Thurifer offers some light relief
Ars est celare artem. The origin of this Latin maxim is unclear. Ovid and Quintillian said something similar, not so epigrammatically. An example of the art that conceals art is Anne Glenconner’s book, “Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown”. Apparently straightforward, almost conversational prose might seem, initially, little more than aristocratic gung-ho and jolly hockey sticks. Do not be deceived. Here is steely determination, tenacious optimism. Born and brought up in Holkham House. Norfolk, near Sandringham, it begins as a conventional tale of privilege, some emotional distance, schooling, coming out balls. An early signal of something rare and interesting is revealed with her career as a traveling sales representative for the family pottery firm. The digs and society she encountered were many miles from Holkham. Marriage to Colin Tennant, the heir to the Glenconner title and huge fortune was a challenge for an unsophisticated young woman. Serially unfaithful, mercurial, unbalanced, restless (he moved house in London on an almost annual basis), capricious, frivolous, capable of spontaneous, immense generosity. Choreographed flamboyant and hedonistic parties. Bought the island of Mystique, almost on a whim but established a viable economy. At his best quixotic. At his worst explosively ill-tempered and deranged. All this is stoically recounted and without a hint of self-pity. Princess Margaret is sympathetically portrayed. “I laughed with her more than anyone else.” But Lady Glenconner is sufficiently beady-eyed to understand her limitations, adamantine egocentricity, and ability to exasperate. However, when it mattered she proved herself unwavering to her friend and Lady in Waiting. This was when Lady Glenconner endured, during a relatively short period, a series of devastating tragedies. Of her five children, one of her three sons descended into near-fatal drug addiction, recovered but after a few happier years died. Her second son contracted the HIV virus and died of AIDS. Her youngest son suffered a motor cycle accident which left him in a coma for several months from which doctors were sure he would not emerge. She was determined that he would survive and he did. These pages are unflinching, raw, harrowing, tear-wrenchingly heroic.
*
The Rectory Society held its AGM in the Arts and Crafts splendour of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street. Founded by Charles Moore, former Editor, the Daily Telegraph, biographer of Lady Thatcher, it encourages appreciation of the cultural, architectural importance of historic clergy accommodation. Many have been flogged off by a rapacious, insensitive, bovine attitude by the powers that be. It publishes Newsletters, arranges tours, is compiling a database that should be a national inventory. See rectorysociety.org.uk. Diarmaid Macculloch, biographer of Thomas Cromwell, was intelligently interviewed by Mr Moore, not seeking a “gotcha moment”, in an instructive, enjoyable evening. Prof. Macculloch was born, brought up in a large, draughty Suffolk Rectory. He was asked intelligent questions (think of most media interviews, realise the rarity) and reminisced charmingly about his childhood. Waspish wit was in evidence and his rocky journey to the diaconate but not beyond was fascinatingly sketched. His tutor was Geoffrey Elton and asked why he had emphasised Cromwell’s religious inspiration whereas Elton had concentrated on the dynamics of the Court, he said that Elton’s flight from Naziism gave him an ingrained horror of ideology, including the religious and was almost viscerally unable to attribute it to Cromwell. A society well worthy of support.
*
Candidate for quotation of the year: “[He] liked to read the Guardian because it kept him in touch with that strain of self-lacerating smugness which hoped to inherit the earth, but would have no clue what to do with it” Mike Herron, Joe Country.
*
“‘So now get up.’ Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned towards the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. One blow, properly placed, could kill him now”. And so began “Wolf Hall”. The final part of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy with Thomas Cromwell at its heart, thudded on the door-mat (figuratively: it was far too large for the letter-box) before isolation began. A door-stop at 875pp. The reputation of successful authors can cow those doing an editorial job (viz J. K. Rowling). However, I would have found the task difficult. There is not much spare or redundant prose in “The Mirror & the Light”. It was perfect for the duration of the restrictions, ample reading and, lugging the mighty tome from room to room, upstairs and down again, good exercise. Who needed dumb-bells. You also need a tolerance for the historic present tense. Cromwell is not among those in my Pantheon: elements of my partisan characterisation of a nasty, protestant, calvinist iconoclast, ideologically motivated villain remain intact. This is not a sanitised portrait, far from it. The smell of betrayal, power and intrigue is potent. A rotting polity is mirrored in the King’s suppurating leg. He is no whiter than white hero. It is not a defence of his policies but it is a painstaking explication of his reasoning and his motives. Warts and all. As a portrait of a consummate politician and tactician in the environs of a capricious monarch, as a calculating, subtle, ruthless, deft, complicated human being, flashes of humanity amidst the plotting and spying in the surveillance state, this is a triumphant conclusion to a remarkable and significant literary odyssey. And so, finis, “He feels for an opening, blinded, looking for a door: tracking the light along the wall.”
