Dissolution

 Throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, there was one common understanding, in the United States at least: a college education was a good thing. Returning soldiers took advantage of the original GI Bill, and their children took advantage of what was, for a time, a very affordable college education (at least at public colleges and universities). One result was the greatest economic boom in the nation's history, but another was its most educated public. It would be hard for anyone back in the 1980's, (to pick a decade) to imagine a time when college attendance wasn't a reachable ideal and an unquestioned good for anyone who could manage it.

Today, a college education is has been questioned on every front; tuition has risen dramatically, and pundits -- who seem to take for granted that the best way to measure the value of something is in the increased earning power it confers -- declare that a useful trade-school education would be a much better deal. We're told that we have to let go of the idea that college is for everyone, as pressure mounts on public institutions (public in name only, as decades of cuts by state legislatures have meant that most state colleges and universities receive less than 1/3 of their funding from the state).  And now, at the behest of the current administration, there's an active attack on the fundamental existence of universities, one aimed -- so far -- at the wealthiest and most prestigious among them. Various reasons are offered for this antipathy, but the likeliest one, to my mind, is that it's just part of a broader anti-intellectual drive, of the sort that's been seen many times before in authoritarian regimes.

All this puts me in mind of a much earlier moment when a large number of institutions whose work was universally understood as contributing to the greater good came under government pressure to prove that worth. Secured in beautiful gothic buildings, supplied with dormitories for their residents, dining  halls for their meals, and chapels for their worship, the inhabitants of these institutions little dreamt that, in a few short years, their buildings would be reduced to roofless rubble -- and by their own king. Thomas Cromwell (yes, that one -- whose career is revisited in Hilary Mantel's recent novels) sent out "visitors" to investigate the practices at these places, and the reports that came back were damning: the people there were not following their own rules, they were living lives of suspicious comfort, and worse yet -- by providing spiritual services to their neighbors -- like the loaning of blessed girdles to aid women in childbirth -- they were perpetuating false superstitions and scurrilous beliefs.

The king, Henry VIII, used these reports as the justification for what would, earlier in his own reign, have been an unthinkable act. He, with the collusion of Parliament and a few strokes of a pen, dissolved all the monsateries of England, seized their buildings and properties, and sent troops to round up the valuables. The golden altar furniture and books were added to the King's own collections, while the buildings and land were given to his political allies as their personal estates. The monks and nuns were supposed to receive pensions, but there seems no record of many collecting them. What the King's men left behind, local villagers pillaged, finding new uses for door-hinges and window glass. The lead that had protected the roofs was rolled up and hauled away (it being a valuable metal at the time), and before long, the unprotected beams and boards rotted and collapsed.

To add to the irony, some of the funds raised by some of these closures were used to fund colleges and endowments, including what later became Christ Church at Oxford.

They shall not pass!

There's been a lot of talk in the press these days, with the rise of he-who-must-not-be-named in American politics, about how to stop fascistic, totalitarian figures from coming into power. It appears to be something that folks in the US and UK haven't had to deal with, and so they must look to Germany, or Spain -- but in fact, that's not true at all.

Back in Britain in the 1930's, there was a divisive political leader whose rallies were beginning to cause concerns. A former political liberal, he'd taken to denouncing his previous views; at massive indoor rallies (including one at the Albert Hall), he stirred his listeners to passionate cheers by denouncing immigrants, Jews, and a shadowy cabal of forces that were driving the common man down. He love to egg on protesters at these rallies, and had special squads of "stewards" to rough them up and throw them out, but in fact they served a purpose. Indeed, he credited them with making his speeches all the more effective, even saying he looked forward to them.

The man in question was Sir Oswald Mosley. And Britons weren't quite sure what to make of him; though many despised his views, his party -- the British Union of Fascists -- was granted the same rights as any other, and in the early 1930's their polling numbers were on the rise, although they did not yet have any elected member of Parliament. Mosley, inspired by visits with Mussolini and Hitler, decided to give his party a paramilitary flavor, initially going with plain black futuristic uniforms, but later graduating to jackboots and a peaked cap (for Mosley himself at least). From their large indoor rallies, they graduated to outdoor ones with marches; when Mosley was clobbered with a flying brick by protesters at one, he wore his bandages as a cap of pride. It was part of his strategy to march directly into areas, such as the East End of London, where the bricks were most likely to fly; this both fed his sense of justified anger, and forced the police into serving as his own personal security.

