David Sugarman 216 tionary authority in the matter of arrest, of temporary imprisonment, of expulsion fromits territory, and the like, than is either legally claimed or in fact exerted by the government in England In these various ways, England’s exceptionalismwas constructed and transmitted, as were the classic features of Englishness: the amateur tradition, understatement, fair play, liberty and the rule of law, anti-intellectualism, eccentricity, humour, insularity and the stiff upper lip.^ This reverence towards the practical, down-to-earth English, and the solid, liberal-conservative character of their traditions and institutions, was in particular demand in times of major national crises. Howdid the British get this character? Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Case of Ship-Money (R v Hamden), along with the Empire, the Commonwealth, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Phileaus Fogg, Beau Geste, Bulldog Drummond, Richard Hannay, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, the Knights of the Round Table, Rumpole of the Bailey have, as it were, travelled around the world, creating an expectation of certain characteristics and attitudes, both in terms of self-identification and identification by others. The sources for constructing and transmitting this dominant image of Englishness were diverse: including books (such as the constitutional histories of Macaulay, Stubbs and Maitland); legal treatises (from Glanvill’s, Lau's and Customs of the Realm of England, and Blackstone’s Commentaries, to Dicey’s Laze and the Constitution), popular histories (such as Bryant’s, The National Character and Rowse’s, The English Spirit), newspapers, poetry, children’s comics, nursery rhythms, sermons, directions to preachers, devotional works, such as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, and political works (Burke’s, Reflection's, Bagehot’s, The English Constitution, Barker’s, The Character of England and Traditions of Civility), petitions, proclamations, lawreports, parliamentary proceedings, diverse visual images (as in the caricatures of Hogarth, Cruickshank and Gillray), music (Handel, Gilbert and Sullivan, and Elgar, would be familiar exampies, as might be Theolodosius Forrest’s cantata, “The Roast Beef of Old England”), symbols and gestures (such as the oak tree, and, of course, “the Roast Beef of Old England”), and in more recent times, radio (“The Archer’s”), television (“Dixon of Dock Green”, “Upstairs, Downstairs”, “The Forsyth Saga” and “Brideshead Revisited”) and the cinema (most recently, so-called “heritage movies”, such as “Remains of the Day”, “RoomWitha View”, “Howard’s End”, and “Shadowlands”). The languages of law, politics and fiction have dovetailed ^ Dicey, A.V., An Introduction to the Study of the Laic ofthe Constitution (London: Macmillan, 1 ed; 1885, 10'^ ed., 1959) pp. 184 and 188. * See, generally. Barker, E, National Character and the Factors in its Formation-, Samuel, Raphael, ed. Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, J Vols. London: Routledge, 1989 and Island Stories: Unravelling Britain (Volume Tzeo of Theatres of Memory’). London: Verso, 1998.
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