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The 10 greatest British history questions, with Dominic Sandbrook
2.4k Plays26 days ago
In a recent episode with Lord Frost, Will asked him if he was hopeful for the future of the United Kingdom. He acknowledged that it feels doom and gloom in 2024, but that the country has a history of getting itself into difficulties, and then finding the strength to overcome them. It is a great country with great traditions, and we just need to draw on them once again.
If the UK is to draw strength from its history, it should talk more about it. There’s no one better in the world to have that conversation with than the co-host of the cultural phenomenon that is The Rest Is History podcast, Dominic Sandbrook.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Promotion
00:00:20
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will, a safe space for dangerous conversations. I'm Will Kingston. If for some reason you are not already following the show on a streaming service, you can find us everywhere from Spotify to Apple Podcasts to YouTube.
00:00:36
Speaker
If you like what you hear here, please consider giving us a glowing five-star review. If you don't like what you hear here, please forget I said anything.
UK's Future and Historical Resilience
00:00:47
Speaker
In a recent conversation with Lord Frost, I asked him how hopeful he was for the future of the United Kingdom.
00:00:55
Speaker
He acknowledged that it does feel doom and gloom in 2024, but that the country has a history of getting itself into difficulties and then finding the strength to overcome them. He said it is a great country with great traditions, and we just need to draw on them once again. If Britain is to draw strength from that history, it should talk about its history more.
Guest Introduction: Dominic Sandbrook
00:01:18
Speaker
Luckily for me, there's no one better in the world to have that conversation with than the co-host of the cultural phenomena. That is the Rest is History podcast, Dominic Sandbrook. Dominic, welcome back to Far at Will. Thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure to come on a properly run and managed podcast. I think that's a potentially debatable, but thank you anyway. You will recall the last time you were on, you answered the 10 greatest questions in history.
00:01:46
Speaker
We will get more specific this time.
Discussion on Sandbrook's Book and Historical Questions
00:01:49
Speaker
You've got a new Adventures in Time book out. Nelson, the hero of the seas. So to honor that great British hero, I have the 10 greatest British history questions for you. Wow. Exciting. I'm looking forward to it. Question one. Who is the biggest lad in British history?
Historical Figures and Their Impact
00:02:10
Speaker
So I know why you're asking that is because on our podcast, the rest is history. Tom's brother James Holland came on and he described Neville Chamberlain as having behaved like a tremendous lad and but because he'd backed Churchill up in the summer of 1940. And after that, this became a sort of motif of the podcast.
00:02:30
Speaker
So it's got to be British history. I guess Henry VIII is a big contender. Henry VIII liked kind of japes dressing up. He would kind of dress up in amusing tights and stuff to entertain Catherine of Aragon. She had to put on a kind of weak smile.
00:02:47
Speaker
He liked a drink, obviously. He was a great glutton. He had a knife of the ladies. So he's got to be up there. But actually just because that's a bit boring, I would probably give the title to his friend, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
00:03:03
Speaker
who who sort of accompanied him on all this kind of roistering and is very much a man. He'd appeal to the spectator listeners, actually, because he's very much a man who would wear a gilet, if you know what I mean. He's a man who would wear a gilet and would always go to Twickenham with a hamper and get absolutely absolutely
Alcohol in British History and Culture
00:03:21
Speaker
hammered.
00:03:21
Speaker
So that's very much his his vibe, as it were. So I think Charles Banerjee of Suffolk has got to be a great contender. We would'd call him a a frat bro, I suppose, today. Exactly. Yeah. And he also, I discovered yesterday that he also was in charge of the divers who who who who went down to try to retrieve stuff from the wreck of the Mary Rose. And I mean, I was astounded when I read this, when someone told me this.
00:03:48
Speaker
that they drank eight pints a day when they were doing this kind of diving. So, already a very dangerous activity and so they were doing it while it's quite significantly tanked up on all this on all this beer. I mean, actually, one person who is the most, if you're look talking about the most like resilient, the most like physically impressive, I'd actually say General Gordon. ah General Gordon commanded an army and in China and then of course goes off to the Sudan and defies the Mahdi.
00:04:18
Speaker
and he kind of refuses to be to to leave his palace and is standing there on the steps while these kind of Islamic militants are sort of hurling spears at him or not. So that's quite an impact. I mean, he's a pretty formidable character. So some combination of those men, I would say, sorry, I've given you a rambling and evasive answer there, which basically sets the tone for what we'll follow just to warn you. So yeah, I'd say one of those one of those
Britain's Unique Relationship with Alcohol
00:04:43
Speaker
people.
00:04:43
Speaker
I want to go back to the eight pints a day on diving expeditions, and this is perhaps a choose your own adventure question, but how do you reflect on the role of alcohol on British history? Oh, well, they're being different.
00:04:59
Speaker
points in time when different drinks have features. And actually one we've never done on the rest is history that we should is gin, because of course gin was a huge deal in the 18th century. Has alcohol ever made a difference to British history? I don't think it necessarily has. In other words, I don't necessarily think there's an alcohol themed incident that that significantly changed the lives of millions of people.
00:05:22
Speaker
But I do think alcohol is a brilliant window into the past. So the story of beer, or indeed the spirits in the early modern period. And Britain's obviously never really been wine producing, well it has, but it not not a good wine red producing country. So yeah, alcohol is alcohol is a it's ah it's a brilliant guide to national character actually, the way that people the way that people drink and what they drink. So i it's ah it's a brilliant idea for a subject. Yeah, because I think A lot of people would say that Britain does have a ah particular relationship with pints and it is a pub culture yeah at the same time. I'm sure Australians would say that they're uniquely fond of a drink. Americans would say the same. Is there something unique about the British relationship with with beer and drinking or is just every country seemingly want to to big themselves up in that regard? Well, obviously some countries are beer countries, Germany, or at least the parts of Germany that are not massive wine producers.
00:06:21
Speaker
So Germany, you know Bavaria or something has a very close relationship with beer. Belgium obviously has a really interesting history of beer. In terms of drinking, actually America is your outlier there. So yeah the licensing laws are very different in America and I think Americans do have a different relationship with alcohol.
