Gilbert Keith Chesterton Part 7

There are probably two tremendous turning points in history--the one occurred at the moment that the fatal arrow entered the eye of Harold at Senlac, the other when Henry VIII set fire to the ecclesiastical f.a.ggots that ended in the Reformation. That period which lay between them may roughly be called the Middle Ages, which part of history Chesterton thinks has been badly treated. Whether this is so is a question that opens up a broader one: Has the history of England ever received the attention it deserves? Has right proportion been given to the most important events? Should history be made popular in the modern sense of this much misinterpreted word? These are questions to which no adequate answer can be given in the s.p.a.ce of a chapter, nor is it within the scope of this book.

Chesterton is very annoyed to find that to possess Norman blood is, to many people, a hall mark of aristocracy: 'This fashionable fancy misses what is best in the Normans.' What he contends, and I think rightly, is that William was a conqueror until he had conquered. Then England pa.s.sed out of his hands. He had wished it to be an autocracy; instead, it developed into a monarchy--'William the Conqueror became William the Conquered.' This is a line that the ordinary historians do not appear to take, though I fancy they imply it when they say that feudalism didn't exist in the time of the Georges.

Perhaps one of the most picturesque parts of history is that time when men looked across the sea and saw in the far distance a huge cross that seemed to beckon as the voices later called to Joan of Arc. The Crusades were a time when wars were holy because they were waged for a holy thing. Six hundred years, so Chesterton tells us, had elapsed since Christianity had arisen and covered the world like a dust-storm, when there arose 'a copy and a contrary: the creed of the Moslems'; in a sense Islam was 'like a Christian heresy.' Historians, so he thinks, have not understood the Crusades. They have taken them to be aristocratic expeditions with a Cross as the prey instead of a deer, whereas really they were 'unanimous risings.' 'The Holy Land was much nearer to a plain man's house than Westminster, and immeasurably nearer than Runnymede.' But I am not sure that Chesterton has scored over the orthodox historians who made a good deal out of the fact that Crusade had a close affinity to _Crux_, which word meant a cross that was not necessarily bound up with Calvary.

In dealing with the Middle Ages, he propounds the proposition that the best way to understand history is to read it backwards--that is, if we are to understand the Magna Charta we must be on speaking terms with Mary. 'If we really want to know what was strongest in the twelfth century, it is no bad way to ask what remained of it in the fourteenth.'

This is a very excellent method, as it demonstrates what were the historical events and what were the mere local and temporary.

Becket was one of those queer people of history who was half a priest and half a statesman, and he had to deal with a king who was half a king and half a tyrant. Every schoolboy knows about Becket, and delights to read of the wild ride to Canterbury, which began with the spilling of Becket's brains and ended with the spilling of the King's blood by his tomb.

For Chesterton, Becket 'may have been too idealistic: he wished to protect the Church as a sort of earthly paradise, of which the rules might seem to him as paternal as those of heaven, but might well seem to the king as capricious as those of Fairyland.' The tremendously suggestive thing of the whole story of Becket is that Henry II submitted to being thrashed at Becket's tomb. It was like 'Cecil Rhodes submitting to be horsewhipped by a Boer as an apology for some indefensible death incidental to the Jameson Raid.' Undoubtedly Chesterton has got at the kernel of the story that made an Archbishop a saint (a rare occurrence) and an English king a sportsman (a rarer occurrence).

But clever as Chesterton is in regard to this particular story, the ordinary schoolboy would do better to stick to the common tale of Becket that came on the hasty words spoken by a hasty king; he will better understand the significance of the whipping of the king when he can read history back to the days when kings could not only not be whipped, but could whip whom they chose, and put men's eyes out when they used them to shoot at the king's deer.

A great part of the Middle Ages is concerned with the French wars, those wars that staggered the English exchequer and made the English kings leaders of armies. The reason of these wars was, Chesterton tells us, the fact that Christianity was a very local thing. It was more--it was a national thing that was bound up with England. 'Men began to feel that foreigners did not eat or drink like Christians,' which is to say that the Englishman began his contempt for the foreigner which has resulted in nearly all our wars, and has made the Englishman abroad a supercilious creature, and has made the English schoolboy put his tongue out at the French master.

