The fate of English magic

[regshoe]

Originally posted here on Tumblr.

The book quite cleverly obscures the fact that it never conclusively answers the question posed by Mr Segundus in the first chapter.

Why is there no more magic done in England?

We are given, over the course of the story, three different possible explanations for the disappearance of English magic: 1) English magic depended on the alliances made by John Uskglass with the rivers, trees, hills, rain and so on of England; once he was gone, the entire structure went into decline and so the magic built on it no longer works; 2) after Uskglass left England, these alliances were usurped by the gentleman with the thistledown hair, so that their power was no longer available to English magicians; 3) English magicians neglected and ignored the magic that was still present in England, until they lost the ability to do magic at all.

The first explanation is the one that Norrell and Strange believe. Norrell thinks that though English magic depended on John Uskglass and it went into decline after he left, magic can be rebuilt by rejecting him and building a magical tradition without him. When he answers Segundus’s question, it’s not by explaining why magic no longer works but by stating that it still does. He repeatedly expresses the belief that other people’s inability to do practical magic is due to their own incompetence, rather than to any total loss of magic from England, and is prepared to believe that others (such as Vinculus, or the various magicians he works so hard to ruin) might be able to do magic. Strange, meanwhile, becomes convinced of Uskglass’s central importance to English magic, and decides that the way to bring magic back to is focus on and centre him. It’s not only Strange and Norrell, however: this seems to be the generally accepted answer in-universe, insofar as there is one. The fifteen-century magician Peter Watershippe wrote the book A Faire Wood Withering describing how various spells stopped working after Uskglass left England, with the explanation implied.

I don’t usually consider the gentleman with the thistledown hair to be a particularly reliable source of information, but he provides some support for explanation 2) that doesn’t seem to be made up or mistaken. Strange, working on the assumption of explanation 1), tries to bring back English magic by reminding Uskglass’s old allies of their promises, returning their power to English magicians. His motivations at this point are a little muddled, but there is clearly some connection between these forgotten alliances and what he saw in Lost-hope, and his goal of freeing Arabella from the gentleman’s enchantment. As soon as he does this the gentleman notices: ‘“He is calling up all the King’s old allies! Soon they will attend to English magicians, rather than to me!”’ Another point in favour of this explanation is the importance of the gentleman to John Uskglass. Stephen’s defeat of him forms part of the prophecy/spell by which Uskglass effects the restoration of English magic, and Stephen is in a sense John Uskglass’s heir; clearly there’s more resting on the gentleman’s defeat than the freeing of three enchanted humans.

It seems, then, that some combination of 1) and 2) can answer the question of why no more magic is done in England. We’d do well not to ignore 3), however, because this is the answer given by John Uskglass himself: ‘I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritance, but Englishmen have despised my gift; magic shall be written upon the sky by the rain but they shall not be able to read it; magic shall be written on the faces of the stony hills but their minds shall not be able to contain it’. He sounds as though he’s blaming English magicians themselves here, and there’s no mention of the gentleman. And it’s clearly illustrated by the behaviour of actual English magicians: the first answer Segundus gets to his question, from Dr Foxcastle of the York Society, is that magicians should not aim to do practical magic, that this is not the purpose of their study. Practical magic is not respectable or gentlemanlike. With an attitude like this, no wonder John Uskglass thinks they have ‘despised his gift’.

However, I think the mechanism of how magic actually returns to England still favours the first two explanations — which can both be true at the same time, as Uskglass’s allies might have forgotten him and then turned to the gentleman instead*. Strange’s actions work: Uskglass’s old allies are reminded of their promises, and magic does return to England, without any single obvious change in the attitudes of English magicians. This happens before the final defeat of the gentleman, but it’s still clearly significant to him. Perhaps the third explanation, rather than being the actual mechanism of the loss of magic, is more symbolic of it: magic retreats from England and the English people, while they lament the loss, ultimately respond by deciding that respectable gentlemen ought not to do practical magic, anyway. Of course, when magic does return it is no longer limited to respectable gentlemen: it belongs to everyone.

I’ll finish by pointing out that the loss of practical magic from England is not as simple or as absolute as it might appear. Presumably Strange and Norrell’s magical abilities in a time when magic is apparently absent from England come from their existence as the spell of John Uskglass, but this doesn’t explain why Childermass can do magic. Or why Mr Segundus, although he can’t actually perform magic, is highly sensitive to its presence. Or how Tom Levy, the most talented of Strange’s pupils, uses magic to make a window frame sprout branches and leaves in what appears to be a random one-off event with no larger purpose. Or the entire episode of the ladies of Grace Adieu, who not only do magic but cause John Uskglass himself to sit up and take notice, despite having only a tangential connection with the prophecy and again no larger purpose to their spells. Magic may have left England, but its absence was never complete, and though John Uskglass left he never forgot his kingdom; the return of English magic is simply a more universal extension of what had been there all along.

*Of course, we could argue about their relative importance: would the alliances still have failed after Uskglass left if not for the gentleman? Does the restoration of magic change the reliance of magic on Uskglass’s immediate presence, or was there no such reliance to begin with and it only gets rid of the gentleman? I don’t think the book gives us clear answers to these questions.

Tags: do i agree with this conclusion? hmmm