This Christmas, the head of state of 16 nations will deliver her Christmas message to her subjects, as she has done every year since she ascended the throne in 1953, although she was queen of considerably more than 16 countries back then. That said, she will, in addition, be speaking directly to the 54 countries which make up the Commonwealth of Nations, of which she is the head. She will not, as many fondly imagine, be addressing only the peoples of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This is a fact which should always to be remembered when considering the position, and loyalties, of our current monarch, Elizabeth II and those of her potential successors.
Her immediate successor, of course, is Charles, the Prince of Wales, and it was when he recently addressed the United Nations conference on climate change in Copenhagen, that one of the most regular, and respected, commentators at my blog, Dr. D, wrote to me and asked my opinion of the monarchy.
As I responded to Dr. D, I realised that he had asked a question which I had not given any thought to in a very long time, and that I was thinking about it now, in the light of attitudes and views which I didn't have when I last seriously thought about it. In recent years, my thoughts and my anger have been directed at elected politicians, at the controlled media, and those organisation within various western states, which seem to be there for the sole purpose of destroying us. Until now I had not considered the role of the woman during whose reign our leaders, at whose head she sits, have inflicted such irreparable damage on this progressively less united Kingdom.
I come from a family for whom loyalty to the crown has always been offered without question, indeed, so ingrained is that loyalty, that I now feel almost treacherous to be questioning it. Throughout my life, the Queen has always been there and I have instinctively accepted the rightness of that fact and my allegiance to the woman herself. Hence, it is with reluctance that I ask myself, do I still feel the same?
To answer that question, I need to separate the institution from the current incumbent, and, in that respect I am still a committed monarchist. I am no more impressed now by the arguments in favour of a republic than I ever was, and I remain in favour of a constitutional monarchy for a number of reasons. I accept the argument that because we have a Queen we can, in theory, never have a dictator. An unelected head of state means there is no individual in the nation, elected or otherwise, with ultimate power.
Blair, and Thatcher before him may have seemed all powerful, but once they ceased to please they were gone, and it did not take a revolution, or the trauma of impeachment, to do it. I think it was put quite well by the person who said that the main power vested in the monarch is the power she denies to anyone else.
The government might send the troops to war, but the troops do not swear allegiance to the government, they swear allegiance to the queen, as does Parliament. The queen does not declare war, but she has the power to sack the man, or woman, who does so.
In theory she can sack the government, as they are effectively working for her. It would cause a constitutional crisis if she did, as almost occurred in 1975 when she (through her governor general) removed the Australian government.
Oddly enough, despite that, Australia still retains her as head of state, as do Canada, New Zealand and a host of other countries despite a number of referendums aimed at turning them into republics. I suspect that is due to the same feelings that I have about the institution, that is to say, a respect for the individual and a distrust for the alternative.
The alternative is a presidency, which has all sorts of downsides, look at the examples, Obama, Jimmy Carter, Francois Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, de Gaulle, Muggabe, Mandella the string of crooks who have run Italy, of whom Berlusconi is probably the least dishonest, would we want any of them? I think of the various politicians who would try to be elected president, if such a role existed here and I shudder. In Britain we could have had a President Thatcher, a President Callaghan, we be looking forward to the prospect of a President Blair, a President Brown, or, God preserve us, a President Mandelson, On the other hand we have total nonentities like the president of Germany, who's name I forget, or the, heavily shop soiled new president of Europe.
I may think very highly of the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, but he is one honourable man amongst a battalion of charlatans.
I can understand why some would object to the hereditary principle, however, I have an instinctive distrust of politicians and don't want one of them as my head of state, which is what we would get. I far prefer someone who is there by accident of birth, at least they have a better chance of being a human being.
For those reasons, and because, we in Britain, have already lost too much of our heritage, I still support a constitutional monarchy
However, what of the individual currently in the role of monarch? You may find it strange that, as I said earlier, I have respect for the Queen herself, after all, many British nationalists believe she has betrayed her coronation oath, and her promise to her people. However, I think that view ignores what she actually said. The queen actually swore to serve the peoples of her empire, her coronation oath specifically mentioned countries such as Pakistan, South Africa and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and as Princess Elizabeth she promised to serve "this great imperial family, of whom we are all members" and, as is now quite clear, she meant the the people of Pakistan, Kenya, Fiji and Uganda just as much as she meant those of England, Scotland and Wales.
