The world has lost a wise, humorous, and prolific writer, an
amusing raconteur, and a member of a particularly rare endangered
species, the liberal who actually has a taste for liberty rather
than just for policing other people’s behavior.
John Mortimer, 85, barrister, playwright, novelist,
screen-writer, and creator of the world’s most lovable literary
lawyer, Horace Rumpole, died Friday at his home in Oxfordshire
after a long illness. He’s arguing before the Very Highest Court
now. Mortimer was never pious. But he was respectful of
Christianity. And as God is merciful, I like Mortimer’s chances.
Before Mortimer published his first collection of Rumpole stories
in 1975 he’d already published plays and novels and was known as
a skilled advocate who’d shepherded countless divorces through
the courts, defended various people charged with murder, and
appeared in several high-profile free speech and human rights
cases, often defending the salacious or raunchy against would-be
censors.
“Testing the frontiers of tolerance,” Mortimer called his work on
behalf of his belief that Englishmen (and women) ought to be able
to publish and/or read whatever they wanted to. Mortimer often
spoke of liberty as “allowing people to do things you disapprove
of.” Try getting that past the New Puritans of today’s Left.
Had Mortimer never written the first Rumpole story he could have
still enjoyed his modest literary reputation based on several
amusing plays and novels as well as some successful screenplays,
the most conspicuous among them being the much-acclaimed 1981
television adaption of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead
Revisited (a version much truer to Waugh’s novel than the
current execrable movie) and a 1999 collaboration with Franco
Zeffirelli that produced the very watchable Tea With
Mussolini, starring Maggie Smith and Judi Dench.
But Horace Rumpole, one of the most delightful characters in all
of English literature, is Mortimer’s triumph and his vehicle for
commenting on the events of the world and the state of English
law and culture. “Rumpole of the Bailey” in 1975 was the
beginning of almost a hundred Rumpole stories in 12 collections
and three short Rumpole novels.
Americans had the opportunity (which many took) to become
acquainted with Mortimer’s short, stout, cigar-smoking,
poetry-spouting, claret-soaked advocate through the PBS “Mystery”
television series, also called Rumpole of the Bailey. The series,
very true to the stories, produced 44 episodes between 1978 and
1992. The show was anchored by the incomparable Leo McKern as
Rumpole. Sadly, McKern went to his reward in 2002.
In the stories and episodes we see Rumpole down the old Bailey
(London’s central criminal court) confusing and upsetting judges
with the hearts of prosecutors and prosecutors with the hearts of
hangmen. He gives witnesses, including bent coppers, incompetent
“expert” witnesses, and various interested parties something
close to judicial whiplash with his sharp questioning, his clever
court-room tactics, and his just-short-of-contempt brashness.
Back at his chambers at 3 Equity Court, Rumpole is surrounded by
an ensemble cast of off-plumb characters, foils that allow him
through ingenious subplots to comment on current cultural
silliness. And at home, to which he returns reluctantly of an
evening after unwinding in Pommeroy’s Wine Bar, he’s again in an
adversarial relationship, this time with his formidable wife,
Hilda, known to Rumpole as She Who Must Be Obeyed. His won-lost
record is much better in court than at home.
All of this is witty and great fun. It’s done in the name of
protecting Rumpole’s clients and the presumption of innocence,
which Rumpole takes to be the central principle of British
justice. Magna Carta is safe with our Horace. He deals with the
insolence of office in the most amusing way, which is what the
show and the stories are about. Mortimer’s Rumpole books are sold
in the mystery section of bookstores. And there is the element of
determining who’s committed the crimes, as it’s clear that it’s
not Rumpole’s client. But far after readers or viewers have
forgotten whodunit they will remember, with delight, how Horace
Rumpole engages the world.
And here is where some confusion creeps in for some readers and
viewers. Some have slandered Rumpole by describing him as a
liberal because he always appears for the defense, shows little
respect for authority figures, and was created by a lifetime
leftist who has had some disagreeable things to say about
Margaret Thatcher.
To set things straight, it’s not crime that Rumpole defends, but
the presumption of innocence, a concept vital to any free society
and one all conservatives should be prepared to defend. And the
judges and prosecutors Rumpole torments hardly deserve respect.
Rumpole isn’t so much anti-authority as anti-abuse of authority.
As for Mortimer the leftist, he was a leftie with a difference. A
truly open-minded man who treasured liberty above all else, and
who had a well-developed BS immune system. Through his alter-ego,
Rumpole, Mortimer and his readers have had great fun at the
expense of turbo-feminists, enviro-whack jobs, food Nazis, animal
rights activists, anti-smoking zealots, and PC enforcers of all
stripes and degrees. All these groups are protectorates of the
cultural left, but fair game for the comic spirit of Mortimer.
Mortimer commented on the seeming contradiction, saying, “When I
say some of these things they come out sounding trendy and
left-wing. When Rumpole says them, they sound crusty and
conservative.”
Rumpole is also a defender of the English language, uses it
eloquently in his defenses, and is merciless to those who abuse
it. His speeches to the jury soar, and the poetry of Keats and
Wordsworth have never sounded better than when recited fortissimo
by McKern in his rich baritone. His speech is free of neologisms
and the various barbarisms that have crept into our discourse
over the past few decades.
There’s a particularly funny failure of communication in
“”Rumpole and the Primrose Path,” when 3 Equity Court hires a
director of marketing. This young woman is a fount of corporate
jargon and neo-speak, making her almost impossible for Rumpole,
whose favorite bedside reading is The Oxford Book of English
Verse, to understand.
Most of Mortimer’s books are still in print, especially the
Rumpole series. Mortimer has gone on, and this is sad. Rumpole
will argue no new cases. But what Mortimer has left behind is a
treasure. A treasure I commend to TAS readers.
R.I.P. John Mortimer, and thanks for the many enjoyable hours
spent with Rumpole of the Bailey.
