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    St. George and St. Michael
    St. George and St. Michael
    St. George and St. Michael
    Ebook594 pages

    St. George and St. Michael

    By George MacDonald and Michael Phillips

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    A story of love and loyalty set against the backdrop of the English Civil War—the only historical novel from the renowned Scottish author. 
     
    This unique novel in the MacDonald collection, his only true historical novel, is set during the mid-17th century English Civil War. MacDonald’s use of the idiom and stylistic old-English of the post-Shakespearean era make this a slow read in the original. It is greatly enhanced in this new and updated edition by Michael Phillips. St. George and St. Michael is an enchanting love story that offers a unique and balanced perspective on a tumultuous and conflicting era in British history. As Phillips writes in the introduction, “MacDonald portrays a growing spirit of love on all sides. Perhaps this is the key to understanding MacDonald’s perspective of the conflict. He refused to take a ‘side’ at all, focusing instead on the people not the politics.”
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMay 7, 2019
    ISBN9780795352720
    St. George and St. Michael
    Author

    George MacDonald

    George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a popular Scottish lecturer and writer of novels, poetry, and fairy tales. Born in Aberdeenshire, he was briefly a clergyman, then a professor of English literature at Bedford and King's College in London. W. H. Auden called him "one of the most remarkable writers of the nineteenth century."

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      Book preview

      St. George and St. Michael - George MacDonald

      St. George and St.

      Michael

      George MacDonald

      Introductory material © 2018 by Michael Phillips

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

      Electronic edition published 2018 by RosettaBooks

      ISBN (Kindle): 978-0-7953-5272-0

      www.RosettaBooks.com

      The Cullen Collection

      of the Fiction of George MacDonald

      New editions of George MacDonald’s classic fiction works updated and introduced by Michael Phillips

      The Cullen Collection of the

      Fiction of George MacDonald

      1.Phantastes (1858)

      2.David Elginbrod (1863)

      3.The Portent (1864)

      4.Adela Cathcart (1864)

      5.Alec Forbes of Howglen (1865)

      6.Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood (1867)

      7.Robert Falconer (1868)

      8.Guild Court (1868)

      9.The Seaboard Parish (1868)

      10.At the Back of the North Wind (1871)

      11.Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood (1871)

      12.The Princess and the Goblin (1872)

      13.Wilfrid Cumbermede (1872)

      14.The Vicar’s Daughter (1872)

      15.Gutta Percha Willie (1873)

      16.Malcolm (1875)

      17.The Wise Woman (1875)

      18.St. George and St. Michael (1876)

      19.Thomas Wingfold Curate (1876)

      20.The Marquis of Lossie (1877)

      21.Paul Faber Surgeon (1879)

      22.Sir Gibbie (1879)

      23.Mary Marston (1881)

      24.Castle Warlock (1881)

      25.The Princess and Curdie (1882)

      26.Weighed and Wanting (1882)

      27.Donal Grant (1883)

      28.What’s Mine’s Mine (1886)

      29.Home Again (1887)

      30.The Elect Lady (1888)

      31.A Rough Shaking (1890)

      32.There and Back (1891)

      33.The Flight of the Shadow (1891)

      34.Heather and Snow (1893)

      35.Lilith (1895)

      36.Salted With Fire (1897)

      37.Far Above Rubies (1898)

      The introductions to the 37 volumes form a continuous picture of George MacDonald’s literary life, viewed through the prism of the development of his written legacy of works. While each book can of course be read on its own, every introduction picks up where that to the previous volume left off, with special attention to the title under consideration. The introductions together, as a biography of MacDonald’s life as a writer, are compiled in Volume 38.

      38.George MacDonald A Writer’s Life

      CONTENTS

      Foreword to The Cullen Collection

      Introduction to St. George and St. Michael

      NOTE: As the introductions to the 37 volumes of The Cullen Collection form a continuous portrait of George MacDonald’s life, and as many of the introductions contain comprehensive and detailed discussion and analysis of the title in question—its plot, themes, and circumstances of writing—some first-time readers may choose to skip ahead to the story itself, saving the introduction for later, so as not to spoil the story.

      1. Richard and Dorothy

      2. Richard and His Father

      3. The Witch

      4. A Chapter of Fools

      5. Animadversions

      6. Preparations

      7. Reflections

      8. An Adventure

      9. Love and War

      10. Dorothy’s Refuge

      11. Raglan Castle

      12. The Two Marquises

      13. The Magician’s Vault

      14. Several People

      15. Husband and Wife

      16. Dorothy’s Initiation

      17. The Fire Engine

      18. Moonlight and Apple Blossoms

      19. The Enchanted Chair

      20. Molly and the White Horse

      21. The Damsel Which Fell Sick

      22. The Cataract

      23. Amanda, Dorothy, and Lord Herbert

      24. The Great Mogul

      25.   Richard Heywood

      26. The Witch’s Cottage

      27. The Moat of the Keep

      28. Raglan Stables

      29. The Apparition

      30. Richard and the Marquis

      31. The Sleepless

      32. The Turret Chamber

      33. Judge Gout

      34. An Evil Time

      35. The Deliverer

      36. The Discovery

      37. The Horoscope

      38. The Exorcism

      39. Newbury

      40. Dorothy and Rowland

      41. Glamorgan

      42. A New Soldier

      43. Lady and Bishop

      44. The King

      45. The Secret Interview

      46. Gifts of Healing

      47. The Poet Physician

      48. Honourable Disgrace

      49. Siege

      50. The Healing Cottage

      51. Under the Moat

      52. The Untoothsome Plum

      53. Faithful Foes

      54. Domus Dissolvitur

      55. R. I. P.

      56. Richard and Caspar

      57. The Skeleton

      58. Love and No Lying

      59. Ave! Vale! Salve!

      Papa seems so quietly happy.

