boy was made to feel that nothing was intellectually beyond him. John Leland, the geographer, came and discussed his famous book ”Itinerary” with the prince.

There was an extensive royal library for Edward’s use. At that stage most of the books were beyond the grasp of even the brainiest child. There was also a huge colourful globe for his edificaiton. There were curiosities from various parts of the world including an elephant’s tooth by which the records possible mean a tusk. There was also the egg of a giant bird – possibly an ostrich. This all helped serve to expand his horizons. Curiosity was implanted in his young mind.

Edward VI had his own study and custom made desk. There was an invetory of his classroom paraphernalia. He had geometric instruments. There were also astronomical instruments.

In 1547 Cox married Mary Hill. His wife was the daughter of the sergeant of the king’s wine cellar. John Cox and his wife had several children. His three sons all had distinguished careers. They started to spell their surname ‘Cheek’.

Henry VIII had not announced that priests were allowed to marry. Some Anglican priests had began to marry. Whereas the Catholic Church forbade clerical marriage the Church o England was agnostic on the issue. The Church of England was outside the control of the pope. However, it was not fully Protestant either. It retained some Catholic doctrines and practices. This pleased traditionalists. Some radicals were dissatisfied and wanted the Anglican Church to be explicitly Protestant.

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THE PUPIL BECOMES MONARCH

In 1547 Henry VIII died and his son Edward VI became king.

In January 1547 Edward VI received the dreaded news that his father was dead. A courtier named Hayward recalled the moment when the news of their father’s death was broken to Edward VI and his elder sister Elizabeth, ”Never was sorrow more sweetly set forth, their faces seeming rather to beautify their sorrow than sorrow cloud the beauty of their faces.    ”

The death of Henry VIII was kept secret for three days. Edward VI was brought from his house at Hertford to the Tower of London. The Tower did not have a reputation as a prison in those days. It was a royal residence. Edward VI was proclaimed king three days after the decease of his father.  The heralds proclaimed ”The High and Mighty Prince Edward by the Grace of God is solely and rightfully succeeded to the throne by decease of his late father Henry of happy and glorious memory. Whereof with one assent of tongue and heart we proclaim to be your undoubted sovereign.”

This high and mighty prince was the but 9 years of age.

The proclamation was read at St James’ Palace – then as now this little known building is the official residence of the royal family: not Buckingham Palace. The proclamation was read aloud at the Royal Exchange in London and in market squares across England, Wales and Ireland.

The nobility, the episcopate and the principal gentlemen of quality gathered at the Tower of London to do obeisance to the new sovereign. Among those doing homage to the boy king was John Cheke.

Edward VI’s maternal uncle Edward Seymour became Lord Protector of the Realm and Governor Edward VI. Lord Protector of the Realm was to rule on behalf of the monarch during the monarch’s minority. Edward Seymour raised himself to the noble title Duke of Somerset. This was because he own large estates in the county of Somerset.

Edward VI’s other uncle Thomas Seymour – Edward Seymour’s younger brother – was made Lord Admiral. Thomas Seymour also had himself granted a hereditary title Lord Sudeley. Lord Admiral meant he was not an ordinary admiral. He was in overall charge of the Royal Navy.

A council existed to help the king govern. Edward Seymour was not to rule alone. It was a time of intra elite warfare. Members of the council jockeyed for position. They tried to manoeuvre each other off the council. There was much intrigue and espionage. Edward Seymour engaged in pecculation from his nephew’s treasury.

At Edward’s coronation the Archbishop of Canterbury stressed that this king was to further the work of the Reformation. The king was, he said, a new Josiah: the boy king in the Bible who stood up for righteousness and put iniquity to flight.

As the king was so young a lord protector ruled for him. This office went to his maternal uncle Edward Seymour. Edward Seymour had his nephew award him the title Duke of Somerset. Somerset was the county in which Edward Seymour had most of his estates. There was a twelve member regency council of laity and churchman to help the lord protector.

The 9 year old monarch still had lessons. Cheke wrote poems for his pupil. These were for the little monarch’s entertainment and edification. In 1547 Cheke fell ill and believed he was dying so he wrote a poem to Edward VI. Here is one verse : ‘For us a guardian tow’r remain/ Through ages long and jolly/ Nor give our house a moment’s pain/ Through thought’s intrusive folly.’ 

Under Edward VI the Church of England became avowedly Protestant. The Reformation demanded iconoclasm. The Church of England moved against mariolatry and the veneration of saints. The tomb of St Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral was smashed. The church service was no longer called mass. The Bible was to be in English. The Henrician  Reformation had had Bible in English. Henry VIII had later changed his mind and ordered that the Bible should only be available in Latin.

Edward VI wrote about the anti-Catholic campaign in his Chronicle, ” The Bishop of London’s injunctions touch plucking down altars. An order was sent to every bishop to pluck down altars and to forbide mass and suchlike ceremonies and abuses.”  The religious dogmas also changed under the Edwardian Reformation. The laity were given communion in both kinds i.e. both bread and wine. Until that time the laity had not been given wine. The doctrine of justification through faith alone was proclaimed.

The moot point is to what extent Edward VI was driving these reforms? A child cannot be wholly responsible for his own beliefs. To a large extent his opinions were shaped by his tutors. Chief among them was John Cheke. The Roman Catholic Church existed as an underground movement. Catholic aristocrats hid priests in secret basements and chambers in their houses. These were called priest holes.

Edward VI seems to have been very Godly even for the 16th century. He read 12 chapters of the Bible every day. This was under the supervision of Cheke.

Cheke entered Parliament as MP for Bletchingley. At this time the University of Cambridge wrote an official letter to Cheke expressing its highest laud for him: ”Of all that number of very eminent men. most eminent Cheke, that ever went forth from the university into the commonwealth [kingdom] you alone are the man, above all others, loved being present and admired being absent.”

He was later Provost of King’s College, Cambridge. This is perhaps the grandest college in the university. He was made a commissioner of Oxford University. He was made a fellow of Eton because it was connected to King’s College, Cambridge. Cox served on many church committees. He also served on the Privy Council. Privy means ”private”. Privy councillors met the monarch about once a week. They were like a cabinet. They offered the monarch advice on various matters.  Their deliberations are kept secret. A privy councillor has the title ”the right honourable” before his name.

Not everyone was happy with the way Lord Protector Seymour was ruling on behalf of his nephew. There were some peasant rebellions over tax and religious issues. One of these was called Kett’s Rebellion as it was led by a tanner named Robert Kett. Kett and his acolytes were mainly rebelling over the enclosure of common land. This meant that public grazing land was given over to aristocrats for their exclusive use. This impoverished the peasantry. Edward VI recorded the rebellions in his Chronicle or diary, ” People began to rise where Sir William Herbert put them down, overran and enslaved them. Then they rose in Hampshire, Essex, Suffolk, Hertfordshire.      ”  

Cheke was keeping his pupil advised of these worrying events. The boy was given to believe that the rebels were utterly wicked.   Some of the elite disliked Edward Seymour too. The main rival to Edward Seymour was John Dudley. People began to say that Edward Seymour was exploiting the tenderness of the king’s years. He was wielding all regal power himself. He denied the king even pocket money. Edward Seymour found out his younger brother, Lord Sudeley (Thomas Seymour) was secretly handing coins to Edward VI.

In fact Edward Seymour gradually reduced the council’s control. He took more and more decisions on his own. Edward Seymour bamboozled his little nephew into signing over more authority to him. Eventually he had the Great Seal in his own residence. It was a huge pile in London which he arrogantly named Somerset House. John Cheke tried to help Edward VI to resist Edward Seymour’s attempt to become overmighty. Edward Seymour attempted to bribe Cheke into becoming and accomplice in persuading the child king in establishing Seymour was dictator in all but name. Cheke refused such doceurs. John Cheke was alienated by Edward Seymour’s blatant attempts to exploit the child’s youth and inexperience. This was dangerous for Cheke. Edward Seymour was the mightiest man in the kingdom. He could and did execute those who stood in his way.

Lord Sudeley (Thomas Seymour) had molested Elizabeth.

Thomas Seymour (Edward VI’s uncle) was arrested in 1549. He had entered Edward VI’s chamber in the middle of the night with a loaded gun. Thomas Seymour was sentenced to death. It was up to the king to sign the death warrant. The 12 year old’s hand did not tremble as he signed. Some have commented that Edward VI was distinctly lacking in one Christian virtue: mercy. On the other hand the firmness and even cold bloodedness that any leader needs was present in him. Perhaps this is praiseworthy. His tutors needed to school him in when to be compassionate but also not to be soo clement as to be remiss.

Edward Seymour tried to cajole his nephew into signing a new Treason Act. The child asked the advice of his tutor John Cheke about this. Cheke urged his pupil not to sign. Edward Seymour was suspected of trying to invest himself with dictatorial powers. It was very difficult for even a consummate political operator to know what to do. It was impossible for a 9 year old orphan to know what to do. He had to rely on the guidance of his tutor. Cheke was an academic who was minded to steer clear of politics. He also had to think about the welfare of his pupil. This necessitated Cheke sometimes giving his pupil advice. John Cheke had to induce his charge not to sign state papers that the boy did not fully understand. Edward Seymour tried to take advantage of his nephew being so young. Even the wisest statesman can be outfoxed. A child of tender years had little chance against a crafty and ruthless politician like Edward Seymour.

Edward Seymour grew increasingly unpopular. There were revolts. He fluctated between resolution and panic. The economy was in freefall. Taxation was on the rise. Religious controversy raged. Edward Seymour tried to kidnap his nephew. His maladministration led to his overthrow in a bloodless coup. Edward Seymour was detained in the Tower of London. He was stripped of his position as Lord Protector. John Dudley became the new Lord Protector.

Edward Seymour still had plenty of cronies on the outside. He had been charged with various crimes. He managed to have his allies help him. Some charges were dropped and he was acquitted of the others. Edward Seymour was released after 6 months. He was again on the council but was not Lord Protector. He still plotted to regain power. In the meantime he embezzled from the royal treasury. Edward Seymour was again arrested and charged with his treason. This time he could not pull strings effectively. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Edward Seymour was executed.

Edward VI’s education continued. Cheke taught him from Isocrates, Cicero and Pliny. He also had to attend to his kingly duties.

Edward VI attended divine worship almost daily. He listened to sermons with rapt attention. The priests often made explicit comparisons between the most distinguished member of their congregation and Josiah. Edward VI knew full well who Josiah was. This boy king in the Bible reformed religion and is held up as a paragon of monarchical virtue. Over and again he was likened to Josiah.

Edward Seymour had his brother executed for this. Edward VI recorded this in his journal or Chronicle as he called it: ”  There was a disputation of the sacraments in the Parliament House.  Also the Lord Sudeley was condemned to death and died the March ensuing.   ” This was very advanced and lucid writing for a 10 year old. Cheke had taught him well. It also suggests a shocking indifference to one uncle killing another uncle.

The whole of the Chronicle is unsentimental. Perhaps this was Edward VI’s nature or maybe he was taught to be this way by Cheke. A king could not afford to be too emotional.

Cheke wrote a tract denouncing all rebellions entitled Hurt of Sedition how greneous it is to a Communeweith. John Cheke also wrote a letter to the rebels telling them how wrong they were. He emphasised that it was their duty to obey laws made by the King and Parliament.

In 1549 there was a large scale insurrection in eastern England. It was led by a minor landowner named Robert Kett. John Cheke wrote a book entitled ”The Hurt of Sedition” explaining why this attempt to subvert the government was wrong. He inveighed against the rebels:

”And yet ye pretend that for God’s cause and partly for the commonwealth’s sake ye do rise when as yourselves cannot deny ye seek in word God’s cause, do indeed break God’s commandments and that ye seek the commonwealth have destroyed the commonwealth”

Edward VI’s Chronicle seemed to foreshadow the ouster of his uncle, ”In the meantime in England arose great stirs likely to achieve much if it had not been well foreseen.” The king then described the events: ”    Somerset commanded the armour to be brought out of the armoury at Hampton Court and people to be raised.  That night with all the people I went to Windsor at nine or ten o clock at night and there was watch and ward kept every night.     ” All this was written under the instruction of Cheke. This was seen as an attempt to bring the king under the sole control of Edward Seymour (the Duke of Somerset).

