Southampton

On Easter Sunday we headed down to Southampton for a couple of days relaxation before heading to Sheffield and then to Ipswich. We got home last Saturday.

Southampton is a fascinating place for anyone with an interest in history (we also had some good meals there!). The walls that were built in the medieval period can still be seen, and - especially on a quiet Sunday and bank holiday - it's easy to picture the original city. Our hotel was just outside the Westgate (in the sea, then but happily not now).

As the plaque shows it was from there that Henry V and his troops set off for France [and the battle we know of as 'Agincourt' - there's a useful site here about the battle and the museum], and from which the Pilgrim Fathers set off for America. They only got as far as the west of the British Isles before having to return to Plymouth. Finally the Mayflower sailed from there across the Atlantic.

Previous Washminster posts on the Pilgrim Fathers can be found at http://washminster.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/arrival.html
http://washminster.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/thanksgiving-day-2009.html
http://washminster.blogspot.co.uk/2007/09/washminster-returns.html
and http://washminster.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/john-milton.html

We also visited the SeaCity museum, which was excellent - lots on the people who came from; left from and lived in Southampton. There were two excellent exhibitions about the Titanic (one on the ship itself and its sinking; the other on the 'myth' of the Titanic). well worth a visit - particularly if it is a cold and/or wet day.

Further information about visiting Southampton is available here and here.

Britain and the American Civil War

As long time members of the Washminster Community know, I am fascinated by the American Civil War (and very grateful to my friend John Dickert for taking me to so many of the battlefields.) Last week C-SPAN rebroadcast a very interesting programme about Britain's role in the US Civil War. Many Brits served in the opposing armies - and of course the war was of great interest to policy makers and politicians in London (to say nothing of manufacturers and their workers, particularly in the North and the Midlands).

The programme can be accessed at

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/BritainsRo

Parliament Act 1911

Last week I attended  the  History of Parliament lecture given by Lord Norton of Louth (Philip Norton) "Resisting the Inevitable? The Parliament Act 1911". It was a very informative and interesting speech - which is available on BBC iPlayer at  http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b0170422/.

Can I also recommend taking a look at the History of Parliament website, and at Parliament's webpages with resources on the 1911 Act.
(http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/houseoflords/parliamentacts/)

Lord Norton blogs on both the Lords of the Blog and his own personal blog.

Parliament Week

This coming week will see a number of events to celebrate "Parliament Week" (I suspect that the dates were not chosen by accident - November 5th was, by order of Parliament in the 17th Century, to be kept as an annual day of "public thanksgiving to Almighty God...that unfeigned thankfulness may never be forgotten, and that all ages to come may yield praises to God's divine majesty for the same." It was on that day that Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up Parliament was thwarted in 1605).

Details of the events (which occur across the country) can be found at a special website - http://www.parliamentweek.org/

I hope to be attending a few of the events, both at Westminster and in Birmingham. Do drop me a line if you will be attending any of the events.

Whitehall Palace

Cardinal Wolsey, whose painting appeared in yesterday's post was the man who built Whitehall Palace. He was a poor man (some historians challenge this myth - he was pretty well connected from birth), who made good, but paid the price of his success. He had risen to become one of the young Henry VIII's most powerful and trusted ministers. By 1514 he was one of the most powerful figures in both the Church and the State. As Archbishop of York he had use of York Place, the residence close to the royal seat of power in Westminster. It was on King Street, like it's modern successor, Whitehall, it ran from Westminster out towards Charing Cross - and extended towards the River Thames.

It was York Place which he turned into one of the largest and most impressive houses in London. Thurley describes the complex. "it made use of the best parts of the House built by Archbishop Neville (1465-76) and his predecessors, but added new rooms that made the house more modern, convenient and magnificent...Wolsey retained the medieval Great Hall". A new Great Chamber was built - "panelled and given a gilded ceiling. brass door-locks engraved with Wolsey's arms, and lavish stained-glass windows." Surrounding land was bought up and buildings Wolsey considered unsightly were demolished.

