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{{Short description|Idealistic vision of a lost English way of life}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{EngvarB|date=May 2022}}
{{Other uses|Merrie England (disambiguation)}}
[[File:Christmas in Merry England, from the Holidays series (N80) for Duke brand cigarettes MET DPB883090.jpg|thumb|upright|"Christmas in Merry England", an 1890 [[cigarette card]]]]
{{Utopia}}
"'''Merry England'''", or in more jocular, archaic spelling "'''Merrie England'''", refers to a [[utopia]]n conception of [[English culture|English society and culture]] based on an [[idyll]]ic [[pastoral]] way of life that was allegedly prevalent in [[early modern Britain]] at some time between the [[Middle Ages]] and the onset of the [[Industrial Revolution]]. More broadly, it connotes a putative [[essentialism|essential]] [[English national identity|Englishness]] with nostalgic overtones, incorporating such [[cultural icon|cultural symbols]] as the [[thatched cottage]], the [[country inn]] and the [[Sunday roast]].

Folklorist [[Roy Judge]] has described the concept as "a world that has never actually existed, a visionary, mythical landscape, where it is difficult to take normal historical bearings."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Judge |first1=Roy |title=May Day and Merrie England |journal=Folklore |date=1991 |volume=102 |issue=2 |pages=131–148 |doi=10.1080/0015587X.1991.9715815 |issn=0015-587X |jstor=1260953 |quote-page=131}}</ref> It may be treated both as a product of the sentimental [[nostalgic]] imagination and as an ideological or political construct, often underwriting various sorts of conservative world-views. Favourable perceptions of Merry England reveal a nostalgia for aspects of an earlier society that are missing in modern times.

==Medieval origins==

The concept of ''Merry England'' originated in the Middle Ages, when [[Henry of Huntingdon]] around 1150 first coined the phrase {{lang|la|Anglia plena jocis}}.{{sfnp|Coulton|1938|p=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.74587/page/n87/mode/2up 65]}} His theme was taken up in the following century by the encyclopedist [[Bartholomeus Anglicus]], who claimed that "England is full of mirth and of game, and men oft-times able to mirth and game".{{sfnp|Coulton|1938|p=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.74587/page/n87/mode/2up 65]}}

However [[Ronald Hutton]]'s study of churchwardens' accounts places the real consolidation of "Merry England" between 1350 and 1520,{{sfnp|Hutton|1994|pp=61–62}} with the newly elaborative annual festive round of the liturgical year, with candles and pageants, processions and games, [[boy bishop]]s and decorated [[Rood screen|rood lofts]]. Hutton argues that, far from being [[paganism|pagan survivals]], many of the activities of popular piety criticised by 16th-century reformers were actually creations of the later Middle Ages: "Merry England" thus reflects those historical aspects of rural English customs and folklore that were subsequently lost.<ref>{{cite news|first=Tom|last= Hodgkinson |title=Merry England was real enough ... until the puritans ruined it |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2006/nov/17/merryenglandwasrealenough |date=17 November 2006 |work=[[The Guardian]] |quote=Hutton's work confirms my belief that Britain was a merrier place before the Puritans came along with their black hats and hatred of fun. Merry England was not a myth. They really did used to dance around the maypole, feast all day and drink beer all night. And not only was it more merry, the merry-making was actually encouraged by the Church, particularly in the later medieval period. This was because the Church had realised that merry-making could be a source of funds – the profits of the bar went to church upkeep – and also because it helped bind communities. }}</ref>

The same concept may have been used to describe a [[utopia]]n state of life that peasants aspired to lead (see [[Cockaigne]]).{{citeneeded|date=April 2017}} Peasant revolts, such as those led by [[Wat Tyler]] and [[Jack Straw (rebel leader)|Jack Straw]], invoked a [[visionary]] idea that was also [[egalitarian]] – [[John Ball (priest)|John Ball]] arguing for "wines, spices, and good bread{{nbsp}}... velvet and camlet furred with grise"<ref>{{cite book|editor-first= J. B. |editor-last=Bury|title=The Cambridge Medieval History |volume= VII |publisher=Cambridge university Press |date=1932|page=739 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.179600/page/n737/mode/2up}}</ref> all to be held in common. Tyler's rebels wished to throw off the feudal aristocracy (though the term "[[Norman yoke]]" belongs to a later period) and return to a perceived time where the [[Saxons]] ruled in equality and freedom. The main arguments of Tyler's rebels were that there was no basis for aristocratic rule in the Bible, and that the [[Black Death|Plague]] had demonstrated by its indiscriminate nature that all people were equal under God. 

