The World Turned Upside Down: Dangers of glossing over history

Both the Left and Right have appropriated the term The World Turned Upside Down but it was originally coined by Royalists

By HILARY GAVIN

DRIVING up to the Trundle overlooking Chichester on Friday and I couldn’t help thinking about a phrase that is often used to describe the English Civil War – The World Turned Upside Down.

At the time I’d been pondering over the 1,000 or so Clubmen (and women) who’d taken up their cudgels and scythes against both the Roundheads and Royalist Cavaliers in the autumn of 1645.

On the whole we’ve been told that these Clubmen were farming labourers who wanted to avoid being forcibly conscripted to fight for either side so they marched up The Trundle (St Roche’s Hill) to protest.

Now, it’s a while since I first heard about the Clubmen on a WEA history course taught by a local historian Jennifer Goldsmith in Petersfield across the county border in Hampshire.

But these country folk sprang to mind on Friday because there’s little doubt in my mind that modern-day Britain is more than a bit topsy-turvy. It’s darn right BONKERS!

In all honesty, The Trundle is one of my favourite places to be in West Sussex – not only because I love being on hilltops in the fresh air but also because it’s got so much history to explore.

Over the centuries it’s been a Neolithic causeway enclosure, an Iron Age fort and a Christian chapel (for lepers, I believe) dedicated to St Roche. To cap it all, it sits beside Chalkpit Lane where horses were rested at the old Rubbing House and Highwaymen allegedly stood in wait to demand the rich “stand and deliver”.

Once again, I hate to admit it but I’m old enough to remember the old Rubbin’ House that stood beside the Trundle and not the “new Regency imposter” that is there now.

Now, I’ve read somewhere that the old building was in fact two derelict semi detached cottages owned by the Goodwood Estate which burnt down in the early 1990s, but I only recall one.

And I couldn’t help chuckling to myself when I went online yesterday to discover that the current Rubbing House markets itself as “a country estate” on its holiday let website.

If I’m being brutally honest, it wasn’t the Clubmen who were preying on my mind on Friday but rather laypeople who have taken it upon themselves to become revisionist “historians”.

By now, you must realise that I’m rather miffed that Singleton Village Hall is currently proving so hard to market as a viable venue because I don’t want English heritage to go by the wayside.

Okay, I’ll hold my hands up to admit that I don’t often visit Singleton – but the village has played a big part in my family’s oral history.

And, of course, we’ve got the photos of the village in the Fifties, including a fabulous snap of my Dad’s dog Mackie staring out of the window of his parents’ house at the bend in the Midhurst road.

At this point I should say that I’m not someone who simply lives in the past because I’m also curious about the telecommunications and WiFi masts that sit atop The Trundle today. And my late Dad taught both myself and my sister to take an active interest in the Duke of Richmond’s Ordnance Survey Point at the hillfort too.

Sadly, however, it seems our history – like the Rubbing House – is being rewritten today and our art and culture will perish if ordinary folks, like you and me, don’t fight back against the philistines.

So I’ll come clean to admit that I’m fed up to the back teeth of people making up history to suit politically-correct agendas.

Unfortunately, I can’t avoid naming names here because I was simultaneously bemused and horrified when I stumbled upon Rev Sarah Manouch’s Rector’s Rambles on the East Dean, Singleton, & West Dean Parish Churches Facebook page.

In her post entitled “On Remembrance Sunday: Is it enough to just remember”, dated 7th November, 2025, The Rev said she and her fellow Evensong worshippers had discussed why Guy Fawkes and his fellow Gunpowder Plot conspirators decided that “mass murder was their only option” on November 5th, 1605.

Rev Manouch concluded: “The Gunpowder Plot was the result of decades of persecution, oppression, exclusion and executions. All the men behind the plot had wanted, all they had asked the King for, was the right to worship. The right to practise their Catholic faith. But their appeals fell on deaf ears. The more they asked, the harsher the penalties for being Catholic became, until in the end they became so desperate that they could see no other way out. In the end, the failure of the Gunpowder Plot made the situation of Catholics in this country even worse. For 200 years they couldn’t vote, hold public office or join the army, and the long-term effects of the Gunpowder Plot are still felt today with, sadly, an almost ingrained distrust of Catholics in the English DNA.”

Oh dear, I hear historians in Britain collectively groan.

Of course, I’m a history graduate and not a serious academic, but I would remind Rev Manouch that the King she is referring to was educated by George Buchanan, a Calvinist, in Scotland.

Saying that, his mother was the Roman Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, and his father – Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley – well, he swung both ways in every sense of the word before meeting a grisly end.

Okay, I don’t want this blog post to become a history lesson but it is dangerous to rewrite history which involves so much subterfuge, intrigue and duplicity when you’ve not studied it in-depth.

This Stuart King was, of course, James VI of Scotland and James I of England, who had noble Norman blood coursing through his veins.

Which leads me on to Charles Henry Gordon Lennox, 11th Duke of Richmond, and his eldest son and heir apparent (whose name escapes me) with the courtesy title Earl of March.

Without getting into an awful muddle, I think it is be best to refer you to the Wikipedia entry for the Dukedoms of Richmond.

Duke of Richmond – Wikipedia

As you see the dukedom has been created FOUR TIMES and – as most of us are aware – Duke Charles Henry Gordon is descended from King Charles II‘s illegitimate son Charles Lennox.

So King James was Charles Lennox’s great-grandad and Mary, Queen of Scots was his great great-grandmother.

Now, you could accuse King Charles II – and not Guy Fawkes – of lighting the blue touch paper late in the 17th Century by converting to Catholicism on his deathbed and handing on the English Crown to his openly Roman Catholic brother James II.

And we think the current-day hoo-ha over Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s disgrace is pure panto!

You couldn’t make it up.

Hilary Gavin

Excuse any glaring historical errors, I’m simply a history graduate

A freelance journalist who wants to see a return to public accountability in the local press

Some photos of my walk on The Trundle on February 20th, 2026. If you take a closer look, you’ll see a plaque for The Monarch’s Way – which is a path that follows Charles II escape from the Battle of Worcester in 1651 to Shoreham. I believe he disguised himself as a peasant; still he might have been glad that he didn’t encounter any Clubmen of Sussex on The Trundle as he passed through back then.

Hilary Gavin

Freelance Journalist & Writer

6 Southover Way

Hunston

CHICHESTER

West Sussex

PO20 1NY

email: grumpywoman@hilarygavin.blog

Tel: 07940 444664

Hilary Gavin

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