All posts tagged Gertrude

Blandings Castle and Elsewhere by P.G. Wodehouse

Presently, the cow’s audience-appeal began to wane. It was a fine cow, as cows go, but, like so many cows, it lacked sustained dramatic interest.

Lord Emsworth had one of those minds capable of accommodating but one thought at a time – if that.

It seemed to Lord Emsworth that there was a frightful amount of conversation going on. He had the sensation of having become a mere bit of flotsam upon a tossing sea of female voices.

‘Glug!’’ said Lord Emsworth—which, as any philologist will tell you, is the sound which peers of the realm make when stricken to the soul while drinking coffee.

P.G. Wodehouse wrote 10 comic short stories about Blandings Castle and its inhabitants. Six are collected in the 1934 collection ‘Blandings Castle and Elsewhere’ which I picked up in a second-hand shop. I should note that although the stories were first published in the 1920s, Wodehouse reviewed and rewrote them all for book publication in 1934. This explains why the pumpkin story, for example, although originally published in 1924, has references to President Roosevelt’s New Deal which only began to be implemented in 1933. In rewriting them, you also suspect that Wodehouse smoothed the plots and rounded the phrasing which both feel very slick and finished.

1. The Custody of the Pumpkin (1924)

It is summer at Blandings Castle. Lord Emsworth is obsessed with all aspects of his garden. For the purposes of this story he is obsessed with winning Best Pumpkin at the annual Shrewsbury Show. He’s won prizes for roses, tulips and spring onions but never for a pumpkin which is why this year he’s paying so much attention to the pumpkins and constantly bothering his bad-tempered Scottish head gardener, Angus McAllister, about them.

However Lord Emsworth’s campaign is torpedoed when he spies his useless son, (The Honourable) Freddie Threepwood kissing a strange young woman in the grounds. When he confronts him, Freddie admits that she is Niagara ‘Aggie’ Donaldson, a cousin of McAllister’s. So Lord Emsworth goes to see McAllister, ascertains that Aggie is indeed a cousin, and demands he send her away. McAllister refuses and so Lord Emsworth sacks him on the spot, promoting his deputy, Robert Barker, to become head gardener.

Only problem is Barker isn’t as good. After only a week Lord Emsworth is regretting his hasty decision and telegrams McAllister asking him to return. When McAllister huffily refuses, Lord Emsworth goes up to London to interview possible replacements. Here he is surprised to bump into useless Freddie, who he didn’t even know was in town, who amazes him by announcing that he’s just got married to Aggie this morning! (In fact Freddie is so afraid of his Dad, that he hands him a letter then legs it, rather than announce the fact to his face.)

Distraught, Lord Emsworth takes a cab to nearby Kensington Gardens. Here he is transported by the beauty of the flowerbeds, so transported that he absent-mindedly steps over the little railing and starts plucking tulips. Unfortunately the park keeper is nearby, spots him and subjects him to a lengthy harangue. This is still going on when a police constable arrives. Wodehouse’s characterisation of officers of the law is always particularly funny.

‘Wot’s all this?’
The Force had materialized in the shape of a large, solid constable.
The park-keeper seemed to understand that he had been superseded. He still spoke, but no longer like a father rebuking an erring son. His attitude now was more that of an elder brother appealing for justice against a delinquent junior. In a moving passage he stated his case.
”E Says,’ observed the constable judicially, speaking slowly and in capitals, as if addressing an untutored foreigner, ‘E Says You Was Pickin’ The Flowers.’
‘I saw ‘im. I was standin’ as close as I am to you.’
‘E Saw You,’ interpreted the constable. “E Was Standing At Your Side.’

At this tricky moment who should emerge from the gathering crowd than his former head gardener, McAllister and another man. McAllister assures the constable that Lord Emsworth is in fact an earl, at which point the constable exonerates him and focuses on moving the crowd along. The man with McAllister introduces himself as Mr Donaldson, father of the Aggie who Frederick announced he married that morning!

This Donaldson explains he is owner of Donaldson’s Dog-Biscuits and only worth, as he breezily admits, ten million dollars or so! Not only this, but he proposes to Lord Emsworth that he sends young Freddie across to the States to be employed by the firm, learn the ropes, and become a useful businessman! He’s shipping out on a liner in a few days. Lord Emsworth is staggered but delighted that his layabout son is finally off his hands and will be someone else’s problem.

The last wrinkle to be ironed out is getting McAllister back. Lord Emsworth goes over to where the grim Scotsman is admiring a border and begs and pleads, and offers to double his salary, at which the Scotsman grudgingly consents.

It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.

And cut to the Shrewsbury Agricultural Show where Lord Emsworth does, indeed, win first prize for his pumpkin, and is brusquely congratulated by his great rival Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, of Matchingham Hall.

2. Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best (1926)

Eighteen months have passed since the pumpkin adventure and Freddie went off to the States. Lord Emsworth has grown a beard and his butler, Beach, is so disgusted that he tells the housekeeper, Mrs Twemlow, that he’s ready to resign over it.

But the main point of the story is that, to Lord Emsworth’s irritation, Freddie has returned from America. He meets Lord Emsworth in London, in the Senior Conservative Club, and astonishes him by telling him his wife has left him! Freddie is a big movie fan and alongside his work at Donaldson’s Dog Biscuits he had been writing a film scenario. A famous woman movie star moved to the neighbourhood and Freddie started seeing her with the hope of getting her support. But a friend of his wife spotted them eating out and snitched on him. The wife (Aggie) knowing nothing about this (Freddie had been keeping it as a surprise) thinks the worse and came back to London, whither Freddie has followed, pleading for her to come back. She is staying at the Savoy Hotel and Freddie asks if his Dad can intervene:

‘Me? What on earth do you expect me to do?’
‘Why, go to her and plead with her. They do it in the movies. I’ve seen thousands of pictures where the white-haired old father⁠—’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Lord Emsworth,

When Lord Emsworth refuses to even phone her (Aggie) Freddie storms off.

Freddie rose with a set face. He looked like a sheep that has had bad news.

However, Lord Emsworth has a troubled night worrying if he behaved correctly and so next day goes along to Aggie’s suite of rooms at the Savoy. He decides not to announce himself at reception in case that puts her off and takes the lift to her floor. Finding the door of her rooms open, he calls then goes in but hasn’t got far before he is attacked by a tiny dog. Terrified of small does, Lord Emsworth leaps though into the bedroom where he is overheard. Next thing he knows a stocky woman has come out of the bathroom holding a pistol and accusing him of being a thief.

This is Aggie’s tough American friend, Jane Yorke, the same one who ratted Freddie out over the movie star.

About this young woman there were many points which would have found little favour in the eyes of a critic of feminine charm. She was too short, too square, and too solid. She had a much too determined chin. And her hair was of an unpleasing gingery hue. But the thing Lord Emsworth liked least about her was the pistol she was pointing at his head.

Seconds later Aggie emerges in her dressing gown. Lord Emsworth pleads his innocence but both women are sceptical. The scene descends into farce when Freddie arrives dressed up in a white fake beard. He was intending to impersonate his father and plead on his behalf but the two women immediately see through his disguise.

First of all Freddie explains to his hesitating wife what he was really doing at dinner with a film star i.e. not having an affair with her but schmoozing her for business. But Freddie has an ace up his sleeve. He pulls out a telegram from the Super-Ultra-Art Film Company, offering him a thousand dollars for the scenario!

