Pt. X, Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle: GWM Reynolds' The Necromancer

Part X, Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle

A Review

Geo. W.M. Reynolds’ The Necromancer

by

R.E. Prindle

Reynolds’ writing system was such that he could write each installment of the Mysteries of the Court of London in seven hours leaving the rest of the week open.  Thus he had a seven hour work week leaving time to do a myriad other things including writing other books.  He says his mind was bursting with ideas.  He had a powerful compartmentalized mind so that he could keep two or three novels going at the same time so that in the year of 1851 he wrote his installments for the Court of London and The Seamstress, Pope Joan, Kenneth and the Necromancer,  the last two extending into 1852.  We are going to examine here his very fine novel, The Necromancer, or perhaps one might rename it the Magician.

If as seems evident that every novelist is writing his own life whether consciously or unconsciously, it is also true that the novelist reflects his own time.  Ostensibly the Necromancer takes place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but I think we can abstract a story about what was happening currently in his day.  This will require much background work.

As is uppermost in every twenty-first century White mind the question of is the author in any way anti-Semitic, non, Feminist, a racist, and as it is expressed a Homophobe.  We are going to explain the Necromancer as an explanation of Semitism in the England of Reynolds and ignore the other bete noirs.  You have been forewarned.

Whether you consider Semites, that is Jews, as a religion, a nation, a people or whatever they are an economic, political and social force working solely for Jewish interests to the exclusion of all others.  Jews consider themselves a nation and a people.  The period from 1814 through the nineteenth century saw the rise of the Jewish people as the pre-eminent people of Great Britain.  The rise was especially prominent from 1815 to 1860, the period most important of Reynolds novelist life.

It is not possible that he didn’t note the situation and if he didn’t mention it directly, which he doesn’t, then there must be a reason.  Why would he have to resort to a parable such as The Necromancer?  The answer was that even at that time there were penalties to writing ethnographical studies such as Reynolds’ that did not show Jews to critical advantage.

If one found it necessary to include Jewish characters they must be portrayed in the most benevolent light.  Reynolds does mention Jewish characters but in a peculiar way.  He lauds them as long suffering, unfairly victimized as a people but then he invariably displays them as what are called anti-Semitic stereotypes.  Thus the pawn broker in Wagner, the Wehr Wolf.

He is depicted as a totally inoffensive person, obsequious to the extreme as a persecuted member of the bedeviled people.  After these laudatory comments Reynolds then pictures a character bearing all the so-called Semitic tropes.  He changes the stones on the pawned diamonds to paste, which Reynolds justifies by his peoples ages long persecution, as well as other criminal acts.  It would seem that Reynolds knew the score.

The odd thing, since Jewish activity was at a height is that Reynolds makes no reference to Jewish economic or banking activities.  Let us do a brief survey of where matters stood at the time.  In 1815 Nathan Rothschild seized control of English currency and the Bank of England.

  To explain:

A famous European and Jewish canard is that of father Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his five arrows, that is, his five sons.  They were dispatched to European capitals to form a powerful network covering the continent and England.  Nathan Rothschild was sent to Manchester to engage in the booming textile industry.  Nathan was no businessman and could not succeed in textiles.  He therefore turned to crime becoming a smuggler which would turn out to fortuitously make his fortune.

In 1806 Napoleon was conquering the German States, moving in on the Margrave of Hesse-Cassel.  The Margrave was fabulously wealthy.  He wanted to conceal his wealth from Napoleon who was more than eager to appropriate it.  The Margrave then employed his Court Jew, Mayer Amschel Rothshild, to conceal it.  Mayer sent a substantial portion of it to Nathan who by this time was floundering around as a banker.  The money immediately established Nathan as a financial force.  At that time the British were engaging Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsular War.  Wellington the British general in the Peninsula needed cash desperately but the usually inventive English didn’t know of a secure way to get the money to him.  Nathan was then used to transport the money.  Using his, by this time, well developed smuggling skills in conjunction with his brother arrow, James, in Paris, they delivered the mail.

This was known to the French authorities as Fouche, the very clever Minister of Police, was aware of exactly how it had been done.  The method is well demonstrated in the German Movie, The Rothschilds.  So Nathan and his fellow Jews scored a bundle on that caper.

