Amongst the Ruins: Why Civilizations

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John Darlington
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AMONGST
THE RUINS
Why Civilizations Collapse
and Communities Disappear

John Darlington

YA L E U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
N e w H av e n a n d L o n d o n
p. 13: Quotes from both The Tollund Man and Bogland by Seamus Heaney,
from New Selected Poems 1966–1987 © The Estate of Seamus Heaney. Used
by permission of Faber and Faber Limited. Used by permission of Farrar,
Straus & Giroux, LLC, http://us.macmillan.com/fsg. All rights reserved
p. 13: © George Barnett, 1965, The Beaghmore Stone Circles from his collection
of poems The Wee Black Tin, by kind permission of Graham Mawhinney
p. 36: By kind permission © Nicholas Comfort 1994 The Lost
City of Dunwich published by Terence Dalton, Ltd
p. 156: Permission granted by Zehao Zhou to quote from his
dissertation The Anti-Confucian Campaign during the Cultural
Revolution, August 1966–January 1967 © Zehao Zhou
p. 180: © Bobby Troup/Warner Chappell Sync
p. 184: From The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck published by Penguin
Classics. Copyright © John Steinbeck 1939. Reprinted by permission of
Penguin Books Limited. Copyright renewed © John Steinbeck 1967
p. 257: By kind permission © Graham Fairclough 2009
Copyright © 2023 John Darlington
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or
in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107
and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the
public press) without written permission from the publishers.
For information about this and other Yale University
Press publications, please contact:
U.S. Office: sales.press@yale.edu yalebooks.com
Europe Office: sales@yaleup.co.uk yalebooks.co.uk
Typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022948965
ISBN 978-0-300-25928-5
eISBN 978-0-300-27133-1
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Contents

Preface vii

Introduction: The Anatomy of Loss 1

1. Climate Change 9

The Stone Circles of the Sperrin Mountains, Northern Ireland 11

Herschel Island – Qikiqtaruk, Canada 22
Dunwich, England 32
The Garamantes, Libya 41

2. Natural Hazards 53

Port Royal, Jamaica 55

Ani, Turkey 66
Plymouth, Montserrat 75

3. Human Disaster 87

Girsu, Iraq 89
St Kilda, Scotland 100
Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile 110

4. War 125

Nimrud, Iraq 127

The Old Summer Palace, China 137
The Temple of Confucius, China 151
5. Economy 165

Humberstone Mine, Chile 168

Route 66, US 180
Beaudesert Hall, England 191
Abu Simbel and the Nubian Monuments, Egypt and Sudan 201

Conclusion 215

Understanding Loss and Renewal on a Global Stage 215

Learning the Lessons of the Past 234

Acknowledgements 261
Notes 262
Bibliography 269
Image Credits 280
Index 283
Preface

The best of Prophets of the future is the Past.

Lord Byron; diary extract, 28 January 1821

Or alternatively:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to

repeat it.
George Santayana

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

Confucius

The past resembles the future more than one drop of water
resembles another.
Ibn Khaldun

At times it feels like the past is filled with a cacophony of voices

warning about how important it is to learn from the past. Indeed,
there are at least 300 familiar quotations which champion the rel-
evance of history to the future.
However, there is a counterview that it is impossible, fruitless even,
to try to treat what has happened previously as a useful barometer
for what will happen next:
If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach
us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which
experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines
only on the waves behind.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history
is the most important of all the lessons of history.
Aldous Huxley

vii
And, of course, there is always the ever-quotable Mark Twain,
who remarked, ‘The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.’ My
favourite, however, and a reason for writing this book, is from an
anonymous source: ‘History repeats itself because no one was lis-
tening the first time.’ Clearly, I am firmly in the camp that claims
there are valuable lessons to learn, it’s all about asking the right
question. How can we train ourselves to pay better attention to
those voices of yesteryear, particularly during times of collapse and
crisis, or ahead of them?
This book explores some of the ways that we can draw from
the past, both philosophically and practically, to help plan for and
guide the future.

AMONGST THE RUINS

viii
AMONGST
THE RUINS
81
Introduction

The Anatomy of Loss

Ruins lie at the heart of this book. Mutely eloquent reminders of our
immortality, they are memento mori on the grandest scale. They are
the architectural car crashes of the past which we rubberneck from
the present, whispering ‘there but for the grace of God go I . . .’.
Ruins represent our failures: civilizations that have collapsed, commu-
nities who moved out or were forced to move on, or the abandoned
dreams of despots, democrats and the divine. But, given that time is
relative, and all buildings will eventually end as dust, they are also
our successes, notices marking the extraordinary achievements of
humankind. Ruins prompt questions: what person visiting the red
sandstone facades of Petra’s Treasury would not ask why or how?
Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza and Angkor Wat inspire because we
want to know more about the people who built them. And, while
they signify lives lived long ago, they also tell us something about
where we are heading. Ruins are libraries, abandoned books that
divulge stories about what happened decades, centuries or millennia
ago, and which are repeated today. The outcome may not be the
same, but we would be arrogant to ignore the lessons of history.
This book is a search for the present and future in the past. In
it we will explore the loss of ancient civilizations, the collapse of
ruling elites and the disappearance of more recent communities.
This is a vast subject. Edward Gibbon needed six volumes for his
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1766–89),

1
which has now been reprinted countless times. A search of the
internet using the phrase ‘fall of empire’ will bring up thousands of
books, videos and films documenting the stumble, trip and sprawl
of the powerful, from the Aztecs and Incas through to the empires
of the British, Soviets and Americans. Flick through the pages of any
atlas of world history and be overwhelmed by the growing bloom
and subsequent shrivelling of colours depicting the tread of ancient
Mesopotamians, Mongols, Umayyads, Spaniards and Portuguese,
amongst many, many others. The last imperial Chinese dynasty
stretched over nearly 15 million square kilometres at its greatest
extent (the Qing Dynasty in 1790 ce), and doubtless more still
will be written about modern China, the twenty-first-century global
superpower, when its time has passed.
These are fascinating approaches, but I am interested in the
explanations that underpin why ancient and more recent civilizations
disappeared. How did we reach the ruin? What are the reasons behind
the fall, or the shrinking frontiers in the atlas? And, as importantly,
is there a commonality to that loss that might help us today?
In response to that challenge, I have selected seventeen places
from across the globe that illustrate specific stories of decline and

Fig. 1 ‘Destruction’ by Thomas Cole from The Course of Empire series, 1836. This,
the fourth in a series of five paintings on the subject of the rise and fall of civilizations,
shows barbarians sacking a classical city. It is followed by ‘Desolation’.

