The Telegraph, August 4 2022, Professor Robert Tombs
An inkstand belonging to Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, is to go on display at his home in Northern Ireland two centuries after he took his own life by cutting his throat with a penknife. It is more than just a souvenir, but a memorial to the epoch-making documents its owner wrote and signed after becoming foreign secretary in 1812, the climax of the Napoleonic Wars.
Probably all that many people know about Castlereagh – if they know anything at all – is that he was viciously attacked by Shelley: “I met Murder on the way/ He had a mask like Castlereagh …” This was not the only onslaught in verse. Byron, shortly after Castlereagh’s death, wrote “Posterity will ne’er survey/ A Nobler grave than this:/ Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:/ Stop, traveller, and piss!”
The hatefulness of the attacks shows that our own culture wars are still relatively mild. It also shows that then, as now, attempts to “cancel” the reputation of historic figures invariably neglect the big picture in order to select something – one fact, word or phrase – that can be used as a smear.
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