Interview with Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford
This exclusive interview with author and lecturer Charles Beauclerk,
Earl of Burford was conducted in London by Nicola Linza and Cristoffer Neljesjö
during March 2016
Did your great interest in Shakespeare begin with family history? or while at school at either Eton College, Sherborne School & Hertford College, Oxford?
It began with my grandfather, Charles St. Albans. When I was a child we used to go to his house on the Thames for Sunday lunch. The Gheeraedts portrait of the 17th Earl of Oxford hung on the dining-room wall, and he would often refer to it as ‘the portrait of Shakespeare.’ I was too young to investigate the subject then, but later when I was 16 my godmother in South Africa sent me a copy of Shakespeare Identified by Thomas Looney. I was electrified by the book; the works of Shakespeare made emotional sense for the first time. Gradually I began to do my own research, and Shakespeare has been a profound guiding spirit and companion in my life ever since.
You are known for promoting the well-known Oxfordian theory that your ancestor Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the works of William Shakepeare. How did this history affect your time studying in Oxford as a young man?
Fortunately for me, I studied Russian and Polish at Oxford and these subjects shielded me from the worst wrath of the English professors. When I established the De Vere Society there to promote research into the authorship question and the life of Edward de Vere, much controversy inevitably ensued. Our guest speakers included Enoch Powell and the historian Lord Dacre. I received an explosive letter from A.L. Rowse of All Souls College, denouncing the Society and describing the above-mentioned speakers as ‘third-raters who don’t deserve to have an opinion.’ Nevertheless we persevered and generated considerable interest among the students. We had an impressive library on the subject, published a scholarly newsletter and held regular speaker meetings. The Society is still active today.
During the House of Lords Act 1999 regarding the amendment of voting rights for hereditary peers you bravely stood ground on the conviction that the bill was treason to the life and culture of Britain. What do you make of the state of affairs in Britain in 2016?
The hereditary peers were thrown out of the House of Lords on superficial, ideological grounds; they were also thrown out illegally. As I said at the time, the Bill was drafted in Brussels, not Westminster, and showed a complete misunderstanding of British life and culture, as well as being philosophically nonsensical. Predictably, the House of Lords has been in chaos ever since and commands zero respect among the British people.
Britain today has no culture; it has a tourist industry instead. Britain is not a democracy; it is a dictatorship. The dictator is, of course, the Pound. Everything of worth has been sacrificed on the altar of Mammon. Dictator Pound has created a plutocracy of the obscenely wealthy, while everyone else is locked into the ‘system’ through poverty and debt. Even students now are shackled to this national dysfunction through debt and will end up choosing drudgery over creativity in order to pay off what they owe the government.
Britain is a grotesquely overpopulated country with no immigration policy, which means that genuine refugees are often turned away. The destruction of her countryside means that people must live with a level of ugliness in their daily lives that is damaging to their mental health. Beauty isn’t a luxury; it is a necessity. Living without it is dehumanizing.
Britain is the fifth richest economy in the world, yet a minuscule percentage of the population enjoys that wealth. The great majority live in poverty and constant anxiety. Britain is a sham.
Is it even entitled to call itself a nation today?
You once stated that ‘We live in a culture saturated by fantasy’. How do you feel this has affected social stability today?
When life is made ugly and dangerous, rulers like to provide citizens with the illusion of escape. Those who designed the mobile phone knew exactly what they were doing. It may only be 5 inches by 2.5, but the smartphone has robbed mankind of its vigilance and self-awareness. Man no longer sees what is around him. Like Narcissus, he is too busy looking at his own reflection.
Children today are growing up with no connection to Nature; they neither watch it nor learn from it. Its moods are no longer sources of ecstasy and wonder. Instead they are watching the false fire that is forever flickering away on TVs, laptops, ipads, tablets and iphones. If you have no connection to Nature, then you have no connection to your own human nature. Again, the risk of dehumanization is acute.
Tolkien was prophetic in this. The Lord of the Rings describes what happens when people become children of an ideology (the Orcs) instead of children of Nature (the Hobbits).
Fantasy has little to do with imagination. Fantasy is
an escape from reality, while imagination is the act of embracing reality, but
at a deeper level. Imagination unifies, while fantasy fragments mankind,
keeping it on the surface of life.
What inspired you to write the biography Piano Man: A Life of John Ogdon?
I knew John Ogdon from 1973 to his death in 1989, and although I was only eight years old when I first met him, he made a deep and abiding impression on me. His son Richard, whom I have known now for 43 years, was one of my best friends at school. It was he who asked me to write the biography of his father, for he was concerned that John’s colleagues and family were beginning to die off and that their memories of the great musician would perish with them.
I had no hesitation in agreeing to Richard’s suggestion, as I had already done some research into mental illness in my own family and felt that I understood many of the psycho-social dynamics involved. Just as importantly, I felt John’s humanity was more interesting and inspiring than his genius, and that therefore his story needed to be told on a human level—one that could inspire others. After all, genius can be an impersonal and alienating force, both to the possessor and to those around him.
Is John Ogdon’s madness and genius something you can relate to?
Madness—yes; genius—no, at least not in the sense that the word is used today.
I think madness or mental illness is better redefined as emotional illness. There was nothing wrong with John Ogdon’s mind! After all, he could play Sorabji’s Transcendental Etudes at sight. He did, however, suffer at times from overpowering feelings of worthlessness, grandiosity and self-hatred, and these potent emotions could distort his thought patterns and create an obsessive personality. His mental-emotional troubles can all be traced back to his early years, and many of them stem directly from the peculiar psychology of the child prodigy. We all suffer to an extent from such feelings, often depressive in nature, as none of us has perfect parents. Therefore we can sympathize with the person who suffers from an exaggerated form of emotional hurting.
As for genius, it is interesting how the meaning of the word has changed over the years. To the Romans it meant one’s tutelary spirit, the god that presided over a person’s individuality and made him or her unique. Everyone had a genius, however modest their talents. To the Arabs of medieval Islam a genius (or genie) was a giant figure that appeared out of a bottle or jar when summoned, and was usually in a rage about something. While conferring wondrous gifts, the genius demanded absolute loyalty from his hapless subject. (It could be argued that John Ogdon became a slave to his genius.)
Finally, genius today denotes a supreme order of giftedness in a particular field, and that’s where the likes of John Ogdon and I part company!
Being intelligent in a world of stupidity, how does one keep oneself from going insane?
Turn the media off; stop tuning in to the collective. Be an individual (i.e. be undivided), trust your conscience, and make life itself your God. Observe Nature, for She is your teacher; tend to the little things and the big things will look after themselves. Embrace trees, kiss flowers, touch the earth, pray for clean water. Be kind to all creatures who cross your path, for they are truly your kin, but don’t torture yourself into thinking you have to love them.
Above all, be in a constant state of gratitude and
don’t look for miracles beyond your own existence. Is it not miracle enough?
The above interview with Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford 2016 © Manner of Man Magazine. All rights reserved. Reproduction is strictly prohibited without written permission from the publisher.
