CEP: 'The devil's whore' - England returns
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Friday, 21, Nov 2008 12:00
‘The Channel 4 drama The Devil’s Whore is far more than just a rollicking sensational piece of theatre. It is a sign of the times. England – what England is historically and what she has achieved- is returning to the consciousness of her people. On a million screens, in their homes, in their very living rooms, the people of England are being re-connected with their own history as a nation, are being reminded of it, are discovering how influential, radical and progressive it has been. The English Civil War of the first half of the 17th century was a pivotal moment in the history of mankind. It was a boiling cauldron of political and cultural ideas which launched the modern world and sowed the seeds of the French Revolution and the American War of Independence in the following half century and inspired almost every political reform and independence movement of the 20th century.’ That was the message sent out yesterday to every member of the Campaign for an English Parliament by its National Council.
‘The unexpected and decidedly unintended outcome of Scottish and Welsh devolution has been to make the English people acutely aware that England is not Britain., make them remember and recall that England in fact is its own nation, distinct from the United Kingdom. For the last one hundred years, and especially by reason of the incessant insistent message of the British Broadcasting Corporation since its foundation in 1922 under the Scot Lord Reith, the reality of England as a self-standing nation, with its own history and culture separate from Wales and Scotland, has been submerged into the idea of Britain and Britishness. Devolution, however, has made every English person wake up to the historic fact that this island has three distinct nations, not one, each with its own identity, its own history, its own distinct culture. When Gordon Brown drove the devolution legislation through the Commons in 1998, that was the very last thing he wanted. Despite him it has come about.
‘The radical figures of the English Civil War weren’t British because Britain did not then exist. They were all English. That is a principal message to be taken from this television drama. Britain didn’t come into existence until the Act of Union in 1707, almost three quarters of a century later. And even then it was only a political union, about which in fact the peoples of England and Scotland weren’t even consulted. The inspired radical Levellers and Diggers of the Civil War like John Lilburne and Gerrard Wistanley were English, not British, like the Magna Carta before them. So were the protagonists of the historic Putney Debates such as Colonel Thomas Rainsborough who penned one of the most famous statements of world political history. So was Ann Fanshawe, a royalist, who lived and suffered throughout the War and survived it, on whom possibly the Angelica of the drama is based; and Elizabeth Lilburne a powerful iconic feminist centuries before her time; and so was Oliver Cromwell.
‘Such a television drama as The Devil’s Whore is in every detail a play of our time. England -its history, its culture, its great achievements- all are returning to the minds and into the identity of the people of England’.
Contact:
Michael Knowles
Tel: 01260 271139 Email: michael-knowles@tiscali.co.uk
www.thecep.org.uk