Churchill and Napoleon -a postscript

Since my last blog I have had another look at Roy Jenkins's excellent biography of Churchill. Not a single mention of Napoleon - but an interesting comment about Churchill's famous ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough : as famous for ruthless self-advancement as he was for martial prowess (1).

Not surprising perhaps that the young Winston also had a great interest in Napoleon as well as in his famous ancestor. By all accounts, including his own, Churchill was a young man in a hurry - and there was no better example of what a young man could achieve in the worlds of war and politics than that of Napoleon.

Churchill's many contemporary critics, particularly after the costly failure of the Dardanelles Campaign and his support for intervention in the Russian Revolution certainly made the connection with Napoleon.

The cartoonist Low began caricaturing Churchill in a cast-off Napoleonic uniform, embodying his image as an adventurer with an obsession, like that of Napoleon himself, to conquer Russia. This image of a Napoleonic Churchill was also popular amongst contemporary opinion, as most people viewed him at the time as an emblem of concealed reaction. H.G. Wells also had little sympathy for Churchill's view of the new Communist State, and parodied him as Napoleon in his play Men Like Gods(2)

Take also this mocking article from the New York Times in 1922:

At Harrow, the lad, moody as Napoleon, was alone. ...

others lived within the regulations; he looked - sometimes leaped - beyond them. .. He thus became a soldier of fortune - a buccaneer - using the pen while he wore the sword. And his only real comrade was Bonaparte. True they did not see much of each other in the flesh, but in his library Winston collected hundreds of volumes on the Corsican, and these he has bound sumptuously in the leather with which every book is honored when it enters the archives of the British aristocracy. 'Chatting thus with Napoleon's memory, Churchill unbends; you see him in velvet, even climbing a ladder - only a short one is needed - to reach his companion's loftier pages. To say this is no reflection on Churchill, for Napoleon himself would have had to do it if he had collected so many books about Winston.

What Rosebery has admired in Napoleon is "the last phase." That is because Rosebery is our greatest living expert on abdication, and to him, St. Helena is the holy place, in fact his Mecca. But Churchill values Napoleon chiefly because in his youth he reduced the pretensions of older men. He was one who met experience with explosions. Indeed, there is only one point of strategy on which Churchill differs from his associate and that is but a passing incident - the Battle of Waterloo. This is where Churchill would have been prepared to offer Bonaparte a friendly hint. He would have warned the Emperor that while Wellington was, of course, no Marlborough, he had, like Haig, qualities which we generals of genius must not despise.

..
The final verdict on Churchill will be probably that he is interesting but expensive. He works. He thinks. He knows. He acts. He even gambles. If only his ventures had all succeeded, they would have been admirable. In some countries not far from England he would have been by now an Emperor, reigning not - it may be - in Paris, but certainly over Elba. Of England it has to be said reluctantly that she is too stupid to appreciate dictators.(3)

Churchill was of course not alone on the Liberal benches in Parliament in the Edwardian era in his interest in Napoleon. There also for a time sat two who have appeared already on these blogs, Sir Walter Runciman and William Hesketh Lever, who unlike Churchill were not soldiers but creators of very successful business empires. So also has Churchill's friend, Lord Rosebery, the former Liberal Prime Minister and author of the famous book on Napoleon's captivity. (4)

Perhaps though rather than his Liberal affiliations at that time, a far better explanation of Churchill's own interest in Napoleon lay in his military background. A recent study by Gerald D. Swick makes a good point:

Churchill was one of the rare leaders of history, men such as Frederick the Great, Oliver Cromwell, and his own famous ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, who were “born for war,” as Napoleon once described himself. These were war leaders who “instinctively understood it in all of its aspects: strategic, political, diplomatic, moral and psychological.” Moreover, as one of Churchill’s most astute biographers, Sebastian Haffner, has observed: “No one will ever understand the phenomenon that was Churchill by regarding him simply as a politician and statesman who was ultimately destined like Asquith or Lloyd George, Wilson or Roosevelt, to conduct a war; he was a warrior who realized that politics forms a part of the conduct of war. (5)

Churchill and St. Helena

Churchill never set foot on St. Helena. I doubt whether it would have interested him. By the time he appeared on the scene its importance to the British Empire had gone. It was not a place where cavalry could charge or where an officer could play a few chukkas of polo. In later life it could not compete with the attractions of Madeira and the South of France. More than that, the island was associated with the ultimate failure of Napoleon. It was a road to nowhere. Churchill was interested only in adventure, ambition and destiny.

Churchill's friend, the Prince of Wales, later for a short time to be Edward VIII, did make a brief official visit in 1925. In a speech on his arrival in Jamestown he paid his respects to Napoleon's memory in terms of which I would imagine that Churchill, as a life long francophile, would not have disapproved.

I need not assure you of the deep interest with which I set foot on an Island whose name is so well known to all students of History, not only because it was here that were written the closing pages of a great and romantic life story – the story of the Emperor whose mortal remains now lie on the banks of the Seine, where many soldiers of France have found a resting place ... (6)

Like Napoleon though, St. Helena has honoured Churchill in its stamps.

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1. Roy Jenkins, Churchill (Macmillan 2001)
2. Timothy S. Benson Low on Churchill
3. The mocking tone of the article is set from the beginning: When one discusses unseen things with Winston Churchill, one finds that he believes firmly in an all-wise and an all-powerful Being because, despite Darwin, none other could have devised the family of the Duke of Marlborough, which after centuries of uphill effort has culminated at last in himself. P.W. Wilson, Winston Churchill, His Interrogation Mark
4. See blogs on Lord Lever Art Gallery and the blog of 11 February 2008 which among others discusses Walter Runciman and his book,The Tragedy of St Helena and Lord Rosebery's Napoleon: The Last Phase .
5. WARLORD: A Life of Winston Churchill at War Debuts by Carlo D'Este
6. Churchill's friendship and support for Edward VIII during the abdication crisis did little for his reputation in the years leading up to the second world war. Churchill's francophilia is described by Jenkins as a never to be underestimated feature of Churchill's long life. The full text of the Prince of Wales's speech is displayed in the Council Room in the Castle on St Helena. The speech also celebrated St Helena's loyalty to the Empire, and acknowledged the importance of the flax industry on which much of your material prosperity depends.