*
Half-way through this final volume is a key scene characterised by her power of description, something like restrained vividness or opulent restraint, and her close attention to the behaviour and actions of the actors in the drama, and their moral underpinning. Six French merchants have brought fabrics, lavish garments, even bejewelled dog-collars. Henry VIII’s “face alight with innocent pleasure,” watched the display of crucifixes, clocks, masks, puppets, wings, bowls, knives, chess pieces, preliminaries to the final, finest revelation “like a swathe of evening sky, or a thousand peacocks, or a vestment for an archangel.” Henry had “greed in his eyes.” Not the author’s words, those of the Walsingham Hymn. At his elbow, patiently waiting to brief him about the Pilgrimage of Grace, is Cromwell. He whispers into the King’s ear, “Caveat emptor, let me at these pedlars.” Soothing and dangerous, he employs his skills of bullying, cajoling, wheedling and wears them down: a third of the asking price for a cash sale. The merchants wisely declining a promissory note. They offer a present (bribe or reward) for Cromwell. One of his retinue says, “Be careful, Sir.” Cromwell invites them to his home so that “those vanities you did not show the King you can show to me.” The servant’s caution relates not merely to the transaction but is aimed at the unconscious and unacknowledged hubris that Cromwell’s action tokens. The warning is not about purchasing Henry’s rejects but the blithe presumption that allows him to think he can do it. From then the droplets of his downfall begin, drip, drip, drip until a tidal wave sweeps him away. Although we know (or ought to know from our History lessons) the fate that is in store for Cromwell, that road to its inevitable end remains gripping.
*
Not such a favourable notice for John Bercow’s memoir “Unspeakable.” Apt title. Unreadable.
*
Yet another phrase and cliché to add to my list off irritating locutions, either in its abbreviated form tbch or the full horror, to be completely honest. If you hear that count the silver spoons.
*
During the period of restrictions, I was sustained by the memory of a pre-lockdown meal at a friend’s luncheon party: Boeuf consommé, Hare, Stilton, Cardinal Pears. All exquisite. Soup, what a feeble word for something so silken and satisfying that I sighed. Some recipes taken from “Buon Appetito, Your Holiness: The Secrets of the Papal Table” by Mariangela Rinaldi and Mariangela Vicini.
*
The death of Fr Beaumont (Beau) Brandie brings to an end a noted characteristic for many years of the National Pilgrimage to Walsingham. Resplendent in naval uniform, he marshalled the Sea Cadets, the escort to Our Lady, and supervised the procession from the Abbey grounds to the Halifax Altar for Benediction. On one occasion I happened to stand next to him and heard this exchange. Speaking into his walkie-talkie, “Give me Tantum ergo.” There was crackling voices from the other end. He cut in, “I’m not interested in the organist’s love life. I want Tantum ergo and I want it now.” Cue organ. Many of the great Anglo-Catholic events of the last thirty years or more owed their success to his meticulous preparation and authoritative, commanding presence. Ruddy of face, sharp and decisive in his orders. Following a Patronal Festival at the magnificent church of St Martin’s in Brighton where he served as Vicar for many years, I was an overnight guest in the Vicarage. A bottle of good whisky was produced and we spent a convivial couple of hours. Little after midnight, he poured the last drops from the bottle. “Just enough left for a small nightcap.” Jesus mercy : Mary pray.
*
At his best the late David Johnson exhibited a scintillating, cutting wit and parodic invention. His death in April brought to mind his co-authorship of Not The Church Times unsurpassed in satiric bite, and the book of spoof letters from Francis Wagstaffe that tweaked several noses and pomposities. The Daily Telegraph’s delicacy about his “breakdown in health” that occasioned his retirement at the age of 42 was misleading. Encounters before 11 am had a chance of being amusing, sometimes achingly so, but any later were fraught with anxiety and embarrassment. The Church Times note that he was “unwell” to explain the absence of his column was widely recognised that he had been too inebriated to file his copy. The prospect of a brilliantly successful ministry was utterly destroyed by alcohol. I witnessed both sides of his character on the one occasion I heard him preach. Two-thirds centred on an outstanding explication of the Atonement: the best I have heard. Teased by teenagers about his faith, failing to convince by arguments, he took them into the parish church. He pointed to the altar crucifix and said: “That is why I am a Christian. Because he did that for me.” The final third was abuse, of which Dr Carey’s “imperfect dentistry” was a memorable image. Acts of kindness, extravagant hospitality, conviviality were too often outweighed by scandal, embarrassment and disgrace. “Moderation in all things” was not an axiom he would have recognised. He always had to go further, too far, or, as a friend of mine would have it, “three far”. R.I.P.