In the name of the King? A friendly disagreement
For the past few months, my friend Jamie Weir and I have been intermittently exchanging digital letters about the monarchy. It began when Jamie disagreed with me about the heavy-handed response to protestors at the coronation of King Charles III in May of this year and ended with us clarifying more foundational issues in our different outlooks. I think that it has been a quite useful and enlightening exchange.
We intended to publish the exchange from the start, and here it is. The letters appear, for better or worse, more or less as they were written. Only serious errors have been corrected and some small emendations for clarity made. If these letters still contain any infelicities of language or structure, then please forgive us. Meanwhile, do follow Jamie on Substack and Twitter.
4 June 2023
Daniel,
In a recent Substack piece (‘Tyranny in London’, 6 May 231), you drew attention to, and condemned, the arrest of republican protestors at the coronation of the King last month. Although I think you are quite correct in perceiving this as the symptom of a deep problem, you have, I believe, misdiagnosed the cause.
Firstly, you rush into robust, unequivocal defence of the protestors. Naturally, in a free society, the suppression of peaceful protest must be disapproved of. But what precisely is peaceful protest? And where do the limits of that acceptability lie? Doubtless we would both agree that a suffragette-style bombing campaign against the coronation would have been quite unacceptable.
The use of state force against protestors has not been limited to the coronation—these events fit into a wider constellation of similar police action since the death and funeral of Her Late Majesty The Queen. We have seen protestors arrested for heckling, for holding rude placards, and for possessing cable ties which the police decided was jolly suspicious. In most of these incidents, charges have never been pressed, and individuals have been “de-arrested”—an ugly term for an ugly act.
While I agree with you that the extremity of the police action is entirely unacceptable, I do think that a more limited response would, perhaps, have been appropriate. We must consider the context. Take the case of heckling, for example, during the Accession Proclamation (this occurred, for example, in Oxford). It seems likely to me that people attending this event wanted to hear what was happening. It was an obscure ceremony by white-haired men in tricorn hats, in a corner of an ancient city—not a forced broadcast into every home. Protestors could have quite justifiably held up placards, handed out leaflets, chatted to people individually—all of these I would defend. Instead, they make themselves the loud eater in the cinema, the commuter having a conversation through speaker phone—in other words, a nuisance to other people.
The same is true of disruption during broadcasts of the coronation ceremony in public places. These broadcasts were laid on in anticipation of people being interested; no one was forced to go. I suggest, therefore, that in this context, loud, disruptive protests are simply rude. I do not think it unreasonable for this sort of behaviour to be discouraged. That said, I would stop a long way short of arrest. Rather, I think what would have been appropriate is, after a heckle or two, a kindly policeman perhaps quietly suggested to the protester in question that he should be considerate of the people around him. Then, if it continued, ask him to leave. Then gently guide him out.
At the heart of this, then, is not the creeping “cult of the Windsors”, but the disproportionate and arbitrary nature of the police response. The police have vanished from our streets, presumably engaged in lengthy discussions about which laws they are going to enforce this week. For some reason known only to themselves, they have decided to take a zero-tolerance approach to protests of the new King—hammering down on it like swaggering Continental gendarmes—while being above the investigation of trivial and unglamorous crimes such as burglary or assault. Republicans are arrested for possession of cable ties while gangs of thuggish youths armed with knives and reeking of illegal drugs roam the land unaccosted. Amid drunken disorder, stabbings, the elderly afraid to leave their homes—the police prefer muttering code names into their walkie-talkies. To quote Theodore Dalrymple, they look “increasingly […] less like citizens in uniform [than] a fascist paramilitary militia, with all the paraphernalia of repression dangling about them”. The King is not to blame, nor the monarchy, but a police force losing touch with its unique foundations in service and liberty, seduced by gadgets and gritty crime thrillers.
