A dignified Speaker

John Evelyn Denison, Viscount Ossington, died a century and a half ago today. He was an unremarkable politician except for the fact that he held the office of Speaker in the House of Commons and kept a diary record of his 14 years in the post. Often dry and procedural, the diary comes alive when Denison writes about his own decisions being praised by others, not least the future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Denison also hands down occasional pearls of wisdom such as when the House was unexpectedly in a ‘a touchy, irritable state’ - ‘such is always the case with the sharpest hurricanes. The barometer gives no notice.’

Denison was born in 1800 at Ossington, Nottinghamshire, the eldest son of a wool merchant. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1820 on the death of his father inherited the Ossington estates with much land. He was said to be a progressive landlord, interested in agricultural improvements; and, later, he was president of the Royal Agricultural Society. In 1823, he became a Whig MP, and in 1827, he married Charlotte, daughter of William, Duke of Portland, but they had no children.

Throughout his life, Denison sat in Parliament for various constituencies, including Newcastle-under-Lyme, Hastings, South and North Nottinghamshire, and Malton. In 1857, he was chosen to be Speaker of the House of Commons, a position he retained until 1872, when he resigned and was created Viscount Ossington. He died a few months later, on 7 March 1873. A little further biographical information is available from Wikipedia or Nottingham University’s website for manuscripts and special collections.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry (log-in required) on Denison says he was fairly well regarded as speaker: ‘A consolidator rather than an innovator (he prevented, for example, the introduction of printed notice of questions to ministers), he none the less defended the financial rights of the Commons against the Lords, deploring the latter’s action in rejecting the bill of 1860 repealing the paper duty, and opposing the Lords’ introduction of a financial provision into a divorce bill. The tories in 1862 hoped he might be encouraged to retire and be replaced by Spencer Walpole. Denison was the last speaker to speak and vote in committee, and he voted against the government on the budget on 9 June 1870. He was a dignified speaker but was thought by contemporaries sometimes lacking in firmness.’

For the 14 years that he held the post of Speaker, Denison kept a diary record of his duties and decisions. This journal was found in a box many years later. Considered initially too technical for public interest, it was only printed for private circulation. However, in 1900, John Murray decided it might sell to a wider audience and so published it as Notes from My Journal when Speaker of the House of Commons. This edition is freely available at Internet Archive.

The published diary is often dense with the detail of Parliamentary procedure, nevertheless Denison did a fair job of keeping it interesting with lucid explanations of issues that were, perhaps, out of the ordinary or worth setting down. And though he must have meant it to be a dry and official record, Denison does sometimes write about his personal feelings, especially when others have praised him for decisions! Here are several extracts.

30 April 1862
‘I have been named by the Queen as one of the Commissioners to represent Her Majesty on the occasion of opening the International Exhibition. I wrote to Lord Eversley to ask him how I should go dressed on such an occasion. He answered, in plain black gown and wig. I forwarded this opinion to the Lord Chancellor, who repelled the idea in a very amusing letter, and said he had settled to go in his gold gown; he saw no necessary connection between the gold gown and the gold coach. I have decided against the lumbering gold coach for many reasons: 1) I should probably stick fast in the new granite; 2) I should have to go at a foot’s pace while in company with others who could and would trot; 3) I could not bear to drag all the officers of the House and my servants on foot such a long distance. I am not going to Court to pay my respects to the Queen; I am not going with the House of Commons as a body, and at their head.’

1 May 1862
‘The opening of the International Exhibition took place this day at one o’clock. The House of Commons adjourned from Wednesday to six o’clock on Thursday to allow the attendance of the Ministers, of myself, and of the members generally at the ceremony. I had decided to go in my gold gown, but not in the lumbering gold coach. I borrowed a good London coach of Lord Chesham. I put my coachman and two footmen in their State liveries. I added good cloths, and bows of ribbon to my horses’ furniture.

At twelve, I set off to Buckingham Palace, taking Lord Charles Russell and the mace and my trainbearer in the coach. Arrived at Buckingham Palace they desired me to drive forward near the gate, as I was to lead the procession. Royal processions move in the inverse order of precedency, the lowest in rank going first. So my carriage was first, then Lord Palmerston, then Lord Derby, I think, Lord Sydney, the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Prince Oscar of Sweden, the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Duke of Cambridge.

We were not ready till a quarter to one. We were to be at the Exhibition Buildings at one. I led the way at a fair trot. (Where should I have been in my gold coach - leading the way at a foot’s pace?)

We arrived at the building at one. The rest of the procession was arranged in the building, waiting for the Royal Commissioners to complete the line. I was to walk first (as I had led the way in my carriage). Lord Palmerston was desired to walk by my side. He said: “No, the Speaker should walk alone; I will follow”. I said: “Of course, as you please, but I should think it a great honour if we might proceed together”. Lord Palmerston said: “Oh, if you wish it, certainly”. [. . .]

As we walked along I could gauge the popularity of Lord Palmerston. The moment he came in sight, throughout the whole building, men and women, young and old, at once were struck as by an electric shock. “Lord Palmerston! Here is Lord Palmerston! Bravo! Hurrah! Lord Palmerston for ever!” And so it went on through the whole building. One voice: “I wish you may be Minister for the next twenty years”. “ Well, not unlikely,” said Lord Taunton, “he would only be a little more than a hundred.” ’

10 March 1863
‘We went in a special train from Paddington to Windsor, leaving 10:30, and being an hour on the road. Carriages were ready to take us to the chapel. Lady C posted down in her own carriage, leaving 8:30, reaching St. George’s Chapel at a quarter past eleven; she escaped much cold and draughts by this, and greatly preferred it. I went in my black velvet suit. The Lord Chamberlain said that was the proper dress. He told this to the Lord Chancellor, who, however, would go in his gold gown and his wig. The Lord Chamberlain said: We had no function to perform; we had no part to play in the ceremony, we were invited guests like others. I followed the advice of the Lord Chamberlain; the Lord Chancellor went in his gold gown. The seat allotted to me was the dean’s seat, close by the door. It was a very magnificent sight - rich, gorgeous and imposing. I don’t know how I could say enough about the magnificence of the spectacle. The pageant was admirably got up, and was well performed throughout. Beautiful women were arrayed in the richest attire, in bright colours, blue, purple, red, and covered with diamonds and jewels. Grandmothers looked beautiful: Lady Abercom, Lady Westminster, Lady Shaftesbury. Among the young, Lady Spencer, Lady Castlereagh, Lady Carmarthen, were most bright and brilliant. The Knights of the Garter in their robes looked each of them a fine picture - Lord Russell looked like a hero who could have walked into the castle court and have slain a giant. The Queen sat in her closet on the left hand side of the altar, looking up the chapel and high above it. But she did not affect any concealment. She looked constantly out of the window of her closet and sometimes leaned over, with her body half out of the window, to take a survey down the church. She was dressed in plain black up to the throat, with the blue ribbon over her shoulder, and a sort of plain mob cap.

As each of the royal persons with their attendants walked up the chapel, at a certain point each stopped and made an obeisance to the Queen: the Princess Mary, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Princess of Prussia, the Princess Alice of Hesse, the Princess Helena, the Princess Christian, etc.: each in turn formed a complete scene. The Princess Alexandra with her bridesmaids made the last and the most beautiful scene. The Princess looked beautiful, and very graceful in her manner and demeanour. When her eyes are cast down she has a wonderful power of flashing a kind of sidelong look.’

4 June 1863
‘Mr. Tollemache wishing to make a personal explanation as to some observations of Mr. Gladstone’s about the Committee on the Holyhead packet - Then rose Colonel Douglas Pennant - Mr. Gladstone explained - Then rose Mr. H. Herbert - I had to interfere. Mr. Herbert moved that the House do adjourn. Then Mr. Hennessey spoke, all attacking Mr. Gladstone - I had again to interfere. Then Lord Robert Cecil tried to get a stronger expression from me about Mr. Gladstone’s words, but without success. The whole thing was verging on great irregularity, reference to past debates, etc. Still a personal explanation could hardly be permitted, and so the thing grew in dimensions, always growing more irregular as it went on.

The House was in a touchy, irritable state; the slightest step on my part might have raised a storm. It was a flare up all in a moment. But such is always the case with the sharpest hurricanes. The barometer gives no notice.’

26 July 1866 [The Reform League had been established a year earlier to press for manhood suffrage and the ballot in Great Britain. It campaigned unsuccessfully for the Reform Bill in 1866, and successfully for the Rerform Act in 1867. This diary entry is dated three days after the so-called ‘Hyde Park Railings Affair’.]
‘Great anxiety prevailed about the condition of things between the Secretary of State, Mr. Walpole, and the Reform League. The parks had been invaded, the iron railings torn down. There had been an interview between Mr. Beales, the Chairman of the League, and Mr. Walpole, and Mr. Beales had posted placards to say that Mr. Walpole had given way, and that a meeting would be held in the park on Monday. There was a feeling that Mr. Walpole had displayed great weakness.