00:06:39
Speaker
from people in Britain. The bar the American bar is not the same as the British pub. They sort of try to pretend it is, don't they? But it's it's not really. So I suspect what happened actually, mentioning Australia, is that I mean so many of the people who went to australia were from london in particular and i think they probably exported that culture with them so what you have an australian beer culture is a kind of close cousin of british or did irish drinking culture and i guess there is that i'd set them apart,
00:07:12
Speaker
I dare say that the beer in Germany and Belgium is better. It probably is better deep down to a neutral observer. I mean, we might not prefer it because we're not used to it, but I guess an elite would probably say it was better. And then if you've ever been to Scandinavia, here they have a drinking culture.
00:07:28
Speaker
that again is a brilliant window into a history because it's so informed by Lutheranism. And you know you go to Sweden, it's extremely expensive. You can only buy alcohol in state, license you know and state off licenses. And again, this that the story behind that is about national character and a different distinctive national kind of religious story. So it is a really interesting way to talk about history.
The Tudors' Cultural and Political Influence
00:07:51
Speaker
You mentioned Henry VIII in your first answer, and that will lead me to question two, which is, are the Tudors overrated?
00:07:58
Speaker
No, I don't think they are actually. I think they are extraordinarily interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, but have you you've got Henry VII, Henry VIII. I mean, Henry VII remembers Henry VII, but he's a very effective king. He's an extremely successful king.
00:08:13
Speaker
ceases the seizes the crown on the battlefield, 1485, Battle of Bosworth, then dies peacefully in his bed in 1509, having stabilised the kingdom, having seen off threats and rebellions, having sorted out his finances, having cracked down on over mighty subjects. yeah He is the model of a of ah of a really competent ruler, and in fact,
00:08:38
Speaker
you know, what wouldn't we give for a prime minister with Henry's skills? Henry VIII is obviously a technicolour character. He's one of the great characters in British history, and you know not just English, but British history. He is larger than life. He's a genuine kind of Renaissance man. He's obviously the wife, he's the bride with Rome. He's massively consequential. I mean, he is by far the most consequential king since William the Conqueror.
00:09:04
Speaker
Then you have the slightly soap opera, Edward VI coming and going, Mary, and then of course Elizabeth. What has deadened the story for lots of adults and lots of people listening to this, I guess, is over familiarity. It's a bit like it's into the Beatles. Because it's ubiquitous, we take it for granted. But, you know, it's an extraordinary it's an extraordinary soap opera.
00:09:30
Speaker
For people who are encountering it for the first time, I mean, I wrote a book on it for children, and they love the kind of twists and turns. Who's your favorite wife of Henry VIII? Mary is up and then Elizabeth is up, all that kind of thing. So I don't think it's overrated in that sense. And the other reason I really don't think it's overrated is because this is a really important hinge moment in British, ah ah and indeed, English history. So the advent of the Reformation, the break with Rome, the the sense that the the monarchy is is seizing control of the national narrative in a way that it hadn't for the previous 100 years or so, the move towards a um a more integrated state, the kind of the cultural definition of England as something that's been distinctive from Europe.
00:10:15
Speaker
All of that, a lot of that happens in the 16th century in the age of the printing press, the age of the first English expeditions to the to the new world, the North America. So loads happens. I mean, obviously Shakespeare as well.
00:10:30
Speaker
So is that period overrated? No, it's really, really important. And it's it's actually it makes complete sense that people... I mean, why wouldn't you do that as ah as an introductory subject for children at school? There are other great periods, of course, but it has it has it ticks the two boxes of being really, really intellectually important and interesting, but also packaging that.
00:10:54
Speaker
in a really fun, sort of reader-friendly, character-driven story. I mean, that's why somebody like Hilary Mantel was so drawn to it, I guess. So no, not it at at all. On the break with
Henry VIII's Role in the Reformation
00:11:06
Speaker
Rome.
00:11:06
Speaker
would there still have been a British Reformation movement without Henry VIII? Oh, brilliant question. Actually, my son, that's he's been having to answer that question over half term as his half term work. So we've actually been talking about it at home. And so here's here's what you'd say. So first of all, the Reformation is a Europe-wide phenomenon.
00:11:26
Speaker
and England is integrated into the kind of trading networks and communications networks that mean that Protestantism is bound to arrive. So people trading with Flanders or with France or whatever.
00:11:41
Speaker
And Protestant ideas were very fashionable at the French court in the 1520s or so, which is why Anne Boleyn, when she comes home to England, she brings them with her. And she has been reading all the new stuff and she's been exposed to it in a way that actually a lot of people in England haven't. So they're going to arrive anyway, but ah the key question is, are they going to be get the backing of somebody in authority?
00:12:04
Speaker
because that's what you need. Because I mentioned France. France, of course, does have Huguenots, does have huge arguments about religion, does have wars of religion, but Catholicism wins. Now, England had been a very Catholic country and was regarded as you know unusually pious. So if you take Henry VIII's marital difficulties out of the story, it is actually perfectly possible.
00:12:33
Speaker
that Catholicism would have prevailed and that England would not have become a ah Protestant country. I mean, you look at the the states of Germany, it depended very much on um on an individual kind of prince or monarch or elector or whatever duke on their whims. There were patterns, of course, you know Catholicism was stronger in the South, but you know chance and contingency mattered. So I actually think it's perfectly possible to imagine a world in which because the Tudor dynasty might have tied itself very closely to the defense of Catholic orthodoxy, Henry VIII very proud of his title, Defender of the Faith, it's perfectly possible to imagine a world in which Protestantism was crushed, went underground, probably was always there, but was pushed to the margins. So, yes.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, well, if that that holds, then you have to say that Henry VIII is one of the most, if not the most consequential person in British history. Barakor, when you guys did the series on Martin Luther, one of the tests that you used for being a truly consequential historical figure was whether or not the impact that you had would have happened or would have been driven by someone else, yes not for your presence. And when you look at it it through that lens,
00:13:50
Speaker
There actually aren't that many historical figures who satisfy that test. And I remember you and Dominic saying that certainly Martin Luther was was one of those and and Henry VIII perhaps could could be another. Yeah, I totally agree. I think you can... So with politicians, for example, you can take a lot of politicians out of the story. You can say, well, you know, had even ones who are very dear to spectator listeners hearts, you can take Margaret Thatcher out of Britain's story and say, imagine she was run over by a bus in 1975.