The French wars were something more than a national hatred, they were a national dislike of foreigners, a dislike that had its probable origin in the Tower of Babel. But this was not the only reason of the incessant French wars--there was a question of policy. France began to be a nation, and 'a true patriotic applause hailed the later victory of Agincourt.' France had become something more than a nation; it had become a religion, because it had as its figure a simple girl who believed in voices, and took her part in the struggles of a defeated country.

Chesterton's chapter is a fine understanding of the French wars; it is an amplification of the mere skeletons of ordinary history, and as such is very valuable.

From being a reasonable national dislike, the French wars 'gradually grew to be almost as much a scourge to England as they were to France.'

'England was despoiled by her own victories; luxury and poverty increased at the extremes of society, and the balance of the better mediaevalism was lost.' It resulted in the revolt connected with Wat Tyler, a revolt that 'was not only dramatic but was domestic'; it ended in the death of Tyler and the intervention of the boy king, who, in swaying the mult.i.tude that was a dangerous mob, 'gives us a fleeting and final glimpse of the crowned sacramental man of the Middle Ages.'

From this period Chesterton tells us that a rather strange thing happened--men began to fight for the crown. The Wars of the Roses was the result. The English rose was then the symbol of party, as ever since it has been the symbol of an English summer.

Chesterton makes no attempt to follow the difficult path that the Wars of the Roses travel, from the military standpoint, nor the adventures that followed the king-maker Warwick and the warlike widow of Henry V, one Margaret. There was, so he says, a moral difference in this conflict that took the name of a Rose to fight for a Crown. 'Lancaster stood, as a whole, for the new notion of a king propped by parliaments and powerful bishops; and York, on the whole, for the remains of the older idea of a king who permits nothing to come between him and his people.

This is everything of permanent political interest that could be traced by counting all the bows of Barnet or all the lances of Tewkesbury.'

The time when the Middle Ages was drawing near to the Tudors is interesting, because of the riddle of Richard III. Chesterton's description of this strange king is full of fascination if also it is full of truth: 'He was not an ogre shedding rivers of blood, yet a crimson cloud cannot be dispelled from his memory. Whether or not he was a good man, he was apparently a good king, and even a popular one. He antic.i.p.ated the Renaissance in an abnormal enthusiasm for art and music, and he seems to have held to the old paths of religion and charity.'

He was indeed, as Chesterton says, the last of the mediaeval kings, and he died hard; his blood flowed over an England that did not know what loyalty was, a country that had n.o.bles who would fly from their king on the first sign of danger; the Last Post of the old kings was sounding, and Richard answered its challenge. His description of this remarkable king is perhaps the best thing in the book, and is certainly far better than the ordinary history that attempts to give the character of a king in a couple of lines.

With the end of the mediaeval kings we pa.s.s to a period that is none other than the Renaissance, one of the most important epochs in English history, 'that great dawn of a more rational daylight which for so many made mediaevalism seem a mere darkness.'

The character of Henry VIII is one that is a veritable battleground. He is attacked because he found a variety of wives pleasing; he is condoned as a young man who promised to be a great king. There are, as Chesterton points out, two great things that intruded into his reign: the one was the difficulty of his marriages, the other was the question of the monasteries. If Henry was a Bluebeard, he was such because his wives were not a fortunate selection. 'He was almost as unlucky in his wives as they were in their husband.' But the one thing that Chesterton feels broke Henry's honour was the question of his divorce. In doing this he mistook the friendship of the Pope for something that would make him go against the position of the Church. 'Henry sought to lean upon the cushions of Leo and found he had struck his arm upon the rock of Peter.

The result was that Henry finished with the Papacy in the pious hope that it had done with him; Henry became head of the Church that was national, and soon Wolsey fell, to die in a monastery at Leicester.

But this terrible king 'struck down the n.o.blest of the Humanists, Thomas More, who died the death of a saint, gloriously jesting.' The question of the monasteries is one that is solved by the simple statement that the King wanted money and the monasteries supplied it. Is there any justification for the crimes of Henry? For Chesterton 'it is unpractical to discuss whether Froude finds any justification for Henry's crimes in the desire to create a strong national monarchy. For whether or not it was desired, it was not created.'

