Feature
Farewell,
Old Chessmate
John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey
& the New Rules of the Game
"It is good to know that both the faithful
and the faithless can still be playing from
the same chessboard."
So wrote the late John Mortimer—barrister, author, dramatist, screenwriter, bon vivant, and a charming name-dropper—in his Where There's a Will, shortly before his death. He was referring to the fact that, over the course of his life, he, as a non-believer, had been able to share similar values and intellectual pursuits with contemporaries who were Christians. Probably he was right for much of his twentieth-century life in the English-speaking West, but I rather doubt that his dictum is still true or can own any veracity much longer. As a cultural norm for all, Christendom's historical influence is dissipating. Sir John lived his life (1923–2009) when true faith in the West was diminishing, just as was the British Empire, but that faith yet held a tenuous grip and residual fragrance, and could infuse corporate memory and personal behavior.
Mortimer left behind some good writing, disagreeable though I might find his political views. He thought Margaret Thatcher's economic freedom policies were a terrible blight on the commonweal. A disdaining Mortimer wrote Paradise Postponed, novel and screenplay, decrying Thatcherism as the Decline of the West proof-positive. But let us consider first things, or at least work toward them.
Literary Stress Relief
In times of my life when the stresses of work have been acute, I have found my release in prayer, exercise, and reading humorous short stories. For the literary contribution to my mental health (escapism), I have three default positions: the McAuslan trilogy of George MacDonald Fraser, the corpus of P. G. Wodehouse, and John Mortimer's many Rumpole of the Bailey journeys into legal comedy. The first laugh-out-loud collection concerns small-unit soldiering as it really is in the English-speaking armed forces. The second library—well, if you need to be introduced to Jeeves, Wooster, Psmith, Aunt Agatha, Uncle Fred, Mr. Mulliner or Lord Emsworth, you have not yet lived. The last aggregate, the misadventures of -Horace Rumpole, Esq., has been made quite popular as a British television series. Mortimer himself was an accomplished Queens' Counsel, as well as varied scribe, quondam playwright, and even an actor. Let us speak of him—and Rumpole. First, Rumpole.
Horace Rumpole is a self-described "Old Bailey hack." Sarcastic, given to cheap wine and cheap cigars, dismissive of the establishment, self-destructively hostile to powerful poseurs, and in fear of his overbearing wife Hilda, he is nonetheless a most capable, if somewhat unorthodox, defense attorney. Always the defense. And a rapier wit to every phony, quack, overweening ambition, cheat, and outsize ego within his purview. Horace Rumpole wants Lady Justice not only blind, but also with a bag over her head. One senses that there is a good deal of the author in Rumpole but that Mortimer's breeding was a bit of a stay for the author in real courtroom environs.
A Learned Man of His Time
Sir John Mortimer himself was a convinced man of the left (though quite void of any obnoxious political correctness or faddish sensitivities). His life on this earth was a full one in both the law and the arts. He died as an octogenarian nine years after the turn of the century. He was ever an atheist. Never baptized and never believing, he was yet comfortable in Christendom and among the believers he knew. He spoke fondly of Evelyn Waugh, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Graham Greene and of his discussions of faith with them. Mortimer's doubts might have been shaken a bit, but never did they crumble. He also admired P. D. James and agreed with her criticism of new Bible translations and revisionist alterations to the Book of Common Prayer.
Sir John, like his Rumpole, did revere the British system of justice, however he might skewer some of its practitioners. It is a shame, and perhaps a blind spot in him, that he never articulated that this venerable system came from tradents who followed the teachings of God as made known in Jesus Christ.
As Mortimer neared the final enemy, he penned Where There's a Will. The book is a series of essays, generally quite light-hearted. He intended this work to be something of his last thoughts bequeathed. One of his chapters is "The Great Perhaps." I suppose one cannot approach the end of life on earth without at least a nod to the concept of God and a living eternity, if only because most of humanity has always assumed such and has believed that the earth is not enough.
Raymond J. Brown is Secretary of the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, a retired U.S. Coast Guard captain, and a security consultant living in New Hampshire. He and his wife Susan, a librarian, have three grown children.
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more from the online archives
25.6—Nov/Dec 2012
The Loss of Aristotelian Logic & the Social, Moral & Sexual Consequences by Peter Kreeft
22.8—November/December 2009
Looking for Beauty & Justice 150 Years After Darwin’s Classic by Charles Taliaferro
24.5—Sept/Oct 2011
A Critical Memoir of Thomas Merton at Gethsemani Abbey by Patrick Henry Reardon
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