I really wish I had done history O-level.
When I reached the age at which you had to choose your
subjects, it had become clear I was the arty type. Not that I was any good at what we called
“art” at school. My middling academic
strengths were clearly going to lie in what were then called Modern Languages;
and indeed I went on to do French and German (alongside English) at A-level and
subsequently at university. Already at
the age of 14 it was plain that I had a fairly astringent aversion to
mathematics and science; and my aim was to avoid them as far as possible for
the rest of my education – and ideally the rest of my life. I couldn’t avoid doing maths O-level, because
like English Language, it was compulsory.
But I could avoid physics and opt for history instead. But this was an age when most of us still did
pretty much what our parents thought best for us; and my Dad was concerned that
I should retain a breadth in my education that he thought would serve me well
in later life. So he made me do physics.
I continue to believe this was a mistake, and not just
because I got an ‘H’ in the physics O-level.
I seem to have spent a good part of my adult life wishing I had a better
grasp of the history of my own country and planet; and doing a fair bit of later-life
learning about it. But knowledge
acquired in middle age doesn’t stick as well as that inculcated in childhood
and adolescence. I can still manage in
French and German (I’m writing this in France) and although my once decent
command of both languages is now laughably hesitant, I know that the linguistic
structures are deeply embedded somewhere inside my head, and would creak back
into life if I found myself in a French or German speaking context for any
length of time.
But with history, I have to check basic facts over and over
again. While I have developed a kind of
mind-map of English history, watching the current BBC Shakespeare history productions
The Hollow Crown and reading Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies sends me back
time after time to historical sources on the Wars of the Roses and the English
Reformation. The point of this, for me,
is that the events of both periods were formational in terms of where – and who
– we are now. And they are of course not
the only such periods - there’s the subsequent multiple tsunami of the Civil
War, Commonwealth, Restoration and Glorious Revolution - 60 years that changed
not just Britain, but the world.
Understanding our route thus far can help with seeing current events and
pre-occupations as part of a continuing journey. Patterns emerge; underlying tendencies are
revealed - and modern controversies come to look like major weather events
taking place inside items of domestic crockery.
It’s the corresponding lack of historical perspective that allows
the Church, idiotically, to describe the prospect of gay marriage as “one of
the worst threats it has faced in 500 years”.
No, my dears; among the worst threats during that time have been the Commonwealth
suppression (during which Anglicanism was effectively abolished); the
Non-Jurors scandal (in which 7 bishops and hundreds of clergy split the Church
by refusing to swear allegiance to William & Mary); oh, and just possibly
(if that’s all a bit too 17th century for you) the Church’s steep
loss of public support, respect and influence over the last 50 years. Of actual “threats” to the Church since the
Elizabethan Settlement, gay marriage is probably about 89th out of
100 on the seriousness scale.
And you don’t even have to read history to learn about it. The likes of Schama, Starkey and McCulloch
offer it digestibly and engagingly on TV.
Even The Hollow Crown offers a version of the English history of the
late 14th and early 15th centuries whose consequences we
live with to this day.
The history of my country and my Church is one of high
drama, appalling conflict and true heroism in the face of seismic shifts in
human perception, loyalty and conviction. Gay
marriage? Women bishops? Do me a favour.
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| History on my doorstep: the Talbot Memorial in Castillon, SW France, marking the spot at which the Hundred Years War ended in 1453, and England finally lost Aquitaine to the French |