Churchill and Napoleon: The Desk at Chartwell

Winston Churchill's Desk at Chartwell with a bust of Napoleon in centre

I first started posting on Churchill and Napoleon in 2009, and it should be of no surprise to anyone who has read any of these posts to find a Sevres bust of Napoleon in pride of place on Winston Churchill's desk at Chartwell. Beside Napoleon is a small bust of Nelson, almost completely hidden, and to the right a statuette of Jan Smuts. See also Byline Times Article

Since I wrote my first post a number of pieces have appeared elsewhere. The Director of the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge, wrote an article in 2012 which placed Churchill's admiration of Napoleon firmly in the Whig tradition, and also attached some weight to Churchill's lifelong francophilia.(1)

More recently Andrew Roberts, a biographer of Napoleon, and more recently of Churchill also, gave a comprehensive presentation on Churchill and Napoleon to a conference on Winston Churchill at which Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, was the unfortunate choice of keynote speaker. To the delight of his audience, Roberts alluded to this at the beginning of his talk :

We have had a series of substantial scholars telling you genuine quotations and true facts about Winston Churchill and we have also had Boris Johnson.(2)

Johnson of course had just written a biography of Churchill on whom he appears to model his own career. He has since become Prime Minister. I am tempted to conclude with one of Karl Marx's oft repeated quotes, from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

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1. Allen Packwood: France and the French, A Tale of Two Statesmen, Churchill and Napoleon"
2. Andrew Roberts, address to the 32nd Annual Churchill Conference, Oxfordshire England, May 2015. The section on Johnson concluded: "I think Boris's attitude towards facts is very much what one would call a la carte. His speech reminded me very much of a friend of mine on Radio Four who said the trouble with Winston Churchill is he thinks he's Boris Johnson."

Byron, Churchill, Harrow & Napoleon

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, Jacques-Louis David, 1812

Wellington, himself an old Etonian, is often misquoted as saying that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.(1) It is strange that Harrow, Eton's strongest rival, has produced three of the biggest admirers of Wellington's opponent at Waterloo!

The David picture above, some seven feet high, was commissioned in 1811 by the first of our old Harrovians, Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852). Hamilton, a Scottish Whig politician, apparently had a tendency to emphasise the importance of ancient birth, but this curiously did not prevent him from supporting Napoleon, an upstart whose career and credo symbolised equality of opportunity. In 1882 the painting that Hamilton had commissioned was acquired by Lord Rosebery, like Hamilton a Scottish politician of Whig ancestry.

A Liberal Imperialist who briefly served as Foreign Secretary twice, and then Prime Minister(1894-1895), Rosebery's marriage to Hannah Rothschild (1878) enabled him to buy a priceless collection of art, including a number of valuable Napoleon memorabilia, to fill his twelve houses. (2) Rosebery was the author of an excellent study of Napoleon's exile which is still worth reading, and also commissioned the famous portrait of Napoleon by James Sant.

Rosebery was an old Etonian, but whilst the David painting was in his possession it caught the admiring gaze of the second of our old Harrovians, the young Conservative politician, Winston Churchill, a passionate devotee of Napoleon.

This was the first time that Churchill had been confronted by a large life-size picture of his hero. It made such an impression on him that the very next day he wrote to Rosebery about it:

I carried away quite a queer sensation from the Napoleon picture yesterday. It seems pervaded with his personality; and I felt as if I had looked furtively into the very room where he was working, and only just got out of the way to avoid being seen. (3)

I have written a number of posts about Winston Churchill's intense admiration for Napoleon, and a recent reading of Michael Sheldon's Young Titan, The Making of Winston Churchill, the only biography which has focused on his early political career, has shed further light on this:

In 1912, now a Liberal and First Lord of the Admiralty, travelling by train across the Alps to Naples to try to persuade the retired Lord Fisher to help the Government with its naval plans, Churchill waxed so eloquently about Napoleon's crossing the Alps that his wife in the next compartment thought he was reading aloud. (4)

Photograph Churchill sent to Gilbert Martineau in May 1961, now exhibited at Longwood House

In April 1915, critical of the performance of the Navy in the early stages of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign he quoted Napoleon to Admiral Fisher,

'We are defeated at sea because our Admirals have learned--where I know not--that war can be made without running risks' [Napoleon] (5)

Contemporaries were of course well aware of his passion for Napoleon. "He thinks himself Napoleon " said Lord Esher, his superior at the Colonial Office. His friend John Morley, Gladstone's biographer, when told that Churchill was reading another book on Napoleon commented,

He would do better to study the drab heroes of life. Framing oneself upon Napoleon has proved a danger to many a man before him. (6)

Letter from Winston Churchill to Gilbert Martineau May 1961, exhibited at Longwood House

Perhaps the strongest criticism came from a political opponent, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford who described him in a Unionist rally in Hyde Park in 1914 as an enemy of Ulster and a danger to the State, a "Lilliput Napoleon. A man with an unbalanced mind. An egomaniac ..!" (7)

The third of our old Harrovian aristocratic admirers of Napoleon was of course Lord Byron, from whom Churchill drew great inspiration. Both Byron and Churchill kept busts of Napoleon on their desks. Byron seemed in Churchill's mind to resemble his own father whose career had been tragically cut short, and to possess that combination of energy, action, vision and free thinking which he so admired.

Shelden's study suggests that as a young man Churchill very much saw himself as a Byronic romantic hero, a protagonist of domestic reform, determined to change the world for the better, and one whose political career looked to have come to an end with the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. Churchill though did not perhaps quite look the part, and the book throws new light on his passionate if unsuccessful pursuit of three of the most beautiful women of his time. (8)

Churchill was a great lover of Byron's poetry and could recite long passages from it, and often drew on it as in his famous promise in 1940 of only "Blood Sweat and Tears" which echoed Byron's reference in his Age of Bronze to the war profiteering of the landed gentry who enriched themselves with their "blood, sweat and tear-rung millions". (9)

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1. Others have claimed that what he actually said decades later when observing an Eton cricket match was "There grows the stuff that won Waterloo".

2. The David painting was bought by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1954 and now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

3. Churchill to Rosebery, 4th Sept 1901 p. 45 Michael Shelden, Young Titan, The Making of Winston Churchill, Great Britain, 2014.

4. Shelden pp. 278-9.

5. Winston, Churchill to Admiral Lord Fisher, April 8th 1815. Churchill Archives.

6. Shelden p. 92

7. Shelden pp. 195, 270.

8. Shelden pp 7-10.

9. Apparently when in 1941 Franklin Roosevelt suggested that the allies should call themselves the United Nations Churchill immediately quoted a verse from Byron, "Here, where the sword united nations drew .." Shelden pp 6-7.