      —Louisa MacDonald, May 4, 1872, from Deskford (near Cullen)

      Papa does enjoy this place so much.

      —Louisa MacDonald, May 6, 1872 from the Seafield Arms Hotel, Cullen

      Papa oh! so jolly & bright & happy…Papa was taken for Lord Seafield yesterday.

      —Louisa MacDonald, Sept. 2, 1873, from Cullen

      Papa is very poorly. He ought to go to Cullen for a week I think.

      —Louisa MacDonald, October 5, 1873, from London

      FOREWORD

      The Cullen Collection

      of the Fiction of George MacDonald

      The series name for these works of Scotsman George MacDonald (1824-1905) has its origins in the 1830s when the boy MacDonald formed what would be a lifelong affection for the northeast Scottish village of Cullen.

      The ocean became young George’s delight. At the age of eleven, writing from Portsoy or Cullen, he announced to his father his intention to go to sea as a sailor—in his words, as soon as possible. The broad white beach of Cullen Bay, the Seatown, the grounds of Cullen House, the temple of Psyche (Temple of the Winds,) Cullen Burn, the dwellings along Grant Street, Scarnose, and especially Findlater Castle, all seized the youth’s imagination with a love that never left him. MacDonald continued to visit Huntly and Cullen throughout his life, using his childhood love for his homeland as the backdrop for his richest novels, including what is arguably his greatest work of fiction, Malcolm, published in 1875.

      We therefore honor MacDonald’s unique relationship to Cullen with these newly updated editions of his novels. In Cullen, in certain respects more than in any other place, one finds the transcendent spirit of George MacDonald’s life and the ongoing legacy of his work still magically alive after a century and a half. This release of The Cullen Collection of the Fiction of George MacDonald coincides with a memorial bench and plaque established on Cullen’s Castle Hill commemorating MacDonald’s visits to the region.

      To those readers familiar with my previous editions of MacDonald’s novels, I should make clear that eighteen of the volumes in this new series are updated and expanded titles from the Bethany House series of the 1980s. Limitations of length dictated much about how those previous volumes were produced. To interest a publisher in the project during those years when MacDonald was a virtual unknown in the publishing world, certain sacrifices had to be made. Cuts to length had to be more severe than I would have preferred. Practicality drove the effort. Imperfect as they were in some respects, I am enormously grateful for those editions. They helped inaugurate a worldwide renaissance of interest in MacDonald. They were wonderful door-openers for many thousands into MacDonald’s world.

      Hopefully this new and more comprehensive set of MacDonald’s fiction will take up where they left off. Not constrained by the limitations that dictated production of the former volumes, these new editions, though identical at many points, have been expanded—sometimes significantly. In that sense they reflect MacDonald’s originals somewhat more closely, while still preserving the flavor, pace, and readability of their predecessors.

      Nineteen additional titles have been added to the original Bethany House series of novels. The thirteen realistic novels among these (including this one) have been updated according to the same priorities that guided the earlier Bethany House series. That process will be explained in more detail in the introductions to the books of the series. The final six which would more accurately be termed fantasy, have not been edited in any way. They are faithful reproductions of the originals exactly as they were first published. These six—Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, The Princess and the Goblin, The Wise Woman, The Princess and Curdie, and Lilith—are so well known and have been published literally in hundreds of editions through the years, that it has seemed best to reproduce them for The Cullen Collection with the same texts by which they are generally known.*

      Dedicated followers of all great men and women continually seek hints that reveal their inner being—the true man, the true woman. What were they really like? What made him or her tick? Many biographies and studies attempt to answer such questions. In George MacDonald’s case, however, a panorama of windows exists that reveals far more about his person than the sum-total of everything that has been written about him over the years. Those are the novels that encompass his life’s work. The volumes of this series represent the true spiritual biography of the man, a far more important biography than life’s details can ever tell.

      In 1911, six years after his father’s death, George MacDonald’s son Ronald wrote of the man with whom he had spent his life:

      "The ideals of his didactic novels were the motive of his own life…a life of literal, and, which is more, imaginative consistency with his doctrine…There has probably never been a writer whose work was a better expression of his personal character. This I am not engaged to prove; but I very positively assert…that in his novels…and allegories…one encounters...the same rich imagination, the same generous lover of God and man, the same consistent practiser of his own preaching, the same tender charity to the sinner with the same uncompromising hostility to the sin, which were known in daily use and by his own people counted upon more surely than sunshine." *

      Thirty years after the publication of my one-volume biography George MacDonald Scotland’s Beloved Storyteller, it now gives me great pleasure to present this thirty-seven-volume biography of the man, the Scotsman, the prophetic spiritual voice who is George MacDonald. *

      How fitting is the original title in which Ronald MacDonald’s sketch of his father quoted above first appeared, From A Northern Window. For any attempted portrait of the man George MacDonald becomes at once a window into his homeland as well.

