Fr. Peter Milward writes:

 

What a wonderful issue of the latest StAR, newly risen from the West!  I wonder how you manage it – with special issues each time, and this time on the Truth of History (what I may call “up my street”).

 

If I may list my preferences, first comes the wonderful put-down of Hilary Mantel by William Fahey.  She really deserves everything she gets from that article.  I was so disappointed in Queen Elizabeth in making her a Dame – she never deserved that!

 

Next comes John Beaumont’s put-up (the opposite of put-down) of Warren Carroll.  I was fascinated by the roll of his books on “Christendom”, which is my favorite theme in history, particularly in the religious background of William Shakespeare. Here I see a basic contrast between two “mighty opposites”, with the dramatist looking back with nostalgia to the good old days of merry England and the lawyer-philosopher Francis Bacon heralding the new age of Protestant Britain.  I actually visited Carroll’s foundation of Christendom College, but I missed the opportunity of comparing notes with the great man.

 

Then I enjoyed the further put down of so famous a historian as Steven Runciman in two successive articles by Vincent Ryan and Brendan McGuire on the truth of the Crusades.  And no less impressive was the other put-down by Donald DeMarco of Rolf Hochhuth’s all too popular play which has all too effectively put down the poor Pope Pius XII with his (Rolf’s) “crucifixion of truth”.

 

Finally, among a mere selection of items worthy of praise, I always enjoy mention of my two revered teachers at Oxford, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, especially for their wonderful power of imagination.  At that time I got to know quite a few of the Inklings (including two of my tutors), without an inkling that they were members of such a distinctive group. Whereas I greatly appreciated the academic writings of Tolkien, I agreed with him in criticizing what he regarded as “the Ulsterior motive” in the academic writings of Lewis – concerning which I myself once offered “A Challenge to CS Lewis” (1995).