Churchill and Napoleon

Amidst his many reminiscences about the battle of El Alemain in which he appeared to have played a major part, I recall my history master recommending Churchill's My Early Life. Now, more years later than I care to admit, I have finally read it, and can confirm his judgement.

What an excellent read it is: beautifully written, at times funny, and a fascinating window into the world of late Victorian British Imperialism. I also like my Folio Society edition - in the digital age there are few pleasures greater than handling a finely bound book.

I was aware that Churchill was a francophile and vaguely thought that he was, like a number of his class and generation, an admirer of Napoleon. It was with interest therefore that I read his account of his capture in the Boer War.

Churchill, who had lost his pistol, was confronted by a lone Boer horseman whose rifle was pointed at him.

I thought there was absolutely no chance of escape, if he fired he would surely hit me, so I held up my hands and surrendered myself a prisoner of war.

"When one is alone and unarmed", said the great Napoleon, in words which flowed into my mind in the poignant minutes that followed,"a surrender may be pardoned".

I admit I had to read this more than once. Here is Churchill recording, some 30 years later, that at the moment when he was faced with likely death if he sought to escape, he had thought about what Napoleon would have done, and decided that in his circumstances the great man would have thought that a surrender was pardonable. I wondered whether this was simply another example of the ironic and self deprecatory humour which is a feature of the book, so I decided to fish around a little, and came across this extract from a recent article:

In September 1897, Churchill wrote to his mother from the North-West Frontier of India explaining the force of his ambition: "I have faith in my star--that is, that I am intended to do something in the world." As this allusion and innumerable others to Napoleon make clear, the 22-year-old soldier already imagined himself as the young emperor. During this period, he seems to have been consumed with Napoleon--he planned to write a biography of the French military genius, and the eponymous hero of his 1899 novel Savrola is nothing if not Napoleonic in his ambitions: "Ambition was the motive force, and he was powerless to resist it.... 'Vehement, high, and daring' was his cast of mind. The life he lived was the only one he could ever live; he must go on to the end." Right up to the devastating failure of the Dardanelles campaign in 1915, Churchill was routinely criticized by his colleagues for his ebullient, Napoleonic sense of himself. In September 1913, Lloyd George noted that all politicians are keen on success but most lacked what Churchill possessed in abundance, that is "the Napoleonic idea." After the Dardanelles fiasco, he concluded in a similar vein that Churchill "had spoiled himself by reading [too much] about Napoleon." (1)

Hard to believe that Churchill has become the hero of American neo-conservatives, and that the US President who renamed French Fries "Liberty Fries" had a bust of him on his desk!

Size is Important

One of the things that the British have always held against Napoleon was his height, or rather his lack of it. A recent article in the left wing tabloid Daily Mirror described both Napoleon and President Zarkozy as French pipsqueaks . Napoleon has even been rewarded with his own syndrome, although modern scholars seem to think that he was actually of fairly average height for his time, 5' 6" - 5' 7". So the big question is, how tall was Sir Winston Churchill?
The answer seems to be 5' 7"!

Churchill on Captivity

Finally I was struck by Churchill's comments about captivity. When reading this it is worth recalling that he escaped after less than a month:

Prisoner of war! That is the least unfortunate kind of prisoner to be, but it is nevertheless a melancholy state. You are in the power of your enemy. You owe your life to his humanity, and your daily bread to his compassion. You must obey his orders, go where he tells you, stay where you are bid, await his pleasure, possess your soul in patience. Meanwhile the war is going on, great events are in progress, fine opportunities for action and adventure are slipping away. Also the days are very long. Hours crawl like paralytic centipedes. Nothing amuses you. Reading is difficult; writing impossible. Life is one long boredom from dawn till slumber
Moreover, the whole atmosphere of prison, is odious. Companions in this kind of misfortune quarrel about trifles and get the least possible pleasure from each other's society. If you have never been under restraint before and never known what it was to be a captive, you feel a sense of constant humiliation in being confined to a narrow space, fenced in by railings and wire, watched by armed men, and webbed about with a tangle of regulations and restrictions. I certainly hated every minute of my captivity more than I ever hated any other period in my whole life.

Although there are striking differences between Churchill's brief captivity and the captivity of Napoleon, this passage surely gives some indication of how Napoleon and his companions at Longwood must have felt.

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(1) Paul Stevens, "Churchill's military romanticism"Queen's Quarterly , 2006.

Napoleon and Churchill: Thoughts on Two Unrelated Images

Napoleon St Helena 1816, by Michel Dancoisne Martineau

The above portrait has just been completed by Michel Dancoisne Martineau. Aside from his incredible work with the French Properties on St. Helena, Michel has been extraordinarily productive as a writer and an artist.

This painting is based on Sir Pulteney Malcolm's description of Napoleon in the early stages of his captivity, before ill health and bitterness set in.

His hair of a brown-black, thin on the forehead, cropped, but not thin in the neck, and rather a dirty look ; light blue or grey eyes ; a capacious forehead ; high nose ; short upper lip ; good white even teeth, but small (he rarely showed them) ; round chin ; the lower part of his face very full ; pale complexion ; particularly short neck. Otherwise his figure appeared well proportioned, but had become too fat ; a thick, short hand with taper fingers and beautiful nails, and a well-shaped leg and foot. He was dressed in an old threadbare green coat, with green velvet collar and cuffs ; silver buttons with a beast engraven upon them, his habit de chasse (it was buttoned close at the neck) ; a silver star of the Legion of Honour ; white waistcoat and breeches ; white silk stockings ; and shoes with oval gold buckles . She was struck with the kindness of his expression, so contrary to the fierceness she had expected. No trace of great ability ; his countenance seemed rather to indicate goodness (1)

The portrait is surely also unconsciously influenced by what the artist has absorbed from other paintings and from numerous written accounts read over the years. The resultant figure that we see, shorn of contemporary conventions of portraiture, seems so realistic and human. Michel has spoken of the possibility of doing a study for each year of Napoleon's captivity, based on descriptions left by those who witnessed his decline. That would form the basis of a great exhibition for the bicentenary in 1821 and a fitting legacy of Michel's long service on St. Helena.