At the morning sitting of Thursday, 26th July, Mr. Disraeli came to me and spoke of the state of affairs, and asked me what I thought of an Address to the Crown, asking the Crown to grant the use of the park for the purposes of general recreation, but not for meetings on political or religious subjects. I said that on the first blush such a course seemed to me to be open to the greatest objection. Mr. Walpole had spoken positively as to the law of the case, without doubt or reservation. Sir George Grey had concurred with him, and had supported him. The House accepted the statement without question. They had therefore already all they could obtain by a fresh answer from the Crown to an Address. To show hesitation or doubt at such a moment would be ruinous. It would justify doubt on the other side, and so give colour to the pretensions of the League. To open the question by an Address to the Crown would bring forth stormy remonstrances from the Radicals, and counter propositions.

I urged the Government to stand firmly on the ground that had been taken. All that the public required was a show of firmness on the part of the Government; at present an impression prevailed that great weakness had been exhibited.

The Government stood to their declarations, and there was a satisfactory debate in the House of Commons in the evening. I congratulated Mr. Disraeli on the result. He said to me: “It has turned out very well. I followed your advice exactly.” ’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 7 March 1873.

In celebration of Pepys

It’s Samuel Pepys’s birthday, his 390th. For a decade or so in the early part of his career - which would see him become Chief Secretary to the Admiralty - he kept a diary so brilliant that it would become one of the most important and famous of all diaries. With meticulous detail and literary skill, he recorded everything in his life, from the tragic to the comic, from grand affairs of state to the frailties of his own character. Moreover, in the diary, he left behind an immensely important account of the Restoration period in English history, as well as first-hand accounts of many major events, not least the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London,and the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to suggest that Pepys is to diaries what Shakespeare is to plays.

Pepys was born in London on 23 February 1633 above a shop, near Fleet Street, where his father provided a tailoring service for lawyers. He was schooled in Huntingdon at first, and at St Paul’s, London, and then was able to study at Cambridge University thanks to various scholarships and grants. In 1655, he entered the household of a relation, Sir Edward Montagu, and the same year married Elisabeth de St Michel, a descendant of French Huguenot immigrants, who was only 14 at the time. She would die young, in 1669, without having had children.

In 1658, Pepys moved to live in Axe Yard, near where the modern Downing Street is located, and underwent a painful and difficult operation to remove a large bladder stone.  Two years later, Montagu, by then an admiral, promoted him to secretary. In May the same year, he sailed with Montagu’s fleet to the Netherlands to bring Charles II back from exile. Pepys continued to rise in importance with Montagu’s success. When the Second Anglo-Dutch War dominated foreign affairs in the mid-1660s, Pepys proved himself an indefatigable and skilled administrator. However, in the years after the war, Navy Board practices, and Pepys himself, came under considerable and critical scrutiny. A virtuoso performance by Pepys in Parliament in March 1668 helped his cause, and, ultimately, the support of Charles II helped him keep his job.

In 1673, Pepys first became a Member of Parliament. He fell out of a favour for a few years in the late 1670s for allegedly betraying naval secrets, but the charges proved to have been fabricated, and by 1684 had been appointed King’s Secretary for the affairs of the Admiralty, a post he retained after the accession of James II. He was again an MP in the latter half of 1680s. For two years, starting in 1684, he was president of the Royal Society, a period in which Isaac Newton published his Principia Mathematica. With the deposing of James II and the subsequent succession of Mary II and her husband William of Orange, Pepys was again accused of political plots and imprisoned briefly. He never returned to public life, and died at his house in Clapham in 1703. Further information is available at Wikipedia, a virtual exhibition at the Magdalene College website, and Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Pepys left his vast library to Magdalene College, Cambridge University, where the 3,000 tomes are shelved in his own bookcases in a building named after him. Though containing many important volumes, the most important by far are the six of Pepys diary. He started writing on New Year’s Day 1660, when still poor, without apparent prospects, and without having anything significant to write about. One of his modern biographers, Claire Tomalin (Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, Viking), looks carefully at why he did this, suggesting possible reasons: his employers kept journals, he wished to give himself a serious task, he was a passionate reader and cared for good writing, he was aware of the high political and religious drama going on around him, and he was unrepentantly curious about himself. He stopped writing his diary in May 1669, fearing the activity was having a negative impact on his deteriorating eyesight.

Written in a shorthand code, with a meticulous hand (as beautiful as pieces of embroidery, for Tomalin) Pepys’s diaries were not deciphered or published until the 1820s. A second transcription of the original diaries was completed in 1875 by Mynors Bright and various published editions followed, some more complete than others. Even the most complete, though, omitted some passages which the editors thought ‘cannot possibly be printed’. The same editors do not explain but simply ask the reader to have faith in them. Some of these editions are freely available today on the internet - such as The Diary of Samuel Pepys website run by Phil Gyford, which also has a Pepys encyclopaedia, in-depth essays, and a lively forum for debate on all things Pepys. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that Robert Latham and William Matthews transcribed and edited the complete diary for publication in nine volumes published by Bell & Hyman, London, and the University of California Press, Berkeley.

At least seven Diary Review articles have been based on Pepys’s diary:
- Pepys on Sir Edward Hyde (historian, statesman and grandfather to two queens)
- Mistress of the bedchamber (Barbara Palmer, the most famous of Charles II’s mistresses)
- 1st Duke of Albemarle (a soldier and a key player in the restoration of Charles II)
- John Blow’s bad singing (an English organist and composer)
- Speaker without his mace (about the disbanding of the Long Parliament)
- Height and raptures  (Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, soldier, statesman and playwright)
- Pepys, fire and Parmesan cheese

Here, to celebrate with Pepys, are several short extracts from his great diary, including one sometimes cited as the first reference to Punch and Judy in English literature, several about Bartholomew Fair, and two about the plague.

9 May 1662
‘Thence with Mr Salisbury, who I met there, into Covent Garden to an alehouse, to see a picture that hangs there, which is offered for 20s., and I offered fourteen - but it is worth much more money - but did not buy it, I having no mind to break my oath. Thence to see an Italian puppet play that is within the rayles there, which is very pretty, the best that ever I saw, and great resort of gallants. So to the Temple and by water home, and so walk upon the leads, and in the dark there played upon my flageolette [a woodwind musical instrument], it being a fine still evening, and so to supper and to bed.’

25 August 1663
‘It seems this Lord Mayor begins again an old custome, that upon the three first days of Bartholomew Fayre, the first, there is a match of wrestling, which was done, and the Lord Mayor there and Aldermen in Moorefields yesterday: to-day, shooting: and to-morrow, hunting. And this officer of course is to perform this ceremony of riding through the city, I think to proclaim or challenge any to shoot. It seems that the people of the fayre cry out upon it as a great hindrance to them.’

4 September 1663
‘Thence Creed and I away, and by his importunity away by coach to Bartholomew Fayre, where I have no mind to go without my wife, and therefore rode through the fayre without ’lighting, and away home, leaving him there; and at home made my wife get herself presently ready, and so carried her by coach to the fayre, and showed her the monkeys dancing on the ropes, which was strange, but such dirty sport that I was not pleased with it. There was also a horse with hoofs like rams hornes, a goose with four feet, and a cock with three. Thence to another place, and saw some German Clocke works, the Salutation of the Virgin Mary, and several Scriptural stories; but above all there was at last represented the sea, with Neptune, Venus, mermaids, and Ayrid on a dolphin, the sea rocking, so well done, that had it been in a gaudy manner and place, and at a little distance, it had been admirable. Thence home by coach with my wife, and I awhile to the office, and so to supper and to bed.’

7 June 1665
‘Thence, it being the hottest day that ever I felt in my life, and it is confessed so by all other people the hottest they ever knew in England in the beginning of June, we to the New Exchange, and there drunk whey, with much entreaty getting it for our money, and [they] would not be entreated to let us have one glasse more. So took water and to Fox-Hall, to the Spring garden [later known as Vauxhall Gardens, opened a few years earlier and would stay open for around 200 years], and there walked an houre or two with great pleasure, saving our minds ill at ease concerning the fleete and my Lord Sandwich, that we have no newes of them, and ill reports run up and down of his being killed, but without ground. Here staid pleasantly walking and spending but 6d. till nine at night, and then by water to White Hall, and there I stopped to hear news of the fleete, but none come, which is strange, and so by water home, where, weary with walking and with the mighty heat of the weather, and for my wife’s not coming home, I staying walking in the garden till twelve at night, when it begun to lighten exceedingly, through the greatness of the heat. Then despairing of her coming home, I to bed.

This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and “Lord have mercy upon us” writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that, to my remembrance, I ever saw. It put me into an ill conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll-tobacco to smell to and chaw, which took away the apprehension.’

12 August 1665
‘The people die so, that now it seems they are fain to carry the dead to be buried by day-light, the nights not sufficing to do it in. And my Lord Mayor commands people to be within at nine at night all, as they say, that the sick may have liberty to go abroad for ayre.’

6 September 1667
‘At Aldgate I took my wife into our coach, and so to Bartholomew fair, and there, it being very dirty, and now night, we saw a poor fellow, whose legs were tied behind his back, dance upon his hands with his arse above his head, and also dance upon his crutches, without any legs upon the ground to help him, which he did with that pain that I was sorry to see it, and did pity him and give him money after he had done. Then we to see a piece of clocke-work made by an Englishman - indeed, very good, wherein all the several states of man’s age, to 100 years old, is shewn very pretty and solemne; and several other things more cheerful.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 23 February 2013.

Blah, blah, blah . . .