2AMONGST THE RUINS

2
collapse. Some will be recognizable and well known, but most have
been chosen to touch on the fascinating variety of heritage across the
world and the connections between people and disappearance. The
book is divided into five organizing themes which seek to corral the
causes of loss: climate change, natural hazards, economics, human
frailty and war. Selected because they are the most cited reasons
for collapse, the categories overlap, with human decision-making
influencing them all. Critically, there is rarely a single explanation
for why civilizations fail. The cumulative impact of multiple causes
is acknowledged from the outset, where one disaster compounds
another, often leading to a catastrophic downward spiral. Some
stories will speak solely to the organizing theme, but where there
are multiple causes, the theme may be the most significant, or the
trigger for decline, or will introduce an important and interesting
line of discussion.
My scope is broad. Our raw materials are the physical remains of
architectural and archaeological heritage, but I touch on intangible
cultural traditions, particularly in the last chapter where I explore
the inevitability of future loss in which it may be impossible to retain
even the ruins of the past. Here, taking the past with you in the form
of the activity, be it an idea, a function, a dance, recipe or song, as
opposed to bricks and mortar, becomes an important option.
My chronology and geography are wide-ranging too, with some
stories sealed under 3,000-year-old peat and others that are told
through the carcasses of twentieth-century buildings. I take in most
of the world’s continents, from the ice of the Arctic fringe, through
to the desert landscapes of North Africa, by way of South America’s
high mountains and Southeast Asia’s urban sprawl. Not all the tales
are told at the same speed. Some are about instant catastrophe,
the minutes it might take an earthquake to destroy a place; others
are about a gentle implosion, the architectural equivalent of taking
an undercooked soufflé out of the oven; yet more still are about a
decline which is so slow that those living through it are not even
aware of it. But importantly, all the stories contain lessons that are
applicable well beyond the sight of their tumbled walls or abandoned
landscapes.
Nor are all the stories told at the same scale. Sometimes the
headline is about a civilization – the Sumerians, for example, who

The Anatomy of Loss3

3
once dominated what is now southern Iraq. Here, through the lens
of the abandonment of the city of Girsu, we will explore the impact
of salinification on a sophisticated agricultural system that once
supported a large population. Alternatively, the story might focus
on a stratum of society as told through the loss of a single build-
ing – Beaudesert Hall: the fall from power of the landed ‘gentry’ in
England due to taxation, economics and changing social attitudes. Or
it might be about the loss of a community because the raison d’être
of that community has disappeared, as in the case of Humberstone
in Chile, which was abandoned when the saltpetre mined there was
rendered obsolete by new materials manufactured elsewhere.
A depressing subject? If this book were a film, it might be intro-
duced by credits warning ‘May contain scenes of doom, death,
decline, disaster . . .’ – a decidedly downbeat alliteration. At first
glance the topic is all about failure: our overexploitation of the
earth’s natural resources, our response to the inevitable impact of
building homes on the slopes of a volcano and in the places where
tectonic plates collide, or our tribal urge to destroy the neighbours.
The body count adds up. There is definitely an element of schaden-
freude in the telling of these stories, but we should not enjoy them
as tales of horror, something which happened a long time ago that is
somehow detached and irrelevant today. This feels like sitting in an
idling car and complaining about the traffic jam – we are the traffic.
The fact is that many of the stories concern trends and patterns that
are present, if not amplified, in our current world.
But I also don’t want to paint a picture that is all doom and
gloom. Human ingenuity in the face of adversity is inspirational
and is told in part here, as are the multiple adaptations to changes
that made life more difficult for ancient peoples across the world.
Run out of water? Use technology to search for it deeper in the
earth or dam valleys to capture it in the winter for use in the hotter
summer months. Too much water? Build above it, divert it or use
windmills to pump it elsewhere. The geography of the 17 per cent
of the Netherlands that has been reclaimed from the sea is founded
on just such ingenuity. There are limits to where humankind can
and cannot live, but these have always changed. What worship-
per of Luna, Khonsu, Artemis, Máni, Chandra, Tsukuyomi-no-
Mikoto or Metztli – gods and goddesses of the moon from across

4AMONGST THE RUINS

4
the world – would conceive we could land on its stony surface and
succeed in returning to the mortal world?
There is also that question of timescale. For example, to view the
decline of the Roman Empire as a long and relentless progression of
disasters ignores both its peaks and the positives. And that is if we
can agree what triggered it, and when, and what marked its final
dying breath. Gibbon’s classic, Fall of the Roman Empire, covered
a period of 1,500 years, and he firmly fired the starting gun for the
crisis in 376 ce when large numbers of Gothic peoples began cross-
ing the Rhine. Most mark 476 ce to be the death knell, when the
barbarian king Odoacer overthrew the teenage Romulus Augustus,
the last emperor of the Western Empire, and the Senate sent the impe-
rial insignia to Flavius Zeno, his counterpart in the Eastern Empire.
But of course, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire was then
succeeded by the flourishing of the East: ‘Rome did not fall in the
fifth or sixth centuries. It changed and multiplied itself . . . It may
have been a chameleon, but it was certainly no phoenix, because
there were no ashes.’1 Others see the origins of decay much earlier,
in the loss of power of the Republican democratic institutions, the
moment Augustus declared himself princeps civitas, first amongst
the people, in 27 bce.2 Still more point to the Muslim conquests
of the eighth century as the beginning of the end.3
Perspective is important too: using the same example, who suffered
from Rome’s decline? Certainly not the Gothic peoples who had been
pushed out of their lands by the Huns, nor perhaps many of the
people working on the trading routes of the Mediterranean, where
the short-term interruption of political events could be overridden
by the need for bread, wine and oil. Many now see this period of
Late Antiquity as a time of change between the classical and medi-
eval worlds, with plenty of continuity in everyday life, interspersed
by events that impacted dramatically on the political and religious
leadership.
The point is that the concept of decline is a moving target, some-
times clear-cut – the break-up of the Soviet Union, the fall of Nazi
Germany or the collapse of the British Empire – but often the path
to ruination is uneven, messy and complex.
A final point on the tone of this exploration into the loss of
civilizations is that it is written from an archaeological perspective.

