0:00:06 > 0:00:10When it comes to the past, we Britons are an emotional lot.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16We venerate our olden days and have a distinct tendency
0:00:16 > 0:00:21to get misty-eyed when thinking about how things used to be.
0:00:22 > 0:00:26We even forge ahead by harking back.
0:00:29 > 0:00:30In Britain,
0:00:30 > 0:00:34if you want to do something new, it's best to claim that it's old.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37Modern innovation is much more acceptable
0:00:37 > 0:00:40if you present it as part of an ancient tradition,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43backing this up by citing our time-honoured laws,
0:00:43 > 0:00:45rights and liberties.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49Other countries don't do this so much, preferring to appeal
0:00:49 > 0:00:54to reason rather than precedent when attempting to move forward.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58But we are a "small c" conservative country
0:00:58 > 0:01:00in our culture and our politics.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03And that's true EVEN when we're being quite radical.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10Modern Britain's story has been one of progress -
0:01:10 > 0:01:14the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19Yet, it's curious that precisely when the country was a powerhouse
0:01:19 > 0:01:24of modernity, so many of our artists, writers, architects
0:01:24 > 0:01:30and even politicians were obsessed with going back to the Middle Ages.
0:01:32 > 0:01:35And this is the paradox, that at times of incredible advancement,
0:01:35 > 0:01:39we are inclined more than ever to look backwards.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43When you come to think about it - which, being British,
0:01:43 > 0:01:46we don't very much - this is pretty strange.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50What I want to explore is why, as modern Britain emerged
0:01:50 > 0:01:54and then grew to maximum strength and confidence in the 19th century,
0:01:54 > 0:01:58so much of our progress was imaginatively fuelled
0:01:58 > 0:02:00by the olden days.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30Few British traditions appear to be more steeped in history
0:02:30 > 0:02:33than the ancient ceremony of the Coronation.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39But on April the 11th, 1689, a very strange Coronation
0:02:39 > 0:02:42was celebrated here at Westminster Abbey.
0:02:44 > 0:02:48Strange, because the previous king, James II, wasn't dead yet.
0:02:48 > 0:02:53And a foreigner - a Dutchman - had, arguably, stolen the crown.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58Most of us think that the last time Britain was invaded
0:02:58 > 0:03:01was 1066 by William the Conqueror.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05Few of us realise that we were also invaded in 1688
0:03:05 > 0:03:08by William of Orange, who landed with a fleet
0:03:08 > 0:03:10twice as big as the Spanish Armada.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16This coup d'etat was dubbed "The Glorious Revolution".
0:03:16 > 0:03:19And if you weren't aware of this great upheaval,
0:03:19 > 0:03:21then THAT was the point.
0:03:24 > 0:03:26William of Orange and his wife,
0:03:26 > 0:03:32James II's own not very loyal daughter, became William and Mary -
0:03:32 > 0:03:35England's only ever joint monarchs.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43Their Coronation was filled with the characteristic
0:03:43 > 0:03:47pomp and circumstance that had been going on for hundreds of years
0:03:47 > 0:03:51and is still part of the spectacle at royal weddings today.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55At the altar of the Abbey, they were presented
0:03:55 > 0:03:59with the Sword of State and the flat-tipped,
0:03:59 > 0:04:03appropriately-named, "pointless" sword.
0:04:03 > 0:04:07The Earl of Bedford carried the Queen's Sceptre of the Dove,
0:04:07 > 0:04:10and the Duke of Grafton was trusted with the Orb.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15The royal couple then swore an oath which began,
0:04:15 > 0:04:19"by the Law and Ancient Usage of this Realm",
0:04:19 > 0:04:22declaring from the outset that this ceremony was rooted
0:04:22 > 0:04:25in the venerable British past.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35But all that ceremonial flummery was a disguise,
0:04:35 > 0:04:40channelling tradition to present the new monarchs not as imposters,
0:04:40 > 0:04:42but as natural successors to the throne.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52James II's own parliament had plotted his removal
0:04:52 > 0:04:54to end his autocratic Catholic reign,
0:04:54 > 0:04:58and give Protestant Britain a Bill of Rights and a free press,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02the beginnings of our long road to democracy.
0:05:04 > 0:05:09The British throne had borne witness to a revolution almost overnight.
0:05:09 > 0:05:14It was all change, but it was dressed up as business as usual.
0:05:18 > 0:05:24Even the term "Glorious Revolution" had a specific agenda.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27"Revolution" didn't mean violent change,
0:05:27 > 0:05:31it meant returning to the same point in a circle.
0:05:31 > 0:05:36So the way forward was to go back to the olden days.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44For the next 100 years, these links to a solid past
0:05:44 > 0:05:47sustained the nation and kept us rooted
0:05:47 > 0:05:50as we built an empire and rose to greatness.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55But by the late 18th century, a wave of revolution
0:05:55 > 0:05:56was sweeping the globe.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02Americans had just won a battle for independence.
0:06:02 > 0:06:07The French were about to overthrow their monarchy and aristocracy.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12These were new, forward-thinking societies
0:06:12 > 0:06:17for a new, enlightened era - rational, not emotional.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20What did this mean for Britain's future?
0:06:24 > 0:06:27There were two very different thinkers who each believed
0:06:27 > 0:06:31they had the answer. One was a radical.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35A liberal-minded, Unitarian preacher named Richard Price.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40And on the eve of the 101st anniversary
0:06:40 > 0:06:44of the Glorious Revolution - November 4th, 1789 -
0:06:44 > 0:06:47he gave a lecture that caused quite a stir.
0:06:50 > 0:06:51Price's lecture was called
0:06:51 > 0:06:54"A Discourse on the Love of Our Country",
0:06:54 > 0:06:57which was a reassuringly patriotic title.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01And he began by praising the events of 1688.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04Without them, he argued, "Instead of being thus distinguished,
0:07:04 > 0:07:08"we should have been a base people, groaning under the infamy
0:07:08 > 0:07:12"and misery of Popery and slavery."
0:07:12 > 0:07:14So far, so mainstream.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18But he then went on to praise other, more turbulent revolutions,
0:07:18 > 0:07:22particularly the one then taking place in France.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30Price looked on the French Revolution with awe.
0:07:30 > 0:07:32He spoke of kingdoms,
0:07:32 > 0:07:36"breaking their fetters and claiming justice from their oppressors."
0:07:38 > 0:07:42To him, it was a golden dawn of liberty and equality,
0:07:42 > 0:07:46a brand-new nation built on rights and reason.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53Surely Britain, too, should follow its lead?
0:07:57 > 0:07:59But this was all too much
0:07:59 > 0:08:02for politician and essayist Edmund Burke.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08Burke was born into a wealthy Irish family,
0:08:08 > 0:08:12but his heart was firmly rooted in old England.
0:08:15 > 0:08:20He adopted as a national metaphor the great British oak,
0:08:20 > 0:08:24an emblem of tradition, fortitude and endurance.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33If there's one book that sets out the intellectual case
0:08:33 > 0:08:37for the British love of the olden days, then it's this one -
0:08:37 > 0:08:40"Reflections on the Revolution in France" by Burke,
0:08:40 > 0:08:42written in 1790.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45The French Revolution was a huge turning point for Burke,
0:08:45 > 0:08:47and for the entire country.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50When the Bastille had fallen, he'd originally written,
0:08:50 > 0:08:54"England is gazing with amazement at a French struggle for liberty,
0:08:54 > 0:08:58"not knowing whether to blame or to applaud."