The king turned against his uncle. In 1549 Edward Seymour was overthrown as lord protector  by John Dudley. Seymour was sent to the Tower of London. He was eventually released but later released. Then Edward Seymour was indicted for sundry offences and convicted of all. He was awarded the supreme sanction and later executed. ”Somerset  [Edward Seymour] had his head cut off at the Tower of London at eight or nine o’clock in the morning.” The king listed the charges of which his uncle had been convicted, ”   False ambition, vainglory, entering into rash wars, enriching himself of my treasure, following his own opinion and doing all by his own authority.    ”

John Dudley took over as lord protector. Cheke was an ally of Dudley so it was excellent for him that the palace coup succeeded. John Dudley had the little king raise him to the title of Duke of Northumberland. Northumberland, in the north-east corner of England, was the county in which John Dudley owned extensive estates.

Edward VI at this time was working on a text wherein he denounced the doctrine of papal supremacy. He was conditioned to be anti-Catholic. His forthright opposition to Roman Catholicism met with the fulsome approval of his tutors. Edward VI was then 12 years old so it is doubtful that he had much of a mind of his own. Nevertheless his composition of such a booklet shows remarkable intellectual maturity and articulacy.

Edward VI’s elder half-sister was Mary Tudor. She was a passionate believer in Catholicism. Catholic priests were being burnt in public. The queen’s sister was not harmed despite her Catholicism being known. At first Edward VI turned a blind eye to the fact that she was sheltering Catholic clergy in her house. Eventually the king ordered her priests to be taken away by force and locked up in the Tower of London. Mary Tudor was from the Holy Roman Empire on her mother’s side. The child king wrote in his Chronicle about this request, ”  April 1550. The Emperor’s ambassador requested by letter’s patents that  my lady Mary might have leave to say mass. It was denied him. ”

King Edward VI in his Chronicle how he summoned his grown up sister to be rebuked for not conforming to Anglicanism.”There was declared how long I had suffered her mass in hope of her reconciliation and how now I could not bear it. She answered that her soul was God’s and her faith she would not change nor she would not dissemble her opinions with contrary doings. It was said I constrained not her faith and  I willed her not as a king to rule but as a subject to obey and that her example might breed too much inconvenience.” This shows a sophisticated grasp of Theology for a 12 year old. Cheke had worked well.

Edward VI became increasingly independent minded as he entered his teens. The emperor of the Holy Roman Empire insisted that Mary Tudor be allowed to hear mass: the Roman Catholic church service. Edward VI refused despite the Holy Roman Empire threatening war if he did not make this concession. The king’s ministers implored him to relent. The monarch was unwavering. There is no doubt as to his sincerity. His self-assurance and principle are products of his education. Perhaps his lack of pragmatism is to be regretted.

In 1550 Edward VI began to study”Rhetoric”, ”Ethic” and ”Dialectic” by Aristotle. He started to translate Cicero’s Philosophia from Latin into Ancient Greek.

Sir John Cheke said that his pupil could comprehend Latin ”with accuracy, speaks with propriety and writes with facility.”

Cheke wrote ”my endeavour is to give him no precept unaccompanied by some remarkable example.”

Martin Bucer said that the king was ”learned to a miracle”. The monarch was also learning Italian. Bucer continued in his description of Edward VI’s erudition:”No study delights him more than the scriptures of which he daily reads ten chapters with the greatest attention.”

The king was hellbent on advancing the Reformation. Many images had been smashed and paintings whited over. The adoration of artwork was considered idolatry by him. He loathed the veneration of saints which he regarded as Roman Catholic superstitition. His zeal for Protestantism was down to his schooling at the hands of Cheke. Not everyone considers iconoclasm to be laudable. But there is no doubt that tutors have enormous influence with their pupils as evidenced by the king’s passion for Protestantism.

Edward VI welcome foreign Protestants who sought asylum in England. He was very happy to grant them permission to establish their churches in England.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, was very pleased with the king’s scholarship and his religious fervour. Cranmer commented to Cheke ” Master Cheke you may be glad all the days of your life that we have such a scholar for he has more divinity in his little finger than we have in all our bodies.”

By 1551 Edward VI was writing a thousand word essay in Latin and in Greek every fortnight. The subject matter demonstrated yet again that he was mad keen on Christianity. He mused as to whether adulterers should suffer death by stoning. He did not reflect whether his late father deserved such a fate! He also wrote about whether peace was entirely beneficial. He always examined both sides of the argument before arriving at his conclusion.

At the age of 13 Edward VI was studying the Ethics of Aristotle. It is notable that 1800 years after Aristotle this king was learning from the works of the first recorded private tutor. Cheke was also teaching his royal charge from the Ancient Greek writer Xenophon. The oeuvre of the philosopher Tully was also used to teach His Majesty. In 1551 he was knighted for his services. Edward VI began to write an autobiography presumably under the direction of John Cheke.

Cheke encouraged his pupil in astronomy. Edward VI wrote ” Who hold that it is not useful to the body, nor the mind, nor the State, a view which not undeservedly ought to be the subject of much cursing. What is more natural than understanding the principles of the sky and of the planets, the constellations through the courses of which bodies ….the grasses and the flowers are ruled? ”

The scholar king was an ornament to his tutors.

A tutor called William Thomas was brought in to teach the king Politics. Edward VI also learnt about Economics from Thomas. One of the hot potatoes of the day was whether or not to debase coinage. Henry VIII had melted down silver coins and reissued coins with a reduced silver content. This had temporarily solved the government’s cash flow crisis but in the long run greatly undermined confidence in the currency. Edward VI’s ministers were proposing to use the same gambit. It appeared to be the only way to balance the books in the immediate term. Yet in the long term it would lead to hyperinflation.

The king began to be given more authority. Cheke had to help ease him into maturity. The boy was wise beyond his years. He was also notable for his indifference to the deaths of others. This ruthlessness was a virtue in a 16th century king.

Edward VI was well apprised of what was going on in his realm. In 1551 he wrote gloomily of the state of his nation, ” Slack execution of laws has been the chiefest sore of all. The laws have been manifestly broken and offenders punished, and either by bribery or foolish pity escaped punishment. The disention [sic] and disagreement both in private matters and in matters of religion has been no little cause but the principal has been contentioustalking of foolish and fond people which for lack of teaching have wandered and broken, wilfully and disobediently the laws of this realm. ” It is noticeable in this excerpt that he did not think that religion was a private matter. This gobbet shows his eloquence and sophistication. He also insisted on being informed about what was occuring. He was sagacious enough to demand to hear bad news as well as good.

King Edward VI was a workaholic when it came to affairs of state. He was forever receiving delegations and ambassadors. He spent much time agonising over the minutiae of government policy. Despite his punishing workload the king still maintained his curriculum Sir John Cheke became concerned that his pupil was exhausting himself.

Edward VI met Jean Calvin the Swiss-French Protestant leader. His Majesty was graciously pleased to receive a copy of Calvin’s French translation of Isocrates.

In 1552 another Prayer Book was published. It was a bold statement of Protestantism. The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation was explicitly disowned. Cranmer wrote this book and Edward VI gave it his seal of approval.

In the summer of 1552 Edward VI went on a ‘royal progress’ for the first time. This meant travelling around the country with a retinue of up to 4 000 courtiers, retainers and soldiers. The king and his entourage would stay at the houses of noble families. It was a chance for the king to show himself and to go on a tour of inspection. The Privy Council, including Cheke, traveled with the monarch.

The king passed comment on some fortifications that he visited. Cheke impressed on the boy king that peace was wise and moral. Henry VIII had fought wars for most of his reign. He had achieved little and almost bankrupt the country. Edward VI took this lesson to heart and strove to remain at peace with other realms. The king wanted to built more military defences and establish a large standing army. His purpose was solely defensive. There is no reason to suppose the monarch was seeking to mislead his tutor.

In late 1552 Edward VI fell ill. It did not seem serious at first but his condition gradually deteriorated. It would appear that his immune system had been fatally undermined. He had fever and great difficulty breathing. He was so debiitated that people began to fear for his life. John Cheke had the unenviable task of telling the 15 year old that is might be wise to make his last will and testament. The king did so.

In February 1553 Edward VI became ill with a severe cold. His health deteriorated rapidly. Dudley saw what was happening. The king was coughing up blood. It was a suppurating pulmonary infection.

Through 1553 the king’s condition worsened. He was bed bound. His fingernails and toenails came loose and he coughed up blood. It is likely that he had tuberculosis. Medical historians have surmised this based on the symptoms described. Such a diagnosis can only be an educated guess. Any physician will tell you that one cannot make a diagnosis confidently without seeing the patient. Tuberculosis may seem a strange illness for a king to catch. It is a poor person’s disease. Those who contract it are usuually malnourished, already ill and living in cold, damp and insanitary conditions. The king lived in the best of conditions. It was an illness that compromised his immune system that made him suscepticble to even a passing acquaintance with tuberculosis. The king insisted on continuing lessons.

Cheke gave his terminally ill student some books. Cheke commented, ”How kindly and courteously he received them and how greatly he esteems them. ”

Yet still Sir John Cheke had not abandoned hope that the king might pull through. Cheke wrote, ”should a longer life be allowed him I prophesy that with the Lord’s blessing he will prove such a king as neither to yield to Josiah in the maintenance of true religion or Solomon in the management of the state or to David in godliness. ”

John Dudley had his son Guildford Dudley marry the 15 year old Lady Jane Grey who was the king’s second cousin. The king’s will was altered to leave the Crown to his cousin Lady Jane Grey. As Dudley was the father-in -law of Jane Grey he believed that he would still be effectively in control. The Privy Council, including Cheke, endorsed the king’s will.

By the summer of 1553 the king’s legs were distended. He could not digest and so kept vomiting. He whispered to Cheke ”I am glad to die.”

Edward VI’s half sister Mary Tudor was the other claimant to the Crown. She was an ardent Catholic. Dudley and Cheke did not want her gaining the throne. In July 1553 Edward VI died uttering a prayer in English not Latin.

The king’s last words were ”I am faint Lord have mercy upon me and take my spirit.”

His death was kept secret for 4 days.

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AFTER EDWARD.

Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen. Lady Jane Grey became queen. Edward VI had changed his will weeks before to alter the line of succession. Lady Jane Grey was his cousin. Edward VI had disinherited his half sister Mary Tudor. The Church of England viewed Mary Tudor as illegitimate. The Catholic Church held that she was legitimate. Mary Tudor was an ardent Catholic. Cheke swore allegiance to her. He was appointed Secretary of State by the 16 year old queen. Mary Tudor gathered her supporters and marched on London.

Cheke wrote to Mary Tudor on behalf of the council. He scorned the ” suppose title which you judge yourself to have ”and reiterated that Jane Grey was the true queen as provided for ”by sundry acts of parliament remaining yet in force.”

John Dudley, still Lord Protector, gathered troops and set out to arrest Mary Tudor. John Dudley stressed that Mary Tudor was ”a bastard” and had no claim to the Crown. She had left home two days before Edward VI died. Clearly her agents had kept her well informed of her half-brother’s closeness to death. Mary Tudor moved to Framlingham Castle and gathered supporters. Soon thousands of men had rallied to her banner.

Mary Tudor insisted that she was the rightful queen. Sir John Cheke wrote a repudiation of Mary Tudor’s claim to the Throne.

Some towns proclaimed Mary Tudor queen and only a few declared for Lady Jane Grey. Some members of the elite deserted Lady Jane. Within 9 days Lady Jane’s supporters had mostly turned their coats. Mary Tudor was so confident of her position that she took a further two weeks to enter London.

Mary Tudor rode into London to general acclamation. Some worthies who had previously declared for Lady Jane were minded to skip the country. John Cheke chose to remain. Cheke like most others recanted their ‘misguided’ support for Lady Jane. Lady Jane and her husband (John Dudley’s son) were locked up in the Tower of London. The members of the elite who had supported Lady Jane all claimed that John Dudley had forced them to do it. John Dudley was Lady Jane’s main backer and indeed saw her as a means of continuing his rule. He was also a handy scapegoat. He was promptly executed.

