England's Most Reactionary (and Beautiful) Town
Arundel has fewer than 5,000 people, but a long and rich history of courageously swimming against the tide.
The south coast of England has some incredibly iconic locations. The white cliffs of Dover, Hastings (as in the battle), the Isle of Wight, the Seven Sisters, Lands End and on and on. But, during my time living on the shores of the Channel, I left my heart in the sleepy and stunning ancient market town of Arundel. It’s close in proximity to Brighton, but couldn’t be further from that city in every other way.
A day in Brighton will see you dodging rubbish, vomit, mopeds, bicycles, seagulls, and swarming crowds of people; with plenty of blue-haired obese they/thems, drug addicts, and all other possible manner of human oddities amongst them. Many people who live there are confused as to why it is so horrible. I don’t share in their confusion. It is perhaps the most left-wing city in the UK, the Green Party’s only seat, and the LGBTQIADisney+ HQ of the country.
It turns out that gleefully voting for the politicians who the media and communists tell you to isn’t actually enough to make a society work. But, if you can successfully traverse the various forms of organic waste strewn across the pavement and make it to the train station - go west, and you’ll be in another world. Stuck in the past (a mark of endearment), Catholic, clean, peaceful, prosperous, beautiful Arundel.
This town has been continuously settled since the Roman occupation of Britain from at least the 4th century. It sits just below the South Downs, a stunning range of large hills and woodland, on the calm river Arun. The town is topped by an enormous castle (I won’t insult your intelligence by saying where it is in that photo) which was first built during the reign of King Edward the Confessor, the last king of the House of Wessex, who was succeeded by Harold Godwinson - the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, famously defeated by William the Conqueror’s Normans in 1066. A still-standing castle that predates the Norman’s own building-spree of the fortresses is a rare thing indeed.
The history of the castle is immense, and walking around it is nothing short of a privilege. Since it’s creation, the castle has been the estate of the Earl of Arundel (the oldest earldom in the kingdom). This is no less remarkable by the fact that the current Earl (also the Duke of Norfolk) actually lives there. It’s his house. After the First World War came the rapid decline of long-term capital reserves and culture in Europe and especially Britain (thanks, global hegemonic democracy), and as a result the ancient aristocratic families of Britain sold their huge, historic stately homes en masse - but not this one. Only part of the castle is open to tourists, the rest of it actually serves the purpose that an English noble estate should.
The Protestant Revolution
The Fitzalans are a noble dynasty that have been unwaveringly and fervently Catholic for all of their history - including the reign of Henry VIII, and the entirely Protestant history of England thereafter. It was at this time that Lady Mary Fitzalan, of the Arundel Earldom, married Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, head of England’s other most powerful and brazenly Catholic family. A different, later Thomas Howard attempted to marry Mary Queen of Scots, the Catholic claimant against Queen Elizabeth I’s throne. He plotted against Elizabeth in order to make this happen, but after a lacklustre effort, secured his own imprisonment and beheading.
Later, though, Elizabeth had his son Phillip imprisoned in the Tower of London for refusing to renounce his Catholic faith. After 10 years in the Tower, forever remaining steadfast, he died of dysentery. Saint Phillip Howard, Earl of Arundel, was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales killed during the Protestant revolution. He embodied his family’s still-running motto, “Sola Virtus Invicta” - “courage alone is invincible”. A sola I can admire.
And so, the Fitzalan-Howards never gave in to revolution, and to this day Catholicism courses through their veins. Much of the castle as it is now was built in the 19th century, after the Catholic emancipation in England, and is decorated with all sorts of beautiful papistry.
Arundel Castle stands as a symbol of the Universal Church in England, where Henry VIII said it has no jurisdiction. The Fitzalan-Howards got the memo, threw it away, and carried on no matter how terribly they were persecuted for it. They have emerged out the other end into our subsequent modernity, and will have to pray to God for the continued strength to preserve their defiant legacy in the coming days. We all will.
The Civil War
Very quickly after Henry VIII tore England apart with his religious revolution for the sake of his own power and wealth, he had a worthy successor in Oliver Cromwell’s 1642 political revolution for the sake of his own power and wealth. The castle was on the side, as you could imagine, of King Charles I’s Royalist ‘Cavaliers’. Never afraid to stand up for tradition against the greed of scrupulous politicians, the castle prepared for war. Much as their courage was invincible, once again their cause was not. The castle was besieged by the Protestant, Puritan, Parliamentarians over Christmas and fell in early January. The Fitzalan Chapel was badly damaged, but one can’t help but imagine the sombre atmosphere that the Christmas Mass must have had within those walls.
Charles I would go on to lose his era of the English Civil War and be executed. Cromwell wasted no time after installing himself as Interregnum dictator of England to launch a fresh genocide of Catholics in Ireland; only to die and have Parliament replace him with Charles I’s son, Charles II. Thousands of lives across the British Isles were taken or ruined, only for the status quo to return a decade later. The new catastrophic ambitions of England’s Protestant political order were entirely pointless, but their path of histrionic destruction was not finished.
The next in line after the newly-restored Charles II was his son, James II of England and VII of Scotland. He was openly Catholic, and Parliament was more than willing to sacrifice tens of thousands more human lives than let a Catholic inherit his birthright. Sadly, Charles II, with a mostly Scottish army, lost the final battle at Worcester, the town I practically grew up in (yes, that means I know how to pronounce it - no, I won’t tell you how, you have to guess) and his Royal House of Stuart was deposed. Following this, the mostly Irish and Scottish Jacobites took their name from his son James and took up the cause of yet another Stuart restoration, with their own undying courage in the face of defeat against the all-consuming march towards modernism.
I visited Arundel just before Easter 2022 and was soon to be confirmed into the Catholic Church. It was at this time that I was also learning the history of the English Catholic martyrs, the Royalists, Jacobites, House Stuart, and our modern-day NeoReactionary thought leaders who look back at all of them with the same fondness and stirring admiration which I had come to.
Most people take from Arundel a love of the idyllic village scenery backed by enormous Castle and Cathedral, but I was so blown away by the history that I had unknowingly stumbled across, which spoke directly to my soul, at one of the most important turning points of my life. For this reason, a piece of my soul remains there still.
I urge anyone reading this to visit Arundel for themselves if they have the chance, even if the sights are all you get out of it. It is a stunning place, of which I hope my love for is so strong that you can taste it. Failing a visit, I can at least recommend you watch the episode of the TV show ‘Great British Castles’ on Arundel Castle. But trust me, there is so much still there that I haven’t talked about, mostly because I forgot to photograph a whole lot of it.
Cathedral, You Say?
I sneakily mentioned a Cathedral for the first time there, but trust me, I’ve saved the best bit until last. I will wrap up by showing you the pictures I took of it with minimal commentary, as it’s transcendent beauty truly speaks for itself, but recommend you look it up aswell.
Haha, I went there when I was little and bought some foam knight armour, sword, and shield.