The Spectator’s Notes | 17 April 2019

This week, the Wolfson History Prize announced its shortlist. It is always worth drawing attention to, precisely because it is not attention-seeking. Neither ‘woke’ nor stuffy, the prize is simply interested in serious history. This year’s list of six ranges in terms of subject from birds in the ancient world and building Anglo-Saxon England, through maritime London in the age of Cook and Nelson, to Queen Victoria and India (a love affair in which the two never met), Oscar Wilde, and the quest for justice after Nazi persecutions. It being Holy Week, I am wondering what would happen if all the four Gospels were on the Wolfson shortlist. Obviously they would be attacked for their lack of ‘diversity’, and Momentum would no doubt point out that at least three of the authors were ‘Zionists’, given privileged access to a prize endowed by a philanthropist who was famously proud of being the first Jew since St John to have a college named after him at both Oxford and Cambridge.