A proud toast to England and St George
by Fionn Shiner, The Conservative Woman:
Today is St George’s Day – a perfectly English celebration because of how uneasy and awkward we are about it. Having grown up in Birmingham, I can say that the difference from the Irish ability to enjoy St Patrick’s Day is stark. Perhaps the English reticence about celebrating our patron saint’s feast day is an effect of the austerity of the Reformation, or more a general trend across the Western world where an intellectual trend of thought exists solely to browbeat us into eventual suicide.
Yet there is an awful lot to be proud of as an English person. We shouldn’t feel so reluctant about celebrating our achievements and successes, and our remarkable influence on the world considering the size of the country.
There are two stories about St George. The first is the better-known: the knight who killed the dragon that was plaguing a village, saving a fair maiden from being sacrificed to satisfy the dragon’s hunger. St George is your traditional knight, a model of chivalry and gallantry. It’s interesting to think that this is what young men used to aspire to be, whilst now it’s someone like Cristiano Ronaldo, a man of undeniable talent with an ego to match, with four children by three mothers, a man who takes his top off and flexes his oiled muscles at opportune moments.
The second story associated with St George is that he was a Roman general who refused to renounce his Christian beliefs and was tortured to death. Diocletian, the emperor at the time, had decreed that all Christian soldiers should be arrested and be forced to make a sacrifice to the Roman gods. The emperor greatly valued George and offered him land, money and slaves to try to persuade him to make the sacrifice.
George refused and Diocletian reluctantly ordered his execution. He was lacerated on a wheel of swords to the point of unconsciousness, but he did not recant. He was decapitated and was immediately regarded as a martyr, his death heartening the Christians of the time.
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