0:08:58 > 0:09:01With this book, he came down firmly on the side of blame
0:09:01 > 0:09:05and he was determined to take the British public with him.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09And its influence can be felt right down to today -
0:09:09 > 0:09:13because what Burke's writing does is to identify, justify
0:09:13 > 0:09:17and then champion what he calls "the temper of the people".
0:09:17 > 0:09:20And for him, the British people are not radicals,
0:09:20 > 0:09:25they are not revolutionaries, they do not believe in an ideal future.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28Rather, they believe in an ideal past.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38Burke portrays his fellow countrymen as fine,
0:09:38 > 0:09:43strong and upstanding, rooted in the soil.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47Troublemakers like Price, with their chirping about revolution,
0:09:47 > 0:09:51are nothing but noisy and tiresome grasshoppers.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00"Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern
0:10:00 > 0:10:03"make the field ring with their importunate chink,
0:10:03 > 0:10:08"whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow
0:10:08 > 0:10:11"of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent,
0:10:11 > 0:10:15"pray do not imagine that those who make the noise
0:10:15 > 0:10:19"are the only inhabitants of the field; or that, after all,
0:10:19 > 0:10:23"they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27"though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."
0:10:31 > 0:10:36And so by respecting and revering tradition, Britain's solid,
0:10:36 > 0:10:40cud-chewing majority would defy the chattering classes,
0:10:40 > 0:10:45ensuring there would be no bloody, French-style mob rule here.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53But hang on, isn't this a bit hypocritical?
0:10:53 > 0:10:56Burke was keen to praise OUR revolution in 1688.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00How come that was glorious and yet this new one
0:11:00 > 0:11:04a hundred years later was catastrophic?
0:11:04 > 0:11:08The answer is not just because it's the French doing it,
0:11:08 > 0:11:11it's because the French have started from Year Zero,
0:11:11 > 0:11:15they've attempted to create a society from scratch.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19Whereas OUR revolution was about turning the clock back,
0:11:19 > 0:11:21about restoring the ancient values
0:11:21 > 0:11:24that had made the country great for so long.
0:11:28 > 0:11:35Over 200 years on, the repercussions of Burke's book are still with us,
0:11:35 > 0:11:39not least, because as his most recent biographer has argued,
0:11:39 > 0:11:42with his veneration of old England
0:11:42 > 0:11:46he became the godfather of modern conservatism.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52Burke is the first person to gather together into a coherent
0:11:52 > 0:11:58body of thought ideas that we would now consider properly Conservative,
0:11:58 > 0:12:02long before there was ever a Conservative Party in existence.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05And those ideas include respect for tradition,
0:12:05 > 0:12:09a feeling that political action must be cautious and reforming
0:12:09 > 0:12:12rather than radical and revolutionary,
0:12:12 > 0:12:15and therefore the one thing he is resolutely opposed to
0:12:15 > 0:12:19is any kind of rationalism that would sweep away institutions
0:12:19 > 0:12:22that already exist and which have proved their worth in history.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26And do you think that is more than just defending the status quo?
0:12:26 > 0:12:29I mean, why was he so popular in Britain?
0:12:29 > 0:12:34Would this essentially backward-looking philosophy,
0:12:34 > 0:12:36would this have worked anywhere else?
0:12:36 > 0:12:40I think he... a lot of Burke is about framing
0:12:40 > 0:12:44into a coherent body of thought instincts that people already have.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47And I think the British in the end of the 18th century
0:12:47 > 0:12:49suspected that there was something rather extraordinary
0:12:49 > 0:12:51about this tiny island on the edge of Europe
0:12:51 > 0:12:53creating an entire global empire.
0:12:53 > 0:12:56And Burke was able to give them a way of thinking
0:12:56 > 0:12:59about their own history and their own institutions that then sustained
0:12:59 > 0:13:03this narrative for another, frankly, 200 years in many ways.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07The flip side of that is that you start regarding the past
0:13:07 > 0:13:12in a sort of misty-eyed way, which doesn't bear much scrutiny.
0:13:12 > 0:13:14The idea that it happened at all in the past
0:13:14 > 0:13:17is pretty much enough for us as a people, isn't it?
0:13:17 > 0:13:20If it was there, then it must always have been there.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23We're a little incautious about that, but we certainly
0:13:23 > 0:13:25like the fact that if it's been there for a while,
0:13:25 > 0:13:28then it has a wisdom that we generally respect,
0:13:28 > 0:13:30and, I would argue, very rightly so.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37Burke might have unearthed a deep-seated caution
0:13:37 > 0:13:40in our national character, but you do still have to ask
0:13:40 > 0:13:46what in essence was so problematic about liberty, reason and progress?
0:13:49 > 0:13:53Burke was attacked even in his own day by pamphleteers
0:13:53 > 0:13:57and radicals who saw him as a fogey, a reactionary,
0:13:57 > 0:14:00a defender of the status quo.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04Caricaturists depicted him as myopic, zealous,
0:14:04 > 0:14:08a man with an enormous nose which he shoved into public life.
0:14:08 > 0:14:13Here he is brandishing the symbols of the monarchy and the church
0:14:13 > 0:14:18as a defence against the revolutionary Richard Price.
0:14:18 > 0:14:22But no matter how powerful were the arguments of the home-grown
0:14:22 > 0:14:24or foreign champions of the Enlightenment,
0:14:24 > 0:14:29in Britain a sort of Burkean view prevailed, which was that
0:14:29 > 0:14:32no matter how enthusiastic one might be about the possibilities
0:14:32 > 0:14:37of the future, one had to conserve that which was best about the past.
0:14:37 > 0:14:42As Burke himself put it, "They will not look forward to posterity
0:14:42 > 0:14:46"who never look back to their ancestors."
0:14:49 > 0:14:54Idolising a fond, rose-tinted English past was one thing.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58But what if your ancestors were generally considered
0:14:58 > 0:15:03as outlaws and brutes, as in the olden days in Scotland?
0:15:05 > 0:15:08After its union with England in 1707,
0:15:08 > 0:15:10Scotland had become a hotbed of bloody revolt,
0:15:10 > 0:15:14with a fierce rebel force - the Jacobites - hell-bent
0:15:14 > 0:15:19on restoring James II's deposed Stuart dynasty to power.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23Of course, the magic of the olden days
0:15:23 > 0:15:26is that if the real past is disagreeable,
0:15:26 > 0:15:30you can romanticise, even completely re-invent one to suit.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36The arch-genius of that was a local laird,
0:15:36 > 0:15:41a lawyer and a romantic poet - Walter Scott.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47And it's appropriate that Edinburgh's Scott Monument
0:15:47 > 0:15:53towers over the country's capital, since with one tall story in 1814,
0:15:53 > 0:15:58Scott reinvented Scotland's history and its identity for ever.
0:16:06 > 0:16:10Waverley, often cited as the first historical novel,
0:16:10 > 0:16:12is based on the actual events
0:16:12 > 0:16:16of Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobite rebellion in 1745.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20But the genius of Walter Scott is to employ history,
0:16:20 > 0:16:24just as Edmund Burke had done, as a counter-revolutionary weapon.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28Using the past not to create trouble, but to try and prevent it.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35The hero, Edward Waverley, is an Englishman,
0:16:35 > 0:16:39sent up north to crush the unruly Highlanders,
0:16:39 > 0:16:44until he falls for a beautiful Jacobite named Flora.