Even in relatively peaceful times, medieval existence was for the majority a harsh and uncertain one – [[Lawrence Stone]] describing rural life as "at the mercy of disease and the weather{{nbsp}}... with money to burn today from the sale of a bumper crop, plunged into debt tomorrow because of harvest failure".<ref>J. H. Hexter, ''On Historians'' (London 1979) p. 155</ref> Nevertheless, the rural community was clearly prepared to play hard as well as work hard (even if much of the surviving evidence for this comes in the form of official censure, ecclesiastical or secular). The festival calendar provided some 50 holy days for seasonal and communal coming-together and merry-making.{{sfnp|Duffy|1992|p=42}}{{sfnp|Marcus|1986|pp=6–7}} Complaints against the rise in levels of drunkenness and crime on holidays, of flirting in church or on pilgrimage, of grievous bodily harm from the "abominable enough{{nbsp}}... foot-ball-game"{{sfnp|Coulton|1938|pp=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.74587/page/n105/mode/2up 83], [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.74587/page/n117/mode/2up 95], [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.74587/page/n213/mode/2up 192]}} all testify (however indirectly) to a vital, if unofficial medieval existence. The 14th-century English poet [[William Langland|Langland]] might castigate, but he also provides a vivid picture of those who "drink all day in diverse taverns, and gossip and joke there", of the field-workers who "sat down to drink their ale and sing songs – thinking to plough his field with a 'Hey-nonny-nonny'".<ref>J. F. Goodridge ed., ''Piers the Ploughman'' (Penguin 1966) pp. 41, 84</ref> The wandering scholar, or [[goliard]], who posed the mock questions of whether it was better to eat meat or fish, to court Agnes or Rose,<ref>H. Waddell, ''The Wandering Scholars'' (Fontana 1968) p. 195</ref> belonged to a similar fraternity.

More legitimised recreation came in the form of archery, ice-skating, wrestling, hunting and hawking,<ref>D. Baker ed., ''The Early Middle Ages'' (London 1966) p. 236</ref> while there was also the medieval angler, of whom [[Juliana Berners]] wrote: "atte the leest hath his holsom walke and mery at his ease".{{sfnp|Coulton|1938b|p=596}} Towns had nomadic entertainers—minstrels, jugglers, [[mummers]], morris-dancers, actors and jig-makers—<ref>S Greenblatt, ''Will in the World'' (London 2005) pp. 39–40</ref> all adding to first stirrings of mass entertainment.

Thus there was certainly merriment in medieval England, even if found in an unidealised and conflictual social setting. If there was a period after the Black Death when labour shortages meant that agricultural workers were in stronger positions, and [[serfdom]] was consequently eroded, the growing commercialisation of agriculture – with enclosures, rising rents, and pasture displacing arable, and sheep displacing men – meant that such social and economic hardship and conflict continued in the countryside through into [[Tudor period|Tudor]] times.<ref>G. M. Trevelyan, ''History of England'' (London 1926) pp. 242, 283</ref>

==Post-Reformation conflicts==

The [[English Reformation|Reformation]] set in motion a debate about popular festivities that was to endure for at least a century-and-a-half – a culture war concerning the so-called politics of mirth.{{sfnp|Marcus|1986|p=23}} As part of the move away from [[Catholicism]], [[Henry VIII]] had slashed the number of saint day holidays, attacking the "lycencyous vacacyon and lybertye of these holy days",{{sfnp|Duffy|1992|p=394}} and [[Edward VI]] had reduced them further to 27.<ref>J. Shapiro, ''1599'' (London 2005) p. 168</ref> The annual festal round in parish society, consolidated between 1350 and 1520{{efn|See: Hutton (1994). Chapter 2: "The Making of Merry England".{{sfnp|Hutton|1994|pp=[https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt/page/48/mode/2up 49]–[https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt/page/68/mode/1up 68]}} For methodological criticism, see French (1995).<ref>French, Katherine L. (1995). ''The Sixteenth Century Journal'', pp. 247–248</ref>}} and including such customs as [[Parish ale|church ales]], [[May Day|May games]], [[Maypole|maypoles]] and local plays, came under severe pressure in [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethan England]].{{sfnp|Hutton|1994|pp=[https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt/page/118/mode/2up 118–122]}} Religious austerity, opposed to Catholic and pagan hangovers, and economic arguments against idleness, found common ground in attacking communal celebrations.{{sfnp|Semenza|2003|p=40}}