Lady Jane Grey’s supporters deserted her. Mary Tudor then had her and Cheke arrested. John Cheke was held under house arrest. He was required to live at the house of Peter Osborne.

Dudley ran away. Lady Jane Grey and her husband were thrown into a dungeon. Cheke had been a very wealthy man but all his property was declared forfeit to the crown. Cheke was in danger of being executed. His Protestant reforms had outraged Mary Tudor.

John Dudley was caught in Cambridge and put to death. The next year Lady Jane Grey and her husband were executed.

John Cheke was desperate to save his skin. Cheke did a lot of back pedalling. He vowed fealty to Mary Tudor. He recanted his fatal Protestant errors. Cheke wrote to the queen begging her to show mercy. He pleaded for absolution and announced that he was a fervent Catholic. It worked.

John Cheke was forgiven for his error in supporting Lady Jane Grey. He was set free. He wrote to Mary Tudor thanking her for her compassion. ‘Whereas it hath pleased Your Highness to extend your gracious mercy towards me and something to mitigate the severity wherewith justice of law  might grievously have burdened me…’ He went on to say he had not offended as gravely as others. He then pleaded with her to give him his property back. Cheke noted that he had been given property by Henry VIII. John Cheke was pushing his luck!

Cheke left the country because there was always the chance that he could fall under suspicion again. He worked as a lecturer in various continental universities. One of these was Padua in Italy. In the home of Catholicism he found it prudent to pretend to conform to the Catholic Church. He also dwelt in Antwerp and Strasbourg.

Cheke’s fears had been well founded. His former patron Thomas Cranmer was burnt at the stake for his heretical beliefs. Cranmer’s recantation of Anglicanism had not been enough to save him from this punishment. John Cheke was in the Netherlands when he was seized by English agents.

Mary Tudor’s husband King Philip II of Spain wanted Cheke brought to England. Cheke was returned to London and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He repeated his conversion to the Catholic Church. He pleaded with Reginald Cardinal Pole to forgive him. Cardinal Pole, the queen’s cousin, was unmoved by this blatant insincerity. In prison Cheke wrote ‘A Royal Elegie’ dedicated to the late Edward VI.

Sir John Cheke died in prison in 1557. He was 43 years old He is buried in St Albans Wood. Peter Osborne then brought up Cheke’s children. Despite Cheke’s pleading poverty. Cheke’s estate was worth over  1 500 pounds when he died. Cheke’s widow married within a year and had three more children.

His sister married Lord William Burghley who was Elizabeth I’s right hand man. From Cheke’s sister the noble Cecil family is descended.

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POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION.

Ascham, his contemporary, described him as ‘the cunningest master and one of the worthiest gentleman that England ever bred.’ Cunning did not then mean crafty.

Cheke taught almost everyone who was at Cambridge during his time. This was because Greek was compulsory at the time. He was known to be the foremost Greek scholar of his generation. He was fondly remembered by many of his former pupils in their memoirs.Olynthiacs of Demosthenes mentions Cheke. Thomas Nash in To the Gentlemen Students praises Cheke to the moon as,  “the Exchequer of eloquence, Sir John Cheke, a man of men, supernaturally traded in all tongues.”    

Cheke has been the subject of a number of admiring biographies. Among them is The Life of the Learned Sir John Cheke KT First Instructor after Secretary of State to Edward VI, one of the great Restorers of the True Religion and Good Learning in this Kingdom written by John Strype in 1821.

Shakespeare and John Milton both doffed the cap to John Cheke.

Cheke was a superb tutor. This is because of his own scholastic brilliance and his ability to engage the mind of his pupil. He was firm with the boy king. What he taught Edward VI was not just academic. Cheke taught the sovereign certain precepts as well as life skills. Cheke had a profound influence on English History. He shaped the mind of the monarch. Under Mary Tudor many of the changes effected under Edward VI were reversed. However, the Counter-Reformation did not survive Mary Tudor. After her five year reign England returned to Anglicanism.

Henry Compton. Tutor to Queen Anne.

Henry Compton was born in 1632. His father was the Earl of Northampton, a title still held by Henry Compton’s collateral descendants. Because his father was a peer of the real the boy had the prefix Honourable in front of his name. This is usually contracted to ‘Hon’. Hon Henry Compton was the sixth son so there was very little chance he would inherit the noble title or much property. This was a time of enormous upheaval due to the English Civil War. By some nifty manoeuvring the Compton family managed to stay on the right side of however held power. Had they not done so they would have been attainted and their lands sequestrated.

Hon Henry Compton matriculated at Oxford University. He was at the Queen’s College. This college now bears a statute of his pupil Queen Anne. Oxford was then a drab place. The English Civil War was just over. The Parliamentarians had won and the king had been executed. His son Charles II was in exile.. The British Isles were ruled by Oliver Cromwell. Oxford University had taken the side of the king against Parliament and was made to suffer for it.

Hon Compton went down from Oxford without taking a degree.

Hon  Compton became a soldier and served with distinction. He then spent some years travelling on the Continent. This was the grand tour.

In 1660 England restored her monarchy. King Charles II was welcomed back. Hon Compton returned to England. He gained a commission in a cavalry regiment. He was appointed cornet which is a junior officer.

Hon Compton later went to Cambridge where he was awarded a Doctorate of Divinity. (DD). Henry Compton was then ordained a priest in the Church of England.

Hon Compton was granted some lucrative livings. A living meant a parish where he had to minister to the spiritual needs of the parishoners in return for being provided with a stipend and house. The income of Anglican priests varied hugely according to the parish. Some parishes provided very handsome livings indeed. In other parishes the clergy could barely get by. The Church of England was flagrantly nepotistic. Being the son of an early Hon Compton had no difficulty in being made incumbent of a parish that gave him an excellent salary. He first of all served as priest of Cottenham parish. Later he was moved to Witney in Oxfordshire. Incidentally Witney is where David Cameron was Member of Parliament centuries later. Witney is in the diocese of Oxford so Hon Compton was under the authority of the Bishop of Oxford.

Hon Compton was appointed Bishop of Oxford in 1874. Every bishop has a cathedral in his diocese. Each cathedral contains a ‘cathedra’ or throne for the bishop.

There were quite a few Dissenters in his diocese. A Dissenter was someone who is a Protestant but outside the Church of England. For example, they were Baptists, Presbyterians and Quakers. The Church of England was the church as by law established. The law discriminated against those who were outside the Church of England. Bishop Compton was notable for being indulgent towards Dissenters.

Hon Compton was then appointed Dean of the Chapel Royal in London. The Chapel Royal is just across the street from St James’ Palace. St James’ Palace was the official residence of the English Royal Family and not Buckingham Palace which did not exist at the time. The Chapel Royal was where Charles II and his family worshipped. Bishop Compton had to neglect his duties in Oxford in order to lead worship in London much of the time.

After a year he was transferred to the See of London. The ‘see’ in this case is derived from the Latin ‘sede’ meaning ‘seat’. Compton occupied the bishop’s throne in London.

King James II was married to Mary of Modena.

In June 1688 a son was born to James II. Some disbelieved that the baby was the child of the king and queen. It was noised that the infant was born to another couple and was smuggled into the royal bedchamber in a warming pan.

Seven eminent men signed the Invitation to William. This document asked that William of Orange come to England to safeguard the liberties of the country and to investigate the rumour that the baby claimed by Mary of Modena was not born to her at all. Compton was one of those who signed this Invitation to William. They were to become known as the Immortal Seven.

Henry Compton was famous for being tutor to Queen Anne.

Compton died in 1713.

Many Britons like to sneer at Germany and other continental countries for having had Nazi or fascist governments. However, the United Kingdom also had fascist tendencies which spread far beyond the British Union of Fascists. It is high time that people in the United Kingdom faced up to the considerable support for fascism that existed at all levels of British society. Such support was that of a minority but not a tiny one.

Early 1920s

Immediately after the First World War there were several fascist groupsucles. As Henry Hemming wrote fascism seemed to be ‘conservatism with knobs on.’ British fascism at first eschewed the socialist rhetoric that was found in continental fascist movements.

The BUF

A one time Tory and then a Labour MP Sir Oswald Mosley was a man of the most exceptional talents. Tall, athletic, debonair with matinee movie idol looks this former army officer and champion fencer was blessed with a magnificent oratorical ability. Yet by the 1930s his vociferation was anti-Jewish and anti-democratic. Mosley founded his own political party – the British Union of Fascists. He later appended ‘a and National Socialists’ to its name. Yet it was known as the BUF and not the BUFNS.

Sir Oswald was a welcome guest at many a country house weekend. As a baronet educated at Winchester and Sandhurst he had impeccable establishment credentials.

Mosley’s Blackshirts stomped around chanting ‘We are going to get rid of the Yids’. Their anti-Semitic bile alarmed many people.

Establishment support

The BUF enjoyed considerable admiration from a segment of the British upper class. Unfortunately, the British Isles, particularly England, has a long and despicable history of anti-Semitism. That is not to say that most Englishmen were ever anti-Semitic. However, there was a considerable number of people who were virulently anti-Semitic and the 1930s was no exception. England was one of the first European countries to expel the Jewish community in 1290. Prior to that several large scale pogroms occurred in England.

Edward VIII’s fascist tendencies are amply documented. In 2016 footage emerged of the king encouraging his niece Elizabeth II to give the sieg heil salute when she was a little girl. In Edward VIII’s autobiography ‘A King’s Story’ he expatiated on his loathing for democracy. When Edward VIII was king he attended the Trooping of the Colour that June. For the first and last time a speech was made at this military parade. The king spoke of his love of peace and assured his hearers that a soldier’s peacetime service was every iota as glorious as wartime service. The monarch may have been actuated by an entirely laudable desire to maintain peace. But there could be a less morally uplifting motive that actuated him: that he was an ardent Nazi.

You might believe that at least Churchill was a day one abominator of fascism. You would be dead wrong. We often read of Churchill being a contmner of Mussolini and recognizing him for the poltroon that he was. Yet in Winston Churchill went to Italy in the 1920s to address a fascist rally. He was effusive about Benito Amilcare Mussolini ‘he is a great lawgiver.’ He assured the blackshirts ‘If I were an Italian I would be amongst you.’

Winston Churchill also spoke approvingly of Hitler at times. In his book Great Contemporaries he waxed lyrical about Der Fuhrer.

The Marquess of Tweedsmuir was another virulent anti-Semite. He is better known as the author John Buchan. Buchan’s Judeophobia did not stop him being elevated to the peerage and indeed appointed Governor-General of Canada.

The Conservative Party had more than a flirtation with fascism. You might assume that Liberals would have no truck with fascism since it is the antithesis of their philosophy. Once again you would be laboring under a misapprehension if you believed that. David Lloyd George, the former Liberal Prime Minister, spent the 1930s publicly expressing his approval of Nazism.

There were a number of white supremacist groups in the UK besides the BUF. Among them were the British People’s Party, the Right Club, the Nordic League and the Anglo-German Friendship League.

The Duke of Hamilton was a member of the Anglo-German Friendship League. Small wonder that Rudolf Hess came to visit him in 1941 with a view to concluding peace with the British Empire.

John Amery, son of a Tory cabinet minister, was an outspoken supporter of Hitler. He went to Spain to fight for the Nationalists.  After the war he stood trial for high treason. After instantly pleading guilty he was sentenced to hang. He was an odd bod by never diagnosed as mentally ill. Nonetheless his brother the Conservative MP Leo Amery contrived to save his brother with the bogus excuse of John Amery suffering from derangement of mind. It did not work and Amery was treated to an appointment with Albert Pierrepoint.

The Marquess of Londonderry was a lynchpin of the fascist establishment in the British Isles. He was an ardent appeaser of the Third Reich. This was not out of a perhaps misguided desire to avoid war. That could have been honourable. It was owing to a deep seated admiration for the Third Reich.

Nancy Astor was the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons. She was also a zealous advocate of giving the Third Reich everything it wanted.

Edward VIII was an avid fan of Nazism. He passed secrets to Berlin in 1936. His paramour Mrs Simpson was said to be the bedfellow of Joachim Ribbentrop who at that time was the German ambassador to the Court of St James. The king’s passionate Nazism was so perturbing that the establishment had to engineer and excuse to give him the heave-ho. He obliged them by his harebrained scheme to marry a twice divorced commoner who appeared to be barren. Once the Duke of Windsor wed where was his first foreign trip? He visited the Third Reich where he was received with every consideration. The Nazi Party could not have been happier to have him as their guest. The duke and duchess even visited  concentration camp!