0:16:47 > 0:16:50He then joins Bonnie Prince Charlie's army,
0:16:50 > 0:16:53but goes into hiding once they're defeated.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57Eventually, he settles down with a nice lady named Rose
0:16:57 > 0:17:00in a newly peaceful, unified Scotland.
0:17:03 > 0:17:04So what Scott does
0:17:04 > 0:17:09is turn the story of the violent Jacobite uprising on its head.
0:17:09 > 0:17:11It becomes a glorious tale of rebellion,
0:17:11 > 0:17:14told in defence of the status quo.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17At the end of the novel, the hero, Waverley,
0:17:17 > 0:17:20sees the error of his ways and comes down in favour
0:17:20 > 0:17:25of stability, harmony and common sense.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29His head and his heart are no longer divided, they're reconciled.
0:17:29 > 0:17:34He becomes neither English nor Scottish, but British.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37Scott added a subtitle to Waverley, calling it,
0:17:37 > 0:17:40"'Tis Sixty Years Since" and what he's saying
0:17:40 > 0:17:45is it was all a long time ago and this violent Jacobite rebellion
0:17:45 > 0:17:49can now be put in the safe category of the olden days.
0:17:53 > 0:17:57The theme of the novel is really reconciliation.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00With so much of Scott's fiction are two strains in his own character,
0:18:00 > 0:18:05- and temperamentally he was a Jacobite.- Right.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09He was in love with the idea of the Jacobite rising.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13- Right, the romance of the Highlands. - Yes. Intellectually, he wasn't.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15And, you know, one of the things of Waverley,
0:18:15 > 0:18:19and of Rob Roy too, is that the Highlanders are very attractive,
0:18:19 > 0:18:23romantic, had noble qualities and so on, that it was admirable.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26But they belonged to a world that is out of date.
0:18:26 > 0:18:28So he was split?
0:18:28 > 0:18:32He was split, undoubtedly. Head was saying one thing, heart another.
0:18:32 > 0:18:38But what he saw was this was a way in which you asserted
0:18:38 > 0:18:42the distinct identity of Scotland within the British culture.
0:18:42 > 0:18:48That in order for the union to be happy and comfortable,
0:18:48 > 0:18:51Scotland had to remain very Scottish.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54He was so successful though, in a sense,
0:18:54 > 0:18:57Britain became more Scottish.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00I mean the love affair with the Highlands was remarkable, wasn't it?
0:19:00 > 0:19:02Yes, yes. And the love affair with the Highlands
0:19:02 > 0:19:04of the English aristocracy,
0:19:04 > 0:19:09but also the English middle class. That this was a touch of wildness
0:19:09 > 0:19:15and glamour and colour which was also completely safe by now.
0:19:18 > 0:19:23By turning Scotland's past into a romantic, sanitised fantasy,
0:19:23 > 0:19:27Scott brought the olden days to a much wider public than ever before.
0:19:27 > 0:19:32A thousand copies of Waverley sold in the first two days alone.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35As a result of this enormous popularity,
0:19:35 > 0:19:39Scotland rapidly became a major tourist destination,
0:19:39 > 0:19:42with Thomas Cook running package tours to capitalise on the fashion
0:19:42 > 0:19:45for all things ancient and Highland.
0:19:45 > 0:19:47BAGPIPES AND DRUMS PLAY
0:19:50 > 0:19:54And thus was sealed the picturesque image of Scottish national identity
0:19:54 > 0:19:59so dear to the hearts of tea towel and shortbread manufacturers.
0:19:59 > 0:20:03Kilts. Clans. Tartans.
0:20:03 > 0:20:05Bagpipes.
0:20:05 > 0:20:06More bagpipes.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09Even more bagpipes.
0:20:09 > 0:20:11And they're all still out in force
0:20:11 > 0:20:14at the annual Braemar Highland Gathering.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23My father was Scottish, a civil engineer from Ayr.
0:20:23 > 0:20:27And my grandfather was a headmaster, also in Ayr.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30He fought in the First World War for the Highland Light Infantry,
0:20:30 > 0:20:33in a kilt. He was one of those "devils in skirts".
0:20:33 > 0:20:38So I do feel I'm a legitimate part of the Scottish diaspora.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41And when I look at all this, all this mass celebration
0:20:41 > 0:20:47of a sort of nationalism, I... I love it. It works for me.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51But there is part of me, obviously a less sentimental part,
0:20:51 > 0:20:55that wants to question it and wants to know just how much
0:20:55 > 0:20:58of this is actually genuine history?
0:20:59 > 0:21:01BAGPIPES PLAY
0:21:02 > 0:21:05Colourful, rousing, feel-good,
0:21:05 > 0:21:08this is the classic emotional appeal of the olden days.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18Even our royal family can't resist getting tartaned up.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23But killjoy historians would argue that this
0:21:23 > 0:21:26is a triumph of invented tradition.
0:21:26 > 0:21:32And, unsurprisingly, that invention is also the work of Walter Scott.
0:21:36 > 0:21:41In 1822, he masterminded King George IV's visit to Scotland.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47He organised the first ever Highland ball -
0:21:47 > 0:21:52effectively a fancy dress party, since Scott insisted that,
0:21:52 > 0:21:56"all gentlemen must be attired in their ancient Highland costume".
0:21:58 > 0:22:02The fact was that few of the elite, Lowland guests
0:22:02 > 0:22:07even had any Highland ancestry. So canny cloth manufacturers
0:22:07 > 0:22:11invented hundreds of supposedly ancient clan tartans
0:22:11 > 0:22:16almost overnight. And the cream of Scottish society,
0:22:16 > 0:22:19not to mention the guest of honour, quite literally bought it.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27The stage was set for the King himself,
0:22:27 > 0:22:31who appeared in full tartan dressed as a clan chieftain.
0:22:31 > 0:22:36He spent the equivalent in today's money of £100,000,
0:22:36 > 0:22:38and he bought a hundred yards of tartan.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44The vision of the King, however, was a bit ludicrous,
0:22:44 > 0:22:47particularly as despite all that tartan,
0:22:47 > 0:22:50he'd managed to create a kilt that was rather short.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53One society lady there said, "Well, since he is going to spend
0:22:53 > 0:22:57"such a short time with us, the more we see of him the better."
0:22:57 > 0:23:01One detail which the portrait artist, David Wilkie,
0:23:01 > 0:23:03had rather tactfully left out was that the King
0:23:03 > 0:23:06was rather worried about the sight of his legs,
0:23:06 > 0:23:12so he'd chosen to wear a pair of pink stockings underneath his kilt.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16The vision of the King as an explosion of pinks and reds
0:23:16 > 0:23:19was, clearly, quite laughable.
0:23:19 > 0:23:23But, as is so often the way with British reinvention of tradition,
0:23:23 > 0:23:29the effect was a bit ludicrous but it was incredibly successful.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35STEAM TRAIN PUFFS
0:23:38 > 0:23:40WHISTLE BLOWS
0:23:42 > 0:23:44As the 19th century gathered speed,
0:23:44 > 0:23:48Britain would modernise and change at an unprecedented rate.
0:23:50 > 0:23:55For revolution WAS finally sweeping through the country -
0:23:55 > 0:23:57the Industrial Revolution.
0:24:01 > 0:24:03But steam engines, railways and factories
0:24:03 > 0:24:08wouldn't just alter our way of life, they would radicalise it.
