In Southey’s poem ‘After Blenheim’, Kaspar is a representative of the people who hold the old ideas and who are conservative about everything. He finds it difficult to believe in something new breaking away from the popular belief that the battle ended in a famous victory. He heard so many people mention it as a ‘great victory’. So he believed in it. He did not question it all his life. But now, when his own grandchildren are throwing questions on it, he is afraid to break free from the stereotypes, to upset the status quo. That is why, he sticks to his stand and utters:

But everybody said, quoth he,
That ’twas a famous victory.

But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

Why that I cannot tell, said he,
‘But ’twas a famous victory.’