Nathan’s most outstanding feat that brought England to its knees was his capture of the currency after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.  He spread the rumor that Napoleon had won Waterloo causing a stupendous sell off that drove prices far down.  While others sold Nathan bought.  Then his special couriers raced to London to carry news of the English, or allied, victory.  Prices bounced back but by then using the fabulous wealth of the Margrave of Hesse Nathan owned huge amounts of securities that he sold at magnificent profit thus securing the base of the Rothschild dynasty, still going strong eight generations on.

To report this astonishing feat in history tends to mitigate the reaction of the Brits when they learned how they had been diddled out of the ruling of their country for Rothschild had pulled an astonishing cheat.  Reynolds who was very well informed across the board must have known this but was constrained from portraying it for fear of Jewish retaliation which even was formidable.

We are now moving to the 1840s and Nathan who had passed was succeeded by Lionel Rothschild as the scion of the family.  A most formidable and dangerous antagonist.

At this time young Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was attempting to establish himself as a literary wizard before entering politics.  He had already written many novels when in 1844 he wrote Coningsby, Sybil in 1845 and Tancred in 1847.  In Coningsby he laid bare the Jewish influence in European affairs when he wrote that the world was actually governed by different people behind the scenes than the public imagined.  Thus he led the reading public to believe that the apparent rulers were mere operatives of others, that is, the Jews.

These three political novels made more of a stir than his earlier romances had so that it seems reasonable that Disraeli, Coningsby at least, had been read by Reynolds by 1851.  In Coningsby Disreali lauds his Jewish mastermind as the most astounding human being since Adam.  The character was based on the real life Right Honourable Lionel Freiherr Rothschild.  (1808-1879) Named Sidonia in the novel.

Lionel, Lion-el means Lion of the Lord or God, what we might say, Defender of the Faith in Christian terms.

The Jews since Nathan had owned the State of England but they as a different religion from the Anglicans suffered political and religious disabilities.  It was Lionel’s mission to remove them in which mission he was successful.

In 1847 he was the first Jew to be elected to Parliament.  This was success but it would also have absorbed Lionel as just another member.  He wanted more.  He in essence did not want to be absorbed as an English member of the House of Commons but as an autonomous Jew.  To be sworn in he had to take an oath of Christian formulation.  This he refused to do wishing to be sworn in as a Jew.

In order to accommodate him this would have required a changing of the rules with long term consequences.  Accordingly Lord Russell introduced a Jewish Disabilities Act to change the rules.  In 1849 when the Act failed the German-Jewish Baron Lionel Rothschild resigned his seat.  But still determined he won a bye election to keep his campaign going.  Returning he still refused to swear on the New Testament demanding the Jewish or Old Testament.  The oath still required him to say:  ‘Upon the true faith of a Christian.’  He refused to do so on the grounds that Christianity was not the true faith, Judaism was.  Once again he was compelled to resign his seat.

In 1852 he tried to bull his way through but once again was denied.  Finally in 1858 Lionel Rothschild forced through the oath changes.  Refusing to be bareheaded as required by English custom he demanded to wear his yarmulke  or skull cap and instead of saying ‘on the true faith of a Christian’ he was allowed to say ‘so help me Jehovah.’

Thus he became the first Jewish member of the House of Commons but the first Jew in the House rather than an English member of the Jewish faith.  Thus in this long battle to be seated Lionel changed the nature of the country into a country of Englishmen and nearly autonomous Jews.  Already in control of English currency the Jews would now aspire to political power while moving freely through society ostensibly equal but actually superior having all English rights as well as autonomous Jewish rights that were denied the English.

Thus Disraeli’s astonishing Sidonia/Lionel cleared the way for Disraeli to serve in the Commons but also to become the Prime Minister; the intermediary between the English people and their Sovereign.

These activities were not carried on in a vacuum or beneath the observance of interested parties of which Reynolds was one.  While he was only observing the struggle up to 1851-52 when he wrote the Necromancer the writing was on the wall.  No doubt Reynolds had read Disraeli’s Coningsby and had watched Lionel Rothschild’s maneuvering.  Being a novelist it was easy for him to shadow forth the denouement that occurred in 1858.