Happy sixtieth birthday Alexandra (Sasha) Patrusha Mina Swire, political Tory wife par excellence. She rocketed into the public eye a couple of years ago on publishing her private diary, inadvertently exposing the rather smug lives of her husband, herself, and a ‘chumocracy’ of political friends.

Swire was born on 18 January 1963, the only daughter of Sir John Nott, former Member of Parliament for St Ives and Secretary of State for Defence under Margaret Thatcher, and his wife Miloska Vlahović, daughter of Yugoslav resistance leader Lujo Vlahović. She was educated at Cranborne Chase School, and at St Martin’s School of Art. She trained as a journalist, and worked on local newspapers. She married Hugo Swire in 1996, who became MP for East Devon in 2001, and they have two children. In 2005, she sought to be the Conservative Party candidate for Teignmouth but lost to Stanley Johnson. Otherwise, she has worked as a political researcher for her husband, until 2019 when he retired from parliament.

The following year, Little, Brown published Sasha Swire’s diary under the title Diary of an MP’s Wife: Inside and Outside Power. In her preface, she explains that she has been a ‘secret journal writer’ since childhood but that it was not until her husband entered politics that ‘a consistent narrative seemed to weave itself through my journals’. She continues: ‘They appeared to match an emerging and probably genetic obsession with the activities associated with governance and especially the debate between parties in the fight for power. The entries slowly evolved into a detailed record of what it was like to be a couple at the beating heart of politics during two tumultuous political decades.’

Swire’s diary attracted considerable publicity, not least because, as Wikipedia says, it ‘contains insights into the private lives of Conservative politicians’. Reflecting in the Tatler on response to her diaries, she wrote: ‘I was totally unprepared for the headlines that followed. It felt at times as if my wings were made of wax and feathers, that the sun had melted them and there was no shortage of hands pressing down on my head to keep me from resurfacing from a deep ocean. To be confronted with such a distorted picture of my real self was challenging to say the least.’

Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian said of the book: ‘It’s very much a view of politics from inside “the gang” and to read it is to understand the grating rage of those outside, realising that power lies not around the cabinet table but in jolly kitchen suppers with an impenetrable clique of old friends.’ She goes on: ’If the first half of the book is a giddy romp through life under the “chumocracy”, the second is more bittersweet, chronicling the fracturing of old friendships post-Brexit in what has become a court exiled from power. A leaver by temperament, in a circle of Tory remainers, by the end Sasha has come to feel something of an outsider herself. As her old friends argue fruitlessly over the best way to thwart a hard Brexit and plot unsuccessfully to manoeuvre Rudd into Downing Street, she backs the arch Brexiter Dominic Raab’s leadership bid before warming to the “slobbering golden retriever” Boris Johnson.’

Some pages of Diary of an MP’s Wife can be read at Googlebooks. Here are several extracts.

30 March 2015
‘David meets the Queen today, to mark the formal start of the general election campaign. It will be based on the usual fear tactics: families facing a £3000 tax bombshell if Ed Miliband gets into office, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, Miliband is pushing the message that the biggest threat to British business is the prospect of exit from the EU. Blah! Blah! Blah!’

12 July 2016
‘H comes back from a leaving party at No. 10. He is sad and silent, and does not want to talk. He says it feels like a bereavement. Only hardcore Cameroons were there. Speeches all round, including one from Samantha. Dave says to H that he told Theresa she should keep people like Hugo and Philip Dunne because they are solid and reliable. He also tells her not to go near Fox and Davis, that they are trouble and have no following. But I really want Hugo to move on now. It’s unlikely - very unlikely - that H will be offered anything, since T has already said she wants female parity in cabinet, and H won’t move sideways. So, it’s over and out, bar the promised knighthood. There is absolutely no indication where Theresa is going to place anyone. H puts his hand horizontal to his nose and says to George, “The water is here, so how are you going to get out of this one, Houdini?”

Dave says to H, “I have put in a good word with May.”

H replies, “Thanks but I’m thinking of joining you on the back benches.” ’

17 July 2018
‘I’ve never known such a febrile atmosphere since we have been involved in politics. Last night May announced she was accepting the amendments to her own plans, meaning the rebels were suddenly on the side of the government and the loyalists were the rebels. In the end she ‘won’ by just three votes. It’s getting so topsy-turvy, it’s difficult to keep up.

Well, I’m off to Devon tomorrow, where people are sane. Amber [Rudd] is speaking to the Association, so I need to go and make up a bed. At least we won’t have many more days like this one for a while. Mind you, with Old Ma May’s piecemeal approach anything could happen. Last time she went on holiday she got bored and called an election. If she hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

Stepping aside from Brexit for a moment, we have a new sex scandal, involving H’s former chief of staff Andrew Griffiths. I should have guessed he was heading for the red tops: he was pretty flirtatious with me at a reception in Downing Street a few years back. I remember thinking, is this flattery and am I enjoying it? Or is this a bit OTT? He has been caught sexting two barmaids he called the ‘Titty Twins’. Two thousand texts in three weeks, apparently, an average of around ninety-five a day, which must have been quite time consuming. The texts mostly concerned his desire to tie them up and whack them using his weapon of choice, the ‘Spank Paddle’. He has subsequently had the whip withdrawn.’

8 August 2019
‘Up in London, our current Rasputin figure (Cummings) is sending rockets up the arses of anyone in range (spads, ministers, civil servants, the Queen, Dominic Grieve, probably Boris).

Thing is, we all know Cummings is stark raving mad (you just need to look at his blog) but we are hoping that his maverick, radical, lunatic streak is what just might, possibly, get us over the line. I discuss him with Dominic Lawson, who is down holidaying in West Penwith and who is an old friend. He tells me he is a genius, but he is so bloody rude to everyone, particularly politicians, that he is absolutely loathed by the establishment. His father, Nigel Lawson, had complained to Dominic about his abruptness and he was a prominent leaver and Sir John, who met him on several occasions during the Brexit campaign, also says he is utterly ‘appalling’.

Down at the other lunatic asylum/snake pit, Mac the Knife (John McDonnell) pops up to say that if Boris doesn’t go when they tell him to, he’ll put Jezza in a taxi and send him off to the Queen to tell her they will form a government instead. (Just shows how out of touch they are - no one takes taxis these days, they take Ubers or public transport.) Trouble is, McDonnell has just told the SNP they can have another referendum, so the Queen is hardly going to agree to assisting in breaking up the union, and would she really want to hand power over to a bunch of Marxists?’

Feeling better is dangerous

’[Mr K] says that if he dies before the election I’m to go round his MPs - because they’ll say it was his own fault he worked too hard - and tell them it wasn’t all his fault. After all, they pushed him in to going here, there and everywhere. Everyone wanted him to visit their electorates. I grin at the thought of accosting Messrs Watt, Freer and Rowling with that message. These thoughts of death probably arise from his trip to Christchurch yesterday, when he saw Dr Mcllroy again. He’s been feeling better but the doctor has said feeling better is dangerous. He still has to get more weight off.’ This is from a diary kept by Margaret Hayward about her boss, Norman Eric Kirk, the prime minister of New Zealand. Kirk, who was born a century ago today, did indeed die in office, just a couple of years after this 1972 diary entry.

Kirk was born on 6 January 1923 in Waimate, South Island, New Zealand, the son of a carpenter. He left school at 13, and moved through a series of relatively unskilled jobs. He did, however, continue to study, in libraries, enjoying history and geography. In 1942, the army found him unfit for military service, so he returned to odd jobs. In 1943, he married Lucy Ruth Miller, and they would have five children. That same year, he joined the Labour Party's branch in Kaiapoi, where he and his wife had bought a plot of land, and on which Kirk built a house. In 1951, he was appointed chairman of the party’s Hurunui electorate committee, and two years later he led Labour to a surprising victory in elections for Kaiapoi’s local council. Subsequently, he became the youngest mayor in the country, aged 30.

After two unsuccessful attempts to enter Parliament, he was elected as MP for Lyttelton in 1957, and soon after moved with his family to Christchurch. He quickly consolidated a strong position within the Labour Party, and in December 1965 was elected leader of the parliamentary party and thus leader of the opposition. He led his party to two general election defeats (the second only narrowly) before winning the 1972 general election with a large majority against the National Party. As prime minister, Kirk pursued a policy of less dependence on the US, advocating more regional economic development and solidarity with Australia. In 1973 he strongly opposed French nuclear tests in the Pacific.

Overweight and never particularly healthy, Kirk, nevertheless, kept up a heavy work schedule during his premiership. By 1974, he was having various medical difficulties, including surgery for varicose veins. In mid-August, he heeded the advice of doctors to have a complete rest. But, it was too late. With serious heart and lung problems he was admitted to hospital on the 28th; he died on the 31st. His death shocked the country, and there was a national outpouring of grief. Further information is available at Wikipedia and The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand.

In 1968, a young woman named Margaret Hayward went to work in Kirk’s parliamentary office. Kirk and her family had been neighbours many years previously, and, since being in politics, Kirk had repeatedly invited Hayward to come and work for him. In 1971, at Kirk’s instigation, she began to keep a diary focused on his activities. This was first published by Cape Catley (Wellington) in 1981 as Diary of the Kirk Years. A substantial portion of the book can be read freely online at Amazon. In an ‘Author’s Note’ she says: This diary is my record of the last 34 months in the life of Norman Kirk. It was recorded from my viewpoint, and so is a partial view. It contains what he told me, and what I observed; and of course something of the activities of the many people whose lives touched his. In this compressed version little appears about my reactions, or my life and friends outside office hours. Official secrets, or documents classified as secret, including Cabinet papers, were no part of my daily record.’

