With the resolution of the Chanak Affair the Mediterranean Fleet was able to resume a more normal pattern, ushering in a period that can be viewed in retrospect as something of a golden age in the interwar period. There were flaws in this rosy picture and some serving at the time might have considered it as a golden age only in the light of what was to follow. The government imposed strict economy measures that translated into reduced fuel allowances resulting in curtailed time at Sea, unrealistically slow ‘economical speed’ in exercises and a much resented increase in bureaucracy and paperwork to account for expenditures. The staff of the Mediterranean Fleet became notorious for excessive regulation and attempts to foresee and schedule everything with exercises crammed into every available minute. It was, as Admiral Chatfield later wrote, ‘staff work run mad: the Germanic method of complete preparation and organisation, successful perhaps on land but ill adapted to the Sea’. Admiral Brock was succeeded as Commander-in-Chief in June 1925 by Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, a well-known and popular figure because of his leadership of the raids on Zeebrugge and Ostend in 1918. Keyes was followed in June 1928 by Admiral Frederick Field who commanded for the remainder of the 1920s. The atmosphere of the mid-1920s, with its impressive annual combined manoeuvres with the Atlantic Fleet followed by the cruising Season with visits to various Mediterranean and Adriatic ports, can be discerned in the letters from the flagship written by Lieutenant Duckworth [280, 281]. Duckworth also reflects the pride in the immaculate appearance of the Fleet and the importance attached to ‘showing the flag’, coupled with a somewhat condescending attitude towards foreigners that was characteristic of that time [282, 283].

The arrangement of the summer cruises was more complicated than it might seem at first. The first part of the cruise in the eastern Mediterranean, primarily in Greek waters, posed relatively few problems and took place each year. The second part of the summer cruises was more difficult, that is the very size of the Fleet made it desirable not to outlast its welcome in the western Mediterranean by visiting ports too often. Consequently, the second half of the summer cruise alternated each year between the ports of the western Mediterranean and the adriatic [302, 304].

The central focus of Genesis 12–50 is kinship and the family: Steinberg has described it as ‘a book whose plot is genealogy’, structured around the ‘toledoth’ formula, usually translated as ‘these are the generations of’. Genealogy not only facilitates family succession and continuity but is also used to structure each family cycle: the ‘toledoth’ formula occurs at Genesis 11 (the Abraham cycle), Genesis 25 (the Jacob cycle) and Genesis 36 (the Joseph story). Within each cycle, Steinberg argues, we move from the ‘ideal stable movement’ of genealogy, to inheritance problems that threaten it, then back to the stability of genealogy. Despite the difficulties around the choice of an heir, Abraham’s family line continues, allowing the fulfilment of God’s promises of land and descendants (the ‘Abrahamic’ blessings). This is important because the patriarchs are not only Israel’s earliest ancestors, but also ‘prefigure’ the nation of Israel: Kawashima describes them as ‘narrative concepts for thinking about Israel’s identity’, which includes its relationship with non-Israelites, such as Hagar and Ishmael. Whereas Exodus shifts its focus from the family to the Israelites as a ‘people’, Genesis maintains its focus on the family throughout. Some scholars have suggested that we should think of it as ‘family literature’: Petersen, like Coats (p. 18), compares it with the Icelandic ‘family’ sagas, pointing out the prominence of family concerns, such as births, marriages, deaths, itineraries and property. Most notable is the keen interest in family strife: Steinberg comments that Genesis exemplifies ‘a highly disruptive pattern of family life’, while Petersen suggests that a central ‘family’ value in this book is the peaceful resolution of conflict between siblings. Sibling rivalry and competition play an important role, and one that is theologically inflected: Kaminsky describes these ancestral narratives as ‘a sustained meditation on the problems that arise when someone is mysteriously favoured by God’.

When we turn to the Old Norse translation of Genesis 12–50, then, we might expect some recognition of how similar these stories are to Iceland’s own ancestral narratives. It is true that the literal level of interpretation predominates in this section, although allegorical glosses continue to be present. Melchizedek, for example, is interpreted traditionally as prefiguring Christ and the sacraments, while the commentary on Jacob’s prophecies in Genesis 49 points to their ultimate fulfilment in Christ.

