The Napoleon of Notting Hill
went very far (loud cheers), he did not remember that any of their
lecturers had borne the title of King. He would therefore call upon
King Auberon briefly to address the meeting.
The King began by saying that this speech might be regarded as the
first declaration of his new policy for the nation. "At this supreme
hour of my life I feel that to no one but the members of the Society
for the Recovery of London Antiquities can I open my heart (cheers).
If the world turns upon my policy, and the storms of popular hostility
begin to rise (no, no), I feel that it is here, with my brave
Recoverers around me, that I can best meet them, sword in hand" (loud
cheers).
His Majesty then went on to explain that, now old age was creeping
upon him, he proposed to devote his remaining strength to bringing
about a keener sense of local patriotism in the various municipalities
of London. How few of them knew the legends of their own boroughs!
How many there were who had never heard of the true origin of the Wink
of Wandsworth! What a large proportion of the younger generation in
Chelsea neglected to perform the old Chelsea Chuff! Pimlico no longer
pumped the Pimlies. Battersea had forgotten the name of Blick.
There was a short silence, and then a voice said "Shame!"
The King continued: "Being called, however unworthily, to this high
estate, I have resolved that, so far as possible, this neglect shall
cease. I desire no military glory. I lay claim to no constitutional
equality with Justinian or Alfred. If I can go down to history as the
man who saved from extinction a few old English customs, if our
descendants can say it was through this man, humble as he was, that
the Ten Turnips are still eaten in Fulham, and the Putney parish
councillor still shaves one half of his head, I shall look my great
fathers reverently but not fearfully in the face when I go down to the
last house of Kings."
The King paused, visibly affected, but collecting himself, resumed
once more.
"I trust that to very few of you, at least, I need dwell on the
sublime origins of these legends. The very names of your boroughs
bear witness to them. So long as Hammersmith is called Hammersmith,
its people will live in the shadow of that primal hero, the
Blacksmith, who led the democracy of the Broadway into battle till he
drove the chivalry of Kensington before him and overthrew them at that
place which in honour of the best blood of the defeated aristocracy is
still called Kensington Gore. Men of Hammersmith will not fail to
remember that the very name of Kensington originated from the lips of
their hero. For at the great banquet of reconciliation held after the
war, when the disdainful oligarchs declined to join in the songs of
the men of the Broadway (which are to this day of a rude and popular
character), the great Republican leader, with his rough humour, said
the words which are written in gold upon his monument, 'Little birds
that can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing.' So that the
Eastern Knights were called Cansings or Kensings ever afterwards. But
you also have great memories, O men of Kensington! You showed that you
could sing, and sing great war-songs. Even after the dark day of
Kensington Gore, history will not forget those three Knights who
guarded your disordered retreat from Hyde Park (so called from your
hiding there), those three Knights after whom Knightsbridge is named.
Nor will it forget the day of your re-emergence, purged in the fire of
calamity, cleansed of your oligarchic corruptions, when, sword in
hand, you drove the Empire of Hammersmith back mile by mile, swept it
past its own Broadway, and broke it at last in a battle so long and
bloody that the birds of prey have left their name upon it. Men have
called it, with austere irony, the Ravenscourt. I shall not, I trust,
wound the patriotism of Bayswater, or the lonelier pride of Brompton,
or that of any other historic township, by taking these two special
examples. I select them, not because they are more glorious than the
rest, but partly from personal association (I am myself descended from
one of the three heroes of Knightsbridge), and partly from the
consciousness that I am an amateur antiquarian, and cannot presume to
deal with times and places more remote and more mysterious. It is not
for me to settle the question between two such men as Professor Hugg
and Sir William Whisky as to whether Notting Hill means Nutting Hill
(in allusion to the rich woods which no longer cover it), or whether
it is a corruption of Nothing-ill, referring to its reputation among
the ancients as an Earthly Paradise. When a Podkins and a Jossy
confess themselves doubtful about the boundaries of West Kensington
(said to have been traced in the blood of Oxen), I need not be ashamed
to confess a similar doubt. I will ask you to excuse me from further
history, and to assist me with your encouragement in dealing with the
problem which faces us to-day. Is this ancient spirit of the London
townships to die out? Are our omnibus conductors and policemen to lose
altogether that light which we see so often in their eyes, the dreamy
light of
'Old unhappy far-off things
And battles long ago'
--to quote the words of a little-known poet who was a friend of my
youth? I have resolved, as I have said, so far as possible, to
preserve the eyes of policemen and omnibus conductors in their present
dreamy state. For what is a state without dreams? And the remedy I
propose is as follows:--
"To-morrow morning at twenty-five minutes past ten, if Heaven spares
my life, I purpose to issue a Proclamation. It has been the work of my
life, and is about half finished. With the assistance of a whisky and
soda, I shall conclude the other half to-night, and my people will
receive it to-morrow. All these boroughs where you were born, and hope
to lay your bones, shall be reinstated in their ancient
magnificence,--Hammersmith, Kensington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea,
Clapham, Balham, and a hundred others. Each shall immediately build a
city wall with gates to be closed at sunset. Each shall have a city
guard, armed to the teeth. Each shall have a banner, a coat-of-arms,
and, if convenient, a gathering cry. I will not enter into the details
now, my heart is too full. They will be found in the proclamation
itself. You will all, however, be subject to enrolment in the local
city guards, to be summoned together by a thing called the Tocsin, the
meaning of which I am studying in my researches into history.