1 March 1972
‘Mr K has at last found out who wrote the Southland Times article, attributed to “Our Political Correspondent”, in January. It said: “Mr Kirk is clearly still grossly overweight and, not to put too fine a point on it, must accordingly remain a bad health risk . . .” His habit of bounding up the steps to his office might impress some people but did nothing for “serious-minded analysts”. Hugh Watt, too, now “cuts little ice”.

It continued that such was Mr K’s fear of the Auckland lobby that he threw his support behind Mr Watt in the election for deputy leader. He certainly realised that if either Mr Faulkner or Mr Tizard became deputy leader, and Labour failed at the polls later this year, then he might suffer a fate similar to that which befell Mr Nordmeyer. Indeed, if Tom McGuigan instead of Mr K had stood in Lyttelton in 1957, McGuigan might well be the leader of the Labour Party now - and matters “might have turned out better for Labour if that had been the case”.

I’ve learnt that all politicians watch for “inspired” articles, and since then Mr K has wondered who wrote it and who provided the inspiration - the Government, or one of his own colleagues. Now Tom Skinner has told him that the writer is the fattest man in the Press Gallery, Keith Hancox. Mr K is wryly amused and says he must have a talk to Keith some time.

This morning Cyril Burton called to escort Mr K to a packed meeting at Corso headquarters. I tagged along with a tape recorder.

Mr K gave one of his better speeches. Judging by the hush before applause broke out, what he’d said had shaken his audience. As he was leaving, an elderly couple, missionaries in East Pakistan for 33 years, stopped him. Obviously moved, they congratulated him on the depth of insight he had gained during such a short visit.

Mr K asked me to watch TV news tonight for any report on the speech. Instinctively - or perhaps just because of what’s happened before - I felt the best parts wouldn’t be screened. And they weren’t. Only the hesitant beginning, showing him complaining about the lack of transport available to distribute food, rather than later when he was so positive.

The next news item, as if refuting Mr K’s speech, showed a New Zealand Air Force Hercules being loaded with aid materials.

Mr K, who had managed to see it himself after all, was furious and rang to check my reaction. He asked how he could stop that sort of thing. The news clip was obviously from old film because no Hercules had landed in Bangladesh since July. And, he said, on TV he looked fat and about five stone heavier than he is now. “I don’t look that bad. I’ve just checked in the mirror.” 

The problem of how to get him across on TV as the person he really is has concerned Rex, John Wybrow when he was his private secretary during the 1969 election campaign, and me for the last three or four years. So far there’s been no answer. It was hoped employing Media Consultants might help, but Brian 

Edwards and Peter Debreceny haven’t tackled media presentation but rather have done things which irritate the boss, because they are politically inept.

As a result of his years in the House, where it’s essential to show no emotion or the other party knows where to hit next time, Mr K has learnt not to react. Certainly he gets angry over an injustice, and will pound his bench in the House as he makes his views known, but he’s learnt not to rise to a bait in public, or let his feelings register on his face. All this makes for very dull TV interviews.

In 1965 when he deposed Arnold Nordmeyer as leader, he was depicted as the dominating bully who had beaten upright Nordy, the former Presbyterian minister who as Minister of Finance had become unpopular by the way he went about heavily taxing both beer and cigarettes. What may then have been accentuated to combat that image - being quietly spoken and reasonable - has resulted in Mr K being so low-key as to be almost non-existent. On TV he scarcely raises a spark, let alone sets the screen alight.

Something will have to be done to get his personality across. People can’t be expected to trust or vote for someone they feel they really don’t know.

I’ve discovered over the years that Mr K has to be needled before he lets his deep concerns show. Somehow, someone has got to convince him his performances are not good enough. But I can’t see who there is to do it.

John Wybrow. . . He admires Mr K but never seems to take anything too seriously, being flippant about matters the boss regards as vital if Labour is ever to be the government again. And before the leadership election John had insistently promoted Bill Rowling for deputy leader. So although John has said, quite correctly, that it might help if Mr K would smile more on TV, they have such differing viewpoints that I can’t see Mr K taking much notice of John.

Hugh Watt. . . Mr K wants Hugh to remain his deputy because he is convinced Labour must show solidarity in election year. Besides being loyal, Hugh also gives a sense of continuity, as he was Arnold Nordmeyer’s deputy leader too. But Hugh Watt would probably baulk at criticising his leader’s TV appearances. He must be aware that it is largely Mr K’s support that has enabled him to remain as deputy. That’s a pity, since Mr K would probably listen to him.

Bill Rowling . . . In spite of what some may think, Mr K appreciates Bill’s ability and has tried to promote him, though not for deputy. But the trouble in politics as in big business is that no one is going to risk telling his boss unpleasant truths, let alone repeat them until he takes some action. And Bill would probably reason, with justification, that Mr K would be suspicious of his motives and take no notice, anyway.

The only likely person seems to be John Hart, Mr K’s close friend in Auckland whom he sometimes calls on and talks to for hours - as did Michael Savage, Peter Fraser and Walter Nash before him.’

16 March 1972
‘Media Consultants have persuaded the Labour Party to help them finance TV training equipment. This morning, for the first and probably the last time in his life, Mr K went for TV training.

He abhors the thought of “an image”; he believes that being himself is enough. But Rex and I have been busy pointing out to him that there was no sign of his “being himself’ in TV interviews.

He admitted there could be some truth in that so reluctantly set off in the morning sunshine for Media Consultants’ office in Tinakori Road. Apparently he wasn’t going to give Brian Edwards and Peter Debreceny too much room for criticism. He wore a new Auckland-made brown suit, a welcome change from the baggy navy or grey suits he usually wears.

He returned at midday saying the exercise was “most useful” and that he could see a big difference between the first and last takes. The interviewer threw everything at him, made some very personal remarks, and “I didn’t flicker an eyelid”. They’d thought he would be upset but he’d explained to them he’d learnt not to react because he couldn’t afford to in the House, otherwise the other side knew when and where to attack.

He was taken aback at their criticism of Hugh Watt and said they wouldn’t even give him credit for the good statement he’d just issued about the surprise merger of Wellington’s two daily newspapers, saying the capital city might have two papers, but now they spoke with the same voice.

He had the feeling that Media Consultants were pushing to get rid of Hugh Watt as deputy leader, and wondered whose views they were reflecting.

Bill Rowling has announced from Palmerston North that he will be standing for Tasman, not the Avon seat. Mr K is disappointed when he reads that, and speculates that Bill may have made that decision so he won’t be available to help with the New Zealand-wide campaign in November. If he isn’t associated with the campaign, and Labour loses, then he won’t share the blame and “can step straight into my shoes”, Mr K conjectures.

Then he says that if he dies before the election I’m to go round his MPs - because they’ll say it was his own fault he worked too hard - and tell them it wasn’t all his fault. After all, they pushed him in to going here, there and everywhere. Everyone wanted him to visit their electorates.

I grin at the thought of accosting Messrs Watt, Freer and Rowling with that message. These thoughts of death probably arise from his trip to Christchurch yesterday, when he saw Dr Mcllroy again. He’s been feeling better but the doctor has said feeling better is dangerous. He still has to get more weight off.

So today he’s feeling lugubrious and tells me he wants to be buried, not cremated. “I don’t mind giving the worms a field day.” I say something brisk, and work goes on.

Tonight he’s flown down to Christchurch again for the annual meeting of the Sydenham branch of the Labour Party.’

4 April 1972
‘Not an Easter to remember: 120 bikies invaded Palmerston North. Chains, beer bottles, knives and iron bars were used during a brawl in the Square. Bikies and the Mongrel Mob were prised apart by police with drawn truncheons. It’s hard to believe this could happen in New Zealand, but overnight law and order has become a political issue.

From Dacca there’s a report that the Government’s belated decision to send an RNZAF Hercules to airlift relief supplies would help make amends for its only other official aid - 

thousands of tons of baby food dubbed “absolutely useless” by UN experts because it’s a sophisticated product no one in Bangladesh knows how to use.

The Government hasn’t heeded Mr K’s advice to send building materials and jetboats instead. The comment from the head of United Nations relief operations, from the other side of the world, has an unwitting irony. He says, “You can’t build bridges with baby food.” ’

5 April 1972
‘I had stayed with friends in Tauranga for Easter and then travelled through to Tokoroa as Mr K had agreed to address the Chamber of Commerce there.

The speech went well, and today, as he drove back to Wellington through miles of magnificent rimu and beech forest, Mr K recalled the hunting he did at Katikati in the 1940s soon after his marriage when meat and money were scarce. He shot whatever he could: rabbits, hares, pheasant, duck, even the protected native pigeons. “When the puriri trees were in berry, the pigeons were so plump they sometimes burst when they hit the ground.” ’

A fairly burdensome exercise

‘I decided that the Brussels years were likely to be a sharply isolated segment of my life, and that I might mark them by attempting this new exercise.’ This is the highly regarded British politician Roy Jenkins - who died 20 years ago today - explaining why he decided to keep a diary during the four years in which he was President of the European Commission. He concluded that he had found it ‘a fairly burdensome exercise’. One might wonder if it was worth it: evidence from my own diary suggests Jenkins’s diary efforts were no less dull and repetitive than my own as a teenager!

