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.