Eyre Lines

I’ve listened recently to a patrons only podcast from the Liturgists, recorded at their gathering in London a couple of weeks ago. I was rather stopped in my tracks by the following comments from Mike McHargue, better known as “Science Mike”, who, in the course of talking about the British in a fairly joking manner, said “They have a monarch…”, and then, to my ears at least, got fairly serious. He went on to say “At some point a relative of living people with extensive property… at some point one of their ancestors said ‘I’m in charge… of everything’ “, and then “I assume that, with the threat of violence attached, someone said ‘I’m the king now’ ” and “I’m not a monarchist”.

And I bristled. Not so much that this was a criticism of our monarchy (which is a very difficult thing to defend rationally, though I may try occasionally, while always pointing out that it actually works rather well for us, despite its theoretical flaws – rather like democracy), but because it painted a very inaccurate picture of our current monarch (and, indeed, her predecessors for quite some time). I did think that it might just be a continuation of humour at the host country’s expense (which Mike’s earlier comment about tea might support), but felt it went a bit beyond that – and ridiculing your host’s institutions is never a safe course of action. But then I listened again, and my conclusion is at the end of this piece. What follows immediately is the result of bristling…

I was reminded of a discussion some years ago with an American who said “We’re citizens, you’re subjects”, clearly having the idea that there was some functional difference between those concepts these days (there isn’t much, aside the fact that American presidents have massive power over their “citizens”, and British monarchs have virtually no power over their “subjects”, in which they resemble the other 8 European constitutional monarchs). Indeed, when the Earl of Rochester wrote on Charles II’s door “Here lies our sovereign lord the king, whose word no man relies on, who never said a foolish thing, nor ever did a wise one”, Charles famously (and fairly accurately) responded “My sayings are my own, my actions are my ministers”. The same American was very keen on blaming George III for the War of Independence, conceiving of him as having absolute power and ruling by decree (something which those framing the Declaration of Independence rather encouraged in their wording).

In point of fact, none of the things complained of by the 19th century colonists were decisions made by George III or his predecessor monarchs, they were decisions made by the British parliament (which were sort of democratic decisions, but by representatives for whom the colonists couldn’t vote – but then, neither could rather a high proportion of the home population… and I think about voter suppression, gerrymandering and peculiar electoral rules, and wonder what’s changed). That, I hasten to point out, does not mean that the complaints of the colonists were not largely justified, just that the wrong person was being blamed. It seems to me that “bad King George” is part of the American founding myth, though, so it’s understandable that almost everyone from the US I meet seems to have this idea,

So, a short history lesson. We have not had a monarch with really absolute power at least since King John signed Magna Carta in 1215, which gave citizens rights. Granted, quite a few subsequent monarchs trampled over bits of Magna Carta on occasion (and often got rebelled against as a result), and in practice most of those rights were more for the upper classes than for the peasants,  Even then, though, the mere fact that the Barons were able to force John to sign the document is testimony to the fact that the power of previous monarchs wasn’t really absolute either. In point of fact, most kings and queens of England ruled with the advice and consent of a parliament of sorts. I say “of sorts” because in the earlier times, it was purely a council of important noblemen.

There have been occasions when someone has just said “I’m the king now” (or in the case of Matilda, “I’m the queen now”), without actually being the current king or (with the exception of Matilda) the natural successor, which has often resulted in a civil war, because there already was a king. The winner was, in general terms, the person who could put together the largest coalition of people willing to fight for them, which was not all that dissimilar from the elections we hold these days – just rather more bloody. But wasn’t the origin of any of those who had a claim to the throne someone who had declared themselves king just because they were more physically powerful than those around them, if you go far enough back in history?

Well, not really. The origins of the line of British monarchs are in the Saxons (the Saxon kings were those who the council of Earls thought best suited to the role, rather than just the most militarily powerful), the Stuarts, and the Normans. Granted, William I (previously Duke of Normandy) did declare himself king and invade, but he was only able to do so as a result of a wide coalition of Northern French noblemen and the support of the French king. His ancestors had, indeed, taken Normandy by force and compelled the French kings to recognise them, being prior to that the leaders of a large group of Scandinavian warriors. And their leaders were those who could attract the support of a large number of fighting men and command them successfully. Yes, some of them, in those days, were guys with bigger biceps and bigger swords, but they also needed leadership skills and charisma.

I note, though, that Science Mike has Scots/Irish ancestry. The Scots like to portray themselves as a subjected people (“Braveheart”?) and indeed England did invade them a few times – but then, Scotland invaded England a few times as well (and generally allied with the French, threatening a pincer movement…). We then acquired James VI of Scotland, who was a Stuart (who became kings, as far as I can see, because they were good at organising things, as you’d expect the hereditary stewards of the previous kings to be) as James I of England (as he was viewed as the best candidate of several after Elizabeth I died childless), which might actually be regarded as a Scots takeover of England. And the Queen is descended from James I…

Ireland is a different story. Ireland was conquered by the Normans (in the first place) as a kind of overflow from their conquest of England, but then settled into having a kind of Anglo-Irish aristocracy, which “went native”. What you then got was a ruling class most of whom had a foot in both countries, and whether the English king (or queen) was ruler of Ireland as well was not a clear-cut issue until Elizabeth I. What the Irish were (and remain) most incensed about, however, was the fact that under Elizabeth I and her successors, English and Scots settlers were deliberately introduced into Ireland, displacing the native Irish. A bit like English and Scots settlers being deliberately introduced into America, displacing the native people there – the chief difference being that the settlers in Ireland didn’t largely wipe out the native populations (though they did tend to treat them appallingly, and killed quite a few). What they did do, in Northern Ireland in particular, was remain Protestant where the mass of the population were Catholic, and that gave them a different identity. But that’s another story entirely…

So, do we see there someone waving around a bigger broadsword and declaring themselves king? It was, initially, a woman, after all…

All the above, however, is really not the point. In 1642, Charles I declared war on Parliament, wanting to rule in an absolute way (and not as I noted above with the restrictions which earlier monarchs had largely acceded to), and the end result (after a civil war) was his execution at the order of Parliament in 1649. From 1649 to 1659, the country was a republic. On 8th May 1660, Parliament met and declared that Charles II (his son) had in fact been king since his father died, and that the republic (called “Commonwealth”) had never existed – and so restored the monarchy, but on Parliament’s terms.

