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One would not have to be too very cynical to conclude that the whole idea behind the Big Fat Royal Wedding is an attempt to shore up flagging interest in the Royal Family. There is a succession problem, after all. Prince Charles is perceived as something of a wacko, partly because he seems to have taken an odd, unhealthy interest in preserving the planet. Royals don’t do that. Their job is to consume resources on a vast scale. The castles, the clothes, the gold gilt carriage, etc. It is a all a question of entitlement, and the Brits seem to get a vicarious thrill from indulging their surrogate, royal selves.
If you want to get a sense of the scale of consumption, you could do worse than visit Hampton Court Palace. It belonged to Cardinal Wolsey before Henry VIII got his hands on it, but in just ten years Henry spent more than £62,000 rebuilding and extending the buildings and grounds. That would be approximately £18 million today. When he died in 1547 the King had more than 60 houses, but none were more sumptuously decorated than Hampton Court Palace.
Henry’s palace was one of the most modern, sophisticated and magnificent buildings in all of Europe. There were tennis courts, bowling alleys and pleasure gardens for recreation, a hunting park of more than 1,100 acres, kitchens covering 36,000 square feet, a fine chapel, a vast communal dining room (the Great Hall) and a garderobe (or lavatory) – known as the Great House of Easement – which could sit 28 people at a time. It was not quite Versailles, but not too shabby as palaces go.
In August, 1546, Henry played host to the French ambassador and his entourage of two hundred gentlemen – as well as 1,300 members of his own court – for six days. An encampment of gold and velvet tents surrounded the palace for the occasion. These sorts of feasts depleted the countryside, of course, requiring regular moves from palace to palace.
Our own invite to the wedding has not been forthcoming, but we did take advantage of a somewhat impersonal invitation (extended by way of a poster in the tube station) to view a small collection of Dutch landscapes in the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. It was Easter Sunday, and serious tourists had camped out in front of the Palace to see the changing of the guard. The Queen’s Gallery is tucked in close to the Mews, where the royal horses are being groomed for the Big Event. Most of the paintings were purchased by George IV, who had a penchant for the “good” life, but was also partial to paintings of rustic, rural scenes, where peasants brought in the hay in a soft golden light. For him, it must have seemed fanciful and fun.
You might assume that time is not right to be plotting to overthrow the monarchy, but Republic, a tiny, London-based, anti-monarchist organization recently held a meeting in a pub just south of Queen Square. Forty brave souls showed up, united in a common cause. They would very much like the monarchy removed from their country’s pocketbook and constitution. Bolstered by fellow comrades in Commonwealth countries such as Canada and Australia, Republicans are hoping that when the international spotlight shines on the Royal Family during the wedding palooza, the flawed system will be laid bare.
They argue that the monarchy is unaccountable and unrepresentative, a drain on public resources and it makes a joke of democracy: Only half of Britain’s parliament is elected, and the head of state can never be. They say the Royal Family cost British taxpayers £180-million (about $285-million) through payments, deferred taxes and security costs. The Royal accountant begs to disagree. Republicans have been given the green light to hold a street party on the day of the royal wedding in Red Lion Square. A spokesman said they will celebrate “democracy and people-power, rather than inherited privilege” on April 29.
So, will it all come crashing down when the the Queen shuffles off the mortal coil? Don’t count on it. As “The King’s Speech” makes abundantly clear, the Royals may be a mediocre lot, but they are resilient. And if they have to skip a generation to keep the throne intact, it will probably be arranged. Prince William will be King before Charles has counted the royalties from his new book. The author of “Harmony” has a lot to learn about winning hearts and minds. He could have picked up a thing or two from his mother or his ex. Or the brand new daughter-in-law, the Princess Bride.
Cerberus was wavering. Even though we appeared to have no reservation for a room at St. John’s College, Cambridge, my wife convinced him that she had stayed at the college before. She described the room and the route to the dormitory. The problem was our arrival on a Sunday. The reservations people were not available. Someone had dropped the ball on our behalf, but protocol and five hundred years of history were at stake. Visitors pay to tour the grounds of the College, since it is one of the oldest in Cabridge. The gatekeeper had to appear to be protecting the place without being entirely unreasonable.
