We are on a trip to England for New Years and celebrated New Years Eve in the Cotswolds. The town of Broadway is where were are staying. This photo shows the “High Street” or shopping street of Broadway looking just about as it does today, New Years Day 2008. The structure with the two flagpoles is the Lygon Arms, an ancient inn where I have stayed many times. Our hotel is across the street; almost as ancient and not quite as expensive. It is called The Broadway Hotel and is quite comfortable. The New Years Eve party last night was fun with the employees and guests firing blowgun paper pellets at each other in merry abandon once dinner was over. Today, everyone was back at work none the worse for the festivities.
Yesterday, we visited Warwick Castle. I have been visiting Warwick Castle for 30 years and have observed the slow decline of the interest in history through this prism. In 1977, the castle was still owned by the Earl of Warwick. There is an enormous amount of English history associated with this, the only pre-Civil War castle still intact. The reason it is intact is that the family, which owned the castle at the time of the dispute between the King and the Parliamentarians, was astute enough to change sides. All the royalist castles, including the gem of Kenilworth Castle, were blown up by the Roundheads after the king, Charles I was beheaded.
During its early history (It dates to William the Conqueror and even earlier), it was the home of Richard de Beauchamp who was the inquisitor of Joan of Arc. His son, at one point in the Wars of the Roses, imprisoned King Henry VI in a tower at Warwick Castle. My purpose here is not to provide a short course of English history but merely to point out how much of it is concerned with this castle. On my first visit to the castle 30 years ago, this was a major theme of the visit. The tower room where Henry VI and even Edward IV were confined (What other nobleman of England was powerful enough to imprison two kings in his castle ?) were there to be seen. There were references to this history everywhere.
What is the castle like today ? It was sold by the family in 1978, the year after my first visit, to the owners of Madam Tussauds wax works, a London attraction with statues of famous persons. The next visit I made to Warwick Castle showed some changes. There was now a tour of the residence area that was staged with wax statues of various characters as though they were attending a weekend party similar to that in the movie Gosford Park. It added a bit to the tour and especially for those with either limited imagination or a lack of history. The last visit, yesterday, shows a near-complete transformation. Now there is no exhibit of the imprisonment of the kings. The “weekend party” tour is the same but now the center field of the castle is filled with children attractions like merry-go-rounds and one tower is now a “ghost tower” with characters in make-up jumping out to scare children. It is now a variation of Disneyland. I understand the necessities of paying for upkeep and making the castle more attractive to visitors but I wonder where the history went. How many of those British subjects wandering about the castle yesterday could have answered a simple quiz on the Beauchamp family, King Henry VI, the Princes in the Tower or Joan of Arc? I wonder. This castle is probably the most important icon of British history outside London but little of it was on display yesterday. I asked several of the guides about items that I had seen here in past visits but none was able to answer. They didn’t know.
Tags: beauchamp family, civil war, cotswolds, English history, warwick castle
Hearst Castle is seeing lower attendance in the past few years. As the current generation of senior citizens die out the younger generation does not seem to know or care so much about W.R. Hearst, his architect Julia Morgan, or the rich and famous movers and shakers that once gathered at his hilltop estate. Although its “History” is very recent, and its significance in no way compares to Warwick Castle, Hearst Castle does give interesting insights into the William R. Hearst’s empire building as the father of yellow journalism and to life in the 20s, 30s, and 40s.
I am no historian—Professor LaRoche is, and I don’t mean to trod on academic toes—but it seems to me that since the “critical theory” and “deconstructionist” types took over the liberal arts, history is no longer about fact but about shadings based on current events, presumptions, and mores.
I’m not surprised that folks in the UK don’t know much about the English Civil wars, let alone Cromwell (other than as a despot toward Ireland). Good luck finding almost anyone in this country who knows who Cromwell was, let alone much about our own history.
It certainly wasn’t taught to me in school—my older brother is a history buff, and he insisted that I learn about English history (for example, he forced me to read Churchill’s “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples,” and his huge history of World War II when I was a teenager by bribing me–after that, I read books he suggested without the financial inducement).
Most history books today have a strong political component that I suspect will be ridiculed in the future for being too mired in our current self-loathing.
Well, that’s me. The point is that if people don’t know history (misquoting Santayana) they will repeat it. And the Powers that be *like* the people they control to be ignorant.
Have you actually read Howard Zinn’s history book, that gets pushed onto many students of American history? Sheesh.
I hope you are enjoying your trip and best wishes for 2008…
Dr. K., just try asking your medical students when the Civil War was fought. Ask them to name three Axis powers in World War II, and when and why did the US enter that war? Good luck on World War I or Korea. You might have some luck with Vietnam, but you won’t hear about Tet. That sort of thing.
Oh well. Again, have a great trip.
That s why I was so pleased with Annie’s high school history teacher who had them write essays on such subjects as the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression treaty of 1939. They had to explain why each would sign such a treaty.
“Most history books today have a strong political component…”
I chalk this up to the Vietnam war. I was in high school in the latter half of the ”70’s, and I noticed the history teachers were ex war protesters out to trash America. One had a course entitled “American Imperialism”. I always wondered how he got that one past the Administration.
The same thing happened with journalism: instead of reporting an objective body of facts and contexts, journalism/education became a means to “make the world a better place” by fighting corruption (Nixon) and putting the powerful in their place.
There was a documentary on Richard III this weekend and my gosh, what an intensely dysfunctional and diabolical family they were, but then again, such was the life of a royal fighting to keep the throne. In light of the glamming of up of Warwick Castle, it wouldn’t be surprising to eventually see the internal warring of the royal families of old be whitewashed and reflect nothing but English charm and familial warmth.
Brett King, you are so right re Hearst Castle. Its a magnificent and obviously rare gem of architecture and cultural history so accessible to the masses and yet it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles to keep short attention spans entertained….perhaps, Madame Tussads should pay a visit!
There is a theory that Shakespeare, who was living with the Tudors in power, did a job on Richard III. Remember that the widow of Henry V had four children with Owen Tudor and founded the Tudor dynasty. Ultimately, Glouster (Richard III) had Owen Tudor beheaded. The Tudors were not friends of Richard III and Shakespeare knew it.