Cromwell is a
1970 British historical drama film written and directed
by Ken
Hughes. It is based on the life of Oliver
Cromwell, who rose to lead the Parliamentary forces during the later
years of the English Civil War and, as Lord
Protector, ruled Great
Britain and Ireland in the 1650s. It features an ensemble cast, led
by Richard Harris as Cromwell and Alec
Guinness as King Charles I, with Robert
Morley as Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of
Manchester and Timothy
Dalton as Prince Rupert of the Rhine. The film
received negative reviews for its many historical inaccuracies; however, much
praise went to the acting. – Wikipedia.
One
of the main inaccuracies was the portrayal of Oliver Cromwell as sort of a hero
of the common man, when he became little more than a bloody tyrant.
“He
was a cadet of one of those millionaire families who had gained their enormous
wealth out of the wreck of the monasteries during the period of the
Reformation. His father, of whom he was the only surviving son, was himself the
only son of the enormously wealthy Sir Henry Cromwell, and Henry was the son of
Richard Cromwell, nephew of Thomas Cromwell, the man who dissolved the
monasteries under Henry VIII. Richard Cromwell's real name was Richard
Williams. He was nephew to Thomas because his mother had been Thomas Cromwell's
sister, his mother having married a tavern-keeper in Putney, near London, whose
name was Williams. Richard took on his important relative's name, but both he
and those who succeeded him had to use the name Williams for legal purposes,
and when his great-grandson, Oliver, lay in state, the title "Oliver
Cromwell, alias Williams," was embroidered on the half- royal hangings
which draped the bed.
“When his father died, Oliver Williams, alias Cromwell, inherited an income of what we should call to-day something rather more than 363,000 a year. But though his fortune was moderate, compared with many of his rank, what marked him out was the immense fortune of those to whom he belonged. The Reformation has been called "a rising of the rich against the poor." This does not apply to it in the remote valleys of Switzerland and the Scandinavian fells, but it is an epigram more than half true of its progress in England, and the fact that Oliver belonged to one of those millionaire families recently founded on the loot of religious endowments is highly characteristic of the whole time. The House of Commons to which he was returned as a young man was composed almost entirely of rich people like himself—great land-owners and their relatives, with here and there a prominent lawyer, or, quite exceptionally, a prominent merchant.
"The English House of Commons was in those days a body only called together as a rule for brief periods. It was always summoned on the accession of a monarch, and whenever there was important and solemn law-making to be done it was summoned to confirm the King's will and to subscribe to what he and his Council and the great lords had decided. The Crown had become so poor in Cromwell's time that government could not be carried on without special voluntary grants by the owners of property, and for making these grants there was no one but the House of Commons. It took advantage of its position to attack the powers of the King and the quarrel ultimately ended in a civil war.
"Of the Parliament, the Lords for the most part hesitated to rise in armed rebellion; of their relatives and fellow landowners, the Commons, rather more than half or about half, were prepared to levy a regular war against the King. But even those of the richer classes who were reluctant to attack the Crown physically, were nearly all at heart opposed to the old claims of the Crown in government and they nearly all wanted at heart to supplant government by a king whose duty and function it was to protect the poor against the rich, the weak against the strong. They desired to supplant him and take over the government themselves. That in effect is what they did. They won their war, they put the King to death, and among them was the amateur soldier who so rapidly became the best professional soldier of his time: Cromwell.
"He was installed the head of
the victorious army by the time that he was forty-eight, and in his fiftieth
year it was he who plotted for and achieved the death of King Charles. He
proceeded to the conquest of Ireland, a task which he accomplished with horrible
cruelty and as a result of which he dispossessed nineteen-twentieths of the
Irish nation, confiscating their land wholesale. He intended to destroy the
Catholic Church altogether in that country. He thought that he had achieved
that end before he died; but there he was mistaken. - Hilaire Belloc, Characters
of the Reformation.
The
Water of the Wondrous Isles, by William Morris (1897,
Ballantine Edition 1971)
“The
novel was initially printed in 1897 by Morris' own Kelmscott
Press on vellum and artisanal paper in a blackletter type of his
own design. For the wider reading public, a hardcover trade edition was
published later that year by Longmans, Green and Co. It was republished
by Ballantine Books as the thirty-eighth volume
of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in
November, 1971. The Ballantine edition includes an introduction by Lin Carter.
“Stolen
as a child and raised in the wood of Evilshaw as servant to a witch, Birdalone
ultimately escapes in her captress's magical boat, in which she travels to a
succession of strange and wonderful islands. Among these is the Isle of
Increase Unsought, an island cursed with boundless production, which Morris
intended as a parable of contemporary Britain and a vehicle for his socialistic
beliefs. Equally radical, during much of the first quarter of the novel,
Birdalone is naked, a highly unusual detail in Victorian fiction. She is
occasionally assisted out of jams by Habundia, her lookalike fairy godmother.
She encounters three maidens who are held prisoner by another witch. They await
deliverance by their lovers, the three paladins of the Castle of the Quest.
Birdalone is clad by the maidens and seeks out their heroes, and the story goes
into high gear as they set out to rescue the women. Ultimately, one lady is
reunited with her knight, another finds a new love when her knight is killed,
and the last is left to mourn as her champion throws her over for Birdalone.” –
Wikipedia.
Well.
