Beyond Charles: a radical case for the monarchy

In a culture that tends toward populism and moral relativism, what the coronation says is, ironically, radically prophetic, writes Nigel Biggar.

Nigel Biggar

Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House, Oxford.

A uniformed Prince Charles sits on a throne reading a speech, beside a crown resting on a cushion

In May 2022, the then Prince Charles delivers a speech in the House of Lords.

Judging by a recent YouGov poll, the monarchy currently remains popular among the British, with 58 per cent supporting its continuation and only 26 per cent preferring an elected head of state. But support drops dramatically with age: 38 per cent of those aged 18-24 would like to abolish the monarchy, while only 32 per cent want to keep it.

If the monarchy is to survive beyond the reign of King Charles III, therefore, a strong case in its favour needs to be articulated. It needs to be justified in terms of political well-being. Can this be done? I believe so. Monarchy as we now have it—with its executive powers entirely transferred to elected members of parliament (except in case of constitutional crisis)—makes important contributions to political health. For sure, most of these are symbolic; but symbols can represent important truths and serve important functions.

First, by embodying a reassuring continuity and stability, monarchy enables society to cope with change. Thus, far from fostering conservatism during her seventy-year reign, the late Queen Elizabeth actually presided over huge cultural, social, and political change.

Thanks to their monarchy, the British are spared the predicament of those Americans who loathed the politics of Donald Trump, while having to respect him as the symbolic representation of their nation.

Second, the distinction between the monarchical head of state and the prime ministerial head of government makes it easier to tell criticism of government policy from a lack of patriotic loyalty—easier than in an American presidential system, where the symbolic head of the nation and the head of government are one and the same. Thanks to their monarchy, the British are spared the predicament of those Americans who loathed the politics of Donald Trump, while having to respect him as the symbolic representation of their nation.

Next, it’s good to have a head of state who, being unelected, can transcend party-politics and use her patronage to support civil society, thus reminding us (and politicians) that there is far more to public life than elections, parliamentary debates, and legislation.

But there is yet a further benefit, which is more principled, more Christian, and more fundamentally important than any of the others. A good political constitution certainly needs a part where rulers are made sensitive and accountable to those they rule—that is, an elected legislature that can hold government to account and stop it in its tracks. A good constitution needs a democratic element. After all, according to a biblical and Christian view, rulers exist to serve the ruled: kings are expected to be shepherds of their people.

Nevertheless, a Christian view is not naïve about the people. It does not suppose that the popular will, as expressed in majority vote, is always right and just. After all, it was the people (the laos as in ‘laity’) who bayed for Jesus’ blood in the Gospels, and it was the people (the demos as in ‘democracy’) which, according to the Acts of the Apostles, responded to the Christian persecutor, Herod, by lauding him as a god (Acts 12.21). If kings can be sinners, then so can the people. Hitler, remember, was elected by due democratic process.

What this means is that a healthy political constitution should be more than simply democratic. In addition to an elected House of Commons, it needs other parts too, to balance it. It needs to be mixed. For example, it needs a House of Lords composed of a wide range of experts and leaders of civil society (including the Church of England). That is, it needs an aristocracy of wisdom, not of land, which can only be secured by appointment, not popular election.

The heir to the throne gets on his knees to receive the crown—the symbol of his authority—not from below but from above, not from the fickle people but from the constant God.

And it also needs a monarch, who symbolises the accountability of the whole nation, rulers and ruled, kings and people, to the given principles of justice. At base these principles are not human inventions. They are not the passing creatures of popular whim or majority vote. They are given in and with the created nature of things. And this is exactly what the coronation ritual says, when the heir to the throne gets on his knees to receive the crown—the symbol of his authority—not from below but from above, not from the fickle people but from the constant God.

Contrary to what now passes for democratic common sense, the moral legitimacy of government does not lie in popular consent. It cannot, since the will of the people can be corrupt. Rather, moral legitimacy lies in the conformity of law and policy to the given principles of justice and prudence—to which the people might or might not adhere. Popular consent is vital, if law and government policy is to have any effective social authority, but it does not establish its moral legitimacy. This is a very important and fundamental political truth, which is rarely spoken nowadays, but which the coronation ritual speaks. And in a culture that tends toward populism and moral relativism, what the coronation says is, ironically, radically prophetic.

In sum, then, I do think that there are good reasons—some of them directly Christian—to support the kind of monarchy we now have. However, on the question of how much public money should be used to support it, or how many members of the royal family should be supported, I am agnostic. And I don’t suppose that a monarchical republic is the only decent kind of republic. Nonetheless, I do think that monarchy can confer some important and distinctive political benefits; and if we are to continue to enjoy them—if Prince George is to find a throne awaiting him—then we had better bring to mind what they are.