The second image is a photograph of Chamberlain's short lived wartime cabinet in September 1939, with Winston Churchill installed as First Lord of the Admiralty. I was intrigued by what each of the cabinet did with their hands. Some had their hands in their knees, some had their arms folded, some had their hands behind their back and one had a hand in his pocket. In the centre though sat Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, nearing the end of his Prime Ministership and of his life, his hands clasped in almost prayer like pose.(2) Behind Chamberlain stood Winston Churchill, his right hand thrust in his jacket, in a pose most commonly associated with Napoleon.(3)

Chamberlain's War Cabinet, September 1939

Churchill has appeared a number of times in this blog. A flawed genius, aren't they all, his admiration of Napoleon was well known to contemporaries, and like Napoleon he saw himself as a man of destiny.

I often reflect that like Napoleon, Churchill ultimately failed in his main aim. Napoleon failed to establish his Empire and the primacy of France on the continent. By the end of the second world war it was apparent that Churchill too would fail to safeguard the future of the British Empire and preserve its status as a great power. Although he did not preside over the Empire's dissolution, Churchill lived long enough to see others do it. How ironic that St. Helena, the scene of Napoleon's final years, remains one of the last outposts of that Empire that once bestrode the world.
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1. A diary of St.Helena - The Journal of Lady Malcolm (1816, 1817) containing yje conversations of Napoleon with sir Pulteney Malcolm edited by Sir Arthur Wilson, K.C.I.E. with an introduction by Muriel Kent - Ed. by George Allen & Unwin Ltd - 1929 pages 26-27
2. Within 9 months Churchill was to succeed Chamberlain as Prime Minister, and a few months later, in November 1940, Chamberlain died of cancer.
3. The hand in jacket pose most often associated with Napoleon was apparently introduced around 1750 and signified calm and firm leadership.

Arnold Chaplin: Distinguished Physician and Napoleonic Scholar

(Thomas Hancock) Arnold CHAPLIN (1864-1944) .


Distinguished doctor and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. (1864-1944).


Precise and old fashioned as a physician, he was gifted with a dry humour and with a shrewdness that made him the ally of the true scholar but an enemy to the spurious - G.H. Brown






He combined his medical practice with an interest in the History of Medicine, a love of French and English literature, and of old books and prints. He was appointed Harveian Librarian by the Royal College of Physicians in 1918, and remained in that largely honorary post until his death in 1944.

Chaplin's A St Helena Who's Who or, a directory of the island during the captivity of Napoleon , which was first published in 1914, still remains a valuable source for anyone interested in Napoleon's Captivity.

His earlier study, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte (A Medical Criticism) (1913) is now less well known, but provides a highly readable and careful analysis of the historical evidence about the diagnosis and treatment of Napoleon by his various doctors on St Helena.

His East Anglian nonconformist background almost certainly tells us a great deal about him.

His family had been resident in Fulbourn Cambridgeshire since the seventeenth century, and no fewer than ten of his ancestors had fought with Cromwell's Ironsides.

A High Church Tory would almost certainly have tried to keep that secret!

From that alone one could probably safely deduce that, irrespective of his impartial scholarship, his sympathies were probably Whig/Liberal, and that he certainly would not be an apologist for the Tory Government that had imprisoned Napoleon on St Helena.

There is evidence enough for this and for Chaplin's admiration of Napoleon in the language used in The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte :

.. Napoleon had crowded into the space of twenty years mental and bodily activities far in excess of those of any other man, ancient or modern .. p.6

It was now a melancholy picture, the greatest genius, and the most powerful energy of modern times, at the age of fifty-one, a prisoner, with strength exhausted, and body racked with pain, slowly creeping about Longwood, leaning for support on the arm of an attendant. p. 30

Forsyth the apologist of Sir Hudson Lowe .. p. 38

the whole history of the illness of Napoleon, together with the manner in which it was regarded, is far from edifying .. p. 94

everything connected with Napoleon, the mighty law-giver, is of surpassing interest .. p. 95

Also his verdict on the poor quality of the doctors who attended Napoleon at the end -

thrust into undue prominence on the stage. When the curtain fell, they passed from the light, were heard of no more, and are remembered now only on account of their professional association with the great Napoleon p. 94

His comments on the exhumation:

On October 16th, 1840, the British Government performed an act of reparation by giving up the body of the great Emperor to its rightful owners, the French Nation. Appendix III p. 109

and his concluding sentence which has echoes from Napoleon's own Will:

The body was carried to Paris and, there with regal pomp, the last wish of Napoleon was fulfilled, and he rested on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the people he had loved so well. p. 112

British Napoleonists in the Edwardian Era

It is probably worth remembering that the Edwardian Era was the era of the Entente Cordiale - relations with France, encouraged by the francophile King himself, had never been stronger.

Chaplin was one of a number of Britons of this period who were fascinated by and to varying degrees sympathetic to Napoleon. All the following have been referred to in previous posts on this blog:

Lord Rosebery, very briefly Liberal Prime Minister, the author of Napoleon the Last Phase (1900) and collector of Napoleonic memorabilia.

Sir Walter Runciman, shipping magnate, sometime Liberal Member of Parliament, and author of the polemical, Tragedy of St. Helena.

William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, soap magnate, sometime Liberal M.P. and collector of Napoleonic memorabilia.

George Leo de St. M. Watson, about whom nothing seems to be known other than the publication of two books: A Polish Exile with Napoleon: Embodying the Letters of Captain Piontkowski to General Sir Robert Wilson and Many Documents from the Lowe Papers (1912) and The Story Of Napoleon's Death Mask (1915) (1)

One might almost include Winston Churchill in this list: although he never got round to writing the book about Napoleon that he had planned. Although a Liberal at this time, he had a Tory background. He differed from the others also in his military background. He was first and foremost a soldier. Churchill was certainly a francophile though, and he remained so all his life.

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1. Watson was apparently a friend of Chaplin's; he is mentioned explicitly in the introduction to A St Helena Who's Who :
.. in 1912 my friend Mr. G. L. de St. M. Watson published " A Polish Exile with Napoleon," which was based on an exhaustive analysis of the " Lowe Papers," and he has shown conclusively that it is by no means safe to accept blindly Forsyth's able advocacy of the policy of the British Authorities. The work Mr. Watson has accomplished in his minute criticism of the "Lowe Papers " is invaluable, and to him, in common with all students of the captivity, I am deeply indebted, not only for his book, but for the ready way in which he has given me the benefit of his able criticism and advice. Chaplin, like most of the Edwardian Napoleonists mentioned, was scathing about the scholarship of Forsyth, who had tried to rescue the reputation of Sir Hudson Lowe in A History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena (1855).