0:24:08 > 0:24:10Politics, economics, society.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15Previously, the olden days had been a romantic notion,
0:24:15 > 0:24:19an idealisation of the past that was about stability.
0:24:22 > 0:24:25But now, many increasingly disaffected workers
0:24:25 > 0:24:28were seeing a very practical reason for retreating into the past.
0:24:28 > 0:24:32And some would stop at nothing in their drive to turn back time.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38Industrialisation was a threat to Edmund Burke's vision
0:24:38 > 0:24:42of old England - a land not just of solid oak trees,
0:24:42 > 0:24:46but of solid respect for traditional freedoms.
0:24:46 > 0:24:48And working men could see his point.
0:24:48 > 0:24:52What was so great about progress if it meant you had less money
0:24:52 > 0:24:54and less security than before?
0:24:54 > 0:24:56And what was so valuable about modernity
0:24:56 > 0:25:00if machines replaced men, and those men were made redundant?
0:25:05 > 0:25:08In the mills of the Midlands and northern England,
0:25:08 > 0:25:11a protest group emerged known as the Luddites.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18They fashioned themselves after ancient, legendary folk heroes,
0:25:18 > 0:25:21especially Robin Hood, the inspiration for the Luddites'
0:25:21 > 0:25:24invented figurehead, General Ludd.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Armed not with bows and arrows but with hammers and pistols,
0:25:33 > 0:25:36they sought to halt the forward march of progress
0:25:36 > 0:25:41by destroying the machinery that was destroying their future.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46The Luddites were a curious mix of the very radical
0:25:46 > 0:25:48and the very conservative.
0:25:48 > 0:25:53We see them as violent, 19th century, flying pickets -
0:25:53 > 0:25:56anti-capitalist, proto-trade unionists.
0:25:56 > 0:26:00But they saw themselves as a sort of Medieval band of brothers,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04a gang of good-hearted outlaws with a secret society
0:26:04 > 0:26:08whose oaths of allegiance come straight out of the Middle Ages.
0:26:08 > 0:26:10And I'm going to read my Luddite oath
0:26:10 > 0:26:13on what I believe is called a tablet computer.
0:26:14 > 0:26:19"I, Ian Hislop, of my own free will and accord, do hereby promise
0:26:19 > 0:26:23"and swear that I will never reveal any of the names of any one
0:26:23 > 0:26:26"of this secret committee under the penalty
0:26:26 > 0:26:31"of being sent out of this world by the first brother that may meet me.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35"So help me God to keep this, our oath, inviolate."
0:26:43 > 0:26:47The authorities, though, didn't accept this olden days justification
0:26:47 > 0:26:50of what risked becoming major civil unrest.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59They rushed a new law through Parliament,
0:26:59 > 0:27:03and 34 Luddites were tried and duly hanged.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14But the movement's heroic idealism had caught the imagination
0:27:14 > 0:27:16of many of Britain's radicals.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20And the Luddite longing for an idealised, fairer Britain
0:27:20 > 0:27:23of hundreds of years ago was by no means finished.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28Far from it.
0:27:33 > 0:27:38What they'd seen in Robin of Sherwood wasn't simply romance,
0:27:38 > 0:27:41it was a real model for social change.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48Angry at the human cost of industrialised society,
0:27:48 > 0:27:52there were many who reasoned that poverty and the workhouse
0:27:52 > 0:27:56could do with a bit of liberty, equality and fraternity.
0:27:58 > 0:28:00When it came to fear of revolution,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04Britain certainly wasn't out of the woods just yet.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07When faced with trouble in the present,
0:28:07 > 0:28:11the country reacted by looking to the safety of the past,
0:28:11 > 0:28:15to a golden age of valiant knights in shining armour,
0:28:15 > 0:28:19of chaste damsels in distress, of faithful squires,
0:28:19 > 0:28:22of honest yeomen and stout bowmen.
0:28:22 > 0:28:27Yes, it was time for a full-blooded romantic retreat to the Middle Ages.
0:28:27 > 0:28:28And the man best placed
0:28:28 > 0:28:33to capture that backward zeitgeist was, once again, Walter Scott.
0:28:33 > 0:28:37What Waverley had done for Scotland, his new novel - Ivanhoe -
0:28:37 > 0:28:39would do for England.
0:28:39 > 0:28:41It begins...
0:28:42 > 0:28:45.."In that pleasant district of merry England
0:28:45 > 0:28:49"there extended in ancient times a large forest."
0:28:54 > 0:28:56SWORDS CLASH
0:29:02 > 0:29:06"Here haunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09"Here we fought many of the most desperate battles
0:29:09 > 0:29:13"during the civil Wars of the Roses, and here also flourished
0:29:13 > 0:29:17"in ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws,
0:29:17 > 0:29:22"whose deeds have been rendered so popular in English song."
0:29:22 > 0:29:24HORN TRUMPETS
0:29:26 > 0:29:31Ivanhoe, published in 1819, is set in the late-12th century,
0:29:31 > 0:29:36when the Norman Conquest had also left a bitterly-divided nation.
0:29:39 > 0:29:43Ruthless, anti-democratic Norman aristocrats
0:29:43 > 0:29:47are set against a crushed Saxon population.
0:29:47 > 0:29:49With the country on the brink of crisis,
0:29:49 > 0:29:54enter Wilfred of Ivanhoe, a jousting, heroic champion,
0:29:54 > 0:29:59who takes on all foes, rescues the oppressed
0:29:59 > 0:30:02and generally embodies the olden days of knights and castles
0:30:02 > 0:30:05at their supposed, swashbuckling best.
0:30:09 > 0:30:13As Medieval history, Ivanhoe is pretty much nonsense.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16But as national mythology, it's terrific.
0:30:16 > 0:30:17One critic called it,
0:30:17 > 0:30:22"The defining myth of Englishness, written by a Scotsman."
0:30:22 > 0:30:25And for Walter Scott, the reality of the Middle Ages,
0:30:25 > 0:30:28the brutal, constant warfare, the Black Death,
0:30:28 > 0:30:30the suffering of the peasantry,
0:30:30 > 0:30:33it was ennobled by the romance of an idea.
0:30:33 > 0:30:35And that idea was chivalry.
0:30:42 > 0:30:46Ivanhoe himself is an advocate for chivalric ideals
0:30:46 > 0:30:48as a force for good.
0:30:48 > 0:30:51He describes them as "the stay of the oppressed,
0:30:51 > 0:30:53"the redresser of grievances."
0:30:55 > 0:30:57Scott saw them as the answer
0:30:57 > 0:31:02to the ills of selfish, modern, industrial society.
0:31:03 > 0:31:06And it turned out he wasn't the only one.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12Even more than Waverley, Ivanhoe hit a nerve,
0:31:12 > 0:31:17tapping into a vast public appetite for its fantasy of days gone by.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22And Scott packaged it as an all-action adventure story,
0:31:22 > 0:31:26even throwing in the tale of Robin Hood for good measure.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29It was a romp, but a romp with a purpose.
0:31:29 > 0:31:33And that purpose was to promote the traditional values
0:31:33 > 0:31:36that Scott believed could unite the nation.
0:31:36 > 0:31:38And it's not done very subtly.
0:31:38 > 0:31:40At one point in the forest the outlaws shout,
0:31:40 > 0:31:43"Fair play and Old England for ever."
