ONE HUNDRED LETTERS FROM HUGH TREVOR-ROPER HUGH TREVOR-ROPER One Hundred Letters from edited by Richard Davenport-Hines and Adam Sisman Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © The Literary Estate of Lord Dacre of Glanton 2014 Introduction, selection, editing, and notes © Richard Davenport-Hines and Adam Sisman 2014 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. 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S.p.A.–Lavis TN ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Our paramount debt, one beyond measure, is to Blair Worden, Hugh Trevor- Roper’s literary executor, who encouraged us to undertake this book, and who has given us far more help in the preparation and revision of it than the editors could expect or adequately thank. Judith Curthoys, the Christ Church archivist, who has charge of the Dacre papers, has been a wonder of patience and efficiency throughout our work. Rodney Allan has translated, identified, and glossed passages from Greek and Latin, and has done sterling work in correcting the transcription of documents. We are profoundly grateful to both of them. We are also grateful to Jeremy Cater, Jeremy Catto, Edward Chaney, Frank Giles, the late Earl Haig, Sir Michael Howard, James Howard-Johnston, Alan Macfarlane, Peter Miller, Alasdair Palmer, Richard Rhodes, Zeev Sternhell, the Hon. James Stourton, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, and Blair Worden, who supplied us with letters and consented to their publication. We thank those who have given permission to reproduce letters to their relations: the Hon. Deborah Blake (to her father Lord Blake); Susan Chater and William Stuart (their father Charles Stuart); Jane Clark (her husband Alan Clark); Alastair Hamilton (his father Hamish Hamilton); Alexandra Henderson (her father Sir Nicholas Henderson); Sarah Holds-worth (her mother Valerie Pearl); Mary Lefkowitz (her husband Hugh Lloyd-Jones); Robin and Vivien Perutz (their father Max Perutz); and Helen Szamuely (her father Tibor Szamuely). Oliver Ramsbotham has kindly allowed us to quote correspondence between his father, Sir Peter Ramsbotham, and Trevor-Roper. Other debts of gratitude are to the Beinecke Library at Yale, for the letters to Wallace Notestein; the Library of King’s College, Cambridge, for the letters to Noël Annan; the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, for the letters to Gerald Brenan; Claudia Wedepohl, archivist of the Warburg Institute, for consent to reproduce letters to Frances Yates; Henry Hardy and the Isaiah Berlin Trust; the Brotherton Library, Leeds (Special Collections), for the letter to Lord Boyle of Handsworth; the Wellcome Library, for the letter dated 24 February 1973 to Sir Peter Medawar (PP/PBM/D/12); Gertrude Himmelfarb for permission to quote a letter by her of 25 August 1965; Anthony Thwaite for supplying and allowing us to quote a letter to him of 3 September 1976; and the Syndics of Cambridge University Library, for permission to publish an extract from a letter to J. H. Plumb. The quotation from Sir Isaiah Berlin on p. xii is from Henry Hardy and Mark Pottle (eds.), Isaiah Berlin, Building: Letters 1960–1975 (Chatto & Windus 2013), pp. 84–5 © Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust. Many amendments were made after Henry Woudhuysen’s invaluable scrutiny of the typescript. Numerous other individuals have helpfully answered queries or volunteered information, among them John Adamson, Jeremy Cater, Jeremy Catto, Edward Chaney, Xenia Dennen, Gavin Fuller, Timothy Garton Ash, Mark Greengrass, Miriam Gross, Henry Hardy, Edward Harrison, James Howard-Johnston, Lord Kennet, Paulina Kewes, Mary Lefkowitz, John Maddicott, Peter Miller, John Morgan, Jan Morris, Alasdair Palmer, Philip Pattenden (who has taken particular trouble in answering questions about Cambridge), Christopher Phipps, Richard Rhodes, Norman Stone, James Stourton, Gina Thomas, William Thomas, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, David Wootton, and Brian Young. We are grateful to them all. CONTENTS List of illustrations Introduction Prefatory note THE LETTERS 1. Logan Pearsall Smith, 18 September 1943 2. Naomi ‘Nim’ Church, 28 August 1946 3. Peter Ramsbotham, 19 March 1947 4. Charles Stuart, 31 December 1947 5. Charles Stuart, 24 March 1949 6. Dawyck Haig, 28 January 1951 7. Dawyck Haig, 2 April 1951 8. Dawyck Haig, 20 October 1951 9. Hamish Hamilton, 19 February 1952 