However, a reaction quickly set in, [[John Caius]] in 1552 deploring the loss of what he called "the old world, when this country was called merry England".{{sfnp|Hutton|1994|p=89}} [[James VI and I|James I]] in 1618 issued his [[Declaration of Sports|Book of Sports]], specifically defending the practice of sports, dancing, maypoles and the like after Sunday Service;{{sfnp|Marcus|1986|p=3}} and his son [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] took a similar line. The question of "Merry England" thus became a focal point dividing [[Puritans|Puritan]] and [[Anglicanism|Anglican]], proto-[[Royalist]] and proto-[[Roundhead]], in the lead-up to the [[English Civil War|Civil War]]. Unsurprisingly, the [[Long Parliament]] put an end to parish ales, the last of which was held in 1641, and drove Christmas underground, where it was kept privately as a form of protest; while the [[Stuart Restoration|Restoration]] saw the revival of such pastimes (if not on the Sabbath itself) widely and popularly celebrated.{{sfnp|Semenza|2003|p=210}}

==Cultural revivals==
[[File:William Hogarth - O the Roast Beef of Old England ('The Gate of Calais') - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[The Gate of Calais|O the Roast Beef of Old England (The Gate of Calais)]]'' by [[William Hogarth]] contrasts English plenty with French and Jacobite Highlander misery.]]

At various times since the Middle Ages, authors, propagandists, romanticists, poets and others have revived or co-opted the term. The celebrated [[William Hogarth]] engraving illustrating the patriotic song "[[The Roast Beef of Old England]]", is as anti-French as it is patriotic.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tate |title='O the Roast Beef of Old England ('The Gate of Calais')', William Hogarth, 1748 |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hogarth-o-the-roast-beef-of-old-england-the-gate-of-calais-n01464 |access-date=2024-01-24 |website=Tate |language=en-GB}}</ref> [[William Hazlitt]]'s essay "Merry England", appended to his ''Lectures on the English Comic Writers'' (1819),{{efn|It was often reprinted in collections of Hazlitt's essays, and, tellingly, included in Ernest Rhys' compilation of sentimental patriotism ''The Old Country: a Book of Love and Praise of England'', first published in 1917, as the First World War was coming to an end, and republished in 1922.{{cn|date=August 2024}}}} popularised the specific term,{{cn|date=August 2024}} introduced in tandem with an [[allusion]] to the iconic figure of [[Robin Hood]], under the [[Epigraph (literature)|epigraph]] "St George for merry England!":<blockquote>The beams of the morning sun shining on the lonely glades, or through the idle branches of the tangled forest, the leisure, the freedom, 'the pleasure of going and coming without knowing where', the troops of wild deer, the sports of the chase, and other rustic gambols, were sufficient to justify the appelation of [[Sherwood Forest|'Merry Sherwood']], and in like manner, we may apply the phrase to ''Merry England''.</blockquote>

Hazlitt's subject was the traditional sports and rural diversions native to the English. In {{lang|de|Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England}} (1844: translated as ''[[The Condition of the Working Class in England]]''), [[Friedrich Engels]] wrote sarcastically of [[Young England]] (a ginger-group of young aristocrats hostile to the new industrial order) that they hoped to restore "the old 'merry England' with its brilliant features and its romantic feudalism. This object is of course unattainable and ridiculous ..." The phrase ''merry England'' appears in English in the German text.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me02/me02_486.htm|title=Friedrich Engels – Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England – Die Stellung der Bourgeoisie zum Proletariat|accessdate=6 October 2014}}</ref>
[[Image:CRANE a garland for mayday 1895.jpg|thumb|left|"A Garland for May Day 1895" woodcut by [[Walter Crane]]]]

[[William Cobbett]] provides conservative commentary on the rapidly changing look and ''mores'' of an industrialising nation<ref>William Sambrook, ''William Cobbett'' (1973), ch. I "Merry England?"</ref> by invoking the stable social hierarchy and prosperous working class of the pre-industrial country of his youth in his ''[[Rural Rides]]'' (1822–26, collected in book form, 1830). The later works of [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] also subscribe to some extent to the "Merry England" view. [[Thomas Carlyle]]'s ''[[Past and Present (book)|Past and Present]]'' also makes the case for Merrie England; the conclusion of ''[[Crotchet Castle]]'' by [[Thomas Love Peacock]] contrasts the mediaevalism of Mr. Chainmail to the contemporary social unrest. Barry Cornwall's patriotic poem "Hurrah for Merry England" was set twice to music and printed in ''[[The Musical Times]]'', in 1861 and 1880.

In the 1830s, the [[Gothic Revival]] promoted in England what once had been a truly international European style. Its stages, though, had been given purely English antiquarian labels{{snd}}"Norman" for the [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]], and "[[English Gothic architecture|Early English]]", for example{{snd}}and the revival was stretched to include also the succeeding, more specifically ''English'' style: a generic English Renaissance revival, later named "[[Jacobethan]]". The revival was spurred by a series of lithographs by [[Joseph Nash]] (1839–1849), illustrating ''The Mansions of England in the Olden Time'' in picturesque and accurate detail. They were peopled with jolly figures in ruffs and [[farthingale]]s, who personified a specific "Merry England" that was not Catholic (always an issue with the Gothic style in England), yet full of lively detail, in a golden pre-industrial land of Cockaigne.