Case closed. Aggie accepts him back and tells her divisive friend Jane to push off. Freddie takes Aggie in her arms. He gives her a detailed summary of his movie screenplay until they both realise they’d better set about reviving Lord Emsworth who is standing there completely bewildered.

The one thing he’s taken from this melodramatic chain of events is that anyone could have mistaken him for Freddie’s disguise with a great long white beard. He’s so horrified that he goes to the Savoy barbers and gets it shaved off straight away.

Cut to back at Blandings, where Lord Emsworth was gratified by the warm reception he got from Beach (not realising how relieved Beach was that Lord Emsworth had shaved off his beard). And the story ends with a comic tying up of loose ends as Lord Emsworth asks Beach to telephone the Savoy suite where his son is now happily ensconced with Aggie, to ask his son how his movie screenplay ended.

3. Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey (1927)

Two storylines collide. With only ten days until the annual Agricultural Show, Lord Emsworth’s pig-man George Wellbeloved is arrested for being drunk and disorderly on his birthday and jailed for 14 days. In his absence, Lord Emsworth’s prize pig, the Empress of Blandings, goes off her food and sickens, throwing her owner into a crisis,

This coincides with a crisis in the world of human relationships when his niece, Angela, breaks off her engagement with the eminently suitable Lord Heacham in preference for the local curate’s son and ‘hopeless ne’er-do-well’ James ‘Jimmy’ Belford. Lord Emsworth’s imperious sister, Lady Constance, roundly disapproves of him and thinks he is only after Angela’s money, which she will inherit when she turns 25 (she is currently 21).

So Lady Constance orders Lord Emsworth to catch the 2pm train to London to meet this fellow Belford and warn him that he won’t get his hands on the money for 4 long years, in the hope that he is a simple gold-digger and this will put him off.

Thus it is that next day Lord Emsworth finds himself hosting Belford to lunch at his club, the Senior Conservatives Club. He is struggling to broach the subject of the money and the marriage when Belford reveals that he has for the past two years been working very hard on ‘on a farm in Nebraska belonging to an applejack-nourished patriarch with strong views on work and a good vocabulary’ and so knows a thing or two about pigs.

Lord Emsworth sits up as Belford quickly ascertains that his pig-man has been imprisoned and speculates that the Empress of Blandings responds to the pig-man’s daily call for food. With him locked up, the pigs is missing his afternoon call. Belford goes on at some length to explain that in America pig calls vary from state to state and farm to farm. BUT he had it direct from one of America’s greatest pig farmers that there is a Master Call, none other than the ‘Pig-hoo-0-o-ey!’ which gives the story its title.

Hugely excited, Lord Emsworth thanks the young man, winds up the lunch and legs it for the 2 o’clock train back to Market Blandings. However Lord Emsworth without fail falls asleep on the westbound train and as it pulled into the station and he awoke he realised he had forgotten the pig call.

That evening his sister lets him know she considers him an utter imbecile. Not only was it unnecessary to invite Belford to his club for lunch, but he didn’t even get round to making the cardinal point that the man could not expect to get his grubby hands on Angela’s fortune for another four years, because of some ridiculous panic about a pig!

To escape her chiding, Lord Emsworth wanders out into the garden where he bumps into the fragrant Angela who is exasperated that he can remember nothing about his conversation with her beloved Belfort, instead all he goes on about is pigs. Emsworth tells her that her fiancé was kind enough to explain the importance of pig calls and that if he could only remember it, and if it helps the Empress feed again, he will do anything for her.

‘My dear,’ said Lord Emsworth earnestly, ‘if through young Belford’s instrumentality Empress of Blandings is induced to take nourishment once more, there is nothing I will refuse him—nothing.’

Angela says she’ll hold him to his promise. Then, as he’s standing there, straining to remember the forgotten pig call, a gramophone starts up in the servants quarters, and the first tune to play has the lyric ‘WHO stole my heart away? WHO?’ and with a flash Emsworth remembers – ‘Pig-hoo-0-o-ey!’

When Beach sticks his head out of the quarters to ask who’s making that noise, Lord Emsworth asks him over to practice the call too. Only the pleading of lovely Angela makes him agree but she makes then obvious suggestion that both men practice the call beside the Empress’s stye. There then follows the comic scene of the operatic trio of Emsworth, Angela and Beach all singing out the cry. The Empress stirs but doesn’t go for the huge pile of food in her trough.

Until Jimmy appears out of the gloom. He’s staying with his father at the local vicarage and thought he’d stroll over. Lord Emsworth accuses him of lying to him so Jimmy asks to hear his cry and, when he does, shakes his head. No no no, that’s not how you do it and he now tells them how:

‘It is doubtful if an amateur could ever produce real results. You need a voice that has been trained on the open prairie and that has gathered richness and strength from competing with tornadoes. You need a manly, sunburned, wind-scorched voice with a suggestion in it of the crackling of corn husks and the whisper of evening breezes in the fodder. Like this!’

And Jimmy proceeds to bellow the cry and then all four of them hear the huge pig snuffle over to her trough and start feeding. Success!

Company for Gertrude

There are, as so often, two parallel storylines.

We thought that Freddie had returned from America to England to retrieve his errant wife. Now we learn he was also sent by his employer, Mr Donaldson of Donaldson’s Dog Biscuits, to promote them here. He’s just spent an hour trying to flog them to his Aunt Georgiana, Lady Alcester, when he emerges into the street and bumps into an old Oxford pal, Beefy Bingham. He’s surprised to learn that Beefy is now a vicar but even more surprised to learn he’s desperately in love with Aunt Georgiana’s daughter, Gertrude, but the family disapprove and have packed Gertrude off to Freddie’s family seat, Blandings Castle. Freddie has a brainwave which, as usual, derives from a movie the film addict has recently seen. In it an impoverished man in love with the landowner’s daughter puts on a disguise, goes on a visit to their house and makes him indispensable and universally popular, so that they let him marry their daughter and, at the wedding, he rips off his disguise and reveals it was him all along. That’s what Beefy has to do.

Meanwhile in storyline 2, Lord Emsworth is bitterly brooding because his top pig-man, George Cyril Wellbeloved, has handed in his notice. Lord Em thought he wanted to see a different part of the country but no, turns out he’s gone to work for Lord Em’s bitter rival, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall.

George Cyril Wellbeloved had sold himself for gold, and Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, hitherto looked upon as a high-minded friend and fellow Justice of the Peace, stood revealed as that lowest of created things, a lurer-away of other people’s pig-men!

At this moment he gets a phone call from Freddie who tells him he’s sending a pal of his down to stay. Initially Lord Em is cross but Freddie adds the bright thought that his pal will be company for Gertrude and Lord Em brightens up, because this niece Gertrude has been hanging round the place looking like a wet Sunday, spreading gloom everywhere. Maybe a young chap will be just the ticket to cheer her up.

And indeed as soon as the young fellow arrives and Gertrude sees him, they both burst into peals of laughter and are thereafter inseparable, which dim Lord Emsworth thinks is wonderful. However this happy state of affairs does not last. Rupert (Beefy) is as solicitous as he can possibly be but he begins to crowd Lord Emsworth with his constant helping him in and out of chairs and up and down stairs. He’s also clumsy, and a series of trivial accidents leads up to Rupert rushing to the assistance of Lord Ems up a step-ladder which causes it to fold up and Lord Ems to have a painful fall.