Yours &c.,
Jamie
7 June 2023
Dear Jamie,
Thank you for your thoughtful response to my piece on the coronation. I always enjoy litigating our disagreement about the monarchy. As a brief aside: I wonder if our roles will be reversed one day. Should a British Republic be declared in our lifetimes, I will be the one defending the status quo while you agitate for the restoration of the Windsors! That will be fun. (I think you will have the harder task, though, for who, given the choice, would want to see any of that weird lot re-enthroned?)
Anyway, our topic here is not the institution of monarchy as such so I shall confine myself to the question of the police response to republican protestors at His Maj’s coronation and elsewhere.
According to the article you linked to above, two of the three protesters did nothing “disruptive” in any serious sense of that word: one was arrested for shouting “Who elected him?” at the Accession Proclamation (and he had remained silent while the attention was on the Queen’s death, not wishing to impose on anyone’s grief) while the other was threatened for holding up a blank piece of paper in Parliament Square. You have a case with the egg thrower.
(By the way, the response of the crowd to the protesters—“Kill him, kick him to death” and all that—is a nice modern example of that venerable British tradition, the alliance of the snobs with the mob. The elites have their uses for the plebs, as Joseph Priestley well knew.)
As for the coronation protesters, my focus was specifically on the activists from Republic who were arrested despite meeting none of the criteria you set out above: they did not disrupt broadcasts, they did not have cable ties, and their placards were not rude (unless any dissent whatever against our political system is rude). They abided by the absurd and draconian anti-protest laws imposed by Parliament not long before the coronation. They liaised with the Metropolitan Police for months beforehand. In short, they did everything right—and still they were arrested.
I fear that your royalist sympathies lead you to misunderstand the nature of the events in question. The Accession Proclamation and the coronation were constitutional and political events in that they marked the hereditary passage of power from one head of state to another. It simply doesn’t matter that people were not forced to watch or that some people were interested in attending these events. The same could be said of any inauguration of a head of state anywhere in the world. Protest at such times is perfectly legitimate, yet you want to make an exception here. These were not people rudely talking through a film. They were inhabitants of a supposedly free country peacefully, legitimately, and legally exercising their right to freedom of speech during political events—whether one finds them rude or not is irrelevant.
I agree that there are deeper problems with policing in this country, but where was the defender of our liberties when tyrannical acts were being carried out explicitly in his name?
You rightly point out that there is a pattern of such acts happening at royal events of late. So why not blame the monarchy, given the silence of the monarch when these things happen?
Recall also that the Met had arrogantly announced days before the coronation that there would be an “extremely low threshold” for protesters, who ought to expect “swift action.” In other words, the coronation arrests were premeditated and happened specifically because it was the coronation. And remember that this country also has a long and ignoble tradition of using state power to crush dissent, including anti-royal dissent. We can’t blame the Continentals for everything!
What if this happened in another democratic nation? Would you be as willing to indulge, even make excuses for, their head of state and their political system as you seem to be ours?
In anticipation of your reply, sincerely,
Daniel
19 June 2023
Dear Daniel,
Thank you for your considered response. I rather appreciate the scenario you outline at the start of your last letter—forlornly opining for the restoration of a lost crown somewhat appeals to me! But I have no special attachment to the House of Windsor, other than that it commands some intrinsic deference rooted in its long establishment and so is, I think, more effective. Since you make this point, I will say I would not be averse to a House of Sharp established in its stead, as we once very nearly had a House of Cromwell. The fundamental advantages of monarchy remain, but without the added stability of ancient tradition.
On the substance of most of your points in regard to the protests, including the official coronation protests by Republic, I agree with you. The case I was attempting to make in my first piece was to present a scenario in which the actions taken by such protestors might reasonably be viewed as unacceptable—and ways they could justifiably have been dealt with if we were willing to grant that they were unacceptable. The gist of all this being that even if we are willing to grant that these protests were disruptive or inconsiderate or rude, the response was still absurdly disproportionate. That, I think, is the crucial point which identifies the real problem as the zealousness of the police and not that they responded at all.
