How faith helped the monarchy flex

Understanding how the British monarchy has evolved, means understanding its foundation in faith. Ian Bradley explains.

Ian Bradley

Ian Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the University of St Andrews.

an etching shows William and Mary is a classical scene, priests stand to their right while dogs chew bones at their feet.

A broadsheet illustration celebrates William and Mary, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Lambeth Palace Library.

Christian monarchy has played a central part in the history of the British Isles, promoting the rule of order, justice and mercy in conformity with the values of the kingdom of God and cementing a close alliance between the institutions of crown and church.

Both these aspects are well illustrated in the life and deeds of the first English king to convert to Christianity. Aethelbert, who ruled Kent from 587 to 616, seems to have come to faith through a combination of the influence of his wife, Bertha, the daughter of a Frankish Christian king, and the preaching of St Augustine, who arrived in Thanet in 597, having been sent from Rome by Pope Gregory. According to one account, 10,000 of Aethelbert’s subjects followed him in converting and underwent a mass baptism. Among his first actions as a Christian king were to issue the first set of laws in the English language and to grant land to Augustine on which to build an Abbey, which later became Canterbury Cathedral.

Reign responsibly

Exemplified by such figures as Arthur and Alfred, Christian kingship brought new titles as well as new responsibilities for Britain’s rulers. The first to be appropriated was that of ruling through the grace of God, or Deo Gratia, the idea that is still expressed on every coin of the realm through the abbreviation DG. The late eighth-century Anglo-Saxon king Offa described himself as ‘by the divine controlling grace king of the Mercians’. From the mid-tenth century, several English kings also began styling themselves Christ’s Vicar or deputy. Edgar, Alfred’s great grandson who ruled from 957 to 975, so described himself when founding a new monastery at Winchester in 966. Some years later Ethelred II stated that ‘the king must be regarded not only as the head of the church but also as a vicar of Christ among Christian folk’.

Cult kings

The Middle Ages saw the flowering of the cult of Christian monarchy as both splendid and servant-like, pious and chivalrous, full of knightly virtue, gung-ho triumphalism and miraculous powers, as exemplified in the widespread belief that the king’s touch could cure those suffering from scrofula. While Medieval monarchs cultivated magnificent splendour, they also espoused the theme of the servant-king and acknowledged their utter dependence on God’s grace. Both these elements were reflected in the civic triumphs staged around Epiphany or Advent for the entrance of monarchs into the cities of their realms with the king being portrayed as the type of Christ and the queen as the bearer of heavenly glory. Deliberately modelled on Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, they served as a reminder of the journey to be undertaken by all souls, including royal ones, towards death and the throne of heaven.

Moderate monarchy

The crown played a crucial part in the English Reformation which was initiated by Henry VIII with the help of his loyal lieutenant Thomas Cranmer. Together they created what was effectively a nationalised state church of a moderately Protestant hue with the monarch at its head, bishops and a conservative liturgy in English. Subsequent sovereigns made their influence felt on the emerging Church of England, with Edward VI steering it in a more Protestant direction and playing a key role in the preparation of the first English Prayer Book of 1549, and Elizabeth steadying it to produce the Anglican via media which has remained one of its distinguishing characteristics to this day.

The monarch's headship of the Church of England was a key part of the Reformation settlement. It was established in the 1534 Supremacy Act which declared King Henry VIII 'the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England' with full authority to intervene in its affairs. Elizabeth I modified the monarch’s title from ‘Supreme Head’ to 'Supreme Governor', which it has remained ever since. Alongside it goes the title of ‘Defender of the Faith’, represented on coins as F.D., originally given to Henry VIII by the Pope in 1521 for his defence of the traditional sacraments of the Catholic Church against the novel teaching of Martin Luther. Although revoked after the Reformation, it has continued to be used by and about all monarchs since, although its meaning has never been precisely defined.

Media monarchy

Stuart monarchs tended to push Christian monarchy in a more absolutist direction, being enamoured of the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, although they also did much to forward Christianity in their realms. James VI of Scotland and I of England made a particularly valuable contribution in his patronage of the version of the Bible which still bears his name and is also known as the Authorised Version. He was adamant that it should not be a narrow reflection of a single theological position but rather an irenicon, or instrument of peace, breadth and moderation in the new United Kingdom over which he reigned.

Modified monarchy

The so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688-9, when James II was deposed because of his Catholicism and perceived absolutism and William of Orange invited by Parliament to occupy the vacant throne, effectively signalled the triumph of a covenant theory of monarchy over that of divine right. The constitutional settlement that followed it rested on a concept of limited monarchy and was based on an essentially secular concept of social and civil contract. However, neither the Reformation notion of the godly prince ruling the godly commonwealth nor the close connections between Crown and Church were swept away. Indeed, they were strengthened, with the role of the United Kingdom monarch as protector of Protestantism being expressed in the accession and coronation oaths still taken today.

Modern monarchy

Christian monarchy developed in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain to focus much more on philanthropy, civic duty and spiritual leadership demonstrated through attendance at religious services and public exhortation. The close relationship between the crown and the churches, and especially the Church of England, has remained strong while being extended in recent decades to other faith groups as the monarch has increasingly taken on the role of ‘Defender of Faith’. Television has made the monarch’s Christmas Day broadcast a significant national moment of spiritual reflection.