THE REAL NAPOLEON - John Tarttelin

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Napoleon in Egypt(1868)

John Tarttelin is a Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society, and a recipient of the society's Legion of Merit. THE REAL NAPOLEON, The Untold Story (GB 2013) is dedicated to the memory of Ben Weider, the founder of the society, and it should perhaps come as no surprise to find that John is no fence sitter. The book's cover with its capitalised title and modified painting of Napoleon demands our attention.

Even before the preface a quote from Napoleon sets out the author's intent

The great works and monuments that I have executed, and the code of laws that I formed, will go down to the most distant ages, and future historians will avenge the wrongs done to me by my contemporaries.

Sunburst representing the Englightenment added by the author

The book puts much emphasis on Napoleon as an Englightenment figure, and reminds us that 177 scientists accompanied him on his Egyptian campaign. There is also a useful checklist of Napoleon's attributes that are too often overlooked by those keen to paint a negative portrait.

• a phenomenal memory and capacity for concentration and hard work
• kindness to his servants and people of all ranks
• his approachability to his soldiers
• the only ruler who promoted careers open to talent
• tolerance of people who were disloyal to him - Fouche, Talleyrand and Bernadotte
• passion for intellectual enquiry- he sought out the great minds of his time
• voracious reader of history and literature
• support of the rights of Jewish people

The author reminds us of the support the British Government gave to Royalist attempts to assassinate Napoleon. He also correctly disputes the conventional British view which holds Napoleon personally responsible for all the wars that were later to bear his name. As he points out, the Liverpool Government and its allies were determined to "snuff out equality and restore privilege." After the wars Britain actively encouraged Louis XVIII to use far more severe repression against Bonapartists than any Napoleon had carried out against his opponents, but such repression was of course common place in the United Kingdom at the time.

Ultimately of course the struggle with Napoleon was not just about the threat that the ideas of the Englightenment and the French Revolution posed to the established order. Britain's payrolling of all the coalitions against France over two decades was the climax of its century long struggle for European and World domination. In this contest the continental land wars were to some extent a sideshow. The real victory was being forged in the cotton mills of Lancashire, but that is another story, and outside the terms of reference of this book!

I have to admit that I find the book a little disjointed and bitty, and the language is very unacademic, perhaps as befits the times in which we live. I do not have a taste for polemicism, nor for hero worship, and on Napoleon in particular I have been a fence sitter, as I indicated some eight years ago when I thought my blogging was nearing its end! But I do share John's revulsion at the treatment of Napoleon by many historians and particularly by the British press, so maybe he has finally got me off the fence.

Over the past decade I have covered the views of a number of Whigs and Radicals who refused to accept Government propaganda about Napoleon, admired much of what he had achieved, and compared the UK unfavourably with contemporary France. On any rational basis of comparison they were right to do so.

John's quote from one British academic historian, Clive Elmsley is worth reproducing

there's no dispute that Napoleon launched modern Europe. He completely redrew the map, he swept away ramshackle governments, modernized administrations, and he didn't just do this in France, but in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and .. in what is now Belgium."

I may add that when coming across British or more exactly English chauvinists I always find it ironic to remember that Napoleon was the hero of the man who not long ago was voted the greatest ever Englishman, Sir Winston Churchill no less.

In the Footsteps of Napoleon: Madeira, Henry Veitch and Winston Churchill

The 1792 "Napoleon Madeira"

A recent visit to Madeira made me look up the story of Napoleon's brief stay off shore on board HMS Northumberland in August 1815. I first heard of this from a friend who writes a wine blog.

The only person allowed to go on board the Northumberland and meet Napoleon was the then British Consul, Henry Veitch. A Scotsman, born in Selkirk, who spent most of his life on Madeira, Veitch played a very important part in Madeira's somewhat complex history in the first half of the nineteenth century. A man of liberal sympathies, who was also a strong supporter of Madeiran autonomy, Veitch served as Consul from 1809 until 1834.

Henry Veitch (1782-1857), British Consul-General on Madeira

He was suspended from duties in 1828, at the commencement of the Portuguese Civil War, but still retained some influence and was restored by Palmerston in 1831. At least one of the guide books eerroneously says that he was dismissed for calling Napoleon "your Majesty".

Veitch's visit on board was recorded at the time by Admiral Cockburn's Secretary, John Glover

Mr. Veitch, His Majesty's consul, visited the ship, of whom Bonaparte asked numerous questions with respect to the island, its produce, the height above the level of the sea, its population, &c. Mr. Veitch dined on board, and after dinner Bonaparte walked with him and the admiral a considerable time, conversing on general topics, when he retired at once to his bedroom without joining the card-table. (1)

As the story goes Veitch gave Napoleon some fruits and other gifts, and persuaded him to take a pipe of Madeira, a barrel containing around 600 bottles.

Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Funchal

Veitch always claimed that he was never paid for the Madeira, but he was given some gold coins by Napoleon. According to the accepted story, these were buried beneath the foundation stone of the Anglican church in Funchal, the building of which was supervised by Veitch.

Napoleon's own reaction to Madeira was recorded by another Englishman on board the Northumberland, William Warden:

On our approach to Madeira, the hazy state of the atmosphere precluded the possibility of seeing the Island, until we got close between Puerto Santo and the Deserts. The latter rocky island is almost perpendicular; and has some slight resemblance to St. Helena. This circumstance I mentioned to De las Cases, and he instantly communicated it to Napoleon, who had quitted the dinner-table sooner than usual, and joined a few of us on the poop: but the comparison of what he now saw, with his gloomy notions of the place where he was shortly to abide, produced not a single word. He gave an energetic shrug, and a kind of contemptuous smile; and that was all. The sloping front and luxuriant aspect of the island of Madeira could not but excite an unpleasant sensation, when contrasted with the idea he had entertained of the huge black rock of St. Helena. (2)

The barrel of Madeira was never opened by Napoleon, and after his death was returned to the island where it remained with Blandy’s until 1840. Most of it was used to make the famous solera of 1792, but some 200 bottles were filled solely from Napoleon’s barrel. Such bottles are now very rare, and very valuable. One of these was given to that great admirer of Napoleon, Winston Churchill, when he holidayed at Reid's Palace on Madeira in 1950.

