Valuable History Lesson

It used to be that every schoolboy (and presumably school girl) knew the story of the king who tried to sit on the waves. And if he hadn't, he'd have learned about it later in life by reading 1066 and All That, a book which used to be funny but is now merely incomprehensible.



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I love the English

A little while ago, I was assured on Facebook that "access" is so a verb. At least, it's a verb now. The writer, you see, had used it as a verb. He insisted that he "could access the internet," which meant definitively that it is now a verb. So there.

But in spite of my lethal hatred of verbing, I have to admit that I am still a terrible speller. I know there are at least three ells in that word that means two long things going in the same direction, but I've never really got the hang of the distribution.



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"Macca"...Ugh...

There's something deeply embarrassing about English celebrities.

Is it that they dress so badly?

And if any current Plowdens are reading this,

why yes, I'd be delighted to come on a shoot.

More...

Something to remember, when we look ahead with dread at the dark days that are obviously coming, is that England has been an anti-Catholic police state before. Totalitarianism is not unknown to the English.

In 1585 came further anti-Catholic legislation, prompted by the Throckmorton and Parry plots. Any priest ordained during the Queen Elizabeth's reign was to leave the country within forty days. Any who disobeyed, or who re-entered England, would automatically be guilty of high treason. [that 'wondrous' Elizabethan Settlement that did so much to 'reconcile' Anglicans and Catholics, again...] Any lay person who 'willingly and wittingly' sheltered a priest was liable to the death penalty. Anyone who sent money to English colleges and seminaries abroad could lose their goods and suffer imprisonment. Parents sending their children abroad without a license could incur heavy fines. Failure to give information on the whereabouts of priests could result in fines and unlimited imprisonment. But, if a missionary priest took the Oath of Supremacy within three days of landing in England, his 'treason' would be pardoned.

Fr Gregory Gunnes was arrested at Henley-on-Thames that summer. He had been ordained towards the end of Queen Mary's reign but for nearly twenty years had been an Anglican parson. In the late 1570s he had abandoned his ministry at Yelford near Witney and had since become a vagrant. At some stage he had been reconciled to the Catholic church.

At the Bell Inn, Henley Fr Gunnes fell into conversation with a member of Sir Francis Knolly's household and betrayed himself by praising Fr Edmund Campion. He was arrested and found to be carrying two consecrated Communion wafers [sic]. He was sent to the Marshalsea jail at Southwark.

That autumn the already outlawed Sir Francis Englefield was attainted and convicted of high treason by Parliament. The Privy Council had learned that he had advised Philip II of Spain to invade England. All Englefield's possessions and estates were forfeited to the Crown, which had already sequestrated them. However, having foreseen such problems, the Catholic lawyer Edmund Plowden had arranged the conveyance of the titles in all Sir Francis Englefield's estates and manors to the latter's brother, John. John Englefield had since died, leaving the titles to his young son Francis, who until recently had been Edmund Plowden's ward.

The estates and manors in question included Englefield, Tidmarsh, Tilehurst, Sindlesham, Brimpton, Speenhamland, Hartridge, Ilsley and South Moreton in Berkshire, and Lashbrook, Dunsden, Exlade and Shiplake in Oxfordshire. The conveyance of Sir Francis Englefield's estates drafted by Edmund Plowden included a provision whereby Sir Francis could reclaim the estates if he delivered a gold ring to their holder. This was now the Crown and it was quite unacceptable to the Queen that the seized lands of an attainted traitor could be reclaimed. But Edmund Plowden had done his work well and it was to take eight years of legal wrangling to resolve the situation.

Edmund Plowden died eight months before Sir Francis Englefield's attainder. He was buried in the Temple Church, London, where there is a memorial to him. There is also a bust of him in the Middle Temple Hall.

It was probably Plowden's guardianship of the younger Francis Englefield that enabled the lawyer to lease Shiplake Court from the Crown following its sequestration. After his death there seems to have been no difficulty in renewing the royal lease. Shiplake Court was subsequently occupied by Plowden's Catholic nephew Andrew Blunden, who held a joint interest in the property with Plowden's two sons. There is a bust of Blunden in Shiplake parish church.

Edmund Plowden, Recusant

At one time the heretic, usurper,tyrant Queen had wished to bestow the Lord Chancellorship upon Plowden, and wrote him a letter to that effect, asking only that he should join the Anglican Church in return, but his answer was as follows:

'Hold me, dread Sovereign, excused. Your Majesty well knows, I find no reason to swerve from the Catholic Faith, in which you & I were brought up. I can never, therefore, countenance the persecution of its professors. I should not have in charge your Majesty's conscience one week, before I should incur your displeasure, if it be your Majesty's intent to continue the system of persecuting the retainer's of the Catholic Faith'

The English, the English, the English are best;

I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

Just finished Jeremy Paxman's book The English and have decided one thing, if nothing else:

Jeremy Paxman is a prat.

Some time ago, in a different venue, I said that an important moving-to-another-country rule is to learn ahead of time which public figures not to like.

Why write a book about a people you obviously loathe, for whom you have nothing but contempt? Why especially, since you are one yourself? What is it with these self-hating London elites anyway?

If you read the book, which I don't recommend if you love England, I would skip the chapter on marriage. V. depressing.

He ends on what I regard as an up note, however. Probably at the insistence of his editors who know that an insulting anti-English screed by a self-loathing London pseudo-intellectual would not go over well with the book-buying public outside the M-25 ring.