10. Alan Yorke-Long, 21 September 1952 11. Gerald Brenan, 23 November 1952 12. Xandra Howard-Johnston, 8 August 1953 13. Xandra Howard-Johnston, 11 August 1953 14. Isaiah Berlin, 18 February 1955 15. Sir Edward Boyle, 8 November 1956 16. Sir John Masterman, 13 December 1956 17. Wallace Notestein, 25 July 1957 18. Wallace Notestein, 7 March 1959 19. James Howard-Johnston, 21 May 1960 20. James Howard-Johnston, 19 June 1960 21. Alan Clark, 31 August 1960 22. Xandra Trevor-Roper, 21 September 1960 23. James Howard-Johnston, 5 April 1961 24. James Howard-Johnston, 8 April 1961 25. James Howard-Johnston, undated (probably 11 April 1961) 26. James Howard-Johnston, 13–14 April 1961 27. James Howard-Johnston, 15 April 1961 28. Felix Raab, undated (September 1962) 29. James Howard-Johnston, 5–7 April 1963 30. James Howard-Johnston, 29 February 1964 31. James Howard-Johnston, 6 January 1965 32. Valerie Pearl, 12 September 1965 33. Alan Macfarlane, 22 January 1967 34. Frances Yates, 2 November 1967 35. Gerald Brenan, 11 March 1968 36. James Howard-Johnston, 4 April 1968 37. A. L. Rowse, 12 April 1968 38. Wallace Notestein, 19 June 1968 39. Wallace Notestein, 21 July 1968 40. James Howard-Johnston, 23 August 1968 41. James Howard-Johnston, 15 September 1968 42. ‘Kim’ Philby, 21 September 1968 43. James Howard-Johnston, 17 December 1968 44. Valerie Pearl, 4 April 1969 45. James Howard-Johnston, 28 June 1969 46. Frances Yates, 28 December 1969 47. Tibor Szamuely, 6 March 1970 48. Robert Blake, 17 August 1970 49. Jeremy Catto, 6 April 1972 50. Sir Peter Medawar, 24 February 1973 51. Jeremy Cater, 16 April 1973 52. Jeremy Catto, 27 August 1973 53. Blair Worden, 10 April 1975 54. Blair Worden, 29 July 1976 55. Blair Worden, 12 April 1978 56. Blair Worden, 11 April 1979 57. Blair Worden, 10 August 1979 58. Nan Dunbar, 17 April 1980 59. Hugh Lloyd-Jones, 27 July 1980 60. Noël Annan, 26 December 1980 61. Michael Howard, 5 November 1981 62. Noël Annan, 17 November 1981 63. Jeremy Catto, 21 August 1982 64. Blair Worden, 14 April 1983 65. Frank Giles, 10 July 1983 66. Zeev Sternhell, 1 August 1983 67. Blair Worden, 28 December 1984 68. Hugh Lloyd-Jones, 2 March 1985 69. Noël Annan, 10 April 1985 70. Alasdair Palmer, 15 July 1986 71. Edward Chaney, 6 August 1986 72. Alasdair Palmer, 29 August 1986 73. Alasdair Palmer, 4 October 1986 74. James Stourton, 5 October 1986 75. Alasdair Palmer, 23 October 1986 76. Alasdair Palmer, 2 November 1986 77. Alasdair Palmer, 23 November 1986 78. Blair Worden, 12 April 1987 79. Edward Chaney, 5–11 May 1988 80. Alasdair Palmer, 29 May 1988 81. Edward Chaney, 26 June 1988 82. Alasdair Palmer, 14 August 1988 83. Noël Annan, 20 October 1988 84. Max Perutz, 7 January 1989 85. Max Perutz, 23 December 1989 86. Alasdair Palmer, 24 December 1989 87. Max Perutz, 15 August 1990 88. Edward Chaney, 20 April 1991 89. Adam Sisman, 21 June 1991 90. Blair Worden, 14 July 1991 91. James Shiel, 21 January 1992 92. Alasdair Palmer, undated (February 1992) 93. Alasdair Palmer, 17 December 1992 94. Geoffrey Wheatcroft, 12 January 1994 95. Noël Annan, 28 September 1994 96. Hugh Lloyd-Jones, 6 November 1997 97. Richard Rhodes, 11 June 1998 98. Peter Miller, 18 March 1999 99. Adam Sisman, undated (April 2001) 100. Sir Nicholas Henderson, 21 December 2001 Index LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Trevor-Roper’s map for visitors to Chiefswood. Plates 1. Trevor-Roper and Alan Clark. (Courtesy of Jane Clark) 2. Dawyck Haig and his fiancée at Bemersyde. (Courtesy of Xenia Dennen) 3. Trevor-Roper writing in his rooms in Christ Church. 4. James Howard-Johnston’s Eton leaving photograph. (Courtesy of James Howard-Johnston) 5. Trevor-Roper outside Chiefswood. (Courtesy of Xenia Dennen) 6. A meal at Chiefswood. (Courtesy of Xenia Dennen) 7. Chiefswood, Christmas 1959. (Courtesy of Xenia Dennen) 8. Wallace and Ada Notestein. (Courtesy of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University) 9. Trevor-Roper in his study at 8 St Aldates, with Xandra in the foreground. (Courtesy of Graham Harrison/Rex Features) 10. Hugh Lloyd-Jones. (Courtesy of the Senior Common Room, Christ Church, Oxford) 11. Jeremy Catto. (Courtesy of Diccon Swan) 12. Alasdair Palmer. (Courtesy of Alasdair Palmer) 13. Edward Chaney. (Courtesy of Edward Chaney) 14. Trevor-Roper at St John’s College, University of Queensland. (Courtesy of John Morgan) 15. Blair Worden. (Courtesy of Albert Wilkins Photography)