My reading of the Necromancer reflects Reynolds’ version of what was happening.  Thus his protagonist Lionel Danvers is Lionel Rothschild.  As an historical novelist he then creates a fictional history of the Danvers/Rothschild story.  He combines the five arrows into one.  As was commonly thought at the time the Jews were Satanic thus Danvers had sold his soul to Satan for a period of a hundred fifty years so and with the due date imminent it was necessary for Danvers to honor his commitment to Satan to redeem his soul.

Danvers existed under several names and guises as he was able to shape shift to any age at any time.  Thus at various periods he was the middle aged Walter, a mature Lionel Danvers and a boyish Reginald or Conrad. 

Even though he had sold his soul to the devil, Satan had given him an escape clause in that if he could find six virgins who would do anything for him, even die, he would take those six souls in exchange for Danvers’.  For some reason I always read Danvers in the French form of D’enfer.  Thus Danvers becomes The Lion Of the Lord of Hell.  Whether correct or not it certainly fits.

Now, Lionel Danvers to use that name of his existence, had all the wealth of Europe at his command.  While ostensibly an English Lord he spent all his time on the continent where he had the greatest concentrations of wealth in addition to his very large holdings in England.  For him money had no other meaning than to buy power in whatever form it took by any means necessary.

In his Walter incarnation, his first, as the clearest example, Walter shows up in Genoa where he befriends the scion of the Landini trading family.  He then bestows, not as a loan but for safe keeping interest free, an incredible fortune that Landini can use without any restrictions for his own benefit on the condition that whenever Danvers appears the Landinis are to return his money in full on demand or they become his slaves.

Naturally the Landinis being astute traders enjoy enormous success for several generations.  Even though Danvers has never returned they still maintain his fortune.  Each successor has been made aware of his obligation so that not only the trust is available ready to honor at any time but also interest.  However suddenly the worst fortune descends on them and all their deals begin to sour, whole argosies are lost at sea.  Danvers chooses this moment to return and demand his money.  The demand can’t be honored.

But, the Landinis have a beautiful virgin daughter, Bianca.  Danvers courts her, wins her heart and they set a date to be married.  In the meantime, as debtors to Danvers, the Landinis have become his slaves.  They are ordered to go to London and start a jewelry house, which they do.

Before leaving the marriage is arranged between Walter and Bianca.  Before the marriage Danvers carries Bianca off to no one knows where.  They both just vanish.  Bianca becomes the first of the virgins sacrificed to Satan by Danvers.  But, of course, the details that can be revealed here are mysteries to the reader.

Bianca had been abducted to Danvers ruined castle on the Isle of Wight.  In the secret chamber where Danvers murders the women a score card is on the wall in fiery letters, thus Bianca becomes virgin soul #1, five more to go.

As the story opens Lionel Danvers is sacrificing his fifth, Clara Manners.

One of the deepest mysteries in this astonishingly deep book is the problem of Musidora Sinclair who Lionel has selected as his sixth victim.  He seems to have had a singular attachment to the girl.  Musidora had been a charming girl but at the age of seventeen  she became of a very icy temperament unmoved by anyone or anything.  As it turns out Lionel had attempted to lead her to his secret chamber, she lived on the Isle of Wight, but she got cold feet on the way to the chamber and fled.  This event turned her heart cold.  Now, after having despatched Clara Manners he decides to try again to make Musidora his final victim.

I take Musidora to mean Golden Song or music. Whether right or wrong, she is.

Lionel now has a problem because Musidora won’t allow him near her.  Fortunately Lionel has a plan B.  He will impersonate King Henry VIII, during whose reign the story takes place at this point, and wed her.  Unfortunately her beauty overwhelms him and he impregnates her (another mystery) thus destroying her virginity.  Even Lionel Danvers was not so stupid that he didn’t know that it was impossible to diddle Satan.

For Reynolds the story of the impersonation of Henry III is the central point of the story.  Between Nathan and Lionel Rothschild a shadow government had been forming in England.  While Queen Victoria was the apparent ruler at this time the actual rulers were, as Disraeli had written, other than the seeming rulers.  Lionel lived till 1879 when he died at the age of seventy.

