User:Dumelow/Where there is discord



Prayer of Saint Francis

Airey Neave was murdered by an IRA car bomb on the day after the general election was announced. Thatcher attended his memorial service during the election campaign and noted that had he lived he would have been named to her cabinet.

Made as she was about to enter 10 Downing Street for the first time as prime minister. Many in the audience were surprised when she said she would quote a prayer. Among the most famous statements that she made. It was traditional that incoming prime ministers made a statement of intent on such occasions, though no other prime ministers have become as famours, or controversial. The prayer was attributed to St Francis of Assisi for a long time but it was the work of an anonymous author (probably editor Father Esther Bouquerel) published in the French magazine La Clochette in 1912. It became popular during the first world war and was, in 1916, printed on the front page of the Vatican's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano which gave it credibility. The prayer is known to have been printed on the back of a postcard depicting St France in 1920 and its association from him may date from this (certainly it was not associated with him pre-1916). After 1920 the prayer became known as the "Peace Prayer of St. Francis". The first important English translation was made by American protestant miniser Kirby Page in 1936 but it was popularised during WWII and the early COld War by Cardinal Francis Spellman, the right-wing Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York 1939-67. The prayer was suggested by Thatcher principal speechwriter Sir Ronnie Millar. Millar stated that four days before the elction she had asked him "almost shyly" if he had thought of anything for a post-victory Downing Street statement. Miller replied he had but was too superstitious to tell her what it was. When Millar showed her the statement after the election victory he said she was overcome with emotion "Her eyes swam. She blew her nose". Ward cried as she typed the statement. Thatcher made some changes to the typed draft, for example adding "but humbling" into the section about the "great responsibilities" of office. She also removed the reference to the electorate placing their trust in her, leaving only that they had placed their trust "in the things in which we believe". Her proposed changes seem to have been intended to reduce any impression of grandeur in the statement. One change that post-dated this draft was the substitution of "we" for "I" in the prayer, apparently at Millar's suggestion. This made the statement more modest. It didn;t attract the accusation that she was trying to sound regal, such as came with her delivery of we have become a grandmother in 1989. Thatcher was unaware of the history of the prayer at the time she spoke it and almost certainly though they were actually the words of St Francis. Millar left no record of if he knew the true origin of the words. Milalr abridged the prayer, omitting its opening and closing sentences and the paired lines of "hatred/love", "offence/pardon", "shadow/light" and "sadness/joy". The pairing of "truth/error", perhaps the starkest and at the centre of Thatcher's prayer, is omitted in some versions of the prayer now in common use. Millar left Central Office around 5,30 to get some sleep and returned at noon. He met Thatcher there and found she and her advisors had doubts about the prayer some of her advisors thought that using the words of a saint "set a pretty high standard" and that by doing so she made herself "a hostage to fortune". Millar reminded Thatcher that the prayer which he said had "come down to us over the centuries" was aspirational, in line with her policies. He said there was nothing wrong in being controversial and stated that CHurchhill was often controversial and the things he said were remembered. The hand written version, released in 2015, is almost word for word the version delivered, except that she had substituted song for prayer (she said words). Chose to write aide-memoire on a small card as she did not want to appear to be reading from a sheet of paper. She kept the card out of sight in teh palm of her left hand and consulted it only once in the statement. The prayer has proved controversial with opponents seizing on its desire for peace as opposed to her policies and calling her hypocritical for it. Many Conservatives disliked the prayer for the reason that it could be considered pro-disamament. Charles Moore, in his biography of Thatcher, called the statement "stagey". MTT considers that its purpose was to show that Thatcher intended her government to be different from its predecessors. The statement was intended to be jarring, to mark the start of a period of conviction politics and a determination to overcome future conflicts in pursuit of ultimate peace.

The speech was dicated by Millar to Alison Ward who typed it at 04.00 in COnservative Central Office.

Thatcher made amendments to the speech and wrote a handwritten version that was probably the penultimate draft of the statement. It differed from the version delivered. This version described it as the "moving & beautiful song of St Francis" rather than a prayer, perhaps reflecting her unease with the term.

Thatcher wrote key words from the speech on a small filecard as an aide-memoire. SHe probably studied this on the journey to Downing Street from Buckingham Palce. The card survives in the archive of the MTT.

Thatcher arrived at Downing Street in an official car with her husband Denis. Upon leaving the vehicle she waved to a crowd before her attention was drawn by journalists asking questions. Denis went inside. She approached the journalists, surrounde dby a police escort. A BBC journalist identified himself to her and congratulated her on her victory.

The journalist asked Thatcher how she felt. She replied she was "very excited, very aware of the responsibilities" and that she had accepted the Queen's request that she form a new government. She noted that it was "the greatest honour that can come to any citizen in a democracy" but she was aware of the responisbilities she now held and would "unceasingly to try to fulfil the trust and confidence that the British people have placed in me and the things in which I believe". Upon that she introduced the prayer: "I would just like to remember some words of St. Francis of Assisi which I think are really just particularly apt at the moment. 'Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope'"  Afterwards she said " to all the British people—howsoever they voted—may I say this. Now that the Election is over, may we get together and strive to serve and strengthen the country of which we're so proud to be a part"  She was interupted at this point by a journalist trying to ask a questio but she ignored him (saying "And finally, one last thing") and made her final statement, quoting Airey Neave, who she said she had hoped would be in her government, that "there is now work to be done". There afterwards followed a number of questions from the journalists. The first asked what sort of government she would lead, to which Thatcher replied that preparations were just beginning and her first job was to form a Cabinet. Her answer was interuppted several times with more questions ending as she was asked when she would name her cabinet. Thatcher said, "certainly not today" but that she hoped to have some news by the following day, noting that "It's a very important thing. It's not a thing that should be suddenly rushed through. It's very important.". She was then asked what she would be doing for the rest of the day to which she replied simply "I shall be here working". She was then asked for her thoughts on Emmeline Pankhurst (a leader of the suffragette movement for representation of women in parliament) and her own political mentor, her father Alfred Roberts who had died in 1970. She addressed only her thoughts on her father noting "I just owe almost everything to my own father. I really do. He brought me up to believe all the things that I do believe and they're just the values on which I've fought the Election" and that she thought the values she learned growing up in a modest home in Grantham were the things that won the election.

With rising cheers from the watching crowd Thatcher excused herself to go and talk with them. Afterwards she posed for the traditional photo opportunity ont he steps of 10 Downing Street where she was joined by Denis from inside.

https://catholicherald.co.uk/some-think-it-ironic-that-pugnacious-mrs-thatcher-should-pray-for-harmony-but-she-was-closer-to-st-francis-than-you-may-think/

Bill Schwarz: https://journals.scholarsportal.info/details/00810606/v23inone/nfp_tty.xml

https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/thatcher-papers/public-releases/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41054829?seq=1

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2013/apr/12/margaret-thatcher-doubt-wimps-human

https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/update/2013-04-17/miners-display-thatchers-prayer-banner-on-day-of-her-funeral

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/12/15/joe-biden-saint-francis-prayer-239521

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9991301/The-real-prayer-of-Francis-of-Assisi.html (available on Proquest)

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/europe/23italy.html