Chesterton in an original way has given a very clear account of the difficulties of the reign of Henry VIII, a reign that had perhaps more influence on English history than any other, a reign that showed what the licence of an English monarchy could do and, what is of more importance, what it could not, a reign that showed that the fall of a great man could be so precipitate that the significance of it could not be felt at the time, a reign that showed that the Pope was something more than the friend of the English throne--he was in matters of Church discipline its checkmate. This was the time that England trembled at the devilry of a king and rejoiced at the sun of a new learning that was slowly dispelling the fog of the Dark Ages.

It is usually a.s.sumed that Mary was a bad woman because she burned people who were so unwise as not to be at least officially Catholics.

Historians have applied the word 'b.l.o.o.d.y' to her, whereas the better word would be fanatic. 'Her enemies were wrong about her character,'

says Chesterton. 'She was in a limited sense a good woman.' If Chesterton means she was a good Catholic he is right, if the burning of heretics is a good thing for a Christian Church. But the fortunate part of the whole affair was that not even burning could restore the power of the Papacy in England in Mary's time any more than the arrogance of the Roman Catholics to-day can restore the Pope to London and unfrock the Archbishop of Canterbury. Mary was a sincere fanatic, and like most fanatics was an extremely ignorant woman; consequently she could not see that the fire that burnt Cranmer also burnt the last hope of England bowing to the Pope of Rome. I cannot feel that Chesterton has in the least vindicated the character of Mary.

Historians are apt to think that the days of Queen Elizabeth were those in which England first realized that she was great. On the other hand, Chesterton is convinced that it is in this period that 'she first realized that she was small.' The business of the Armada was to her what Bannockburn was to the Scots, or Majuba to the Boers--a victory that astonished the victors. The fact of the matter was that Spain realized after the battle that the victory does not always go to the big battalions, which the present Kaiser is no doubt writing in his 'Imperial' copybook to-day.

The 'magnificance of the Elizabethan times has traces in mediaeval times and far fewer traces in modern times.' 'Her critics indeed might reasonably say that in replacing the Virgin Mary by the Virgin Queen, the English reformers merely exchanged a true virgin for a false one.'

If Elizabeth was crafty it was because it was good she should be so. If she had not been so, the history of England might have found Philip of Spain on the English throne and Mary Queen of Scots a worse menace in England, a menace that by the skill of Elizabeth developed into a headless corpse. Had Elizabeth had a different historical background, she might have been a different Queen; but, as it was, she dealt with it as only a genius could who had followed a maniacal Queen who failed in everything she did.

From the times of Elizabeth, Chesterton moves on to the age of the Puritans, those rather dull people who have always been the byword for those who are more popularly known as Prigs. 'The Puritans were primarily enthusiastic for what they thought was pure religion. Their great and fundamental idea was that the mind of man can alone directly deal with the mind of G.o.d. Consequently they were anti-sacramental.' Not only in ecclesiastical matters, they were in doctrine Calvinistic--that is, they believed 'that men were created to be lost and saved,' a theological position that makes G.o.d a Person who wastes a lot of valuable time. It was to a large extent this belief in Calvin that made the Puritans dislike a sacramental principle; it was, of course, quite unnecessary to have one. If a man was either lost or saved, the need of any human meditators was not felt.

It is, of course, true, as Chesterton says, that 'England was never Puritan.' Neither was it ever entirely Catholic, neither has it ever been entirely Protestant. It is one of the things to be thankful for that men have ever held different religious opinions. It would be the greatest mistake if ever the Church was so misguided as to listen to the cries that come for unity, a unity that could only be founded on the subordinating of the opinions of the many to the opinion of the few.

I have said at the beginning of this chapter that Chesterton has said that the Middle Ages have not had the historical attention they deserve.

Whether this is so is a question that cannot be answered here. What we have to say is whether this book is a valuable one. There are, of course, many opinions expressed in it that do not take the usual historical standpoint, or they have a more original way of expression. I cannot feel that this book is the best of Chesterton's works, not because it has not some very sound opinions expressed in it, but rather because to understand its import the ordinary histories must be well known. It is perhaps a matter of an unsuitable t.i.tle, 'A Short History of England.' It would have been better to have called it a 'History of the Histories of England, and the Mistakes therein.' It would be no use as an historical book in the school sense, but as an original book on some of the turning-points of English history it is valuable. Mr.