Winston Churchill painting at Câmara de Lobos, the small fishing village above which Henry Veitch built a fine house, now the Quinta Jardim Da Serra Hotel

Sir Winston insisted on pouring a glass for each guest, commenting "Do you realise that when this wine was vintaged Marie Antoinette was still alive?".

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1. Napoleon's last voyages : being the diaries of Sir Thomas Ussher, (on board the "Undaunted"), and John R. Glover, secretary to Rear Admiral Cockburn (on board the "Northumberland") p 165

2. Letters written on board His Majesty's Ship the Northumberland and at St. Helena’ (1816), William Warden pp 73-4

St. Helena: The Exhumation of Napoleon's Body

It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well.- (Napoleon's Will)

St. Helena was never expected to be Napoleon's final resting place - certainly not by his fellow exiles. (1)

Doubtless nobody bothered to tell the citizens of St. Helena, who had derived some benefit from the presence of the tomb of the Emperor.

The Valley of the Tomb, September 15th 1840

It was 25 years to the day since Napoleon had first arrived on St. Helena.

It was raining heavily. Two tents were set up. One was giving protection to men who were excavating the tomb. The other was set up as a chapel. In this a number of local officials were gathered, as well as a party of French men, most of whom had shared the Emperor's exile and had come to take his body home.(2)

The work was taking longer than anticipated - the thick cement protecting the tomb was hard to penetrate, and the excavators had to work through the night. At 8.00 a.m. on 16th September they finally broke through; at 9.30 they caught sight of the coffin; soon they were able to enter into the tomb and inspect it.

Then the coffin was lifted out and moved into the chapel.

Between Britain and France nothing is ever quite straightforward, and this occasion was no exception. (3)

The French had wanted to exhume the body themselves, and the leader of the French Party, the King's son the Prince de Joinville, expressed his displeasure at not being allowed to do so by remaining on board the Belle Poule. Now with the coffin in the chapel objections were made and recorded by a local Judge concerning the correct procedures that should be gone through when a coffin is unsealed.

At last the coffin was opened. For two minutes Napoleon's remains were exposed to those present. Not long enough for the daguerreotype that someone had brought with them to record the occasion.

The witnesses were able to verify that it did indeed contain the body of the Emperor, and not the quick lime that a Parisian rumour had suggested. It is impossible to imagine what must have gone through the minds of those who had shared the Emperor's exile as the coffin was opened. As the body was revealed they were amazed to find it so well preserved; whilst they had grown older, he to some at least seemed younger than when he had died 19 years earlier.(4)

The coffin was then resealed, now with six layers instead of four, and weighing 1200 kilos. It was carried up the track by 43 soldiers and placed on a carriage that had been reinforced to bear its heavy weight. At this point a British officer from a famous military family, Major-General Churchill, Chief of Staff of the Indian Army came running to pay his respects, and he and his two aides de camp joined the procession into Jamestown.

In Jamestown flags were at half mast and shops closed. All the windows were crowded with onlookers. The ladies of St. Helena had woven a large tricolour flag for the occasion.

The sick Governor, General Middlemore who had walked the 6 kilometres into Jamestown behind the procession, formally handed the coffin over to the French. De Joinville thanked him for the sympathy and respect with which the ceremony had been conducted.

As soon as the coffin reached the French ship, flags were unfurled, masts squared, drums beaten and salvoes fired. The Emperor had come back to his own!

So ended the most momentous quarter century in the history of St Helena.

Gilbert Martineau describes it as the end of the most horrible misunderstanding in history.(5)
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NOTES
(1) Bertrand had asked the British Government in 1821 for the return of Napoleon's body, and had been told then that it was a matter for the French Government. Pleas by Napoleon's mother for the return of his body were unanswered.

(2) The former captives who returned in 1840 were Grand Marshal Bertrand, his son Arthur, General Gourgaud, the young Emmanuel Las Cases, Marchand, the faithful servant who had nursed Napoleon at the end. There were also a number of Napoleon's servants: Saint-Denis, Pierron, Noverraz, Coursot and Archambault. Notable absentees were the elder Las Cases, because of ill health, and the Count de Montholon. The latter was in London, about to embark with Napoleon's nephew, Louis Napoleon, on a foolhardy attempt to overthrow King Louis Philippe. For this Montholon was imprisoned for 20 years, but was pardoned in 1846. Louis Napoleon was imprisoned for life; in 1846 he managed to escape to England. In 1848 with he fall of the July Monarchy he became the President of France, and in 1851 the Emperor of the French.

(3)There had been a number of sensitive issues. The British Government clearly now recognised Naoleon as Emperor Napoleon rather than General Bonaparte, but it was concerned not to do anything which could be critised by the Tory opposition. It was made clear therefore that the Governor should not say anything which in any way appeared to criticise the decision of 1815. The French Government for its part indicated that the former captives now returning would be told to be silent and unemotional.

(4) The following account, in response to a comment that the Emperor's body was well preserved, was given to a visiting seaman by someone who said he had been prsent:

Yes; externally it was perfect. The least touch, however, made an indenture. His nose was the only part which did not retain its original fullness. It hung in upon the bone, and greatly disfigured his countenance. I saw him by torch-light, and a more ghastly object I never looked upon. The night was dark, and, when the lid of the coffin was raised, the glare of light shed upon his pale features gave them an additional ghastliness. His eyes were much sunken, and his lips slightly parted. There was nothing of sternness in the expression of his countenance. It was rather that of pain. He looked as if he had fallen into an uneasy sleep after a long fit of illness. His liver and heart, which were embalmed and placed upon his breast, were uninjured.

Etchings of a Whaling Cruise ... by J. Ross Browne.

(5) Napoleon's Last Journey, Gilbert Martineau.

Marlborough and Napoleon - another Gift from the Emperor?

Histoire de Jean Churchill, Duc de Marlborough
These three volumes, a French biography of the great Duke of Marlborough,



published under the Imperial insignia in Paris in the year XIII (1805), beautifully bound and in near perfect condition, are to be found in the John Rylands Library in Manchester.



This would not merit a mention but for a handwritten inscription inside the cover of volume I :

This Book was sent as a present to my Father about the year 1809 or 1810 by the Emperor Napoleon another copy was sent at the same time to the Prince Regent & a third to the then Duke of Marlborough

This inscription was apparently dated 13th August 1852, and signed by Earl Spencer. If my inference is correct then the signature is that of the 4th Earl, Frederick Spencer (1798-1857), the great great grandfather of Diana Princess of Wales. His father to whom the gift was purportedly sent was the 2nd Earl, George John Spencer (1758-1834), brother of Lady Georgiana, famous Duchess of Devonshire and mother of the 6th Duke of Devonshire, whose links with the Bonapartes have been covered elsewhere. What complicated family ties these Whig families had!

