CAVALIER TREATMENT
SK—Without in any way wishing to appear to de- fend Sir Charles Petrie may I be allowed to complain at the Old Testament treatment meted out to him, and the Stuarts, by your reviewer Christopher Hill, whose comments, incidentally, I usually read with respect and interest. Apart from the fact that 1 shall almost certainly not now purchase the book under review, it apparently being biased beyond redemp- tion, I must point out that Mr. Hill seems to suffer from nearly all the faults he. finds in Sir Charles Petrie's work. Would it not have, been better to have left out, for instance, the word 'presumed,' in the following extract, `Charles l's presumed marital fidelity'? This form of unpleasant innuendo, probably quite unjustified, hardly suggests any great, impar- tiality or significant reading of history. Then there is the line : `of men [the Stuarts] who made them- selves. so hated that they were deprived of it [the Crown].' Is this true? Is this the reason they were deprived of the Crown? I have never heard it before. In fact, while all the world, except a, few most enthusiastic souls, admits that the Stuarts were, like cavaliers, `wrong but romantic,' they also admit that the Stuarts invoked more misguided loyalty and devotion than any other single race of kings, here or on the Continent, and that Charles II, admittedly for dubious reasons, was the most popular. King in British history. I do not think that hate came into it very much; politics, yes, but malicious hate, as displayed by your reviewer, is surely wrong, at least so far as the bulk of the people were concerned.— Yours faithfully,
HUBERT FENWICK
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