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Saturday, March 27, 2010

When in Rome...

I'm currently reading Imprimatur, the runaway international bestseller by the Italian journalists Monaldi and Sorti. I'm interested in this book on two main levels: it's set in the 1680s, a period that's been a second home for many years now; and the differences in style and content between this and the genre that I inhabit are proving to be quite fascinating. The book has become famous, even notorious, because of being banned in Italy (allegedly because of pressure from the Vatican), essentially because it claims that Pope Innocent XI secretly funded the 'Glorious Revolution' that brought William of Orange to power in Britain. Now, Britain might have the most absurd and draconian libel laws in any democracy, but it's hard to imagine any work that denigrates a historical figure from 300 years ago receiving a nationwide ban; it hardly reflects well on the maturity of free expression and political discourse in Italy, but then, neither does Silvio Berlusconi. (On the other hand, I should think that Imprimatur makes just as uncomfortable reading in the average Orange Lodge as it does at the Vatican, especially when allied to the various theories suggesting that 'King Billy' was gay.) To historians of the period, the story of Innocent's financial support for William is old hat, and in the political context of the 1680s it made perfect sense for the Pope to assist those who opposed his arch-enemy, Louis XIV of France; only those who have no understanding of the realities of history would find the story outlined in Imprimatur offensive.

As it is, Monaldi and Sorti are much stronger on papal than on Anglo-Dutch history; for example, William was certainly not the rival Protestant candidate for the British thrones in 1683. But their setting - a Rome tavern during a time of plague, with the Turks besieging the walls of Vienna - is memorably claustrophobic, and their characters are well drawn. (I like the fact that the English character is named 'Edward di Bedfordi', surely a nod towards the large Italian community in modern Bedford.) On the other hand, their willingness to include long passages of detailed historical description, to digress at length and to rely on many long uninterrupted monologues are all tendencies that would have agents, editors, publishers and (no doubt) readers castigating a humble scribbler of Restoration naval fiction, and probably rightly so. Or does it mean that Anglo-Saxon editors, publishers etc have a very low opinion of the intellects and concentration spans of Anglo-Saxon readers? But at least those Anglo-Saxon readers have the opportunity to read different styles of novels set in the seventeenth century and then make up their own minds, unlike their counterparts in Italy!  

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Lies, Damned Lies, and Dodgy History

Here comes a general election, and with it the inevitability that for the next few weeks we'll be subjected to dubious historical allusions and comparisons galore. The last few days have seen much talk of coalition governments, so journalists in search of a headline have decided arbitrarily to apply the term 'Kingmaker' to Nick Clegg - despite the fact that the word has overwhelmingly negative connotations, even if one leaves aside the wholly unlikely concept of 'Clegg the Kingmaker'. (The much-maligned BBC provided an exemplary explanation of the historical origins of this term, allowing a knowledgeable historian to do most of the talking; would that many other employees of the BBC and other media did likewise.) There's also been some discussion of previous precedents for hung parliaments and/or coalition governments. One allegedly eminent political writer who shall remain nameless (oh, all right, it was Fraser Nelson of the Guardian) got horribly tangled between the two, assuming that the number of years of minority government in the 20th century were identical to those of coalition government; wrong, as coalitions provided the government for a grand total of twenty years (1916-22 and 1931-45). We're already seeing the frenzied gloom-and-doom merchants hold forth on the evils of minority governments and coalitions, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the world's democracies get on perfectly well under such conditions. (Think of such notoriously unstable tin-pot third world backwaters as Germany, the Republic of Ireland and...umm...oh yes, Wales and Scotland...) Coming soon, presumably, will be the earnest discussions of the constitutional role the queen would have in the event of a hung parliament, all of which will probably ignore the fact that during her reign she has been far less involved in, and certainly has less room for manoeuvre in, deciding on the government of the UK in such an event than do the likes of the Belgian monarch or the average Governor-General of Canada or Australia.