Rupert thinks he then does well by going into town to buy an ointment for Lord Ems’ sore ankle and leaving it as a thoughtful gift by his bed. But he failed to notice that it’s an ointment for horses and so in the middle of the night Lord Ems awakens from a dream of being burned at the stake by Red Indians to find his ankle screaming in agony.

When he realises the cause of the searing pain he washes his ankle under the cold tap. Next morning he goes for a swim in the lake. Floating on his back in his idyllic rural surroundings, Lord Ems is prompted to burst into song. Unfortunately Rupert is also up early, hiding in the rhododendrons to meet his lady love, when he hears his lordship in apparent distress. He rushes to the lakeside, throws off his clothes, plunges in and next thing Lord Ems knows he’s being seized by strong arms.

This really is the limit! Will this young man never let him alone? Lord Ems snaps and tries to punch Rupert who realises he is dealing with a hysterical drowner and, being an experienced swimmer, promptly knocks his lordship out with one watery blow, the better to rescue him. And the poor man thought he was just having a quiet, harmless bathe. Oops.

Later on, back in bed and having recovered consciousness, Lord Ems is pondering which man he hates more, this ghastly young tough or his arch-enemy Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe. It’s at this moment that his son, Freddie, pays him a visit and comes to the point, explaining that the man he’s been hosting is his buddy Beefy Bingham, the man Aunt Georgiana sent Gertrude to Blandings to escape, and couldn’t he (Lord Ems) just do the decent thing and let them get married. Because, he goes on to explain, Beefy is a vicar and Lord Ems has many Church of England livings in his gift and so all he has to do is give Beefy a living and then he’ll have the income to support fair Gertrude.

And then he goes on to tie the two storylines together by remarking that he’s heard there’s a living just become vacant in the next village, Much Matchingham, because the vicar has been told to go to the south of France by his doctor. Much Matchingham!

Suddenly Lord Ems has a brainwave. Much Matchingham is the village next to the house of his arch-enemy, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall! If he awards the now-vacant living to the ghastly young man who’s been plaguing him… he will start plaguing Sir Gregory! What greater punishment could there be! So he tells Freddie he will indeed give Beefy the living. Everyone is happy.

The Go-getter (1931)

As usual, two intertwining storylines. In the first one Freddie is still trying to flog his father-in-law’s dog food to his Aunt Georgiana. If he can achieve this he’ll be well on his way to becoming the sort of go-getter which his American father law admires, and hands out bonuses to. In the second one, Aunt Georgiana is distracted by worries about her daughter Gertrude.

Engaged to the Rev. Rupert Bingham, Gertrude seemed to her of late to have become infatuated with Orlo Watkins, the Crooning Tenor, one of those gifted young men whom Lady Constance Keeble, the chatelaine of Blandings, was so fond of inviting down for lengthy visits in the  summertime.

Aunt Georgiana had completely changed her opinion of Beefy when she learned that he was the nephew and heir of a rich shipping magnate, but now the match seems to be in danger because she spends all her time with this damn crooner.

Now, everybody knows what Crooning Tenors are. Dangerous devils. They sit at the piano and gaze into a girl’s eyes and sing in a voice that sounds like gas escaping from a pipe about Love and the Moonlight and You: and, before you know where you are, the girl has scrapped the deserving young clergyman with prospects to whom she is affianced and is off and away with a man whose only means of livelihood consist of intermittent engagements with the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Freddie goes to see Beefy at his vicarage who hands him a letter from Gertrude which appears to be dumping him or ‘giving him the bird’, or the raspberry, or ‘handing him the mitten’, as these posh chaps put it. All because of some bloody singer, or ‘yowler’, as they call him.

‘You think Gertrude’s in love with Watkins?’
‘I do. And I’ll tell you why. He’s a yowler, and girls always fall for yowlers. They have a glamour.’

Back at the Castle, Aunt Georgiana tells Freddie he needs to do something about the situation. Freddie finds Gertrude dreamily playing the piano but his arguments in favour of Beefy have no effect. He says he has a plan and later that evening, after dinner, when everyone is sitting quietly about their hobbies, he comes into the drawing room with a sack and the dog Bottles. He announces to the assembled company that he is going to demonstrate how fabulous Donaldson’s Dog Biscuits are with the example of Bottles who’s been raised on them, puppy and dog. The sack is full of rats, he’s going to release them and they can all see how effectively Bottles chases them.

However, he’s barely mentioned rats before the womenfolk start screaming and Lord Emsworth shouts for Beach who, when he arrives, is tasked with taking the sack off Freddie and disposing of it. So in terms of making a big demo of Donaldson’s Dog Biscuits, it’s a washout. But it does have one side effect which is, at the mention of rats, the crooner Watkyns had taken cover behind Gertrude like a coward. Gertrude notices this and compares him with manly Beefy who, on one occasion, fought off a bat which dive bombed them when they were on an evening walk. In other words, Beefy is a real man.

Deprived of his rats, Freddie exits to pop along to the cinema (as is his wont), but he forgets about Bottles. Bottles gets into a ferocious fight with Lady Georgiana’s Airedale. It’s a big fight but the notable thing about it is that the crooner Watkyns is even more cowardly and climbs up onto a cabinet of China. From here young Gertrude has a perfect view of his feet of clay. And this is the moment when good old Beefy enters the drawing room. Without hesitating he seizes both dogs by the scruff of the neck and pulls them apart, looking like a Greek god. ‘Rupert!’ cries Gertrude… and the engagement is back on again 🙂

Much later that night, in a comic conclusion, Lady Georgiana knocks on Freddie’s door. He is expecting to be excoriated for triggering the dog fight. but instead her ladyship is delighted that her daughter is reaffianced to the right man and (probably mistakenly) convinced that Freddie planned it all along. She enquires about the wretched dog biscuits he’s been trying to flog her for weeks and, when he starts in on his old sales pitch saying they come in either one-and-threepenny or half-crown packets, made me laugh out loud when she declares she will take two tons.

Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend

As usual, two storylines. In one it’s the August Bank Holiday when a fair invades the peaceful grounds of Blandings Castle along with hordes of the peasantry from the local village, Blandings Parva. Lord Emsworth has to dress formally, with a top hat, and make a speech. He hates it. At breakfast:

He drank coffee with the air of a man who regretted that it was not hemlock.

In the other storyline, he is having a bitter disagreement with his head gardener, McAllister, about the yew path. Lord Ems wants it to remain a green and mossy path, whereas McAllister, backed up by Lady Constance, wants it turned into a gravel walk, to Lord Ems’s horror! Hence some painful encounters.

Lord Emsworth, wincing, surveyed the man unpleasantly through his pince-nez. Though not often given to theological speculation, he was wondering why Providence, if obliged to make head-gardeners, had found it necessary to make them so Scotch. In the case of Angus McAllister, why, going a step farther, have made him a human being at all? All the ingredients of a first-class mule simply thrown away.

Having stated the thesis and antithesis, Wodehouse then moves to the synthesis. This is that Lord Emsworth makes friends with a Cockney girl of 12 or 13, whose confident inspires and liberates him.

One of his chores of the day is to judge the floral displays in the cottage gardens of the little village of Blandings Parva, at his gates. Entering the last of these, he suddenly finds himself assailed by a yapping dog, one of Lord Ems’s worst fears. He is, then, hugely relieved when a dirty-looking young girl emerges from the cottage door and calls the dog to heel. He likes her already.

This is a rare incursion of a working class character of any description into a Wodehouse text, so it’s worth quoting.