0:31:43 > 0:31:47A new England, increasingly worried about industrialisation
0:31:47 > 0:31:49and inequality, lapped it up.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00I think what he's trying to give English people
0:32:00 > 0:32:06is a sense of value in a very, very fast transforming and changing world.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09Certain values that, if you look into the past,
0:32:09 > 0:32:14you want to continue to cherish, like chivalry, like toleration,
0:32:14 > 0:32:18like loyalty. And to make that very real to people
0:32:18 > 0:32:23through a tremendously good and pacey story.
0:32:23 > 0:32:26And do you think this is a genuine look at the past,
0:32:26 > 0:32:29the chivalry is real?
0:32:29 > 0:32:34Well, chivalry WAS real. But chivalry included a whole lot.
0:32:34 > 0:32:38It was a combination always of grand gesture, liberality,
0:32:38 > 0:32:42generosity, and cruelty, and discipline, and violence.
0:32:42 > 0:32:44That's what we have to remember.
0:32:44 > 0:32:47That's why schoolboys and men in general so love the book.
0:32:47 > 0:32:48It's not a favourite of mine,
0:32:48 > 0:32:51but I know a lot of very smart men who adore the book.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54And I think it appeals to that issue
0:32:54 > 0:32:57of how do you situate yourself as a man in the world,
0:32:57 > 0:32:58and particularly in a world
0:32:58 > 0:33:01that makes sometimes very conflicting demands of you.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04It strikes me in Ivanhoe that the tale of the knight errant,
0:33:04 > 0:33:07the single figure who can change things,
0:33:07 > 0:33:09is very important in a mass age.
0:33:09 > 0:33:12I think that's really fair. I think people identify with that,
0:33:12 > 0:33:14and I think that's exactly the problem within frameworks
0:33:14 > 0:33:17of modern life as perceived in the 19th century.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19Where is that element of choice?
0:33:19 > 0:33:22Where is that element of leadership as well?
0:33:22 > 0:33:24What is charisma in the modern age?
0:33:24 > 0:33:27So it doesn't mean that we all get dressed up as knights
0:33:27 > 0:33:29in sort of chainmail, et cetera.
0:33:29 > 0:33:33The question is, for a while, while you're reading this book,
0:33:33 > 0:33:36you can think about those issues in a more concentrated fashion.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38It's peculiar that it's cited as the favourite book
0:33:38 > 0:33:40of both Tony Blair and Ho Chi Minh.
0:33:40 > 0:33:44I think that combination is very telling, don't you?!
0:33:49 > 0:33:52But there was one reader of the time who took the passion
0:33:52 > 0:33:57for Ivanhoe-inspired Medievalism to quite another level.
0:33:59 > 0:34:05He was the 13th Earl of Eglinton who in the summer of 1839 staged
0:34:05 > 0:34:09the Eglinton Tournament, a sort of Medieval heritage festival,
0:34:09 > 0:34:11with around 40 knights in armour
0:34:11 > 0:34:16jousting in the grounds of his Ayrshire estate.
0:34:17 > 0:34:19The Earl, Archibald Montgomerie,
0:34:19 > 0:34:22had expected a few thousand people to turn up,
0:34:22 > 0:34:26but in the end over 100,000 spectators appeared.
0:34:26 > 0:34:29Which was a pity, because this being Britain,
0:34:29 > 0:34:31it poured with rain.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33The knights got bogged down in the mud,
0:34:33 > 0:34:37and the Marquis of Londonderry, in full armour, with a helmet
0:34:37 > 0:34:41and a plume, was observed taking out an umbrella and putting it up,
0:34:41 > 0:34:43which rather ruined the effect.
0:34:43 > 0:34:46And overall, the spectacle ended up looking like
0:34:46 > 0:34:50a sort of 19th-century version of It's A Royal Knockout.
0:34:50 > 0:34:53Eglinton, however, was undismayed.
0:34:53 > 0:34:58He said, "I am aware that this is a humble imitation of the scenes
0:34:58 > 0:35:03"which my imagination has portrayed, but at least I have done something
0:35:03 > 0:35:05"towards the revival of chivalry."
0:35:15 > 0:35:19By then, Britain had fallen under the spell of the Middle Ages.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26For proof of its all-pervasive influence,
0:35:26 > 0:35:28we need only look to one of Britain's
0:35:28 > 0:35:30most seemingly ancient buildings.
0:35:34 > 0:35:35CLOCK STRIKES
0:35:37 > 0:35:39FIRE CRACKLES
0:35:42 > 0:35:44One night, in 1834,
0:35:44 > 0:35:48a raging inferno ripped through the Houses of Parliament.
0:35:48 > 0:35:51Thousands lined the streets to watch.
0:35:52 > 0:35:57Amongst them, the artist JMW Turner, who painted the blaze
0:35:57 > 0:35:59in all its wild intensity.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04Virtually the whole building was razed to the ground.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11This was the perfect opportunity for a grand piece
0:36:11 > 0:36:14of statement architecture, a prestigious new building
0:36:14 > 0:36:16for Britain's Parliament.
0:36:16 > 0:36:18And you'd have thought we'd have chosen something
0:36:18 > 0:36:21from the cutting-edge style of architecture
0:36:21 > 0:36:24for our most important national building.
0:36:24 > 0:36:26Something to reflect the fact that Britain was, after all,
0:36:26 > 0:36:31at the forefront - commercially, industrially, technologically -
0:36:31 > 0:36:33of what it meant to be modern.
0:36:36 > 0:36:39But, of course, not a bit of it.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46The new Palace of Westminster would be built in what had become
0:36:46 > 0:36:51the new British national style - actually, a revival of a very old,
0:36:51 > 0:36:55very international style, Medieval Gothic.
0:36:58 > 0:37:03Its architect was Charles Barry, whose Gothic-revival churches
0:37:03 > 0:37:05had been popping up all over Britain.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12But Parliament's excess of Gothic ornamentation
0:37:12 > 0:37:17was largely the product of Barry's 32-year-old assistant,
0:37:17 > 0:37:23a man with a profound passion for all things Middle Ages -
0:37:23 > 0:37:25Augustus Welby Pugin.
0:37:27 > 0:37:29Pugin had watched the burning of Westminster
0:37:29 > 0:37:31with what was almost glee.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33"There is nothing much to regret here," he wrote,
0:37:33 > 0:37:36"and a great deal to rejoice in."
0:37:36 > 0:37:39The old building had been a mishmash of different styles,
0:37:39 > 0:37:42which had coagulated over hundreds of years
0:37:42 > 0:37:45around the central Medieval hall.
0:37:45 > 0:37:49Pugin was determined that a completely Medieval building
0:37:49 > 0:37:51would arise from the ashes.
0:37:58 > 0:38:00And it did.
0:38:00 > 0:38:01Except, there was a catch.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06Pugin had recently converted to Roman Catholicism,
0:38:06 > 0:38:09a career-destroying move in an Anglican England
0:38:09 > 0:38:13that had emerged by deposing its last Catholic king.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18So even though almost all of the extraordinary detailing
0:38:18 > 0:38:21in the building was his vision, all of it crafted
0:38:21 > 0:38:26using actual Medieval techniques - Pugin's contribution
0:38:26 > 0:38:30to the new Palace of Westminster had to be kept quiet.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36Worst of all, when his piece de resistance -
0:38:36 > 0:38:41the great debating chamber of the Lords - was unveiled in 1847,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44every craftsman who had worked on it was credited...