I think I would maintain the same attitude towards any similar event abroad—even the inauguration of a controversial American president, a vastly more politically significant event than the King’s accession and coronation. I think it is important that there is some deference for the office and/or what it represents, even in spite of individuals who might sully it, and so I would encourage—even if not enforce by law—respectable conduct at such times.
I believe you make my point for me when you cite the Metropolitan Police’s utterances, ahead of the coronation, about low tolerance for protests—a similar attitude to knife crime and drug use would be most welcome. But it’s much easier for them to flex their new medieval powers and drag off middle-class republicans than tangle with armed villains. The police are actively choosing to exercise their new powers, eagerly policing certain events, while plenty of long-standing duties lie neglected.
The final point I would like to address here is your criticism of the King himself for not intervening. I cannot disagree—I would happily hear from His Majesty on a range of issues, even where his view departs rather dramatically from my own. The rest of his subjects may not be so open. Indeed, it is not difficult to find alleged ‘conservatives’ newly turned sceptics of the monarchy because of the present King’s environmental views. Such people are not grown up enough for constitutional monarchy.
Suppose the King summoned the Home Secretary or Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to the Palace, and told them in no uncertain terms that he was quite fed up with these heavy-handed reactions to protestors (likely his view), and that he would much rather they got on with the job of investigating burglaries and other such ‘petty’ crime. What would be the response? Leaks to The Guardian about a meddling, political king—Charles back at it, interfering again. Keep such behaviour up and he could well find his crown slipping, perhaps even pushed by Tory hands. Maybe this price would be worth paying, but I have some sympathy for the King—he walks a narrow path and with one wrong move he might destroy an institution ten centuries old.
I look forward to being told I am quite wrong!
Yours etc.,
Jamie
PS. I rather like the expression “the snob and the mob”, and will certainly reuse it.
24 June 2023
Dear Jamie,
I should start off by saying that the phrase “the snobs and the mob” is not original to me—I’m sure I picked it, or something very like it, up somewhere. When the House of Sharp is established, though, I shall certainly claim credit for achievements and virtues not my own.
I confess that I’m not sure what to write in response. I think we largely agree on the matter of the protestors and the arrogant uselessness of the police, even if we differ on certain emphases. I still find your call for respect at important political moments slightly suspect, though I am glad you would consistently uphold that attitude regardless of whether the head of state is a king or a president. But putting aside heads of state, what about heads of government? Are they political enough, in your eyes, to be disrespected?
(Incidentally, I think this clarifies an important point, perhaps one representing the foundation stone upon which many of our differences rest: you don’t see the Accession or the Coronation as political events in quite the same way that I do.)
Of course, I take issue with the merits of (supposedly) “ancient tradition” and “deference” and all of that. And I’ll comment on your arguments regarding kingly interference shortly. But, as I implied above, I’m not sure if there is much more to say, given that we more or less agree on the issue of the protestors! Unless we want to expand our remit to discuss monarchy more generally, that is. I’m not averse to that, but it’s a significant departure that could have us droning on forever into the ether (not to mention that we have already done so at length). Let me know your thoughts, anyway. For now, I might as well return to the problem of King Charles III.
When I wrote that Charles has been silent about the police’s draconian use of power in his name, I didn’t mean to say that he should interfere directly. I just meant to point out the irony that we have a defender of our constitution who is unable and/or unwilling to do his job. Herein lies the problem: if he got involved, he would likely destroy the monarchy, as you note. So our liberties are guarded by…what, exactly? All we have is an impotent monarch beholden to the government of the day, a government whose vast monarchical powers derive from and are justified by—well, the monarchy, of course!
The expansion of police powers by the government was possible precisely because of the monarchical roots of our political system, wherein near-absolute power was transferred from the monarch to Parliament and, eventually, centralised in the office of the Prime Minister. The much-vaunted supremacy of Parliament is, in practice, the supremacy of Rishi Sunak (or whoever) for as long as he has an unassailable parliamentary majority.