      Therefore, I invite you to gaze back in time through the northern windows of these volumes. Picture yourself perhaps near the cheerful hearth described in the opening pages of What’s Mine’s Mine, looking out the window to the cold seas and mountains in the distance, where perhaps you get a fleeting glimpse of highlanders Ian and Alister Macruadh.

      Or imagine yourself walking up Duke Street in Huntly from MacDonald’s birth home, following in the footsteps of fictional Robert Falconer to the town square.

      Or envision yourself on some windswept highland moor with Gibbie or Cosmo Warlock.

      Or walk up the circular staircase of Fyvie Castle to Donal Grant’s tiny tower hideaway where he began to unravel the mysteries of that ancient and spooky place.

      Or walk from Cullen’s Seatown alongside Malcolm selling the fish in his creel, turning at the Market Cross into Grant Street and continuing past Miss Horn’s house and up the hill to the entrance of the Cullen House grounds.

      Or perhaps climb Castle Hill to the George MacDonald memorial bench and gaze across the sweep of Cullen Bay to Scarnose as Malcolm’s story comes to life before your eyes.

      From any of these settings, whether real or imaginary, drift back through the years and gaze through the panoramic windows of these stories, and take in with pleasure the drama, relationships, images, characters, settings, and spiritual truths George MacDonald offers us as we are drawn into his world.

      Michael Phillips

      Cullen, Morayshire

      Scotland, 2019

      INTRODUCTION

      1876

      A Turbulent History

      The mid 1870s and early 1880s were by any standard a period of astonishing excellence and creative output for the prolific Scotsman—the clear apex of George MacDonald’s writing career. It is as if the acclaim received during his tour of America of 1872-73 ignited a burst of literary energy and imagination that poured out unabated for a decade.

      Between 1875 and 1886—with an understandable pause around the turn of the decade—MacDonald published eight of his landmark novels, three lesser novels, plus an amazing nine additional titles, including a second volume of Unspoken Sermons, his book-length study of Hamlet, poems, translations, a volume of short stories, his Diary of an Old Soul, and two of his book-length fairy tales, The Wise Woman and The Princess and Curdie. Those eleven years witnessed the publication of twenty books—several of them huge!—some of MacDonald’s very best.

      It is possible that one or two of them may never have been written. What if he had never gotten around to Thomas Wingfold or Sir Gibbie! Because what MacDonald had planned for 1875 was a second lecture tour in America. Had the trip taken place, who knows which of the novels produced during the next two or three years might not have materialized. It turned out, however, that his daughter Mary’s health, always fragile, was declining. A lengthy trip away from her was out of the question. ¹

      Whatever other kind of writing MacDonald may have been engaged in, he was always writing poetry. For MacDonald, poetry was not work—poetry was his relaxation-writing. Included in this were his constant translations and revisions of Novalis and other favorite German and Italian authors. Later such work would include Sir Philip Sidney. With his reputation now able to carry work of less commercial appeal, MacDonald was at last able to publish a collection of translations he had been honing, modifying, and adding to for years. In a sense it came as a flowering of the long-growing fruit of what he had begun with his first publication of Novalis in 1851. His new work, Exotics, published in 1876, included not only the poems of Novalis but also Schiller, hymns of Luther, and some Italian poems. When added to his 1873 Christmas re-printing of Novalis selections, Exotics represented his third publication featuring the works of his favorite German poet.

      Also released that year was a new edition of poetry entitled Dramatic and Miscellaneous Poems (published by his American friends at Scribner)—a combined reprint of Within and Without and A Hidden Life and Other Poems.

      1876 is significant as the year in which MacDonald was writing The Marquis of Lossie, as well as when he began attending the Broadlands conferences near Southampton. Thereafter he was a regular participant.*

      The first of George MacDonald’s new novels published that year was one of his lesser known titles, St. George and St. Michael.

      It is easy for later generations to think of MacDonald’s novels as historical, but they are not. During MacDonald’s lifetime they were contemporary stories. St. George and St. Michael was MacDonald’s only foray into the world of the pure historical novel. Indeed, perhaps this novel is not so widely known precisely because the historical period in which it takes place is so difficult to understand.

      St. George and St. Michael was serialized in the Graphic between April and October of 1875, for which he received £500, ² then published as a triple decker by Henry S. King, possibly released at the end of that year but with a listed publication date of 1876. This is a huge payment, by far the most MacDonald ever received for a serialization—an equivalent today of approximately £55,000. Unless there was some cooperative arrangement between the Graphic and King, and this payment covered both magazine and book publication, MacDonald would have probably been paid by King an additional £400 to £600 (he had paid £700 for Malcolm) for the book publication—thus adding to the list of MacDonald’s least popular books (along with Wilfrid Cumbermede and The Vicar’s Daughter) as his most financially lucrative. However, I have no definitive information about King’s financial arrangements for this title.

      The story is set against the backdrop of the English Civil War of the mid-1600s. It was not only a tumultuous time but also one of the most complex and confusing eras in British history. My wife has read St. George and St. Michael four or five times, along with MacDonald’s fellow Victorian Edna Lyall’s several books set during the 1600s. Judy confesses, however, that she still doesn’t fully grasp the myriad complexities and turbulent undercurrents moving in so many directions in England and Scotland at the time.

