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Glittering Prizes

In the UK, the New Year Honours List is one of the milestones marking the turn of the year. "This is the stuff that all of our childhood fantasies come from. You know, courtliness, civility and honour" said Steven Spielberg in 2001 of the knighthood awarded to him. Elizabeth Taylor in the previous year had been equally pleased (if surprised): "Never in a million years did I think I would be a recipient of a Dameship. It just never was in my computer." Both of these are a far cry from the response of the economic historian R. H. Tawney, who in 1933 declined the offer of a peerage with the protest "What harm have I ever done to the Labour Party?" In 1917 Rudyard Kipling objected to having be appointed a Companion of Honour without his consent, "How would you like it if you woke up and found yourself Archbishop of Canterbury?"

Honours have in fact often prompted a mixed response. "A medal glitters, but it also casts a shadow" said Winston Churchill, referring to the envy that the award of honours can arouse (to quote Gore Vidal, "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies"). Robert Browning saw Wordsworth's acceptance of the position as Poet Laureate as an abandonment of radical principles: "Just for a handful of silver he left us." Tennyson, on the other hand, said that he accepted the honour because a friend had told him "that, if I became Poet Laureate, I should always when I dined out be offered the liver-wing of a fowl." J. B. Priestley, awarded the Order of Merit in 1977, was practical: "I've only two things to say about it. First I deserved it. Second, they've been too long about giving me it. There'll be another vacancy very soon." But ultimately, F. E. Smith's "glittering prizes" are probably seen as desirable and, as a character in Arnold Bennett's play 1918 The Title reminds us cheerfully, "Literature's always a good card to play for Honours."

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