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.

Article

Comment

Mental Health

Poetry

15 October 2024

4 min read

Auden and our anxious age

While the tropes of trauma are still with us, how to not die in our dread?

Jack Nicholson

Jack is a graduate of Peterhouse, University of Cambridge and Blackfriars, University of Oxford. He works in local government.

An outdoor vigil is lit by people holding up mobile phone lights.

Oxford's peace vigil.

BBC News.

Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day:

The lights must never go out,

The music must always play . . .

Lest we should see where we are,

Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good.

This week, we mark the 85th birthday of W. H. Auden’s poem ‘September 1st, 1939’. He describes four solitary drinkers in New York on the cusp of the Second World War. September 1st, 1939: Hitler invades Poland. Those four faces struggle to find meaning in their lives.

In a later, much longer poem of 1947 (first UK edition, 1948) Auden built on this theme, having lived through the War, to identify an ‘Age of Anxiety’. He wrote, ‘We would rather be ruined than changed / We would rather die in our dread / Than climb the cross of the moment / And let our illusions die.’

I have been reflecting on this of late, especially in light of a recent night vigil for peace, remembrance, and unity at Bonn Square, Oxford, where I live. This took place on 7 October, the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023: the darkest day in Jewish history since the time that Auden wrote his poems.

In an Age of Anxiety, Auden wrote, ‘the world needs a wash, and a week off’. The gathering in Oxford was especially poignant because some 250 people chose to go out in the rain, on their Sunday-evening time off, and in the darkness, to hear prayers and readings from different communities. It was as if the world was awash with people coming together.

The Bishop of Oxford the Rt Rev’d Dr Steven Croft said, ‘Our purpose is simply to be together.’ People simply had to do ‘something in the face of the helplessness that we all feel, in the face of these terrible events’. Louise Gordon, co vice president of the Oxford Jewish Congregation, described people ‘clinging to hope’. Imam Monawar Husain stressed that togetherness as such is a ‘symbol’, a symbol of hope.

Symbols abounded. Candles were lit. In ‘September 1st, 1939’, Auden described ‘Ironic points of light’ which

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.

The crowd spontaneously joined in with the protest song ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’, which was first sung in 1955.

It is striking that so many of the tropes and themes concerning what has gone wrong with the world, from our perspective, were already apparent and received clear expression from 1939 through to the mid- to late-1950s, in terrible events, then in thought, poetry, and protest song, in an age of anxiety.

If there are similarities between Auden’s age and our own, then we should be encouraged by that.

Sociologists described the ‘lonely crowd’ in 1950. This suggests that people seek more approval and acceptance from others as the physical distance between them diminishes and society becomes increasingly geared toward consumption. The capacity to come together for peace, remembrance, and unity becomes far less likely.

Philosopher Max Picard lamented the loss of the ’World of Silence’ in 1952: the capacity to be still. And later, in 1958, the word ‘meritocracy’ was first used to describe a dystopian world in which merit (IQ + effort) reigns, replacing previous relational bonds, a sense of togetherness, exemplified in the gathering in Oxford in 2024.

C. S. Lewis, in Oxford in the late 1950s, identified friendship as a kind of love which is regarded 'in the modern world' as 'quite marginal; not a main course in life's banquet', which is especially true if we bypass the banquet and spend our time at the bar (or, worse, online, at home). Louise Gordon, at the vigil, also spoke of the way in which people were counterculturally 'clasping hands in friendship'.

When sociologists today describe the ‘lonely century’ (Noreena Hertz) or when so many sigh over our inability to sit, or stand, in silence, in some sense at least they have not identified anything new. War crimes are, sadly, all too familiar to us. And recently, the lawyer Stephen Toope identified an ‘age of anxiety’ today.

It is not as simple, however, as saying that we have been anxious for the last seventy years. Auden’s age was also one of creativity of which the Anglosphere has been proud, for instance, around the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948. His generation stared into the abyss. They did not die in their dread.

If there are similarities between Auden’s age and our own, then we should be encouraged by that. Lamentation is as old as love, and the choice is as stark as he put it in his poem 85 years ago: ‘love one another or die’.

The notion of vigil is equally old. Today, vigils are held for peace, remembrance, and unity. In Christian liturgy, however, a vigil is specifically a watch during the night, looking forward to the dawn of a new day. ‘As the night watch looks for the morning’, likewise the people wait for Christ, their saviour.

That silent watch is far removed from the solitary ‘faces along the bar’ who ‘cling to their average day’. Horrible events such as those which took place on September 1st, 1939 or October 7th, 2023 bring people together in common purpose, simply to be together and to cling instead to hope for a better tomorrow.

Anxiety is replaced by hope.

Candles are lit. It may well rain. But song will be sung. And people of good-will, having climbed ‘the cross of the moment’, will show what Auden described: that great ‘affirming flame’.