She was the type of girl you see in back streets carrying a baby nearly as large as herself and still retaining sufficient energy to lead one little brother by the hand and shout recrimination at another in the distance.

Turns out she doesn’t live in the cottage, she’s a guest down from London, which explains her hard-bitten appearance and attitude. She introduces herself as Gladys, and the urchin she’s looking after as ‘Ern, ‘a rather hard-boiled specimen with freckles’. He’s holding a bouquet which he hands to Lord Ems. When Gladys announces that she pinched them from the park, and was chased by an old ‘josser’ but threw a stone at him which ‘copped hi’ on the shin – you’d have expected Lord Ems to be furious, but he realises who she hit on the leg was his nemesis, McAllister, so Lord Ems is thrilled, which leads to his wonderfully ironic thought:

What nonsense, Lord Emsworth felt, the papers talked about the Modern Girl. If this was a specimen, the Modern Girl was the highest point the sex had yet reached.

Having said goodbye, Lord Ems returns to the park and bumps into his sister, Lady Constance, who warns him against a little girl staying in the village who she had had to tell off. Lord Ems realises this is Gladys and bridles: if McAllister and Constance are against her, then she must be a good thing!

The day grinds on, reaching a peak of discomfort when he has to attend the big formal tea in a marquee. It’s blisteringly hot, his collar is sweat-soaked, the rough kids down from London are mocking the curate’s squint and when someone throws a rock cake which knocks his top hat off, he’s had enough and leaves.

Feeling like some aristocrat of the old régime sneaking away from the tumbril, Lord Emsworth edged to the exit and withdrew.

The only place he can think of hiding is a shed down by the pond but he’s barely closed the door than he hears a sniff and realises someone else is there. Turns out to be Gladys who has been sent there as a punishment by Lady Constance for stealing ‘Two buns, two jem-sengwiches, two apples and a slicer cake’. When he discovers she had pinched them in order to take them back to her brother, ‘Ern, who had been forbidden to even come to the Fair, by Lady Constance. Yet again she is being domineering and Lord Emsworth’s dander rises. So when he learns the specific fact that ‘Ern was banned because he bit Lady Constance Lord Emsworth is delighted.

Lord Emsworth breathed heavily. He had not supposed that in these degenerate days a family like this existed. The sister copped Angus McAllister on the skin with stones, the brother bit Constance in the leg… It was like listening to some grand old saga of the exploits of heroes and demigods.

This is all very funny. His dander up, Lord Emsworth insists on accompanying Gladys up to the Castle where he wakes Beach the butler from his afternoon snooze and instructs him to load Gladys up with a cornucopia of food, sandwiches and cakes, but also chicken, ham and – with comic inappropriateness – a bottle of port.

‘Nothing special, you understand,’ [Lord Emsworth] added apologetically, ‘but quite drink- able. I should like your brother’s opinion of it.’

But when she adds that her brother would like some ‘flarze’ (i.e. flowers) Lord Emsworth is initially worried about upsetting his fierce head gardener, but then has a Eureka moment. Hang on! Why is he scared of his own head gardener. He’s the earl, he’s the master here. Emboldened by Gladys’s request, Lord Emsworth accompanies her to the flower beds and gives her full permission to pick her fill.

And when McAllister spots her and comes roaring and shouting out of his shed, a terrified little Gladys slips her hand into Lord Emsworth’s and suddenly he becomes a man worthy of his ancestors. He confronts McAllister, stands up to him, defies him, says he doesn’t mind if he quits, but this poor little girl is going to pick all the flowers she wants!

On the whole McAllister likes his position here and so is cowed into silence. At which point, Lord Emsworth pushes home his advantage by emphatically insisting, once and for all, that he will not have his lovely, moss-covered yew alley turned into gravel. Over his dead body. And so McAllister, very reluctantly acquiesces, turns and departs.

At which point Lord Em’s other nemesis, his sister, arrives, crossly telling him that everyone is waiting for him to make his big speech in the marquee. But in his triumphant mood, Lord Ems insists that he will make no dashed speech. If she wants a speech given, she can give it herself!

And so, having triumphantly seen off his two arch enemies, a very happy earl walks off with Gladys, the young lady who inspired his triumphs!

Cast

  • Clarence, Ninth Earl of Emsworth – ‘a fluffy-minded and amiable old gentleman with a fondness for new toys’, ‘a dreamy and absent-minded man, unequal to the rough hurly-burly of life’ (NB: an Earl is generally addressed as Lord, so the Earl of Emsworth is more usually referred to as Lord Emsworth)
  • The Honourable (Hon.) Freddie Threepwood – 26, Lord Emsworth’s dopey second son (the younger sons of an Earl are referred to as ‘the Honourable so and so’, which Wodehouse abbreviates for comic purposes to ‘the Hon.’; this is technically correct but Wodehouse’s insistence on repeating it has a satirical effect)
  • Lady Constance Keeble – Emsworth’s sister, married to millionaire Tom Keeble
  • Angus McAllister – head-gardener – ‘a sturdy man of medium height, with eyebrows that would have fitted a bigger forehead. These, added to a red and wiry beard, gave him a formidable and uncompromising expression’
  • Beach – the butler, served Lord Emsworth for 18 years
  • Mrs Twemlow – the housekeeper
  • Niagara ‘Aggie’ Donaldson – cousin of McAllister’s
  • Mr Donaldson – her father, American, owner of Donaldson’s Dog Biscuits and a millionaire
  • Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall – neighbour and rival vegetable grower
  • Jane Yorke – tough American woman friend of Aggie’s
  • George Cyril Wellbeloved – 29, Lord Emsworth’s pig man
  • Police Constable Evans – Market Blandings copper
  • Smithers – local vet
  • Angela Lord Emsworth’s niece – 21, ‘a pretty girl, with fair hair and blue eyes which in their softer moments probably reminded all sorts of people of twin lagoons slumbering beneath a southern sky’
  • James ‘Jimmy’ Belford – curate’s son
  • Lord Heacham – James’s rival for the hand of Angela
  • The Reverend Rupert ‘Beefy’ Bingham – pal of Freddie’s at Oxford
  • Georgiania, Lady Alcester – Lord Emsworth’s other sister and so Freddie’s aunt – ‘the owner of four Pekingese, two Poms, a Yorkshire terrier, five Sealyhams, a Borzoi and an Airedale’
  • Gertrude – 23, Beefy Bingham’s love interest
  • Orlo Watkins – the Crooning Tenor

Napoleon

I’ve noticed that Wodehouse slips references to Napoleon into all his Blandings stories. I assume it’s a subliminal way of linking them.

The Custody of the Pumpkin:

Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, of Matchingham Hall, was there, of course, but it would not have escaped the notice of a close observer that his mien lacked something of the haughty arrogance which had characterized it in other years. From time to time, as he paced the tent devoted to the exhibition of vegetables, he might have been seen to bite his lip, and his eye had something of that brooding look which Napoleon’s must have worn at Waterloo.

Lord Emsworth Acts For The Best:

As a general rule, Lord Emsworth was an early and a sound sleeper, one of the few qualities which he shared with Napoleon Bonaparte being the ability to slumber the moment his head touched the pillow.

Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend:

He [McAllister] made his decision. Better to cease to be a Napoleon than be a Napoleon in exile.