Jenkins was born in Abersychan, Wales, in 1920, the only son of a trade union official who went on to serve briefly as a minister in the 1945 Labour government. He was educated at a Cardiff grammar school and at Balliol College, Oxford. There he studied PPE, and became friends with Tony Crosland, Denis Healey and Edward Heath among others. During the war, he was trained as an officer, but was then posted to Bletchley Park to work as a codebreaker, and where he became friends with the historian Asa Briggs. In a 1948 by-election, he was elected as MP for Southwark Central (becoming the youngest MP in the House) until the constituency. When it was abolished, he stood for the new Birmingham Stechford constituency which he represented until 1977. In 1945 he married Jennifer Morris, and they later had two sons and a daughter.

In 1947, Jenkins edited a collection of Clement Attlee’s speeches, and then published a biography of Attlee. He would go on to write further political biographies (of Asquith, Baldwin, Gladstone, Churchill) but it was to politics that he was committed. He gradually became a leading figure in the shadow cabinet, and when Harold Wilson took power in 1964, he was appointed to the post of aviation minister. Soon, however, he was promoted to Home Secretary. In that position, he secured parliamentary time for private members’ bills to liberalise the abortion law and legalise homosexual practices between consenting adults. He also promoted a strengthening of race relations legislation and the abolition of theatre censorship. In 1967, following the devaluation crisis, Jenkins took over as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Although considered at the time to be one of the best post-war Chancellors, the deflationary measures he enacted are now considered as having been too cautious and too late.

Back in Opposition, Jenkins attracted a significant following among MPs and among the public. He was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in 1970, but over the next two years he fell out of synch with the party as it moved further to the left and into opposing membership of the European Community. Nevertheless, when Wilson was re-elected in 1974, he returned, unhappily, to the Home Office. During the 1975 referendum on Britain’s membership of the EEC, he headed the successful Yes campaign. When Wilson resigned in 1976, the subsequent leadership ballot saw Jenkins lose to Callaghan. Leaving British politics, he took a four year post as President of the European Commission. 

Back in British politics, in 1981, Jenkins and other Labour Party dissidents formed a new party, the Social Democratic Party, of which he was briefly leader. In 1987 he accepted a life peerage (with the title Baron Jenkins of Hillhead) and moved from the House of Commons to the House of Lords, where he was a leader of the new Social and Liberal Democratic Party. In the late 1990s, he served as a close adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair for whom he also chaired a major commission on electoral reform. He served as chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1987 to 2003; and, in 1993, Jenkins was elected to the Order of Merit. He died on 5 January 2003. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Royal Society of Literature, and Liberal History.

In 1989, Collins published a diary Jenkins had kept while serving as President of the European Commission: European Diary 1977-1981. This can be previewed at Googlebooks, or freely borrowed digitally at Internet Archive. A Preface by Jenkins himself describes why and how he kept a diary.

‘The four years covered by this book are the only period of my life for which I have kept a narrative diary. I have fairly careful engagement diaries for the past forty years and from 1964 substantial chunks of unworked memoir raw material, dictated close to the event. But I had never previously (nor have I since) attempted a descriptive outline of each day in the calendar. However I decided that the Brussels years were likely to be a sharply isolated segment of my life, and that I might mark them by attempting this new exercise.

I found it fairly burdensome, for I am naturally a slow (and I like to think meticulous) manuscript writer and not a fluent dictater; and a slowly written manuscript diary was clearly not compatible with the scale of the task and the pattern of life which I was recording. However, I kept it up to the end, but was glad when it was done. I dictated to a machine, sometimes within forty-eight hours of the events, but more typically a week or so later. When there was this sort of gap I worked from a detailed schedule of engagements. The tapes were then typed up and corrected by me during my next period of semi-leisure. [. . .]

So for a variety of reasons I have greatly shortened the text, and any shortening of course is bound to be selective. But have I doctored it? I obviously do not think so. I have tidied up a good deal, but I have never consciously changed the sense, I have resisted (with some difficulty) esprit d’escalier, and where I have added, mainly but not exclusively in footnotes, it has been for purposes of clarity. The only exception has been where, seeking economy in words, I have suddenly seen that a new linking sentence could get one from A to B in fifteen words rather than five hundred.

I do not therefore claim complete textual integrity, as opposed to integrity of substance. But the original text exists, can be published in due course if anyone so desires, and is available in the meantime for inspection by anyone who feels they might have been maligned by ex post judgements.’

Here are several extracts from the published diary.

10 May 1977
‘Breakfast with David Owen at Carlton Gardens for the Foreign Ministers of the Little Five, nominally in order to debrief them on the Summit. Some discussion after two opening statements by David and me, in which K. B. Andersen asked the only interesting question, which was whether I thought that the arrangements in London had been compatible with the Rome compromise. I said ‘No’, but I nevertheless thought it had been worthwhile that we were there.

Left Carlton Gardens at 9.30 and was in the hotel in Strasbourg only two hours and five minutes later. Answered questions in the Parliament after lunch. Gave a dinner for Colombo - as President of the Parliament. An enjoyable discussion during which my morale improved, partly because I suddenly realized that I had made a French breakthrough. During my first three months in Brussels I thought it had definitely retrogressed, and even after that had not improved, but it has now jerked forward and I suddenly felt much more fluent and had no difficulty in leading the whole two-hour discussion in French.’

5 January 1979
‘I became extremely depressed on reading the newspapers, and decided that the French monkeying around on MCAs and holding up the start of the EMS meant that Europe was in danger of falling apart and that I had better try and do something about it. Therefore I did some vigorous telephoning to Brussels and set up a meeting for the Sunday morning in Paris with Barre with the intention at least of trying fully to understand the French point of view. The commercial planes being totally unreliable, I set up an avion taxi from Northolt to Brussels at 3.45.

In the meantime I had an early lunch with Harold Lever at Brooks’s and found him buoyant and very sensible on nearly everything. My agreement with him, as with Shirley, is now very close indeed. He is of course much more interested than Shirley in economic and monetary matters and remains a firm partisan of EMS. He is depressed about the Government, but not excessively so, and thinks it might easily win the election. He intends to stand himself again and is obviously quite keen to go on in the Cabinet if he can. But when I suggested to him at the end that if they were still in office after Nicko* and wanted to make a political appointment to Paris he and Diane would do it well, he responded rather enthusiastically.’

21 March 1980
‘I went to sec the King at Laeken from 9.45 to 10.30. He was looking much better after great back trouble all winter, with an operation and two months out of action. Today he seemed restored, although looking alone and isolated in the vast and rather dismal Palace of Laeken - redeemed only by its view. My state of health was not very good either, and a good third of the conversation was valetudinarian.

We also and inevitably talked about Europe. He was very keen to promote a budgetary solution acceptable to the British and made some very sensible remarks about how important it was to a country like Belgium that the basic European power matrix should be triangular rather than bipolar. We also discussed both British and Belgian internal politics a little and he claimed, though not in a dismissive or aggressive way, that the communal linguistic question was very much a matter of politicians rather than people. Whether he is right or not I do not know, but he is in a good position to judge.’

19 December 1980
‘Office at 9.15. A little signing before inner office Christmas drinks at 11.45, and then to London by the 12.45 plane, and on to East Hendred. The effective end of Brussels and the beginning of Christmas and, more significantly, of the return to British politics.’

***

A word search of my own diaries reveals that I have mentioned Roy Jenkins more than half-a-dozen times over the years. Here are three extracts, two of which are about, and rather critical of, European Diary 1977-1981.

1 April 1982
‘Roy Jenkins won the by-election at Hillhead and is now set to become the leader of the SDP. Despite the lack of definite policies and some declining popularity, it seems the new party is a force and is here to stay. I cannot comment on his personality, as I must confess I know nothing about him, but I don’t believe the existence of a strong centre party can be bad for the future of the country in the short term.’

30 December 1990
‘I am reading Roy Jenkins diary of the period when he was President of the European Commission. This was a Quick Choice from the library when I was there last week; but I am pleased to have it. Not only does it give me an added insight into the workings of the Commission at the highest level but it is a document of considerable importance - not so many diaries are published by such senior politicians. It has been likened to that of Anthony Crosland which, I remember, finding fascinating. I do not find Jenkins fascinating. Despite going to some lengths to tell us how much material he has cut out from the five years of diary entries, and how difficult it was, the diary is still weighed down by an extraordinary obsession with time-keeping, the length of meetings and speeches, and the weather. It reads like my teenager diary, but whereas I catalogued TV programmes, whether an evening was good or not, which teacher had been horrid or helpful, and what the food was like, his reads like a catalogue of visits, whether a meeting was good or not, whether other diplomats or politicians had been helpful or a hindrance, and what the food was like. There are occasional descriptions of places, and pithy character sketches and occasionally he goes into some detail about the issues. Most space seems to be given to the most important leaders, thus Jenkins devotes a page or two to meetings with Schmidt or Giscard, while most entries have been paired down to half a page or less. I think he is coming across as rather a snooty man (even though he goes out of his way to let us know that he doesn’t always dress to form).’