Chesterton tells us to read history backwards to understand it. This we may well do if we have read it as fully forward as he evidently has.

_Chapter Six_

THE POET

Amongst the many outstanding qualities of Chesterton there is one that is pre-eminent--his extraordinary versatility. It cannot be said that this quality is always an advantage; a too ready versatility is not always synonymous with valuable work; especially is this so in literary matters. There are quite a number of writers who, without success, attempt to be a little of everything. This is not the case with Chesterton; if he is better as an essayist than as a historian, he is at least good as the latter; if he is better at paradox than at concise statements, he can be, if he chooses, quite free from paradox; if he excels in satire of a light nature, he can also be the most serious of critics if the subject needs such treatment.

It has often been said that a good prose writer seldom makes a good poet. This may be to a certain extent a truism; the opposite is more often the case; that a good poet is quite often a poor producer of prose. There is a good reason for this: the mind of a poet is probably of a different calibre to that of a prose writer; a poet must have a poetical outlook on life and nature; the tree to him is something more than a tree, it is probably a symbol, but to a prose writer more often than not a tree is merely a ma.s.s of bark and leaves that adorns the landscape.

Chesterton has written a great many poems, all of which can claim to be poetical in the true sense, but he has only written one really important poetical work. It is a ballad that is important for two things; firstly, it is about a very English thing; secondly, the style of the writing is nothing short of delightful, a statement that is not true of all good poetry. It has been said that Chesterton might well be the Poet Laureate; at least, it is a matter for extreme joy that he is not, not because he is not worth that honour, but because anything that tended to reduce his poetical output would be a serious thing in these days when good poets are as scarce as really good novelists.

The poem that has established Chesterton for all time as a poet is the one he has called with true poetical genius 'The Ballad of the White Horse.' There have been many white horses, but there is The White Horse, and he lies alone on the side of a hill down Wiltshire way, where he has watched with a mournful gaze the centuries pa.s.s away as the horizon pa.s.ses away in a liquid blue.

The White Horse stands for something that year by year we are forgetting, those quaint old English feasts that have done so much to make England merry, and have made history into a beautiful legend that bears the name of Alfred. Yet the White Horse is falling into neglect.

The author of 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' lamented the fact that people flew past the White Horse in stuffy first cla.s.s carriages; were he alive now he would lament still more that English men and English women can pa.s.s the White Horse without a glance up from the novel they are reading bound in a flaring yellow cover. But there is one great Englishman who will never do this, and that is Chesterton; rather he writes of the White Horse, the lonely horse that is worthy of this splendid poem.

In connection with the Vale of White Horse there are three traditions--one, that Alfred fought a great battle there; another, that he played a harp in the camp of the Danes; a third, that Alfred proved himself a very bad cook who wasted a poor woman's cake, a poor woman who would willingly have sacrificed cakes every day to have the honour of the king under her roof.

It is of these three traditions that Chesterton writes his poem.

Whether they may be historically accurate does not much matter; there is no doubt that the Vale had something to do with the King of Wess.e.x, and popular tradition has made the name of Alfred a national legend.

When Chesterton writes of the vision of the king he is no doubt writing of his own vision of the events that led up to the gathering of the chiefs. The Danes had descended on England like a cloud of locusts; it was the time that needed a National Champion, as time and again in the past the Israelites had needed one. It is one of the strange things of history that a champion has always appeared when he was most needed. The name of the Danes inspired terror; Wess.e.x was shattered--

'For earthquake following earthquake Uprent the Wess.e.x tree ...'

The kings of Wess.e.x were weary and disheartened: fire and pillage had laid the countryside bare with that horrible bareness that only lies in the wake of conqueror:

'There was not English armour left, Nor any English thing, When Alfred came to Athelney To be an English king.'

This was the vision that Alfred had, and he gathered the disheartened chiefs to his side till, in victory, he could bear the name of king.