[[Image:Poor little birdie teased by Richard Doyle.jpg|thumb|''Poor little birdie teased'', by the 19th-century English illustrator [[Richard Doyle (illustrator)|Richard Doyle]]. Traditional English fairytales depicting [[elves]], [[fairy|fairies]] and [[pixie]]s are set on a "Merrie England" setting of woodland and [[cottage garden]]s.]]
Children's storybooks and [[fairytales]] written in the [[Victorian period]] often use Merry England as a setting as it is seen as a mythical utopia. They often contain nature-loving mythological creatures such as [[elves]] and [[fairy|fairies]], as well as Robin Hood. 

The London-based [[Anglo-Catholic]] magazine of prose and verse ''Merry England'' began publication in 1879. Its issues bore a sonnet by [[William Wordsworth]] as epigraph, beginning "They called thee 'merry England' in old time" and characterising ''Merry England'' "a responsive chime to the heart's fond belief":

{{quote|<poem>
'''...Can, I ask,'''
This face of rural beauty be a mask
For discontent, and poverty, and crime?—
These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will?—
Forbid it, Heaven! —that Merry England still
May be thy rightful name, in prose or rhyme.
</poem>}}

In the late Victorian era, the Tory [[Young England]] set perhaps best reflected the vision of "Merry England" on the political stage. Today, in a form adapted to [[political conservatism]], the vision of "Merry England" extends to embrace a few urban artisans and other cosmopolitans; a flexible and humane clergy; an interested and [[altruism|altruistic]] [[Squire#Present status (England)|squirearchy]], [[aristocracy]] and [[royal family|royalty]]. Solidity and good cheer would be the values of [[yeoman farmer]]s, whatever the foibles of those higher in the hierarchy.

The idea of Merry England became associated on one side with the Anglo-Catholics and Catholicism, as a version of life's generosity; for example [[Wilfrid Meynell|Wilfred]] and [[Alice Meynell]] entitled one of their magazines ''Merrie England''. The pastoral aspects of [[William Blake]], a Londoner and an actual craftsman, lack the same mellow quality.{{opinion|date=August 2024}} [[G. K. Chesterton]] in part adapted it to urban conditions. [[William Morris]] and the [[Arts and Crafts movement]] and other left-inclined improvers (whom Sir [[Hugh Casson]] called "the herbivores") were also (partly) believers. [[Walter Crane]]'s "Garland for May Day 1895" is lettered "Merrie England" together with progressive slogans ("Shorten Working Day & Lengthen Life", "The Land for the People", "No Child Toilers") with socialism ("Production for Use Not for Profit"). For a time, the ''Merry England'' vision was a common reference point for rhetorical [[Conservative Party (UK)|Tories]] and utopian [[socialist]]s, offering similar alternatives to an industrialising society, with its large-scale movement off the land to jerry-built cities and gross [[social inequality]].

This was also the theme of journalist [[Robert Blatchford]], editor of the ''[[The Clarion (British newspaper)|Clarion]]'', in his booklet ''Merrie England'' (1893). In it he imagined a new society much on the basis of Morris's ''[[News from Nowhere]]'', in which capitalism had disappeared and people lived in small self-sufficient communities. The book was deeply nostalgic for a pastoral England of the past before industrial capitalism and factory production. It was widely read and enjoyed worldwide sales and probably introduced more working-class readers to socialism than Morris or [[Karl Marx]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Martinek |first1=Jason D. |title='The Workingman's Bible': Robert Blatchford's 'Merrie England', Radical Literacy, and the Making of Debsian Socialism, 1895–1900 |journal=The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era |date=2003 |volume=2 |number=3: ''New Perspectives on Socialism I'' [special issue] |pages=326–346 |doi=10.1017/S153778140000044X |issn=1537-7814 |jstor=25144338}}</ref>

Another variant of ''Merry England'' was promoted in the ''organic community'' of [[F. R. Leavis]] by which he seems to have meant a community with a deeply rooted and locally self-sufficient culture. In his view, such communities existed in the villages of 17th and 18th century England and were destroyed by the machine and mass culture introduced by the [[Industrial Revolution]]. Historians of the era say that the idea was based on a misreading of history and that such communities had never existed.<ref>Bilan R. R. (1979) ''The Literary Criticism if F. R. Leavis'' (Cambridge University Press) pp. 14–18, {{ISBN|978-0-521-22324-9}}</ref>