The departure of Heath from Berlin was an opportunity for the new naval attaché to rebuild relations between the two navies. Captain Hugh Watson, the suave, urbane and sociable individual who took up his post in August 1910, attempted to do just this, holding out the prospect of an Anglo-German agreement on the exchange of naval information to all the senior officers and officials that he met [106, 110, 111, 112]. In doing so, his enthusiasm outran his discretion and he was ultimately reprimanded by the Foreign Office and disowned by the Admiralty for his pains in interfering in a ‘political’ matter. Subsequent to the breakdown of these well-intentioned efforts to promote an Anglo- German agreement on the exchange of naval information, Watson reassessed his attitude towards the German leadership. In particular, one can see Watson's growing suspicions concerning Admiral Tirpitz, the German naval authorities and the coterie he termed ‘the Large Navy Party’ [126]. Another theme that emerges from Watson's reports at this time concerns the development of German air power. Beginning in late 1911, he and his military colleague, Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. Alexander ‘Alick’ Russell, embarked upon an extensive campaign to raise awareness of German technical progress in the field of dirigible airships [140, 143, 147]. It was a point that they would raise with growing frequency in later years, as we shall see in subsequent chapters.

106. Hugh Watson, Germany N.A. No.31/10

Berlin, 25 August 1910

A Conversation with Admiral von Tirpitz

I have the honour to report an interview I had yesterday with his Excellency Admiral von Tirpitz.

With reference to the notes I handed to his Excellency, those contained in No.2 I was authorised by the First Lord of the Admiralty to put before Admiral von Tirpitz.

Those in No.3, the Director of Naval Intelligence suggested that I could put them forward as views of British Admiralty to Admiral von Tirpitz should opportunity arise.

[Enclosure]

106a. Precis of Conversation held with his Excellency Admiral von Tirpitz by Captain Hugh D. R. Watson, Royal Navy

Berlin, 24 August 1910

His Excellency was only making a brief stay in Berlin on his way from his home to Dantzig [sic] to attend the combined Naval and Military parade there before His Majesty the Kaiser.

It was not to be expected that a multilateral treaty of such great import, and on such an unprecedented subject, as the Five Power Treaty of Naval Limitation signed at Washington in 1922 would enjoy a smooth life. It raised, firstly, the question, for both the British and the Americans, of how to defend their positions in the Pacific, since they were forbidden to add to their fortifications in the western Pacific and, in effect, they had ceded naval supremacy there to the ‘local’ great power Japan, which already possessed defended and developed bases in the area. The Americans, whose remote Pacific possessions had never prompted Congress to appropriate money for their defence, merely shrugged their shoulders and concentrated on building up Pearl Harbor, far distant from the threatened islands. The British embarked on the long saga of developing a naval base at Singapore, sufficient to house the ‘main fleet’ and near enough to the western Pacific to deter Japanese imperial ambitions [41, 58].

There was, secondly, an American programme, ultimately accomplished, to raise the elevation of their battleships’ main armament, which drew British objections, though it was a moot point as to whether it was prohibited by the treaty. British ships had a 20° elevation whereas the older American ships had a 15° elevation, raised to 30° after Washington; only a few British ships were raised to this elevation in 1935–37. The Americans happily adopted a ‘stand pat’ position on the treaty as regards capital ship gun calibres and displacement and evidently enjoyed substantial battleship building facilities, in contrast to the British [42, 56, 62].

Although the treaty had specified total tonnage amounts in submarines for each of the signatories and the Root Resolutions had endeavoured to pin submarines to the historic rules on cruiser warfare, the British were disappointed that no other nation had supported their heartfelt (but scarcely realistic) proposal for total abolition of a weapon which had brought Britain almost to her knees in the spring of 1917.