The modern girl

Any unbiased judge would have said that his niece Angela, standing there in the soft, pale light, looked like some dainty spirit of the Moon. Lord Emsworth was not an unbiased judge. To him Angela merely looked like Trouble. The march of civilization has given the modern girl a vocabulary and an ability to use it which her grandmother never had. Lord Emsworth would not have minded meeting Angela’s grandmother a bit.
(Pig-hoo-0-0-O-ey!)

She reached out a clutching hand, seized his lordship’s beard in a vice-like grip, and tugged with all the force of a modern girl, trained from infancy at hockey, tennis and Swedish exercises.
(Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend)

Move fast and break things

‘Move fast and break things’ was a motto coined by Mark Zuckerberg and used in Facebook up until 2014. Young tech dudes think they’ve invented new approaches and attitudes. And yet this is really just the latest expression of the central ideology of industrial capitalism. In particular this Do It Now approach has been central to American capitalism for over a century. Which is what I thought when Lord Emsworth is hosting James Belford to lunch and is startled when the young man insists on getting straight to the point.

Diplomatic circumlocution flourished only in a more leisurely civilization, and in those energetic and forceful surroundings you learned to Talk Quick and Do It Now, and all sorts of uncomfortable things.

Plus ça change, plus American corporations proclaim the same boosterish slogans, generation after generation.

Credit

‘Blandings Castle and Elsewhere’ by P.G. Wodehouse was published in 1935 by Herbert Jenkins.

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by Simon on December 12, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by Simon on December 12, 2025

https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2025/12/12/blandings-castle-and-elsewhere-p-g-wodehouse/

Eastward Ho! by George Chapman, Ben Jonson and John Marston (1605)

Six salient facts:

1. Eastward Ho and Westward Ho were the cries of the watermen who plied on the Thames, telling customers which way they were headed.

2. Eastward Ho! was a collaboration between three leading playwrights of the era, George Chapman, Ben Jonson and John Marston. Scholars have been arguing for centuries about who wrote which bit.

3. Eastward Ho! was staged at the Blackfriars Theatre by a company of boy actors known as the Children of the Queen’s Revels, granted a patent by King James I in 1604. Boy actors! So imagine everything that follows being played by boys! All the double entendres and jokes about pricks and purses, Gertrude making eyes at Quicksilver, Sindefy the whore, all the vamping… boys.

4. Eastward Ho! was performed at the Blackfriars Theatre. This was an enclosed theatre which catered to a financial elite, charging sixpence admission, compared to 1 pence at the more popular and open-to-the-elements Globe Theatre.

5. Eastward Ho! includes references to and parodies of popular contemporary plays such as The Spanish Tragedy, Tamburlaine and Hamlet. Even the play’s title is a reference, a riposte to the recently performed Westward Ho! by Thomas Dekker and John Webster, who then went on to write Northward Ho! as a response to Eastward. Jacobean theatre was a tightly packed, highly competitive, self-referential little world.

6. The play contained scathing satire on all manner of subjects to do with contemporary London life, but one of these was the widespread animosity against the many Scots who had accompanied the new king, James VI of Scotland who became James I of England upon the death of Queen Elizabeth in March 1605, down to London. Chronically poor from the start of his reign, James quickly became notorious for selling knighthoods for £40. 900 were sold in the first year of his reign. This created a mercenary atmosphere of corruption, that all that mattered was money, a sense that you could get rich and climb the social ladder overnight by clever scams. This is the corrupt vision which lures Quicksilver, Petronel and Security, the play’s three baddies, who all hope to get rich quick by various scams – and who are balanced by Touchstone, standing for the bourgeois virtues of hard work, and Golding, who stands for loyalty and honesty.

Having read the play I’m surprised that the handful of satirical references to the Scots and the selling of knighthoods are relatively trivial, you could blink and miss them.

1. When Sir Petronel Flash is washed up on the Isle of Dogs two passing gentlemen mock him, and then one – out of tune with his preceding remarks – says something in a Scots accent:

FIRST GENTLEMAN: On the coast of Dogs, sir; y’are i’th’ Isle o’ Dogs, I tell you, I see y’ave been washed in the Thames here, and I believe ye were drowned in a tavern before, or else you would never have took boat in such a dawning as this was. Farewell, farewell; we will not know you for shaming of you. I ken the man weel; he’s one of my thirty pound knights.
SECOND GENTLEMAN: No, no, this is he that stole his knighthood o’ the grand day for four pound given to a page; all the money in’s purse, I wot well.

It’s peculiar the way this one-off remark and its odd Scottish impersonation sticks out from the text around it, as if it’s been cut and pasted onto the rest of his speech in English. It’s an oddly random moment in the text

2. In the pub, the gentlemen who are joining the expedition to Virginia ask Captain Seagull what it’s like and he sets off on a long deceitful description of how it’s overflowing with gold,m in the middle of which he suddenly segues into a passage about Scots, and the jokey idea that it would be lovely if all the Scots in London could be magically transported to America.

SCAPETHRIFT: And is it a pleasant country withal?
SEAGULL: As ever the sun shined on; temperate and full of all sorts of excellent viands: wild boar is as common there as our tamest bacon is here; venison as mutton. And then you shall live freely there, without sergeants, or courtiers, or lawyers, or intelligencers, only a few industrious Scots, perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on’t, in the world, than they are. And for my part, I would a hundred thousand of ’hem were there, for we are all one countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here.

Someone reported the playwrights to the authorities as disrespecting the new king. Marston got wind of it and went into hiding, but Jonson and Chapman were briefly imprisoned for lèse majesty.

Ten years later, Jonson told Drummond of Hawthornden (a Scots writer who he stayed with on a visit to Scotland) that they thought they might have their ears and noses slit.

It’s very difficult for us to really assimilate the casual violence and casual death of the Elizabethan/Jacobean period. Tens of thousands died of the periodic outbreaks of plague. There were plenty of other ailments to die of in between. You were liable to be conscripted for one of the endless wars. Jonson is known to have killed a fellow actor in a duel. The plays refer to the common punishment of being whipped. And here are a couple of poets in gaol for a few weeks wondering if they’ll publicly have their ears cut off or noses slit! As I say, difficult for us to really imagine what life was like.

What happened to Jonson and Chapman? The pair wrote letters to every influential patron and person they knew asking for their intercession. These letters are included as an appendix in the New Mermaid edition of the play and very interesting reading they make, too. Eventually, they were released, whereupon they threw a big banquet for their friends and supporters.

Cast

There’s quite a large cast (all played by boys!):

Touchstone, a goldsmith.
Quicksilver, and Golding, apprentices to Touchstone.
Sir Petronel Flash, a shifty knight.
Security, an old usurer.
Bramble, a lawyer.
Seagull, a sea-captain.
Scapethrift, and Spendall, adventurers bound for Virginia.
Slitgut, a butcher’s apprentice.
Poldavy, a tailor.
Holdfast, and Wolf, officers of the Counter.
Hamlet, a footman.
Potkin, a tankard-bearer.

Mistress Touchstone.
Gertrude, and Mildred, her daughters.
Winifred, wife to Security.
Sindefy, mistress to Quicksilver.
Bettrice, a waiting-woman.
Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Gazer, Coachman, Page, Constables, Prisoners, &c.

Eastward Ho! plot summary

Master Touchstone is an honest but tetchy goldsmith. He has two daughters and two apprentices. The elder daughter, Gertrude, is ‘of a proud ambition and nice wantonness’, the younger, Mildred, ‘of a modest humility and comely soberness’. So with the apprentices who are nicely paired & contrasted, Quicksilver is a graceless unthrift ‘of a boundless prodigality’, but Golding is ‘of a most hopeful industry’, a model of industry and sobriety.