Column

Ageing

Character

Comment

Politics

3 July 2024

5 min read

What the Joe Biden story tells us about growing older

Rather than mimicking the young, the elderly witness to a life well lived.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

Joe Biden holds a fist to his chest as he stands and speaks.

Biden at the CNN presidential debate.

President Biden has had a few bad days at the office recently. Time and again, he seems to freeze in public, stumbles over his words, as his voice falters and his sentences tail off. At his first public debate with Donald Trump, he looked just like a man in his eighties, struggling to remember facts, his mind not as alert as it once was. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what many people in their eighties are. And Trump is no spring chicken either. Questions around age dominate the American Presidential election like never before. This is a story of not of two elderly gents in a bar arguing over their fading memories of the past, but between candidates wanting to be the most powerful man, in charge of the most forbidding military and economic powers on the planet.

Old age creeps up on us slowly. To tell when it starts is hard to say. Yet we all know how it ends. Old age is a kind of preparation for death, a slowing down of faculties, a loss of control, a gradual diminishing of powers, preparing us for a new kind of life beyond this one. As a result, in our achievement-oriented age that doesn't believe in a life beyond death, we are tempted to ignore the elderly, shutting them away in residential homes, out of sight and out of mind.

Yet they were valued for what they were – signs of where we are all heading, their stories as object lessons for the young in how to live well (or badly).

Old age, however, is not a slide into passivity. Even as powers diminish, elderly people still have significant agency – keeping the mind active through reading, walking to the shop to buy bread, keeping in touch with relatives, even getting out of a chair as the end draws near can take as much resolve and determination as the more complex tasks of our youth, and are every bit as heroic and human as the more impressive achievements of our sprightlier years.

Former cultures respected the elderly for the experience gained, as members of the community to be looked up to, respected and valued. Teenagers were not considered as the moral arbiters of the future but as immature human beings who still have a lot to learn. The old were given pride of place as those who had gained the wisdom of years. Not that that wisdom was always apparent - the elderly can become cantankerous, repetitive and self-focused as powers diminish. Yet they were valued for what they were – signs of where we are all heading, their stories as object lessons for the young in how to live well (or badly).

The one time when we do place elderly people front and centre, is when they are able to do the things that young people can. Adverts regularly depict old people jumping out of planes, playing rugby, strumming electric guitars - doing the things that young people typically do. Old people who can pretend that they are young are praised to the hilt. Elderly people who lose their memory, their train of thought, stumble and repeat themselves are looked on with pity, not respect. When they do both it confuses us – which is why everyone is worried about Joe.

Part of the wisdom of old age is to recognise when it has come upon us, and what its distinct calling is. In a strange echo of our culture's attitude to the elderly, Joe Biden seems desperate to tell himself and others that he's perfectly capable of doing the job of President, a job that would come much more naturally to someone 20 years younger than him. Surely the wiser and more sensible course would have been to recognise the signs of time, and halfway through his presidency, to have announced that he was not standing again, triggering a leadership race among the Democratic Party so that a new candidate could be ready for the Presidential election without all the doubts about age and capacity in mind.

So, caught between ignoring old age and yearning for lost youth, how then, are we to value the ageing process? After all, one day, it will come on all of us who manage to avoid a premature death.

The main task as the years pass and the shadows lengthen, is to be there for the young,

If we remain active throughout our lives, that activity changes over time. As someone well into my sixties, approaching old age (or perhaps already in it – it is hard to tell?) I recognise my body creaks and does not adapt as it once did. I can't do all that I could in my 30s or 40s. Over time, callings change, and recognising that is part of the wisdom of life. The Christian ethicist Oliver O'Donovan suggests that the calling of old age is to "stand by the side of youth." Elderly people have the task "to show to the young how their generation, the only earlier generation to which the young have direct access, has conceived its tasks and tackled them. If the young are to form their world effectively, they will need models to inherit and to build on."

The prime task of old age is not to withdraw into some retirement village, playing golf every day, going on endless holidays, living the life we wanted to live in our 40s but couldn't because we had to work. It is not to enjoy retirement as a kind of secular heaven, a reward for a lifetime of hard work, with pleasures abounding. There may be time for some of that, but the main task as the years pass and the shadows lengthen, is to be there for the young, not to tell them what to do but to be a witness of a life well lived - or sometimes an object lesson of a life lived badly – often both at the same time. It is to be a sign of how another generation managed to navigate the complications and complexities of life and how for those who have a faith, as a witness to how God has proved faithful over time, space and the shifting sands of culture. And that involves focus from both sides. The younger need to value, respect and prize the elderly for what they offer as a model of life lived and complexity negotiated, and the old need to recognise their changing role as it creeps upon them with the passing of years.

The calling of the elderly is just as important as that of the young or even the middle-aged. Yet it is different. We need to value our older people, not because they can do the things younger people can, but because they are object lessons in how to navigate life, and how to prepare for the next one.

Getting it muddled up helps no one.