So stand by for a flood tide of ill informed, lazy or simply wrong history, trotted out to back up particular agendas or to add impressive-looking 'facts' to relentlessly superficial reporting. One final example: the 'poshness' of the Camerons has been an easy target, and it's almost become a mantra to refer to 'Sam' as 'a descendant of Charles II' and 'Dave' as 'a descendant of William IV'. OK, fair comment up to a point, but let's have a little perspective here - thanks to his remarkably active nocturnal proclivities, there are thousands of descendants of Charles II (Rupert Everett, for one, which might be why he provided one of the best-ever screen portrayals of the king*), while Gordon Brown is probably descended from King Robert the Bruce - most Scots are, just as most English people are descended from King William the Conqueror. Royal descent isn't particularly special, it's just a matter of how far back in your family tree it happens to be. Moreover, there seems to be much less focus on the fact that the PM is perfectly entitled to call himself Dr Brown, given his doctorate in History; but then, perhaps the fact that he was educated to such a high level doesn't fit comfortably with projecting the image of a modest man of the people, in contrast to 'David-Old-Etonian-Descendant-of-William IV-Cameron'? Just a thought.

(* Everett is surely unique in having played both Charles I and Charles II on screen - respectively one of the shortest and one of the tallest kings in British history, not to mention bearing virtually no facial resemblance to each other.)  

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Archive Wars

I’ve been disappointed with the comparative lack of activity on the Action 4 Archives website in recent months. Essentially, this site was set up in response to the threatened (and now implemented) cutbacks at the National Archives, Kew, which mean that the building now closes on Mondays and has also culled significant numbers of specialist staff. However, this is merely the tip of a very large iceberg. Across the UK, archive services are under threat due to a dangerous combination of funding cutbacks (thank you once again, investment bankers and inept politicians alike) and insensitive or simply incompetent management. Unfortunately, archive services are often looked on as an obvious target for cutbacks so that funding to so-called front line services can be preserved, and in many cases they have responded by trying to be as ‘populist’ as possible. Many local record offices have cut their hours and/or staff; and very often they, like the National Archives, have jumped on the ‘Who Do You Think You Never Were in a Million Years’ genealogy bandwagon, subordinating the interests of serious researchers to those of gaggles of talkative pensioners intent on tracking down their great-great-grandparents as loudly as possible. Researchers are often timid creatures, and do not like to make a fuss. However, the evidence of what happened at the National Maritime Museum (see archived blogs, Oct. 2008 onwards) suggests that organising and making as great a fuss as possible can achieve results. Museum management originally proposed to close all research facilities completely for over six months to ensure that their new wing was completed in time for the Olympics, when the equestrian competition will be held in front of it. A ferocious campaign of protest followed, much of it originally generated from the ‘grass roots’ through the various online maritime history forums (notably this one). Even the normally torpid learned societies weighed in, and with political, media and legal channels all being explored, the museum made a number of major concessions (albeit not enough to satisfy all of those who study there). There has been a similar success story at the National Library of Wales; partly as a result of public pressure, the library has reversed the Saturday closures that it introduced last year.

However, a narrow focus on opening hours and staffing runs the risk of overlooking the many other aspects of current archive practice that actively work against the interests of serious researchers. Leaving aside the manifold ‘quirks’ (to be charitable) of the British Library and the idiocies imposed at archives nationwide in the name of ‘Health and Safety’*, these include the widely differing policies on digital photography, still prohibited in too many institutions but which, if permitted, saves researchers significant amounts of time and effort and also saves staff time they would otherwise spend on reprographics; the huge variations in policies on reader admissions (what is the point of many record offices having their own pedantic reader ticket requirements when the CARN scheme exists?); and above all, the distinctly dubious practice of some archives claiming that they, rather than the heirs-at-law of the original creators, hold the copyright on original materials deposited with them, thereby enabling them to levy exorbitant charges for reproduction. Don’t get me wrong, most archivists, librarians and other staff in this sector do an outstanding job, despite being neglected by their employers and taken for granted by many of those who use their services. Above all, archive services are not optional extras, to be bolted on or cut back depending on political considerations and financial pressures. It’s a hoary old cliché, but they are literally the repositories of the nation’s collective memory, and we should treasure them.

(* For example, the other day I was deeply reassured to find a guide on how to wash my hands prominently displayed in the gents’ loos of the National Library of Scotland, as the hands which I would shortly be using to handle irreplaceable 17th century manuscripts were evidently covered in bullshit and I hadn’t been taught the skill of washing them at the age of two or thereabouts.)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

History Matters?

I see that David Dimbleby has joined the debate about the inadequate provision of History in schools, saying that programmes like his current BBC series on the Seven Ages of Britain help to fill the huge gaps in provision at secondary level. He's undoubtedly right, but only partly so. I recently blogged on the qualities of much of the history seen on TV, and 'Seven Ages' is undoubtedly better than much of what's out there; but it's still painfully superficial when compared to roughly equivalent series of the past (say, Kenneth Clarke's 'Civilisation') and still panders to the 'soundbite' school of history, and, indeed, of education in general, epitomised by the very same BBC's fatuous attempt to convince 16 year olds that GCSE revision can somehow be made 'bitesized'.