So at the very end, Paxman describes the Plowden family of Shropshire, which story seems so good and so hopeful, I could not resist sharing it here, despite the odious source. In fact, it is so much lacking Paxman's usual vile supercilious contempt for all that is good about England, I can't help thinking that someone else wrote it:

The Plowden family have [sic] been 'seated' here at least since the twelfth century, when one of their ancestors fought at the Crusader siege of Acre...The Plowden family have seen it all, over the years. And still they are here, the Plowden family, living at Plowden Hall, in the village of Plowden, in a land of quiet contentment.

Theirs is not a particularly heroic story. There was a Plowden who became a prominent lawyer under Elizabeth I, another who commanded the Second Foot Guards at the battle of the Boyne, one who made a small fortune with the East India Company, anothe who died at school from 'eating a surfeit of cherries'...but no Prime Ministers or philosophers. Their life revolves around farming, half a dozen black labradors, hunting, shooting and fishing. It is not the sort of life that brings your name to the attention of editors of Who's Who: public service is restricted to sitting on the bench of magistrates and occasionally turning out as High Sheriff when the Queen visits the county. For the rest, it is Farmers [sic] Weekly, Horse and Hound and the Shooting Times.

The received wisdom about this type of English family is that they have been consigned to history, destroyed by the First World War, death duties, taxation, Lloyd's and congenital incompetence at handling their affairs. The image is of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead, ancestral piles abandoned by families unable to meet the demands of modern life. Like all images, it is partly true. But among those who have survived, it is utterly wrong. William Plowden was twenty, on army service, when his father died, leaving him Plowden Hall. There seemed litle chance of hanging on to the family home and began trying to find a tenant who would rent the Hall. But no one was prepared to take it on. So he resigned his commission, went to Oxford, 'discovered my brain wouldn't function', and took himself off to the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. When he took on the estate, he had 450 acres 'in hand'. Within a few years, he was running 2000 acres. Now, the estate employs a manager, twelve people on the farm, another five in the woods, a full time mason, a carpenter, gamekeeper, odd-jopb man and gardener.

Plowden and his wife are moving out of the ancestral home for a farm on the estate, so that their son can move in. Assuming William Plowden lives another seven years, Plowden Hall will pass to another generation of Plowdens, free of tax. He hands on a thriving business that gives tghe lie to the claim that time is up for all these old families who embody a traditional idea of Englishness.

These families were the core of rural English society, unemotional, practical, professedly 'non-political' but deeply conservative, quiet, kindly, unintellectual. Ask him what he thinks of the state of England now and you get terse answers about standards slipping: 'We built six affordable houses in the village for people on low incomes. Five outo f the six are occupied by couples who aren't married.' But it is when you see his car that you realize what really bothers him. He has been down to the local printers [sic] and has his own stickers printed in Day-Glo orange. They read

SOD THE EU
HOME RULE FOR BRITAIN

'Sooner or later,' he says, 'the Common Market is going to collapse. I don't see how you can run a country wit two system so f law - our own national law and then all these laws from people in Brussels which override our laws. The sooner it ends, the better.' In the rolling hills of Shropshire, the heart of England still beats. It is driving around with a sticker in the back window telling the rest of Europe to sod off."

It's an English thing

The English don't like foreigners. Never have.

It's just a thing. Comes of being on an island for ten thousand years.

"The people are bold, courageous, ardent and cruel in war. But very inconstant, rash, vainglorious, light and deceiving. And very suspicious, especially of foreigners, whom they despise".
Emanuel van Meteren
September 6, 1535 - April 11, 1612

"The inhabitants are extremely proud and overbearing. They care little for foreigners, but scoff and laugh at them".
(An unknown German author, describing visit to England by Frederick, Duke of Wurttemberg in 1592.

"Someone shouted that we were all English. Why are we running? The English don't run. And so it went on. Having fled in panic, some of the supporters would then remember that they were English and this was important, and they would remind the others that they too were English, and this was important, and with renewed sense of national identity, they would come abruptly to a halt, turn around, and charge the Italian police".
(upon witnessing English football hooligans fighting a pitched battle with the Italian police, Sardinia 1990)

"The best thing I know between England and France is the sea".Douglas Jerrold (1803-1875) - English author & journalist

"Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live".John Milton (1643) - English poet

"He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights can not be a patriot". Samuel Johnson

Safe as houses

"New study shows..."

Apparently, a study has shown that there is widespread support (in the US) for people to believe whatever they want to believe, so long as there is little or no action taken upon those beliefs.

The trend is clear. Vague talk is safer than clear action. Personal beliefs are good, but not if these doctrines lead to actions that indicate that some beliefs are right and others wrong.

Seeking is good, but finding is bad. Judging is even worse.

Well, I'd say that, starting with Archlayman Dr. Rowan Williams, the entire Anglican and Catholic clergy of the UK is perfectly safe.

Yep. 'Cause you know. Staying safe is what we are called to as Christians.

In an age of "I'm OK, You're OK" spirituality, he added, "American spirituality has glorified 'searching' for spiritual meaning, but de-emphasized 'finding.' In other words, it is good to be looking for spirituality, but it is intolerant to actually believe you have found a right faith.

...while at the same time, this country of religious experts

can't name the "little town" where Jesus was born.

Can we just turn the clock back now please?

The English the English, the English are best

I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

An Englishman has all the qualities of a poker...

except for the occasional warmth.