IT was in a chapter published in 1999 that Roger Mason outlined, with characteristic lucidity and cogency, the iconography utilised in the reigns of James III, James IV, and James V as a means of conveying the concept of imperial monarchy. In producing such visual propaganda these Scottish monarchs projected an idea of themselves as rulers – emperors within their own kingdoms – who possessed full jurisdictional authority over their realm. No doubt James V was influenced by events of the 1530s in England where Henry VIII – even if he did not become a Protestant – did go so far as to break with Rome on the grounds that England was an empire and he himself an emperor. Even before his personal rule began, however, in November 1526, the Scottish parliament had claimed such jurisdiction on James’ behalf, asserting that he ‘and his maist noble progenitouris has evire bene fre and emperouris within thame self, nocht subject to na erdlie creature undir God in thar temporalite’. It was Mason's contention that James V was equally conscious of his imperial status, and that, if he did not need or want to challenge the pope's supremacy over the church, he did set about enforcing the crown's supremacy over temporal lords and lordships within his kingdom. A symbol of this assertion of his imperium, argued Mason, was his ‘virtual circumnavigation of the kingdom’ as the king led ‘a heavily armed, seaborne expedition’ to Orkney and the Western Isles in 1540. This expedition resulted in a number of interventions in the peripheries beyond the usual warding of Hebridean chiefs and included: the 1540 Act of Annexation which saw the North and South Isles, Kintyre, and Orkney and Shetland now firmly in crown hands; the commencement of a survey of these newly acquired crown lands in the west and a subsequent significant increase in returns to the crown; the granting of a new tack of crown lands in Orkney and Shetland to Oliver Sinclair (who was said to be a favourite of the king at that time) which also saw significantly increased rentals; and James’ nomination of Robert Reid, abbot of Kinloss, as successor to Robert Maxwell as bishop of Orkney.

IN 1881 George Stuart, 14th earl of Moray, commemorated his ancestor, James Stewart, Regent Moray, by erecting a memorial stained-glass window in St Giles’ Church in Edinburgh. Its top panel dramatically illustrated the Regent's assassination in Linlithgow in 1570, portraying him as dying for his country, then riven by civil war. The bottom panel depicted John Knox, the Scottish Reformer, in full preaching flow delivering the funeral sermon. In Victorian Scotland it was taken as axiomatic that Moray and Knox belonged together as heroes of the Scottish Protestant Reformation. Many Scots of that period assumed Protestantism had moulded their national identity and that its providential outlook and mission was actively shaping the British Empire. The sixteenth-century labels of Knox as an Old Testament prophet and Moray as a captain of Israel continued to resonate in Scotland and Britain in subsequent centuries, but their first names suggest additional New Testament parallels. The apostles James and John, sons of Zebedee, had been nicknamed ‘Sons of Thunder’ by Jesus because they had wanted to send a fiery vengeance upon a Samaritan village that had failed to welcome him. Like the first sons of thunder, James Stewart and John Knox shared a desire for vengeance against those they labelled enemies of God. They were prepared with all their might to wield the civil and the spiritual swords against their opponents. The Biblical account also related how Simon Peter, James and John were the three disciples present at Jesus’ Transfiguration. Not long after that indication of their special status, their mother, Salome, had asked Jesus to, when he came to glory, place James and John on his right- and left-hand sides. This provoked indignation from their fellow disciples and a rebuke from Jesus that explained the meaning of true discipleship. Moray's mother, the formidable Margaret Erskine, Lady Lochleven, was similarly ambitious for her eldest son. She did not forget that his father, King James V, had sought a papal annulment to separate her from her husband, Sir William Douglas of Lochleven, so he could marry her instead.

New evidence about the coup which brought Mary to the throne has shed more light on its naval aspect. It has always been known that the Duke of Northumberland sent ships to the East Anglian coast to prevent Mary from making her escape that way. This is explicit in one of the contemporary chronicles, as extracted here [II.1]. We now know in some detail what happened to these ships, and in particular about dissension aboard one of them, from the record of a case heard before the Admiralty Court two years later. Greyhound's captain, Gilbert Grice, had been hand-picked by Northumberland for his expertise, but his crew had a keener sense of the way the tide was running, and when Grice went ashore at Yarmouth the master, John Hurlocke, took command and declared for Mary. He then broke open the captain's chest, on the grounds that he was a manifest traitor, and shared the contents with his shipmates. In the event Grice soon made his peace with Mary [II.3] and was retained in service. He subsequently sued Hurlocke before the Admiralty Court for the recovery of his goods, and it is the depositions in these proceedings which are presented in full here [II.2]. The testimonies are not entirely consistent, and there is no judgement. Grice was not on trial (indeed he had already been pardoned), and the only issue was whether he would see his clothes or his money again. What makes these papers important is their incidental detail about the operation and the men involved in it. This chapter is supplemented by some extracts from the Privy Council Register which show how the new regime took control of the navy [II.3–4].