[[Punch (magazine)|''Punch'']] in 1951 mocked both planning and the concept of a revived Merry England, by envisioning a 'Merrie Board' with powers to set up 'Merrie Areas' in rural England – intended to preserve "this hard core of Merriment".{{sfnp|Matless|1998|pp=[https://archive.org/details/landscapeenglish0000davi/page/272/mode/2up 272–273]}}

==Deep England==
"Deep England" refers to an idealised view of a rural [[southern England]]. The term is often used to describe what English [[cultural conservative]]s would wish to conserve and is used by both supporters and critics of the concept.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=008C_t8NhycC&q=Deep+England+Angus+Calder&pg=PA16 |via=[[Google Books]] |title=British Film |accessdate=24 January 2009 |isbn=9780521654197 |last1=Leach |first1=Jim |date=30 August 2004 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] }} </ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Murray |first1=Douglas |title=In search of deep England |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/in-search-of-deep-england/ |access-date=23 April 2024 |work=[[The Spectator]] |date=16 December 2023}}</ref> The term, which alludes to {{lang|fr|la [[France profonde]]}}, has been attributed to both [[Patrick Wright (historian)|Patrick Wright]]<ref name="Hughes rom">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t2myiJdtXF0C&q=Deep+England+Patrick+Wright&pg=PA81 |title=The Historical Romance |via=[[Google Books]] |accessdate=24 January 2009 |isbn=9780203168028 |last1=Hughes |first1=Helen |date=14 January 2004 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] }} </ref> and [[Angus Calder]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M7AmyuGr5Y8C&q=Deep+England+Angus+Calder&pg=PA16 |title=Village England: A Social History of the Countryside |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=24 January 2009 |isbn=9781860649394 |last1=Wild |first1=Trevor |date=26 February 2004 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]] }} </ref> The concept of Deep England may imply an explicit opposition to [[modernism]] and industrialisation;<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sNf_lllAgBUC&q=Deep+England+industrialisation&pg=PA208 |title=Imagining Cities: Scripts, Signs, Memory |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=24 January 2009 |isbn=9780203397350 |last1=Westwood |first1=Sallie |last2=Williams |first2=John |date=19 June 2004 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] }} </ref> and may be connected to a ruralist viewpoint typified by writer [[H. J. Massingham]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LZRu5OrDMCAC&q=ruralist+H.+J.+Massingham&pg=PA287 |title=Step-daughters of England: British Women Modernists and the National Imaginary |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=24 January 2009 |isbn=9780719061646 |last1=Garrity |first1=Jane |year=2003 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] }} </ref> Major artists whose work is associated with Deep England include: writer [[Thomas Hardy]],<ref name="so exotic">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IiuXDUYvxxcC&q=Thomas+Hardy++%22Deep+England%22&pg=PA33 |title=So Exotic, So Homemade: Surrealism, Englishness and Documentary Photography |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=24 January 2009 |isbn=9780719073403 |last1=Walker |first1=Ian |year=2007 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] }} </ref> painter [[John Constable]],<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IF1EiHomRAMC&q=John+Constable++%22Deep+England%22&pg=PA7 |title=The Anxious City: English Urbanism in the Late Twentieth Century |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=24 January 2009 |isbn=9780415279260 |last1=Williams |first1=Richard J. |last2=Williams |first2=Dick |year=2004 |publisher=[[Psychology Press]] }} </ref> composer [[Ralph Vaughan Williams]],<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K5ogUW38hSEC&q=Ralph+Vaughan+Williams++%22Deep+England%22&pg=PA304 |title=The Culture of History: English Uses of the Past 1800–1953 |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=24 January 2009 |isbn=9780199296880 |last1=Melman |first1=Billie |date=22 June 2006 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] }} </ref> and poets [[Rupert Brooke]]<ref name="Hughes rom"/> and Sir [[John Betjeman]].<ref name="so exotic"/> Examples of this conservative or [[village green]] viewpoint include the ideological outlook of magazines such as ''[[This England (magazine)|This England]]''.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SlcUIxzaPyoC&q=%22This+England%22++%22Deep+England%22&pg=PA81 |title=Iain Sinclair |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=24 January 2009 |isbn=9780719069055 |last1=Baker |first1=Brian |year=2007 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] }} </ref> Wartime propaganda is sometimes taken to reflect a generalised view of a rural Deep England, but this is perhaps to ignore both the competing views of ruralism, and the mix of rural and non-rural actually offered for a post-war vision of a better Britain.{{sfnp|Matless|1998|pp=[https://archive.org/details/landscapeenglish0000davi/page/204/mode/2up 204–206]}}

==''Little England'' and propaganda==
In Angus Calder's re-examination of the ideological constructs surrounding "[[Little Englander|Little England]]" during the [[Second World War]] in ''The Myth of the Blitz'', he puts forward the view that the story of Deep England was central to wartime propaganda operations within the United Kingdom, and then, as now, served a clearly defined political and cultural purpose in the hands of various interested agencies.