00:14:18
Speaker
Would Britain genuinely be so different today? would some Would the changes that she personified have come anyway at some point? You know you can you can ask that question. With Henry VIII, his personal whims make obviously a colossal difference. If Henry VIII does not want to break with Rome, if he does not want the divorce and all the rest of it, then Cranmer almost certainly never becomes Archbishop of Canterbury. So you don't have a reformer there at the top pushing all this through.
00:14:46
Speaker
you you maybe have reformers on the outside agitating, but you don't have them in the halls of power. And once you don't have that, then everything starts to look different because this is a revolution that is very top-down. We know everything we know about the Reformation in in England is that when it reaches all these villages and stuff, people who have perhaps saved as a community for years to buy to you know to to a new new decorations for their church,
00:15:16
Speaker
or to improve a shrine or whatever, or they've gone on pilgrimages to you know Our Lady of Walsingham and all these kinds of things. These things are really embedded in local communities. And it and if you take that top-down revolution out, they're not going to change. you know They're wedded to the old ways. The old ways are very important to their local communities. So yeah, he is I think he's colossally. He's not just colossal, he's colossally consequential. Question three, and I have to get a counterfactual in.
Dunkirk's Influence on WWII Outcomes
00:15:43
Speaker
yeah What if Hitler didn't order the halt on the German advance on British troops trapped on the beach of Dunkirk on May 24, 1940? Wow, good question. Does Britain manage to get its army away? Do they fall into German hand? Let's assume that yeah the army doesn't manage to get away and the army is obliterated.
00:16:04
Speaker
It's a really good question. Does it change ah what Churchill says in the House of Commons? Does it mean that he that he agrees to you know investigate Mussolini's kind of peace feelers or whatever? I would say probably not. and may It means that Britain, the mood in Britain is much darker.
00:16:28
Speaker
Britain still fights the Battle of Britain, though, and still wins it. And it wins it not just by flute by a fluke, but because it's got massive economic and industrial advantages, better at building planes and and very good planes. So Britain still wins the Battle of Britain. And actually, do you know what? That army doesn't really do anything for quite a while. So Britain, it's not Britain's army that wins it the war.
00:16:54
Speaker
So the advantages that Britain has, which are largely economic, industrial, technological, and also moral, I suppose, the kind of willpower, they're all still there. may Obviously, Admiral would have taken much more of a dent. You wouldn't have the folk memory of Dunkirk as a triumph. Although, of course, a lot of people at the time don't have that idea of it as a triumph. You know you look at the newspaper reporting, of course, people are very grateful for the salvation of the troops.
00:17:21
Speaker
But they don't say, oh, brilliant, we've won a tremendous victory at Dunkirk that people were making films about 70 years' time. They think of it as, a you know, Churchill says, a colossal military disaster. So if that had been it' much worse, does it change the story? I don't think it does, actually. I think less than people think, because the army is not the key factor in securing Britain's survival in the next six to nine months or so, is it? The the key factor is the RAF and the infrastructure that underpins the r RAF.
00:17:51
Speaker
So, no, I don't... Because I don't think churches are sitting there waiting to say, oh, well, if we don't get the the army back, then we will... Then I will have to change my tune. I don't think he is saying that. I think it would have been... I mean, it would have been awful for so many people to be in prison camps and whatnot, but I mean, a lot of people in prison camps anyway. It would just be more. I mean, look at what happens in Singapore.
00:18:16
Speaker
or somewhere like that when when that. When Singapore falls, the army there is is completely defeated, not evacuated, captured. That doesn't mean that Britain sues for peace with Japanese. So I think maybe that's the parallel. There was a huge amount of pressure, though, coming from Chamberlain and Lord Halifax at that time. You don't think that that would have put Churchill in a position where he would have been forced by political pressure yeah to enter into peace negotiations?
00:18:43
Speaker
I think there would have been more pressure. By the way, I don't necessarily think that the pressure is from Chamberlain. I think Chamberlain actually backs up Churchill during those debates. halifax wasn't it It's Halifax who's really, yes, I think Halifax is never sufficiently politically adept or indeed formidable or intimidating to to get his way. Churchill is a much more you know, Churchill is a better cabinet room fighter, as it were, than Halifax is, one reason he got the job. So there would have been greater pressure, undoubtedly, ah i you're obviously right, but I don't think it would have been overwhelming.
00:19:16
Speaker
Zooming out, there was that meme or that that viral trend was last year about why men think about the Roman Empire.
WWII in British Identity and Interest
00:19:24
Speaker
And you can say that in the United Kingdom, the same probably applies for World War II. It continues to have an incredible enduring appeal, particularly amongst amongst men, I would say. yeah but Why does World War II continue to have that appeal? That's a great question. The answer is it's become a founding national myth. It's become part of Britain's, one of the legends of British history.
00:19:46
Speaker
So, rather as in the way in which if you were a child in the Edwardian period, you would know about Nelson and Trafalgar, or General Wolf at Quebec, or these kinds of these things that were just embedded in the national imagination. well The Second World War occupies that place.
00:20:05
Speaker
Churchill as the symbol of British resistance, Dunkirk as a sort of heroism against the odds, the few at the Battle of Britain, yeah know and then involvement in D-Day and all of that. so I think it hugely informs our sense of ourselves as a people who but The story we tell about ourselves is that ah people who were great and had an empire and and whatnot, and then that reached a kind of apotheosis in the Second World War when we sacrificed that for the good of humanity. and That's the story we like to tell ourselves. and it's and Of course, Britain has a very unusual experience of the Second World War, not like anybody else's. We're the only country that went through both world wars from start to finish and were never defeated or occupied at any point.