II.1 The naval squadron sent to East Anglia in the attempt to prevent Mary's accession: extract from the account of anonymous Tower of London chronicler

[Chron. Jane, pp. 8–9]

13–15 July 1553

The 13th day [of July] there came divers gentlemen with their powers to Queen Mary's succour.

About this time or thereabouts the six ships that were sent to lie before Yarmouth, that if she had fled to have taken her, was by force of weather driven into the haven, whereabout that quarters one Master Jerningham was raising power on Queen Mary's behalf, and hearing thereof came thither.

THIS STUDY EXPLORES the instrumentalization of the Middle Ages in Russia both across different periods and contexts and by a multitude of agents. Far from being resigned to the past, medievalisms abound in the present, informing and animating the far-right ideology espoused by the Putin regime and its supporters. The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War and reactions to it bring to the fore two further examples of medievalism: 1) the ties between Russian and Western far-right movements and their respective uses of medieval themes and imagery, and 2) the efforts by the Russian government to legitimize and popularize the ongoing war. While distinct at first glance, these examples share the sacralization of violence inherent in far-right ideologies. Moreover, white supremacy underpins the imperial nationalist rejection of Ukraine's sovereignty by Russia's ruling elite and propaganda, tapping into the traditions of holy war and presenting the war of conquest as parts of Russia's heroic medieval past.

White Supremacy in Russia and the West

During the last decades of the Soviet Union, many Russian conservatives rejected flagging Soviet socialism in favour of ethnonationalism. Drawing on a heavily romanticized vision of early medieval Eastern Slavs, they imagined Rus as a symbol of past greatness and dreamed of its future resurgence in post-Soviet Russia. Some in the nationalist circles also embraced Orthodox Christianity as a religion old and syncretic enough to contain valuable traces of early medieval Slavic culture. Others, however, rejected monotheism as a foreign import and supported a return to ancestral polytheistic roots, prompting neo-pagan Native Faith (Rodnoverie) revivals in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Notably, Native Faith emphasizes Aryan origins and promotes the racial purity of the Slavs, offering opportunities for far-right radicalization and recruitment. More extreme neo-pagan offshoots normalize far-right ideologies by claiming the swastika as a traditional Slavic symbol, openly supporting racist or antisemitic views, or even using the “blood and soil” rhetoric in defence of Russia's militant expansion and anti-immigrant policies. Socially conservative views and general distrust towards Western mainstream culture provide additional points of convergence, promoting cooperation between Slavic neo-pagans and far-right movements in Europe and North America.

John Davies (1625–93), a translator from Kidwelly, west Wales, published The New Pope in several editions from 1671, a translation of Gregorio Leti's (1630–1701) satirical account of papal elections, Il ceremoniale historico, part 5. This treatise ridicules the process of papal elections by claiming that superstitions, including ‘a kind of onomancy’, are involved in this process. Leti, an Italian who converted to Calvinism, was an irredeemable satirist who produced a significant number of works criticising and lampooning the Catholic church. Even satirically, then, onomancy – or something resembling it, since the process described here does not convert letters to numbers and perform calculations – was linked to the superstitions of the Catholic church in post-Reformation Britain.

This chapter will look beyond the arbitrary end of the Middle Ages and examine onomancy in Britain during the period c. 1500–c. 1700. I address several questions. What kinds of people owned, copied or used onomancies in early modern Britain? What effect, if any, did the Protestant Reformation and rise of witchcraft prosecutions have on condemnations of and justifications for the use of onomancy? What was the effect of print culture on the text and contexts of onomantic devices? Was onomancy as popular as it had been in the fifteenth century?

[fol. ii r]

¶ Vbi fuit mons est uallis

Et de colle fit iam callis

Heus et strata publica.

Propter casum dire sortis

Debilis est factus fortis

Non per sua merita.