The Anatomy of Loss5

5
What does that mean? It means that archaeologists have a long
body clock. We work not to years nor decades, but to centuries and
millennia. Ours is a slow heartbeat, where the important issues of
each era are filtered out from the day-to-day by the inevitable reck-
oning of time. Consequently, we see change as the only constant in
history. And in the context of such a long view of the past, every
civilization will eventually turn to dust. To continue our Roman
analogy, we are blessed with some remarkable monuments dating
to the period: from the Colosseum in the imperial capital, through
to Baalbek’s temples, Ephesus’s Great Theatre and Hadrian’s Wall.
But these monuments are the stubborn survivors of literally millions
of buildings that once existed, the tiniest fraction of an architectural
heritage that has entirely disappeared. The others, which ranged from
simple wooden homes to stone-built palaces, have either decayed or
have been demolished, reused or built over. Nothing lasts forever.
One day, ideally in the unimaginable distance of the future, the
Pantheon will eventually succumb to the ageing process of time. If
a similar prognosis is offered for all our physical cultural legacy,
then immortality is born of the passing on of ideas. We celebrate
the architecture of the past in our own moments, seek to conserve
that which we value now and, at the same time, try to predict what
future generations will cherish.

6AMONGST THE RUINS

6
 82

8AMONGST THE RUINS

8
Chapter 1

Climate Change

G iven the urgency of the current climate crisis, we tend to

frame change in the present or the recent past, and on our own
actions that have accelerated or will slow it. But, regardless of the
undeniable impact of human influence, the planet’s climate has been
changing since before humans walked the earth. Four stories of the
disappearance of historic cultures are presented here, which each
explore how communities have responded to climatic conditions
that have been getting incrementally cooler, wetter, warmer or drier.
First, we step back to the Bronze Age and see the impact of climate
change on the pastoral Bronze Age peoples who inhabited the slopes
of the Sperrin Mountains in Northern Ireland. Here at places like
Beaghmore and Copney a remarkable assemblage of stone circles,
alignments, avenues and cairns are to be found hidden underneath
the moorland peat, symbols of a wider hidden landscape lost to the
onset of the wetter, colder climatic conditions of the Late Bronze
Age (1200–650 bce). How did this happen, what was our human
contribution, and how did we respond?
Next, we will turn to Herschel Island (Qikiqtaruk) off the Yukon
coast of Canada, where a warming climate rather than a cooling one
is the issue. Used as an Inuvialuit hunting base for centuries, and more
recently established as a commercial whaling station, Herschel was
all but abandoned after the market for whale oil collapsed in 1907.
Now increased global temperatures are presenting new challenges to

9
preservation, with rising sea levels sweeping away both European
and earlier culture, and thawing permafrost accelerating the discov-
ery and destruction of once frozen archaeology. Permafrost covers
almost a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, including Alaska,
much of Canada, and Siberia. It contains within it the remarkably
preserved remains of earlier peoples: evidence that is desiccated and
lost as the permafrost disappears. This will be one of the biggest and
least appreciated losses of global cultural heritage in future times.
Coastal climate change is graphically illustrated in our third story,
using the example of Dunwich off England’s Suffolk coast. Listed in
the Domesday Book of 1086 as one of the ten largest towns in the
country, Dunwich once had a population of over 5,000 people and
eighteen churches and religious institutions. Now, just two churches
remain, and fewer than 200 residents, the remainder of the town
being lost to the sea. Again, the question is asked, how did the people
of Dunwich respond to the slow death of their town?
From too much water, to drought, the final story under the
theme of climate change describes the equally destructive impact
of a warming, drier environment on heritage. The Garamantes’
empire once stretched for 647,500 square kilometres in the Saharan
area of Libya and North Africa. Originating from Berber tribes in
the Iron Age (200 bce) and rising to regional prominence in the
second century ce, the Garamantes were described by Herodotus
as ‘a very great nation’. Despite Roman propaganda which sought
to depict the Garamantes as barbarians, they inhabited a powerful
and sophisticated kingdom with a capital that was home to 10,000
people. The Garamantes’ success was built on their sophisticated
water management system, but in the fourth century ce a drying
climate, coupled with the overexploitation of a diminishing supply
of water and the increasing numbers of slaves required to maintain
it, led to their slow decline and eventual disappearance. Depleting
water supplies, or their salinification, and the loss of civilization
to sand, is a little-told story that can be repeated across the desert
regions of the world.
Climate change will be the biggest global driver of loss of her-
itage over the coming decades, whether through inundation by
water, sand and salt, or because places that were once inhabitable
are no longer so, leading to their abandonment. These four stories