00:20:54
Speaker
And i was I was thinking about this because I was in Poland last week and I went to their amazing Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk. I mean, it's bigger than the Imperial War Museum. And the way they tell the story of the Second World War is so different from the way we tell it, of course, because it's so much darker and it ends on a downer with them being occupied by the Red Army. And it's so full of tragedy and trauma and slaughter.
00:21:18
Speaker
Britain's story of the Second World War was not like that at all. I mean, of course, we we suffered the Blitz, but the Blitz was nothing compared with the bombing of a lot of mainland European cities. you know we Our casualty figures are so much smaller than those of many other European nations. Our experience is one of coming through to victory. That's not the experience of most European countries. It's an experience of humiliation and tragedy. So we're very unusual in having a 20th century story that we can point to and turn into entertainment.
00:21:48
Speaker
you know The Americans can do this, of course, and we can do it, but you know the polls are not going to be making sort of cheery popcorn films and video games about their experience in the Second World War. So I think it provides us with this this fantastic sort of repository of feel-good myths and you know it's it's human nature that you know that you want to kind of wallow in that.
Modern English National Identity
00:22:12
Speaker
These sorts of myths inform a ah national identity. ah you You'll hear in some corners today, particularly on the right, some people saying that the English national identity is under threat or that it's being diluted in the modern world. How do you reflect on on that question of national identity and whether the English national identity is as strong perhaps as it once was?
00:22:35
Speaker
Again, a very good question. Um, I don't think it is as strongly distinctive as it wants. And sorry, can I, and Dominique, cause I've just said English national identity as opposed to British identity. So perhaps also clarified that distinction for me as well. No, absolutely. So, well, it's how long have you got? Um, so first of all, the the broad answer to the question is I think English national identity still exists, but it definitely isn't battled and it's embattled.
00:23:03
Speaker
because of forces that's that no one politician or one government can control, by which I mean globalization, mass immigration, um sort of the the advent of a multicultural society, but also frankly quite mundane things. So to give you a tiny and very banal example, I would have grown up watching British television, British channels in a kind of what you would use the jargon of today, a kind of curated cultural experience that was shared by millions of other people on the island on which I lived. My son watches you know Apple TV, Amazon Prime, largely American or multinational, like sort of international television or international cultural things. He's not conscious of distinctive English things in the same way I would say as I would have been. He's not
00:23:54
Speaker
don't I don't mean this critically, but but I'm going to use to this sort of word advisedly. He's not imprisoned by a kind of bubble of sort of introverted, parochial English identity. And again, i don't some of your listeners will say, oh, that sounds very critical. I'm not trying to be critical. What makes it more complicated is the other thing you mentioned, which is English and British.
00:24:14
Speaker
And that has always been muddy. I mean, there was never a world in which the lines between those things were clear cut because England is what, 80% of Britain.
00:24:26
Speaker
So for people in England, Britishness and Englishness have always been confused. And I think If I were looking at it now, I would say Englishness is more obvious the further you get from the cities. So in cities where you have obviously a great mixture of people, particularly a lot of people born it from who've been born overseas or first generation ah arrivals, a sense of distinctive Englishness is obviously more fragile there. If you're talking about a small ah village in Northumberland or something or Cumbria,
00:25:01
Speaker
which has a much more profound and rooted sense of its own continuity, then I guess they don't need to argue what Englishness is because it just is. It just is the habits and the customs that that are your daily you know your your daily bread, as it were. Orwell, when he was talking about Englishness in the 1940s, listed a whole load of things that are now gone, actually.
00:25:26
Speaker
The coins being heavier and different, people England being a nation of flower arrangers and stamp collectors, the old maids cycling through the mist to Holy Communion. We can recognize the power of those things and say, oh yes, that is England, but they have by and large all died.
00:25:44
Speaker
But I do think a national identity consists of a set of stories and customs and habits, a sense of ah sense of distinctiveness, a language. and So much of it is in the imagination. I think it's obvious it's most obvious, I would say, actually, weirdly. And again, it seems very banal. I think it's most obvious in sport.
00:26:07
Speaker
If you go into a pub and England are playing in the World Cup, nobody in that pub doubts that England is a thing and that Englishness exists. It's one of the few times when people are really talking about England. But in our daily lives, I think especially for for people like you and me, you know we're in a media world, which is very globalized. you know I bet in your office, there are loads of people who are American, Australian, whatever, just as for me working with the podcast company or in publishing or in newspapers.
00:26:36
Speaker
You know, there are lots of people who have just got back from New York or, you know, all that sort of world. So I guess we're part of the problem in the sense that we're kind of a class that the horizons have expanded and we see ourselves as part of an international community rather than a national one. But the further you get away from that, the further you get into kind of deep England, as it were, especially the further from London, I think it is a thing. I think it English does still exist.
00:27:06
Speaker
But yes, it is. All national identities, I think, ah as are threatened to some degree by by mass communications, mass travel, by mass immigration, by all those things. Well, let me maybe somewhat tenuously turn to an earlier example of each of those respective phenomena, which was the Romans.
Hypothetical Battle: Romans vs. Normans
00:27:29
Speaker
Could a Roman army led by Julius Caesar have defeated William the Conqueror's invasion force of 1066?
00:27:37
Speaker
Do you know, we were talking about this the other day. I i don't even know whether we were talking about it on the podcast or whether terrifyingly we were actually just talking about it off air. I will admit it was on the podcast. I was on the podcast. Okay, so I think the Romans would have won that. I think Tom thought the Normans. I think the Romans, because I think they're more disciplined.
00:27:55
Speaker
I don't think Norman technology represents a huge advance over Roman. the normans The one thing the Normans undoubtedly have is the Normans rely very heavily on cavalry and the Romans, actually rather like the Greeks, always struggled a little bit with mounted adversaries. Alexander the Great had struggled against the Scythians Caesar, other commanders, never are quite as successful. They all struggle a little bit when they're fighting people on horseback because the Romans, yeah that that the weight of their army, the their muscle is really in their infantry.