Much better, I think, to have a written constitution and an elected president who could, without risk to his or her position, oppose unconstitutional abuses of power like those coronation arrests. A president in a democratic parliamentary republic could actually do the job of head of state. And we could have a political system that is much more democratic throughout, one where our liberties are not dependent on the whims of whoever happens to be in charge of the government at any given moment.
Such an outcome is the natural evolution of the democratic progress Britain has made over the centuries, and one much more befitting of its noblest traditions. Britain’s democratic, parliamentary system is hobbled by constitutional monarchy. Our incomplete transition to parliamentary democracy ought to be a source of shame, not pride, for any true patriot.
Phew! I did rather dilate on the subject there, didn’t I? As I said, we’ve gone beyond our original remit now, so before we go any further let me know your thoughts on how we should proceed. Here’s a thought: let’s keep going for another four letters starting from your next one. If we reach that limit and decide to keep going—all well and good. But we may have talked ourselves out by then.
All best,
Daniel
P.S. Many of the above arguments are expanded upon in my review of the new book Abolish the Monarchy by Graham Smith (one of the Republic arrestees). My review is here if you wish to read it. I also highly recommend the book.
P.P.S. I have gone somewhat beyond our futilely imposed word limit. In my defence, I had to address exactly where this exchange is going. Still, feel free to repay me in kind!
Note: per my letter above, we agreed here to go for another four letters and wrap up unless we felt a desperate need to continue.
7 July 2023
Dear Daniel,
In the latter half of your letter you make many good points regarding the ineffectiveness of the modern monarchy as a buttress to liberty; the absolute power it confers on the government of the day; and, as you hint at tangentially, the potentially sinister nature and appeal of power exercised “in the name of the King”. I also take issue with your idea that a healthy democracy needs both a culture of democracy and a written constitution to support it. However, at the risk of appearing evasive, let me side-step those concerns for a moment—although I could offer counter-points if you wish to return to them—and first try to recapitulate the main ground we have covered so far.
We both agree that the police response to republican protestors at events such as the Coronation and Accession was quite wrong. I believe this is evidence of an increasingly authoritarian and illiberal culture of policing more generally, rather than an oppressive propping up of the monarchy specifically. I would argue that if you can conceive of police intervention in these protests that you would dislike, but not be outraged by—such as a quiet word after some heckling, a gentle escort out of the event, etc.—then you are in essence agreeing with me.
You might (and I think likely would) maintain that any level of interference with protestors is unacceptable, and generally I would agree with you. But, as you perceptively identify, we seem to view these particular events and ceremonies through quite different lenses and so here I will turn to the thorny issue of respect.
I can quite see that your suspicion of that word is well-grounded—it conjures up “respect the Koran”, “respect the Prophet”. But the Accession and Coronation are to my mind constitutional events more than they are political, because of their historical deep-rootedness and the practical powerlessness of the monarch. For me, the very antiquity of the monarchy as an institution ought to earn it some instinctive deference. It is a living, breathing embodiment and enactment of the nation’s heritage—it is the past come to life. Watching the Coronation on television earlier last month was, Tom Holland suggested, like visiting a zoo and seeing a dinosaur. True there is invented tradition here and there, re-fashioned regalia and new oaths, but that does not diminish it—those reinventions are illustrations of a nation reflecting on itself.
In the same way, I would be upset to see an American presidential inauguration disrupted—that event, with its pledges, props, and symbolism, is so fundamental to the character of that nation and its people that to sully it is to somehow offend that heritage. Like a teenager re-decorating a still-living grandparent’s home in a manner to better suit their own tastes. These things do not belong to us, they are not ours to trash and mock at will. If they are to be changed, and got rid of, it cannot be done flippantly. It must be done with the greatest of respect for the generations before us, who gave us all the good we have, and who also passed this thing along to us. This is why the events at the American Capitol on the 6th of January are so offensive—a deep religious or spiritual instinct reacts against it as a desecration. It is republican lèse-majesté. The events would undoubtedly have had less emotional impact had they taken place in the capital of some newly-minted South American or African republic, because there is not the same historical weight behind the symbolism. Disruptively protesting a British Coronation is less like publishing a cartoon of Mohammed and more akin to spray painting it on the Kaaba.