      The U.S. Civil War is relatively straightforward—still complex, but not unrealistically difficult to grasp:

      Slavery both as a political and a religious and moral issue obviously topped the list of disputed points, along with states’ rights, the balance of power in Congress and how new states admitted to the Union would alter it, the geographic and economic differences between North and South, the state of the Union and whether it should remain a united nation or be split into two countries, with the underlying understanding that there were good and honorable people on both sides who had good reasons for their views, just as there were self-serving men on both sides who cared only for power and personal gain. The situation was complex, but complex like a chess game. There were many moving parts, but essentially there existed two sides to the conflict. Even without the many subtleties, most people can understand it as basically North vs. South.

      The English Civil War period resembled a multi-dimensional chess game—if such can be imagined. A piece might at one moment be moving on one plane of the board—say, the political plane. Yet that same piece might at the same time be involved in a completely different game on the church chessboard located on a different plane entirely. At times the varied dimensions of the chess game were so complicated and intertwined that no one understood them all. There weren’t just two sides…or four. There might at one moment have been seven forces working the pieces of seven different chessboards with seven different objectives, at another moment four…and still later six. It was very difficult to know who stood for what, and who were your friends and allies, and who were your enemies.

      Before delving into the story, we should identify the various chessboards that the characters—especially Richard Heywood and Dorothy Vaughan and those around them—were playing on. This is not a complete list, but may give a helpful overview of certain groups who were playing their multiple chess games.

      The king and parliament were playing on a political chessboard.

      The spiritually minded and clergy were playing on a religious/church chessboard.

      England, Scotland, and Ireland all had distinct national interests being played out on yet a different chessboard.

      The rich and poor, peasants and landowners, were more focused on their individual economic chessboards.

      Many found themselves switching from one board to another at different times when being influenced by different forces in their lives.

      And perhaps overarching them all was a rising tide slowly dismantling the feudal system that had held Europe in its grip for millennia. We might call this the class-hierarchy chessboard.

      What complicated the era almost beyond hope of understanding is that every side on one particular chessboard’s conflict might be on either side of another chessboard’s conflict. The political forces in Calvinist Scotland, though sharing certain political objectives, might line up differently on the religious chessboard than their Anglican counterparts in England. In Ireland the religious conflict was framed straightforwardly between Catholics and Protestants. The Calvinist Presbyterianism of John Knox in Scotland, meanwhile, had by the early 1600s virtually eliminated Catholicism as a significant political force in the country. In England, on the other hand, it was a three-sided chess game between Catholics, Anglicans (Church of England), and Calvinist Puritans.

      There were three church chessboards, all with different political agendas, just as there were three national chessboards.

      In its simplest terms, the Civil War broke into armed warfare in the early 1640s between the king and parliament. This conflict overspread the many interconnected chess games. It was a battle over who should hold ultimate political and religious authority in England. In this sense, it can be compared to North vs. South, Union vs. Confederacy, in the U.S. 1860s.

      It was King vs. Parliament.

      But there was no precise geographical demarcation between the two sides such as the Mason-Dixon Line in the U.S. Support for each side was philosophical and religious. One person might support the king, even a bad king, because he believed in the institution of the monarchy. His neighbor or uncle might support the parliament, saying instead that a bad king should be overthrown.

      Royalists (Cavaliers) supported the king and monarchy.

      Roundheads (so named for their short-cut hair) were supporters of parliament.

      Catholics and Anglicans were generally (but not exclusively) on the side of the king, though at the same time they were staunchly against one another.

      The Calvinist Puritans (in England) and Presbyterian Scots (Calvinists) were generally on the side of parliamentary rule, though each country had its own parliament.

      Other separatists and dissenters who had broken from the Church of England were generally on the side of parliament.

      The clergy was split along Catholic, non-Anglican Protestant, and Calvinist lines.

      The upper classes and wealthy generally supported the king, the lower classes the parliament.

      The story of St. George and St. Michael is set in Raglan Castle, a medieval castle north of the village of Raglan in Monmouthshire in southeast Wales. The castle still stands as a ruin today. During the time of the Civil War, Raglan Castle was as magnificent and luxurious as any in England. The ruling family of the Somersets/Herberts were indeed Royalists, as the story portrays. After the castle was besieged and captured by parliamentary forces, it deteriorated into a ruin. MacDonald used the factual site and the sad fortunes of the Somerset family as backdrop for his novel. Indeed, much in the novel is factual—including many of its characters. MacDonald even draws upon books about the time, which he quotes and references, to the point of placing factual dialog from these accounts into the narrative.

      Because this story is very different in tone and style from MacDonald’s other novels, aspects of the relationships and plots can be difficult to follow. A brief synopsis may be helpful for some readers.

      When the armed conflict breaks out in 1641 childhood friends and now young adults Richard Heywood and Dorothy Vaughan find themselves on opposite sides. The story of their relationship is clouded by the complex political and religious backdrop of the Civil War period which MacDonald weaves through the lengthy narrative.

      Eighteen-year old Richard, lives with his father, country squire and Puritan Roger Heywood, at their estate, or farm, of Redware in southeast Wales. As Puritans they side with parliament, though Roger Heywood (in another MacDonald example of a loving and trusting relationship between father and son) urges Richard to study the matter for himself and come to reasoned conclusions of his own.

