Americans who tend to use Queen Elizabeth’s death as an excuse to immerse themselves in a modern, indirect monarchy – all opera/Meghan Markle style, no real substance – would do well to remember the harsh facts: the House of Windsor is just as important in the terms of the British Constitution as the Targaryens to the Iron Throne .
Their motto says it all, in Norman French dynasty before dynasty before dynasty before the dynasty of Windsor: Honi soit qui mal y pense—or, colloquially contemporary: Don’t do with us—or we’ll be with you.
It is true that the late Queen played her part beautifully: since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 – which, not to be forgotten, followed an English revolution, a fierce civil war (one in ten Britons died) and a failed attempt to restore an absolute monarchy – it has left British rulers with negative powers to to a big limit.
Required to recognize the legitimacy of elected governments through increasingly broad privileges, it has also had to sign a law whatever laws are placed before it. Thus Walter Bagot, the eminent constitutional theorist of the late nineteenth century, said that the monarch possessed: “the right to counsel, the right to encourage, and the right to warn.” What he has absolutely no say in what constitutes the law of the land – let alone the ability to enforce it.
So, after a disastrous interwar period—with major social upheaval, and a condescending monarch who preferred brute lust over constitutional detail—the House of Windsor was in trouble. The Queen’s father, George VI (in the blood-obsessed slang of the English aristocracy, “reserve” rather than heir) had fought a good albeit silent war, leaving the stage vacant for his young daughter to take the throne in the face of all that the second half of the twentieth century had to offer. , in terms of accelerating political events.
Indeed, it was the late Queen’s third prime minister, Harold Macmillan, who asked the then Home Secretary, Rab Butler, what constituted the greatest threat to the statesman’s career, and received the scathing reply: “Events, dear boy, events.”
It was the queen’s political genius to elevate herself above events wasted to supra-lunar politicians–no matter which government was in power, true blue, or possibly red, she was unnaturally careful not to express a flash of partisan sentiment.
Peter Hennessy, the now highly regarded constitutional theorist, puts forward the “good chapters” theory of British rule, which is: In the absence of any written constitution, what prevents the actual British electoral dictatorship from managing populism and corruption is “the good”. who occupy the highest positions in the state.
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Thus, if the British Prime Minister Primbean Paris (first among equals), their king is the supreme righteous separation. The Queen had an hour each week with fifteen people holding the highest office in the land, beginning with Winston Churchill.
On Monday this week, hours after her death, she received the prime minister’s resignation, and appointed another president. If, in a peculiar gesture, you told Boris Johnson how disappointed he was–and suggested Liz Truss, his successor, not to screw things up likewise–we would never know. Johnson apparently failed to be a good young man (including on one occasion gossiping about the Sovereign, who is The defect in the possessive self in its purest form), and that was his downfall; But whether the British political class can continue to be a good faction (and two girls) now that the Queen is dead remains a matter of troubling debate.
Younger people, confused by the charm of the queen, it is better for them to consider not only constitutional details, but also the excitement of her power. When I was a boy in the 1960s, there was a well-published survey that showed that the vast majority of British men had sexual dreams about the King. She was a looker – no doubt, and carried the so-called “halo effect” in everything else she did.
When Diana Spencer rocked the establishment by speaking out about the then-Prince of Wales’ betrayal, it was the Queen who received the public’s sympathy.
No one questioned the parenting of a sovereign who managed to raise a child who believed it was OK to marry an officially recognized 20-year-old “virgin” while maintaining a long-term relationship with a married woman – just like anyone who’s ever questioned parenting of a sovereign who accused his second son, Andrew, of having non-consensual sex with a young woman who had been offered to him by notorious sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Even Harry and Meghan’s antics, Oprah and a skinny podcast failed to discredit the Queen herself.
This shows you just how good the British public thought Elizabeth was.
As to whether this aura of unquestionable decency will pass on to her eldest son, King Charles, the jury may be out entirely – but the sounding suggests that the British politician is in a remarkably calm mood.
Andrew/Epstein has, in my view, hid the institution under the waterline: if the Queen’s chief political strategy was to stand apart from the zeitgeist (rather than surf), her greatest social skill was convincing the British that the House of Windsor were some kind of strange analogue of the British family Typical of the lower upper middle class. The love of dogs and horses, the breakfast cereal served in Tupperware containers, the resolute frivolous spirit (the Queen’s mother failed to recognize T.S. Eliot when he was in the room with her, reads waste land loudly), and despite the rumors about Phil-the-Greek – theatrical monogamy; These were weapons that she proficiently used throughout her 70-year reign.
But her 73-year-old successor isn’t that easy on the eye — nor is the macula. The phone hacker famously told his then-lover, Camilla Parker-Bowles, that he wished he had been a stopper for her, the new king suffers from some sort of positive ability: Not only is there this eccentric sexual passion (which, personally, I find rather endearing), he’s also spoken loudly. Very and rather often on all sorts of controversial topics – from the looming environmental crisis, to the clash between Christianity and Islam. (A particularly sensitive and prominent issue, given that the King heads the Anglican Church in England, while we also have a large Muslim minority.)
“The Windsor family must now contend with a thriving black British and South Asian community, which, for the most part, has little time for their “universal” attitude.“
Prince Charles (as he was) moved decisively to exile his brother, the Duke of York, once the full compass of the accusations against him became clear. He has also spoken of his desire to see the British monarchy dwindle – as the number of redundant princes and princesses is no longer on the public payroll.
That’s shrewd – but is it shrewd enough? He ascended the throne at a time of the greatest political and social division in Britain, and while he might say some right things, his personal lifestyle (which includes his toothpaste squeezing his brush by one of his many servants), speaks to a man who embodies Oscar Wilde’s saying England is “the home of the hypocrite”.
As I said at the beginning: Americans eager to get their kicks rotten stare at all the appearances and performative pomp that will unfold over the next week or three, as one king and another are buried, better to think about this: We live here, and it’s a vital part of our judgment.
While any number of opinion polls might suggest that the British monarchy enjoys great respect among its subjects, the constitutional compromise it enshrines has never been more threatened – from the aftermath of Brexit and the return of Irish nationalism, and from the Scots’ desire for division. , like we will. And of course, as a post-imperial dynasty par excellence, the Queen put a great deal of personal store on her leadership of the Commonwealth – that vendetta against the Empire that allowed her to pretend to rule the world.
The Windsor family must now contend with a thriving black British and South Asian community, which, for the most part, has little time for their “universal” attitude.
King Charles’ mother had a nominal imperative on her part: In England, the myth of Queen Elizabeth I remains a powerful element in our old conception of ourselves as a merry world where, despite hereditary monarchs and landowning aristocrats, our social relationships remain. Membership and Equality. By contrast, King Charles follows two of the names widely seen as representing the height of royal perfidy.
The banqueting hall – from the window on which Charles I stood to the scaffold – still stands in Whitehall. Charles II managed to die in a state of belt – but his successor was driven into exile. Perhaps it is these tragic ancestors that the new king should consider, rather than his intelligent, charismatic and irreplaceable mother.
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