Now, many others far more august than myself (or David Dimbleby, come to that) have commented on the appalling neglect of History in British schools, and not so long ago the Historical Association ran a campaign called 'History Matters' which seemed to consist primarily of the distribution of nice little white badges bearing that slogan. It certainly used to be the case that only two countries in Europe did not retain History as a compulsory subject until the age of 16, but even Albania finally went down a more enlightened path, leaving the UK in splendid isolation (and I wonder how many of our current History students would be able to identify the historical origins of that term?). On the other hand, I know many History teachers who offer up thanks on a daily basis to the great god of option systems that they don't have to put up with the hordes of sullen refuseniks who are dragooned into the subjects that are compulsory. The issue is really more to do with the narrowness of the choice available to students. Take, for example, the new GCSEs that began to be taught last September. Looking at the three monolithic English exam boards alone - institutions which prove beyond doubt that Stalinism is alive and well and living in London, Cambridge and Manchester (indeed, the AQA headquarters used to be known as 'the Manchester Lubyanka') - we see that Edexcel offers one course focusing exclusively on 20th century history and another founded on the venerable Schools History Project, secondary education's equivalent of an ageing hippy, with its familiar old studies of the American West, Medicine Through Time and Britain 1815-51 (familiar because I was teaching them to the intellectual cream of north Cornwall thirty years ago). AQA, one of whose previous incarnations provided me with useful extra income for a decade, also offers a Schools History project track, albeit with the addition of a blatantly populist option on Media Through Time, but its other track is again exclusively 20th century. To be fair, OCR offers Ancient History - thanks only to an outcry against its proposed abolition - but then has nothing before the nineteenth century on its SHP track, while the other is, yet again, exclusively 20th century; and Edexcel offers a fascinating-sounding module on the history of warfare within its SHP option, which provides a last beleaguered refuge for medieval and 17th century topics at GCSE level. But otherwise, the 'Dark Ages', the Middle Ages, the Early Tudor period and the 17th and 18th centuries, not to mention the history of most of the world, need not have bothered taking place, for all the attention they currently receive in English classrooms. (And I do stress 'English' - Wales and Scotland have a broader outlook, but only just.)

The exam boards will tell you that they are driven by market demands and by what teachers are qualified to teach (or prepared to teach in competition with 'sexier'/easier options), but of course there is a vicious circle here: History teachers who have come out of this very system are often tempted to stay within their 'comfort zones' at university and thus have very little expertise outside the well-trodden paths of Hitler, Stalin, and maybe the odd tentative nod towards other periods. It's similar to the current alarm bells being rung in mathematical circles, i.e. that the Maths taught in secondary schools is now so chronically superficial that the next generation of Maths teachers will actually be incapable of teaching the more complex aspects of the subject, leading to even more dumbing down in the generations that succeed them in turn. Such, I'm afraid, is the logical conclusion of the relentless drive to make all subjects, History included, as 'accessible' (that legendary euphemism for 'easy') as possible so that politicians can achieve their insane holy grail of getting 50% of the population into universities. Ironically, salvation might come thanks to the recession; the numbers of men applying to be primary school teachers are already rocketing, and perhaps good History graduates are already realising that the worst abuse a Year 11 bottom set can inflict on them on a Friday afternoon is as nothing to the public opprobrium they'd receive if they became bankers.    

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Restoration Blues?

This year marks the 350th anniversary of both Samuel Pepys's diary and the restoration of the monarchy. While there has been a reasonable amount of attention on the former (including a BBC4 documentary and Benjamin Till's intriguing attempt to create a forty-part motet based on the diary), there's been almost no mention of the latter.  Now, it might well be the case that the royal family's determination to hit the self-destruct button at every conceivable opportunity during the last thirty years or so means that many people might be reluctant to celebrate the event that returned them to the British Isles, but that hardly seems to be good reason for simply ignoring what was undoubtedly one of the most important turning points in British history. Nevertheless, a quick glance at the websites of all of the major art galleries in London suggests that none of them are marking the Restoration in any way, despite its fundamental place in the history of British art, and there is a similar silence from the great museums. Sadly, the same is also true of the National Theatre, despite the Restoration's even more seminal role in the development of that medium - and, indeed, of the monarchy itself, whose own website currently contains no reference to the anniversary. The website of the historic royal palaces is still majoring on last year's Henry VIII anniversary, perhaps a sign that the Tudors are now seen as being much sexier than the far more interesting Stuarts - thanks presumably to the evils of the A-level History option choices, to films and TV programmes featuring unfeasibly thin Tudor characters enjoying equally unfeasible amounts of frenetic sex, and to the miserable failure of those of us working on the seventeenth century to provide a celeb-historian to equal David Starkey.