      Among their tenants is a Mrs. Rees, whose son Thomas (Tom Fool) works at nearby Raglan Castle. Mother and son are both Royalists supporting the king.

      A mile or so away, seventeen-year old Dorothy lives with her mother, Lady Vaughan, widow of Sir Ringwood Vaughan, at Wyfern. They are strongly attached to the Church of England and thus Royalists in support of the king. Dorothy has as a matter of course adopted the opinions of her mother and her father’s friend Mr. Herbert. Though she holds her views fiercely, she has not thought much through for herself. In truth, Richard has not thought matters through either. He tells Dorothy that she is merely repeating what she has heard. Once he begins trying to understand the conflict, however, Richard’s study is equally one-sided on the Puritan side. He does exactly what he criticizes Dorothy for—repeating the arguments that he has heard from others. Neither are open-minded, and both are ruled by political opinions into which they have not probed deeply or objectively. Therefore, judgment and not a little self-righteousness characterize their perspectives.

      The story opens with Richard and Dorothy discussing the conflict. Puritan Richard, born on St. Michael’s Day, claims to stand for truth. Anglican Dorothy, born on St. George’s Day, stands for the king.

      All England was aflame with debate, discussion, and argument over who was right—the king or parliament. The third paragraph plunges the story straight into the heart of the controversy: They had been talking about the fast-gathering tide of opinion which, driven on by the wind of words, had already begun to beat so furiously against the moles and ramparts of Church and kingdom.

      As Richard confesses his love and his thought of marriage, Dorothy angrily tells him she never wants to see him again unless he changes his position to agree that the king is right and parliament wrong. Richard is devastated. He knows he will never love another. Though they are parted and soon find themselves on opposite sides, he resolves to watch out for Dorothy and protect her as he can.

      An old family friend of Dorothy’s father Sir Ringwood Vaughan, Rev. Matthew Herbert, Master Herbert, is a clergyman of some influence from the Welsh border about a day’s ride away. He is a staunch Royalist. When Dorothy’s mother dies, Master Herbert comes as the family friend to assume guardianship of Dorothy. (The occasional symbolism of MacDonald’s use of names is obvious here—two of his favorite poets being George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. Indeed, the latter, one of many historic characters who comes into the story, as a relation of Dorothy’s, plays a cameo role late in the book.)

      With skirmishes and raids sweeping the peasantry into looting and violence, and fearing for Dorothy’s safety, Master Herbert takes Dorothy for protection to his relatives at nearby and highly fortified Raglan Castle, a Catholic and Royalist stronghold of his cousin, widower Lord Herbert, the Marquis of Worcester (formerly the Earl of Worcester). Living at the castle are the Marquis’s son and his wife, Lord Edward Herbert and Lady Margaret—all Catholics and Royalists. Rowland Scudamore, a distant cousin of Dorothy’s, is a high-level servant to the earl and also a Royalist.

      Master Herbert leaves Dorothy with his relatives and returns to his parish. Dorothy, an Anglican, has always feared and distrusted Catholics. She now finds herself thrown together with a castle full of them, and she is completely dependent on them. Yet, as an example of the strange bedfellow loyalties of the time, they are all on the same side in the conflict as supporters of the king. Dorothy’s preconceptions and ideas are challenged and she begins to grow. She remains a staunch supporter of the king, but she is gradually forced to see things from a broader perspective. Her fear of Catholics is softened by her relationship with the Marquis and his son and daughter-in-law, in whom she finds true character and establishes deep friendships. Indeed, the three Catholics—the aging Marquis, Lord Herbert, and Lady Margaret—in a sense establish the spiritual foundations of the story more profoundly than do any on the Protestant side other than Richard’s father.

      Courageous and outspoken, Dorothy becomes a favorite with everyone in the castle. Scudamore thinks he is in love with her. Knowing that the Marquis favors her, the ladies’ maids are jealous of the newcomer. In spite of their stormy parting, as time passes Dorothy’s thoughts gradually turn again to Richard, the friend of her youth. She still considers him wrong, but alongside Scudamore, a bore and a cad who considers himself God’s gift to women, she cannot help remembering Richard fondly.

      Lord Edward, son of the Marquis, is an inventor and scientist and is constantly experimenting with new ideas. The castle has innumerable fascinations—wild animals, towers, underground passages, and mechanical devices, the most striking of which is a powerful forerunner of a working steam-engine by which he controls water throughout the castle. Dorothy is curious and fascinated in Lord Herbert’s experiments and devices, and eventually becomes his trusted assistant.

      The conflict gathers momentum. Richard leaves home to join the parliamentary army. He is wounded in battle and must return home. After his recovery, preparing to return to the fight, he discovers his beloved mare Lady missing from her stall. As they were adversaries from an earlier meeting at Dorothy’s home, Richard suspects Scudamore of stealing her. Therefore, he sneaks into the castle to find her.

      Though she has been thinking of him, Dorothy’s loyalties are still with the king. When she sees Richard sneaking about the castle, she rings the alarm bell, Richard is captured, beaten, and locked away. Amanda, one of the housemaids who is jealous of Dorothy and herself in love with Scudamore, helps him escape in order to implicate Dorothy. She is successful in spreading the rumor that Dorothy and Richard were working together all along to plant Dorothy as a spy in the castle.

