PEOPLE AND THINGS
By HAROLD NICOLSON
OF Parliamentary boroughs, Coventry is one of the most interesting and attractive. I have myself always disbelieved in the legend of Godgyfu or Godiva,- since it has seemed to me psychologically unconvincing. Had Earl Leofric really been such a beast as to expose his wife to humiliation and the risk of pneumonia, he would not, once her famous ride had been accomplished, have remitted the taxes upon the Coventry burghers. Moreover, the " Peeping Tom " of Hertford Street is regarded by experts as an image, not of the prying tailor, but of our patron saint, St. George of Cappadocia. The Godiva legend appears to me to be based, as is the Covenant of the League of Nations, upon a psychological fallacy. It assumes a state of mind, which, if it existed, would have rendered both Godgyfu's ride and the Covenant unnecessary.
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