Personally, I believe a tocsin to be some kind of highly paid
official. If, therefore, any of you happen to have such a thing as a
halberd in the house, I should advise you to practise with it in the
garden."
Here the King buried his face in his handkerchief and hurriedly left
the platform, overcome by emotions.
The members of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities rose
in an indescribable state of vagueness. Some were purple with
indignation; an intellectual few were purple with laughter; the great
majority found their minds a blank. There remains a tradition that one
pale face with burning blue eyes remained fixed upon the lecturer, and
after the lecture a red-haired boy ran out of the room.
CHAPTER II--_The Council of the Provosts_
The King got up early next morning and came down three steps at a time
like a schoolboy. Having eaten his breakfast hurriedly, but with an
appetite, he summoned one of the highest officials of the Palace, and
presented him with a shilling. "Go and buy me," he said, "a shilling
paint-box, which you will get, unless the mists of time mislead me, in
a shop at the corner of the second and dirtier street that leads out
of Rochester Row. I have already requested the Master of the
Buckhounds to provide me with cardboard. It seemed to me (I know not
why) that it fell within his department."
The King was happy all that morning with his cardboard and his
paint-box. He was engaged in designing the uniforms and coats-of-arms
for the various municipalities of London. They gave him deep and no
inconsiderable thought. He felt the responsibility.
"I cannot think," he said, "why people should think the names of
places in the country more poetical than those in London. Shallow
romanticists go away in trains and stop in places called
Hugmy-in-the-Hole, or Bumps-on-the-Puddle. And all the time they
could, if they liked, go and live at a place with the dim, divine name
of St. John's Wood. I have never been to St. John's Wood. I dare not.
I should be afraid of the innumerable night of fir trees, afraid to
come upon a blood-red cup and the beating of the wings of the Eagle.
But all these things can be imagined by remaining reverently in the
Harrow train."
And he thoughtfully retouched his design for the head-dress of the
halberdier of St. John's Wood, a design in black and red, compounded
of a pine tree and the plumage of an eagle. Then he turned to another
card. "Let us think of milder matters," he said. "Lavender Hill! Could
any of your glebes and combes and all the rest of it produce so
fragrant an idea? Think of a mountain of lavender lifting itself in
purple poignancy into the silver skies and filling men's nostrils with
a new breath of life--a purple hill of incense. It is true that upon
my few excursions of discovery on a halfpenny tram I have failed to
hit the precise spot. But it must be there; some poet called it by
its name. There is at least warrant enough for the solemn purple
plumes (following the botanical formation of lavender) which I have
required people to wear in the neighbourhood of Clapham Junction. It
is so everywhere, after all. I have never been actually to
Southfields, but I suppose a scheme of lemons and olives represent
their austral instincts. I have never visited Parson's Green, or seen
either the Green or the Parson, but surely the pale-green shovel-hats
I have designed must be more or less in the spirit. I must work in the
dark and let my instincts guide me. The great love I bear to my people
will certainly save me from distressing their noble spirit or
violating their great traditions."
As he was reflecting in this vein, the door was flung open, and an
official announced Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert.
Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert were not particularly surprised to find the
King sitting on the floor amid a litter of water-colour sketches. They
were not particularly surprised because the last time they had called
on him they had found him sitting on the floor, surrounded by a litter
of children's bricks, and the time before surrounded by a litter of
wholly unsuccessful attempts to make paper darts. But the trend of
the royal infant's remarks, uttered from amid this infantile chaos,
was not quite the same affair.
For some time they let him babble on, conscious that his remarks meant
nothing. And then a horrible thought began to steal over the mind of
James Barker. He began to think that the King's remarks did not mean
nothing.
"In God's name, Auberon," he suddenly volleyed out, startling the
quiet hall, "you don't mean that you are really going to have these
city guards and city walls and things?"
"I am, indeed," said the infant, in a quiet voice. "Why shouldn't I
have them? I have modelled them precisely on your political
principles. Do you know what I've done, Barker? I've behaved like a
true Barkerian. I've ... but perhaps it won't interest you, the
account of my Barkerian conduct."
"Oh, go on, go on," cried Barker.
"The account of my Barkerian conduct," said Auberon, calmly, "seems
not only to interest, but to alarm you. Yet it is very simple. It
merely consists in choosing all the provosts under any new scheme by
the same principle by which you have caused the central despot to be