Granting that Disraeli was accurate then whatever power the shadow rulers had at the time, their power has gone on increasing to the present day when Evelyn Rothschild wields the power behind the throne.  Prior to the Communist Revolution of 1917 Rasputin was deemed the power behind the Russian throne.  He was also thought to be conspiring with the Germans.  As it happened Rasputin had a Jewish secretary and we must suppose that the secretary had ties to other Jewish revolutionaries so that he was able to pass information to them much as Dreyfus had done in France in the 1890s.

In all probability the German agents Rasputin was thought to be conspiring with was actually being done by his Jewish secretary.  The secretary would have been very intimate with Rasputin and would have had strong control over what information Rasputin received while having access to all or most of Rasputin’s info and plans.  Thus Through Rasputin the Jews would have been able to influence the Czarina and through the Czarina the Czar.

In the US during the same period, the Wall Street speculator Bernard Baruch would become the actual co-president of Woodrow Wilson free to issue commands on his own authority subject only to correction by Wilson himself and he and Wilson were of like minds.  So, at the crucial time of the Revolution both Russia and the US were subject to Jewish discipline.

Be that as it may, is it any coincidence that Lionel Danvers and Lionel Rothschild bore the same Christian name?  I think not.  Reynolds is trying to tell us something.  So Lionel Danvers having circulated rumors that he was dead or on the continent set about to realize his lust on the body of Musidora Sinclair while posing as Henry VIII.

It will be remembered that at this time Henry was seeking a divorce from his Spanish wife Catherine, but it had not yet been achieved.  Danvers has to fool Musidora into believing he, impersonating Henry, had succeeded in obtaining that divorce.  First Danvers has to lure Musidora from her retreat on the Isle of Wight.  He has a relative couple of Musidora living in the royal city of Greenwich invite Musidora to come for and extended visit to their castle.  Then he finds a probable excuse for Henry to be a guest of the Earl and Countess Grantham, Musidora’s relatives.

There is some hint that Danvers magically transformed himself into a duplicate form of Henry.  I don’t think that was necessary.  At this point in history but few people would have seen Henry.  So, all that Danvers would have had to have done is bought some clothes royalty would have worn and developed the persona.  Of course Musidora knew Danvers well as a young girl and ought to have been able to identify his voice.  But, this is Reynolds’ story and the disguise was complete although their was some uncertainty accepting face values.

Nevertheless Henry/Danvers showered Musidora with expensive gifts including a set of very expensive diamonds.  It will be remembered that the Landinis from Genoa had been running a jewelry shop in London for about a hundred years.

Eventually, with continued prodding from the Granthams, who were completely fooled, Danvers/Henry break Musidora down and she agrees to marry the faux monarch.  However suspicions remain and the strictest safeguards are taken.  Musidora demands to see the papal bull nullifying Henry’s marriage to Catherine which matter was not resolved at the time. 

Danvers has one forged.  As three papal seals are needed Danvers obtains authentic seals.

As a political operative he has suborned numerous members of Henry’s household putting them on the payroll and so has one obtain seals from an authentic papal communication.  The officiating priest is fooled and really has no choice but to marry Musidora and Danvers/Henry.  Danvers cannot allow Musidora to circulate or talk about her marriage so he swears her to secrecy about the whole affair.

Nevertheless Henry learns of the fraud and swears his informers to secrecy because he doesn’t want the public to know that a shadow King Henry is loose in the kingdom.  Reynolds here is describing the actual political condition in England that a second monarch is running the kingdom by secretive measures.  This answers to Disraeli’s claim that others than the seeming rulers are directing affairs.

In fact Disraeli himself will become Prime Minister and facetiously and destructively make Victoria the Empress of India.  Disraeli was ostensibly a Christian having changed from Judaism to Anglican at the age of thirteen.  Thirteen is when a Jewish lad takes his Bar Mitzvah becoming a young man with a man’s prerogatives.  It is very likely the change to Anglicanism was deceitfully made with political motives in mind.  Disraeli became a Jew disguised as a Christian.

While there may be some objectors to my analysis one should note that Sir Piers Dunhaven the father of the second female victim had once had an extensive property in Cumberland but he had lost most of his property to usury.  As Christians were forbidden usury it follows that Jews using their monopoly in usury had stripped Sir Piers of his property.  There are subtle hints such as this to Lionel Danvers nationality.

What we have here then is an allegory of the subjection of England by the Jews according to Reynolds.  On that level this is the shadow meaning of the novel.