Cordiality with Italy

Through the 1920s Italian troops committed several major massacres in Libya. The news of these crimes against humanity in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica reached the ears of the British forces in Egypt. London chose to keep shtum on the issue. Why upset our Italian friends over something as petty as the lives of several thousand Bedouin?

Long after Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister of Italy the UK strove to maintain an alliance with Italy. In 1935 the United Kingdom formed the Stresa Front with Fascist Italy and France. Though the Italian Army was armed with weapons half a century old, the Italian Air Force was puny the Italian Navy was formidable. The Royal Navy was chary about testing its mettle against the Italians in the Mediterranean. When it came to the Battle of Cape Taranto it is said that British only won due to radar.

If fascism was so objectionable in principle why one earth London take such pains to be an ally of Italy? In October 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia. This was despite Italy and Abyssinia both being members of the League of Nations. International disputes were supposed to be resolved via the League. Italy treated the League as literally irrelevant to this issue. London did not take firm action against Rome for this flagrant violation of the covenant of the League. Moreover, Italy was a signatory of the Kellogg-Briand Pact i.e. it has explicitly renounced war as an instrument of policy. After generously offering Mussolini two-thirds of Abyssinia (an offer he rebuffed) the UK eventually recognized Italian jurisdiction over the whole of Abyssinia as lawful.

During the war

Once the Second World War began fascist activity in the United Kingdom did not cease. The BUF was not banned until 1940. In a sense it is admirable that the UK afforded civil liberty to even the worst of its citizens even in wartime. However, there came a moment when self-preservation obligated His Majesty’s Government to abridge liberty temporarily.

All through the war there were attempts to negotiate peace with the Third Reich. To some extent this is laudable since ending the war would have saved millions of lives on all sides. The Duke of Hamilton was one of those British peers who published a letter in a newspaper calling for a parley with Berlin in 1940. As there seemed to be little chance of ever defeating the Third Reich there was a compelling logic to his case. Without the Soviet Union the UK would never have beaten the Third Reich – not in a 100 years. In the end the British contributed only 5% of the forces fighting the Third Reich.

However, some of the bids to reach an accommodation were not actuated by humanitarianism. Some of the crypto-fascist circles that had frolicked with the Nazis in the 1930s were unseemly in their eagerness to be helpful to the Nazis even in the 1940s.

The Duke of Windsor (the sometime King Edward VIII) was actively pro-Nazi even during the conflict. He was a staff officer in Paris in 1940 and passed on secret intelligence to the Third Reich. Anyone else would have been hanged with this. But snobbery being what it is he escaped with a ticking off. As Allied defences crumbled other Britishers fled to the English Channel. He was the only one who headed to the south. After dithering the duke and duchess crossed into Franco’s Spain where they were received with the greatest possible consideration. His Royal Highness eventually shifted to Portugal. There he remained in contact with agents of the Reich. The duke requested that his property on la Cote d’Azure named Chateau de la Croe be safeguarded from burglary and vandalism. The Germans were only to happy to oblige. They posted soldiers around the walls and assured the duke that his property would not be injured. For once Hitler was as good as his word. He wished to remain in the good graces of the erstwhile king. The ex-king could prove more than useful to the National Socialist cause.

The former Edward VIII was later dispatched to the Bahamas as Governor-General. The one time monarch had absorbed the negrophobic attitudes that were commonplace amongst his race in that epoch. HRH scorned the country as ‘a very third rate colony.’ The Duke of Windsor cheered himself up by befriending a Swedish multimillionaire named Axel Wenner-Gren. Wenner-Gren was a red hot Nazi despite being from a neutral country. Wenner-Gren acted as a go between for the duke and the Third Reich.

British intelligence was in touch with anti-Nazi resistance in Germany during the war. Those who were in contact with London tended to be Germans of the upper class and aristocratic type. These men heartily agreed with Hitler on certain issues. But if they were to overthrow him and make peace with the West what concessions would the West offer? These plotters wanted to win over waverers in Germany. What would the British say to convince neutrals in Germany that ousting the Nazis was the best way forward? The German resistance wanted to retain western Poland and all of Czechia. Adam von Trott zu Solz is often held up as a shining example of an enlightened German who gallantly resisted the National Socialists. But this Rhodes scholar also insisted on retaining the eastern domains conquered in 1938-39. Even Germans of moderate opinion tended to deny the legitimacy of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

There was some correspondence between the royal family and Germany during the war that was highly embarrassing. Anthony Blunt was sent to retrieve it in 1945.

At the end of the war the United Kingdom was very eager to see Mussolini summarily executed. This did not happen to any leading German. Why was the UK so adamant that Benito Amilcare be killed straightaway? It is surmised that London had been in secret contact with him at some point during the war offering him the chance to continue his fascist regime in return for becoming neutral. The British found this acutely embarrassing and wanted to silence Mussolini before he could spill the beans.

After the war

Some Nazi war criminals found safe havens in the United Kingdom. Others founds comfortable berths in dominions such as South Africa.

In 1955 NATO decided that the Federal Republic of Germany must have its army restored. NATO propagated the myth of the clean Wehrmacht. That is to say that the Wehrmacht had a good war record. It was pretended that the Wehrmacht had fought ethically – only slaying combatants in combat and not killing them after surrender. The numerous huge scale massacres perpetrated by the Wehrmacht were laid at the feet of the SS. To be sure the SS committed countless large-scale atrocities. However, the Wehrmacht was also culpable.

Conclusion

Nothing in this article should be construed as implying that most British people were Nazis or close to it. However, a considerable minority has sympathies in a Nazi direction. This was especially so amongst the upper orders.

The Reverend David Johnson, who has died aged 66, was a priest of the Church of England the like of whom may never be seen again. He was keen of mind and sharp of wit; but he was also possessed of an eccentricity which led some to revere him as an institution and others to opine that he ought to be confined to one.

Johnson’s gifts as public speaker and raconteur were evident in adolescence when he was one of a team which won a national schools’ debating competition. On going up to Cambridge he set his sights on becoming president of the Cambridge Union debating society, an ambition he achieved for the Easter Term of 1976.

He used his time at Cambridge to hone his skills as a prankster, or at least to persuade others to put his ideas into effect. These included marking the visit of Archbishop Coggan to Selwyn College by hanging the organ scholar’s underwear on a washing line between the west towers of the chapel; and, more memorably, a mock academic procession through the streets of the city for “The Immersion of the High Professor” in the River Cam.

Publicised on posters replicating official proctorial notices, the exercise achieved Johnson’s aim of persuading a significant number of tourists to stand on one leg as the “High Professor” (alias Father James Owen of Little St Mary’s Church) dipped his toe ceremoniously in the water.

Johnson’s fondness for practical jokes attracted national attention with the one-off publication in September 1981 of “Not The Church Times”, a facsimile of the Anglican newspaper, complete with almost credible advertisements and errata.

The front page reported on the enthronement of the new Bishop of London, Graham Leonard, as though the event was on a scale akin to the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

In 1994 Johnson collaborated with the priest-author Toby Forward to send spoof letters to church dignitaries on a variety of subjects, ranging from requests for tickets to the races or the details of the recipient’s toupee makers, to the possibility of installing a monument to the Cumberland sausage in Carlisle Cathedral.

Their targets included the Rt Rev Alec Graham, then Bishop of Newcastle, whom the pair had heard was “a first-rate Tory”. Perhaps, they suggested, he might lead a new Right-wing leather-clad boys’ group “liberated from the restricted old-fashioned sexual morality which causes such unnecessary gossip”.

The Bishop replied that, alas, he did not have much to do with youth organisations and suggested they try someone with a more popular image: “But you are certainly right about my political views.”

The letters of inquiry and replies were published in a book, The Spiritual Quest of Francis Wagstaffe. It was described by Johnson’s own bishop as “contemptible”, but the profits were shared with a charity for the young homeless.

David William Johnson was born on December 5 1953, the son of a civil servant. Educated locally at Ponteland on the outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne, Johnson proudly claimed that his greatest childhood achievement was winning the Ponteland Sunday School’s Twist-and-Shout competition, more by virtue of his ability to shout rather than to twist.

He went up to read Theology at Selwyn College, Cambridge, before training for Holy Orders at Ripon College, Cuddesdon. It was typical of his style as a bon viveur that he arranged for the ordinands’ bar, hitherto a beer barrel on a trolley, to be replaced by a cocktail cabinet in the college common room.

He was ordained in 1978 to a curacy at St Etheldreda’s, Fulham, where it soon became apparent that all was not well. Following his ordination to the priesthood a year later, Johnson presided at Holy Communion for the first time, an occasion which he choreographed with ceremonial and vestments so ornate as to make the Vatican seem low church by comparison. Significantly, his training incumbent did not attend the occasion.

Nevertheless Johnson remained in Fulham until 1982, when he took up a five-year post as Communications Secretary of the Church of England Board of Mission and Unity.

Based in Church House, Westminster, Johnson, who was always generous in sharing his talents, made good use of his networking abilities. Ecumenical dignitaries visiting from abroad were charmed to be greeted with a hamper from Fortnum and Mason. It is said that on one occasion, when a French Catholic bishop needed to return home in a hurry, Johnson used his contacts in the military to fly him back.

During this time, he also served for three years as a Priest-Vicar (Honorary Minor Canon) at Westminster Abbey. Life in central London offered Johnson many opportunities for socialising, which he took up with alacrity.

He frequented, among other venues, the Chelsea Arts Club, where he staged what he publicised as “A Fathers’ Day Fuddle”. Chaired by Bishop Bill Westwood, the cabaret was performed entirely by Fathers in the ecclesiastical sense.

As the television critic of the Church Times, Johnson ranged further than one might have expected for that newspaper, but his comments were always sharp and entertaining. On the occasions when he failed to submit copy, the Church Times explained to its readers that “David Johnson is unwell.”

In 1987 Johnson left London to become Rector of Gilmorton with Peatling Parva in the diocese of Leicester. Unfortunately, while Johnson’s ability to reduce an argument and its proponent to the ridiculous within a couple of sentences might have enhanced his performance in the debating chamber and amused his peers, he did not always find it easy to summon the pastoral tact and patience required in rural ministry.

Deeply unhappy, he was rescued after four years by Bill Westwood, by now Bishop of Peterborough, and installed as Rector of Cogenhoe and other villages in Northamptonshire.

Sadly, this move to another rural benefice proved if anything even more disastrous, leading to a severe breakdown of pastoral relationships in the villages. Johnson even found himself banned from a village pub which he had patronised assiduously. His mental and physical condition was in decline to the point where Bishop Westwood arranged for him to retire early on health grounds.

Johnson settled in Oxford. With typical perversity he named his house “Seaview Cottage”. His telephone answering machine would inform callers that he was either all at sea or out with the tide.

Pottering about in a Latin cassock and shovel hat, he became a familiar feature of life in the city and, for a while, at the Oxford Union, of which, by virtue of his past role at Cambridge, he was an honorary member.

A frequent writer of letters to newspapers, in 2005, apropos a Telegraph reader’s observation that “giving gin to wasps causes them to take off in ever-decreasing circles before collapsing in a flower bed”, he wrote: “I have found the same treatment works equally well on Oxford undergraduates.”

But as Johnson’s health further deteriorated, with one or more strokes, he had to move into residential care.

David Johnson was unmarried.

The Reverend David Johnson, born December 5 1953, died April 22 2020.

Sisi is sissy

President Sisi has ruled Egypt since 2014. The former general is the latest in an almost unbroken line of Egyptian military dictators. Not all military dictators are bad especially when one considers the alternative. However, Sisi has little to recommend him.

In Egypt’s 5 000 year history it has had one fair election. That was won by the Muslim Brotherhood. Love them or loath them – this party won fair and square. Mohammed Morsi became President of Egypt in 2013.