      Seeing how Richard was treated, Dorothy now has qualms about having turned him in. She knew it was her duty, yet his courage and noble bearing have a profound effect on her. She is actually relieved he has escaped. Dorothy’s preconceptions are dealt further blows after she is accused of being a traitor.

      Thinking to impress Dorothy, Scudamore rides off to join the fight on Richard’s stolen horse. He and Richard meet in battle, Scudamore is wounded, recovers, returns to battle though still weak, again encounters Richard, who takes him to Mrs. Rees to be nursed back to health. There Scudamore inadvertently lets slip to Richard that Dorothy loves him.

      Meanwhile, the king double-crosses Lord Herbert, retitled the Earl of Glamorgan, who is imprisoned in Ireland working on the king’s behalf. For all their support and financial aid to his cause, the Marquis and nearly everyone at the castle now see the king’s duplicity for what it is. They remain loyal to the monarchy if not to the king’s character. This is a great blow to Dorothy who had idolized the king. While not changing her view of the conflict, she realizes that the war engulfing Britain is more complex than she had assumed, and that Richard’s loyalties may have had more merit than she had thought. Similar changes are taking place in Richard on the battlefield. He sees much of the spiritual hypocrisy on the parliamentary side, and comes to realize that nothing lasting can hope to be accomplished by armed conflict. Their disillusionment, each with their respective sides, cannot help but bring them closer together in their hearts and minds.

      The conflict goes against the king. The parliamentary forces at last storm Raglan. The Marquis has no choice but to surrender to the parliamentary army. Dorothy accompanies the Marquis and his retinue to London, and the castle is ransacked and destroyed. Dorothy remains with the aging Marquis until his death, then returns to Wyfern.

      Dorothy and Richard meet in the ruins of Raglan. Both have matured during the five years of the conflict. Their former friendship now blossoms into love.

      Neither Richard nor Dorothy can be said to be role model characters in the typical MacDonald mold. Both are far too opinionated and politically motivated for their own good. In Richard’s initial encounter with Scudamore, driven by jealousy and without justification, he rudely provokes a fight. Scudamore is seriously injured and Richard, as an immature hothead, is clearly in the wrong. The incident gives rise to the antagonism between the two for the rest of the book. Neither is Scudamore a shining knight. Though he has moments when it seems the light is about to break through, he invariably lapses back into his low self. He would kill Richard if he could. On his part, Richard does nearly take Scudamore’s life, first trying to shoot him, then slicing his shoulder almost in half with his sword. Though he later aids in his recovery, his entire posture toward Scudamore is antagonistic. These are not things we can imagine of Gibbie or Donal or Malcolm even in their youth.

      St. George and St. Michael is unique in the MacDonald corpus in this flawed and human presentation of its two main characters. Perhaps the best way to understand it is simply to say that Richard and Dorothy are of their times. The only two saintly or role model characters are the two Catholic men, the young and old marquises of Worcester. Richard and Dorothy, however, are growing, and in that sense they are classic MacDonald characters for whom we expect better things in the future.

      Though in some respects Richard is initially presented as more mature of thought than Dorothy, MacDonald does not seem to endorse the parliamentary cause. It is possible to read just the opposite into it—though MacDonald’s own views remain obscure, no doubt exactly as he intended. As the narrative mostly follows Dorothy, we gradually see a different side of her than the narrow-minded partisan. We see a heart of service, respectfulness, love of truth, duty, kindness, and self-sacrifice. We see that her character extends deeper into the marrow of her being than her opinions, and thus eventually opens her heart again toward Richard. In a sense, this becomes the core theme of the book—that character transcends opinion. The same gradual transition takes place in Richard, with the blossoming of a more expansive perspective of what comprises truth. But as we experience it in more personal detail with Dorothy, she emerges as the more fully developed of the two personalities.

      MacDonald summarizes, near the end, speaking of Richard:

      He saw more clearly than before what he had been learning ever since she had renounced him, that it is not correctness of opinion—and could he be sure his own opinions were correct?—that constitutes rightness, but that condition of soul which, as a matter of course, causes it to move along the lines of truth and duty—the life going forth in motion according to the law of light. This alone places a nature in harmony with the central Truth.

      The most endearing characters in the book for many readers will doubtless be the old Catholic Marquis and his son whose influence on Dorothy is so profound. It is this Catholic man and younger Lord Herbert, both supporters of the king, who demonstrate true Christian spirit, open-mindedness, hospitality, fairness, and inward personal growth. The old Marquis’s final passing is truly among the most triumphant portrayals of death in MacDonald’s corpus.

      MacDonald portrays a growing spirit of love on all sides. Perhaps this is the key to understanding MacDonald’s perspective of the conflict. He refused to take a side at all, focusing instead on the people not the politics. As always, his emphasis is virtue of character, doing what we know, and unity in the face of difference not sameness of opinion.

      All depended on their common magnanimity, not the magnanimity that pardons faults, but the magnanimity that recognises virtues. He who gladly kneels with one who thinks largely wide from himself, in so doing draws nearer to the Father of both than he who pours forth his soul in sympathetic torrent only in the company of those who think like himself. If a man be of the truth, then and only then is he of those who gather with the Lord.

