In 1564, John Dee was “appointed Royal Advisor in mystic secrets”, official astrologer and magician to Elizabeth I. If he had been born in the 20th century, would the astronomer, scientist and occultist have ended up writing for the News …
Why doesn’t Scotland love King Charles?
When the Queen died at her country estate in Scotland, crowds lined the streets as her hearse crept its way from Balmoral to Edinburgh. There were no indications that her subjects north of the border mourned her any less than …
Brexit exposed the Westminster elite
On New Year’s Day, this year a liminal moment between a bad 2022 and what is sure to be a worse 2023, how are we to mark the 50th anniversary of Britain’s ill-starred entry into the European Community? Perhaps some …
Harry Flashman’s imperial morality
I suppose it’s only a matter of time before the times catch up with George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman books. One can imagine the scene: an earnest young editor picks up a copy of the books, drawn to them by the …
How Britain became an American colony
It is difficult to imagine Ralph Waldo Emerson enjoying the World Cup. As the champion of the Transcendentalist movement, the sage of Concord was the embodiment of 19th-century high-mindedness, far more comfortable discussing the beauties of nature and the oneness …
Who cancelled English folklore?
Sleeping Beauty. Cinderella. Puss-in-Boots. All names with which most of us are familiar. But in Britain, when it comes to our own folk tales, myths and legends, most are long forgotten. Few of us know the names of Woden, Herne …
Jan Morris: prophet of our gender troubles
“Do you remember,” the late Jan Morris asked our late Queen, “when they climbed Everest for the first time, and the news came to you on the day before your coronation?”
It was 2001. The writer and the monarch were …
The Queen saved the Commonwealth
“Racism was outlawed in England in the 60s & it’s been allowed to thrive so why should black & brown mourn!! #queen”, tweeted — and then deleted — the former footballer Trevor Sinclair. An associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, …
Our divine monarchy is finished
Queen Elizabeth was the last revered European monarch. There are a few other Konigs and Reines in Europe, flying part-time as KLM pilots, cycling on their own to official occasions or forced to abdicate because of garden variety corruption. These …
The Queen’s war on nationalism
In the room where I write there’s a portrait that might well get me ostracised from certain intelligentsia circles to which — for the time being — I belong. Few would be in any doubt about whom it depicts. Nevertheless, …
Is your garden imperialist?
Ten years as an inner-city parish priest has not prepared me well for the dilemmas of suburban ministry. Bill showed me round the beautiful graveyard of my new church in Kew. Over the boundary wall, the gentle rhythms of white-flannelled …
What Harry Flashman teaches us about empire
How should we understand Britain’s colonial and imperial history? The 200th anniversary, this week, of the fictional birth of the great imperial anti-hero, Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, is a timely way into the contested politics of historical memory. His …
The future of Anglicanism is African
The future of the Christian religion in England is not to be found in the southern shires or the former mill towns of the North. Out there, the voice and tenor of the Bible is a thinning force, a hoarse …
