Reforms of British Monarchy Desirable But Insufficient in an Age When Judeo-Christian Tradition Is Under Attack

The proposed changes to the rules of British Commonwealth monarchic succession and marriage raise some interesting reflections on the past and future. Henceforth, if these changes are adopted, the eldest shall succeed regardless of sex. This is not only right in itself, but responds to the fact that British reigning queens have on average been more talented than the kings.Mary I was problematic; Mary II and Anne were adequate; Victoria and the Queen are generally reckoned to be highly distinguished, and Elizabeth I is usually regarded as the greatest of all British sovereigns, and superior to almost all its government leaders also. (Having William Shakespeare as chief publicist has undoubtedly helped, but this is far from solely responsible for her prestige.)If this proposed reform had been put in place in Victorian times, Princess Victoria and not Prince Albert Edward (Edward VII), would have succeeded; and as she died soon after her mother, the erratic character known to history as Kaiser Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria’s grandson, would have followed as King William V of Great Britain and Emperor William II of Germany (and India).In the circumstances, he might not have been tolerated by the British Parliament and public, but he might also have modified his behavior as the potential accumulation of crowns impended, and been a unifying force. As it was, the British considered him a rather dynamic man until his addiction to Teutonic bumptiousness and his endless slights to Britain and his naval ambitions produced widespread hostility to him that crystallized in World War I as the mass British demand to “Hang the Kaiser!” (which of course, did not happen).The proposed reforms also permit the monarch to have a Roman Catholic spouse. It is one of the many anomalies that survive from the tumult of Henrician times that this remains a problem. Henry VIII seized the Church’s property to pay for conducting a war in France, and set up the Church of England with himself as its head, ostensibly because under the influence of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the pope denied Henry an annulment from the Emperor’s niece, Queen Catherine.Henry so enjoyed the title “Defender of the Faith,” given him by the pope in gratitude for a paper ghostwritten for him by Erasmus, that he had his puppet Parliament reconfer it, and it remains on some Canadian coinage (although Anglicans are fewer than 20% of Canadians).Henry thus sundered the Christian Church in the British Isles, and married Anne Boleyn, but soon beheaded her on a false charge of adultery, in part for failure to produce a male heir, though the heir she did produce was the future, glorious Elizabeth I. Elizabeth had to wait out the proverbially bloody incumbency of her older half-sister, Mary, as the realm see-sawed back and forth with Rome over its adherence, and the Anglicans began a long self-examination, still not resolved, over whether they are Protestants or Catholics (though they have been quite consistent that they are not Roman Catholics).If the paranoid official reaction to Rome had not arisen and persisted, the so-called (by MacAulay and the other utilitarian Whig myth-makers) Glorious Revolution of 1688 would not have occurred. The pig-headed James II was sent packing by his ungrateful daughters, scheming son-in-law, and the Duke of Marlborough, because he scandalized the Anglican establishment with his proposal of a Toleration Act for Roman Catholics, Jews, low church Protestants and non-believers, a concept 200 years ahead of its time. If the Stuarts had not been evicted, religious pluralism would have come earlier and the Hanoverians would not have been sent for.This is all to say that these proposed reforms are desirable, but insufficient in themselves. The British monarch is not and never was a religious leader; the ecclesiastical differences between the Anglican and Roman Churches are subtle and could be bridged with a little flexibility on both sides. The Maronites and the Unionates (who have married clergy) are in communion with Rome and there were more obvious obstacles to those reconciliations than there are between Rome and Canterbury now.Even those in the ostensibly Christian West who are not religious believers should recognize the positive and distinguished social and philosophical legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And the last decade of warfare should make it clear to everyone that before the West goes completely into the secular deep end it should cover the sectarian-spiritual flank with respectable religious institutions and beliefs adequate to acquit us all of this insufferable Islamist charge of being a material-obsessed society of fools and infidels.Christianity reigned for centuries before the versatile (but apparently infrequent flyer) Gabriel was reported in the Koran to have appeared on behalf of Muhammad. Militant Muslims are perfectly entitled to the practice of their faith, but not to the continuous and uncontradicted disparagement of the traditions of the West (especially when they have sought admission to that society).Republicans in the Commonwealth have dismissed these proposed changes as anachronistic nonsense, but they speak too loudly and too soon. It is republics with ceremonious presidents that are nonsense. In Germany and Italy, the presidents are just stand-ins for the Hohenzollern and Savoy monarchs dispensed with after failed wars, and the parliamentary leaders (Chancellor Merkel and Premier Berlusconi) direct the governments.Those countries would do at least as well with royal families in honorific positions, as they retain considerable public interest, as coverage of a recent Hohenzollern wedding, and as the Cambridges and the younger Spanish and Dutch and Swedish royals have lately shown. Retention of any interest at all in government institutions in these times of generally (though not in relatively well-governed Ottawa) inept government is a signal achievement.Republics with presidents who are both chiefs of state and heads of government, like the United States and Brazil, where there is no prime minister, have seriously taken their distance from monarchy, other than in the extent to which the trappings of the presidency and personality of the president replicate a monarchy. (Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, was in all but name a monarch, albeit an elected one.)As for Canada, its problem with the monarchy is that it is non-resident and, literally, un-Canadian. If the Cambridges were here for one or more five-year terms, they would be a smash, not least as ambassadors for Canada opposite other countries. (This is no rap on David Johnston, an outstandingly qualified Governor-General in every respect.)If for any reason, some such idea as this is not a runner, the governor general should become a co-chief of state with the monarch, and not just a stand-in. A serious country cannot have a viceroy as its chief of state other than for two weeks every three years or so when a monarch from overseas, however distinguished, and who is officially shared with other countries, is physically present in Canada.We have good people and good institutions. What is needed is a little creative thinking. The republicans, pounding the table and just demanding the abolition of the monarchy, are not contributing much to what should be an interesting and certainly is a timely, discussion.This column first appeared in the National Post.

Reforms of British Monarchy Desirable But Insufficient in an Age When Judeo-Christian Tradition Is Under Attack

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