It was the only one of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy’s William Morris books I
did not have. I know I have not read the BAF William Morris books I do
have and may not read this one, but it matters not. The compulsion was on me,
and it now sits snugly with its brothers. It is in remarkably good condition
for a 50+ year old paperback, which is probably a testament to its unread,
almost unreadable, nature. I did go over a little section in it while I was
cooking supper, though, and I think it is approachable, with the right mental
squint and a certain amount of reader’s readjustment. Another Gervasio Gallardo
cover!
I
now, in fact, have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to reading matter.
Besides still attempting the monumental The Gulag Archipelago, I have at
least five new books of varying complexity in my queue, four of which arrived
in the last two days. I was trying to stretch my book acquisitions over at
least a couple of weeks, but Amazon proved too efficient for my purposes. These
two arrived by truck this afternoon. No more new ‘presents’ for a while yet, no
happy anticipation. But lots of diversion.
Don
Rodriguez: The Chronicles of Shadow Valley, (1922; this edition May 1971)
“A
coming-of-age story set in the mythical "golden age" of Spain. The
titular character is excluded from the inheritance of the family castle on the
grounds that given his expertise with sword and mandolin he should be able to
win his own estate and bride. Setting out to achieve his place in the world,
Rodriguez quickly acquires a Sancho
Panza-like servant, Morano, and goes on to experience a series
of extraordinary adventures that lead him into the heart of fantasy in the
mythopoeic Shadow Valley.” – Wikipedia.
Over
the Hills and Far Away is a collection of fantasy short
stories by Lord Dunsany,
edited by Lin Carter. It was first published in
paperback by Ballantine
Books as the sixty-fifth volume of its celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy
series in April 1974. It was the series' sixth Dunsany
volume, and the third collection of his shorter fantasies assembled by Carter.
The book collects a poem, two plays and thirty-four short pieces by the author, including several of his Jorkens stories, with an introduction by Lin Carter. A poem by H. P. Lovecraft, in tribute to Dunsany, is also included. - Wikipedia. Cover art by Gervasio Gallardo.
I recently discovered another quote from the legendary lost work of T. M. Junge, Under the Mountain. It goes, "Somehow, when a new diamond plinks down on your dusty old hoard of jewels, all the gems seem to renew themselves in relation to the clear sparkle, and you can see them again as new, redefined as they are by this one small additional drop of light.” I find it strangely applicable to these two new "old" books, as they shoulder their way onto my shelves and become new acquisitions for my own hoard.
They are, of course, volumes from the fabled run of classic Adult Fantasies edited by Lin Carter for Ballantine Books. I had read Don Rodriquez on Kindle, and so knew its quality, desiring a more permanent presence for it in my library (the vintage of its publishing adding to its allure). The book, besides its age, is almost pristine. Over the Hills and Far Away, on the other hand, is an anthology produced exclusively for the series and shows obvious but unobtrusive signs of wear. I would imagine that Don Rodriguez, being more of a Romance in the more technical sense, was less appealing to the target audience in the 70's than the more overt Fantasy of the short story collection.
In an odd sense, we are kindred productions of the same time, the iterations of these books and I, though our roots go farther back. “This ship, the Moonshadow Harp and myself, we are all the same. We are all from the old world.” – Ishmari, Dragon Quest 8. Who knows what strange paths they have traveled before finally washing up on my shore?
I now have all six Dunsany books published by Ballantine/Del Rey, so that's a thing. And in my 60th year, I finally discover that "Dunsany" is pronounced "dun-SANE-ee." This will take some getting used to. Another classic Fantasy author with a contra-intuitively pronounced name.
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“The Ballantine
Adult Fantasy series was an imprint of American publisher Ballantine
Books. Launched in 1969 (presumably in response to the growing popularity
of Tolkien's works), the series reissued a
number of works of fantasy literature which were out of print
or dispersed in back issues of pulp
magazines (or otherwise not easily available in the United States), in
cheap paperback form—including works by authors such as James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, Ernest
Bramah, Hope Mirrlees, and William
Morris. The series lasted until 1974.
“Envisioned
by the husband-and-wife team of Ian and Betty
Ballantine, and edited by Lin Carter,
it featured cover art by illustrators such as Gervasio
Gallardo, Robert LoGrippo, David McCall Johnston,
and Bob Pepper. The agreement signed between
the Ballantines and Carter on November 22, 1968, launched the project. In
addition to the reprints comprising the bulk of the series, some new fantasy
works were published as well as a number of original collections and anthologies
put together by Carter, and Imaginary Worlds, his general history
of the modern fantasy genre.” – Wikipedia.
As
it was, this wave of Fantasy was published just a little too early to gain my
immediate attention (I was only 10 in 1973, after all), but I benefitted from
its fall-out for years to come, snapping up random volumes at used bookstores
whenever they grabbed my attention. I’m sure there were many that I passed by
over the years, no doubt repelled by their strange and sometimes off-putting
appearances to my past sensibilities (often judging a book by its cover). Some volumes in the series I bought in
other editions; some I bought and later sold. These are selections in the
series I would like to check out; they range from about $10 - $50. I used to
have the first volume of The Night Land, and I know I passed by the Orlando
Furioso because it was the only volume and therefore incomplete. Not quite sure how or why this whim has overtaken my morning today.