That is the way she thinks. Her father had once been king of almost a quarter of the earth's population, her parents were the last Emperor and Empress of India. Elizabeth never ruled India, but she inherited an Empire all the same, and, even though it has now gone, it all still means a great deal to her.
Elizabeth remains head of state of sixteen countries including places like Papua New Guinea, Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas. As Head of the Commonwealth she has to serve the interests of people from across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. These are the lands from which most of the immigrants to Britain come, and I believe the Queen feels great loyalty to them, even though that conflicts with the well being of her British subjects.
She has not betrayed her oath, people just do not understand what she actually said, or who she said it to. The Queen is as much a victim of the end of Empire as we are, just in a different way. After all can the Queen of Jamaica really deny her subjects access to her realm?
I may disagree with her, I may believe that she has presided silently over the greatest disaster this country has ever suffered, yet I can respect the woman for her loyalty to those she was born to rule, except of course, she wasn't always loyal to those of us in Britain.
Does her loyalty to the Commonwealth excuse her for standing by and allowing what has been done to this country, by her government? I will not make a judgement on that, other than to say that she also has been brought low, in comparison to where she was, by the post war catastrophe which has hit Britain since she was crowned.
In many respects everything which the young Princess Elizabeth was raised to inherit has gone, not only the Empire, think of the mighty church which she became head of in 1953, and then consider the diminished and shrunken sect which stands in its place.
This brings me to one other issue and that issue is Europe. The queen may be able to square mass immigration with the promises she made when first ascending the throne, but how does she square that with allowing the UK to be absorbed into the EU and to herself, our queen, becoming nothing more than citizen Elizabeth Windsor?
In answer to that, I don't know what the truth is. Maybe she is a true believer, maybe she really believes that Europe is good for Britain, as I once did. Alternatively, is it all true and is she part of an elite, happy to preside over the destruction of the nation state for a mad dream of a new world order? Then again, maybe the truth is that after fifty years of mutely watching as her birthright crumbles she views this as merely a further progression.
Only Elizabeth knows the secrets of her own soul.
Her son on the other hand, is much less of an enigma, we can see the truth of him far too clearly, and it is not pretty to behold.
Charles will be a disaster, he personifies the very worst aspects of the so called liberal elite, everything he believes in is fatal to the future of the nation he hopes, one day, to rule. However, I doubt he can do more damage than has already been done. Charles's own actions and bizarre pronouncements over the years have so reduced his stature that he would have less power even than the state allows a constitutional monarch, and, in any event, the country has survived idiot princes before. Conversely, I quite like his wife, Camilla, who I think will make a better queen than he will make a king, and certainly a better one than his enchanting and lovely but deeply disturbed first wife would have made. She seems a sensible woman, who apparently loves her husband and will probably keep him from going too far off the rails.
It is an irony that it may fall to that once so reviled woman, and not the son's of the sainted Diana, to save the monarchy, if only from itself.
There are some who would like the monarchy to skip a generation, but I think that is unfair to William, who is still young and still very much an unknown quantity, although his parentage on both sides does not auger well. Also, having waited so long it is unlikely that Charles would willingly abdicate.
If the Nationalist movement does not prevail then it matters not who sits on the diminished throne for, like everything else we once cherished it will become an irrelevance. If we do prevail, then it is a different story
Ultimately, I believe that we need to change the government, but if we can save this country we should not dispose of all its ancient institutions and one we should keep is the monarchy, for in the past it has served us well, even though those individuals currently in place have not always done so.
Her immediate successor, of course, is Charles, the Prince of Wales, and it was when he recently addressed the United Nations conference on climate change in Copenhagen, that one of the most regular, and respected, commentators at my blog, Dr. D, wrote to me and asked my opinion of the monarchy.