He had already revealed that there were rooms available. It was a paperwork problem. With a little nudging, the man finally caved. We trundled our luggage through the maze of 16th and 17 century buildings and out across the Bridge of Sighs. Ours was a modest room with twin beds and an internet password that didn’t work, but we had a place to sleep and our very own bathroom. It was not hard to picture the place in winter without central heating and we counted our blessings.
Our ill-timed arrival was compounded by a misunderstanding over the rendezvous for dinner, but all’s well that ends with a good night’s sleep and a hot breakfast. My wife was happy with the reception she received for her talk and I got to explore the city the following day. Cambridge is captivating. It has been an important town since Roman times, but in the year 1209 a group of religious scholars broke away from Oxford and came here. There are now thirty-one colleges clustered around the city center. King’s College was founded in 1441, and its spectacular chapel took seventy years to complete. With its fan ceiling, beautiful windows and alterpiece by Rubens, it is an architectural marvel.
I have been remiss in attending to this blog of late despite having plenty of new photos and an adequate amount of topics to write about. I blame taxes. For someone who loathes them as much as I do, the procrastination of the work itself consumes an enormous amount of time and energy, not to mention the actual effort involved in gathering the numbers together. But we are all plagued with the same disease and it is not very interesting.
Here in London, I have done due diligence as a tourist despite the taxes. St. Paul’s Cathedral (all the way to the top), Tate Britain, twice, Tate Modern, twice, a tour of the Houses of Parliament, that delightful bicycle wheel, London Eye, twice, the Museum of London, twice, the Imperial War Museum, twice and the Natural History Museum.
Not to mention Kew Gardens, Hampstead Heath and various other venues for plays, dance and other productions. I have to return to the National Gallery, visit the Portrait Gallery, British Museum etc. Time is running out and there is a lot to see. My work beleaguered wife has seen very little of this. Guilty pleasures.
There are always surprises. The kangaroo in the creation painting on the ceiling of St. Paul’s cathedral, done shortly after the first ship returned from Australia and England learned about black swans and marsupials. The fact that “London Eye,” the most popular paid attraction in all of England, was intended to be dismantled after five years. That the man responsible for inviting the members of the House of Commons to join the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament gets the door slammed in his face, all because of an ill considered act of Charles I.
I have been impressed by British television. We have watched some fascinating programs on everything from the Bronze Age in Britain to the makeup of the universe. The shows on offer make the American counterparts seem paltry and dumbed down by comparison.
On my walks and on the underground, I am usually accompanied by my Ipod. Recently, I have spent many pleasurable hours in the company of David Mitchell’s “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet” Nagasaki, Japan at the end of the 18th century. I’ve been on three harrowing adventures with Michael Forsythe, the compelling killer at the heart of Adrian McKinty’s thrillers. Both writers from the UK, Mckinty now living in Melbourne. I’ve just started on “Old Filth,” by Jane Gardam.
When the sun finally breaks through the blanket of cloud that seems anchored to this city, it is dazzling. The residents fling off their coats, caps and mitts and stroll around as if summer had arrived. Today’s chill gives the lie to that illusion. I slipped on my fleece gloves as soon as we headed out for the morning constitutional. The dogs like the cold, most of them anyway. This old dog could do with a few more days of heat and sunshine, but the cloud and cold seem appropriate. This is London, after all.
My role as “Tour Dad” could have been tattooed on my forehead and no one would have blinked. We were in Trafalgar Square, swimming through a tidal wave of young people on their way to somewhere special for a spot of culture, a drink or a bite to eat. Nothing deters tourists to London these days, not the price of the pound nor the dismal weather. School holidays seem to kick in at the same time, and it doesn’t take much to lure teens and twenties onto busses, trains or planes for a trip to the UK. Our daughter had a school break and she had come from Halifax, Nova Scotia on her first trip to Europe.
She hadn’t done due diligence on the tourist front, of course. Homework is homework and she gets enough of that in school. So I picked out a few of the sights I thought she should see– Buckingham Palace, the houses of Parliament, the Tower of London, the National Gallery, and Kensington Palace, since we live so close. We had booked tickets to “Blue Dragon,” a new Robert Lepage production at the Barbican, but she asked about “The Lion King.” Unfortunately, the 2000 seat theatre was sold out. A few tickets were being shilled at twice the face value, but I couldn’t bring myself to make some tout rich.