00:28:31
Speaker
however I think the Roman military machine is so well-funded, is so well-disciplined, is so practiced of fighting and killing that had they been able to withstand the initial cavalry charge, I'm guessing, that they would face from the Normans, then I think they would win the day. I think those underlying sort of resources and the sort of infrastructural resources would would see them prevail. i mean The Normans are very impressive, don't get me wrong. I don't think it would have been a walkover by any means, but I think you're never better against the Romans, do you? I think there's madness to better against the Romans.
Debate on Greatest British Prime Ministers
00:29:13
Speaker
Question five, who is the greatest ever British Prime Minister? Greatest ever. but Interpret greatest as you wish. Yeah.
00:29:20
Speaker
So I would say there are two candidates, outstanding candidates for me, and I've changed my mind sometimes. I think they are they they were surprised, some of your listeners, they are Robert Walpole and William Pitt the Younger. Walpole is prime minister for the longest. He establishes the job. He, to some degree, establishes the political system at the beginning of the 18th century. He presides over a long period of peace and economic growth.
00:29:49
Speaker
at the beginning of his time in office, Britain, which is which has only just been created, which is a new country. Britain, it's not a back quarter, but it's not a superpower. It's a rising power, I guess.
00:30:05
Speaker
By the time he vacates the stage, so we're in the middle of the 18th century, Britain is clear the single biggest threat to France. And Britain is in the you know in the grip of the Industrial Revolution. There's been a financial revolution. but Britain has developed this extraordinary new culture, of coffee you know the culture of coffee houses and and the kind of polite, genteel culture of the 18th century.
00:30:29
Speaker
Walpole is an extraordinary figure. He sets the template for so many prime ministers. He can be in some ways a bit of a populist. He pretends to be a country squire. I think he's an endlessly fascinating person. so And the fact that he's there so long, we again, we take him for granted. William Pitt the Younger He um lays the foundation for victory in the Napoleonic Wars. I mean, he's prime minister when he's what, eight or whatever it is. um he how old How old was he actually? What, mid-20s was it? Yeah, he's in his mid-20s. I'm going to have to Google. I'll do live research. Do get do you ever have this on the spectator podcast? We do this all the time. William Pitt the Younger. So this is live research in the Bodleian Library.
00:31:11
Speaker
So he was born in 1759, and he becomes office in 1783. So he is what, 24? Yeah. I mean, that's but that's mad, isn't it? You wouldn't let a 24-year-old do a podcast. And no and now you've got the this guy being Prime Minister. But he's he has a tremendous mastery of the House of Commons. People always said Pitt has He's a slightly chilly persona, but actually he's a brilliant speaker, a brilliant parliamentary manager. He's brilliant with finance, which is actually why he's brought in at the end of the American war. he he has i His contemporaries recognize just recognized from the very beginning that he is an immensely formidable political operator, very canny, a great judge.
00:31:59
Speaker
without his, particularly, his I think, his financial management, you know, would Britain have been so equipped to deal with the challenge of Napoleonic France, a challenge unlike any other in Britain's history to that point. I mean, don't forget, Britain, the Napoleonic and French Revolutionary Wars, when combined, go on for, I think, something like 24 years. So far longer than the Second World War, or the First World War, and fought over an equally vast canvas.
00:32:27
Speaker
So, yeah, Pitt is Prime Minister for 18 years, I think. He is a remarkable character. Because he's slightly aloof and he relies on a very small group of friends and he doesn't actually have a tremendously flamboyant or sort of Boris Johnson-style political persona, it means he doesn't really have much of a place in our national imagination. When you think, I mean, he's Prime Minister for far longer than Margaret Thatcher is, or indeed Winston Churchill.
00:32:53
Speaker
facing an adversary that could have beaten Britain, secured control of the seas, turned the ocean into a French lake, and made France the defining power in world affairs for the next 100 years. Had that gone wrong, that would have been the outcome. I mean, that is massively consequential. So I think the last time I did a kind of school talk where I was ranking prime ministers, he came out as my number one and war pole number two.
00:33:20
Speaker
I think I'd probably stick with that today. Some people would be surprised that Churchill doesn't enter that conversation for you? or He does and and he enter the conversation. Of course he enters the conversation, but I i think the reflex is to say automatically, oh, Churchill number one. But I think there what you're rewarding is um you're rewarding presentism. you know You're saying because the Second World War was more recent, therefore it's more important. And you're kind of rewarding the national the myth of Churchill, which by the way I love, i mean I'm not a Churchill must fall person by any means. But I think we tend to... I mean the 18th century in particular has kind of vanished from our national imagination for reasons that I never fully understand.
00:33:58
Speaker
And I just think, you know, I'd rank put Churchill probably number three. Churchill and Gladstone I think would be the next tier. So yeah, he's in the conversation, but I don't think he's in the top two.
Queen Victoria: Overrated or Impactful?
00:34:10
Speaker
Question six, who is the most overrated British monarch?
00:34:15
Speaker
Most overrated British markets, you know what, somebody asked me this question on stage and I went completely blank. My mind was blank because I've really struggled to think of people who I think are overrated and actually just to annoy Tom, I said, Alfred the Great. And he was horrified by this. And he said, he's not British. And I said, well, he lived in Britain. I mean, he might not have been a king of Britain, but he lived in Britain.
00:34:38
Speaker
So ah you are you ah you confining me to people post 1707? Or seven or do i can I have the whole free reign, most overrated? The one who's most highly rated who I like least is William the Conqueror, because I think he's just, ah I think is it i think he's he's obviously a brilliant monarch, but he's a terrible man. I mean, he's a terrifying man. Overrated English monarchs I think probably Victoria.
00:35:09
Speaker
It's not that I think she's useless. I think she's is fine. she's ah she interferes She's not a brilliant constitutional monarch. Temptation is always to interfere. But i'm not matt i she's not I don't think she's overrated because I think she's awful. I think she's overrated just because she's too famous. She's more famous than she deserves to be. She's been rewarded for longevity and for having given her name to an age. But actually, I just don't find her terribly interesting.