Calder cites the writer and broadcaster [[J. B. Priestley]] whom he considers to be a proponent of the Deep England world-view. Priestley's wartime [[BBC]] radio "chats" describe the beauty of the English natural environment, this at a time when rationing was at its height, and the population of London was sheltering from [[The Blitz]] in its [[London Underground|Underground]] stations. In reference to one of Priestley's bucolic broadcasts, Calder makes the following point:

<blockquote>Priestley, the socialist, gives this cottage no occupant, nor does he wonder about the size of the occupant's wage, nor ask if the cottage has internal sanitation and running water. His countryside only exists as spectacle, for the delectation of people with motor cars." (Angus Calder, ''The Myth of the Blitz'', London 1991)</blockquote>

However, in ''Journey Through England'', Priestley identifies himself as a Little Englander because he despises imperialism and the effect that the capitalist Industrial Revolution had on the people and environment.

Part of the imagery of the 1940 patriotic song "[[There'll Always Be an England]]" seems to be derived from the same source:
{{poemquote|There'll always be an England
While there's a country lane,
Wherever there's a cottage small
Beside a field of grain.}}

The continuation evokes, however, the opposite image of the modern industrialised society:
{{poemquote|There'll always be an England
While there's a busy street,
Wherever there's a turning wheel,
A million marching feet.}}
The song seems therefore to offer a synthesis and combine the two Englands, the archaic bucolic one and the modern industrialised one, in the focus of patriotic loyalty and veneration.

==Literature and the arts==

The transition from a literary locus of ''Merry England'' to a more obviously political one cannot be placed before 1945, as the cited example of J. B. Priestley shows. Writers and artists described as having a Merry England viewpoint range from the radical visionary poet William Blake to the evangelical Christian [[Arthur Mee]]. The [[Rudyard Kipling]] of ''[[Puck of Pook's Hill]]'' is certainly one; when he wrote it, he was in transition towards his later, very conservative stance. Within art, the fabled long-lost merrie England was also a recurring theme in the Victorian-era paintings of the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]]. The 1890 ''News from Nowhere'' by William Morris portrays a future England that has reverted to a rural idyll following a socialist revolution.

Reference points might be taken as children's writer [[Beatrix Potter]], John Betjeman (more interested in [[Victoriana]]), and the [[fantasy fiction|fantasy]] author [[J. R. R. Tolkien]], whose [[hobbit]] characters' culture in [[The Shire]] embodied many aspects of the Merry England point of view.

In his essay "[[Epic Pooh]]", [[Michael Moorcock]] opines:<ref>{{Cite magazine| title=Epic Pooh | first=Michael |last=Moorcock | magazine=RevolutionSF | url=http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953 |date=c. 2006 | archive-date=24 March 2008 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080324100956/http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953 |
pages=1–[http://revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953&page=5 5]}}
* First published as {{citation|author=Michael Moorcock|title=Epic Pooh |date=February 1978 |publisher=British Science Fiction Association |work=BSFA Society Booklet no. 4 |author-mask=0}}
* Revised and republished as Chapter 6 in: {{cite book |last1=Moorcock |first1=Michael |title=Wizardry and Wild Romance: A study of epic fantasy |date=January 1987 |publisher=Victor Gollancz VGSF |location=London |isbn=0-575-04324-5 |pages=179–208 |url=https://archive.org/details/michael-moorcock-wizardry-and-wild-romance/page/178/mode/2up}}</ref>

{{quote|The little hills and woods of that [[Surrey]] of the mind, [[Shire (Middle-earth)|the Shire]], are 'safe', but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are 'dangerous'. Experience of life itself is dangerous. ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' is a pernicious confirmation of the values of a declining nation with a [[morally bankrupt]] class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of [[Thatcherism]]. Humanity was derided and marginalised. Sentimentality became the acceptable substitute. So few people seem to be able to tell the difference.}}
[[File:Hobbit_holes_reflected_in_water.jpg|thumb|Part of [[Shire (Middle-earth)|the Shire]] created for ''The Lord of the Rings'' films]]

''[[The Pyrates]]'', the 1983 spoof historical novel by [[George MacDonald Fraser]], sets its scene with a page-long sentence composed entirely of (immediately demolished) Merry England [[Trope (linguistics)|tropes]]:
{{quote|It began in the old and golden days of England, in a time when all the hedgerows were green and the roads dusty, when [[Crataegus monogyna|hawthorn]] and [[Rosa canina|wild roses]] bloomed, when big-bellied landlords brewed October ale at a penny a pint ...}}