The 2nd Earl Spencer was a great collector of books, and accumulated the "greatest private library in the world" according to the Althorp Hall website. Towards the end of the nineteenth century one of his descendants sold this 40,000 volume library to Mrs Rylands, the creator of the library named after her husband in industrial Manchester, and there it remains.

Apart from the Prince Regent, the other recipient of the biography would have been the 4th Duke of Marlborough, George Spencer (1739-1817). Curiously it was the 4th Duke's youngest brother, Lord Robert Spencer (1747 –1831), who later sent Coxe's Life of Marlborough to Napoleon on St Helena.(1) My impression from a visit to Blenheim some time ago is that members of the Marlborough family had a reciprocal interest in Napoleon; this was certainly the case of its most famous son, Sir Winston Curchill.

My efforts to find out whether copies of the 1805 French biography of Marlborough now reside at Blenheim and in the Royal Library, have so far met with no success. Without some corroboration one cannot be certain that the inscription in the Manchester book is accurate. One can see why Napoleon might have sought to cultivate leading Whig families who were out of office and were generally critical of Britain's wars on the continent, not least because they resented being taxed to pay for them. The same applies to the Prince Regent who was close to the Whigs at this time. It is possible of course that the inscription is simply repeating a family legend which had been embroidered a little in the retelling.

It seems probable though that Napoleon, who had great respect for Marlborough, took a close interest in the production of this biography, which was published not long after his coronation as Emperor. In the John Rylands Library there is also a much inferior 1808 edition (the revolutionary calendar abandoned), now losing its binding and held together with tape. Inside its front cover is a barely legible handwritten French inscription indicating that the book was printed "by order of Napoleon".

The first page of the preface to the biography is in this regard worth consideration:

A great man belongs to all peoples and to all centuries; he is, if I dare express myself thus, a masterpiece of human nature, similar to a masterpiece of art, offering a model to imitate in all times and in all places. His life is a public patrimony, a treasure where each has the right to come and draw light, wisdom, magnanimous sentiments, and the love of everything which can ennoble humanity. It becomes precious for all generations, through memories useful to the instructor who teaches, to the army general who commands, and to the man of affairs who governs.

Is the author talking about Napoleon or Marlborough one wonders? I don't think there is much doubt that this is how Napoleon hoped he too would be remembered.

My thanks to the University of Manchester for permission to publish the images taken from the collection in the John Rylands Library .
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1. On his death bed Napoleon gave the three volume Coxe's Life of Marlborough to the 20th Foot Regiment. An account of this, and the problems the gift caused have already been covered in my blog on the Fusilier Museum. It is curious that two biographies of Marlborough, both associated with Napoleon, are now to be found in Greater Manchester.

Dr Archibald Arnott, Kirkconnel Hall and Salix Babylonica

Kirkconnel Hall, family home of the Arnott family (1838 and 1870)

On a recent visit to Scotland I decided to pull off the A74 and have a look at Kirkconnel Hall, the home of Dr Archibald Arnott (1772-1855), Surgeon of the 20th Regiment of Foot and the last doctor to attend Napoleon on St Helena.

Arnott was born in an older house which once stood on this site, and after his retirement he had it demolished and completed the relatively modest two-storey house to the right around 1838. It is now somewhat overshadowed by the larger three-storey building to the left.

Two-storey house built by Dr Arnott around 1838

Dr Arnott lived in his new house until his death and is buried in the nearby Ecclefechan churchyard, with the following inscription on his tombstone:

At St. Helena he was the medical attendant of Napoleon Bonaparte whose esteem he won and whose last moments he soothed.

The hall iself is now a hotel, and pictures either side of the fireplace in reception remind the visitor of its historical associations.

To the left a picture of Napoleon, to the right Dr Arnott

And on the mantelpiece, almost hidden by unrelated bric a brac, is to be found a plate bearing an easily recognised image.

A Plate bearing an image of Napoleon on mantelpiece

Curiously the current owner has created a corner dedicated to his own hero Winston Churchill. He was not aware of Churchill's admiration for Napoleon.

Churchill memorabilia, to the left plans of the house Arnott built

Perhaps most interesting of all is the willow tree to be found in the grounds of the hotel. This is claimed to have been grown from a cutting brought back from St Helena by Dr Arnott, of the famous willow that once grew on the site of Napoleon's grave.

Salix Babylonica in the grounds of Kirkconnel Hall

Apparently the original was destroyed when the A74 was upgraded in 1992, and the current tree was grown from a cutting taken from it.

Whilst I was in Scotland my friend John Grimshaw was on the other side of the world, photographing a tree in Sydney Botanical Gardens that is also claimed to descend from the famous St Helena willow.

Two Saints in Manchester: Where are the Factories?

Now for something totally different.

We have recently had two visitors from St. Helena. Having done an account of our visit to St Helena, I thought it would be interesting to produce some kind of record of their return visit to Manchester.

For them this was a once in a lifetime visit, and we wanted to make it memorable.



They were clearly surprised by Manchester. Not a factory in sight. We eventually found one that produces breakfast cereals. We couldn't find any smoking chimneys though.


This is a view of Manchester taken a few feet from the site of the IRA bomb that devastated the city a little over a decade ago.
In the distance is Manchester's answer to the London Eye!

One thing Manchester has in common with St. Helena is that it is hard to work out how it earns its living.

Like St. Helena it produces very little.

Its main industry is probably education - there are some 70000 students at the three local Universities.

The City Centre: From Prince Albert to Karl Marx via Peterloo

My wife has become experienced at showing others round the sights of the city centre - including some Mancunians who have been surprised what their native city has to offer. Not bad for a Norwegian!

So the Saints got the usual tour. Starting with the Albert Memorial and the statues in front of the Town Hall, the nearby statue of Abraham Lincoln, and the Hidden Gem (St. Mary's) - the site of the first purpose built Catholic Church to be built in England since the Reformation, with Norman Adams' wonderful abstract paintings of the Stations of the Cross.

Then to the Radisson Edwardian hotel, built on the site of the Peterloo massacre and the former Free Trade Hall. All that remains of the latter is the facade of 1856.(1)



Our visitors clearly enjoyed the luxurious surroundings of the Radisson.