00:35:34
Speaker
yeah know sitting around in a widow's weeds thinking about Albert, sort of just being you know annoyed with Gladstone. It's not a great story. and If you take her out, I don't think the story of the Victorian age is very different. So I think she's actually given her name undeservedly to a period of history.
00:35:50
Speaker
and she's not actually very good. The Victorian age is so much more colorful and exciting and sort of contentious and controversial than we often think. It's not all staid stiff collars and people covering up table legs, of me which is but pretty much a myth, covering up table legs because they think they're they're kind of and they dead they're erotic or whatever.
00:36:12
Speaker
That's all tosh. and But unfortunately, the memory of the 19th century is crippled by its association with ultimately quite a boring person. So I guess Victoria would be my answer. so it's It's an interesting insight there that so much of British history is is intrinsically tied up with the monarch or the family, and whether it be the Tudors or the Victorian age or the Georgians or whatever. How has the monarch or the family influence the way that we think about those particular historical periods.
00:36:44
Speaker
where has oh The Victorian one is a great example. I think obviously that fades over time. So when we think about the 20th century, we don't ultimately think about George V or George VI. They have moved towards the margins of our imagination in that regard. And even Elizabeth II, when people think about the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, it's not actually the queen the late queen who comes immediately to mind, I wouldn't say. But you're absolutely right, the Elizabethan period, Elizabeth is at the center of that story. You never really take her out of it.
00:37:13
Speaker
and i think that's probably because The monarch did matter. The monarch genuinely mattered. The monarch had so much more agency. and To go back to the example we were talking about earlier, the Henrician Reformation, i mean the fact that it's got his name on it, it owes so much to the personality and and the the choices made by the king. But there are periods... yeah for The interesting thing is for most people, did they really notice? So go drop cho you know your time machine in the 13th century or something.
00:37:43
Speaker
People are aware of the monarch whose reign it is. They have a vague idea, perhaps, that they've been on the throne for a long time. If the harvests have been bad and the reflation is bad, people will say, oh, the king is very poorly advised, oh, clearly terrible corrupt advisors surrounding him at the court. But how much do people even think about the king? mean They've obviously never seen him, by and large. They've seen images only,
00:38:11
Speaker
probably not no as much as we would think is a very distant presence. So yeah, the it isn't an odd quirk that we define history through the lives of these people in a way that perhaps would not have made complete sense to the ah millions of people that they governed.
Roman vs. Medieval Rulers in Narrative Control
00:38:32
Speaker
Well, if you think about, say, the Roman emperors, they put so much effort into controlling their narrative and building their they brand, and they use things like coins and all that sort of stuff to be able to do so. Were those early British rulers thinking about brand building, for want of a better term, in the same way? ah Was it as important to them as, say, it was for for those Roman rulers?
00:38:57
Speaker
I think it is important, it does matter. They do care about their coins, but the resources that are open to them are more meager. They're ruling a much smaller territory. they The Roman Empire has an extremely sophisticated system of kind of travel, of communications, of a civil service infrastructure and whatnot. I mean, not by our standards, but by the standards of the day, the networks through which that branding can kind kind of proceed.
00:39:27
Speaker
Does Henry I, does King Stephen have you know have those kinds of resources or have that kind of ambition? I'm not really sure he does, actually. I mean, we do see kings who are particularly interested in branding. Richard II is a really good example of somebody who's fascinated by art and really keen to stamp his his authority and his image on his kingdom. But is that true of Henry III or Edward I? I mean, Edward I, obviously the branding is through his castles.
00:39:54
Speaker
But no, I think the Romans are probably more attentive to that, I would say, than um the medieval monarchs are. I guess as well what mud is it is that medieval monarchs are also competing with their another institution is that controls a lot of branding generally, which is the church, whereas of course the first Roman emperors aren't. They don't have a separate, you know, they don't have the an ecclesiastical institution that they have to kind of fight for bandwidth with.
00:40:21
Speaker
so um So yeah, I think the Romans are probably better. I think they're actually better at image-making than medieval kings are. They probably have, frankly, more more kind of intellectual and manpower resources with which to do it. Question seven, and I'm going to drag you into slightly murky waters
UK Reparations for Slave Trade
00:40:39
Speaker
here. Qistama recently returned from a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. One of the outcomes of that was it will force the United Kingdom into formal conversations around reparations for their role in the slave trade.
00:40:53
Speaker
should the UK pay reparations to commonwealth countries as fisted by Tyrol as they took? This has taken me back to my days as a daily mail columnist. So I would say, no, absolutely not. I think the i think I would cut, i would I would probably, you know, horrify people in the foreign office by cutting that conversation, you know, stone dead and say, this is just not something we're interested in doing. I don't believe you can any, you have plausibly, sensibly or reasonably Ask taxpayers.
00:41:26
Speaker
in Barnsley to pay cut people thousands of miles away for events that took place hundreds of years ago, in some cases. Not least because of course not everybody living in Barnsley would be descended from the people who had who had who had and been engaged in the slave trade. So if you think about how much of the population of Britain now is non-white, for example,
00:41:56
Speaker
its it Does it make any sense to ask the descendants of immigrants from South Asia or the Caribbean who arrived in Britain in the 1950s? Does it make sense to ask hundreds of thousands of their descendants say to hand over tax money as reparations for a slave trade in which their ancestors were not involved and of which some of their ancestors may have in fact been victims? That's a bizarre idea.
00:42:24
Speaker
and Also, I think generally we work on the assumption that in a civilized society, sin is not passed down through the generations. Now, of course, you may say there's an inconsistency because we do think that national identity is passed down through the generations, and we also think that a kind of national pride is passed down.
00:42:42
Speaker
But I think merely for our own kind of psychological integrity and self-respect, we don't think that a child born in 2024 is burdened with the sins of people who lived and died years before he was born. For example, I think it would be absolutely monstrous to say of a child born in Dusseldorf in 2024, you are liable. Sorry, you know I know you didn't ask to be to be born where you were, but you were liable for the crimes carried out by your, what, great-grandparents?