Americans may like to note that we had a republic here, but we decided it had been a bad idea after 10 years. Just saying…

Every subsequent monarch has ruled (if you can call the rapidly diminishing power allowed them from that point “ruling”) by the will of Parliament. We had another little revolution, though without a war, in 1688 when James II started looking too authoritarian, and also espoused Catholicism, resulting in Parliament declaring that James had by his actions abdicated… Then, in 1701, faced by the awful prospect of a return to one of the Catholic branches of the Stuart family, Parliament settled the crown on the most junior branch of the Stewarts in the form of Sophia, who was married to the Elector of Hanover, on the proviso that no Catholic could occupy the throne*. That has been tinkered with a few times by Parliament, most recently by settling the crown on the eldest child irrespective of sex and by removing the prohibition on the monarch being a Catholic. It’s entirely possible that Parliament may decide, when the current Queen dies, that Prince Charles should not be the next King, but (perhaps) his eldest son (based on age and a certain amount of public sentiment surrounding his divorce from Diana and relationship with Camilla Bowles).

So, contra the implicit statement made by Science Mike, we have a monarchy, and we have this monarch, because that’s what our elected house of representatives has wanted, rather than (at least proximately) the fact that some distant relative took the throne by force of arms.

Indeed, who was on the throne has been for a very long time determined by who could command the support of a sufficient number of the population – the last time that was not the case was when William I invaded in 1066, and he did it by commanding the support of a boatload – or rather several boatloads – of French nobility and their followers.

However, this train of thought has led me to wider considerations. Firstly, if any of us, in either the USA or Britain (or anywhere else), owns property, it is ultimately because someone has taken or defended it with force. The fact that we can say we own it even now is because the law says so, and the law is always going to be backed up by the ultimate threat of force – if, for instance, I wake one morning to find a stranger camped in my garden (or, translated into US English, yard), I will be strongly suggesting that they move, and if they don’t I will go to court, get a court order against them and get bailiffs to evict them (OK, unless I suffer from an excess of Christian charity and let them stay there… though that would get me in hot water with my mortgage company, so probably wouldn’t happen). And the bailiffs will use force to do that. They may well call for the support of the police, for instance.

Secondly, however, most of the time we obey laws and customs, we are not doing so thinking that ultimately deadly force backs it, we are thinking that “this is the way things are done”. Indeed, if you had to use deadly force to back up laws as a matter of course, there would be no law very shortly, just anarchy – and I actually expected that this was where Mike was going when  he started down that route. (It may well have been – I’ve done live podcasting myself, and found that my train of thought got derailed and I went in a different direction from the one I’d planned…) In the case of the monarchy, we follow or support it “because that’s the thing to do”, or “because we’ve always done it that way” not “because one of their ancestors threatened someone else with a broadsword”, and for the most part that’s why we followed their predecessors once we got beyond choosing them for their ability to lead and lead well – and just tended to stick with the children of the last person who led (a phenomenon which is not unknown in the States, as witness Bush pére et fils)**. Until parliament took over and determined who ruled, in theory at least. We liberals should also not underestimate the strength of the “loyalty” component felt much more strongly by conservatives than by liberals, according to Jonathan Haidt’s research, either. None of us should underestimate the fact that people have power over us if we think they have power over us…

And, I suppose, Americans should not underestimate the relative ease of giving loyalty to a person rather than a brightly-coloured piece of fabric. They commonly think that loyalty to the Queen is vaguely ridiculous, while I think loyalty to a piece of fabric is vaguely ridiculous. Both of them, of course, are symbols of something much larger, and loyalty to Britian or to the United States is not ridiculous. It may be misdirected; Christians in the past have thought their loyalty to God eclipses their loyalty to the country (which, incidentally, is why Catholics were barred from the throne for so long and why the Pilgrim Fathers felt persecuted), and I can sympathise with that while disapproving of both the widespread executions under Mary and Elizabeth for being of the wrong religion, of the plot to blow up Parliament (and James I) and of the widespread desecration of churches by the Puritans during the civil war. My own highest loyalty is to the Kingdom of God (as exemplified by Jesus), not to Britain (as exemplified by the Queen).

And the Kingdom of God will have power if we think it has power…

 

 

* This is another source of contention with the Scots, many of whom wanted to return to a more senior (and Catholic) branch of the Stuarts, resulting in rebellions in 1715 and 1745, both of which were defeated, in the second case with wantonly excessive slaughter.

** Unless, that is (as multiple occasions in English history record) they were doing a really bad job of it, in which case we had a revolt, a civil war or a strategic assassination and replaced them or extracted concessions. This happened to William II, John, Matilda and Stephen, Edward II, Richard II (twice), Henry VI, Richard III, Charles I and James II just counting those in England since the conquest. Otherwise, the person who ruled, ruled on the whole more or less by consent. Where the two sides were more or less evenly balanced were when it became a civil war (Stephen and Matilda, Henry VI to Richard III and Charles I).