Why We Accept and Respect the Monarchy

"The King Will Not Leave . . . "

A Timely Excerpt From a Longer Piece by Sumantra Maitra


You can either be a Hollywood hypocrite, or an aloof, true-blue aristocrat above daily politics. You cannot simultaneously enjoy the perks of both. One cannot be a royal and sell toiletries. Aristocratic life brings its own burden, of class, polish, fortitude, and propriety. Not every Tom, Dick, or Harry can chin up, keep calm, and carry on. If you behave like a petulant celebrity, you’ll be treated with as much respect as a petulant celebrity deserves.

During the Second World War, when the Luftwaffe was flattening London, the queen mother, mother of the current Queen Elizabeth, was asked to leave Britain and move to Canada with her two young daughters. The queen replied, without thinking twice, “The children will not leave unless I do. I shall not leave unless their father does, and the king will not leave the country in any circumstances, whatever.”

Her daughter, the current Queen Elizabeth, subsequently took part in the war effort as a mechanic, and her husband was in the Navy, a martial tradition carried forward ever since, in the Falklands war as well as in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It appears that was a different age, slowly passing away.

One wishes Harry and Meghan all the best in their new lives, but that is where the sympathy must end. This has nothing to do with racism, no matter how many columns you see in the Guardian and New York Times reinforcing that trope. If anything, this incident reinforces that composure and class, stoic fortitude, and a sense of duty and propriety are not due to either bloodline or money. Some people possess them, and most do not.

Sumantra Maitra is a doctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham, UK, and a senior contributor to The Federalist. His research is in great power-politics and neorealism. You can find him on Twitter @MrMaitra.

Tacky Commercialising Of the Monarchy Was Never Going to Work

#Megxit! Ex-Prince Harry Got Woke, Now He’s Broke…

James Delingpole
Breitbart London

How are the mighty fallen!

This time a year ago, Prince Harry had the world at his feet. He was a handsome prince with a beautiful wife and a healthy male heir on the way, plenty of money, a free, five-bedroomed ‘cottage’ in a piece of England’s finest real estate, a dashing war record from two tours in Afghanistan, bags of honorary titles — including Captain General of the Royal Marines — all the cachet of being a senior player in the world’s grandest Royal Family but little of the responsibility (his big brother William is heir to the throne, so the pressure is off there), with plenty of spare time for frequent private jet jaunts round the world to hang out with celebrity chums like Sir Elton John.

Now, he’s a nobody. Or at best, an ex-Someone. Sure he gets to keep his aristocratic courtesy-title the Duke of Sussex, but he no longer retains the rank of royal prince or the honorific ‘His Royal Highness’; he has to pay back the £2.4 million that the UK taxpayer spent doing up his ‘cottage’; he has lost the role of Captain General — and all his other honorary military titles; he’ll no longer be paid to represent the Royal Family at official events; he’s now possibly even less famous than his wife, who wasn’t exactly A-list to begin with being only the ex-supporting-star from a fading TV show in its seventh series…

Where did it all go so wrong for the poor lad?

The Times of Our Lives

Let God Arise

We have witnessed the deaths of our parents; we have seen our children grow up, marry, and produce children of their own.  Yet despite this long time and the passing of generations we have never witnessed throughout our lifetime a coronation of a monarch of England and the Commonwealth.  The explanation, of course, is straightforward enough: Queen Elizabeth has been the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch.

When her heir eventually assumes the throne he will be invested via the historical Coronation Ceremony.  British historian, Nick Spencer provides a description of the coronation ceremony which we have never observed nor witnessed in our lifetime.  (The description is of Elizabeth's Coronation Ceremony.  One presumes that the next monarch will be a male--either Prince Charles or Prince William.)

The coronation has its origins in a service first used in 973.  Although modified greatly since then, it retains the same basic structure, being located in a Christian church, presided by a Christian minister and based on the service of the Eucharist. 

According to the most recent precedent . . . the service which, is held in Westminster Abbey, begins with the choir singing an anthem based on Psalm 122.  Once seated, the monarch promises, among other things, to 'maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel' and to uphold the cause of law, justice, and mercy.  She is presented with a copy of the Bible ('the most valuable thing that this world affords) by the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, who says to her, 'Here is Wisdom; this is Royal Law; these are the lively Oracles of God.'