00:43:18
Speaker
80 years previously, how much more bizarre and and monstrous then to make the same case about children born in Britain in 2024 about events that took place in the 17th or 18th century? So no, I absolutely would shut that down right away. I would say I don't think a British government has any frankly, has any place at that table when that conversation is happening. I just think sometimes there's a sort of cultural cringe, I think, which is, oh, well, we have to sort of show willing and you know we don't want to be we don't offend people and all that kind of thing. I think just go in and say, no, this is not going to happen. I mean, that's, I think, it's something that I really admire President Macron for. When 2020, during the sort of statue felling frenzy,
00:44:08
Speaker
I saw an interview with him and somebody said to him, oh, there's all this stuff going on in America and in Britain and and whatnot. ah What about, you know, France has got ah quite a lot of statues of people who who had a lot of blood on their hands. Are you tall, tempted? And he said, he was like he shut that down right away. He said, no, no, no, we're France. I have absolutely not a single statue will fall on my watch. You know, this is not my not what we do. Course history is complicated. Of course, lots of people did it shocking things.
00:44:35
Speaker
but yeah we're not going to get into this Anglo-Saxon self-flagellation that has driven them mad and in Britain and America. and I thought, good for him. you know I'd love to see a British Prime Minister do that. Starmer is one of, I would argue, several relatively mediocre figures to become Prime Minister in recent years on both sides of of politics.
Decline in UK Political Leadership Quality
00:44:56
Speaker
you are a historic modern historian you've looked very closely at twentieth century british leaders is it fair to say that the uk is producing more mediocre leaders than it once was and if so what are the systemic reasons for that. and Absolutely is fair.
00:45:14
Speaker
There was a tendency to say, well, people have always complained about the quality of their leaders. Therefore, you know, this is just stereotypical whinging and this is what people always do. But of course, people although people have always complained, it doesn't mean that the standard can't fall and the standard undoubtedly has fallen. It's not just British. So on the rest of this history, we've been doing a series about America in 1968.
00:45:36
Speaker
And we've sometimes we sometimes read extracts from the speeches that somebody like Robert Kennedy or Richard Nixon ah would have given. And while we were doing that series, it really struck me that these were far more impressive figures by and large than their modern day equivalents. I mean, Kamala Harris, Donald or Trump, Joe Biden, they aren't they're not remotely in the same league rhetorically, intellectually, in terms of experience and interest.
00:46:03
Speaker
as some of those characters from the sixties in America. And the same is obviously true in Britain. So, you know, Liz Truss, I think for my money, you know, I don't know, did do you ever have top Trump's cards when you were growing up? Kind of these... i so i think so So top trumps cards, you're like, you know, you kind of, um, you, uh, there might be characters from history or there might be monsters or whatever, and they've got a series of different qualities and you kind of rank them and you say, or physical strength, 88. Oh, you was 87. Therefore I get your card. And I always think if top trumps, if prime minister of top trumps cards, Liz trust would be undoubtedly the worst card in that pack. That's the, you know, you're happy to have Margaret Thatcher as a card. You're happy to have Clemens Atley as a card.
00:46:44
Speaker
or Gladstone. Oh god, I've got trust, disaster. And I think that's true generally of a lot of recent recent prime ministers. They are low powered. Now, I think there are two reasons for that. I think reason number one, which is the one that people immediately point to is the caliber of people who go in is worse, partly because the pay is not very good, comparative to what it was before. So it's not a very attractive job.
00:47:09
Speaker
So the caliber is worse, and I think there the sense of experience outside politics is much is greatly reduced. So if you look at the labor front bench right now, how many people have those how many of those people have actually held a meaningful job outside completely outside the world of politics? I'm not talking about being a counselor or a special advisor or a think tank person. I'm talking about you know and working for years in an institution totally outside politics or being in a business or whatever it might be. And the answer is not that many.
00:47:39
Speaker
So the caliber of people definitely has changed. But the other thing I think is really important that doesn't really feature in the conversation so much is that the context has changed. So when I write about, you know, if I read and write about, let's say Churchill or Baldwin or indeed actually more prime ministers who are comparative failures, so with Harold Wilson or Jim Callahan or whoever, the space they had to read and think was so much greater than it is now.
00:48:07
Speaker
there There's no social media. There's no kind of another great day on the doorstep kind of tweets that they have to pump out on a Saturday morning, whether they want to or not. There's not the sense that when they travel the country, they're constantly being harassed by members of the public, taking pictures of them, pestering them, all of that kind of thing. They have time. They have time to read books that are not about politics, to think, to go on ah ah honor to go away and recharge their batteries without being harassed.
00:48:38
Speaker
All of these kinds of things that actually mean they perform better in office. They're more thoughtful. They have more time. They can make mistakes and correct them. They can learn. There's so much more experience for one thing. you Someone like Rishi Sunak, but one money he comes into you know and one minute he comes into the House of haard Commons, the next minute is prime minister, his chancellor, then he's prime minister, and then he's gone.
00:49:02
Speaker
It's as though the your political career a political career that in the 18th century might have lasted for 50 years has effectively compressed into little more than five years. So inevitably you're going to get much worse performance because people who would once have learned on the job for 25 years before becoming Prime Minister look at something like Harold Macmillan. He'd been involved in politics for decades before he becomes Prime Minister in 1957.
00:49:27
Speaker
So I think it's that the so the supply is worse. The people doing it are worse. It's not an attractive job. Why would you do it? You know you just basically get a lorry load of manure poured over you every every week by the press and by the public. You don't get a private life. All of those reasons, you're not very well paid, frankly, by the standards of other high achieving professional jobs, but also the the environment, the media environment, for example, the terrible interviews that the BBC do now.
00:49:56
Speaker
compared with the interviews that day if you ever go onto YouTube, I mean, I urge your listeners, go onto YouTube and like Google, not' I don't know, Roy Jenkins, Enoch Powell, Jim Callahan or whatever, and watch the interviews in the 70s. They're longer, they're more thoughtful, the questions are not gotcha questions, they can change their mind in the interview and nobody minds because that's what intelligent people do. you know the The context has changed and made it frankly impossible.