As I responded to Dr. D, I realised that he had asked a question which I had not given any thought to in a very long time, and that I was thinking about it now, in the light of attitudes and views which I didn't have when I last seriously thought about it. In recent years, my thoughts and my anger have been directed at elected politicians, at the controlled media, and those organisation within various western states, which seem to be there for the sole purpose of destroying us. Until now I had not considered the role of the woman during whose reign our leaders, at whose head she sits, have inflicted such irreparable damage on this progressively less united Kingdom.
I come from a family for whom loyalty to the crown has always been offered without question, indeed, so ingrained is that loyalty, that I now feel almost treacherous to be questioning it. Throughout my life, the Queen has always been there and I have instinctively accepted the rightness of that fact and my allegiance to the woman herself. Hence, it is with reluctance that I ask myself, do I still feel the same?
To answer that question, I need to separate the institution from the current incumbent, and, in that respect I am still a committed monarchist. I am no more impressed now by the arguments in favour of a republic than I ever was, and I remain in favour of a constitutional monarchy for a number of reasons. I accept the argument that because we have a Queen we can, in theory, never have a dictator. An unelected head of state means there is no individual in the nation, elected or otherwise, with ultimate power.
Blair, and Thatcher before him may have seemed all powerful, but once they ceased to please they were gone, and it did not take a revolution, or the trauma of impeachment, to do it. I think it was put quite well by the person who said that the main power vested in the monarch is the power she denies to anyone else.
The government might send the troops to war, but the troops do not swear allegiance to the government, they swear allegiance to the queen, as does Parliament. The queen does not declare war, but she has the power to sack the man, or woman, who does so.
In theory she can sack the government, as they are effectively working for her. It would cause a constitutional crisis if she did, as almost occurred in 1975 when she (through her governor general) removed the Australian government.
Oddly enough, despite that, Australia still retains her as head of state, as do Canada, New Zealand and a host of other countries despite a number of referendums aimed at turning them into republics. I suspect that is due to the same feelings that I have about the institution, that is to say, a respect for the individual and a distrust for the alternative.
The alternative is a presidency, which has all sorts of downsides, look at the examples, Obama, Jimmy Carter, Francois Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, de Gaulle, Muggabe, Mandella the string of crooks who have run Italy, of whom Berlusconi is probably the least dishonest, would we want any of them? I think of the various politicians who would try to be elected president, if such a role existed here and I shudder. In Britain we could have had a President Thatcher, a President Callaghan, we be looking forward to the prospect of a President Blair, a President Brown, or, God preserve us, a President Mandelson, On the other hand we have total nonentities like the president of Germany, who's name I forget, or the, heavily shop soiled new president of Europe.
I may think very highly of the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, but he is one honourable man amongst a battalion of charlatans.
I can understand why some would object to the hereditary principle, however, I have an instinctive distrust of politicians and don't want one of them as my head of state, which is what we would get. I far prefer someone who is there by accident of birth, at least they have a better chance of being a human being.
For those reasons, and because, we in Britain, have already lost too much of our heritage, I still support a constitutional monarchy
However, what of the individual currently in the role of monarch? You may find it strange that, as I said earlier, I have respect for the Queen herself, after all, many British nationalists believe she has betrayed her coronation oath, and her promise to her people. However, I think that view ignores what she actually said. The queen actually swore to serve the peoples of her empire, her coronation oath specifically mentioned countries such as Pakistan, South Africa and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and as Princess Elizabeth she promised to serve "this great imperial family, of whom we are all members" and, as is now quite clear, she meant the the people of Pakistan, Kenya, Fiji and Uganda just as much as she meant those of England, Scotland and Wales.
That is the way she thinks. Her father had once been king of almost a quarter of the earth's population, her parents were the last Emperor and Empress of India. Elizabeth never ruled India, but she inherited an Empire all the same, and, even though it has now gone, it all still means a great deal to her.
Elizabeth remains head of state of sixteen countries including places like Papua New Guinea, Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas. As Head of the Commonwealth she has to serve the interests of people from across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. These are the lands from which most of the immigrants to Britain come, and I believe the Queen feels great loyalty to them, even though that conflicts with the well being of her British subjects.
She has not betrayed her oath, people just do not understand what she actually said, or who she said it to. The Queen is as much a victim of the end of Empire as we are, just in a different way. After all can the Queen of Jamaica really deny her subjects access to her realm?