The novel ''[[England, England]]'' by [[Julian Barnes]] describes an imaginary, though plausible, set of circumstances that cause modern England to return to the state of Deep England. The author's views are not made explicit, but the characters who choose to remain in the changed nation are treated more sympathetically than those who leave. In [[Kingsley Amis]]'s novel ''[[Lucky Jim]]'', Professor Welch and his friends are devotees of the Merry England legend, and Jim's "Merrie England" lecture somehow turns into a debunking of the whole concept (a position almost certainly reflecting that of Amis). [[Richmal Crompton]]'s ''William the Bad'' [1930] contains a chapter, "The Pennymans Hand On The Torch", about an idealist couple who wish to return to Merrie England, as a staging post towards their ideal of living at "the morning of the world", which means dressing in flowing robes and (incongruously with the Merrie England concept, bearing in mind the traditions of English Ale and The Roast Beef of Old England) being vegetarian and teetotal. The pageant they organise becomes a fiasco, largely, needless to say, on account of William's involvement as part of the dragon who fights Mr Pennyman's St George. "The Pennymans'... pageant for May Day which involves [[St George and the Dragon]]{{nbsp}}... proves to be the first time ever that the Dragon (played by William) ever came out on top in the conflict".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://justwilliamnotes.blogspot.co.uk/|title=Just William|author=Pip|accessdate=6 October 2014}}</ref>

==Music==
Eric Saylor traces [[Arcadia (region)|Arcadian]] antecedents in English [[Pastoral|pastoral music]] back to 18th century works such as Handel's ''[[Acis and Galatea (Handel)|Acis and Galatea]]'' (1718, text by [[John Gay]]), which remained a mainstay of English choral festivals throughout the 19th century. [[Arthur Sullivan]]'s ''Iolanthe'' (1882) makes use of pastoral conventions.<ref>Saylor, Eric. ''English Pastoral Music: From Arcadia to Utopia, 1900-1955'' (2017), Chapter 2</ref> His ballet ''[[Victoria and Merrie England]]'', produced for the [[diamond jubilee]] of [[Queen Victoria]] in 1897, consists of a series of scenes depicting idealised versions of British mythology and past eras typical of Merry England, including a country village celebrating May Day in Elizabethan times and Christmas during the Restoration. The final scenes are recreations of Victoria's coronation and a celebration of the [[British Empire]], tying the contemporary world of 1897 back to the popular idealised world of Merry England. Sullivan's score consists of original music mixed with a large number of popular and historical folk tunes, traditional songs and national anthems. The ballet was very popular, running continuously for nearly six months.<ref>Tillett, Selwyn (1993). Notes to [https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.223677 'Victoria and Merrie England (Complete Ballet)'], Marco Polo CD 8.223677</ref>

''[[Merrie England (opera)|Merrie England]]'', a [[comic opera]] by [[Edward German]], also became a great success in 1902, and over the following century was so frequently produced by amateur groups in England that it has probably been performed more often than any other British opera or operetta written in the 20th century.<ref name=Notes>[[David Russell Hulme|Hulme, David Russell]]. [http://www.naxosdirect.com/GERMAN-Richard-III--Theme-and-Six-Diversions--The-Seasons/title/8223695/ "German: ''Richard III'' / ''Theme and Six Diversions'' / ''The Seasons''"], Marco Polo/Naxos liner notes, 1994</ref> During his heyday, German successfully tapped into and fostered a new enthusiasm for British music in the context of a romanticised Shakespearian or semi mythical "Merrie England". His ''Three Dances from 'Henry VIII{{'}}'' (1892) was easily the most frequently performed English orchestral work in the first decade of the [[BBC Proms]], with well over 30 performances between 1895 and 1905. ''Three Dances from 'As You Like It{{'}}'' (1896) was similarly popular.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/events/works/67d0cd8f-7e50-4117-9248-ba7f2a078dab BBC Proms Performance Archive]</ref>

Other composers, such as [[Charles Villiers Stanford]] (''Suite of Ancient Dances'', 1895), [[Frederick Cowen]] (''Four English Dances in the Old Style'', 1896), [[Norman O'Neill (composer)|Norman O'Neill]] (overture to ''Hamlet'', 1904) and [[Percy Pitt]] (''Three Old English Dances'', 1904) turned to similar sources for inspiration.<ref>Poston, Lawrence. 'Henry Wood, the "Proms," and National Identity in Music, 1895–1904', in [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3830221 ''Victorian Studies'', Volume 47 No 3, Spring 2005], p 412</ref> A few popular music artists have used elements of the Merry England story as recurring themes. [[The Kinks]] and their leader [[Ray Davies]] crafted ''[[The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society]]'' in 1968 as a homage to English country life and culture: it was described by [[AllMusic]] senior editor [[Stephen Thomas Erlewine]] as an album "lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions".<ref name="Allmusic">Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. [{{Allmusic|class=album|id=r11011|pure_url=yes}} ''The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society'']. AllMusic.</ref> Their 1969 album ''[[Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)]]'' also contains similar elements. [[Ian Anderson (musician)|Ian Anderson]] of [[Jethro Tull (band)|Jethro Tull]] has often alluded to an anti-modern, pre-industrial, agrarian vision of England in his songs ([[Jethro Tull (agriculturist)|the band's namesake]] was himself an agrarian, the inventor of the [[seed drill]]).

