The anti-dukes of Northumberland

Abstract

When I was a small child, my formal education began with the hymn 'All Things Bright and Beautiful', which I was made to learn by heart; and when I was taken for walks in the Park or the Pastures, and passed the Barbican gate, the image of an immutable, divinely ordered society, as presented by that hymn - the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate (Narrowgate, I assumed) - was vividly impressed on my mind. What a symbol of ancient continuity was here! North Northumberland seemed a wonderfully stable world, and here was the guarantee of its immemorial stability. However, afterwards, when I came to study history, I had to revise this view. History, I then found, is continuous only in flux; one has to fight even to stand still. And this general rule applies even in Northumberland, even here.