However, my 'branch' of naval history is bucking the trend to some extent. The last eighteen months or so have seen the publication of Richard Endsor's outstanding study of The Restoration Warship and my own book on Pepys's Navy, together with a new edition of Frank Fox's seminal study of The Four Days Battle of 1666. Last week saw the publication of a new edition of Pepys's only published work, the Memoires of the Royal Navy, with a new introduction by yours truly. On 17 April the Naval Dockyards Society's annual conference at the National Maritime Museum focuses on the seventeenth century navy, and on the Restoration period in particular, under the slightly tongue-in-cheek title Pepys and Chips: Dockyards, Naval Administration and Warfare in the 17th Century. (For those who don't know, 'chips' constituted the main perk of dockyard workers during this period. They were pieces of wood up to three feet long that were 'accidentally' left over during work on the ships; they could be carried out of the yard legitimately as long as they were carried on the shoulder, hence the expression.) The conference programme, available on the NDS website, contains papers by both young researchers and established authorities on the period, myself included, and promises to provide at least a partial corrective to the deafening silence about the Restoration among more august institutions! As usual, the papers will be published in due course in the NDS's well-received series of Transactions.

That reminds me - I'd better go and get on with preparing my paper... 

Friday, March 5, 2010

Scarlet Fever

I rounded off my week in Llanelli by taking in the Scarlets vs Ulster match at the new Parc y Scarlets stadium. Llanelli isn't exactly a town that's known for moving swiftly with the times: until quite recently, a wall alongside what used to be the main road from Swansea was adorned with a prominent graffito that read 'U.S. Hands Of Vietnam', simultaneously a tribute to the radicalism and illiteracy of the artist and to the apathy of a local council that couldn't be bothered to clean it off for nearly forty years. Not surprisingly, therefore, many 'locals' bemoan the passing of the historic Stradey Park ground and heap opprobrium on the club and the council for the allegedly questionable ways in which they steamrollered through the move to the new ground. There was undoubtedly a huge element of hubris in the ground's construction, as demonstrated by the decision not to sell the naming rights and a ludicrously over-optimistic set of predicted attendances (tonight, for example, the ground was less than half full, with the two end stands not opened at all; but 'less than half full' in this stadium would have virtually filled Stradey, so everything's relative).

All of this is typical of the Scarlets, a club which has always regarded itself as superior to the others in Wales: an attitude summed up by the late, great Ray Gravell's favourite motto, 'West Is Best'. Hence the club's flat refusal to merge with anyone else when the regional system was created and its projection of itself (rightly) as the most Welsh of all the regions. The prophets of doom - and Llanelli probably churns out more of them than any other town of equivalent size in the western world - have looked upon this season's poor results relative to the cost of the ground and muttered darkly that they told us so, that a region too strapped for cash to attract many big name players is doomed to fail, that the tickets are too expensive, that the crowds will never come back. Perhaps they'll be proved right. But tonight I saw a young Scarlets team destroy mighty Ulster 25-8 by playing fast, open, exciting rugby, just like that played by the great team containing the likes of Phil Bennett, J J Williams and 'Grav' himself that I watched so often in the 1970s. Two players who particularly impressed me bear names that would never have featured on a Scarlets team sheet of that era: Tavis Knoyle, a combative 20 year old scrum half who deservedly won the man of the match award, and Joe Ajuwa, a raw but exciting Nigerian wing. What's more, and although this will be heresy among the 'old guard', the more enclosed Parc y Scarlets has a far better atmosphere than the open, windy Stradey ever did - a better acoustic, a real echo, and consequently far more singing. Mind you, quite what my grandfathers, who were both prominent Scarlets clubmen in their times, would have made of the advent of cheerleaders is another matter...