Egypt’s only ever democratic president faced an exceptionally challenging situation. The economy was screaming. Tourism – a vital source of revenue – had all but evaporated after the Arab Spring of 2011. The country had massive unemployment. The population explosion had made it virtually impossible to create enough jobs. Wage compression had made the middle class  declasse – driving them into working class status and the working class were demoted into abject penury. If the price of bread rose a few cents that sparked riots. This price rise was the difference between life and death for many people. Decades of peculation and embezzlement by the Mubarak regime had ruined civil society. People had no faith in public institutions such as the courts, the police, the armed forces and the civil service.

People blame Morsi for all that went wrong on his watch. This is unfair. No president has complete control. But in particular Morsi’s wings were clipped. Despite civilian rule having been introduced in January 2011 the army still arrested people as well as the police. Courts martial still tried civilians.

What was so bad about Morsi? People accused him of having an Islamist agenda. He was not exactly Osama Bin Laden. He called for the maintenance of peace with Israel. Morsi did not outlaw alcohol. He did not introduce stricter clothing laws. Entertainment was not prohibited. He did very little to move the country in a more puritanical direction. Morsi was willing to shake hands with women. Islamic fundamentalists do not do this. He had also spent some years studying in the United States.

There were some terrorist attacks on Coptic Christians whilst he was president. This is no wise implicates the president. That would be like saying that Putin set off all the bombs that ever went off in Moscow.

People had been oppressed under the military dictatorship that they yearned for better. Hopes for an improving situation were too strong. The expectations of higher living standards in the short term were unrealistic.

Some of Morsi’s acolytes said some worrying things. A few wanted to reduce female emancipation or suggested making the Copts have dhimmi status and pay jizya. But these were nutcases within the party. No party should be judged by its lunatic fringe.

By the summer of 2014 there was serious disorder. Who benefitted? It was certainly not the Muslim Brotherhood. Did the army want it this way? They were itching to get back into power. Disorder provided them with the excuse to launch a putsch. A knot of reactionary militarists hatched a plot.

The military top brass gave Morsi a few days to bring the situation under control or they would remove him by force. It was an impossible task especially as the generals refused to help him. Morsi was overthrown in a military coup. He was given a flagrantly unfair trial. The military kangaroo court convicted him on trumped up charges. Morsi was awarded life imprisonment. He died in prison.

Abdel Fattah El Sisi was then selected by a coterie of generals to be their front man. Sisi was installed as interim president. He called an election.

An army spokesman informed the public that the poll would be ‘’one million per cent democratic.’’ The need to make such a ludicrous claim speaks for itself. It is surprising that Sisi did not announce that he had won 1 000 000 % of the vote!

Sisi is clean shaved which in Egypt hints at his being relatively secular. However, his attitudes belie his image. His beliefs are not dissimilar to Morsi’s on religious issues. Just because Morsi was hirsute does not mean he was ultra-conservative. Sisi is a bland control freak. Morsi was more cosmopolitan than Sisi. Morsi at least spoke fluent English.

There was a massacre of hundreds of people by Sisi’s ‘’security forces.’’ The Rabaa Massacre was carried out by his men. Even the Egyptian Government admits that over 600 civilians were killed. They claim that some police officers were killed too. The regime cannot get its story straight on how many police were slain. It is anywhere between 8 and 43. That is quite a discrepancy. If some policemen were killed is not possible that some were accidentally killed by other policemen? Some undercover policemen may have been in the crowd. If protesters used force against the police it was surely in self-defence. They would not use it pre-emptively. The police would use the slightest excuse to slaughter hundreds of people. Unbiased sources such as Human Rights Watch say that the true death toll is over 1 000.

The people who were murdered were demonstrating as is their right under the Egyptian Constitution. Remember Sisi said he wants to uphold people’s rights. Which rights? The right to be murdered with impunity?

Sisi is remorseless about this wanton butchery. This massacre is far worse than anything that ISIS or Al Qa’eda has done in Egypt.

The Al Rabaa Massacre took place AFTER Morsi’s ouster. Why did Sisi say he had to overthrow Morsi? To prevent violence. No, the coup was so Sisi could commit violence.

As Sisi’s religious beliefs are akin to Morsi’s why did he overthrow him? Sisi presumably hates democracy. Moreover, Sisi and his military cronies had been ripping off the public for decades. They wanted to continue. They did not want to be held to account.

Egypt is a deeply dysfunctional country. The military is about the only institution that actually works. The officer corps have lorded it over the civilian population for decades. Every president since the overthrow of the monarchy has been a military man even if he wore a civilian suit as president. The top brass has been creaming off the budget since 1954.

In fine old style Sisi has appointed his sons to high positions for which they are unfit. One of head of Mukhabarat. That makes him in effect witchfinder general. His job is to smell out human rights activists and call them terrorists.

President Sisi has presided over grossly unfair trials. At a single trial over 500 people were sentenced to death for murder. The judges are the lapdogs of the regime.

There is almost no freedom of expression in Egypt. Undercover police officers are still arresting dissidents. They are still entrapping gays online. Torture is widely used as many human rights organisations have documented.

The Egyptian Government co-operates with Israel on eliminating their enemies. Sisi moronically admitted this in an interview on American TV. He asked for that statement to be edited out. Of course, the TV channel went with this scoop. Assisting Israel is unacceptable to Egyptian public opinion. The Palestinian cause has been abandoned.

Sisi was asked why he oppressed his people. He claimed his opponents want to deprive people of their rights. In fact Sisi allows his people almost no rights.

Egypt has backed the Libyan National Army (LNA). The LNA is rebelling against the Government of Libya. So much for Sisi represented stability. He is now threatening to invade a neighbour which does his country no harm.

Someone who fights illegally against his own government is generally regarded as a terrorist. Yet Sisi supports the LNA who do just this. By contrast, those who are peaceful and law abiding dissidents in his own country are called terrorists. Egyptian Law grants people all the rights you might want. But the government simply flagrantly breaks its own laws.

Sisi has not made the country more secular. A woman was convicted for wearing a dress that showed her lower legs! A woman who ate a banana suggestively on television and said having a child outside wedlock was fine was convicted of outraging public decency. A man can divorce his wife by telling her ‘’I divorce thee’’ thrice. Egypt is not as bad as Saudi Arabia. But neither it a free country.

General Sisi is not anti-Christian. That is one of the few things which can be said in his defence. But the same was true of Morsi.

Jacques Duhan was the tutor of Frederick the Great. Note that Jacques Duhan is pronounced ” Zhak     do – AN”

Jacques Duhan was born in  1685. His birthplace was Jandun which is the district of France called Champagne. That is where champagne was first made. The name of his home town is the reason why ‘Jandun’ i sometimes put as part of his surname. Duhan was born into a Huguenot family that meant a Protestant one. About 85% of the French population was Roman Catholic. The Huguenots made up the remainder of the people. Duhan was unlucky enough to be born in the year of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This meant a century of relative tolerance for Protestantism came to an end. The Huguenots were forbidden to leave the country but about two-thirds of them did so.  The King of France at the time, Louis XIV, had been persuaded to discriminate against the Protestant minority..

Duhan’s father had been secretary to the Duke of Turenne. The Duke of Turenne was a Hugenot and one of France’s most outstanding generals. Up until the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes the Huguenots had been among France’s most talented and courageous military commanders.

Duhan’s family emigrated to escape persecution. Many Huguenots moved to the Netherlands, Great Britain, Ireland and even South Africa. The Duhan family moved to Prussia which was a Protestant state. Prussia welcomed Hugenot refugees especially if they had military experience. The family settle din the city of Brandenburg in Germany. Brandenburg was in a state called Prussia. Germany was not then a united country. Germany was a smorgasbord of 360 states. Some were large and powerful. Others were puny. Most were somewhere in between. Prussia was one of a bigger and more important states. Prussia was starting to be known for military prowess. Brandenburg lies in north-east Germany. In those days Brandenburg was close to the centre of Germany since Germany extended as far east as Kaliningrad (then named Konigsberg).

The Duhan family spoke French at home. Duhan was home schooled for a while. He learnt German informally from his neighbours. His father Philippe was a secretary to the Elector of Brandenburg. Brandbenburg was a city and the state of Brandenburg soon became known as Prussia.

Jacques went to College Francais in Berlin. He later enlisted in the Prussian Army.

Later Duhan taught at College Francais des Hugenots in Berlin. He then worked as a tutor for the son of the Count of Dohna. The boy, Albert-Christophe, was very fond of him.

He made a superb soldier. He went to the Siege of Stralsund in 1715 with his pupil. It may seem odd that parents ordered their child to be taken to see a siege! At the Siege of Starlsund his valour was so outstanding that he came to the attention of the King of Prussia: Friedrich Wilhelm I. Note that Prussian kings count Friedrich, Friedrich Wilhlem and Wilhlem as three different names.

Duhan was appointed tutor to king’s son in 1716. The little prince was then only four years of age. The boy was named Friedrich. He later was ascended the Throne and his martial feats made him known to history as ”Frederick the Great”.  In terms of regnal numbers he was Friedrich II. Duhan was to be civil tutor to the crown prince. There was a separate tutor for scholarly matters. The king then insisted that his heir be taught a stripped down curriculum. The boy had no need of poetry, philosophy or such impractical and effete subjects. Friedrich was to do a minimum of Latin. In those days someone could not avoid doing at least a little Latin if he was to be considered educated at all.

Friedrich Wilhelm wanted his son to be brought up in an ordinary way. He was wary of spoiling his child or having him concentrate on subjects that turned him into a day dreamer. The boy must be hardened. He wanted his tutors to be tough on the prince so he could be turned into a worthy commander-in-chief. Friedrich Wilhelm was known as ”The Soldier-King” with good reason.

Duhan was to concentrate on Religious Studies, military affairs and Modern History. By modern he meant the last 100 years.  He must emphasise inter-state relations in particular.

Friedrich Wilhelm I was eager to gain from France’s military know-how but he was not so keen on French culture. French was the language of the pan-European elite. Friedrich Wilhelm reluctantly spoke French in diplomatic situations because that was what one did. He realised that his son had to speak fluent French in order to be taken seriously by the other crowned heads. He did not want his son to have a confection for French culture. The boy must be able to speak and read French fluently but he was not to waste his time with poetry and prose.

Despite the king’s orders Duhan regarded his duty as being to his pupil. He purchased over 3 000 books for the prince. Most of these were in French. He taught him French Literature as well as Greek and Latin. Friedrich developed a taste for French culture. Duhan even procured French raiments for his pupil. Much of this contraband was kept in Schlossfreiheit (”Freedom Castle”).

In 1727 Friedrich wrote to Duhan:

”            Mon cher Duhan,

Je vous promets que, quand j’aurai mon propre argent en main, je vous donnerai annuellement deux mille quatre cents écus par an, et je vous aimerai toujours encore un peu plus qu’à cette heure, s’il m’est possible  ”

(”My Dear Duhan, / I promise you that when I have my own money in hand I will give you 2 400 ecus annnually and I will love you always more than a little and more than now if that is possible.”)

Friedrich wanted to escape his tyrannical father. In 1730 he tried to leave the realm but was caught. The king discovered that Duhan had been persistently disobeying his instructions. Duhan was sacked after 12 years of service. He was banished to Memel on the Baltic Sea. He was not provided with a pension because he had angered the monarch. Duhan devoted his time to writing histories of Prussia.

As Friedrich was a soldier and had tried to run away to the United Kingdom he was charged with treason. The king threatened his firstborn with the death penalty! In the end the boy was not sentenced to death. But his friend Katte who had tried to flee with him was beheaded and Friedrich forced to watch. Friedrich was locked up in comfort by his father for his insubordination. The prince pleaded with the Austrian ambassador Seckendorff to help his former tutor. The Austrians were keen to be in the good graces of the future monarch. After two years father and son were reconciled. Friedrich was let out of his luxurious prison. He immediately had his tutor freed from exile. He was given a lucrative post as a librarian in Brunswick. They therefore surreptitiously paid a pension to the penniless Duhan.

Duhan also worked as a secret councilor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs n Berlin.