With that said, I of course accept that the republican protests we have been discussing were very mild. Nonetheless, I think this is why I can conceive of some police action, even if simply a quiet word, as being at least theoretically appropriate at royal protests, and you cannot. We have bumped up against a fundamentally temperamental division between radical and conservative—zeal to improve and eager anticipation of opportunity set up against fear of loss and suspicion of change.
The monarchy, for good or ill, is woven into the fabric of this country, its deep history, and the soul of its people. That is not to say it can never be protested under any circumstances, nor that it can never be gotten rid of, or reformed. But surely you accept that there are always sacred things that underlie a people’s sense of themselves, and that are therefore deserving of some inherent respect and deference? Not quite rex non potest peccare, but perhaps “the Crown ought to have quite a lot of leeway”. To return to the beginning of our dialogue, I think this is why we both witnessed the same events at the Coronation, etc., and diagnosed quite different causes.
Yours etc.,
Jamie
July 19 2023
Dear Jamie,
First, let me get this off my chest. When you cited Tom Holland’s dinosaur in the zoo, I immediately thought – have you never seen Jurassic Park?! Such things might look harmless enough, but just ask Donald Gennaro! So it is with our powerless monarchy. Nice to look at, if you’re into that sort of thing, but much more malignant, if not malevolent, when you look a little more closely.
I’m happy to come back to the points you mention in your first paragraph. On your thought experiment, I shall just say that I would be outraged by police intervention, however mild, against any legitimate democratic protest. As I have said before, when it comes to any conflict between democratic freedom and state authority, I will always be on the side of the former unless the latter has very (and I mean very) good reason to assert precedence. Yes, the Accession and the Coronation were constitutional events, but all constitutions are politically determined. You cannot have it both ways: either the monarch is the head of state and the fount of all political power and thus fair game for protest or he is not.
I think this is also where your January 6 comparison falters. On that day, a mob of lunatics and outright fascists attempted, with the tacit endorsement of the President of the United States, to violently overturn the results of a free and fair election. The firm hand of state authority was perfectly justified in intervening there, while the people involved in the attack deserved everything that came to them (and then some).
It is not because the Capitol is sacred to the American people that they and we reacted with such horror, but because of what the Capitol on that particular day represented – the attempt to ensure that a democratic election was respected. Yes, tradition and history and identity and even sacredness are involved here, but not, I think, in the way that you conceive of them.
Yes, we all have our own ideas of sacredness, but such feelings only go so far. When it comes to political/constitutional systems, such ideas must be rooted in sound political values. Sacredness is too often an excuse for accepting injustice or demanding unearned deference.
The age of an institution is no argument for respecting, let alone retaining, it. (Though I think the monarchy is more senile than ancient.) But, as you say, this now becomes a question of temperament. All I can say here is that whatever your temperament, you will have to justify the monarchy on grounds other than subjective feeling. I simply do not think the Crown, or any political institution anywhere of whatever stripe, ought to have even the slightest leeway. I can think of many ancient and abominable traditions that we are well rid of, so age alone is not a good enough defence of an institution (or a reason to respect it).
You can make a good argument that the monarchy represents something ineffable about the British, but, as I suggested in my previous, I could and would also make a patriotic and emotional case for republicanism as the end point of the long and noble British struggle for democracy. You say that the monarchy is the past come to life, but it’s also the present come to life – the monarchy’s continued existence represents the endurance of a fetid system, and (worse) our willingness to endure it.