0:38:45 > 0:38:49..yet Pugin's name was nowhere to be seen.
0:38:51 > 0:38:54But recognition was not the main point for Pugin.
0:38:54 > 0:38:59He was both architect and visionary, and he saw the Gothic revival
0:38:59 > 0:39:01as "a return to the faith
0:39:01 > 0:39:05"and the social structures of the Middle Ages".
0:39:05 > 0:39:08The dazzling, ornate interiors he designed,
0:39:08 > 0:39:12a sort of decorative frenzy writ large, are loaded with meaning.
0:39:12 > 0:39:17It's an attempt, deliberately, to recall a more pious,
0:39:17 > 0:39:19more charitable and more public-spirited age.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25Pugin was shocked by the divisive nature of Britain
0:39:25 > 0:39:29as it industrialised and urbanised, with the rich getting even richer,
0:39:29 > 0:39:32and the masses left to fend for themselves.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35How different that was, in his imagination,
0:39:35 > 0:39:38from the olden days, when the church and the community
0:39:38 > 0:39:43had looked after the poor, setting up charities and running hospitals.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45This building would be his contribution
0:39:45 > 0:39:48to resurrecting that golden age.
0:39:48 > 0:39:51Other countries could house their governing bodies in buildings
0:39:51 > 0:39:54that looked like senates or temples.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57Britain would have its government in a cathedral.
0:40:04 > 0:40:09Plundering the olden days may have yielded a fantasy Westminster
0:40:09 > 0:40:11to house our legislators.
0:40:12 > 0:40:15But what had the Middle Ages actually done
0:40:15 > 0:40:17for the majority of Britons outside -
0:40:17 > 0:40:19so many of them living in desperation,
0:40:19 > 0:40:22with poverty and disease rife?
0:40:23 > 0:40:28Remarkably, the answer was to give them a moral map which might
0:40:28 > 0:40:33actually ameliorate conditions in the cities' growing slums.
0:40:33 > 0:40:36One of the leading lights of this social change was a maverick
0:40:36 > 0:40:39whose fascination with Medieval values would,
0:40:39 > 0:40:43somewhat bizarrely, inspire radical reform
0:40:43 > 0:40:45of modern government and society.
0:40:45 > 0:40:51He was a rather unlikely British saviour, flash, flamboyant,
0:40:51 > 0:40:53Jewish by birth.
0:40:53 > 0:40:54Benjamin Disraeli.
0:40:57 > 0:41:01Disraeli was THE most colourful politician of the 19th century.
0:41:01 > 0:41:05He was a peacock, a dandy, a gambler, a womaniser.
0:41:05 > 0:41:10He had coiffured hair and a neatly-trimmed, dapper beard.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13There were even whispers at the time that he was a bisexual.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16He once appeared in a packed London street,
0:41:16 > 0:41:19dressed in bright blue military breeches,
0:41:19 > 0:41:22with black and red stockings and buckled shoes.
0:41:22 > 0:41:26It was an extraordinary sight, and when the crowd parted
0:41:26 > 0:41:30in front of him, he said it felt "like the opening of the Red Sea."
0:41:30 > 0:41:33Quite vain. Quite blasphemous.
0:41:33 > 0:41:35Quite funny.
0:41:40 > 0:41:43Disraeli's passion for all things ancient
0:41:43 > 0:41:45was as fevered as his wardrobe.
0:41:47 > 0:41:51With the help of a substantial loan, he'd bought this estate -
0:41:51 > 0:41:54Hughenden Manor - where he fantasised that
0:41:54 > 0:41:59"cavaliers might roam, and frolic with their lady loves."
0:42:01 > 0:42:05But this was more than just a romantic playground
0:42:05 > 0:42:07to the fiercely ambitious Disraeli.
0:42:10 > 0:42:13The house - built on an estate dating back to the 11th century -
0:42:13 > 0:42:16rooted him in history and allowed him to feel connected
0:42:16 > 0:42:18to old England.
0:42:20 > 0:42:23He spent a fortune making it look even more Medieval,
0:42:23 > 0:42:27because for him, history since the Middle Ages had been a decline,
0:42:27 > 0:42:31a fall from grace, from a perfect society of a strong monarchy,
0:42:31 > 0:42:36a responsible aristocracy, and sturdy, patriotic citizens.
0:42:42 > 0:42:45And that was his vision for a better British future.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51But when he first arrived here at Hughenden,
0:42:51 > 0:42:55Disraeli was much more influential as a writer than as a politician.
0:42:58 > 0:43:03His dream of restoring a benevolent, Medievalist society
0:43:03 > 0:43:07was first promoted in a novel of ideas, written at a time
0:43:07 > 0:43:11when a million and a half people were claiming poor relief.
0:43:14 > 0:43:19Sybil was published in 1845 and gives a fascinating insight
0:43:19 > 0:43:23into the mindset of early Victorian Britain.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26Ostensibly, it's a love story between working-class Sybil
0:43:26 > 0:43:31and upper-class Egremont, a good-hearted Tory MP,
0:43:31 > 0:43:33who has been to the Midlands and the North
0:43:33 > 0:43:36and seen the suffering of the poor for himself.
0:43:36 > 0:43:42His reaction to this is to long for a return to the values of the past.
0:43:42 > 0:43:45Fortunately, Sybil has an equally romantic view
0:43:45 > 0:43:48about how much better things were in days of old.
0:43:53 > 0:43:58"When I remember what this English people once was,
0:43:58 > 0:44:00"the truest, the freest, and the bravest,
0:44:00 > 0:44:05"the happiest and the most religious race upon the surface of this globe,
0:44:05 > 0:44:08"and think of them now, with all their crimes
0:44:08 > 0:44:12"and all their slavish sufferings, their soured spirits
0:44:12 > 0:44:16"and their stunted forms; their lives without enjoyment
0:44:16 > 0:44:20"and their deaths without hope; I may well feel for them,
0:44:20 > 0:44:24"even if I were not the daughter of their blood."
0:44:26 > 0:44:31Nothing, I suspect, was more important than the past to Disraeli.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35Disraeli at this time, in the 1840s, gets involved with this group
0:44:35 > 0:44:39of Tories who have got a kind of new vision
0:44:39 > 0:44:40for the direction of Conservatism.
0:44:40 > 0:44:44They called themselves Young England, but what they constantly looked to
0:44:44 > 0:44:48was Olde England! It was back to the Middle Ages.
0:44:48 > 0:44:50And there's this crucial moment in Sybil,
0:44:50 > 0:44:54where he talks about the idea that in the Middle Ages
0:44:54 > 0:45:00you have community, whereas in the modern world, in the world of cities,
0:45:00 > 0:45:03factories, you have what he calls aggregation,
0:45:03 > 0:45:06people coming together, but not actually being a community.
0:45:06 > 0:45:10A lot of the characters in Sybil keep asking each other,
0:45:10 > 0:45:11"You do feel for the people, don't you?"
0:45:11 > 0:45:13"Oh, yes, I feel for..."
0:45:13 > 0:45:17There's a sort of caring Toryism that Disraeli is trying to push.
0:45:17 > 0:45:21- Is that genuine? - Yeah. Well, that's the great thing.
0:45:21 > 0:45:24Obviously, the novel is called "Sybil" or "The Two Nations"
0:45:24 > 0:45:28and behind it is an idea, an ideal of one nation.
