A morality tale

In the course of watching an episode of series 2 of 'Crown' last night, we were offered an interesting moral conundrum, in the context of the Duke of Windsor's activities in the first part of the second world war.

So we have a prominent family, prominent enough, for one reason or another, that it befits them to behave well and to be seen to behave well. Suppose now that one of the members of the family does something pretty awful. Does one bury the deed, hoping that by the time it surfaces no-one will care any more, or does one hang out one's dirty washing and get it over with?

I suppose the answer is that it all depends. But I do associate to the early modern custom in France of the amende honourable, which I first read about in a rather lurid book about Madame de Brinvilliers and the affair of the poisons, a huge scandal (involving both the Court and the wider aristocracy) in late seventeenth century France. In the amende, the offender was required to march through the streets to some suitable church, perhaps somewhere like Notre Dame in Paris, barefoot, dressed in a just a white shirt and carrying a large candle, there to do public penance and to receive absolution from the church. Part of the punishment, for posh people at least, was being required to appear in public without the expensive clothes which marked their station in life, fenced them off from the masses. Afterwards, one surrendered oneself to the civil authorities to be burned at the stake. The whole process surrounded with elaborate trappings and crowds. An updated version of the Greek scapegoat.

With the Brinvilliers occasion also being noticed by Madame de Sévigné in one of her letters, in which she made some witty remarks about all the good people who had been watching, perhaps for their own edification rather than their entertainment, taking down the last vestiges of the criminal, now a fine ash floating in the air around.

Note that is a process which requires the cooperation - if not the true repentance - of the criminal.

PS: this royal soap continues to surprise me with its savaging of the establishment of this country in the run-up to the white heat of technology offering from the other lot, led by one Harold Wilson. As opposed to Harold Macmillan. And one Antony Eden who boasts loudly - in this telling - of the number of PM's who had been to Eton, shortly before he was bundled out of office in the wake of the Suez fiasco. Not to say disaster, certainly for all those who got killed in the process.