Things came to a head in October of 1936; Mosley had planned a rally and march through the East End, and had pulled out all stops; his new uniform was ready, as were many of his followers, some of whom rode in specially fortified vans. The Metropolitan Police, under the leadership of Sir Philip Game, mustered out 6,000 officers, one of the largest forces since the days of the Chartist rallies in the 1840's, but even then it soon became clear they were stretched thin; attempts to disperse a crowd of nearly 100,000 East Enders proved impossible. Those opposed to Mosley, whose planned route would have taken him down Cable Street, erected barricades of bricks and sticks, along with a lorry and some construction equipment they'd procured from a nearby builder's yard. They hoped to block the march by their mere presence, though they were also prepared to fight; one witness described men wrapping barbed wire around chair-legs as improvised weapons. The chant of one and all was simply this: "They shall not pass!"

In the end, Sir Philip Game persuaded Mosley to call off that part of his plans, and to march instead back where he'd come from to Hyde Park. Public alarm over the events led to the passing of the Public Order Act, which although it did not outlaw Mosley's party, prohibited political uniforms such as those the "blackshirts" had favored. When Britain and Germany went to war, the BUF was banned, and Mosley and many of its other leaders were imprisoned for the duration. One, though, did escape: the scar-faced William Joyce, who as "Lord Haw-Haw" broadcast mocking ripostes to nearly every one of Churchill's radio speeches. After the war, Joyce was convicted of high treason, and hanged at Wandsworth Prison. Sir Oswald returned to political life, though in his one election -- for Kensington North in 1959 -- he polled only 8% of the vote with an anti-immigration platform that included deporting those from the West Indies. 

Proclamations

There is something innately attractive in the power of a single pen, especially for a ruler with tyrannical tendencies -- why bother with Parliaments and Legislatures when one can simply command one's subjects to obedience in whatever matter one wishes? One sovereign who was especially attracted to this option was Henry VIII, who issued three hundred and eighty-seven of them; in them, the king -- always speaking with a royal "we" -- commanded obedience in everything from prohibiting heretical books to setting the prices charged by fishmongers to declaring war on France. In his use of these instruments, Henry enjoyed several advantages over previous monarchs, the foremost of which was the invention of the printing press. Richard Pynson, appointed printer to Henry VII, continued in that role with his successor, receiving an annuity of £4. His royal appointment also came in handy when the King was in a book-banning mood, as an exception was always made for his Majesty's printer.

It's not certain how many copies of any given proclamation were printed, but the records seem to indicate that enough were made so that, in each of the several key cities and market towns of England, a copy could be posted by the market cross for all to see. Of course, at a time when literacy rates were quite low, their direct effect may have been limited, but it was often commanded that they be read aloud, that all would understand. In several instances, they were first promulgated in London with a fanfare of trumpets before being read aloud, presumably in stentorian tones. They were, at the same time, sometimes subject to later defacement or theft, in some cases leading to charges against those responsible.

Along those lines, on key question about proclamations was how they were to be enforced. If, as it happened, the proclamation specifically instructed the King's agents or local authorities to act, they would of course have complied, but in other cases it's much less clear -- how, for instance, were women to be prevented from reading Holy Scripture aloud, or punished if they did? One venue available to Henry VIII was his own special tribunal, the Court of Star Chamber, and indeed its records contain numerous actions brought against persons who disregarded a proclamation. In one instance, regarding a proclamation of 1530 "Prohibiting Erroneous Books and Bible Translations," it was noted that one "John Croker" was "cited for keeping a New Testament contrary to the King's proclamation." Readers of Hilary Mantel's historical novels, or viewers of their BBC adaptations, will not be surprised to learn that Thomas Cromwell, who sat in the Star Chamber court, was particularly concerned with any visible instances of non-compliance; the court's records include prosecutions for subjects for shipping all manner of goods -- barley, corn, beer, and other grains -- "contrary to proclamation."

And yet, from the King and Cromwell's perspective, it apparently seemed that the enforcement mechanism of these proclamations was not as robust as was needed, since in 1539 they drafted, and Parliament passed, the "Proclamation by the Crown" act -- giving the King's edicts the same force as if they had been Parliamentary statutes. Blackstone, in his Commentaries, called it ""a statute, which was calculated to introduce the most despotic tyranny; and which must have proved fatal to the liberties of this kingdom, had it not been luckily repealed." This repeal did not, of course, prevent proclamations from being issued; my three-volume set of Tudor Royal Proclamations goes up through a proclamation of 1553,  the final year of Edward VI's brief reign, which was promulgated on June 28th; a week later, Edward was dead. The proclamation permitted merchants to carry £4 out of the realm.