0:45:28 > 0:45:31There's this very famous passage where the hero
0:45:31 > 0:45:35is in a ruined monastery - so thinking back to the monasteries
0:45:35 > 0:45:38of the Middle Ages - and there's this famous speech
0:45:38 > 0:45:42about how we live in two nations. "What are those two nations?"
0:45:42 > 0:45:45says the hero, "They are the rich and the poor,
0:45:45 > 0:45:48"and they might as well be living on different planets,
0:45:48 > 0:45:50"such is the difference between their lives."
0:45:50 > 0:45:55It's odd that a Jewish politician, an outsider,
0:45:55 > 0:46:01should have ended up so entrenched with the old status quo.
0:46:01 > 0:46:03I think it is a great irony.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06I mean, perhaps there's a sense that precisely because he was
0:46:06 > 0:46:09an outsider, he wanted to become a country gentleman.
0:46:09 > 0:46:12And, you know, we're here at Hughenden, and buying this place
0:46:12 > 0:46:14was an essential part, an essential career move
0:46:14 > 0:46:16to turn himself into a gentleman.
0:46:16 > 0:46:19He didn't go to public school, he didn't go to Oxbridge.
0:46:19 > 0:46:22He was bisexual.
0:46:22 > 0:46:25How does that link to him becoming a gentleman,
0:46:25 > 0:46:27become a Tory politician, becoming Prime Minister?
0:46:27 > 0:46:30Well, I think that's the great paradox of Disraeli,
0:46:30 > 0:46:33and that's why some people say all this talk about one nation,
0:46:33 > 0:46:35it's just rhetoric.
0:46:35 > 0:46:39When it comes to reality, to his real political career,
0:46:39 > 0:46:41he didn't actually do very much for it.
0:46:41 > 0:46:42I think that underestimates him.
0:46:46 > 0:46:50For Disraeli, the olden days were a potent agent
0:46:50 > 0:46:54for reforming Victorian Britain, and, as it turned out,
0:46:54 > 0:46:57the impact of what began as a literary Medievalism
0:46:57 > 0:47:01was eventually felt by millions in the real world.
0:47:03 > 0:47:05Almost 30 years after he wrote Sybil,
0:47:05 > 0:47:10its message of Middle Ages paternalism finally became fact,
0:47:10 > 0:47:12rather than fiction.
0:47:14 > 0:47:17Disraeli's fantasy of old England
0:47:17 > 0:47:21was channelled into concrete measures that did directly alleviate
0:47:21 > 0:47:23the sufferings of the masses,
0:47:23 > 0:47:27not least by giving so many of them the vote for the very first time.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31And when he, in his own words, "climbed the greasy pole"
0:47:31 > 0:47:34and became Prime Minister, he led the great reforming administration
0:47:34 > 0:47:39of 1874 which cleared slums, improved sanitation and housing,
0:47:39 > 0:47:41and limited working hours.
0:47:41 > 0:47:45The era of laissez faire was over and, bizarrely,
0:47:45 > 0:47:50the supposed mores of Medieval England had helped inspire
0:47:50 > 0:47:53the new political consensus of modern Britain.
0:48:00 > 0:48:01By the late 19th century,
0:48:01 > 0:48:06Medievalism had become an integral component of British identity,
0:48:06 > 0:48:10and Disraeli was by no means the only Victorian with a vision
0:48:10 > 0:48:13for a brighter tomorrow drawn from the values of yesterday.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20The artistic visionary who lived in this rather quaint setting -
0:48:20 > 0:48:21William Morris -
0:48:21 > 0:48:25had his own solution to the ills of industrialisation.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33Where Disraeli had reformed traditional Conservative thinking,
0:48:33 > 0:48:37Morris called for a whole new political system altogether,
0:48:37 > 0:48:41one equally inspired by the olden days,
0:48:41 > 0:48:44but that was far more Karl Marx than Edmund Burke.
0:48:47 > 0:48:51Morris was an ardent Romantic with an intense passion
0:48:51 > 0:48:52for the Middle Ages.
0:48:52 > 0:48:56As a small boy, he rode his pony through Epping Forest
0:48:56 > 0:48:58dressed in a miniature suit of armour,
0:48:58 > 0:49:00looking for ancient churches.
0:49:00 > 0:49:04He claimed to have read every single novel by Walter Scott
0:49:04 > 0:49:05by the age of seven.
0:49:05 > 0:49:10He was extremely gifted and extremely eccentric.
0:49:10 > 0:49:16This was his dream house, which was called the "Red House".
0:49:16 > 0:49:23It's a 13th-century house built in 1859 to Morris's own designs.
0:49:23 > 0:49:27Morris, quite literally, wanted to live in the past.
0:49:31 > 0:49:36This was a Medievalist fantasy fun house, where Morris frolicked
0:49:36 > 0:49:41in somewhat pretentious fashion with his pre-Raphaelite friends,
0:49:41 > 0:49:44Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
0:49:45 > 0:49:50Depicting themselves inhabiting a halcyon, idyllic Middle Ages.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59Morris even commissioned a mural where he and his wife Jane
0:49:59 > 0:50:02were crowned Medieval king and queen.
0:50:06 > 0:50:09But it wasn't long before a much more serious side
0:50:09 > 0:50:12to his harking back took over.
0:50:12 > 0:50:16One that was, in a sense, a call for revolution.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23Morris wrote, "apart from a desire to create beautiful things,
0:50:23 > 0:50:26"the leading passion of my life has been, and is,
0:50:26 > 0:50:29"a hatred of modern civilisation."
0:50:31 > 0:50:34The contrast with his somewhat idealised Middle Ages
0:50:34 > 0:50:37was his belief that at least in that period,
0:50:37 > 0:50:42the inequality and the suffering of the ordinary man was alleviated
0:50:42 > 0:50:45by the satisfaction of rewarding work.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47And this is the same point as that of the Luddites -
0:50:47 > 0:50:51that industrialisation made workers unhappy because it made them,
0:50:51 > 0:50:53effectively, into machines.
0:50:59 > 0:51:04Factories had wiped out the notion of the dignity of labour.
0:51:06 > 0:51:10So Morris set up a company that rejected the Machine Age -
0:51:10 > 0:51:14employing skilled workmen and women who found pleasure in hand-crafting
0:51:14 > 0:51:19the beautiful wallpapers, rugs and textiles that he designed.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24Though it made him a millionaire,
0:51:24 > 0:51:28he continued to worry about the plight of the working man.
0:51:29 > 0:51:35So, in 1883, he declared himself a socialist, becoming a founder
0:51:35 > 0:51:37of the proto-revolutionary Socialist League.
0:51:41 > 0:51:46Then, in 1890, he outlined his dream of a better society
0:51:46 > 0:51:51in the most green and pleasant science fiction book ever written,
0:51:51 > 0:51:56set in a 21st century England that's curiously un-modern.
0:51:58 > 0:52:01Morris called the book "News From Nowhere" -
0:52:01 > 0:52:04and it's essentially a political statement -
0:52:04 > 0:52:06it's a manifesto for future change.
0:52:06 > 0:52:10But being Morris's manifesto, it's not exactly futuristic.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14The illustrated frontispiece doesn't have any skyscrapers
0:52:14 > 0:52:17or flying machines, but a Tudor house.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20And the text itself is presented as if it were
0:52:20 > 0:52:23an illuminated manuscript.
0:52:23 > 0:52:27And in this idyllic, historical future
0:52:27 > 0:52:29there is no industrial blight,
0:52:29 > 0:52:34there are no stinking, overcrowded cities, there is no class division.