Act 1 scene 1

The play opens with Touchstone and Frank Quicksilver arguing, the latter insisting he is the son of a gentleman and is off to the pub to hang out with gallants and gull them out of money. Crossly, Touchstone says that he rose by hard work and repeats his catchphrase, ‘Work upon it now!’ Touchstone exits and Golding is left alone with Quicksilver, who insults Touchstone for being a flat-capped bourgeois, swears a lot and it is in this speech that Quicksilver says Golding shouldn’t face West to the setting sun, but look out for himself and fare Eastward Ho!

As the play develops East is associated with:

  • the rising sun
  • the mythical castle in the country which Sir Petronal Flash claims to own
  • the direction down the Thames the ship to America will take

Act 1 scene 2

Proud Gertrude is impatiently awaiting the arrival of her suitor, Sir Petronel Flash, while meek and mild sister Mildred watches her dress up in pretentious finery, mock the lowly origins of her own parents, and look forward to becoming a fine lady. Her tailor, Poldavy, encourages her to prance and bob like a ‘fine lady’. She is a type of the pretentious bourgeois.

Enter Sir Petronel Flash who quickly comes over as a superficial fool. Mistress Touchstone is as keen to be rich as Gertrude and the two of them, plus Flash, make a bevy of pretentious fools. Mistress T explains that Sir Petronel is one of the new knights, a reference to James I’s innovation of selling knighthoods. Gertrude wishes him to take her away from all this to his big house in the country. She uses the affected pronunciation of city-dames, namely saying ‘chity’ and ‘chitizen’.

The pretentious threesome exit leaving the stage to Touchstone, Mildred and Golding. Rather surprisingly Touchstone marries Golding to Mildred. She is all filial loyalty and so meekly agrees, Golding swears his devotion to his master and they go in to have a little wedding meal. Touchstone, alone on stage, explains that he is running a little experiment:

This match shall on, for I intend to prove
Which thrives the best, the mean or lofty love.
Whether fit wedlock vow’d ’twixt like and like,
Or prouder hopes, which daringly o’erstrike…

There is no mention of any love or affection whatsoever between the young couple. It is a striking example of Jonson’s didactic theatre, utterly lacking either the magical romance of Shakespeare’s comedies, or the innocent mirth of Dekker’s Shoemakers’ Holiday.

Act 2 scene 1

Next morning outside Master Touchstone’s shop. He calls Quicksilver to him, who is hungover and explains he got smashed at the party to celebrate Gertrude and Sir Petronel’s wedding. He staggers off to drink some more. Touchstone retires and listens to the conversation of Golding and Mildred which is exemplary for love and devotion. At this point Quicksilver staggers back on stage, positively drunk and asks first Golding, then Touchstone if he can borrow money.

Touchstone has had enough and throws him out, giving him his indenture and all other belongings. Very drunk, Quicksilver quotes the opening speech from Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, then swears at Touchstone:

Quicksilver: Sweet Touchstone, will you lend me two shillings?
Touchstone: Not a penny.
Quicksilver: Not a penny? I have friends, and I have acquaintance; I will piss at thy shop-posts, and throw rotten eggs at thy sign.

As Quicksilver staggers offstage, Touchstone abruptly frees Golding from his apprenticeship, offers him a handsome dowry and promises to host a marriage feast even more spectacular than Petronel’s. Golding, modest and sober, demurs, saying it would be profligate and wasteful and he and Mildred will be happy to have a small ceremony with just Touchstone present, and then consume the cold leftovers from Petronel’s feast. Touchstone remarks that his daughter is now impatient to seat off Eastward to her knightly husband’s country pile.

Act 2 scene 2

At Security’s house. Security has a little soliloquy in which he introduces himself as Security, the famous usurer, who keeps people’s belongings, in this case the fine clothes of Quicksilver, who in the past has nipped in here to swap his prentice clothes for fancy togs to go meeting his gallant mates.

Enter hungover Quicksilver climbing into his swagger clothes. The notes explain the business relationship between the two: Quicksilver pretends friendship to city rakes and gallants, lends them money, then pretends to be in debt, persuades them to sign a bond for a commodity or an exorbitantly high-interest loan payable to Security, for which they are responsible. In other words, Quicksilver dupes his ‘friends’ into getting into deep debt with Security: which is why Security keeps his clothes and minds his affairs for him.

Security is married to a young woman, Winifred but has a sexy servant, Sindefy, ‘Sin’ for short, who comes bearing the rest of Quicksilver’s posh clothes. Quicksilver calls Security ‘Dad’. After lengthy speeches about how they rely on no trade, preferring to make money out of money, (which are designed, I think, to make the audience despise them) Security lays out their latest plan: Quicksilver will get Sir Petronel Flash into his debt. They’ve learned that Flash married Gertrude to get his hands on her inheritance, to convert it to cash and take ship for Virginia as a ‘knight adventurer’.

They devise a Plan: Gertrude has not yet gone down to the country to visit her husband’s (fictional) castle, but is still in London. Quicksilver will visit her and will help the introduction of Sindefy who will take on the character of a gullible young woman just up from the country – you can just imagine this will lead to an orgy of ridiculous social pretentiousness.

Just before they pack up, Security is called offstage by his wife (?) Winnie, leaving Quicksilver alone. Out of Quicksilver’s mouth oozes pure, malicious evil, as he insults Security behind his back and says he hopes to live to see dog’s meat made of his flesh. This sounds like Ben Jonson. It is exactly the tone of vicious hatred which animates Mosca in Volpone. Coming from the bonhomie of The Shoemakers’ Holiday, this kind of thing is like treading in dog poo.

Act 2 scene 3

Quicksilver is at Petronel’s London lodging as the latter prepares to set off. He wants to flee London to escape his wife, who he can’t stand. He readily admits he has no castle in the country, something Gertrude will shortly find out. With what I think of as typical Jonsonian heartlessness, Petronel hopes Gertrude will hang herself in despair.

Quicksilver persuades Petronel to stay and get Gertrude to sign over her inheritance, give it in bond to Security who will increase its value. Enter Gertrude now dressed grandly and swanking with grand manners, telling the men when to doff their hats and when to put them back on.

Security presents to her Sindefy, demurely dressed, and preposterously describes her as a simple country girl who intended to become a nun but has come up to the big city seeking advice. In her pretentiously lofty manner, Gertrude agrees to employ her as her personal maid.

Security invites Petronal to come and dine with him but Gertrude is hen-pecking him, and refuses to let him go, insisting they dine at home so she can quickly take him to bed. Quicksilver and Security make cheeky asides about her being bossy. Finally it is agreed that Petronel will visit Security the following morning.

Act 3 scene 1

The next morning at Security’s house, he has just given Petronel a fine breakfast feast. They exchange extravagant compliments, Security promising to make Petronel godfather to his first child, while Petronel gives him a diamond to give his first-born, and Security makes his young wife, Winifred, kiss him. Security’s lawyer, Bramble, has drawn up documents.

Enter the captain of the ship taking Petronel, Captain Seagull and Spendall who say they must haste and leave under cover since the ship is taken out in a false name.

Act 3 scene 2

An inn-yard where the harassed coachman and servant makes haste to prepare Gertrude’s coach. She is obsessed with being the wife of a knight and having a coach. Two city women, Mistresses Gaze and Fond, line up to watch the show and shout encouragement to Mistress Gertrude, who is accompanied by her mother, Mistress Touchstone, equally impatient to be a Great Lady.