Friedrich Wilhelm I died. His son succeeded him. Duhan was made director of an academy. He was given many honours such as been initiated into the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

Freidrich II often wrote to Duhan signing off ”Your very affectionate and eternal friend, Frederic”

Here is a poem the king composed for his tutor:

”         Je vous dois tout, seigneur, il faut que je l’avoue;

Et d’un peu de vertu si l’Europe me loue,

C’est à vous, cher Duhan, à vous que je la dois   ”

(I owe you all, master, I must avow that/ And a little but of virtue if Europe praises me/ It is to you dear Duhan that I owe it.”)

It was due to Duhan that the king was able to write the most beautiful French. He preferred French to his own language. He even composed long poems in letters to his friends such as Monsieur Jordan.

Here is an example from 1741. Friedrich II found time to write this while on campaign!

Déjà vous tremblez à Breslau,

Lorsque nous marchons à Grottkau,

Et les siéges et les batailles

Vous attendrissent les entrailles.

En un mot, paisible Jordan,

Jamais aucun lièvre en son gîte

Ne s’apprête à courir si vite

Que vous, quand vous levez le camp.

Mais raisonnons, je vous en prie.

Que devient donc en ce moment

Cette grave philosophie

Dont vous nous parlez si souvent,

Et ce stoïcisme insolent

Qui vous fait mépriser la vie

Quand le danger n’est pas présent?

Le canon gronde, et son tonnerre

<127>Ébranle le fond de la terre;

Il tombe une grêle de fer,

Le plomb vole et remplit tout l’air,

Et la mort qu’enfante la guerre

Ouvre un gouffre tel qu’un enfer.

Il sort une flamme infernale

De cette gueule triomphale,

Oui porte la destruction.

Ici, c’est le feu de Bellone,

Et, plus bas, le glaive moissonne

Sans pitié, sans compassion.

Tel qui, dans le sein de la flamme.

De la mort, de mille dangers,

Garde la tranquillité d’âme

Égale aux objets étrangers

Mérite en effet l’apostrophe

De vrai sage et de philosophe;

Les autres sont des imposteurs.

Voyez donc, messieurs les auteurs,

Qu’elle est grande, la différence

Du solide et de l’apparence,

Combien les dehors imposteurs

Sont différents de l’évidence.

Dans vos studieuses erreurs,

Au fond d’une bibliothèque,

Vous faites très-bien les docteurs.

De votre valeur intrinsèque

Le danger peut nous éclaircir;

Il paraît, on vous voit courir.

Nous, plus forts d’esprit que ces sages.

Nous opposons à ces orages

Le flegme et l’intrépidité.

Que tout périsse et se confonde,

Que tout se bouleverse au monde.

Rien n’ébranle ma fermeté.

All through the Second Silesian War the two corresponded.

For example on 28 November 1745 he began a letter to Duhan:

” Mon cher Duhan,

Dieu merci, votre lettre m’est venue comme j’ai fini mon expédition, après avoir rechassé le prince Charles entièrement de la Lusace, et lui avoir pris trois magasins….”

(”My Dear Duhan/ Thank God that your letter came to me as I finished my campaign, having chased Prince Charles entirely away from Lusace where he had taken three magazines [stores of gunpowder]”).

Notice that he addresses his former tutor with the respectful ”vous” and not the informal ”tu”.

The king signed off:

”   Adieu, cher ami; ne m’oubliez point, et aimez-moi un peu.  Frederic ”

(”Goodbye dear friend, don’t forget me and love me a little. Frederic”)

Notice how he used the French language version of his name.

Duhan wrote back two days later.

”Les habitants de Berlin ont d’abord et machinalement eu peur à la vue des calamités auxquelles la guerre pouvait les exposer. Depuis cela, la considération des victoires précédentes et de toute la conduite de V. M. leur a raffermi le courage, et enfin les nouveaux succès de vos armes -a ont achevé de tranquilliser les esprits. 

Poursuivez seulement vos desseins, Sire; forcez vos ennemis à demander la paix. Vous reposant sur la providence divine, et lui rendant hommage de vos prospérités, vous êtes, sans contredit, le plus accompli des rois.”

( ” The inhabitants of Berlin first of all shook with fear in regard of the calamities to which war could expose them. Then, in consideration of the earlier victories all of which were led by Your Majesty they reaffirmed their courage and in the end the new success of your arms have achieving the calming of their spirits.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Follow only your arts. Highness, force your enemies to ask for peace. You shall trust in divine providence and render homage to him for your prosperity, you are, without contradiction, the most accomplished of kings. ”

Friedrich went on to fight against France but he never regarded the French as in any sense inferior. He always maintained a reverence for French culture. He became a dear friend of the French philosopher Voltaire. He also wrote Anti-Machiavel which was a refutation of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. Naturally, the king wrote his book in French.

Duhan died in  1746.

The king wrote to Duhan’s widow to commiserate. He also provided liberally for his tutors sons and daughters. The king remained in contact with the family for the rest of his life.

Eric Anderson was born in Edinburgh in 1936. His family were kilt makers.

His real name is William Eric Kinloch Anderson. Despite this he was always known by his middle name ”Eric.” He is the only subject of this book to still be a going concern.

Anderson attended George Watson’s College. This is one of Edinburgh’s leading schools. He was raised as a member of the Church of Scotland. He then attended the University of St Andrew’s. This is one of North Britain’s four old universities. The others being Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. He read English and graduated with a first class Master of Arts. Note that the four old Scottish universities award Masters’ degrees as undergraduate degrees because all their undergraduate degrees take four years. In contrast English universities usually teach an undergraduate degree in three years (depending on the subject) and the graduates are awarded a Bachelor’s degree. Mr Anderson then enrolled at Balliol College, Oxford. Balliol was founded in 1264 by a Scots nobleman John Balliol. (The founder was the father of a King of Scots who was confusingly also named John Balliol). Balliol retained close links with Scotland. It was known to be the most formidably intellectual of all Oxford colleges. It had gained this daunting reputation in the mid 19th century when a Balliol had a Master named Benjamin Jowett.

The Norrington Table is a table of academic results of Oxford colleges. The Norrington Table derives its name form the don who invented it. It is like a football league table. A college moves up and down from year to year according to the proportion of First Class degrees, 2:1, 2:2s and  Thirds it gains. Balliol has consistently been at or near the top.

Balliol was not only seen as the most outstanding college in academic terms. It was known for its left wing atmosphere. It attracted plenty of undergraduates form Commonwealth countries. Many of these young men were full of radical and anti-imperialist nostra. Anderson seems to have remained aloof from these opinions.

At Balliol Eric Anderson studied for a Master of Letters (M.Litt). His thesis was on the novel of Sir Walter Scott. Scott was an early 19th century poet and prose author. Scott wrote many illustrious historical fictions such as Ivanhoe. He is known for some poems such as Lochinver. Sir Walter Scott helped to organise George IV’s visit to Scotland. He also invented the kilt. Scott is one of the UK’s most popular novelists. He was a romantic right winger. Anderson is suspected of being of the same cast of mind as his literary idol. Scott’s Toryism and neo-feudalism were deeply unfashionable in Balliol around 1960. Scott is commemorated by an enormous monument in the middle of Edinburgh. Balliol always remained close to his heart. In future years when interviewing candidates for teaching posts he would greet them with ”Floreat domulus de Balliolo” (May the little house of Balliol flourish) if the candidate was a Balliol man or woman.

Mr Anderson, as he then was, went into teaching. He accepted a post at Gordonstoun School which is the most northerly public school in the United Kingdom. This is a very new and audacious foundation. It was only set up in 1933. It has enormous grounds and is deep in the countryside. Gordonstoun was founded by a German Jewish refugee named Dr Kurt Hahn. Dr Hahn was deeply influenced by Platonic philosophy. He believed in a holistic education. This was to include sports, camping and community service as well as academic subjects. This school had been attended by Prince Philip of Greece in the 1930s. He was the man who married Elizabeth II. Gordonstoun was laudable in seeking to throw of the snobbery of more established schools. It also did a lot for Germano-British education after the Second World War. Gordonstoun was a copy of Salem which was a school Kurt Hahn had founded in Germany in 1920. Gordonstounians were encouraged to spend a year at Salem. Pupils from Salem were exhorted to spent a year at Gordonstoun. Many people took the chance. Anderson became the housemaster of Prince Charles. This was a weighty responsibility for a relatively young teacher. Whilst at Gordonstoun Anderson married Poppy Mason. They have a daughter and a son.

Later on Anderson moved to Fettes College in Edinburgh. This is one of Scotland’s most splendid schools. There he was housemaster to a budding young actor by the name of Tony Blair. Blair was self-possessed and argumentative. There was no doubting his academic promise or his casuistry.. Blair made a name for himself playing of the the lead roles in R C Sheriff’s play about the First World War Journey’s End. 

Anderson was appointed Headmaster of Abingdon at the very early age of 34. He was an enormous success. He then became headmaster of Shrewsbury. This is one of the Clarendon Nine. In the 1870s Parliament commissioned Lord Clarendon to write a report into the nine leading schools in the kingdom. The Clarendon Nine are still considered the most reputable schools of all.

Anderson acquitted himself well. He was then appointed to the highest office in schooling. He was made Head Master of Eton. Notice that Eton spells this as two separate words: Head Master. Every other school has it as a compound word: headmaster. In 1980 he took over Eton. Eric Anderson was in some respects a daring choice. He had not attended one of the outstanding schools. Nor had he been to Varsity as an undergraduate but only as a post-graduate. He was not an Anglican but a member of the Church of Scotland. Some boys were wont to look down on him. Nevertheless he had handled great responsibility with much aplomb. One of the pupils there was an undersized boy named David Cameron. The most humorous public speaker was a King’s Scholar named Boris Johnson. Anderson had to deal with the growing threat of drug abuse at the time. He was compelled to expel a few boys.

Eric Anderson was awarded an honorary doctorate. He became known as Dr Anderson. Some found this objectionable as only those with a substantive doctorate should use the appellation.

Dr Anderson had no sectarian prejudices. He brought in the first Roman Catholic chaplain to the school since 1558. He appointed a Jesuit named Peter Knott. Father Knott was unusual in that he had served a full military career before taking holy orders. Catholics comprised over 10% of the school.

Eton has a unique system of naming year groups. Boys usually start at Eton aged 13. This is called Year 9 by most British schools. Eton calls this F Block. Next year boys move up to E Block and then D Block, C Block and the final year of school is B Block. Dr Anderson made it his business to teach and English lesson to every class in F Block. He also judged declamation contests. He was a very genuine person. He seemed gauche when addressing large gatherings. He allowed two documentaries about Eton to be made. The better known was was Eton Class of 1991. This was filmed in 1990 which was the 550th anniversary of the school’s foundation.

Anderson retired from Eton in 1994. The very fact he lasted so long stands testament to his terrific success. He had already arranged a berth for himself. He became Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. Every Oxford college has a head of house. The title of the head of house differs from college to college. Some call it master, some rector, some president and so on. Christ Church calls it dean. This is misleading because in other colleges the dean is the person in charge of discipline.

Some people at Lincoln resented Anderson. He invited old friends to stay all the time. They complained that he used the college as a hotel for his cronies. After six years he retired from that post. The position of Provost of Eton had become vacant. The Provost is the head of the board of governors at Eton. The governors are called Fellows of Eton. The Provost is the supreme authority at Eton. He and the Fellows choose the Head Master. They also have the ability to dismiss the Head Master. They do not involve themselves in the quotidian running of the school. Very major policy decisions are referred to them for approval. There is one Fellow nominated by Oxford University and one by Cambridge University.

Dr Anderson was seen as one of the great and the good. He was made a Knight of the Order of the Thistle. This relates to Scotland. Since he is a knight and not a baronet this title will die with him. He has published a book on his hero Sir Walter Scott. Anderson has been heaped with other honours and sits on various boards.

The War on Hugs: the me too movement and the criminalisation of male heterosexuality

Let’s jump on the bandwagon, women! Somebody asked you out on a date and you declined? That is sexual harassment. You might have flirted beforehand. You might even have liked being asked because it was flattering even though you declined. An accusation of sexual harassment can end the career of a male. Even looking at someone for a moment is harassment. It is preposterous to declare whole sections of the female form to be off limits from one’s gaze even if she is fully clad.

I yearn to burst in twain the galling fetters of feminism. Man is born free but everywhere he is under the feminist lash. Womankind is now largely deprived of the flattery, the generosity and the gentlemanliness that old-fashioned straight males once treated them too. It is a bland, monochrome and joyless world we are building. Cupid’s quiver is empty!