In Trafalgar Square, I told my daughter about my one claim to photographic fame. I went to a demonstration against the Vietnam War when things were heating up for Laos and Cambodia. Wearing a dark blue cape with a red lining picked up in a flea market, I posed with hippie-long hair and a North Vietnamese flag in the lapel of the cape. It was enough to catch a photojournalist’s eye.
A week after the demonstration I got a letter from a friend in Paris with a full page photo that had been in Paris Match magazine. The fountain that was framed in the background had been tainted with red dye and it looked like blood. I don’t have a copy of the pic on this computer, but I will plug it in when I rediscover it. I was cannon fodder at the time and I would get drafted before I left London, but that is another story.
The Tower of London was a zoo, of course. We arrived early enough to see the Crown Jewels without a long line-up. The historical tour with a female, Scottish Yeoman Warder was both entertaining and gruesome. The Tower complex dates back 1078, when William the Conqueror had a small, timber castle constructed on a sacred pagan site.
The numerous buildings on the site have seen service as a palace, a prison, a mint, an armoury, an observatory and a menagerie, not to mention a place of some awful executions. Most of those occurred at nearby Tower Hill. I will spare you the grisly details. Suffice it to say, that the Tower entered the vernacular as a place of dread. In “My Fair Lady,” Eliza is warned: If the Kind finds out that you are not a lady, the police will take you to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls.
After about eleven in the morning, all the tourist destinations in London seem to turn into mob scenes. Westminster Abbey was overrun despite the fact that they charge admission. Fortunately, “The King’s Speech” allowed us so see what a visit could have been like if we had simply been born into the Royal Family and had the place to ourselves.
I loved the bit when Logue settles himself on the throne. It is under restoration at the moment, so if you are thinking about having a coronation, I’m afraid it will have to wait. I am not alone in thinking that Timothy Spall was terribly miscast as Churchill, and the early political leanings of both Churchill and the Royals with regard to Germany were glossed over to the point of misleading moviegoers. But in Hollywood, all’s well that ends in an Oscar.
My daughter took in the Science Museum and the nightlife of Covent Garden all by herself. We did a lot of walking, talking, tube travel and eating, leaving plenty for another visit. Dr. Johnson said, “If you are tired of London, you are tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.” Disraeli said: “London is a roost for every bird.” Jane Austen disagreed: “Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be.”
The city of Johnson, Keats and Churchill is just fine for me despite the fact that we haven’t been invited to the wedding. The sun is coming up earlier and staying around longer in the evening, even offering occasional flashes of brilliant sunshine. Doing tourist duty in London is not exactly a hardship despite the crowds and cost. Without visits from friends and family, I would spend too much of the day huddled over the laptop.
And even old curmudgeons can learn a thing or two from an immersion in British history. The trick is to keep your head.
I have been on only one tour in London thus far, and it may not surprise you to learn that it took me through an area our tour guide called “legal London.” It is in the heart of the city, and the buildings reek of old cases and serious, bewigged barristers. We walked through Lincoln’s Inn, where young men used to bury their heads in books in the hopes of gaining favor with the powers that be, where barristers “took chambers.” We went into the hall of Middle Temple, stepping back in time. We braved the metal detectors of the Royal Courts of Justice. It made me want to curl up with a copy of Dicken’s “Hard Times” or a boxed set of “Rumpole of the Bailey.”
A couple of friends came through last week with their list of things to see in the brief time they were here. Jean is a dedicated fan of Vermeer, and, although I was not able to get her into Buckingham Palace to see the one owned by the Queen, we could see “The Guitar Player.” It is located in an English Heritage Property called Kenwood House. The house is one of those palatial estates that looks as though it belongs out in the country, and it was in the country when it was built. Now it is on the outskirts of an inner suburb, Hampstead Heath.
The original house was probably built by John Bill, the King’s Printer, but from 1712 on Kenwood belonged to a succession of Scots. In 1754, it was sold to a rising young lawyer by the name of William Murray. An architect named Robert Adams began extensive renovations on the house in the 1760′s.
William Murray was the fourth son of the fifth Viscount Stormont, one of eleven children. His father was a noted Jacobite and had been imprisoned for supporting the cause. It was obvious in grammar school that Murray was very bright, so it was suggested by the schoolmaster that he attend Westminster School in London. The boy left home at the age of thirteen and never returned. He flourished at school and was made a King’s Scholar in 1719, allowing him to be accepted into Christ Church, Oxford in 1724. At Oxford, the young Scot became fluent in French and Latin.
