SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 67

Report by John Clarke A prize was offered for a description of the closing stages In the trials of one of the following—Mary Queen of Scots ; Charles I Guy Fawkes ; Captain Kidd ; Oscar Wilde—written in the manner of those newspaper columns which daily present vignettes of pro- ceedings in London police courts.

One thing is abundantly clear. The writers of those columns upon which this competition was based are unlikely to suffer from a surfeit of flattery, or at any rate from that form of the com- modity which springs from faithful imitation. Most competitors chose their own line across country and, having done that, they galloped off on it, paying only the scantest attention to the rules and red flags that marked out the course. Reading the entries, I felt at times as a point-to-point judge might, who, expecting runners to approach the winning-post by way of the finishing

straight, found some coming in via the car-park, and others thundering past from somewhere behind–the farmers' luncheon marquee. It was not, of course, easy, in so few words (the column-writers are allowed 600-800 words for their purposes) to get to grips with even the closing stages of the trials. But I had hoped that competi- tors might turn this limit to their advantage by seizing upon some single facet of the trial, concentrating upon that and sketching in the verdict, the outcome of the whole business, almost incidentally. Some, instead, wrote straight reports and one (D. I. Beaumanoir- Hart) treated the trial of Mary Queen of Scots in the breathless manner of the news-magazines — " At Fotheringay Castle, Northants, debonair ex-court favourite Tony Babington was

cited.. . ."

King Charles was the favourite subject, and those who wrote about him, royalists to a man, made no bones, most of them, about their bias, for which they had to be faulted. I liked the touch of Valerie Ranzetta, though, who wrote: " I was glad when the court missionary arranged with the ushers to have a hackney closed chair brought for the King's convenience " (at the end of the trial and of her story). Simplicity of language is a virtue in such columns—the writer of one was rapped roundly on the knuckles once by a reader for using " meticulous " and " palpably " in the same article—and this went against E. Bedwell, whose amusing entry on Guy Fawkes contained " troglodytic vigils " and a " purloined " box of matches, as it did against E. Willis (on Mary) with " eloquence in invective impinged on the auditory organs." Nearest to the models set, I thought, were two King's men—Roger Till and Edward Blishen—whose entries I marked at £2 each, leaving the other £1 for the pleasantly " atmospheric " entry on Captain Kidd by R. B. Browning. The first two are printed below:—

PRIZES (ROGER TILL) You could never have mistaken the man in the dock for the man in the street. You could never have supposed this unruffled man of the elegant ruffles to be Mr. Tom, Dick or Harry Stuart. instead, you might have taken him for the producer of a pageant—Festival impresario—calmly looking at his cast and their trappings just before the rise of the curtain. " Quite an impressive tableau, ladies and gentlemen," he seemed to be saying with icy politeness as he fanned the foggy air of Westminster Hall with his lace kerchief (marked "C. R."). "You think you are enacting a tragedy, but in truth it is a comedy, not to say a_farce. Actors you may

be, yet you are but amateurs."

His words, though unspoken, stung his listeners like a knife. Lord President Bradshaw, scowling like an angry bull, dipped his pen in gall and passed a note to his deputy ; the tame falcon on the Chief Secretary's shoulder chortled gleefully ; and the still foggy air was pierced by an upper-class female voice crying "Oliver Cromwell is a traitor!"—an outburst that caused even the fly to leave the wart on the nose of that iron-faced man from East Anglia.

No wonder the Lord President yelled to the prisoner, "Sir, you have not owned us as a court, and you look upon us as a sort of people met together. . ." Prisoner's reply was inaudible from the Press Gallery.

As reported in another column, the death sentence was pronoune.ed soon afterwards. As it happened, prisoner was the King of England--the producer who knew how to handle crowd scenes but whose stage villains were too much for him. He was on trial for treason. It is understood that the theatres will soon be closed altogether.

(EDWARD. BusuLN)

Mr. Bradshaw, president of the special court in Westminster Hall, coughed uncertainly and looked across at Charles.

Perhaps he was thinking that it is not often that men like Charles are seen in the duck. That elegant beard, that narrow, aristocratio face ; where, Mr. Bradshaw seemed to be wondering. would be a suitable milieu for this unusual prisoner? Some lofty salon, some bright ballroom?

As a matter of fact, the right place for Charles was a palace. For

Charles was a king. But something had gone wrong ; the willowy, immaculate Charles had committed something that was called High Treason ; and there, fiddling with the lace on his sleeve, he was listening to a sentence of death being read by the clerk of the court.

"I desire your leave to reply," said Charles. His voice was the voice of the brocaded room, the lofty audience chamber. It was out of place there, in the sombre court.

Mr. Bradshaw seemed to think so, because his cough became more uncertain. He blinked and then gestured to the guards who stood about the dock. Charles, Mr. Bradshaw pCrhaps was deciding, would be better out of sight. For kings have a habit of command. And Charles was a very kingly figure.

So Mr. Bradshaw's usually mild tones became thunderous. " Guard, withdraw your prisoner!" he boomed.

As it disappeared from the court, the dapper figure of Charles still suggested scented ceremony rather than criminal proceedings. But his last words, as the guards closed about him, were not the velvety politeness of a high society occasion. " I am not suffered to speak," ho cried. " Expect what justice other people will have."

Mr. Bradshaw coughed uncertainly—twice.