== See also ==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=22em|
* [[And did those feet in ancient time]]
* [[Arcadia (utopia)|Arcadia]]
* [[Civil religion]]
* [[C. S. Lewis]]
* [[Middle England]]
* [[Pastoral]]
* [[Robert Herrick (poet)|Robert Herrick]]
* [[Sabbatarianism]]
* [[Tudor myth]]
* [[Whig history]]
}}

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

===Works cited===
* {{cite book|last=Coulton |first= G. C. |title=Medieval Panorama |series=[4 volumes] |date=1938a |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.53938/page/65/mode/2up|publisher=Cambridge University Press; Fontana}}
**{{cite book |last=Coulton |first= G. C. |author-mask=0 |title=Medieval Panorama: Foreground – Society and Institutions |volume=I |date=1938 |publisher= The Fontana Library. |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.53938/page/3/mode/2up}}
**{{cite book |last=Coulton |first= G. C. |author-mask=0 |title=Medieval Panorama: Horizons of Thought|volume=II |date=1938b |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.53939/page/n3/mode/2up}}
* {{cite book |last1=Duffy |first1=Eamon |title=The Stripping of the Altars |date=1992 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=London; New Haven |isbn=978-0-300-06076-8}}
* {{cite book |last1=Hutton |first1=Ronald |title=The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400–1700 |date=1994 |location=Oxford; New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-820363-6 |author-link=Ronald Hutton |url=https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt/page/n5/mode/2up}} {{ISBN|0-19-285447-X}}.
* {{cite book |last1=Marcus |first1=Leah Sinanoglou |title=The Politics of Mirth: Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell, and the defense of old holiday pastimes |date=1986 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago; London |isbn=978-0-226-50451-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/politicsofmirthj0000marc/page/n5/mode/2up|url-access=registration}}
* {{cite book |last1=Matless |first1=David |title=Landscape and Englishness |date=December 1998 |publisher=Reaktion Books |location=London |isbn=978-1-86189-022-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/landscapeenglish0000davi |series=Picturing History|url-access=registration}}
* {{cite book |last1=Semenza |first1=Gregory M. Colón |title=Sport, politics, and literature in the English Renaissance |date=2003 |publisher=Associated University Presses; University of Delaware Press|location=London; Newark, New Jersey (US) |isbn=978-0-87413-844-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/sportpoliticslit0000seme/page/n5/mode/2up|url-access=registration}}

== Further reading ==
* Joseph Behar (April 1998). [https://web.archive.org/web/20120212114057/http://www.usask.ca/history/cjh/f/iss/text/98/beha_498.shtml "Citizenship and Control: The Case of St. Helenian Agricultural Workers in the UK, 1949–1951"]. ''Canadian Journal of History'' {{!}} ''Annales canadiennes d'histoire'' '''33''', pp.&nbsp;49–73. {{ISSN|0008-4107}}.
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Huish |editor1-first=Marcus Bourne |title=Happy England, as Painted by Helen Allingham, R.W.S. |date=1904 |publisher=A. & C. Black |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/happyenglandaspa00huis/page/n7/mode/2up |language=en}}
* Judge, Tony (2013). ''Tory Socialist: Robert Blatchford and Merrie England''. Mentor Books. {{ISBN|9781482075113}}.
* Simmons, Clare (2021). ''Medievalist Traditions in Nineteenth-Century British Culture''. Boydell & Brewer.
* Watson, Paul (14 January 2018). [https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/deep-england "Deep England"]. ''The Lazarus Corporation: Art & Writing by Paul Watson'' – an introduction to the concept of Deep England.
* [[Patrick Wright (academic)|Wright, Patrick]] (1985). ''On Living in an Old Country''. Verso Books. {{ISBN|0-86091-833-5}}. Chapter 2, esp. pp. 81–87.

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Cultural history of England]]
[[Category:Early modern history of England]]
[[Category:England in fiction]]
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[[Category:English popular culture]]
[[Category:Fictional populated places in England]]
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[[Category:Mythical utopias]]
[[Category:Historiography of England]]