10AMONGST THE RUINS

10
Another random document with
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 Chapter XXIX
A magistrate’s court is not a dignified place, and I had longed for
its sordid littleness to have an end that I might emerge on to a larger
platform.
I did so sooner than I expected. Lord Gascoyne, whose heart had
never been strong, succumbed under the strain and anxiety of the
whole affair, and I awoke one morning in prison to find the dream of
my life realised. I was Earl Gascoyne. My child, whether boy or girl,
would be the next heir, and whatever happened, I had achieved my
purpose.
It had one unlooked-for result. I immediately claimed my right to
be tried by my peers.
Judging from the newspapers, the claim came upon the public as
something of a shock. In the Radical press there was an outcry for
the abolition of such an antiquated custom. They were, however,
brought face to face with a law of the land which so long as it stands
is good.
This prospect almost reconciled me to my position. I saw myself,
a picturesque figure, seated on a daïs, with my fellow-peers in their
robes before me. Yes, I had just the appearance to carry off such a
situation.
I was sure of female sympathy. I was barely twenty-six, and
looked younger. I should certainly have obtained something for my
trouble.
The question as to whether I was likely to get a fairer trial from
my peers did not weigh with me. I would not for a certain acquittal
have foregone the scene in the House of Lords.
As far as I knew, the last peer to be tried on a charge of murder
was the celebrated Earl Ferrers. I read everything to do with this trial
with assiduity. I noticed that, instead of being relegated to the
common gaol, he had been confined in his own house. I regretted to
discover that this was not a right, or if it were I could not find
anything bearing on the subject.
It would have been eminently satisfactory to go under escort from
Park Lane to the House of Lords every day. As a matter of fact, I
supposed I should have to be taken to and fro, or perhaps I should
be lodged in some apartment in the precincts of Westminster Palace.
The prospect teemed with interest, and was not a little comic. The
papers, which had, of course, talked of nothing but my case for
weeks, became trebly excited. The probable ceremonial was
discussed at length by all of them. Articles by celebrated lawyers,
letters from antiquaries, suggestions from all sides, filled up their
columns and tided them over the dull weeks in a way which ought to
have made them highly grateful to me.
I was myself in doubt for a short period as to whether my never
having taken my seat or the oath would prevent my claiming my
privilege. I believe everyone was too anxious to see the fun to press
any debatable point. Of course, at the end of all this excitement
loomed a not improbable and most unpleasant climax, but I was
accustoming myself to think less and less of it every day.
I read the State Trials assiduously, for they teemed with interest
for me.
The fact that I was not to be tried with the farce of a jury was a
great comfort to me. If there is one thing more ridiculous than
another in our judicial system, it is the fiction that when a gentleman
has been tried before a dozen petty tradesmen he has been tried by
his peers. If a peer were tried by a dozen gentlemen of ordinarily
good standing and repute, he would be tried by his peers, but to try a
gentleman before a dozen men who can have no knowledge of the
conditions under which he has lived is simply absurd. Murder trials,
the results of which with our system of capital punishment are
irrevocable, should be tried by three judges whose verdict should be
unanimous, and the trial should always take place in another part of
the country from that in which the crime has been committed.
My perceptions became abnormally keen on matters of legal
procedure. I sometimes found myself, when reflecting on such
matters, starting with the assumption that I was innocent. It was
amazing how completely I could follow a line of argument having my
innocence for its basis.
It was decided that I should be taken to the House of Lords the
night before the trial and lodged in the precincts, under a strict guard,
till its conclusion.
I was uncertain until the last moment whether I should have the
escort of military, or mounted police. As a matter of fact, I was
honoured with neither, but was hemmed in by detectives.
I did not doubt but that I should have a perfectly fair trial. I can
imagine no tribunal where a man is likely to receive more impartial
treatment.
I read all the papers, and was disturbed to notice that a suspicion
gradually manifested itself as to the real truth. It began to be
remembered how speedily the members of the family which stood
between me and the title had disappeared, and under what tragic
circumstances.
I had always made a point of not having my photograph taken.
Unfortunately, the police did this for me, and the proprietor of the
hotel at which young Gascoyne Gascoyne had stayed when he was
supposed to have poisoned himself recognised me at once. It was
flattering as a tribute to my individuality, but inconvenient. I was for at
once admitting that I had been at the hotel at the time, but my
lawyers would not hear of it. Every inch of the ground, they declared,
must be fought. They were a most able firm, and, realising that I was
an advertisement such as they could never hope for again, they
nursed the case—which in the first place was strong and healthy
enough to have satisfied any lawyers—with tender solicitude.
I said that I had mentioned the fact to Mr. Gascoyne, as he then
was, and that he might have told his wife. I asked if this would be
accepted in evidence. They scouted the idea, however, of its being
used, so I forbore to press the question further. The chances that Mr.
Gascoyne had told his wife were extremely remote.
Having tracked me to the hotel at Lowhaven, the police were
somewhat at a loss. They utterly failed to establish the fact that I had
any poison in my possession at that time. They then threw
themselves with ardour into the details of Ughtred Gascoyne’s death.
Here, again, although it was possible to show that I was not
infrequently at his flat late at night, their most strenuous efforts could
not prove that I was there on the night on which the fire had taken
place.
I was sure that suspicion about this began to creep into my wife’s
mind. Perhaps she had learned that the Parsons were fictitious
individuals. It may also have struck her that I must have passed the
road where her brother was found dead, earlier on the same
evening. These two facts, taken together with my being in the same
hotel with young Gascoyne when he died, and as much evidence as
could be raked up against me in connection with Ughtred
Gascoyne’s death, must have forged a chain of implication which
could not but shake the most serene confidence. Not that I had the
least fear of her acting in a hostile manner. She could not have done
anything had she wished to; besides, she belonged to that class of
woman who, possessing most of the virtues, would never drag her
husband’s name in the dust. Her conscience might—had she been
questioned—have triumphed, but that she would speak out of her
own free will I did not believe.
As the day of the trial drew nearer and nearer without any new
charge my confidence rose. I suppose this optimism lies at the back
of every prisoner’s mind. The possibility of an acquittal probably
never disappears till the foreman of the jury delivers the terrible word
guilty, a word which has a leaden sound complementary to the
deadliness of its meaning.
My wife came to see me the day before the trial, and though she
strove hard against the awful horror that I could see was in her mind,
the strain was at last telling on her. She was taken away in a dead
faint. I was sorry for her. I knew it was the last thing she would have
wished should happen. My own danger had driven all three women
out of my mind, and it was a psychological point which interested me
extremely. I had loved them so fervently; and I could love fervently,
even if not on the highest level. My own position, however, was so
enormously important in my eyes that they were quite dwarfed. I
could not rouse myself to any degree of emotion over their
sufferings. It was not the idea of losing them that predominated in my
mind, nor the idea of dwelling in their memory as a thing for pity, the
victim of a terrible and gloomy death.
 I regret to say that my departure for London, considered as a
spectacle, was a failure.
I left the county prison in an ordinary carriage, and was put into a
special train which drew up at a crossing in the depths of the country.
I remember as I passed from the carriage to the railway-train casting
my eye over a mellow, moonlit landscape, and wondering where I
should be when they cut the corn. To one of my temperament it was
a beautiful world I was perhaps leaving, and it was a dismal
reflection that I might not share in the next year’s harvest of pleasant
things.
The train reached London at an early hour of the morning, and
such perfect arrangements had been made that the few porters
about hardly realised who it was who was hurried into a private
carriage and driven off.
Passing through the streets as dawn was breaking, I could see
on the advertisement boards outside small newspaper shops the
soiled posters of the evening papers. They bore large headlines with:
“Trial of Lord Gascoyne,” “Latest Arrangements,” etc., etc. There was
not a paper which had not displayed it more prominently than any
other item of news. This was gratifying. The carriage drew up at the
peers’ entrance to the House of Lords, for such was my privilege,
and in a few minutes I had full assurance that I was receiving the
hospitality of gentlemen. I was ushered into two rooms which had
been set apart for me, and in one of which was laid a comfortable
and substantial breakfast. To this I did full justice. Arrangements had
been so made that I was practically alone in the room, although, of
course, I was being very carefully watched. It was exceedingly
comforting to feel that if they were going to hang me, they were
going to do it with tact and breeding.
Parliament being in session, my trial would not take place before
the Court of the Lord High Steward. I was glad, for that would have
been comparatively a very small affair.
It may be as well to state that the House of Lords is a Court of
Justice, of which all Peers of Parliament are judges, and the Lord
High Steward the President. It differs from an ordinary court of law,
inasmuch as all the peers taking part in the trial are judges both of
the law and of the facts.
 At a very early hour I could hear a great deal of bustling and
passing to and fro. I lay down on my bed, however, and had a most
refreshing sleep. On awaking I was told that my lawyers wished to
see me.
I had an interview with them lasting about an hour. They were
both mightily important and very excited. The atmosphere of the
place had evidently given them the idea that they were historical
individuals, and I fancy that they looked upon me as if I had been
accused of High Treason, and, in fact, treated me as quite a great
personage.
So intense had been the excitement aroused, and so general
was the interest displayed, that it had been decided to hold the trial
in the roomier accommodation of Westminster Hall. I knew from what
my counsel had told me that the peers had begun to assemble at ten
o’clock. It was fully eleven, however, before I was summoned.
Although I was guarded to a certain extent by the usual officers of
the law, I was nominally in charge of the yeoman usher of the Black
Rod, and in his custody I was brought to the Bar.
Just before I entered a note was put into my hands which I was
allowed to read. It was from Esther Lane, and ran:

