Thoughts on the monarchy. Courtesy of Mundabor. Rest in peace, Ma’am…
If you want to understand the English ways, you need to understand how the Monarchy works.
The Monarch is completely, and I mean completely, deprived of power. There is nothing, in political matters, that the Monarch has the right to decide on. Whilst Britain does not have a written constitution, and the lack of power of the Sovereign is not, so to speak, black on white, Britain has an unwritten constitution that is stronger than most written ones. Any fantasy of the Queen doing this or that, refusing to sign laws, or firing Prime Ministers, is a fantasy for old, grumpy men with too many beers in them and no understanding of how the world works.
The Sovereign cannot appoint a Prime Minister of his choice, disband parliament and call new elections, or have a veto right over the appointment of ministers. The “Queen’s Speech”, (now “King’s Speech”), which opens the parliamentary year, is written by the Prime Minister and the Sovereign merely reads it. The Queen (or King) is even forbidden from expressing any political opinion whatsoever. His/her other titles and roles (like the famous one: “defender of the Faith”) are a remnant of the past, as he/she has absolutely no power to defend anything, much less the faith.
There is, of course, this fiction that the Sovereign “consults” the Government and, in fact, I think that the tradition that the Prime Minister visits the (now) King every week for a chat where the former informs the latter about the latest news is merely a social occasion, where what the King says counts, if at all, as much as what I think. Still, it keeps this idea that the King “cares” (see below).
Why, then, a Monarchy? There are several reasons.
The first one is historical. Oliver Cromwell rid the Country of monarchs and, whilst the guy is remembered positively as a whole, the experiment was soon abandoned after his death, and the Monarchy restored. Also, the existence of monarchy and nobility is, in a way, a way to show that the French Revolution never reached the British shores. This is something of which many, here, are proud, and I think they are right.
The second is economical. Countless studies show that the Monarchy is an immense business. The total government costs for the upkeep of the monarchy (some 20-30 million pounds a year, including all security costs) pale, actually disappear when compared with the tourist attraction represented by the Monarchy. It may be sad, for someone, to see that the British Monarchy is reduced to the British version of Disneyland, but this is the way it is.
The third is social. The United Kingdom thinks it can profit (and I agree with it) from a figure that, whilst “at the top”, is totally outside of political controversy. This is a big contrast to, say, the United States, where the number one man is, invariably, the most controversial and hated one. A powerless Sovereign smooths the angles, helps the populace to separate the Institutions from the political fray, and creates a “glue”, a shared value, an Institution everyone can get behind.
This worked a charm with Elizabeth, because Elizabeth had an extremely keen sense of her duty as a Monarch and understood that, as a Monarch, her job was to live a life completely devoid of scandal and controversy; a life in which she is, in a way, utterly powerless (because there is no alternative to this, nor should there be), but, in another way, enriching the Country with her devotion to the task given to her. Everyone (but the most callous) liked her, because everyone understood this devotion.
This also helps to put in the proper light the fact that the Queen “signed off”, one after the other, all abominations that her government put in front of her in these seventy years. The simple fact is that she was, in this, not more culpable than the notary public who files the deeds of the two fags buying a house. Yes, she could have resigned. But again, this would have been, to her, exactly a betrayal of what I have written before; besides, this is something that would have rapidly destroyed the Monarchy, because the job of the British Monarchy consists **exactly** in this political irrelevance. Don’t blame the Queen for “gay marriage”. Blame the PM (Cameron) and the MPs who legislated it, and the British People who did not get rid of it afterwards. Still, I can well imagine the tears that this and similar legislation must have caused in such a religious (if protestant) woman. But again, those were tears she would have never showed, because this is not who she was.
Yesterday, Elizabeth went to her judgment. I prayed for her, sincerely, and consider her chances of salvation quite good.
We will see whether her stupid son, now Charles III, is able to keep her work, or ruins everything, including the monarchy, with political stunts or private scandals.
He will have to learn to keep his mouth shut very fast.
Whether he has the brains to do it, only time will tell.
The first big test for his reign will be the plans for his coronation. Will he want to do away with it, or will the government want to do away with it, as the continental monarchies have? The government probably wants to keep it going, precisely for the reasons stated above. A monarchy where all of the monarchical trappings are in a museum is not a monarchy people are going to travel to England to …More
The first big test for his reign will be the plans for his coronation. Will he want to do away with it, or will the government want to do away with it, as the continental monarchies have? The government probably wants to keep it going, precisely for the reasons stated above. A monarchy where all of the monarchical trappings are in a museum is not a monarchy people are going to travel to England to see. Years ago, Charles spoke of wanting to be called “Defender of faith,” rather than “Defender of the Faith.” Of course, ever since Henry VIII received this title from the Pope, not a single British monarch has truly defended the Faith, but Charles want to be seen as the defender of Islam, and who knows what else. But, looking back at Elizabeth’s coronation, it is hard to imagine all of the Christian symbols surviving in modern Britain.
Let's not forget that there is also an invisible power dynamic among freemasons. The monarchy might appear powerless, but it's hard to tell how much they actually pull the strings.
If you were as knowledgeable about Freemasonry as you try to portray, you would know that the British branch of Freemasonry, and by extension, true of most Commonwealth countries, are far more benign than their Continental counterparts. Even George Washington was a Freemason, do we then automatically rule him out as a decent President and not worthy of our admiration?