Work was completed in the late 1520's. Sadly Wolsey's power and wealth had made his old friend, Henry VIII jealous. Wolsey also failed to get Henry the annulment of the King's marriage to Katherine of Aragon. The Boleyn family and her supporters suspected that Wolsey had sabotaged procceedings - and the King moved against him.

Henry took the newly completed residence from Wolsey - and moved in himself. Westminster had ceased to be a royal residence a few years previously after a fire.

The Great Fire of Westminster

This blog has described the fire which destroyed the Congress building - at the hands of the British - in 1814. There was also a catastrophic fire at Westminster twenty years later. This however was an accident. Workmen were "recycling" wooden tally sticks - originally used for accounting purposes. A furnace was overstoked - and a fire quickly spread. It turned out to be the most devastating fire that the Palace has ever suffered. Most of the Palace - with buildings dating from many centuries - was destroyed.

The Parliamentary website describes the efforts to deal with the catastrophe - "By the time fire engines arrived at the burning Houses of Parliament during the fire of 1834, the House of Lords was already destroyed and the Commons was on fire.

The Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, directed the work to soak the roof of Westminster Hall. The rest of the Houses of Parliament was lost but the hall was saved."

More details - and graphic pictures can be seen at http://www.explore-parliament.net/nssMovies/06/0693/0693_.htm

Today is the anniversary of this great fire.

The Profumo Scandal

Many of the most vulnerable House seats in the congressional elections have seen their existing Member involved in scandal. In the United Kingdom scandals have played a key role in the electoral defeat of governments. John Major's Conservative Party suffered disastrous results after a series of fincial and sexual scandals - but the big scandal of the last century was known after its key player, Profumo. The Guardian has claimed - "The Profumo affair was no passing sensation. It all but brought down the Macmillan government and it almost certainly finished Macmillan himself as prime minister. In October 1963, less than a month after publication of the Denning report, the prime minister resigned citing ill health."

John Profumo was a Midlands MP (Kettering 1940-45; Statford Upon Avon 1950-63) who became the Secretary of State for War. It was his affair with Christine Keeler which was at the heart of the scandal. He lied to the House of Commons about the affair. Worse still Ms Keeler was having simultaneous affairs with the Profumo and the the senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy.

Christine Keeler was arrested and charged with perjury on 5th September 1963 (in connection with evidence given at the Old Bailey). Profumo spent the rest of his life working as a volunteer charity worker.

Oliver Cromwell

Three Hundred and Fifty years ago today, the Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell died. He was born in the town which he first represented as MP - Huntingdon. (Later he was to represent Cambridge - where he had been a student).

During his life, and since his death, controversy has reigned about this remarkable man. For some, particularly those with Irish roots, he was a monster. He has been portrayed as a military dictator. To others he was a brilliant military leader; a man of faith who spurned personal honours whilst seeking to rule fairly. While some hate him as a regicide, others have seen him as the champion of liberty.

I have to admit - I am a big fan of Cromwell. He had his flaws - but never sought to deny them. [There is a well known story that Cromwell instructed Sir Peter Lely, who was painting his portrait, that it include any imperfections. "I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will not pay a farthing for it."]. He possessed undoubted military genius - but most of all he fought against the idea of an absolute monarchy. Without his political and military leadership Britain would (probably) not have had a (short) period as a republic - and parliamentary supremacy would not have been achieved.

The royalist propagandists have been active during many generations to blacken his name. There are two monuments in Naseby, one is historically correct - the other is in the wrong place, which claimed that the battle had "Led to the subversion of the Throne, The Altar, and the Constitution". It is not at all sympathetic to Cromwell.