“Love is always difficult to bear, because of its madness,

which overthrows, and its vision, which distorts. Pleasant we
deem the kisses of men, though they sting, but the stings of
suffering are the kisses of God, and they burn like fire.”

Womanlike, though she was thinking of me, she was thinking

somewhat more of herself.
It was a brilliant scene which I emerged upon, though perhaps
somewhat lacking in the magnificence that would have attended it
had it taken place a century earlier.
The Lord High Steward, as President, was seated in front of a
throne, and on either side of him were the peers, in their robes, and
wearing their orders. In front of the President was a raised daïs, on
which was placed an armchair, and by the side of which was a table.
Near this daïs were tables at which were seated my counsel and
other legal advisers. There was a gallery at one side, in which were
seated the peeresses, and another gallery at the other side, in which
were a number of Ambassadors, foreign royalties and noblemen,
semi-resident in England. The difference between such a trial
conducted amid a feast of colour and variety from what it must have
been had it been conducted at the Old Bailey with its gloom and
almost squalid lack of breadth was startling to think upon.
I had thoroughly studied the effect of my entrance. I knew that the
scarlet of my peer’s robes formed an absolute tone contrast to my
Jewish appearance, and I was conscious of making a marked effect
on the women present.
As an artist, I had suffered grievously in my own estimation by
the blunders I had made in removing Lord Gascoyne, and I was
determined that henceforward, whatever happened, I would not do
anything which could mar the beauty and interest of the situation.
I waited at the foot of the daïs while Norroy, King-at-Arms, called
‘Oyez, Oyez.’ The letters patent constituting a Lord High Steward
were then read.
Norroy, and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, then did their
reverences kneeling, and presented the White Staff jointly to the
Lord High Steward, who, receiving it, immediately delivered it to the
Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod on his right hand. The Purse-
Bearer, holding the purse, was on his left.
All these officials in their archaic costumes produced a most
picturesque effect. The composition was seen in a sort of half-light,
mellowing its garishness and the primary tones of official uniform.
Through the windows, which had been veiled to keep out the glare of
a brilliant summer sun, a golden light fell here and there, just
sufficient to edge the scene with a gilded splendour.
The writ of certiorari for removing the indictment before the King
in Parliament was then read. I will not reproduce this legal document,
but it is sufficient to say that it charged me with the sole offence of
poisoning Lord Gascoyne. I already saw in the faces of those around
me that they believed what the press had daily insinuated, viz., that I
was a wholesale murderer. Herein lay a great peculiarity and
paradox of justice. It would not have been permissible to even hint in
a court of law that there was a breath of suspicion attached to me in
regard to the deaths of the other Gascoynes; it struck me, however,
that it would have been excellent proof as to my innocence had it
been argued that so clever a criminal as the alleged murderer of
these others had been, would never have blundered so grossly over
the murder of Lord Gascoyne.
As I stood and listened to these preliminaries I was being
scrutinised by everyone in the Hall. The Lords were freed from the
discomfort of trying one who had been born and bred among them.
There were no recollections of Eton and Oxford to spoil the abstract
drama of the occasion. I was to the great majority a stranger, and to
the rest a mere acquaintance. Of course, I was connected with some
of those present, but in so distant a degree that it hardly amounted to
anything, and for all practical purposes I stood there a stranger. This
must undoubtedly have been a relief to them, as curiosity could be
given full play.
The clerk of the Parliaments then directed the Sergeant-at-Arms
to make proclamation for Black Rod to bring his prisoner within the
Bar.
I was led to the chair on the daïs which was technically
considered within the Bar. The daïs had been provided so that I
might have, as was only fair, a commanding position, and see and
hear all that was going on. I remembered to have seen an old print of
Charles I. being tried, and the recollection of it came back to me very
vividly, except that in place of the motley crew of fanatics and bullies
who constituted themselves his judges I had an assembly of
gentlemen, reinforced by English judges, and in place of Bawling
Bradshaw, I had a Lord Chancellor who was one of the most cultured
men of his day.
Having arrived on the daïs, I did due reverence to the court with
all the dignity imaginable. I fancy the impression was good, and must
at any rate have convinced the peers present, that even if I were
unknown to them they had not been summoned to try a vulgarian
under the most select form known to English law.
The Clerk of the Parliaments then again read the indictment and
asked:
“How say you, my lord, are you guilty of the felony whereof you
stand indicted or are you not guilty?”
I pleaded not guilty, and the trial proceeded.
 I have come to the conclusion that the case was a curiously
simple one, although it entirely depended on circumstantial
evidence. The principal witnesses were the chemist, and the two
servants. It was a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous when
these humble folk stepped into the box, and I shall never forget—by
the way, under the circumstances not a prolonged limit of memory—
the bewhiskered and perspiring little chemist gazing round on the
august assemblage before which he was appearing, evidently not at
all certain that he might not be ordered out to instant execution. I
almost thought that he would become delirious and be unable to give
his evidence, but he pulled himself together, and by the time he left
the box was evidently under the impression that he was one of us.
Indeed, he replied in quite a chatty way to the Lord High Steward
when asked a question by that exalted functionary.
The opening of the prosecution struck me as being vindictive, but
it is possible that the prisoner is not a good judge of such a point.
It was lunch-time before the preliminary law questions had been
disposed of and the opening speech of the prosecution made. I was
led out by a side door before anyone else moved. When I returned
the court was already assembled. The remainder of the day was
spent in examining the witnesses. There could be no doubt that I had
bought arsenic, for I was recognised by both the chemist and his