On another level this is a near perfect Gothic novel.  One is reminded of The Mysteries of Udolpho by Mrs. Radcliffe.  As he was an old admirer of Mrs. Radcliffe I’m sure that Reynolds had Udolpho in mind as he wrote this.  The story is also first class mystery and would beat out Willkie Collins for longest mystery story.  And, Reynolds keeps the mystery going to the very end.  Who could have guessed that Marian Bradley, Danvers last possible chance to beat the devil was his and Musidora’s daughter?  Didn’t see that one coming did we?

The story is plotted out perfectly.   When we are shown the glowing signboard with the illuminated names and the blank spaces we have to wonder.  That was the first mystery and the finest first mystery explained.  This list of victims also gave Reynolds his opportunity to tell six tales and he loves to tell those tales.

Then there is the mystery of Danvers and where he gets his inexhaustible supply of money.  His fortunes, not just a fortune but fortunes, come from over all Europe and England.  An historical question often asked is how do Jews when expropriated and expelled out of one locality show up in a new one and immediately, as it seems, regain their wealth.  The solution to that one is easy—usury.  Aware that they may be expelled on short notice they kept jewels and portable wealth sewn into garments so that they could leave on amoment’s notice to resurface as wealthy elsewhere.

The Catholic Church and its opinion on money making money, that is usury, which is the objection to loaning on interest, penalized its own adherents and enfranchised the Jews who it politically disenfranchised.  Interest in those days wasn’t six or seven percent either.  Usury laws only came into existence much later.  In those days interest was as much as fifty percent compounded daily or more so you can see how the money lenders, Jews, cornered the money supply wherever they were.  The Danvers unlimited, renewed wealth must have come from usury, that is, legalized theft.

And Danvers applied his wealth artfully.  The ruse of entrusting money to someone to be reclaimed whenever on no notice is a sure way to entrap the party.  Reynolds was no dummy when it came to understanding ruses and ploys.  He studied hard. The ploy that the Marquis of Leveson used to entrap Venetia Trelawney was classic.

The Marquis wanted sex from Venetia that she didn’t want to give.  Not unlike Danvers, Leveson had unlimited funds that he didn’t mind losing so long as he obtained his desire.  So he presented Venetia with a magnificent string of pearls.  He told her he would redeem one or all at a time at a thousand pounds each on demand and with the last pearl she was his.  Venetia then accepted what she thought was a guarantee that she would never be in want and never have to succumb.

However the wily Marquis set a series of matters in motion to compel Venetia to redeem the pearls.  Borrowing from Eugene Sue’s Wandering Jew he has accomplices debauch the formerly steady husband of Venetia so that he turns to dissipation and gambling thus having to be bailed out frequently.  Venetia soon has to bed the Marquis.  The mysteries are usually tragic stories if you compassionate with the characters.

In this novel, while none of the characters has the memorability of the Resurrection Man from Mysteries of London, the whole ensemble of characters all work well together to create a memorable story.

The Necromancer is one of series of Satanic novels that Reynolds wrote from 1847 to 52.  The first being Wagner the Wehr Wolf, 1846-47, Faust in 1847, The Bronze Statue in 1849-50 and then the Necromancer in 1851-52.  Each is a beat the devil attempt on the part of the protagonist.  Satan is a tough customer and none succeed.

The end of Danvers is a classic much exploited in novels and movies.  Lionel (Walter, Reginald and Conrad) has lived for a hundred fifty years.  When his attempt on the sixth maiden fails and Satan comes to receive his due, Danvers shrivels from a handsome young man into a withered old man bursts into flames and disappears.

I don’t know whether Reynolds was the first to use this dodge or not, but it becomes a classic dodge thereafter.

The estimable critic Dick Collins considers the Necromancer to be his favorite Reynolds.  While I have now read twenty-five volumes of Reynolds I can’t place the volume ahead of the massive novels of The Mysteries of London, The Mysteries of the Court of London, nor, for that matter, The Mysteries of Old London.  The last has a special place in my esteem; yet, as I have said, The Necromancer as a super-natural Gothic novel I think it may be near perfection.  I’m sure that Mrs. Radcliffe would have been pleased with George’s effort.

Par XI of Time Travels With R.E Prindle follows.