It is noteworthy that while male heterosexuality is under siege homosexuality is actively promoted. I have no beef with same sex relationships. I merely ask for equality. Can straights not have the same rights as gays?

Gay men can harass straights and no one cares. I have been subjected to this. I found it a trifle uncomfortable. I had to stand up for myself. But I would never consider telling the cops. Nor should other consequences flow such as civil action. If only more women had such hardihood.

A female can make advances on a male even if he has not evinced the slenderest desire for her. But we do not have a spate of males crying to heaven for vengeance about this. Perhaps I am not comparing like with like. In the last analysis a woman cannot rape a male.

Men – do not relax at the office party or even at the pub. Do not let your guard down. These are particularly dangerous occasions. One compliment and you are done for. A young swain in his naivete might even essay to plant a peck on a lady’s cheek. Woe betide him!

Nightclubs are minefields. We know that dancing is to some extent a mating to ritual. Provocative clothing and twerking are not remotely sexy. Women are permitted to be flirtatious but males are not. To think this indicates a desire for coquetry is dead wrong. Anything penile is penal!

We have entered a lamentably intolerant phase. Alarmism is in the air. Shrieking headlines predominate. This shrill atmosphere means that the mildest misdemeanour is conflated with the vilest crime. It is all a slippery slope. The public has been told that no incident no matter how trifling can be overlooked. Minnie Driver equated a man exposing himself to a woman with rape. It is just as bad she said. A man showing his penis to a woman who does not want to see it is a contemptible and shameful thing to do. But this pervert is not on a par with a rapist.

This is all how Stanley Cohen described things in ”Moral panics and folk devils”. Even as the incidence of harassment is declining the media and certain demagogues stoke fear. They thrive on fear and hatred. This creates a power structure for authoritarians and do gooders. Statistics are hugely inflated. The severity of wrongdoing is greatly overstated. Anyone who questions this pernicious craze is furiously denounced. People are scared into silence. Unprovable allegations are dredged up from decades ago. The most lurid and unlikely tales are believed without question. The dead can be dishonoured of anyone says that a man flirted.

Note how we are not allowed to ask perfectly reasonable questions about accusations. Anyone who expresses the mildest doubts about an allegation however unlikely is shouted down. The presumption of innocence is turned on its head.

Gloria Steinem is perhaps the prophetess of this movement. She long boasted of aborting her baby. She exposed the shocking fact that men are attracted to Playboy bunny girls. Some men touched these women without permission. How bad was that? Slightly naughty? Or ghastly? It rather depends where. Surely it was a non-story. Her co-evals have mostly gone to their reward. But la Steinem is still indefatigably advocating for the social emasculation of straights. Tens of millions of infants have been immolated her altar to oppression. Her gall and shamelessness in advancing the cause of infanticide is flabbergasting.

When a male is accused of rape or even of sexual harassment he is suspended form his job or political organisation. But this is not enough according to hardline feminists. He must be dismissed immediately! When the President of the Oxford Union was accused of rape some feminists demanded that other people pull out of debates at the Oxford Union. The Union comprises tens of thousands of members. If one of them is accused of a crime they are all adjudged guilty before the defendant’s trial has even begun! The allegation was later retracted. The complainant acknowledge that she had engaged in consensual intercourse with this boy. She should have been sent to prison for twenty years. Perjury and wrongful conviction

We are told that the present assault on liberty is needful since we must extirpate rape. Rape has been unlawful for as long as we have had laws. This is a heinous offence. No right-thinking person can want another to fall prey to this crime. Why on earth should we outlaw flirtation and prevent colleagues dating for this reason? It is as though as any male can rape any female we have to prevent consensual intercourse as much as possible.

We are witnessing the stealthy abolition of male heterosexuality. The straight male is under attack on many fronts. I get the distinct impression that many feminists would prefer that male heterosexuality did not exist.

The war on hugs is protean. It is about prohibiting office raillery on matters amorous. It involves forbidding colleagues from forming an intimate liaison. It also requires lecturers to be prevented from having any intimate relationship with their adult students. It is about unduly broadening the definition of rape to any act of intercourse where the female partook of spirituous liquored aforehand. Lads mags are restricted. Popular erotica is discouraged. In many universities it is banned.

Liberalism started in the 19^th century by reducing restrictions. In the 21^st century it introduces restrictions. The liberal left is addicted to banning things. It has invented tens of thousands of criminal offences. It is lugubrious to reflect that it has sometimes been abetted by the right. Occasionally the feminist agenda has even been actively advanced by supposedly right wing governments. The concertation of left wingers, liberals, feminists and their acolytes in the media and academe has made them a very potent force. They have incessantly bombarded people with feminist propaganda. They have seized control of the English language. Gendered nouns on their way out. Inanities such as waitperson have gained some traction.

These are dangerous and frightening times. Is it the end of flirting as we know it? Do we have to submit a legal letter to pay a compliment. If one feels limerence towards another how can one declare one’s sentiments?

Sexual harassment is not chimerical. What is it? It is repeated unwanted comments or touching. If something happens once it is almost never enough to constitute that. A wink, blowing a kiss or a wolf whistle is mere gallantry or perhaps boorishness. I have never wolf whistled in my life. In Nottingham these whistles are reported to the police. The chief constable wants to know about it. Catching murderers might have been thought more important. But I have clearly got my priorities the wrong way around. The chief constable knows which is the greater crime.

The germ of the anti-harassment movement was a good idea. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Just as feminism was initially laudable. Females ought to be permitted to own property, to do whatever job they so choose, to vote and so forth. But it has metamorphosed. Good has turned to bad.

Feminism seeks inegalitarianism. It wishes to deny fathers access to children. It seeks to bankrupt men at divorce. It sanctifies abortion. It has anathematised male heterosexuality. It is a peerlessly pernicious creed quite beyond the pale of human tolerance. Is there no end to the wickedry it has wrought?

There have always been lechers. Men who sexually harass women are foolish and disagreeable. It is often accompanied by other disreputabilities such as alcohol abuse. These unpleasant sorts should be given short shrift. They ought to be forgiven if they mend their ways.

Foolish and sometimes ill-intentioned males will sometimes make women feel gauche or offended. This is regrettable. That is the price we pay for a free society. Many would prefer any unfree society.

The me too movement has gone into overdrive. It has extended the notion of harassment too far. It uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Sixpenny matters are not treated with severity. People try to go to law over trivialities. Whatever happened to de minimis non curat lex?

If a male asks a female on a date and she says no then that is not harassment. But if he asks her again and again then it is harassment. How many times does it need to be to constitute harassment? That is a moot point. We need a sense of proportion and to avoid jumping to conclusions.

Supposing you have taken a shine to a female colleague. Valentine’s Day is approaching. Do you dare send her a card? If you compose a paean to her serene radiance, her iridescent azure eyes, the tresses of her raven locks, the lilt of her tinkling voice or heaven forfend the curve of her heaving bosom and the tone of her gracile calves you will find yourself out of a job. What is a boy to do? Can you tell her that you only want her for her mind? Is romance dead?

People change their minds. Pertinacity can be alluring. Romantic films send mixed signals.

A man Expressing attraction to women is now called misogyny. That is utterly daft. It is the polar opposite of misogyny. No wonder people turn to online dating. But will even that be seen as harassment? Consent does not vitiate the evil nature of harassment so feminists will say. Even if a woman engaged on flirtation or consensual sexual activity some words of behaviour can still be harassment so the feminist Taleban say.

We are being oppressed by rampant feminist totalitarianism. This is a nefarious form of extremism. It would criminalise cheeky comments or wolf whistling.

We are told that erotic raillery is banned in the workplace. What a pity that we cannot have a giggle. Feminists are killjoys. No more badinage! What pleasures do we have left? You had better be punctilious is in adhering to the feminist gospel. One joke and it will have a career terminating effect.

Unwelcome sexual advances are harassment we are told.  Anyone who has ever made passes at someone has sometimes made an unwelcome one. How do we know of they are unwanted till we have made then? People try to pick up on clues. We send signals. Women talk obliquely. People misread signals. This is often due to wishful thinking. Men usually make the first physical move. People are sometimes unsure of their feelings. They do not know how they will react. Are we to ask permission for every action? Even if we do vocalise it these words may constitute harassment according to bigots. A boy has to muster up the courage to tell a woman of his feelings for her. She will admire him for having the guts to do so even if she declines his offer.

There are bad men who knowingly touch women against their will. This is disgraceful. A woman is surely entitled to give a lout a slap if he behaves in an ungentlemanly fashion.

Feminists are adamant that prostitution must be outlawed. These fools are exacerbating the very problem they claim to want to solve. Hookers form a sexual breakwater. Supposing a male is overpowered by lust. What is he to do? The solitary vice will not always suffice. The onanist will betake himself to a house of ill-fame. There he can satiate his natural appetites. A feminist will be outraged that a man has derived pleasure. That a woman has been paid for this will send the feminist into paroxysms of self-righteous fury. Put aside this moral spasm. No one has been harmed. Others may have been saved. They say an erection has no conscience. Isn’t it better for a man to copulate with a lady of the night than commit rape or paedophilia? Are they really on a par? Most men are not like this. But there are some males who lack self-command.

The feminist extremist – male and female – are taking away so much happiness. They are po face prudes. Many relationships come from people having the courage to take a risk – to make an advance. Sometimes these advances are ill judged and it is spurned. People must be allowed to try.

The epithet feminazi has often been used. It may appear to be a puerile pun. But is there genuine Nazism in the ranks of the third wave feminists? They have proclaimed implacable warfare on the unborn child. The grant no quarter to helpless babes. They would have done with men. Males are not needed as there are sperm banks and dildoes. The sperm banks have enough swimmers to produce a generation. The feminazi movement is totalitarian. It has gone a long way towards suborning schools, hospitals, universities, the media, the police, the armed forces, the courts, the politicians and in the United Kingdom even the royal family. There is not much left. The concatenation of feminazis successes has made them a force to be reckoned with. It will be devilishly difficult to roll back the changes that they have affected. Their cacoethes to control is terrifying.

Feminazis work themselves up into a tizzy of sanctimonious fury. They call consensual sex ‘violence’ because they do not like it. It exposes the central fallacy of their ideology. That is that most men are rapists and heterosexual relationships are generally abusive. Feminazis are worryingly convinced of their own rectitude. Their crusade brooks not the least dissent. They are hellbent on quashing any male self-assertiveness.

Another Big Lie at the heart of feminazism is the equation of misogyny with male heterosexuality. Most men are straight. Get over it! Yes, males usually find women physically desirable. This will come as news to you. Males generally prefer younger ones to older ones. This biological fact is regarded as scandalous be feminazis.

Feminazis have imposed their notion of sexual harassment on much of society. You have better observe this with scrupulosity. Otherwise it is dismissal, lawsuits and perhaps prison.

Feminazism certainly has ethical elasticity. It can sentence millions of babies to death without any compunction. In the next breath it considers kissing a woman’s hand the most abhorrent crime.

We have come to a pretty pass when a men’s dinner which has nubile waitresses in provocative clothing was the subject of questions in Parliament. Some British politicians attended this dinner. Feminists had an orgasm of ire over men deriving aesthetic pleasure from the female form. Some women who chose to work at the party disliked men looking at them. They also found some of the men’s remarks objectionable. Tough! Get another job. Swear at him. Do not call the police. Some called the police. Worse still the police interviewed the women. What was the crime hear? In fairness not charges were laid against anyone. What would the legal catch all have been? Political incorrectitude?

Feminists were in a tumult of distress at boys being boys. It is the height of preposterousness that Hooters has to tell waitresses that the men who go their will say cheeky things. Males are mostly aroused by ocular stimuli to a greater degree than females are. That would stun a feminist.

People sometimes overstep the mark and say crude things. What is the boundary of propriety? It is hard to say. Surely it is not a matter for the police. But if a customer says something vulgar there will be a flood of weeping.

There is an exaggerated manifestation of feeling around sexual harassment. If a male has said something lubricious to a female then she will probably overreact and be egged on by feminists.