assistant. Not till I heard the story unfolded in court did I realise how
very crudely I had acted. The examination of the witnesses was
proceeding when the court rose. I spent the evening looking out on
the river with some very melancholy reflections on the advantages of
liberty. The dark barges, looking like gigantic pachyderms, floated
silently past, with their solitary lights shining dimly. The river reflected
the city lights in innumerable little splashes of flame, which danced
and glimmered with the restless waters. On the far bank I could see
figures passing to and fro. In the solitary fastness of a gaol it had
been easy to realise the fact of being a prisoner, but in a room which
bore no resemblance in any way to a cell, it was exceedingly difficult.
Besides, there was the open door, and I almost forgot the watchers
in the passage. The windows had been barred temporarily.
Otherwise there was an air of comfort, even of luxury, about the
room.
 I received a long letter from my wife which did extraordinary
credit to her sense of justice and her self-control. It was written as if
with the utmost belief in my innocence, and evidently she had striven
to keep her mind in such an attitude. I answered her at once, not
abating any apparent affection, and saying that between us two it
was unnecessary to reiterate my innocence, as I knew her trust in
me to be absolute.
Towards the end of the letter I worked myself into quite a fervour
of sublime confidence that no injustice would be done, and that an
unseen Providence was watching over me.
Then I read Lord Beaconsfield’s Vivian Grey till I went to bed. I
slept well, all things considered. I hoped to sleep better when the
verdict was given, whichever way the case might be decided.
The next morning I awoke early, and as the law took so little
account of individual psychology as to imagine that I might cut my
throat, I was obliged to send out for a barber.
The youth who performed the operation was a pleasant young
man, whose excitement was so painful that I warned him it was High
Treason to cut the throat of a peer of the realm when he was being
tried for his life.
I asked him what his own opinion was as to my guilt.
The question took him so entirely by surprise that he sprang
away from me fully a yard.
“Come,” I said. “What do people say?”
He flushed and was silent.
“So people think I am guilty, do they?”
“Some do, your grace.”
“That means that most do. Now, does anyone believe in my
innocence?”
“Oh yes, my lord, of course, some.”
“I see; very few people believe in my innocence. Who are those
that do?”
He smiled. “I think the women do, my lord.”
This was satisfactory. I could not have had more practical
support.
He told me further that there was a vast crowd outside in
Westminster Yard.
 I advised him to make his way at once to a newspaper office, and
sell them a description of his interview with me. I warned him,
however, that he must exaggerate if he wished to be believed, and I
gave him full permission to invent any details of the occurrence
which he might think useful.
The Hall was perhaps even more crowded than it had been the
day before. This showed a proper increase of interest.
The cross-examinations were masterly, especially when it was
considered how simple the evidence of the bare half-dozen
witnesses was.
My counsel managed to throw doubt on the fact of my having
been the man who bought the poison. This doubt, it is true, counsel
for the prosecution soon swept aside, but I could not help admiring
the dexterity with which my counsel threw a veil of uncertainty over
what, when stated by the prosecution, had seemed facts beyond
dispute.
The contention of the prosecution was very simple. It was to
nobody’s interest but mine and Mr. Gascoyne’s that Lord Gascoyne
should die, and whilst Mr. Gascoyne was in London, the prisoner
was constantly in Lord Gascoyne’s company. Further, it was pointed
out that I was the only person left alone with the bottle of claret, and
that the moment I was so left alone was the only one during which
the wine could have been poisoned. I was further proved to have
been in possession of arsenic for which I could not account. It had
been suggested that the poison might have been in the cup of tea
which Lord Gascoyne had drunk, but there was nothing to support
this view. It was regrettable that this cup had been removed, and
washed before it had been examined. Lord Gascoyne, however, was
taken ill almost immediately after he had drunk the tea. This made
the insinuation that it was poisoned unlikely, as arsenic had, as far
as could be proved, never acted instantaneously. My counsel, in the
course of his address, made an earnest appeal that everything alien
to the case which had been circulated, he could only say in a most
scandalous manner, in certain organs of the press, should be put out
of mind. He insinuated that in this respect he felt a greater
confidence in their lordships than he would have done in an ordinary
jury.
 He concluded by the usual passionate appeal for the benefit of
any doubt which might linger in their minds.
The Lord High Steward summed up the evidence, and a very
brief summing-up it was. Then their lordships retired, and after three
hours’ deliberation I was brought back into court.
I knew directly I returned what the verdict was, for in all faces
there was the same look of intense gravity. Over the entire assembly
there lay an almost oppressive silence. I noticed that people avoided
looking at me, as if it were an intrusion to witness the emotions of
any human being at such a moment.
After the verdict was given there passed across the whole place
a sort of sigh, followed by a terrible hush.
I stood up and heard the sentence, and then, with the most
profound reverence to the entire court, withdrew, satisfied that I
could not be accused of having behaved otherwise than with a
calmness and dignity befitting the privilege of belonging to such an
assembly.
 Chapter XXX
I suppose the feelings of a human being awaiting extinction on a
near date fixed by the law must vary according to temperament. In
this, as in most things, ignorance has its advantages. A chaplain
working on a mind incapable of the intellectual effort of scepticism
might send a criminal to the scaffold with a distinct feeling that in
spite of its other disadvantages, murder plus hanging plus
repentance was a short cut to eternal bliss—a view of the question
which would no doubt shock the reverend gentleman who had
inadvertently been a most effective advocate of murder.
Capital punishment is, of course, a profoundly unphilosophical
thing. Only a very ill-informed person would uphold it as a deterrent,
and if not a deterrent its only excuse is the selfish one of putting
someone out of the way whom it cannot control without expense and
