EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

Earls. There are a fair number in Waugh’s writings. They include the fatuous Earl of Circumference and his overbearing Countess (the title no doubt refers to her physique), with their unfortunate little heir, Lord Tangent (more brilliant nomenclature) in Decline and Fall; the Earl of Balcairn, like his rival Lord Vanburgh a gossip columnist, who commits suicide after being detected in disguise at Lady Metroland’s revival party (his mother, now Mrs. Panrast, is a notorious Lesbian) in Vile Bodies; Peter, Earl of Pastmaster (né Beste-Chetwynde), son of Lady Metroland by her first marriage, who succeeds his uncle, the previous Earl, and who appears in Decline and Fall, Put Out More Flags, and Basil Seal Rides Again; his wife, formerly Lady Molly Meadowes, the daughter of Lord Granchester, who might be either a marquess or an earl (but not a duke; his wife is Lady Granchester), becomes the Countess of Pastmaster. Lady Betty, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Stayle, another candidate for Peter’s hand, reappears as Lady Elizabeth Albright in Basil Seals Rides Again. In Vile Bodies, we have Edward, Earl of Throbbing, a dull and respectable diplomat, unlike his mother, the Dowager Countess (demoted by one critic to “Lady Fanny Throbbing”), a superannuated promiscuous beauty from Edward VII’s day; his father the late Earl, who died of drug addiction (if he was Edward’s father: when Lady Throbbing confesses her sins at Mrs. Ape’s revival meeting, the editor receiving Lord Balcairn’s fictional report instructs an underling to look up photographs of all three candidates); his brother, the Honourable Miles Malpractice, a well-known homosexual- about-town; his sister, formerly one of Lady Metroland’s employees in her South American chain of brothels. If the charge against Waugh of snobbery implies admiration for the upper levels of society, a glance at the Malpractice family should cause one to rethink it. “What a set!” as Matthew Arnold said of the Shelley circle. Perhaps unexpectedly, a historical Earl has a tiny cameo role in Brideshead. Lord Marchmain, on his deathbed, having the daily newspaper read to him in 1939 and reminiscing, remarks “Irwin … I knew him—a mediocre fellow” (2:5). The reference is to Edward Wood (1881-1959), Earl of Halifax, foreign secretary in the Cabinet of Neville Chamberlain and a supporter of “appeasement,” Winston Churchill’s chief rival for the prime ministry in 1940, and later ambassador to the United States. Lord Marchmain contemptuously refers to him by his earlier title, Lord Irwin, conferred when he was appointed viceroy of India and through his actions created much controversy. Viscounts. They tend to be upwardly mobile plebeians on the make: Lord Metroland, Margot’s second husband, an enterprising politician, and the Press Lords Copper and Monomark (more significant nomenclature: “Metroland” was an advertising gimmick coined by the Metropolitan Railway Company to persuade potential customers to settle in the outer suburbs of London and make use of their commuter services; “Monomark” was another advertising gimmick coined by a company which, for a fee, would provide a unique number for customers to engrave on their valuables, so as to facilitate retrieval in case of burglary). When A. J. P. Taylor, biographer of Lord Beaverbrook, owner of the Daily Express, for which Waugh once worked, asked Waugh whether Lord Copper was based on Beaverbrook, Waugh denied it. Nevertheless, Taylor points out, Beaverbrook was familiar with the expression “Up to a point,” meaning “No.” “Boy,” Viscount Mulcaster, and his sister Lady Celia, who marries Charles Ryder (their family name is not disclosed), are probably children of an earl (or conceivably duke or marquess). Mulcaster’s Viscountcy must be a courtesy title; if it were a substantive one and he were head of the family, his sister would not be “Lady Celia” but merely “the Honourable Celia.” Baronets. Sir Alastair Digby-Vane-Trumpington appears in Decline and Fall, Black Mischief, Put Out More Flags, and Basil Seal Rides Again. Students have sometimes asked what so frivolous a youth of twenty-one could have done to deserve being made a “Sir.” The answer is of course “Nothing,” except having inherited the title from his late father. Another baronet is Sir James Brown, alternating Prime Minister with Mr. Walter Outrage (the joke is probably on the alternating regimes of Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald in the late 1920s and early 1930s) in Vile Bodies. The idea of creating hereditary “Sirs” occurred to King James I in the early seventeenth century, to enable him to raise a considerable sum of money by selling them to aspirants to higher social rank. file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07]