20 January 1991
‘I have finished Roy Jenkins diary. I must return it to the library today. Overall my impression remains the same as that recorded in December’s notes. The style of his diary reminds me exactly of that I used as a teenager. The content is occasionally interesting but far too concerned with lists of people, engagements, places; with general comments about whether a meeting was ‘good’ or whether people were ‘interesting’ or ‘dull’; and with travel arrangements. His tone is generally pompous and we never get any idea about the people who arrange his travel, his dinner, his paperwork; we never get an insight into any of the more minor issues or about the more mundane workings of the Commission.’

For the expense of my time

‘I keepe a dayere . . . for the expense of my time, as I doe for that money I spend . . .’ This is Bullen Reymes - a courtier, diplomat and politician who died 350 years ago today - explaining why he kept a diary. Interestingly, he was a contemporary of, and friends with, Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn. Reymes’s diary didn’t come to light until the 1950s, when it was used by Helen Andrews Kaufman as the basis for her biography of the cavalier.

Reymes was born in 1613, the eldest son of Bullen Reymes of Westminster and his wife Mary Petre, daughter of William Petre of Torbryan, Devon. He was educated privately, at Merton College, Oxford, and at Middle Temple. He travelled widely on the Continent, was attaché at the Paris embassy from 1631 to 1632, and in Venice twice between 1632 and 1637. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Gerard of Trent, in 1640, an heiress with an estate in Dorset. They had three sons and two daughters. After Elizabeth’s death, he remarried in 1661.

Reymes was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber from 1641 to 1646, and actively supported the King during the Civil War. He helped defend Exeter and was made a freeman in 1645. The city, though, surrendered in 1646 and he laid down his arms. He managed to hold on to his heavily mortgaged estate, and, by the time of the Restoration, had cleared his debts. He took no part in the second Civil War, but was imprisoned in Taunton Castle in 1650, and helped some Royalists to escape across the Channel after the battle of Worcester. 

In 1660, Reymes was elected Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in a by-election to the Convention Parliament. At the same time, he resumed his position as gentleman of the privy chamber. He served as commissioner for assessment for Dorset from 1660 to 1669. He was commissioner for sick and wounded in Hampshire and Dorset 1664 to 1667 and was appointed commissioner for Tangier from 1664 until his death. He became a freeman of Portsmouth in 1665 and was deputy treasurer of prizes at Portsmouth from 1665 to 1667. He also developed a sailcloth business, and supplied the navy at the time of the second Dutch war.

Reymes was friends with both the great 17th century diarists, Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, and was a keen theatre-goer and gardener. He is mentioned several times in Pepys’s diary. For instance, on 24 January 1668, Pepys wrote: ‘I to the King’s playhouse, to fetch my wife, and there saw the best part of The Mayden Queene, which, the more I see, the more I love, and think one of the best plays I ever saw, and is certainly the best acted of any thing ever the House did, and particularly Becke Marshall, to admiration. Found my wife and Deb., and saw many fine ladies, and sat by Colonell Reames, who understands and loves a play as well as I, and I love him for it.’ Reymes died on 18 December 1672. Further information is available from Wikipedia and The History of Parliament.

In the second half of the 1950s, Kaufman, an English teacher at the University of Washington, came across the archived papers of Bullen Reymes, and edited them for publication as Conscientious Cavalier: Colonel Bullen Reymes (Jonathan Cape, 1962). She says in her foreword to the book: ‘Because Bullen Reymes kept a diary, wrote many and voluminous letters, and because he carefully preserved the scores of papers relating both to his public activities and his private life, there remains an unusually full and exact account of the man himself and of the background and personalities of the seventeenth century. In fact it would be difficult to find, in the first half of that century, an individual who has left so complete a record of himself.’ In the work - which is available to borrow digitally at Internet Archive - Kaufman quotes often from Reymes’s diary, but usually as part of her narrative - the diary entries are usually incomplete and without any date. 

Nevertheless, here are three short sections from her book with actual quotes (which I’ve italicised for clarity) from Reymes’s writings.

‘On the first day of the new year Bullen started his diary: “Heare beginneth my Diere it being the first of Janewary in the yeare of our lord 1632 . . .”

“I rise in the morning about 10 of the clock, when afterwards I heard prayers, and then theare dined with us Mr. Gosling and Mr. Barker and Courteane. After dinner La Peare came to see me and about eavning prayer Sr. Thomas Wharton came from Charington whear thear was kept a proclamed fast. And about supper I betoke me to my chamber for to writ into Ingland and came nomore downe that nite and sat up till 12 of the eavene writing.” ’

***

‘Although [a] long letter to his father - almost 1,600 words - was “frayghted” with the old problem of money, it spoke of other things as well. After asking again about his uncle’s legacy, and after pointing out once more that his quarterly payment is long overdue, Reymes describes his new lodgings, “right against Mr. Mervilles of whome I intend to learne of . . . on the lute . . . (who plays best of any one in Paris).” Then, apparently, in answer to some question of his father, Bullen turns to his diary, or rather, to his reason for keeping a diary. He does his best to explain this almost universal urge. Unlike many, he did not write with a wary eye on a possible reader. His scribbled, blotted, and well-nigh illegible entries, with their careless spelling and syntax, were obviously meant for no eye but his own. The reason he gives is neat, to the point, and completely characteristic. His diary is an expense account of his time. “I keepe a dayere . . . for the expense of my time, as I doe for that money I spend . . .” ’

***

‘Whatever their significance, the pages of Reymes’s diary are full of references to the ‘beautiful churches’ whose services he attended [in Venice].

“We were at the church of Nostre Dame [Santa Maria della Salute], where there was a great service to commemorate the late deliverance from the plague. I saw many processions of many different members of all the different orders . . . I was with Mr. Carnarvon and Mr. Montagu at the church of St. Caterina, where I heard wonderful music. The church was beautifully decorated . . . I heard two masses.”

And so on. Stirred though he was by the splendour of the Venetian churches, Bullen was even more profoundly moved by the music he heard in these candle-lit edifices. It is to this that he alludes most often, and little wonder, for much of the religious music of seventeenth-century Venice was inspired by great masters. To one of these, Claude Monteverdi, Reymes alludes often.

“After dinner I was with Mr. Porter and Mr. Jacob to hear the music of the Friars . . . Signor Claude Monteverdi composed the music . . . I was at St. John de Paulau where I heard the beautiful music of Claude Monteverdi.”

On two other occasions he must have seen Monteverdi himself, for one Sunday in December he writes, “I was at St. Johns [SS. Giovanni e Paolo] where I heard Claude Monteverdi and his music,” and another time, “I was at St. Juliano [Giuliano] where Monteverdi conducted.”

The last days of December were crowded with festivities. It was the season of the fairs, of the carnival, of the plays - the theatres had opened on the 22nd - and of la guerre de poignée, the war of fists. “gare”, as Reymes calls it, was a battle on one of the bridges between young men from either side of the Grand Canal, in which no weapons, only fists, were allowed.

“I saw a contest between certain of the common people which is fought now every day. One side is called the Castilean and the other Niccolet. The Castileans won.”

On December 26th Bullen made his first visit to St Stefano, both “in the morning and after dinner”. What interested him was not the old Gothic church but the long, narrow piazza adjoining it. As in Paris at carnival time, he and his friends went in masquerade.

“After dinner we were all at St. Steffino and then we went everywhere and to the house of ___ where we danced with the ladies. I played the lute everywhere we went. . . I paid six realls for our costumes. We went to the comedy but got there only in time for the end.”

The last entry for 1633 reads:

“I was at the Rialto where Mr. Rowlanson asked me to dine with him tomorrow . . . I went out again in masquerade and I played before the whole world in la piazza de St. Steffino. I was also at the Comedy.” ’

I went with the Queen

The undistinguished British diplomat and courtier, Henry Greville, died 150 years ago today. Like his more famous brother, Charles, he kept a diary for most of his life, and this was published a few years after his death. However, unlike Charles’s diary, Henry’s is considered relatively dull in style and content. Nevertheless, Henry records many of the political and cultural events going on around him with a smooth style, showing a particular affection for the theatre.

Henry William Greville, the youngest son of Charles and Lady Charlotte Greville, was born in 1801. He was educated at Westminster School and Oxford, though much of his childhood was spent on the Continent, chiefly in Brussels. As an adult he worked as private secretary for Lord Francis Egerton, afterwards earl of Ellesmere, when he was chief secretary for Ireland.

In 1835, Greville entered the diplomatic service, as attaché to the British embassy in Paris, and retired from it in 1844. For many years, he held a minor post at Court, that of a gentleman usher, which gave him a small addition to his income. Never having married, he died, after a somewhat lingering illness, on 12 December 1872. Wikipedia has a short biography, but there is far more information about Henry’s brother, Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville, who is remembered as a major diarist of the 19th century.

Henry Greville, though, also kept a diary for much of his life. This was edited by his niece, Viscountess Enfield (afterwards countess of Strafford), and published in four volumes from 1883 by Smith, Elder & Co. under the title Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville. All of these volumes are freely available at Internet Archive.

