It was my local for a bit, the Methuen Arms, one of those honey-stone English pubs with a garden that promise lazy afternoons over pints of Pimms. Prince Philip drank here while he was stationed nearby, and Camilla Parker Bowles was reputedly a regular when she lived here with her first husband.
Not my normal hangout, shall we say.
The pub and hotel was named after the local lords of the manor, the Methuens of Corsham Court. I was an occasional student at this stately outpost, with its Elizabethan gabled front, Italian masters in the hall and peacocks strutting on the lawn.
On our first day we were asked to wander around the grounds and write about the place. My English counterparts wrote pieces about the first World War (the names of the fallen were listed on the wall of the adjoining churchyard), the glorious Capability Brown landscaped park, and of course those preening peacocks.
I fell to thinking about who were these Methuens anyway. They can’t have amassed this pile without exploiting someone or something along the way.
All those sheep must be getting EU subsidies, I fumed, and I bet their owner voted for Brexit. I’d only just met these people who I’d be studying with for a whole year. I could hardly indulge in a rant on day one.
Perhaps my grumpy mood had been influenced by the fact that on my way to Corsham I had passed through Keynsham, a village with the dubious honour of hosting the constituency office of one Jacob Rees-Mogg. In a local taxi I ventured a discussion on Brexit, to be offered a slightly patronising, “Don’t worry love – there’ll be a visa waiver for you”. Everywhere I went I encountered a blithe ignorance of the impact on Ireland, apart from among my fellow students.
Jonathan Swift described him as 'a profligate rogue without religion or morals. Cunning enough, but without abilities of any kind'
Fast-forward a few months, and I found myself in northern Portugal, travelling along the Douro river, and called in to visit the Museum of Port Wine. Was there no way of escaping these Methuens? Pride of place in a display cabinet was the Methuen Treaty, negotiated by John Methuen and his son Paul in 1703. The Methuens had persuaded Portugal to break its alliance with Louis XIV of France, and the treaty – sometimes called the Port Wine Treaty – also gave Portuguese wine preferential access to the UK market over French. It also ensured that the port business fell into the hands of British merchants, many of whom dominate the trade to this day.
John Methuen was double-jobbing at the time; as well as being British ambassador to Portugal he was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, where he carved out a reputation for being fairly useless. Elrington Ball wrote that, “although he held office he could hardly be said to occupy it”, while Jonathan Swift described him as “a profligate rogue without religion or morals. Cunning enough, but without abilities of any kind”.
By now my anti-Methuen prejudices were in full swing. Although when I discovered that another Methuen, Algernon, founded a publishing house which published Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Wilde's De Profundis and DH Lawrence, I was willing to grant the family a small reprieve for services to literature. Until I discovered that Algernon wasn't related at all. But another Baron Methuen was a painter and invited the Bath School of Art to Corsham Court, which later became part of Bath Spa University, my now alma mater.
During all my (occasional) musing on the Methuens I never met the current baron, though he was sometimes to be seen walking the dogs early in the morning on the grounds of Corsham Court. He had inherited the peerage from his first cousin once removed, as the previous baron had no sons (but did have two daughters). Cue more musings on the sexism of the British class system.
At least the bizarrely elected and unelected peers, led by the Lib Dems, have tried to impose some parliamentary scrutiny on bonkers Brexit
Nevertheless I loved my visits to Corsham Court, and over time my attitude to the Methuens softened, helped by regular visits to the eponymous Methuen Arms.
So I was irrationally pleased to discover a saving grace. It turns out that the seventh baron was one of the hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords after 1999, when Labour got rid of most them. Robert Methuen sat with the Liberal Democrats, and after he died in 2014 he was replaced by another Lib Dem peer.
Lord Tyler of lordsofthe blog.net described the process as a “bonkers by-election”, which involved “the existing peers choosing among random descendants of peers thrown out in 1999”.
But at least the bizarrely elected and unelected peers, led by the Lib Dems, have tried to impose some parliamentary scrutiny on bonkers Brexit.
So perhaps the Methuen legacy may yet help to save the day.
A glass of port was in order, as I contemplated the complex web of British, Irish and Portuguese history, and debated inviting Jacob Rees-Mogg for a drink to sort it all out once and for all. But I decided, this is my local now, not his.