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Dryslwyn Castle

This is Dryslwyn, one of the largest of the native Welsh castles, occupying a glorious hilltop position in the middle of the Towy Valley, half way between Carmarthen and Llandeilo. I was there earlier in the week, and was lucky to have excellent weather and the place virtually to myself. The castle dates from the first half of the thirteenth century, the period when the native rulers of Deheubarth (south-west Wales) were falling under the domination of the princes of Gwynedd. Dryslwyn is within sight of Dinefwr, the chief seat of the princes of Deheubarth, and was probably constructed by the same man responsible for the surviving structures there. It was enlarged in the 1280s by Rhys ap Maredudd, who was loyal to Edward I during the English campaign of conquest in 1282-3 but who rebelled in 1287, leading to a well-documented siege of the castle. The most dramatic incident during the siege was the collapse of a wall, killing several English noblemen; this was probably in the vicinity of the chapel tower, the building on the right in the general views of the castle. Dryslwyn also saw action in 1402-3 during the war of independence under Owain Glyndwr.

Dryslwyn Castle has been a particular favourite since my childhood, although that was long before it was placed under Cadw and properly excavated. Now, helpful display boards make it much easier to understand the complex layout of the castle, complicated by the fact that a small town lay outside the walls; the outlines of many of the small houses can still be seen on terraces running away along the sides of the hill to the north of the castle itself. There are some excellent descriptions of it accessible online, notably at the superb Castles of Wales website.

Dryslwyn, and the history of the princes of Deheubarth as a whole, has been comparatively neglected in fiction - something that I might set out to remedy one of these days! However, several scenes in Edith Pargeter's excellent 'Brothers of Gwynedd' series were set there, and in the nearby castles of Dinefwr and Carreg Cennen.

I'll include more of these potted accounts of castles from time to time in this blog; I've been an inveterate 'castle hunter' since the age of five, and have information on and photos of a large number of castles (not to mention churches and other historic sites) throughout the British Isles and beyond. Although this look at Dryslwyn is an exception, I'll try as far as possible to focus primarily on sites that currently have very little or no coverage on the Internet.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Book Heaven

Back from a quick trip to Hay on Wye, about an hour and a half's drive from the 'old home town' via some stunning scenery in the Brecon Beacons. A quiet Monday in winter is probably just about the perfect time to visit Hay; I had several bookshops all to myself, so it's possible to browse contentedly without having to fight one's way to the History and Maritime shelves, as is so often the case later in the year. I made some pleasing purchases, but on the whole Hay is less of an 'experience' than it used to be, when no trip there was complete without returning weighed down by bagfuls of long-sought-after tomes or serendipitous discoveries. Perhaps this is simply a reflection of the fact that I've now got pretty well everything that I've wanted to track down over the years; perhaps it reflects the growing dominance of the Internet, both in the secondhand book market as a whole and in my own purchasing habits. On the other hand, there's no doubt that Hay is now much more overtly commercial than it used to be. There are fewer and fewer real bargains, more and more shelves swathed with publishers' remainders. Booth's bookshop, which used to be a glorious chaos, is now organised like a military operation, with properly categorised shelves, space for a person to fit comfortably between the bookcases, and (above all) is actually clean. I'm not saying that something has been lost, but gone are the days when it was possible to ferret around in darkness in the cellar and come out with a volume of the Calendar of State Papers Domestic for £10.

A couple of other book-related matters. I'm not quite sure how I managed to leave Astrodene's wonderful website-cum-blog about naval historical fiction out of the last post, but I'm very happy to remedy the omission, especially as Astrodene was one of the first to give a big push to Gentleman Captain. Meanwhile, I'm currently reading Jenny Uglow's A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration. This has been very well received, but I'm always a bit sceptical about books written by non-specialists (Uglow has previously written about the likes of Hogarth and Elizabeth Gaskell). My suspicion initially seemed to be borne out by the plethora of silly factual errors that weaken the book (four on p. 18 alone); confusing the surname 'Lambert' with the place name 'Langport' is just unforgivable, as this is clearly not a typo, and she makes a monstrous howler about the number and identity of the dukes in England in 1660. But having said that, Uglow's reading has been impressively broad, embracing some manuscript sources - a rarity in this type of book. Her depiction of Charles's reactions to the circumstances in which he found himself, and the reactions toward him of others at all levels of society, is much more nuanced and perceptive than that found in many more august studies of the king. Some of her descriptions, such as that of Whitehall Palace, are quite excellent, so although I remain on a high state of howler alert, I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.