Petronel himself arrives and asks her to wait, but she says she is impatient to decorate his castle for his arrival. Quicksilver also enters and tells Gertrude her father has just officiated at the wedding of Golding and Mildred. Gertrude is disgusted at her father for marrying her sister to a common apprentice: henceforth he (her father) will have to call her ‘Madam’.

Enter Touchstone, Mildred and Golding. Gertrude is appalled her sister got married in such a common hat. Touchstone disowns her for snobbery. Gertrude insults Golding for marrying her sister. Golding is tactful and considerate of his master.

Enter Security and his lawyers and they cozen Gertrude into signing away her inheritance, she thinking it’s a minor property in town and the money will be used to beautify the castle. She and Mistress Touchstone and Sindefy, her maid, depart in the coach. Petronel and Quicksilver discuss the very great disappointment Gertrude is going to have when she discovers he has no castle – but by then Petronel will have fled the country.

Petronel expects Security to bring him the money they’ve discussed at Billingsgate. There then follows a complicated sequence during which Petronel reveals to Security that he is in love with the wife of Security’s lawyer, Bramble. He would like, as a favour, Security to take Bramble out for a drink, while he steals Bramble’s wife away. Security enters into the spirit of the plot and exits. Only then do Petronel and Quicksilver reveal that, while Security is out with Bramble, Petronel will steal away Security’s wife, Winifred. Quicksilver and Petronel are fretting about how to disguise her, when Security unexpectedly re-enters and says the best disguise will be his wife’s cloak and hands it over.

Act 3 scene 3

Captain Seagull and his men (Spendall and Scapethrift) are at the Blue Anchor tavern, Billingsgate, awaiting Petronel. His dim men ask about Virginia and Seagull confidently tells them the streets are paved with gold, says the expedition there of 1579 was a great success and the Englishmen intermarried with the natives.

Petronel arrives and they toast the success of the voyage. Security and Bramble arrive, impressed with the toasting and confidence of the crew. Quicksilver arrives with Security’s wife in disguise and wearing a mask. Petronel explains, ostensibly for the benefit of Bramble, that it is a cousin come to see him off who doesn’t want to be recognised in a low tavern.

She is crying and so Petronel asks Security, as a favour, to comfort her. This is designed to elicit howls of laughter from the audience, as Security is all unknowingly comforting his own wife, telling her she is well shot of ‘an old jealous dotard’ and will soon be in the arms of a young lover! About six times various characters make the joke that the ship is bound that night for Cuckold’s Haven, a real place, on the Thames below Rotherhithe.

Increasingly drunk, Petronel suggests to the company that they hold their farewell feast aboard Sir Francis Drake’s old ship, and they dance round the silent, disguised woman to celebrate the idea. Bramble tells Security the mystery woman is wearing Security’s wife’s clothes, but Security just laughs at him, confident that she is Bramble‘s wife – everyone in the audience, of course, laughing at him.

Security and Bramble go their ways but the rest of the company calls for a boat to take them to Sir Francis Drake’s ship, where they’ll get even more drunk, before setting off to be put aboard their final ship. The pub’s drawer watches them go, remarking that the tide is against them and a storm is brewing and it is a fool’s errand.

Act 3 scene 4

A very brief scene, just long enough for Security to return home, find his wife not there, discover that she is at Billingsgate, make the deduction that she is the mystery woman and is sailing with Petronel, and run off yelling for a boat.

THE STORM

Act 4 scene 1. Cuckold’s Haven

There’s a storm blowing and the Thames is turbulent, A fellow named Slitgut is climbing up a tree at Cuckold’s Haven to attach cuckold’s horns to it, after an ancient tradition when he spies a ship going down in the river. He gives a running commentary of a man struggling through the waves who comes ashore and proves to be Security, who moans his wretched luck and crawls away. He has been crushed down to the earth.

The Slitgut sees another person wallowing in the weltering wave, a woman, and describes how she is rescued by a man who brings her to shore. It is the drawer from the Blue Anchor tavern who came down to visit a friend at St Katherine’s and he has rescued Winifred. She asks him to go fetch her bundle of clothes which she left at the pub, but begs him to keep quiet about her or it will ruin her reputation. A would-be whore, she has washed ashore by St Katherine’s monastery.

Next out of the water is Quicksilver, washed ashore capless by the gallows reserved for pirates. He bewails the fact the storm has sunk the ship and ruined all his plans.

Next to stagger ashore are Petronel and Seagull who are drunkenly, confusedly convinced they have washed ashore in France until two men passing by assure them they are on the Isle of Dogs and briskly make off, but not before making the joke that one of them (i.e. Petronel) looks like a thirty-pound knight.

I ken the man weel; he’s one of my thirty pound knights.

This is obviously written to be said in a Scots accent and was the most obvious bit of anti-Scots satire, which caused its authors to be thrown into gaol. Petronel and Seagull are now united with Quicksilver and all bewail their fate. They had not, in fact, made it as far as the main ship which was to take them to America, but worry that that ship will now have been seized (there was something illicit about it which I didn’t quite understand).

Petronel is all for giving in, but Quicksilver suddenly changes the subject by declaring he has the specialist knowledge to make copper look like silver: he’ll restore their fortunes yet. The other two adore him and they depart.

Enter the Drawer and Winifred now dressed in dry clothes. He has brought her near to the pub where he works, and very nobly leaves her to continue alone i.e. uncompromised by being seen with a strange man. Which is when she bumps into her husband, Security! Quickly Winifred ad libs and lies that she has come out expressly to look for him, that she was fast asleep when he returned to see her (at the end of act 3) and his shouting stirred her and she was about to call back but he ran off in such a hurry. Thus, lying her head off, she is restored to her husband and he ends up apologising, promising that every morning he will go down on his knees and beseech her forgiveness. They exit.

At which point Slitgut, who has been up his tree watching each of these encounters, climbs down saying he won’t continue the ridiculous pagan custom, and bids the cuckold tree farewell.

Act 4 scene 2. A room in Touchstone’s House

Touchstone has heard that Petronel and Quicksilver’s ship was sunk. He tells us he has also heard that his ungrateful daughter, Gertrude, and his wife and the maid, discovered there was no castle anywhere and so ended up sleeping in the famous coach until they crept back to London, repentant.

Golding appears and in his guileless way reports that he has been voted Master Deputy Alderman. He had already been taken into the livery of his trade, so Touchstone is thrilled that he is progressing in his career and doubts not that he will soon be more famous than Dick Whittington.

Then Golding tells Touchstone that the rascally crew were shipwrecked as they took a ferry boat down towards Blackwall, were washed ashore and are returning in dribs and drabs to London and Golding has organised a reception committee of constables. Touchstone’s reaction is what I think of characteristically Jonson, and the reason I didn’t like this play:

TOUCHSTONE: Disgrace ’em all that ever thou canst; their ship I have already arrested. How to my wish it falls out, that thou hast the place of a justicer upon ’hem! I am partly glad of the injury done to me, that thou may’st punish it. Be severe i’ thy place, like a new officer o’ the first quarter, unreflected.

Revenge, the fiercer and severer the better, is the Jonson theme. A mood continued when Gertrude and her mother and Sindefy enter. Mistress Touchstone is thoroughly mortified by the discovery that Petronel was a liar, but Gertrude remains comically obstinate, persisting in the belief she is a lady and owes nothing to her father who ought to bow to her. She flounces out.