Henry’s diary is said to derive some importance from Greville’s position in Paris, but otherwise to lack the wit and malice found in his brother’s diary. Enfield says this in a preface to one of the volumes: ‘This work cannot aspire to the depth of thought, the carefulness of style, the pungency of satire which characterised the journals of my uncle Charles Greville. As a literary composition they are doubtless inferior to these, but still I venture to think and hope that in this volume there will be found something to amuse and to interest, with little or nothing to wound the most sensitive feelings.’

12 January 1840
‘On Tuesday there was a great ball at the Embassy. The Infants of Spain, Don Francisco and Dona Carlotta and their children, were present. The Infanta, a huge, fat, frightful woman, danced the whole evening like a girl of sixteen. Don Francisco is an ignoble stunted-looking man with a Bourbon face.

An interesting discussion is going on in the Chambers on the Eastern question. The feeling against Russia is very strong, but, on the other hand, the English alliance is not so popular as it has been.’

5 April 1840
‘I have been confined for a fortnight by a most excruciating rheumatism, and have been too ill to write. [. . .]

In England we have a war with China, and a motion of Graham censuring the Government with reference to this question stands for the 7th of this month. Government was beaten by sixteen on Stanley’s motion for revising and reforming the fictitious voting in Ireland, which was a great blow; they are consequently making a great whip for the debate on China. . .’

15 May 1840
‘The translation of Napoleon’s remains makes a great stir. Many people laugh at it, and think it a great piece of humbug - which no doubt it is - but it is a sort of humbug which goes down here exceedingly well. I am still confined to my couch, but people are very kind to me, [. . .]

The murder of Lord William Russell is still enveloped in mystery; and although there is evidence to connect the Swiss valet with the robbery, there is none to prove him guilty of the murder. Charles writes me word he had seen the prisoner in Tothill Fields prison; that he has a bad countenance, but was calm and even dejected, civil and respectful in his manner. Everything would tend to condemn him morally, but much doubt is entertained whether, legally, there be sufficient evidence to convict him.

The Duke of Wellington made an admirable speech the other night on a motion of Lord Stanhope on the Chinese question. It was well delivered, and, evincing an entire knowledge of the subject, and a total absence of all party feeling, he entered into a warm defence of Captain Elliott, showing that when an officer was, as he considered, unjustly attacked in the discharge of his duty, he never could allow any consideration of party warfare to prevent his upholding him against all detractors.

The Tories are very angry with the Duke, as their only object is to embarrass the Government, no matter at what hazard or cost.’

19 January 1841
‘Parliament was opened today by the Queen in person. The Speech, which is a good one, touches upon the state of Ireland principally, and upon the measures which are to be proposed for the amelioration of its social and physical condition; upon Cracow; and upon the Spanish marriages, but slightly, and merely saying that they had given rise to a correspondence between the two Governments. It is said in the town that Palmerston is much annoyed that stronger mention has not been made of this matter; that there had been a dispute in the Cabinet thereupon.

The debates were interesting.

I went to see Covent Garden Theatre, which is being newly constructed for an Italian Opera House. It was a very curious spectacle. M. Albano, the architect, showed it to me. It took them fourteen days to pull down the parts they wished to remove, so strongly was it built. Charles Kemble told me tonight the theatre had cost 300,000l.; that 100,000l. of this, his money and that of his family, had been sunk in the concern, and he should be very glad to sell his share of it for 10,000l.’

10 February 1841
‘One of the heaviest falls of snow I ever saw. It began yesterday, and continued all day and night, and the railroads are all but impassable. The snow is deep in the streets, and the Queen has just passed my window with her suite in three sledges.’

15 May 1841
‘Here is a large gap in my journal. My time has been entirely occupied by rehearsals and arrangements for the two plays we have acted at the St. James’s Theatre, for the benefit of the starving Irish and Scotch. They went off very well. ‘The Hunchback’ on the first evening and ‘Hernani’ and a farce on the second. The Queen and Royal Family and the elite of London were present, and the receipt was a very large one. Lady Dufierin wrote a beautiful epilogue, which was spoken to perfection by Mrs. Butler.

Jenny Lind has at last made her appearance at the Queen’s Theatre. She is decidedly a first-rate artist, a great musician, and a great executant. Her voice is of a peculiar quality, strong in the upper notes, but a good deal veiled in others. She is a good actress up to a certain point, and her style of singing is essentially German. Her success is prodigious, and perhaps greater than that of any other singer of our time; but she owes some of this to the skilful manner in which ‘the puff precedent’ has been brought into play, and by which public curiosity has been raised and kept up by artificial means. However, she is decidedly an artist of the first class, though not, as is asserted, the greatest that ever appeared.’

5 November 1850
‘The streets are more than usually filled with Guy Fawkes and images of Roman bishops. The ‘Times’ is entirely full of the sermons preached in the various churches, and of anti-Popery meetings in the provinces.’

5 February 1851
‘Yesterday I went with the Queen to the House of Lords. The day was magnificent, and the crowds of people far greater than I ever saw on any other similar occasion. The carriage in which I sat (the first) was too far from the Queen to judge of her reception, but the Duchess of Sutherland, who was in the State coach, told me the cheering was great, but the cries of ‘No Popery!’ were continuous. The House of Lords looked beautiful, filled as it was to overflowing by women in every sort of colour and sparkling with jewels.’

2 May 1851
‘Contrary to expectation, the Exhibition was opened yesterday with great solemnity and eclat. The day, though cold, was bright. The crowds were immense, and those who were to be present began going to the palace as early as six o’clock.

As I did not buy a season ticket I was not present, but all those who were unanimously pronounced it as one of the grandest sights they ever witnessed. I walked about the park, and never saw a more good-humoured multitude, and there was nowhere the slightest disorder or confusion.’

5 May 1851
‘The Queen has written a letter to John Russell, expressing her great satisfaction at the manner in which she was received, and in which everything was conducted on the 1st of May. There had been all sorts of rumours of probable disturbances and riots which were to be got up by foreign emissaries, &c., but for which there does not seem to have been any foundation.

The foreigners now in London were immensely struck by the order of the vast crowds which perambulated the streets, and which was maintained solely by the police.

Prince Albert dined at the Royal Academy for the first time, and made an excellent speech.

I never remember a colder spring. It constantly hails and rains, and the sun rarely shines!’

11 May 1851
‘I went yesterday for the first time to the Exhibition. It is really a marvellous place, beautiful and singular, but although filled with everything curious from all parts of the world, its immense size gives one a feeling of hopeless bewilderment. I did little more than walk through a part of it, glancing at the wondrous things it contains, and at the general effect of the building, and of the crowds of people who perambulated it without confusion or inconvenience, but I returned home jaded, with aching head and eyes from the glare, and with the sensation of being glad I had seen it, and (no doubt stupidly) with no desire to return there. Its success is great and universal, and when one recollects that seven months ago the building was not begun, and that now this stupendous edifice is finished, filled with everything most wonderful, and gathered from all corners of the world, it is nothing short of marvellous. The receipts are immense and daily increasing.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 12 December 2012.

Party at the palace

Eighty years ago today, Mary, youngest daughter of Winston Churchill, went to a party hosted by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. Expressions of pleasure and nervousness fill an entry in her diary for the day: ‘I suppose I must still be very young because I was simply THRILLED by the party & felt stupidly shy & overcome & excited.’  

Mary Spencer-Churchill was born in London on 15 September 1922, the same week in fact as her father purchased Chartwell, a country house in Kent, where she was brought up, and where she attended local schools. She worked for the Red Cross and the Women’s Voluntary Service from 1939 to 1941, subsequently joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service, serving in London, Belgium and Germany in mixed anti-aircraft batteries, rising to the rank of Junior Commander. She accompanied her father as aide-de-camp on several of his overseas journeys. In 1945, she was awarded an MBE in recognition of her military service.

Mary married the Conservative politician Christopher Soames (later created Baron Soames) in 1947 and they had five children. She accompanied him on his foreign postings to France and Rhodesia. She served many public organisations at various times in various positions (Churchill Society, Church Army, Royal National Theatre Board of Trustees, National Benevolent Fund for the Aged). However, she also published several acclaimed family biographical works, including Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage and Winston Churchill: His Life as a Painter. In 1980, she was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her public service, particularly in Rhodesia. She died in 2014. Further information is available from Wikipedia, or from obituaries in The Guardian, The New York Times, and the BBC.

Mary Churchill began keeping a diary in earnest in January 1939, and kept up the habit during the war years. With motherhood and marriage, her diary became less detailed, and by the mid-1950s her entries mainly concern gardening (with the exception of the diary for 1979-1980 when she was with her husband in Rhodesia). All her diaries are open for public inspection at the Churchill Archives Centre, and its website has a detailed description of each volume. 

Mary’s daughter, Emma, has recently edited some of the diaries for publication as Mary Churchill’s War - The Wartime Diaries of Churchill’s Youngest Daughter (Two Roads, 2021). This can be previewed at Googlebooks. Here is her entry from 80 years ago today - describing a thrilling visit to Buckingham Palace!

6 November 1942
‘Thanksgiving Day and I’m thrilled at the thought of the party at Buckingham Palace. Caught 1.05 train & had picnic lunch. Found Mummie still in bed but quite well & very gay. Tidied up frantically. Car took me to No. 10 at 3. Found Papa talking to Adml Noble who is off to Washington on a mission. We set off about 3.10.