I may disagree with her, I may believe that she has presided silently over the greatest disaster this country has ever suffered, yet I can respect the woman for her loyalty to those she was born to rule, except of course, she wasn't always loyal to those of us in Britain.
Does her loyalty to the Commonwealth excuse her for standing by and allowing what has been done to this country, by her government? I will not make a judgement on that, other than to say that she also has been brought low, in comparison to where she was, by the post war catastrophe which has hit Britain since she was crowned.
In many respects everything which the young Princess Elizabeth was raised to inherit has gone, not only the Empire, think of the mighty church which she became head of in 1953, and then consider the diminished and shrunken sect which stands in its place.
This brings me to one other issue and that issue is Europe. The queen may be able to square mass immigration with the promises she made when first ascending the throne, but how does she square that with allowing the UK to be absorbed into the EU and to herself, our queen, becoming nothing more than citizen Elizabeth Windsor?
In answer to that, I don't know what the truth is. Maybe she is a true believer, maybe she really believes that Europe is good for Britain, as I once did. Alternatively, is it all true and is she part of an elite, happy to preside over the destruction of the nation state for a mad dream of a new world order? Then again, maybe the truth is that after fifty years of mutely watching as her birthright crumbles she views this as merely a further progression.
Only Elizabeth knows the secrets of her own soul.
Her son on the other hand, is much less of an enigma, we can see the truth of him far too clearly, and it is not pretty to behold.
Charles will be a disaster, he personifies the very worst aspects of the so called liberal elite, everything he believes in is fatal to the future of the nation he hopes, one day, to rule. However, I doubt he can do more damage than has already been done. Charles's own actions and bizarre pronouncements over the years have so reduced his stature that he would have less power even than the state allows a constitutional monarch, and, in any event, the country has survived idiot princes before. Conversely, I quite like his wife, Camilla, who I think will make a better queen than he will make a king, and certainly a better one than his enchanting and lovely but deeply disturbed first wife would have made. She seems a sensible woman, who apparently loves her husband and will probably keep him from going too far off the rails.
It is an irony that it may fall to that once so reviled woman, and not the son's of the sainted Diana, to save the monarchy, if only from itself.
There are some who would like the monarchy to skip a generation, but I think that is unfair to William, who is still young and still very much an unknown quantity, although his parentage on both sides does not auger well. Also, having waited so long it is unlikely that Charles would willingly abdicate.
If the Nationalist movement does not prevail then it matters not who sits on the diminished throne for, like everything else we once cherished it will become an irrelevance. If we do prevail, then it is a different story
Ultimately, I believe that we need to change the government, but if we can save this country we should not dispose of all its ancient institutions and one we should keep is the monarchy, for in the past it has served us well, even though those individuals currently in place have not always done so.
9 comments:
Couldn't we at least get rid of the aristocracy?
Norway successful did so, and retains its monarchy.
Excellent post, thank. And a very merry Christmas to you and all your readers.
V.
Almost convinced me but the Queen is diehard liberal elitist.
She clearly has no loyalty to the British peoples and we should return the sentiment.
Off with her head!
Merry Yuletide to nationalists everywhere. Perhaps 2010 will be the year a New Albion secedes from Babylon and where our people can live in freedom.
I think you are being too charitable to whatis the worst monarch we have had snce King John, and probably worse than him.
As I understand it treason is no longer on the statute books but in any csae treason is against the monarch so the queen can not committ treason de jure, but de facto she has betrayed her people.
It is not just on immigration. She signs any law put before her and that includes those that gave oursovereignty to the EU State.
can she be queen over a region of the EU as we ceased to be a nation when The Lisbon Treatywas implemented on January 1st. If so
we should skip the tomato talker and Wills and go straight to Harry, the peoples prince. Charles in saying he wants to be the Defender of Faiths, has annmounced in advance that he will break his Coronation Oath. He has no right to be crowned.
Thank you for this analysis, Sarah, much appreciated.
I hope that you and your family have had a most blessed day and, as others have said, thank you for your prodigious blogging efforts throughout the year.