0:52:34 > 0:52:35There is no divorce.
0:52:35 > 0:52:39The country has undergone what he calls the "Great Change".
0:52:44 > 0:52:47"When the conflict was once really begun,
0:52:47 > 0:52:51"it was seen how little of any value there was in the old world
0:52:51 > 0:52:55"of slavery and inequality. There was no hope;
0:52:55 > 0:52:58"nothing but the dull jog of the mill-horse
0:52:58 > 0:53:01"under compulsion of collar and whip;
0:53:01 > 0:53:05"but in that fighting-time that followed all was hope;
0:53:05 > 0:53:08"the rebels at last felt themselves strong enough
0:53:08 > 0:53:11"to build up the world again from its dry bones -
0:53:11 > 0:53:13"and they did it too!"
0:53:17 > 0:53:22It's a curious mixture of Marxist ideology and Medieval romance.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25And it's also intensely personal.
0:53:25 > 0:53:27The small boy who rode through the forest,
0:53:27 > 0:53:30dreaming of the past, is still there in the grown man.
0:53:30 > 0:53:34Still in thrall to the Middle Ages, but transforming them
0:53:34 > 0:53:37into a blueprint for a new age yet to come.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45For one of Britain's leading contemporary artists, Jeremy Deller,
0:53:45 > 0:53:48it's the contradiction between the Medievalist dreamer
0:53:48 > 0:53:52and the political activist that makes Morris fascinating.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59Invited to represent Britain
0:53:59 > 0:54:03at the prestigious 2013 Venice Biennale for Art,
0:54:03 > 0:54:08Deller created a show he titled "English Magic" -
0:54:08 > 0:54:11its centrepiece a homage to Morris
0:54:11 > 0:54:15that reinvented the Victorian worshipper of the olden days
0:54:15 > 0:54:18as a 21st-century English hero.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22We have a room in Venice and it's called
0:54:22 > 0:54:25"We Sit Starving Amidst Our Gold".
0:54:25 > 0:54:28- It is such an amazing quote, and that's by Morris.- Yeah.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31And it's really about, you know, we might be wealthy,
0:54:31 > 0:54:33but obviously we don't have spiritual richness,
0:54:33 > 0:54:35we don't have emotional richness and so on.
0:54:35 > 0:54:39So I used that quote and I knew I wanted to have Morris in my show
0:54:39 > 0:54:41- and to bring him back to life, literally.- Yeah.
0:54:41 > 0:54:45As a superhero, effectively, like a Greek god or someone like that.
0:54:45 > 0:54:47So I had this huge painting. And it's painted.
0:54:47 > 0:54:51- It took a long time to paint, so there's craftsmanship there.- Yeah.
0:54:51 > 0:54:55- And he's holding Abramovich's yacht...- Roman Abramovich?
0:54:55 > 0:54:59..Luna, which Abramovich had parked in 2011 close to the Giardini
0:54:59 > 0:55:02and blocked the view for everyone, basically.
0:55:02 > 0:55:05So Morris is picking up a yacht and he's tossing it
0:55:05 > 0:55:07or throwing it into the lagoon, destroying it.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11And basically it's Morris coming back to life as a colossus.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13And getting his revenge!
0:55:13 > 0:55:15Exactly. And it's the revenge we would all, most of...
0:55:15 > 0:55:17Let's face it, there's probably ten people in the world
0:55:17 > 0:55:20that wouldn't want to see that happen, I would imagine.
0:55:20 > 0:55:21Or five!
0:55:21 > 0:55:24But it's very specific wanting Morris to do it.
0:55:24 > 0:55:27Exactly. Because Morris would be totally horrified by that.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30Do you think a lot of the people who think, "Oh, that's a lovely print!",
0:55:30 > 0:55:32or, "I must have one of those chairs!",
0:55:32 > 0:55:35do you think they realise how left-wing he was?
0:55:35 > 0:55:36No, I don't think they do.
0:55:36 > 0:55:39And I think that's what's... it's quite stealth with Morris.
0:55:39 > 0:55:43Because he has these views, you know, he's a visionary,
0:55:43 > 0:55:45he's not some fuddy-duddy who makes curtains.
0:55:45 > 0:55:47I mean, you know, he has made curtains,
0:55:47 > 0:55:50but there's so much behind it.
0:55:50 > 0:55:52And I suppose it's that contrast of quite tough politics,
0:55:52 > 0:55:53but with beauty.
0:55:53 > 0:55:58And it made him angry at times that he produced these beautiful things
0:55:58 > 0:56:00and yet the working man could never afford them.
0:56:00 > 0:56:01Yes.
0:56:01 > 0:56:04I mean, there's obviously a great frustration, as I'm sure you know,
0:56:04 > 0:56:07that he was known for picking things up and throwing them around.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09I mean, he had a violent temper,
0:56:09 > 0:56:11but at least he was trying to do something, at least
0:56:11 > 0:56:14he was wrestling with the problems, even if he wasn't resolving them.
0:56:20 > 0:56:23But, of course, the one thing Morris could never resolve
0:56:23 > 0:56:24was his own legacy.
0:56:27 > 0:56:32Over a hundred years later, he is now an olden days icon himself.
0:56:32 > 0:56:37His house and garden a must-see for lovers of England's heritage.
0:56:39 > 0:56:41And what fits of rage might he have felt
0:56:41 > 0:56:45if he'd known that the bucolic fields and green pastures
0:56:45 > 0:56:49where he built his retreat would become a quintessential example
0:56:49 > 0:56:51of the 20th-century suburb?
0:56:53 > 0:56:56On the face of it, Morris's vision came to nothing.
0:56:56 > 0:57:01He could not turn back time nor hold back the inexorable rise
0:57:01 > 0:57:07of the modern world, as Britain urbanised and then suburbanised.
0:57:07 > 0:57:11But his instincts for how Britons of all political persuasions
0:57:11 > 0:57:16and all classes would find comfort in a quasi-idyllic past
0:57:16 > 0:57:19were spot-on.
0:57:19 > 0:57:21The prevailing aesthetic of 20th-century suburbia
0:57:21 > 0:57:26did not turn out to be Medieval. But nor was it modern.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28It was Tudorbethan.
0:57:33 > 0:57:35I suppose that's progress of sorts,
0:57:35 > 0:57:38moving away from Victorian Medievalism.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42But it still harks back a full 350 years because,
0:57:42 > 0:57:48for us in the wider sense, the past is never a thing of the past.
0:57:50 > 0:57:52We look back admiringly at the Victorians,
0:57:52 > 0:57:56who were in turn looking back admiringly at the Middle Ages.
0:57:56 > 0:57:58And so it goes on,
0:57:58 > 0:58:01as each generation locates its olden days of choice,
0:58:01 > 0:58:07and decides which traditional values from there it wishes to recover.
0:58:07 > 0:58:09Yes, it seems conservative.
0:58:09 > 0:58:13But it can be a surprisingly counter-intuitive way
0:58:13 > 0:58:15to effect change and move forward.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18Which is why I think that, in the future,
0:58:18 > 0:58:22it's unlikely that the olden days will be consigned to the past.
0:58:25 > 0:58:28In the final programme, we'll see how the olden days
0:58:28 > 0:58:34has found its true home in an often eccentric, usually idealised
0:58:34 > 0:58:39and, sometimes, totally bogus version of the British countryside.