To flip your analogy of the grandparents’ house, the British are not so much teenagers who would recklessly redecorate the house as adults forced to live among piles of hoarded objects, some treasure, some trash. We should respect our grandparents – but not blindly. We cannot be ruled by them sub specie aeternitatis.
Must we be suffocated under the accumulated hoardings of past generations? Or are we historical actors, too? Can we not examine which traditions best represent and serve us and discard those that do not? We are the inheritors of all that has come before, indeed—and inheritors own that which they inherit. I want to emphasise that I am not advocating a Year Zero approach. I only mean to say that we can make our own choices and if some traditions do not serve us well (as I submit is the case with the monarchy), then we ought to rid ourselves of them.
To return to the grandparents’ house analogy, what is wrong with keeping valuable or sentimental things while throwing out the rubbish? We can honour the past without being ruled by it. Things are not frozen forever. Teenagers should not bulldoze their grandparents’ houses, but nor should adults (or teenagers, for that matter) be slaves to their grandparents’ wills. One of the most contemptible sights I can think of is the image of grown men and women living under the tyranny of a shrunken and senile old patriarch for no reason apart from his seniority.
In fact, jumbled in among all the treasure and junk of the years, there are alternative, but no less legitimate or patriotic, ideals. Republicanism is a great British tradition, and I think redecorating the house in republican colours would not be to deny our past but to finally embrace one of its nobler strands. And we would probably still have photos of the Queen hanging somewhere in the house, just as the palaces and paintings of our history would endure in a republic.
You are quite right that one should not flippantly cast off such a longstanding institution, and I (and most republicans I am aware of) advocate no such thing. The process of abolishing the monarchy and establishing a British Republic ought to be a careful one. As a nation, we will have to spend a good while working it all out. But what an exciting project! A democratic revolution for contemporary Britain – the making of a republic and a real constitution; the home of the mother of parliaments finally fulfilling its promise; constitutional conventions and full-blooded political wrangling over first principles. Bring it on, I say!
Personally, I think my emotional case for republicanism is much more justifiable and much more congruent with our history than yours is for monarchy, but if it comes to subjective feeling, anyone can make anything sound nice. But only one of these options – monarchy vs republican democracy – can also, I think, stand on solid principles and rational argumentation. You can guess which one I think that is.
I realise that we are long past the point of respecting word limits (with me being the greater transgressor, I confess), but I just want to finish by returning to your image of the spray-painted Kaaba because I think this gets to the core of our disagreement. I don’t think protesting the Coronation, a constitutional event that upholds a particular system of governance, is the same as desecrating a religious shrine. One is a protest against the living representation of a particular political system imposed upon an entire country, regardless of its citizens’ political or religious beliefs, and the other is an intrusion into what should be the private sphere of religion.
We are approaching the probable end of this correspondence, and the next two letters shall contain our summations and reflections. I look forward to those, and perhaps one day we can return to the many issues we have left untouched. Let me sign off by saying how much I have enjoyed this exchange. I am sure we could go on forever!
All best,
Daniel
P.S. Again, I have gone far beyond the word limit we agreed upon. What a silly idea that was – only a fool could have imposed it! Oh wait, that was me… Well, feel free to pontificate at extreme length, especially as your next letter is likely to be your final one, and I shall try to keep my own valedictory letter to a reasonable length.
P.P.S. To further spit on the word limit, I just thought of something else that may be worth considering. You say that the sheer age of the monarchy ought to inspire an “instinctive deference.” Are we mixing up respect and deference here? I can respect the monarchy as a historical institution without feeling any deference toward it. I think most republicans would say the same. I only bring this up as a tangential – if possibly relevant – reflection.
And I now invite you once more to abuse the (now, I suppose, non-existent) word limit since I have done so in such a flagrant and unforgivable fashion!
