A Suitable Case for Lionisation
This essay was originally published on 16 October 2022 for subscribers to our newsletter.
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I have been a republican since my early teens, and this conviction is by now so deeply imbued within my bone marrow that the recent demise of a British monarch at a mere four years short of a century has evoked no emotion other than the desire to avoid the mass media completely. I have no animus against her, nor do I celebrate her passing because every ending of a life should inspire a degree of pity mitigated by the realisation that we must all eventually make room for those who are younger than ourselves.
And yet I will avoid those platitudinous outpourings of some republicans who avow their dislike of the institution but admire the skilful diplomacy and impartiality of Queen Elizabeth the First of Scotland – to name the least familiar of her many titles. Her reign was not an unalloyed success story for the country and perhaps not even in terms of the best interests of the British Monarchy. Her family scoffed at the other European kings and queens with their bicycling habits which appear to have declined during the last four decades of neoliberalism, precisely the period in which the middle-classes have taken to their saddles – and I’m not referring to the equine ones.
For me – and I admit that I haven’t dwelled too deeply on this matter – the most striking aspect of her reign is the dismal stasis that conceals it in a fog of dullness. We must remember that her lengthy occupancy of the throne coincided with a hectic period of economic and social change. The first part led towards a greater degree of equality which then u-turned in the eighties, although in some areas of social behaviour, change continued in the same direction. The monarchy at the start of her son’s reign is like something we might have picked up at Iceland: it’s as hard as stone and we won’t know what it’s like until it has defrosted, which contrasts with the monarchy as she inherited it. When she came to the throne, factory workers and miners sat in the parliament she could theoretically have dismissed, and when she died that same parliament had returned to being the domain of privilege and public schools.
A wiser monarch than Elizabeth would have abdicated at least twenty years ago and allowed Charles to introduce a few badly needed reforms. I shouldn’t criticise her too much on this point because she has weakened the monarchy and I welcome that. As it is, an old and inevitably tired replacement is now at the helm of an institution which is about to enter an extremely difficult period. The remaining independent states and territories that share the British monarchy are probably going to follow Bermuda down the republican road. The union of four nations has generated centrifugal forces which undermine the pomp and circumstance of a very expensive head of state. And then, most important of all, there is the possible end of Western hegemony which is also known more precisely as neocolonialism. We shouldn’t fear this development because not only has natural justice long demanded it, but also we need to bring the world together in the struggle to reverse the current destruction of the only planet we will ever have.
For the British monarchy this means either the end of the so-called Commonwealth or a complete overhaul of its structure. Its centre will have to be elsewhere: for why would a society of victims (not a bad idea in itself) want to be represented by the perpetrator of their suffering? It is never wise to prophesise but it is also unwise never to speculate on where the future may take us. So given the relative unimportance of this topic, I will be so bold as to predict a short and troubled reign for Charles III. That is almost a given, but I go on to predict that he will be unjustly blamed and perhaps even vilified for a crises-ridden rule, while monarchists and semi-republicans look back nostalgically to the wondrous reign of Good Queen Lizzie – to rival Bess. This will be very unfair, though not as unfair as the famines and wars usually triggered by NATO which have characterised the last thirty years.
He may have expounded a muddled world-view that combined the past and an imagined future, nostalgia and concern for the planet, but at least Charles believed in something beyond himself, which cannot be said of his mother and will not be said of the next Prince of Wales – that terrible misnomer and offensive title that reduces a nation to a royal antechamber.
History speeded up in the twentieth century and looks as though it will accelerate further in the twenty-first. Towards a better world or a broken one? Now that is a prediction I would be wise to avoid but of one thing we can be sure: building a better world will take all our intelligence, all our tolerance, all our knowledge and, dare I say it, all our love and understanding. Amongst all this there is little room for distractions – particularly right-royal ones.
Allan Cameron, Glasgow, September 2022