Today the hotel staff were very excited - not by the visit of two people from some remote island in the South Atlantic, but by the imminent arrival of the Juventus football team. Unfortunately we couldn't wait to welcome them.

Then we moved on to the remarkable John Rylands library with its resemblance to a cathedral, then to the eighteenth century St Ann's Chuch and so to the Royal Exchange - once the site of the Cotton Exchange, and now the home of the largest theatre in the round in the UK.

Then after the Cathedral a visit to what is to me the most fascinating place in Manchester



- the medieval buildings of Chethams, home now to a School, as well as to the famous chain library - the oldest public library in the English speaking world.

Our two Saints can be seen sitting in Karl Marx's favourite seat in the library. A first surely for residents of St. Helena!



Nearby is a list of the books that Marx read in 1845. The stained glass which would have been in the windows in Marx's time was unfortunately destroyed by a storm some time after his last visit.

Finally a visit to the river Irk, on whose banks thousands used to live in insanitary conditions in the early industrial period, and then to Angel Meadow, beneath which 40,000 of Manchester's poorest inhabitants were buried in unmarked graves in the early nineteenth century.

A Temple of Shopping and the Theatre of Dreams


The Trafford Centre is I am told the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe.




It is truly a modern temple. I have to admit that I have hardly ever been there, and I found it more enjoyable to view it through the eyes of a tourist rather than as a shopper.






It is about as far removed from shopping on St. Helena as you can get. Our guests seemed to enjoy the experience.







I wonder what Karl Marx would have made of it all: the world's first industrial city which produces little, and has erected this huge temple dedicated to consumption.

Seems appropriate to move on to the Theatre of Dreams (Old Trafford), only a short drive away - here young men kick a ball around for tens of thousands of pounds a week, watched regularly by some 75,000 paying customers, with millions more watching on TV screens around the globe - including some on St. Helena.




Here our two Saints, one a Liverpool supporter and the other having no interest in football, posed in front of a picture of Europe's currently most successful team. The photo was taken by a supporter of Ipswich Town, and watched by a Norwegian supporter of Man Utd! A funny old world indeed.



On leaving I spoke with a delightful young man from Singapore whom I found lying on the ground with a camera. He was determined he told me to take the perfect picture of Old Trafford before he returned home. He had watched the friendly against Juventus the night before. It had ended 0-0. He had come thousands of miles and had not even seen a goal. Maybe next time, he said!

Fine Dining at the Lowry Hotel

We decided to take our guests for a meal at one of our favourite restaurants.(2) We hadn't been for some time, and found that it has become a convert to the cult of classic British cooking, under the guidance of Mark Hix. My wife and I agreed that we preferred it when Marco Pierre White was the Advisory Chef. Still, we had an excellent time, and our Saints seemed thrilled with the whole experience.



The young waitress from Vancouver looked after us very well. I don't think she had ever heard of St. Helena. She gave our guests a copy of the Menu to take away as a souvenir.



Liverpool: The Docks, The Beatles and Anfield

We decided to take our guests to visit the home of the Beatles, which is less than an hour's drive away.


Liverpool is currently European City of Culture, and we were keen to visit the Klimt Exhibition currently showing at the Tate.






It is sometime since I last visited Liverpool. The area around the Docks has been beautifully restored, but much of the rest of the City still bears the scars of industrial and maritime decline. In the last few days a Right Wing Think Tank has suggested that attempts to revive places like Liverpool and Sunderland are bound to fail - and that the population should be relocated to the south east, particularly to the areas around Oxford and Cambridge! I wonder what the Think Tank would suggest for the residents of St. Helena!

And so to Anfield, which is scheduled to disappear in the next three years, and be replaced by a brand new stadium.



As he perused the shirts on sale, our Liverpool supporter told us that for him this was a dream come true.



"Hay Fever" at the Royal Exchange

A quick visit to Manchester's Transport Museum.





Close by is a reconstruction of the world's first train station (first class passengers)

- and a notice telling us that the Duke of Wellington was booed when he came to Manchester for the opening of the railway in 1830. He was not too pleased.

We also took in an exhibition "Manchester Underground" which showed how water, sewerage, gas and electricity services had developed in the city. It took a long while for Manchester to get anywhere near the hygiene standards which the Romans in Britain had reached almost two thousand years earlier!

And so to a performance of Noel Coward's "Hay Fever" at the Royal Exchange Theatre. It seemed appropriate that our guests' first visit to a theatre should be to a theatre in the round - closer to that of Shakespeare's day than the modern proscenium arch. We got them seats in the front row, and advised them to be careful not to trip up the actors.



Bramall Hall

By now we were flagging a little, but we felt that they had to see one of the best examples of the black and white architecture typical of these parts of the United Kingdom. This house has been much altered over the years, but parts of it were built before the first human beings set foot on St. Helena.



Our visitors have never experienced is a proper winter - one in which the trees lose all their leaves. I have included a picture of Bramall Hall taken earlier this year to illustrate this.



Another thing that came as a surprise to them was the light summer evenings - on St. Helena the sun sets at roughly the same time all year, around 7.00 p.m.; in Manchester it can stay light until 10.00 p.m. in mid-summer.

So we put our guests in the stocks



and then took them round the house.


Inside we met a lady who not only had heard of St. Helena but told us she intended to visit it on a mail ship that apparently comes to the island. She also informed us that they were planning to build an airport on the island. Now where had we heard that before?

Once again, and all too soon, it was time to say goodbye. Something which Saints are very used to.

It was a pleasure to have them as guests and to show them around. We hope to see them again on their home territory in the not too distant future.
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NOTES

(1)There have been a number of buildings on this site since the Peterloo Massacre (1819). Many famous people performed and spoke in the Free Trade Halls which once stood here - including Dickens, Churchill and Bob Dylan (twice). Incidentally Napoleon read about Orator Hunt and Peterloo whilst at Longwood. He took no satisfaction from it. The fall of the English aristocracy, he said, would be a great disaster for Europe.

(2)The River Restaurant at the Lowry Hotel - The best restaurant in the best hotel in Manchester, The River is the place to eat on a Friday or Saturday night, offering modern classic cuisine in a smart environment. Move to the bar for a nightcap and you'll see everyone who's anyone in the city, for better or worse. - The Independent, 100 Best Restaurants in the U.K. Another visitor, Michael Winner, was not so impressed with it. But he is a very hard man to please.