A website about Cromwell can be found at http://www.olivercromwell.org/index.htm

John Milton

This morning we visited the cottage in which John Milton lived while the Plague raged in London (1665-6) - and where he wrote his most famous book "Paradise Lost". If you have the opportunity, do visit the cottage. It is also a museum - and the guided tour was both fascinating and stimulating. Details of the cottage, which is in the South Buckinghamshire village of Chalfont St Giles (not far, but out of sight or sound of the M25 Jnt 17), can be found at http://www.miltonscottage.org/index.htm

John Milton - apart from being one of the most important poets in English history - was a democrat and a republican. He argued in 1644 for freedom of the press in his "Areopagiticia", and his political ideas have influenced modern political practice, particularly in the United States. My visit has prompted me to download and start reading some of his political works. You can do the same by visiting http://oll.libertyfund.org/readinglists/view/138-the_political_thought_of_john_milton

Some gems from his writings -

"It may be well wonderd that any nation, styling themselves free, can suffer any man to pretend hereditarie right over them as thir lord; whenas by acknowledging that right, they conclude themselves his servants and his vassals, and so renounce thir own freedom."

"The happiness of a nation must needs be firmest and certainest in a full and free Councel of their own electing, where no single person, but reason only sway[e]s."

During the period of the Commonwealth, Milton was a senior civil servant, and pamphleteer for the principles of republican democracy. When the monarchy was restored he was imprisoned and his books burned. I found it a little odd that the visits of recent monarchy (including a visit by Charles and Camilla three weeks ago) were given such prominence in the cottage. Queen Victoria was the first on the subscription list for the establishment of the trust (perhaps she wasn't acquainted with his republican writing!).

We drove on to the nearby (a mile or so away) village of Jordans where William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was buried - and, where a barn stands which was built of timbers bought from Rotherhithe from a ship which had been broken up called the "Mayflower", perhaps the same ship which had been used by the Pilgrim Fathers to take them to America.

The Early Years - Labour in the House of Lords

When the Labour Representative Committee was created in 1900 its purpose was to ensure that representatives of the Labour movement were elected to Parliament. It concentrated wholly upon the House of Commons, the only elected part of the British Parliament. The House of Lords, which it described in its January 1910 manifesto as "an irresponsible body which represents nothing but its own class interests" had no Labour members.

With the collapse in the Liberal Party and the increase in the Labour vote (December 1910 - 7.1% to December 1918 22.2%, - helped by the extension of the franchise to all men over 21 and all women over 30) - Labour became one of the most important parties at Westminster. It was only in 1920 that the first "Labour Peer" was recognised. The 2nd Earl of Kimberley (John Wodehouse - son of a leading statesman in Gladstone's Governments) had entered the House of Lords in 1902, and like his father taken the Liberal Whip. In 1918 and 1920 he sent telegrams of support to the Labour parliamentary candidate in South Norfolk, and in 1922 was re-elected to Norfolk County Council, but this time after describing himself as the "Labour" candidate. For these activities he was nicknamed by the press as "the Labour Earl"

In February 1920 the Constitutional Year Book (cited in Twentieth Century British Political Facts 1900-2000 by David and Gareth Butler) identifies the strength of the Labour Party in the House of Lords as One. But the Earl of Kimberley retained the Liberal Whip (despite his support for an opposing candidate in 1920). A seperate Labour Group only fomally existed after January 1924.

Other early members supporting Labour included the 2nd Earl Russell (elder brother of Bertrand Russell, who succeeded him as 3rd Earl) and Earl De La Warr - who was to become Labour Chief Whip (before joined the National Government, and subsequently the conservative Government of Winston Churchill).

It was the advent of the first Labour Government which caused the first formation of a proper Labour Group. Former Liberals such as Viscount Haldane; Lord Gorell; the 2nd Lord Acton (the first death in the group - June 1924); Lord Muir MacKenzie (the first Labour Chief Whip) joined the group and new Peers were created (Lord Olivier - uncle of the actor Laurence Olivier; Lord Thomson and Lord Arnold). Lord Parmoor - a former Tory MP who received a peerage in 1914 from the Liberals, and father of Stafford Cripps, also joined the group.