There are straight male turncoats. These men take the side of the feminists. Some males are pussy whipped or will do anything for sex even if that is inimical to the interest of hetero males. These traitors are worthy only of the deepest disdain. But Judases are legion.

There are plenty of good straight women who oppose feminism or at least feminazism. Right thinking hetero women are not against their own sex. They are simply for a happy and collaborative relationship between the two sexes.

Nothing in this article should be taken to be against gay women or gay men. This article is not primarily about them.

If womankind is the fair sex what does that make us boys? The unfair sex?

Male overtures to women are often delivered with astonishing ineptitude. It is tricky to try to divine the signs that a woman is giving off. This is particularly so in a nightclub situation. The lights are crepuscular and alcohol has been liberally poured over the situation. Potation does little to hone emotional intelligence or tact.  The signs from a woman that betray her desire for a male are subtle and complex. In a nightclub when does a male know he has permission to touch her? She is not going to say it. Would that be being too easy? Plus the music is pumping at ear splitting volume. The low lights make pupils dilate. This is usually a sign of attraction. The male will likely misread the pupils. Supposing he touches her shoulder believing her to want this. Is that sexual assault? If she does not express disapprobation where can he touch next? Where after that? Is acquiescence consent? The criminal law a blunt instrument to deal with such vexatious matters. The situation is very confusing.

It is a sad day for romance and indeed lust. To indicate fond feelings for a female would cause perturbation amongst the feminist cohorts. How dare a male be hetero! But if a man is desirous of someone of the opposite sex what is a boy to do? He can try to read her signals. Observe her facial expression and judge the notes in her voice. Watch for wrist display or mouth play. Tilting the head back, engorgement of the lips, caressing the lip of cup and suchlike are said to be dead giveaways. This is not an exact science. No two women are the same. Not everyone expresses desire in the same fashion. None of the foregoing signs may be present. This is where one mans up and pops the question. Of course, as often as not the female does not have feeling for the male in question. He shall be turned down. It might be decorous or it might be indecorous. The male should endeavour to take the rejection with all the dignity he can muster.

Aphrodite is now adorned in thickest crepe of the deepest black. She wends her dolorous way to perdition. We are bereft of flirtation.

The War on Hugs has mainly been fought and lost already. The feminists dealt normality might strokes of war through indoctrination in schools, through legislation and through the misapplication of language. Their psychological operations were hugely successful. People start with the presuppositions that feminism is good, the patriarchy exists, rape is commonplace, flirtation is harassment and saucy photos are demeaning to women. That is half the battle. They have defined the parameters of the debate. When feminists control public discourse and their shibboleths are generally accepted we have an uphill struggle to convince people it ain’t necessarily so. How can we regain the centreground. It is hard to get into teaching or the media if you do not subscribe to feminist nostra. You might pay lipservice to them but inwardly dissent. As soon as you voice this dissent your career is over.

The counter-feminazi movement has yet to find an orotund voice. It is discordant. People rail against it from different angles. Some are religious, some are laddish, some are conservative and some are classical liberal. But few have the fortitude to join the movement. Even Bill Maher a liberal leftist has found the common decency to denounce the wilder reaches of feminazism. This was surpassingly brave of him.

It does not take much perspicacity to see that the situation is going to disimprove. I prognosticate that abortion laws will be loosened in more jurisdictions. Prostitution will be forbidden in more lands. More males will be imprisoned for rapes that never occurred.

Be ye men of valour! Breakest thou the chain! It would take indomitable courage to counterattack. Who shall lead the charge? I see no one riding to the rescue of straight males. Many damsels would like to be rescued to. They lament the dolorous declension of old style straight manhood. No more Valentines, no more roses, no more compliments, no more holding doors and no much sex. It is a dull old world these feminist bigots have forged for us. Were we foredoomed as soon as the abomination ‘Ms’ entered the language?

I want to fight back against feminist oppression. I want to stand up for freedom for males and females. But I do not know where to start. There are few allies in politics or the media. Is it a forlorn hope? The relinquishment of our liberty is probably too far gone. A free society may be as irrecoverable as Lyonesse. As we have probably already been vanquished would the struggle nought availeth? Perhaps I should just reluctantly accept the new dispensation. Is that stoicism or cowardice? Is emancipation too much to strive for?

We are led to believe that Western women live in darkness and woe. They are the richest, freest, safest, happiest and most infertile women on the planet. Feminists regard all those things are splenderous. Surely a Western female is in admirable plight. Her sisters in Saudi Arabia might not be in such an enviable predicament.

Are we now depriving ourselves of untold happiness.

Let the last entrenchment of liberty be our grave!

DO

Climate change is caused by two different factors. These are anthropogenic and natural. Anthropogenic means caused by human activity. Climate change is also natural since climate changes anyway and has done so for millions of years. Humans have only been around for 3.5 million years. Humans have only had a population of over a billion since 1800. It was the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century that started people burning huge quantities of oil, gas and coal. The internal combustion engine invented in the 1880s is used to vehicles and this hugely increased the amount of fossil fuels burnt by people.

There have been ice ages before. There was once a land bridge from the UK to France 10 000s of years ago. There was a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska and Asians walked into the American Continent. But then the Ice Age ended and the land bridge melted. There have been periods when the weather was considerably warmer than it is today.

There is no doubt among scientists that both human activity and nature cause climate change. However, climate change has been happening more rapidly than ever before in the last 100 years. Therefore, it is human activity that is chiefly the explanation for the current climate change.

In conclusion, we need to radically reduce our usage of fossil fuels in order to stop climate change having cataclysmic consequences.

DO

Climate change is caused by two different factors. These are anthropogenic and natural. Anthropogenic means caused by human activity. Climate change is also natural since climate changes anyway and has done so for millions of years. Humans have only been around for 3.5 million years. Humans have only had a population of over a billion since 1800. It was the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century that started people burning huge quantities of oil, gas and coal. The internal combustion engine invented in the 1880s is used to vehicles and this hugely increased the amount of fossil fuels burnt by people.

There have been ice ages before. There was once a land bridge from the UK to France 10 000s of years ago. There was a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska and Asians walked into the American Continent. But then the Ice Age ended and the land bridge melted. There have been periods when the weather was considerably warmer than it is today.

There is no doubt among scientists that both human activity and nature cause climate change. However, climate change has been happening more rapidly than ever before in the last 100 years. Therefore, it is human activity that is chiefly the explanation for the current climate change.

In conclusion, we need to radically reduce our usage of fossil fuels in order to stop climate change having cataclysmic consequences.

DO NOT SMOKE

Deciding whether or not to smoke is perhaps the most important decision you will ever make. Smokers die on average 14 years younger than non-smokers. In addition, smokers tend to be in poor health for the last 20 years or so of their lives. Smoking hugely increases your risk of pulmonary (lung) cancer and all other cancers. You will have a sore throat. It stains the skin, the teeth and the fingertips. People end up with a croaky voice.

Why would anyone smoke when it is so harmful? Some foolish people smoke precisely because it has deleterious consequences for their health. They think it is macho. Smoking is not courageous it is stupid. Anyone can smoke. It does not take bravery to do it.

Smoking is also very expensive due to tax on tobacco. Smokers are spending 10 pounds a day on a packet of cigarettes. Multiply that by every day of your life and imagine what else you could purchase for that sum of money. Smokers also have to go to cold smoking areas outside buildings. They waste their time going there and they fall ill out in the cold.

There is no pleasure in smoking. People get addicted to nicotine in cigarettes. When they do not get nicotine for a few hours they feel tetchy. They get angry and hungry. The only way to solve that in the short term is to smoke and get another nicotine hit.

Smoking is disgusting and immoral. It is slow motion suicide and should be outlawed.

Needham

I had heard the rumour he was born in Czechia. Turns out to be true.

I remember spring of F I was up to him. He was a cantankerous and scathing sort . A bald man with a brusque manner. He was certainly in command. He was an old chap and was visibly irritated to have to teach slow coaches.

He would praise some ”he is a man among boys. A ray of light in a morass of idiocy.”

Commended for good efforts were given to me. He gave one to Prescot. Prescot then irked the beak. Needham demanded it back. Prescot’s mouth fell agape in horror. He misquoted the Bible: ‘Mr. Needham has given, Mr. Needham has taken away – blessed be the name of Mr. Needham.”

Needham read us Latin poesy. He would then tell us the cadences saying ‘tum titty tum titty tum tum” and so on.

I got a Christmas present before I met Needham. It was grass in a bag which had a face on it. I called it Mr. Needham .

It was he who taught me how to spell emperor by correcting my misspelling. Further, I wrote that a patron gave a client money or a sportula. He reminded me that a sportula is money

Paddy K cheated liberally in tests. We knew he was looking things up in the book in tests. But no one ratted him out.

Mr. N expressed a desire to slap an irritating boy. Someone pointed out a copper had been fined for a clip around the ear. Needham said it would be worth it

Needham would do a monkey impression for Prescot – ooga ooga ooga Prescot. As in the boy was dim.

In Greek he ridiculed Harbord for his handwriting.

Such persiflage would be considered quite intolerable today.

Twas Mr. N who told us about the IRA ceasefire. Someone referenced the Ulster Conflict. Needham said one would not find fighting in Ulster now.

I remember the next year I bumped into Mr. N. and Miss A. Mr. N was with his goodwife. We walked along the street. He spoke about me and observed that I was not too keen a grammarian I was frightfully eager when it came to classical history.

In school hall Mr. N had a chap from sixth form select up there. He introduced Hood as buttons. Hood has silver buttons on his waistcoat. I did not get the allusion to panto.

I mourn Mr. N. He was one of a kind.

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Juan Rey

I knew him not till I took Castilian. In D I turned up to his classroom. Wrong place. He looked me up in the calendar and pointed me in the right direction

He was small and square faced. He spoke in a tenor voice.

In divs he alluded to his views. He castigated Franco as a fascist dictator.

He told us junete – horseman. I recall avoidance of the passive

I did oral with his spouse. I was stuck for words. I was trying to tell a tale about a picture and mentioned la guardia civil.

I introuced muself by my Christian name in Castilian. Uniquely he called me that

I sat beside an earl. tried to look at his paper in tests. Rey reprimanded me for it

I remmeber my waistcoat was tirn. had to wear a horrid green suit fir a week. Rey then criticised this for going on too long

Jewel Clarke got himself into trouble. Irked Rey whose face turned red

when we played up he told us we were like a bottom F div

Rey spoke to Balls. I had to drop French – I could not cope with two languages.

In a report Rey said my grammar may prevent me getting an A. It did not.

In class he asked it it was my piece in the newspaper.

I met Rey at a footer match the next year on Master’s. we spoke about the article on the death penalty that I perused.

He was a decent sort but I did not regard him with great affection.

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GRENFELL

The only Grenfell I ever heard of besides the tower.

I knew who he was. He was slender and flinty faced. I only once came across with him. Invigilating Latin exam. I decided I might take some paper out with me. He called me and someone to the front desk as we were leaving. He looked at us gravely, and said in a declaratory voice, ”Well the board will have to be informed.”

Later Sagar called me to his study and said ”that was dishonest of you”. But why would anyone care about lined paper?

I had no other dealings with him. He was unobjectionable. But I scarcely heard of him.

Some years later 2006 I met him on the district line. I introduced myself and he invited me to sit beside him. He told me of his time in Uganda. He had been an engineer. We chatted pleasantly but he was not a sanguine type. He was too coldly mathematical for me. He told me of his son who was at Cambridge. We parted courteously. That was the last I ever heard of him.

Grenfell was a decent chap but shall soon be forgotten.

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WELSH

A hideous had grown up in South Africa. He and Hudson had been at the same school. But Welsh spoke RP.

I had no truck with him till B. outside Allington one boy thumped another’s shoulder without malice. what was that about – Welsh inquired

Nothing the perpetrator explained.

It was not about nothing – was Welsh’s judgment

I do not recall the upshot.

He was intense and choleric.

Taught me for Chaucer. A comp that November was a day in the life of the school. I took a snap of him when class was about to begin. He then launched into a moralistic tirade about what I had done. I had to give him the snap and the negative.

I sent it to him. Then in class he thanked me for it. I saw him outside his flat on the high street and smiled contumeliously.

He was supercilious and dislikable.