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Foreword

The genesis of this book resides in my regular meetings with Ron, an old friend of mine.  For some years we had regular chats about many things, some political, others not. However, looking back there would appear to have been a degree of bewilderment that, regardless of the party of government, we appeared to be in a perpetual downward spiral, politically, socially and economically. It did not take long for us to wonder how people managed to acquire important positions of state when at face value they seemed to have so little talent for the job they take on; thus inviting the question of who really governs, who the puppeteers are pulling the strings of the government puppets.  Looking for answers was fruitless and, accordingly, it was easy to create ‘Them’, the people who hold the reins and real power in the world.
    At first, ‘Them’ were an anonymous bunch of individuals until the day came, in 2005, when Michael Howard resigned as leader of the Conservative Party and various candidates lined up for the election that would decide his replacement.  It was only natural during our conversations for the query “Who is going to be the next leader?” to be a subject for discussion. Without hesitation, but not without a degree of jocularity, I answered David Cameron. The definitiveness of my answer obviously took Ron aback, especially as my prophecy was so much at odds with the bookmakers at that time. When asked to explain my answer, I recounted, that at the initial line up of candidates on the television news programme, Cameron was the only one wearing a pink tie and thus mimicking Blair who also sported a pink tie at one of his early conferences after becoming Prime Minister.
    As Cameron was, at this stage, an outsider for the job of Conservative leader, my prophecy became a joke, until he won. However, my reasoning was recalled when the leadership of the Liberal Democrats came up and the same question arose. I had to explain that I had a problem this time as, of the four candidates; two had worn pink ties at their line up after handing in their nomination papers, Sir Minges Campbell and Mark Oaten. I therefore had to restrict my answer by committing myself to one of these winning but I qualified my answer by suggesting that one of them would drop out from the contest before the vote. That is what happened. Mark Oaten withdrew after unsavoury newspaper gossip rendered his position unelectable. As a result, Campbell became leader.
    Two such prognostications raised my ‘street cred’ no end, but it did set me thinking about the role of symbols and their use to display positions of power, real or imagined. When it transpired that Blair announced his ‘retirement’ as Prime Minister my interest heightened when I observed that Prime Minister-to-be, Brown, started to sport a pink tie.  That the colour has now been changed officially to purple, the colour of royalty (from talk of his coronation as Prime Minister?) and incidentally, death (the demise of new Labour?), did not detract me from pursing my new hobby.
    I set myself a task to research the use of symbols and to attempt to quantify the influence such representations have on our reading of English history. Having an interest in 15th century English history and the Wars of the Roses in particular, it was natural that this would be my focal point, although allowing myself to wander from it as the necessity arose. However, I had to approach the subject not from the traditional historical viewpoint but as an illiterate, guided only by the symbols I saw before me. The story that unravels is not the traditional one taught in schools and perhaps, which, when one looks at the story, is not surprising.     However, there is a consistency that can only add to the uncertainty to our original question, “Who rules?” Through a search that starts with Shakespeare’s cycle of historical plays concerned with the Wars of the Roses and includes a study of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the influence of the Knights Templar and their claimed inheritors, the freemasons, comes to the fore. These symbols exist today and utilised by groups wielding immense power.
    Allowing symbolism to tell the history of this nation presents a rather different story to the one taught. The use of those symbols, over the millennia, as portents of status and power, passed down from generation to generation even down to the present day, is nothing less than a legacy for those privileged to inherit. Are they the ‘Them’ that we have been looking for?
    The subject of symbolism is a large one and a single book on its applications cannot do it justice. This book is merely a quick glance at the possibilities it offers to read and contextualise events, modern and historical.
J T Herbert, February 2009

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