[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Closely connected to the OWR was The Royalist, a Legitimist magazinethat was funded by Jenner and edited, for a while, by Duncombe-Jewell.In 1899, thethree men Ashburnham, Jenner and Duncombe-Jewell were also implicated in afoiled plot to smuggle a large cache of firearms into Spain, where they were to be storedat the residence of Dom Miguel, the Portuguese Legitimist claimant, near St Jean deLuz, close to the French border, for use in a long-planned coup d état in the name ofDon Carlos VII, the Spanish Legitimist claimant (Lowenna 2004).The gunrunningvessel [the yacht, Firefly, owned by Ashburnham] was intercepted and forced into theport of Arcachon, where its crew led by Vincent English, Vice-Chairman of theThames Valley Legitimist Club was detained and its cargo was confiscated.Fortunately for the crew and their employers, another member of the OWR E.R.Crump, a solicitor successfully carried out his brief to obscure any documentaryevidence of Ashburnham s role, and to address the international legalities necessary tohave Firefly and her crew released from arrest, on payment of a substantial fine(Lowenna 2004: 67).Jenner s involvement in Legitimist politics did not go unnoticed, though.The OWRshared in the organisation of the first, at least, of a series of historical exhibitions at theNew Gallery on Regent Street, in London, between 1889 and 1902.This first exhibitionwas the Stuart Exhibition, followed by, among others, the Tudor, the Victorian and theMonarchy of Great Britain and Ireland Exhibitions.Derek Williams (2004: 94) quotesfrom an account of Jenner s being presented to Queen Victoria, in company with otherpromoters of the Stuart Exhibition, whereupon she at once turned her back on him,saying curtly: I have heard of Mr Jenner . But Jenner was not alone, neither in hisinterest in church history nor in his support for the Legitimist cause, among the Celtic-Cornish Revivalists following his retirement to Cornwall, ten years later.For ThurstanCollins Peter (1900: 173), another founder member of the Celtic-Cornish Society and apresident of both the RIC and the RCPS, there was no branch of history that betterrepaid study than that of the Church, which in all ages of our country has representedwhat is highest and best in our national character. Peter was born in Redruth in 1854,the third son of John Luke Peter, a solicitor.Educated at Sherborne School, he returned95 to Cornwall and joined his father s business as a partner.A postcard to Jenner fromPeter, written in 1913, reads: The Stuarts were better far better than the Georgeswho were merely vulgar horrors.It is lovely nowadays to meet a man who thinks a kinghas any more rights than a mere man! 6Elsewhere, Peter and two fellow RIC members used strongly vivid language tocomment favourably upon the Anglican revival of a more Catholic visual culture: Our ancestors did not hesitate to add to the beauty of form the warmth ofcolour.Our mediaeval churches glowed with colour the walls covered withpaintings; the roofs and screens bright with scarlet and white and gold; richlywrought hangings; tombs adorned with polychrome; and windows filled withrichly coloured glass; brought the building to one harmonious whole, whichsuited better our northern climate, than the cold bare church so much invogue until almost the present time, although, fortunately, we are nowgradually returning to an appreciation of the use of decorative colour (Enys,Peter and Michell Whitley 1902: 136).If the Celtic-Cornish Revivalist subject emerged through the sacramental body, thensome importance was attached to practices that worked through the eye: not thedisembodied eye, however, but the embodied and reverent eye through which the church as a building, and as a body could sustain divine warmth and harmony.4.2.3 Being Correctly Mystical: Anglo-Catholicism, the Cornish Languageand the Moral Geographies of AntiquarianismThe co-production of Celtic-Cornish Revivalism and Anglicanism also took placethrough the spaces of the nineteenth century Cornish natural history and antiquariansocieties.The Royal Geological Society of Cornwall [RGSC] was founded in Penzancein 1814, the RIC was founded in Truro in 1918, and the RCPS was founded in Falmouthin 1833.These earlier nineteenth century scientific institutions marked out moraladvancement more as a fortunate by-product of institutional innovation (Naylor 2002).6Peter, T.C.(1913) unpublished postcard to H.Jenner, 19 November, in Jenner Collection (Courtney96 They were utilitarian rather than philosophical in outlook, being particularly interestedin the applied sciences [especially where applied to the development of the region smining, engineering and agricultural industries], the promotion of scientific andmechanical inventions and improvements and, in the case of the latter, the education ofthe Cornish miner (Naylor 2002) Furthermore, although most of these societiesordinary members were of the middle classes, they were patronised and led by locallanded gentry.Later institutions the Royal Horticultural Society of Cornwall [foundedin Truro in 1833] and the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society [PNHAS;founded in Penzance in 1839] began to challenge this prevailing utilitarian spirit,promoting science as a recreational activity rather than as a utilitarian aid to workinglife, and moral advancement as an important guiding principle (Naylor 2002).Most ofthe more prominent members of the PNHAS which, unlike the various Royalsocieties, lacked the support of the local landed gentry were of the upper middle class,working in medicine, law, politics, local administration or the Church.Naylor (2002) identifies two main ways in which nineteenth century Cornish naturalhistory and antiquarianism diverged from their eighteenth century predecessors
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]