A constable enters to announce the arrival of Petronel and Quicksilver. Touchstone is gleeful. He insists that Golding (in his new rank of deputy alderman) judges the rascals. The Shoemakers’ Holiday was about forgiveness and festivity. Eastward Ho! is about judgement and punishment. Golding lays out the accusations against both Petronel and Quicksilver in detail, and is seconded by a vengeful Touchstone. Then they instruct the constable to take them away pending further judgement.

Act 5 scene 1. At Gertrude’s lodgings

Gertrude and Sindefy bewail the hard times they’ve fallen on. Gertrude has pawned her jewels, her gowns, her red velvet petticoat, and her wedding silk stockings and all Sin’s best apparel. She wishes she could sell her ladyship. She fantasises about finding a jewel or gold in the street, anything which could save her from poverty.

Her mother enters and laments all her ambitions and decisions to become a lady, but Gertrude blames her and asks how much she’s stolen from her cursed father. But she weeps bitterly. It’s not a funny scene. Eventually Mistress Touchstone advises that she goes and throws herself on the mercy of her good sister Mildred.

Act 5 scene 2. Goldsmith’s Row

Wolf comes who is a gaoler of ‘the Counter’ where Petronel, Quicksilver and Security are imprisoned. He has brought letters from them begging for help and then describes their reformations. Touchstone is tempted to forgive but exists rather than give way to pity. Golding, true to his immaculate character as Good Man gives Wolf some money and messages of hope to take back to the prisoners.

Act 5 scene 3. The Counter

I.e. prison. Lawyer Bramble visits Security who has gone half mad in captivity and can’t stand the light. Two anonymous gentlemen comment on the extent of Quicksilver’s reformation, who gave away all his fancy clothes, has penned a wonderful apology for his life and helps the other prisoners write petitions.

Wolf arrives back from Golding with the message of hope and a little money. Quicksilver has completely changed. He genuinely thanks Golding, then asks Wolf to distribute the money to other prisoners. The two gentlemen who have observed this noble gesture, remark on Quicksilver’s reformation.

Next, Golding himself arrives in disguise. He has a Plan. He asks Wolf to let him into the prison, then take his ring to Touchstone and say that he, Golding, has been imprisoned for a debt to some third party, can he (Touchstone) come quickly. Then they will work some kind of resolution. Wolf agrees, lets Golding into the prison, sets off with the message to Touchstone.

Act 5 scene 4. Touchstone’s house

Mildred and Mistress Touchstone try to intercede on behalf of Gertrude but Touchstone insists his ears are stoppered like Ulysses’ against the sirens. Until Wolf arrives with the token, with Golding’s ring, which Touchstone recognises and instantly promises to come to his aid.

Act 5 scene 5. The Counter

Touchstone enters with Wolf. Petronel and Quicksilver enter, and a prisoner and two gentlemen are present to listen to Quicksilver’s sincere and moving song of repentance. It’s a long doggerel poem and various bystanders applaud, ask for more and, at every interval. In an aside, Touchstone tells us that his hard heart is melting. By the end he is quite convinced of Quicksilver’s reformation and forgives him. He goes bail for Quicksilver, Petronel and half-mad Security and they are all released.

Gertrude, Mildred, Mistress touchstone, Sindefy and Winifred all arrive i.e. all the main characters are on stage. Gertrude finally repents and asks Touchstone’s forgiveness, and also her husband’s forgiveness and he begs her forgiveness for deceiving her. Is anything missing? Only that Quicksilver should marry his punk, Sindefy, and make a decent woman of her. Which he instantly volunteers to do.

Bad tastes

I didn’t like this play for at least three reasons:

  1. The contrasts set up right at the start between Dutiful Daughter and Haughty Daughter, and Conscientious Apprentice and Spendthrift Apprentice, feel too mechanical, to put it mildly. Like many other aspects of the play the characters of Golding, who is Peter Perfect, and Mildred, who barely exists as an individual, feel schematic and lifeless.
  2. The rascal characters are all too inevitably riding for a fall and, when they hit it, are judged very inflexibly and harshly. They don’t just fall, they are crushed into the dirt and ground underfoot, reduced to miserable penury in prison. Security goes mad. The harshness of their fate feels cruel.
  3. And at countless incidental moments along the way, the characters are vile. Gertrude’s haughtiness to her father is meant to be funny, but can easily be read as just horrible. Much worse is the way Quicksilver and Security conspire against Petronel, but then Quicksilver and Petronel conspire against Security. They’re all scum. The basic attitude was epitomised for me by the way Petronel said that, once his deceived wife discovers there is no castle, she will be so angry, that she’d be doing Petronel a favour if she hanged herself. A kind of Tarantino level of heartlessness and hate underlies the whole thing. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

The quality of justice

Feels contrived. The rascals’ repentances have no real psychological validity. Gertrude in particular is a bitch up to the last moment – and believable and funny as such, probably the funniest character in the play – till she suddenly turns up in prison right at the last minute, a changed woman. It is literally unbelievable.

In my opinion there is something necessarily shallow about Jonson’s entire view of human nature, shallow and extreme. He sees people as viciously cynical and wicked right up to the last few pages… when they suddenly undergo miracle conversions. The cynicism is unpleasant and the conversions are insultingly shallow and contrived.

But the cardboard stereotypes are an inevitable result of the strictness of his theory of comedy. He thinks comedy should hold up folly and vice to ridicule. But this is a very ideological and schematic ambition, and explains the metallic inflexibility of the play. The precise details may be unpredictable but the ultimate outcome – the crushing humiliation of the rascals and fools – is never in doubt and feels profoundly unconvincing.

As C.G. Petter points out in his introduction to the New Mermaid edition of the play, there is a marriage at the play’s end, the rather tediously inevitable requirement of any comedy – but it is the marriage of an upstart social pretender (Quicksilver) to a whore (Sindefy) whose dowry is paid by a usurer (Security). Gertrude and Petronel’s marriage is a sham from the start, he only marries her for her money. And the marriage of Golding and Mildred in the first act has absolutely no romance or emotion about it whatsoever because it is the union of two wooden puppets.

The intellectual and psychological crudity of so much of this is typified by the thumpingly crude final moral, delivered by Touchstone. Having forgiven Quicksilver after the latter has read out his very poor, doggerel poem of repentance, Touchstone offers Quicksilver decent clothes to change into from his prison rags. But the newly penitent Quicksilver nobly turns down the offer, preferring to walk through the streets of London in his prison clothes to set an example to the children of Cheapside. At which Touchstone intones the final lines of the play:

TOUCHSTONE: Thou hast thy wish. Now, London, look about,
And in this moral see thy glass run out:
Behold the careful father, thrifty son,
The solemn deeds which each of us have done;
The usurer punish’d, and from fall so steep
The prodigal child reclaim’d, and the lost sheep.

Could anyone seriously expect that plays as wooden and contrived and stereotypical and obvious as this would ‘reform’ vice and folly? What a ludicrous idea. They’re a night out at the theatre, full of jokes, lots and lots of sexual innuendo, absurd farce, ironic reversals, sentimental speeches and a big round of applause at the end.

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More Elizabethan and Jacobean reviews

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by Simon on September 16, 2020  •  Permalink
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Posted by Simon on September 16, 2020

https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/09/16/eastward-ho-george-chapman-ben-jonson-john-marston/