William settled in London, and with the help of a few influential patrons, he set himself up at Lincoln’s Inn to study law, acquire clients and argue cases. He fell in love with Chloe, a beautiful girl he met through his friend, Alexander Pope, but his prospects were so dismal that her parents refused the match.
In time, Chloe’s parents may have regretted their decision to marry off their daughter to a country squire. The Scot with the checkered background would go on to become Attorney General, Chief Justice of King’s Bench, and the first Earl of Mansfield. He would become one of the most important men in England.
Murray would gain renown as a judge, reforming mercantile law, reducing religious discrimination, improving court procedures and establishing a precedent that made slavery illegal in England. This decision, which promptly freed some 15,000 slaves, may have been triggered by his own family situation. He and his wife had no children, and they had taken in two great-nieces, one of whom was of mixed race. Her name was Dido Elizabeth Belle. The terms of Murray’s will greatly favored the other niece, but he did make it clear that Dido was to remain free.
Despite Murray’s place in history, his intimate connection to Kenwood House has been overshadowed by a bequest of significance. In 1925, Lord Iveagh, otherwise known as Edward Cecil Guinness, purchased the estate. Lord Iveagh inherited and greatly increased the family fortune in the brewing business. He died before his collection of “Old Masters” were installed, but they now grace the rooms at Kenwood House. Rembrandt, Hals, Van Dyke, Gainsborough, and the unassuming little Vermeer.
Despite the loss of its entire contents at auction in 1922, some of the original furnishings have been restored to the estate. In 1929, an Act of Parliament was passed to safeguard the house and the art collection. We are fortunate to be able to visit it today for free and enjoy the lovely surroundings. The guides are very knowledgeable, and we learned what it meant to be caught “red handed,” and how dangerous it was to be well-to-do in London at that time.
On June 6, 1780, Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square in London was trashed and burnt by Protestant mob in reaction to a decision by his court to protect the rights of Catholics. Later that day, Kenwood itself was threatened by the mob, but a detachment of light horse was dispatched to protect it. I am grateful to our guest for dragging me out to the suburbs. It was a fascinating glimpse at a great urban home built before the towering trees were cut to build our house in Nova Scotia.
I was a lot younger the last time I resided in London. I hate to date myself, but it was not long after the “summer of love” made history in San Francisco. Carnaby Street was in full swing and bell bottom trousers were de rigeur. When I lived in London, the Beatles did a jam session from the roof of their Apple HQ and the Rolling Stones rocked Hyde Park with a free concert. London was really “up itself,” as Aussies like to say. I was overwhelmed by the frenetic pace and felt like I was doing a high wire act trying to keep up. Londoners were busy reinventing fashion, music, comedy and filmmaking. It was as if everything in the past had just been too dull, too slow, too old-fashioned.
I’m guessing that Londoners are a bit more relaxed now, more secure in their place in the world. The Beatles broke up, Thatcher crushed the labour unions, the “people’s princess” died and life went on. However, the financial crunch that is beginning to take hold here may have a lasting effect on this generation’s sense of security. People are losing well-paying jobs in great numbers.
As soon as we learned that we were London bound, my wife scoured the web for a place to live. We were lucky. We have been in some difficult places to find accommodation, but this city may take the prize. The flat she found is on Kensington Church Street, a stone’s throw from Kensington Palace. From here, one can saunter into Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park and on into the Green Park. The High Street has four supermarkets within walking distance, including the largest “Whole Foods” in the City. Many of the shops are aimed at an upscale population; not a few are out of our reach.
This has been a posh neighborhood for a long time. William III and Mary Stuart moved their court to Nottingham House (now Kensington Palace) in 1690. Kensington Church Street was the site of a violent demonstration in the summer of 1821, when an unruly crowd demonstrated against King George 1V, seizing upon the funeral cortege of Queen Caroline to express their displeasure.
Despite the fact that we are living atop a patisserie, the main attraction for us are the Kensington Gardens, with their extensive walking paths, frisky dogs, decorative birds and stunning, gaudy Albert memorial. The movie “Young Victoria” did not hint at the empire she would preside over or the monument she would have constructed to honor her young consort.
We are fortunate to be here to experience the fascinating installations by Anish Kapoor. You can check them out at http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2010/09/anish_kapoorturning_the_world_2.html.
I’ve only just got settled in. Check back soon for more thoughts and pictures from this spectacular city.