I felt so excited couldn’t have been more thrilled if I d been in white satin & feathers (tho’ of course that would have been rather gay). And I felt so proud going with Papa. When we arrived we were shown into a drawing room by Sir Alexander Hardinge. Here we waited - there was Mr Winant, the Mountbattens, Ladies in Waiting, Admiral Stark & so on. The other guests were being shown into the next door room. Then another door opened & the Queen followed by the King & the 2 Princesses came in.

Papa unnerved me by saying in a hoarse whisper as Patricia Mountb. kissed the Queen’s hand & then her cheek - ‘You don’t do that’ - I was feeling VERY nervous by this time & I do hope I curtseyed ok. The King asked me about the OCTU - which was rather nice of him I thought. Then we stood behind the R[oyal] F[amily] as they received the guests. Papa had the King’s permission to leave soon afterwards & left me under the friendly wing of Mr Winant - who was looking more like Abe Lincoln than ever. Sir Charles Portal also adopted me & introduced me to S[quadron] Leader Nettleton VC (so good-looking AND married - tant pis) & S Leader Scott Malden who’s just made a tour of the USA.

Then I suddenly got caught up in a whirl of American army - cols, gens, majors etc - Very kind & gay & charming. Also some charming marines, Admiral Stark’s ADC. Stood for about 2 1/2 hrs. King & Queen talked constantly to the Americans. They (the Americans) were very much impressed & I felt so proud that they are our King & Queen. She is so beautiful & fresh & gracious - she was wearing lavender & pearls & was quite perfect. Then they played ‘God Save the King’ & Mr Winant took me home.

I suppose I must still be very young because I was simply THRILLED by the party & felt stupidly shy & overcome & excited - & it was so full of colour - red & gold & beautifully lit & lots of uniforms & gold braid!’

Incidentally, and apropos of nothing other than the date, on the very same day, the film Casablanca (which went on to become one of the most famous and loved films of all time) was being premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City.’

I always see the ruin of Italy

‘Am listless and sleepy, as I have never been before. I sleep little at nights: before me I always see the ruin of Italy, . .’ This is from the diaries of the Italian writer and philosopher Benedetto Croce, who died 70 years ago today. Reluctantly, he took on, briefly, active political roles before and after Mussolini’s rise and fall, but he is best remembered for his philosophical works and contributions to liberal political theory.

Croce was born in 1866 in Pescasseroli (Abruzzi region of Italy) into a Catholic and wealthy landowning family. In 1883, he lost his parents in an earthquake on the island of Ischia, and went to live with an uncle in Rome, where he studied law at university. There he abandoned his religious faith, but also became disillusioned with the university, returning to Naples. Having inherited his family’s fortune, he had the freedom to devote time to personal studies, such as on historical realism. He traveled in Spain, Germany, France, and England, but in 1893, influenced by the Neapolitan-born Gianbattista Vico, he turned his learning towards philosophy (even buying the house in which Vico had lived). Friends persuaded him to read Hegel, and in 1907 he published a commentary on the German philosopher - What is Living and What is Dead of the Philosophy of Hegel - which brought him increased attention.

Croce published other significant works around this time, not least Aesthetic (1902), Logic (1908), and Philosophy of the Practical (1908). In 1903, he also founded (in collaboration with his friend the philosopher Giovanni Gentile) La Critica, a journal of cultural criticism in which, over the next 40 years, he would publish nearly all of his writings. Hitherto, he had eschewed interest in politics, but in 1910 he was persuaded into a more public role, being appointed to the Italian Senate. In 1914, he married Adela Rossi, with whom he had four daughters. He opposed Italy’s participation in the First World War. In 1919, he supported the government of Francesco Saverio Nitti, and was appointed Minister of Public Education - a position he held between 1920 and 1921. 

Initially, he supported Mussolini’s fascist government, but by 1925 he had written and signed a Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals. After Mussolini’s fall, in 1943, he became Minister without Portofilio of the new democratic government and a member of the Constituent Assembly. From 1943 to 1947, he was President of the reconstituted Liberal party. In 1947, he retired from politics and established the Institute for Historical Studies in his Naples home, where he had an extensive library. From 1949 until 1952, he was president of PEN International, the worldwide writers’ association, and he was nominated 16 times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on 20 November 1952. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica and the New World Encyclopedia.

Croce kept a diary for much of his life; and at some point had them privatively printed in six volumes. But after the Second World War, a year’s worth of his diary entries in 1943/1944 were published in Quaderni della Critica. These were then translated into English by Sylvia Sprigge for publication by George Allen & Unwin in 1950 as Croce, the King and the Allies: Extracts from a diary by Benedetto Croce July 1943 - June 1944. This was re-published in 2019 by Routledge - an edition which can be sampled at Googlebooks. Extracts of Croce’s diaries from other periods in his life can also be found in the biography Benedetto Croce and Italian Fascism by Fabio Fernando Rizi (which can be digitally borrowed from Internet Archive).

A foreword to the 1943/1944 diary extracts provided by Croce for Quaderni della Critica was also included in the English editions. He wrote: ‘Historical accounts are beginning to appear in print of the nine months from early September 1943 to June 1944, a period when Government and political party activity could only take place in southern Italy and in the islands. I thought I might correct and integrate certain errors and certain omissions not easy to avoid in such accounts, with these notes from a diary, which I have been keeping these last forty years in a fairly brief form, at the beginning or end of my day, and whose purpose has been to note the course of my literary work. But after July 25th 1943, owing to the rush of events, the diary gradually filled with notes on political matters. In the following pages are extracts without the literary and private notes, of which I have left only a few in the early pages so that the character and nature of the Diary may be kept in mind. The political notes were a part of it, and at first were entered occasionally and almost involuntarily. Some details of little importance I have left in, being desirous and careful not to offend the susceptibilities or rouse the resentment of any one, for my purpose is solely that which I have already outlined. I do not know whether I have always succeeded in this, despite the goodwill which I have put into it.’

And here are three extracts (including the first) from Croce, the King and the Allies.

25 July 1943, Sorrento
‘In the morning, historical reading; but in the afternoon, visits from friends. Parente, both the Morellis, Zanotti Bianco, Petaccia. The Dohrns are here too. I was tired and had gone to bed at eleven o’clock when a telephone call from Signorina Elena di Serracapriola’s villa brought the news that Mussolini had resigned and that the new Government had been entrusted to Badoglio by the King. Parente and the Morellis, who had gone away half an hour ago, on hearing the news also arrived, jubilant, and we talked of the event. Back to bed, but I could not close my eyes till four o’clock or later. The feeling I have is of liberation from an evil which weighed upon the heart’s core; derivative evils and dangers remain, but that evil will not return.’

20 August 1943
‘Am listless and sleepy, as I have never been before. I sleep little at nights: before me I always see the ruin of Italy, and the news of Giovanni Laterza’s bad health, rapidly deteriorating, depresses me. When they brought the news of the fall of Fascism to his sick-bed on July 26th, he ordered the words “God be praised” to be written at the head of all letters and bills of that day. In the afternoon, as best I could, took up the threads of work in hand, including the revised elaboration of Blanch. The Giornale d’ltalia has printed my article on the Italian Academy despite the veto of the censors which Bergamini has overridden. But other articles on the subject are forbidden. I am told that the King said, “The Academy is not to be tampered with any more than the Senate.” But the Senate too, unworthy and corrupt as it is, will have to be ‘tampered with.’

17 September 1943
‘In the morning a visit from an American journalist, Kearney, who asked me some political questions, which I answered as best I could, what with being tired, not having slept and it being stiflingly hot. While Elena was helping to translate my answers into English, the English Admiral, J. B. Morse, came to visit me with his aide, Richard Long, and we had a short conversation. The lieutenant asked me who were the dangerous or Fascist people in Sorrento, and I asked to be excused because I could not, in my old age, begin doing things I had never done in the course of my life, to which the lieutenant agreed and said he well understood. The Germans left over there were mentioned in the conversation; but the Dohrn family, although attached to their country, has been noted as ‘neutral.’ In the evening a much famed journalist, Knickerbocker, came to say a lot of kind things to me, and then talked for a long time with my daughters, and wanting to give proof of his admiration, he wrote some lines by which to remember him in a copy of Shakespeare which they had with them.’

22 September 1943
‘Raimondo has left again. Suffocating heat continues. Tight feeling about the heart for Naples in the hands of the Germans. From here we hear explosions and see fires, and get rumours of people killed, devastation and looting. General Donovan and a journalist called Whitaker, together with an American officer called Tomkins, whom I got to know in the last few days and who has been in Italy previously for a long time, came to see me. The General told me that large supplies have been prepared for Naples, to be landed ten or fifteen days after the occupation. He said it might be a good thing if I let this be known in Naples. I said I would spread the news among people I shall see, but that I have no means of communicating with Naples. Similarly, with another of his suggestions that the Neapolitans should try to prevent the Germans from destroying the port. Whitaker offered me presses, paper and ink with which to print a paper here! General Donovan asked me how the spirit of the Italians was, and I said that what all the best Italians wanted, and what would most encourage them, would be permission to form a combatant legion under the Italian flag to co-operate with the Anglo-American armies in liberating Italian soil from the Germans; and then, when he asked me whether there was anybody who could command such a legion, I gave him General Pavone’s name, a man of an old southern family, a patriot and a liberal, and presently a member of the Party of Action.’