Review

Ageing

AI - Artificial Intelligence

Culture

Film & TV

5 September 2025

5 min read

Foundation shows you can’t ‘Ctrl+V’ a soul

A sci-fi classic unearths transhumanism’s flaws

Giles Gough

Giles is a writer and creative who hosts the God in Film podcast.

A woman confronts a man whose clone stands behind her.

Apple TV.

One of the reasons that science fiction has had enduring popularity as a genre is its ability to illustrate thought experiments. The way it can attempt to answer questions that can’t even be asked in any other kind of fiction is what gives it power as a form of storytelling. One question that keeps coming up is: what if you could live forever, through technology?

One person to attempt to answer this question is Isaac Asimov, one of the early giants of the sci-fi genre. Born in 1920, Asimov arrived into a world that was rapidly changing, and yet, his imagination was still able to outpace it. Much of what he is known for is his depiction of robots, with ‘Asimov’s laws of robotics’ influencing the depiction of androids in Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, direct adaptations of Asimov’s own work were few and far between. Robin Williams’ Bicentennial Man released in 1999 and Will Smith starred in I, Robot in 2004 were the best of the bunch. That is, until Apple TV began adapting Asimov’s Foundation.

Asimov’s Foundation books were written across the span of fifty years. The premise of the stories is that in a distant future, a galactic empire is beginning to fail and cannot be saved. The mathematician Hari Seldon develops the theory of psychohistory, where he uses statistical laws to predict the future of large populations. In the wake of the empire’s fall, Seldon predicts a dark age lasting 30,000 years before a second empire arises. Seldon devises a plan to reduce this dark age to just one thousand years by preserving a ‘foundation’ of knowledge. The novels describe some of the dramatic events that frustrate, or are a result of Seldon's Plan. One of the features of the story that the Apple TV show of Foundation focuses on is attempted immortality.

Foundation gives us three depictions of ‘immortality’. Firstly, Seldon orchestrates having his conscience eventually uploaded into the Prime Radiant, a super-computer in order to allow him to shepherd his plans beyond the limits of his own human lifespan. Secondly, his protégé, Gaal Dornick is throughout the first season put into a cryo-sleep that lets her move into the future without ageing. Finally, the characters of Dawn, Day and Dusk attempt immortality through cloning. The tyrannical emperor Cleon decided that the only person fit to succeed him was…himself. So, he creates a revolving triumvirate of his own clones: Brother Day, a Cleon in his prime; Brother Dusk, an aging Cleon who serves to advise Day; and Brother Dawn, a young Cleon being trained to succeed Brother Day. This "genetic dynasty" has been ruling with an iron fist for 400 years by the start of the series.

These interpretations of immortality grant each character the ability to shape and curate history in a way that no one human could ever achieve. But as there’s no drama without conflict, Foundation shows us the downsides of this kind of immortality. Firstly, Gaal’s version, being frozen in cryo-sleep for decades might literally extend her life, but from Gaal’s perspective, it is no longer than it would have been otherwise. Whilst she does get to see history play out, she loses connections with people like her family and her lover Raych. She is unable to build the life she would have planned for herself.

No-one mourns your absence because there’s an identical copy of you still walking about.

Seldon’s version of immortality is flirted with by tech bros and transhumanists like Peter Thiel. The idea of a computer that has the processing power to replicate a human brain turns up in numerous stories, but it’s another false immortality. Firstly, the original Hari Seldon still dies, and the ‘digital version’ stored eventually in the Prime Radiant is merely a copy. We might not think much of copy and pasting a document or file on our computer, but it doesn’t quite work the same for human beings. A copy is not the same as the original. You can’t ‘Ctrl+V’ a soul. In addition to this, we find out at one point that due to a mistake, Hari’s digital self has been trapped in darkness, fully conscious but with no rest, no distractions and no way of communicating with the outside world for 148 years. This naturally drags Hari into an interminable madness.

Lastly, the Empire run by the clones, Dawn, Day and Dusk suffer much the same problem as the other two. It’s not a real immortality; as each clone eventually dies. But in many ways, it’s even worse than death. No-one mourns your absence because there’s an identical copy of you still walking about. This is a trope that is troubling, because a protagonist dying and being returned via cloning is often presented as a ‘resurrection’. It has been used as a story arc in the X-men comics and in Peter Capaldi’s era of Doctor Who, with very little outcry from their respective fandoms. Possibly because the thought that the producers have canonically killed the main character and replaced them with an exact copy is simply too uncomfortable to consider. In Foundation itself, the clones are judged by their fidelity to the original (a cold and petty despot) and any deviation is met with a death sentence. Whilst clones may be one way to rule a sci-fi galactic empire, it’s possibly their inability to adapt to changing circumstances that contributes to the fall of civilisation.

The great irony in all of these interpretations is; you are only immortal to those observing you, and an immortality that relies on perspective is not really an immortality at all.

It seems that hard science fiction, and ancient Greek myths can at times, overlap in their focus. Viewed in one light, Asimov’s Foundation series can be seen as one long story of Prometheus, who steals fire from the gods to give it as a gift to mankind, only to be punished by Zeus for his actions. Asimov appears to be telling us that mankind can’t accurately predict the future and you can’t live forever. So despite being a staunch atheist, one of the great minds of science fiction might be suggesting that immortality may belong squarely in the realm of the divine.

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