trouble. This principle, however, is a very awkward one, and would,
stated in its crudest form, astonish some people who mechanically
support it.
As soon as I was back—I cannot say comfortably back—in
prison, and in the condemned cell, I made up my mind to
concentrate myself on a human document which should be a record
of my career—a document to be written with as little display of
feeling as possible, a statement of facts with well-bred calm and
restraint.
I knew, of course, that it must be incomplete. No one has ever
told the truth about himself. I, for one, dislike the yawning gaps in the
confessions of Rousseau. Either a man’s confessions should have
something in them which Rousseau’s have not, or they are not very
much worth confessing. A few obvious sexual trivialities are not of
very great interest when all human beings guess what has been kept
back. Dr. Johnson, when told that the unfortunate Dr. Dodd was
devoting his last days to literary work, said: ‘Depend upon it, when a
man knows he is going to be hanged in a few days, it concentrates
his mind wonderfully.’ I found this to be true. The learned doctor’s
point is subtle, and he no doubt was surprised that the concentration
was not entirely on that unpleasant event daily coming nearer. Such
was my difficulty. I had my human document to finish before a certain
date, and that date interfered very largely with my concentration of
mind. It had a way of dancing on to the page while I was writing, and
of floating, detached and apparent, before my eyes in the growing
dusk.
My life began to grow more and more ghostly. My nerves suffered
considerably, although I endeavoured as far as possible to conceal
the fact from the two sordid figures who kept watch over me. I could
not help thinking of what a torture this fortnight or three weeks would
have been to anyone afflicted with a terror of death. Personally, I felt
the situation more as an offence against good taste than as an
offence against humanity. Let anyone reflect what it must mean to be
watched morning, noon, and night till the end comes, never to have
one moment for solitary reflection or sorrow, not to be able to render
to the soul the relief of despairing abandonment; to have the
slightest weakness witnessed by careful official eyes, staring with a
weird fascination through the long day which is all too short; to feel,
in addition, the horror of being caged and held like a wild beast in a
trap till the time comes to be led out to die. As I say, I am a singular
character, and these things were rather an irritation than an agony.
But I wonder that it does not drive the ordinary criminal mad. The
man who has slain his wife in a moment of insane jealousy—which
is, after all, viewed logically, an evidence of his love, a quality which
might still have been turned to good account—is tortured and killed.
It is a proceeding which reason condemns as mere barbaric
vengeance. Not, as I was saying, that I suffered these horrors. My
view of life was too objective for that. True, I had been given a body
with which to express myself, and I had done my best for that body,
but when that body was condemned to extinction I was able, as it
were, to remove myself from it, and view men and their ways from a
distance.
The chaplain called on me, sometimes three times a day, and I
enjoyed his conversation very much. I led him from the crude
vulgarities of attempted conversion to discussions on minute
questions of Christian culture. I also dissected my sensations for his
benefit. I told him that the reality that the end was so near now and
then flashed upon me like an electric shock, and that this sensation
was exceedingly uncomfortable, which he said he could well believe.
I was not, I told him, afflicted with any very great terror of the mere
function itself. This he thought extraordinary, as I was an agnostic. I
told him that I thought it highly probable there was a hereafter, but
that it was quite possible that it might be so different from anything
we could imagine as to confuse our view of ethics, and that I might
awake to find myself greeted as a saint. He was a little shocked, and
took the joke as an admission of guilt, a point in which I was obliged
to correct him.
I think he was surprised when I involved him in a long discussion
on the moral aspect of capital punishment. Perhaps he went away
and said I was callous. This is the orthodox designation of a man
who has strength of mind or courage enough to meet a humanly-
devised punishment with indifference. The same quality used in a
different field will earn a reputation for valour. The dear chaplain was
true to his cloth, and evidently viewed the crime of an English peer
with something more of indulgence than he would have felt for the
guilt of a member of the lower classes. Indeed, his reiterations of ‘my
lord’ in his religious discussions were so constant as to confuse me
with regard to the particular individual he was addressing.
I received a letter from Esther Lane in cryptic language which I
could not understand at the time, but which was to be fully revealed
afterwards.
I do not care to dwell upon the farewell interviews with my wife.
They were curiously and unexpectedly unpleasant. The Dowager
Lady Gascoyne—I allude, of course, to the widow of my benefactor
—who, strangely enough, had never had the least doubt of my
innocence, also came to see me. I think that in a sense the farewell
that cost me most was that from Grahame Hallward, the unobtrusive
and consistent friend. I do not think that the hopeless agony in his
face could have been more terrible had he been related to me by the
nearest of blood ties. He assured me that he would devote the rest
of his life to proving my innocence. Thus is the tragic often
unconsciously allied to the ridiculous.
My mind was fully occupied. The chaplain’s visits and those of
people who wished to say farewell, in addition to a great deal of time
spent with my lawyer, with whom I had to make many arrangements,
took up all the spare moments I did not devote to these memoirs. I
should have liked to know whether my child was a boy, although in
either case it would make no difference to the succession.
I was astonished to learn that there had been an extraordinary
revulsion of feeling in my favour. I thought that the facts were really
too plain to admit of an outburst of sentimentalism. I suppose the
idea of a peer dying a sordid death shocked the British public as
much as the idea of slaying a woman gently born had done some
short time before. Hanging was good enough for the ignorant and
poverty-stricken. The snobbery of the public is easier appealed to
than its humanity.
The usual petition which my lawyer had prepared was signed by
all sorts of unexpected people, even by some of those who had
voted for my guilt.
The Home Secretary could not, however, find any loophole for