00:50:23
Speaker
we we have We have ended up with a politics where we make it impossible for people to shine. and And the intriguing thing is most of the arguments you've just made about modern politics could also apply to modern journalism as well. and So they're self-reinforcing the mediocrity.
Hereditary Peers in the House of Lords
00:50:41
Speaker
Question nine, should hereditary peers be removed from the House of Lords? see that I didn't see that one coming. No, I don't think so. i think we are so quick now to junk everything that smacks of tradition. Do I think hereditary peers play, but here's the thing, deep down do I think hereditary play peers play an important and useful part in our political, in our constitution, in our political kind of constellation? No, I don't actually, I don't think we'll make the slightest difference if you got rid of them. And I think that's a ludicrous claim that they have this profound role to play.
00:51:16
Speaker
However, do I think we should get rid of them? No. I think keep them in. They're fun. It's just going to be full of job's worths otherwise. Having an element of it that's a little nod to history and to tradition, a little nod to national distinctiveness, there's no harm in it whatsoever. It's it's just unnecessarily sort of po-faced tinkering that does nothing to improve the way the country is governed. So I'd keep them.
00:51:42
Speaker
My final question, Dominic. The latest book is wonderful. What surprised you when you were writing your book on Lord Nelson?
Insights on Nelson and Britain's Modernity
00:51:51
Speaker
Oh, that's it that's it ah that's the question I was waiting for, let's be honest. um Get the plug in, come on. yeah so i was What surprised me two things, I think. First of all, how what a brilliant window Nelson's life is into something that I didn't really know massively very much about, which is the the extraordinary modernity of Britain at the end of the 18th century.
00:52:18
Speaker
So things like the fact that the Royal Navy at that point is has some of the work has the most sophisticated office building in London, the Admiralty Headquarters, is is the most modern you know it's the equivalent of your kind of shining glass tower in some Chinese city.
00:52:39
Speaker
or that its manufacturers, as they would have been called, at the dockyards, places like Chatham, are so far ahead, or Portsmouth, of things produced anywhere else in the world. They're kind of rote manufacturers, or they're block-building ah factories. Somebody like Mark Brunel, who is a refugee from France, the father of Idzenbar Kingdom Brunel,
00:53:01
Speaker
you know He is pioneering what will become the assembly line and that all this is happening and this is what underpins Nelson's success. It's not just about his genius but it's the fact that because Britain has the Bank of England, it can borrow money, it can invest it in this incredible infrastructure and that's what beats France. That's what beats a country that is so much bigger and has this and a far bigger army and has the force of these new radical new ideas behind it but Britain can still prevail because it has the underlying fundamentals so I think there's that. I loved writing about all that and thinking about a way in which I could because these books are aimed at some younger readers so they let's say 11 years old or 10 or whatever.
00:53:45
Speaker
And so thinking about a way in which I could convey that and the excitement of it in a way that, you know, if you said to a 10 year old, I've got a really interesting book here about rope manufacturers in the late 18th century, they'd rather do anything but read that.
00:53:59
Speaker
But there was a way of telling that story through the characters and through the drama um that tells them about the late 18th century and why Britain became great and why Britain won dominance overseas without making them fall asleep. So that was one thing that surprised me. And then the other thing was actually Nelson himself.
00:54:18
Speaker
I hadn't expected to fall in love with Nelson as much as I did. Because of course there were bat there were downsides to Nelson's character. He could be very vain, he would could be very prickly, he had a very messy and indeed at times, frankly, shameful love life or personal life. And yet there was something magnetic about him. this sense in when When you're writing history, you write about a lot of human beings, most of whom are pretty mediocre as we all are. They're just ordinary.
00:54:47
Speaker
Nelson was extraordinary from the beginning. He has a drive, a vision, and just remarkable courage, physical courage. I think about him at the Battle of Cates and Vincent. A British captain had not boarded and captured another ship for 300 years. It was a very rare thing. The way to think about it is a bit like imagine boarding and capturing an aircraft carrier. yeah know That's the equivalent. you know You just don't do it because these are massively expensive pieces of kit.
00:55:16
Speaker
And basically, you know you you're so worried about not about preserving your own that you're not going to risk everything. At the Battle of Capes and Vincent, Nelson boards one French ship, clears the deck, fights his way through, gets the surrender from the, sorry, it's did I say friendship? Spanish ship. He gets the surrender from the Spanish officers. And then they come under fire from another ship, which has got entangled with the first ship.
00:55:45
Speaker
And at that point, he does something which is just breathtaking. He boards, he jumps from one ship to another, leading his men onto the second ship and takes that ship as well. And that's the moment that makes him a national hero. So this is what, eight years before Trafalgar? Just an astounding piece of captaincy. and And the fact that that thing about putting himself in the front line, inspiring by the force of his example, you know, at Trafalgar, someone said to him,
00:56:13
Speaker
Why don't you um command from a ah frigate which won't be involved in the action? You don't need to expose yourself to all these dangers. No, no, no. My men have to see me. I have to stand there with my uniform, very identifiable, on the quarter deck. Everyone else can take refuge from their cannonballs and the shrapnel and all that stuff, but I have to be there and have to be seen to be there.
00:56:38
Speaker
I just think it's impossible to read all that without feeling kind of moved and inspired. and Actually, when I was writing his the final kind of chapter, which is you know the famous Nelson's hits, he goes below decks, kind of calling for Hardy, all of that stuff, you know I did kind of write that with a massive lump in my throat because I thought, this is when the when the children are reading this, you know i need I need them to feel the power and the emotion at the moment, and I definitely felt it myself.
00:57:04
Speaker
Yes. Well, you said that it it is targeted at children and this may be more reflection on my intellects than anything else, but I actually really enjoyed reading it. So I'd suggest everyone, regardless of your age, go out and get the book. Dominic Sandbrook, thank you for coming on Fire at Will. Thank you very much, Will. I love that.
00:57:21
Speaker
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