I first read my way through a selection of the works of Anthony Trollope back in the 1980s and 1990s. I’d started with Dickens when we’d lived in Rochester and then moved onto Trollope, probably inspired by The Barchester Chronicles on TV. Has there ever been a better Obidiah Slope than Alan Rickman, the part was made for him?
After the Barchester books I moved onto Trollope’s six Palliser novels. I find Trollope infinitely more readable than Dickens. So when it came to revisiting my classics in 2025 I decided to start with the Pallisers and The Eustace Diamonds. The Eustace Diamonds is actually number three in the series but I don’t think it will matter too much reading them out of order.
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Lady Eustace with the diamonds
How AI sees it? |
The Eustace Diamonds, as the name suggests, revolves around a set of diamonds that belong to the Eustace family. Well they did, until the anti heroine Lizzie Greystock comes along, seduces Lord Florian Eustace and quickly marries him. Following the wedding we are told Florian made Lizzie a gift of the diamonds, at the same time ensuring his succession before then turning his toes up and going off to meet his maker.
Enter Mr Camperdown, the Eustace family lawyer, who makes it his goal to get the diamonds back into "safe keeping" for future generations of Eustaces, notably Lizzie’s son who is the old Lord Eustace’s heir.
We then have to introduce the second couple in the story, Frank Greystock and Lucy Morris. Frank is Lizzie’s cousin, and is a barrister and member of Parliament. Unfortunately he is short of money, and knows that if he marries he must marry for money. Lucy is a governess which means that on paper she is not a good marriage proposition for Frank. So what does he do? He goes and proposes to her.
Naturally the course of true love never runs smooth and this was especially the case in 19th Century England. It could be said Frank proposes to Lucy when he is on the rebound from being beaten to Lizzie’s hand by Lord Fawn. Ironically Lizzie later confesses to Frank that she had only accepted Lord Fawn’s proposal of marriage because she wanted to get back at Frank for not proposing to her.
Lizzie hanging onto her diamonds creates a dilemma for Lord Fawn. There is no doubt he needs her wealth, but as a member of the government administration he can’t stand the thought of any controversy around the diamonds reflecting badly on him; at the same time he realises that if he breaks off the engagement that will reflect badly on him as well.
It is sometimes difficult for us to appreciate how important honour was in the 19th century in 2026 when our politicians appear happy to lie to us every other day. And although, as Frank explains to Lizzie, the days of Englishmen fighting duels over a woman’s slighted honour were behind them, I think we can also understand that a broken agreement of marriage was a very serious offence at the time the book was set.
Lizzie refuses to accept Lord Fawn’s ultimatum to give back the diamonds and engages Frank, as her relative and a man of the legal profession, to fight her corner. As Lizzie’s contempt for Lord Fawn increases we find her desire for Frank rekindled, to the point where they are spotted in a passionate embrace by the factotum at her estate in Scotland.
Oh dear, this cannot end well for Lucy and the diamonds can it!
A slight aside
I recently attended a church carol service which I believed was to follow the traditional format of nine readings and nine carols. It might have been six and six that I had been used to but the numbers don't matter, what matters is that someone had taken it upon themselves to simplify the readings into what I took to be a modern idiom. This really shouldn't have bothered me, but I was surprised when I realised that it did. When I analysed why I felt this way I realised that there was a certain enigmatic mystery in the archaic and yet familiar words and phrases of the Saint James Bible, which was lost when the readings were set in the language of the 21st Century. This took me right back to Donald Pleasance playing Rev. Septimus Harding in The Barchester Chronicles.
“If there is no music, there is no mystery. If there is no mystery, there is no God. If there is no mystery, there is no faith. Have I lived for sixty years on a misunderstanding?”
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Harveywetdog/Author - David Robinson CEng FIET
David spent approaching 50 years in Her Majesty's Electricity Supply Industry before retiring
He was part of the highly successful design team on the Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station Project before spending 25 years producing safety cases to keep our aging AGR fleet generating for the good of the nation
He is responsible for the Harveywetdog YouTube Channel which he maintains as an outlet for his creative talents
David has experienced blood cancer treatment twice but refuses to be a victim
All views are of course his own but might be influenced by the medication he's had to take
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