interfering, and the Governor informed me of the date fixed, in a
curious phraseology which was no doubt meant to modify facts.
I was getting a little feverish, as was only natural. I found it
necessary to use some effort to brace myself up for the final ordeal.
Thoughts of Sibella haunted me, and played upon my memory like
the love motive on the lover’s brain in Berlioz’s Scarlet Symphony.
She was the allure beckoning my thoughts back to life, and it was a
strange confirmation of what I had always felt—viz., that she was my
strongest human magnet. I had not heard from her since the day of
my arrest, but two days before the end I received a letter. It gave me
infinite pleasure, and I knew it was the one thing I had been waiting
for. She did not know, she wrote, how she had managed in her
agony to conceal the truth from Lionel, but so far he had suspected
nothing; indeed, he was working night and day for me.
I became quite sentimental over this letter. My thoughts
wandered back to the schoolroom in the Hallwards’ house on
Clapham Common. I saw Sibella as a little school-girl with a host of
boy admirers. I remembered her as she was that afternoon we came
home from football and all had tea together. I remembered the
kisses, beautiful and perfumed as roses, which we had exchanged
as children, and I remembered the burning kiss, unexpected by both
of us, exchanged that Sunday evening when Grahame left us alone.
These things returned to me with the dull pain of melodies,
associated with wild moments of joy, heard again in moments of
desolation, phantoms of music wailing past in the haunted air.
Apart from the ineradicable desire to live, which is the chief vice
of human beings, I was not very anxious for my friends to obtain a
reprieve. In default of an absolute pardon, my reason taught me that
it would be better for them to fail. I did not relish the idea of wearing
out my life in chains. Thus, when the eve of the fatal day arrived, I
experienced a certain relief.
I retired to rest with an indifference which I saw impressed the
only audience I had left. I slept peacefully for several hours, but
towards morning I experienced a curious sensation of semi-
giddiness, as if I were being rocked in mid-air. The sensation grew
more and more rapid, till, suddenly, it seemed as if I were hurtling
through space at a terrific speed, as if worlds, stars, and atmosphere
were revolving round me at a rate indescribable to human
intelligence.
It was as if I were in the engine-room of the universe, and as if
the ceaseless terror of its secrets whirled me hither and thither, like a
grain of sand. I was in the unlimited, unable to grasp time or space.
Then, by degrees, there came a calm; I lay still: and, almost
unconscious of having passed out of the sleeping state, I was
awake, with my eyes fixed on the Governor.
The cell was warm with sunlight, and it struck me at the time that
this was most unsuitable. As, half awake, I looked at the Governor, a
somewhat humorous idea struck me. I thought I was late for the
ceremony, and that he had come to bid me make haste. I sprang up
with a start, and I may have turned a little pale. It was excusable, I
think. I then saw that the room was full of people, and not the people
whom I had expected to see. The Governor seized my hand, and
Grahame Hallward sprang forward and grasped the other.
 “Lord Gascoyne, your innocence has been established beyond
question. The real culprit has confessed.”
It sounded like a speech out of a melodrama. Luckily, I retained
my self-possession sufficiently to say something expressive of my
thanks to Providence. I think it met the occasion.
Who the real culprit could be I failed to understand.
“I have given instructions,” said the Governor, “for you to be taken
to a comfortable room till the actual order for your release arrives.”
Then I recollected my manuscript on the table. No one had seen
it but myself, but if it were noticed it would be awkward.
It was a terrible moment. I expected the Governor as I picked it
up to say: “Anything written in a prison becomes the property of the
Crown,” but I was allowed to walk off with it.
Escorted by a congratulatory group, I was taken to a room which
was quite luxurious. Grahame Hallward and myself breakfasted
together.
Then he told me all about it.
“You remember the governess at Hammerton Castle?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Well, it is very sad for Lady Gascoyne, but it appears that Lord
Gascoyne had made love to her, that she was about to become a
mother, and that she poisoned his tea that evening as she had
already poisoned the wine. The servants remember now that she
had been in the dining-room. She intended at the time to kill herself
as well, but she had not the courage. Last night, however, she did
so, having written to your wife and to the Home Secretary, your
lawyer, and others, so as to make sure of the news arriving in time.”
I looked at him, striving to hide the sheer horror which I felt for the
first time in my life.
I was not surprised at the sacrifice, for it was the sort of gigantic
thing that a nature like Esther’s would have conceived and carried
out. Nevertheless, the news filled me with a profound gloom.
It was better, however, to be sitting there finishing my coffee and
smoking a cigarette than meandering out on to the unknown.
“Sibella has been awfully ill, Israel.”
“Did people think me guilty?” I asked.
He avoided my question, and said:
 “The revulsion of feeling has been tremendous. Everybody will be
delighted.”
And so it turned out. People had not at all liked the idea of a real,
live lord becoming an unreal, dead lord by such means. The Home
Secretary sent the order for my release the same afternoon. The
dead Lord Gascoyne became a monster of iniquity, and I was
congratulated by everyone on the dénouement.
But to this day, there is a sadness in my wife’s manner, and
although she tries to hide a shuddering aversion for me when we are
alone, it shows itself unexpectedly in trifles. In some way she has
grasped the truth. Indeed, she must have done, for there can be no
other explanation of her conduct. We have two children, and perhaps
there is something pathetic in the amount of moral training she gives
them. I am sure there is no need for Hammerton to turn out other
than well. I have done the work. He has only to reap the benefit and
the reward. The second boy is a gentle little creature, Oriental in his
nature, and most devoted to his father, as they both are, but the
second boy especially so.
Sibella is still—Sibella.

The End
 Transcriber’s Note
This transcription follows the text of the Chatto & Windus edition
published in 1907. Three unambiguous misspellings have been
corrected (namely, “Halward,” “memorist,” and “possiblity”), but any
other seeming errors have been left unchanged.