Bellicosus infirmatur,

Alter <Sampson> trucidatur,

<Lamentatur> Anglia.

Symon pro simplicitate

Marchionum feritate

Cadit cesus framea.

Die martis bellum creuit,

Cadit \H/ector, Rachel fleuit

Pro cesis in area.

Comparatur hic Vluxi

Nam pro fide crucifixi

Non timebat milia.

Rexit uigor in Achille

Set et Symon talis ille

Qui pungnat pro patria.

Primus natus <rexit> frenum,

Non permisit alienum

Dare patri uulnera.

Vbi fuit mons (207)

Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 85/167, fol. ii r

¶ Where there was a mountain is now a valley, and from a hill is now made a path, alas, and a common highway.

[4] A strong man is now made weak because a cruel fate has befallen him and not because of his deserts.

[7] A fighting man is made a casualty. Like another Samson, he is slain. England laments him.

[10] Simon is fallen for the sake of honesty, pierced by a spear, through the savagery of the marchers.

[13] On a Tuesday (the day of Mars) the battle took place. Hector fell, and Rachel wept for those cut down in the field.

[16] He is like Ulysses; indeed because of faith in the Crucified he did not ‘fear thousands’.

[19] In Achilles strength predominated, and Simon is such as he, fighting for his country.

[22] His eldest son held on to the reins and did not allow anyone to wound his father.

Dum durauit non expauit

Pater enses set certauit

Propter pacis federa.

Pater prole confortatur,

Proles patrem consolatur

Dum durarent prelia.

Non fuerunt duo tales

In amore speciales

Infra mundi climata.

Abel Ade sociatur,

Abel prius inmolatur,

<Cadit> Adam postea.

In Henrico rosa uernat

Et in rosa si quis cernat

Sat †apererit† <lilia..

Martir fertur per ruborem

Et per album fertur florem

Virgo sine macula.

Dixit quidam, ut Pilatus,

Qui in bello principatus

Tenuit dominia,

‘Redde, redde, comes fortis.

Eris aut pro certo mortis

Datus ad suplicia.’

‘Hunc’, fert alter, ‘occidatis

Vlli uiuo non parcatis

De sua familia.’

Omnes clamant ‘Moriatur!’

Comes instans meditatur

De superna patria.

‘Reddo me omnipotenti.

[25] As long as he endured, the father feared nothing but fought for the peace agreement.

Following the Second Moroccan Crisis, the German Government introduced a new amendment (a ‘Novelle’) to the Naval Law, greatly expanding the size, preparedness and fighting power of their fleet. This chapter follows the passage of this legislation through the Reichstag and contains Watson's analysis of the intent behind this measure. As the opening document makes clear, he was convinced that the bill was motivated by hostile feelings towards Britain. He also outlined his view that, while this increase in the German navy could not be stopped, a firm response by Britain would prevent further such increases [148]. He would continue to make this point in many instances thereafter. A further recurring issue in this period was Watson's perception that the German naval bill was being promoted by an active propaganda effort that sought to win the public by besmirching Britain. This propaganda Watson traced to Tirpitz and the news bureau of the Reichsmarineamt [157, 169], a fact that further reinforced his suspicions of the Admiral and his methods.

148. Hugh Watson, Germany N.A. No.5/12

Berlin, 8 February 1912

The German Naval Estimates, Increases and General Trend of Opinion

I have the honour to submit to your notice that in the speech delivered yesterday, opening the Reichstag, His Majesty the Emperor spoke of a strengthening of the naval and military defences of the German Empire.

No details of increases were given, and at the present moment there is no official pronouncement on the subject.

The following are, however, the heads under which the press prophesy the increases are to be placed:–

• (a.) Formation of a third battle squadron of eight ships, to be kept permanently in commission (reported on in my letter No.2 of the 26th January last).

• (b.) Addition of one armoured ship per annum to the present shipbuilding programme of the Fleet Law, and therefore in addition to the shipbuilding programme as contained in the summary of the naval estimates of 1912, published in the North German Gazette immediately before last Christmas. Another proposal urges the building of an additional armoured vessel every alternate year.

• (c.) Increase in number of submarines.

• (d.) Formation of a school squadron for torpedo-boat destroyers.