      The events of the story take place roughly between 1641 and 1646. ³ It is a long book and some of the historical details, especially for American readers, can be daunting. MacDonald’s use of Shakespearean English, though not quite so visually difficult as the Scots dialect in his Scottish novels, adds its own share to the difficulty of reading the original of St. George and St. Michael.

      Interestingly, the inventive mind of Gutta Percha Willie seems to have grown and taken adult shape in Lord Herbert. And the declining health of MacDonald’s daughter Mary, whose nickname was Molly, is surely reflected in the sad tale of the story’s fictional Molly. MacDonald ends with a poignant reflection on the destruction wrought by the Puritans, a timely caution against the blindness of progressive and revolutionary movements in all times:

      And now must I bury my dead out of my sight—bid farewell to the old resplendent, stately, scarred, defiant Raglan, itself the grave of many an old story, and the cradle of the new…vulgar era of our island’s history. Little did Lord Herbert dream of the age he was initiating—of the irreverence and pride and destruction that were about to follow in his footsteps, wasting, defiling, scarring, obliterating, turning beauty into ashes, and worse!…When one looks upon Raglan, indignation rises—not at the storm of iron which battered its walls to powder, hardly even at the decree to level them with the dust, but at the later destroyer who could desecrate the beauty yet left by wrath and fear…the destruction of the very landmarks of our history, the desecration of ruins that ought to be venerated for their loveliness as well as their story…

      But this era too will pass, and truth come forth in forms new and more lovely still.

      The living Raglan has gone from me, and before me rise the broken, mouldering walls which are the monument of their own past. My heart swells as I think of them…

      The vision fades, and the old walls rise like a broken cenotaph…a thing of the past…And however the mind, or even the spirit of man may change, the heart remains the same, and an effort to read the hearts of our forefathers will help us to know the heart of our neighbour.

      It is my hope that perhaps some pruning and linguistic editing will allow this story of love and growing character to emerge more clearly, and will help you relish the story of two young people who love God and love one another.

      Michael Phillips

      Cullen, Morayshire

      Scotland, 2019

      NOTE ON FOOTNOTES: The following books are noted in the footnotes below as indicated.

      Bulloch, Bibliography—A Bibliography of George MacDonald, by John Malcolm Bulloch, The Aberdeen University Library Bulletin, February, 1925, Vol. V, No. 30.

      Sadler, Letters—An Expression of Character: The Letters of George MacDonald Edited by Glenn Edward Sadler, William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1994.

      1 MacDonald wrote to James T. Fields on August 13, 1874:

      "Best thanks for your most kind letter. I have given up the thought of visiting America this coming winter, but if I find they want me, I think it very likely I shall venture again next year…

      Do think of coming over next summer—early—with your lovely dame, and then you could go back with us in the autumn…I know it is a risk for me to try the lecturing again; but I mean to manage better next time—courses in large places, with a few between to fill up, would at least not be so hard, and I get very tired of writing. (Sadler, Letters, pp. 240-41.)

      The friendships he had established with Fields, Josiah Holland, and Richard Gilder were all lifelong, and the correspondence through the years is sprinkled with talk of visits going in both direction, as this letter shows.

      He was still thinking of a second lecture tour to America, apparently planning on it, when he wrote to Dr. Holland five years later on July 7, 1879:

      "I am sorry to hear you are ill. I trust it is but a passing indisposition, and that when I have the pleasure of seeing you in the autumn, I shall find you well and enjoying all kinds of life.

      "As to the request with which you honour me, I am sorry I cannot undertake it. I am at this moment busy with a three volume novel which I cannot finish before leaving for your world, and I must not load myself with fresh labour. Besides a short story is almost as difficult to do as a long one…But the main thing is that I am so far overworked that I am getting sick of it…

      With a thousand thanks for your kind offer of hospitality, and hoping that your illness at least may not be the cause of our failing to be your guests… (Sadler, Letters, pp. 295-96.)

      2 Bulloch, Bibliography, p. 718.

      3 NOTES ON ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

      To enable those intrepid history buffs who are so inclined to read St. George and St. Michael with a little more knowledge of the backdrop of the times, the following historical perspective will hopefully be helpful.

      Prior to 1600, the monarchy held authority and was able to rule almost without restraint according to the long-established principle of the divine right of kings—the belief that God ordained earthly kings as his chosen rulers. It was the parallel principle in the political arena that established the Pope’s authority over the church—that all earthly authority originates with God.

      But times were changing throughout Europe. The Reformation had spawned forces producing widespread currents of new thought, shaking the veracity of absolute authority in the spiritual world. Now it was being shaken in the political world. Along with religious divisions, the Age of Reason, or Enlightenment, though largely philosophical, gradually spread the idea that individual men had rights. Those rights did not yet extend to what would in another century and a half become the rallying cry of the American experiment—the right to self -determination and self -rule. But the seeds of such far-reaching ideas were blowing about in germinal form.

      Governments were changing. Kings were discovering, to their discomfort, that feudalism was crumbling in their world just as indulgences had crumbled a century before in the Pope’s world. Up and down the social scale those beneath the yoke of feudalism and church tradition were flexing their muscles. Peasants and workers were no longer content to be treated as serfs. For the first time a middle class began to emerge. Landowning aristocrats were no longer willing for their fortunes to be dictated by a Pope or a king. The masses, rich and poor, were stirring. Parliaments, peasants, and landowners alike, along with diverse Christian sects, were making their voices heard.