The matter of the Coronation Oath is a vital subject, complicated by the fact that the oath that Elizabeth swore allegiance to in 1953 was illegally altered in 1910, to remover reference to the Catholic Mass as "superstitious and idolatrous" in accordance with Article 31 of the Church of England (no wonder the C of E got rid of these articles some time back) my emphases:
The offering of Christ once made is the perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual, and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits."
The spiritualist Conan Doyle was a prime mover in the illegal alteration of the oath, it appears.
4 years later, Britain was embroiled in the horror of WW1, a consequence that I don't believe to be coincidental.
Sadly, I do believe that the Queen has broken her oath, because even in its attentuated form, it requires that the monarch, with one hand on an open Bible, formally pledge that, my emphases again "the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law."
Queen Elizabeth has done anything but that over the last 56 years of her reign. If she had kept her oath, any immigrant to this country in the last 56 years would have had to forsake their non-Protestant Reformed religion before they could even enter this realm. HM has clearly failed catastrophically in this respect.
I agree that the prospect of King Charles III is not an auspicious one. However, I do know that Charles has a high regard for the KJB and is patron of the 2011 Trust, which will coordinate the 400th anniversary of the 1611 Holy Bible.
These are key issues, which is why I have commented at some length. Much, much more of great value could be said but the KJB is this nation's WMD - Weapon of Mass Deliverance. It has never failed Britain in the past and will never fail her in the future.
When it comes to the 3 'm' menaces, Multi-culti-ism, Marxism and Mohammedanism, the KJB could chew them up and spit them out in less than a generation. The weapon only has to be deployed in the hearts and minds of the folk for whom, above all, it is rightfully theirs.
Thanks for the comments.
Judging by the reaction to this article here and more so at the Green Arrow, where I also posted it, I have hit on a topic which a lot of people feel very strongly about, and that there is a lot of hostility to the monarch.
Certainly from the reaction at the Green Arrow, this has been one of the least well received articles I have ever written.
That saddens me in a way because I still feel strongly in favour of the monarchy in principle. I would love to have Britain back as it was, and part of that is to have a king or a queen.
However, the betrayal may be so overwhelming that may not be possible. Given what has happened, I do understand the reaction to this posting.
I think it's about time she abdicated. If it could miss Charles that would be better. http://northfieldpatriot.blogspot.com/
It seems to me that there is another possibility. One can still be in favor of monarchy but not supportive of the current monarch or this line, the House of Windsor. It would be entirely possible to establish a new, royal house (even if difficult).
Although now one of the Queen's subjects, there have been a number of times when I have felt inclined to write to her regarding what I see as her failure to act as a Christian monarch.Sarah has pointed out the "negative control" that the Queen has, but even in the limited scope I think she could have done much more (1) to protect and promote the CoE, and (2) to defend Christianity in the UK and elsewhere in the Commonwealth. I have been very disappointed in that respect.
Her remoteness from the people, a sense of being out of touch, was very evident at the time of the Diana affair, culminating in Diana's death. The way the monarchy (mis)handled all of that was one of the best arguments for its abolition they could possibly provide, in my thinking.
Sarah, you speak warmly of Camilla, and since she and Charles have married, there has been far less scandal and sensationalism, it seems. On the other hand, she was the third party in the marriage between Charles and Diana, as Charles was the third party in her previous marriage. This does not speak very well of the morals of either, it seems to me. Can you imagine this sort of behavior in Elizabeth's parents? I certainly cannot. They were people the nation could look up to, not down upon.
Coming from the outside, I have to say that I am rather touched by your reason for defending the monarchy as an assurance against a tyrant. I wish I could believe that it really worked, but I do not see the evidence. I am more inclined to think that all man made systems of governance are subject to corruption, and sooner or later will be. This is what I think I see before me.
There used to be frequent discussions on The House of Windsor, on the defunct Conservative Democratic Alliance forum. Their name for the queen was "Brenda"!
Several thought the entire Windsor family dysfunctional and needed replacing. Apparently, there is a direct decendent from the Stuarts living in Europe!
We should ignore this daft, old slapper, and this geezershould be honoured.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091230/tuk-dj-sacked-for-pulling-plug-on-boring-a7ad41d.html
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