      Most monarchs, however, were not only inept at reading the signs of the times, they determined to hold their authority by force. Thus, they usually inflamed rather than conciliated the rising voices of discontent.

      When Queen Elizabeth I of England died in 1603, she was succeeded by James, son of Mary Queen of Scots, who was King James VI of Scotland. He thus also became King James I of England. For the first time in history, the two nations were united under a single king. They were still two countries with two parliaments…but were ruled by the same king.

      James’s rule was generally peaceful and prosperous. Yet he was intractably of the old order, a firm believer that because he was chosen by God his rule was infallible. Along with an exalted sense of power, James had extravagant tastes. His strong religious views satisfied neither Catholics, Anglicans, nor Puritans. His excessive demands for money for a lavish lifestyle, and his circumvention of Parliament to get it, angered the nobility.

      During his reign, Calvinist Puritanism grew from a minor sect within the Church of England to a major political force. The term puritan simply meant those who wanted to purify the Church of its excesses and Catholic-like traditions. The Calvinism John Knox had successfully exported from France to Scotland thus began making serious inroads in England also. Intrinsic to the divine right of kings was James’s belief that he was also the spiritual head of the Church. This, of course, the Puritans could not accept. It was, in their view, no different than Catholicism—spiritual authority resting in a single man. As the Puritan influence in the English parliament grew, it became more anti-Catholic and more strident in its effort to rid the Church and English society from ungodly and papist traditions.

      Relations between parliament and the monarchy steadily declined, each side more and more antagonistic to the other. As the Puritans continued to gain power, they were determined not only to purify the Church of England from excesses inherited from Rome, but also to purify the government from the parallel excesses of the monarchy. Though James was not a Catholic, to the Puritans his monarchy and the Archbishopric of Canterbury were institutions of illegitimate spiritual authority. They saw it as their divine duty to rid both the Church and government of unrighteousness, and make England a devout religious nation, in a sense following the example of Knox’s Presbyterianism that had taken over the Church in Scotland.

      James’s death in 1625 brought his son Charles I to the throne. Believing even more strongly in the divine right of kings, Charles followed in his father’s footsteps with exalted ideas of royal authority and prerogative. As a patron of the arts he spent vast sums on art and on musicians to entertain his court. In his own way, like his father, he was a deeply religious man. But he believed it his right to force Anglicanism on the entire country. Charles declared that there was no Church which practiced …the true religion with more purity of doctrine than the Church of England… Therefore, he did his best to impose High Anglican worship, with its ceremonies, rituals, lavish ornamentation, and its hierarchy of bishops and priests. The Puritans considered all this nothing less than Popery. Charles then took his Anglicanism to Scotland, undoing the entire Calvinist revolution that John Knox had brought to that nation. He introduced the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican liturgy, infuriating Scots all the more by declaring that opposition to the new liturgy would be treason.

      Though not himself a Catholic, Charles seemed scarcely aware how greatly Catholics were feared. After marrying Roman Catholic Henrietta Maria of France, he proceeded to lift restrictions on Catholics. The marriage inflamed Puritan sensibilities and turned most of the rising Puritan movement virulently against him. Charles remained completely deaf to the currents of change, wielding power capriciously and unwisely. Even his supporters did not know if they could trust him. Over the years he eventually angered every group and constituency in both England and Scotland.

      In 1629, after parliament refused to grant Charles money to finance military campaigns against Spain and France, he dismissed parliament and began what he called his Personal Rule. The country was without a parliament for eleven years. As only parliament could legally impose taxes, Charles had to find other non-parliamentary sources of revenue. His unscrupulous means of raising money, mostly by selling privilege and titles to would-be nobles for huge sums, eroded support even among those who were traditionally loyal to the monarchy.

      Unrest throughout the country simmered, gradually coalescing into those who supported the king in spite of his foolishness, his excesses, and what seemed an entire lack of integrity in his personal dealings, and those who thought that measures should be taken to curtail the king’s power.

      After eleven years Charles called the parliament back to raise money for another campaign, this time against Scotland. By now, however, parliament’s anger had reached the boiling point. They were determined to present their grievances to the king, and refused to grant him the money he wanted until he addressed their concerns. Charles stubbornly refused and dissolved parliament again.

      The bitterness between king and parliament grew to an impasse. A crisis seemed inevitable. The partisan sentiment came to a head in 1641. An attempted coup by Catholic landowners erupted in Ireland. Massacring protestant settlers in Ulster, the Catholic nobles attempted to seize control of the English administration there.

      King Charles needed to raise an army to put down the rebellion. A heated debate followed over whether the king or parliament should control the army and how the Irish insurrection should be put down.

      Using the opportunity to address its list of unresolved grievances, in June of 1642, the reconvened parliament presented King Charles an ultimatum:

      It set forth the principle that henceforth parliament would control all military resources, that parliament would approve all ministers and officials chosen by the king, and that parliament would decide how the Church was to be reformed. It decreed that laws against Catholics were to be strictly enforced. Furthermore, it established that parliament would be allowed a determinative influence in the education and marriage arrangements of the King’s children.

      King Charles rejected the propositions

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