19 September 2023
Daniel,
As I start writing to you I’m staying in a farmhouse in the small, rural Portuguese town of Faja Grande. It should perhaps more accurately be called a village than a town, but it is the most westerly settlement in Europe, situated at the far edge of the Azores archipelago, on the island of Flores (which the locals sound out with a “sh” sounding “s” at the end). Looking out across the Atlantic westward, there is nothing here between me and making landfall in the New World (Delaware, by my best estimate). Waves and open ocean, all the way to the great republic.
As you know, I’ve been occupied over the last few months with scientific work, but the passing time has given me a chance to reflect on our disagreement. In the last two letters, I think we discovered and clearly articulated what may lie at the heart of our disagreement on this subject. The images we both have painted—of disrespectful inheritors and slaves to senile patriarchs—so aptly illustrate our different views that I cannot improve on them. No, different “views” is not quite right… perhaps it would be better to say different emphases.
I think you are wrong in your counter-point about the riots at the American Capitol. I believe the response would have been one of outright horror whenever such an event happened—it cut deeper in an election because republican democracy has come to be a fundamental part of that set of ideas that make up America. You wrote that “tradition and history and identity and even sacredness are involved [in the reaction to the riots], but not, I think, in the way that you conceive of them.” I believe you are quite incorrect. A riot and coup d’état in Africa, South America, or South-east Asia, say, would certainly inspire shock around the world, but nothing like the reaction to the events in Washington. Those white neoclassical buildings, the paraphernalia and procedures of the elections, the notion of democratic government, and the peaceful transfer of power have become so deeply a part of what America is that the reaction was visibly visceral in onlookers, in a way it wouldn’t be in the examples I outline above.
Which brings me to a suitable close for our discussion: there is, I contend, something truly remarkable about our country. It is easy to overlook our tremendous success and prosperity, and that of the nations which this country has spawned—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States herself. And even as Britain’s star fades in the constellation of nations, those of her successors brighten. We have found a way of doing things that works astoundingly well.
The rather stirring points you make in defence of British radicalism are well-founded. This is a thread that runs deeply, and is woven tightly, in the long tapestry of British history. Our story is one of tension between radicalism and reaction, of the jostling of progressivism and conservatism. From that noisy milieu—and the quirks of fate; the whims of chance—we have been gifted, I believe, something uniquely precious—and who knows how unlikely. This view is at the heart of my sense of deference to the monarchy. We may agree or disagree about its effectiveness or its suitability today, but the monarchy is an integral part of the historical blend that gave us what we have—key in the tussle of forces that shaped our constitution, and those of all the English-speaking peoples.
Perhaps we owe our liberty to the Crown as well as to Cromwell.
Of course it ought to be legal to disrupt royal events. But that doesn’t mean it should be done. For all its faults, “warts and all”, I say God save the King.
With warmest wishes and in keen anticipation of future disagreements,
Jamie
November 10 2023
Dear Jamie,
And so it falls to me to conclude our little epistolary contretemps. I wish I too could boast a splendid and exotic view, but I am trapped in chilly Fife, with nothing but a belching gas plant on the horizon.
Just to respond to your point about the attempted insurrection of January 6, 2021, I would like to emphasise (and in doing so perhaps I am reframing my original argument) that it was horrific not just because it was a vulgar attack against a sacred national institution, but (primarily, in my view) because it was a violent attempt stoked by the sitting president to overturn the results of a free and fair election.
Sacredness and tradition certainly come into it, but if it really were just a vulgar Trumpist protest, I would defend the rights of its participants to desecrate just as much as I defend the rights of the anti-coronation protestors—whom, of course, I happen to agree with, and who inspired this exchange to begin with!
In other words, whether or not the coronation of the British monarch and the peaceful transfer of power in the United States are equally sacred to Brits and Americans, the fact is that the protests against the former were not part of a violent attempt to overthrow the constitution. That is the essential difference to me. Principles matter more than just the lifespan of an institution (and maybe longstanding, sound principles as concretised in political institutions—which are nowhere apparent in the monarchy—matter most of all).
I have to admit that something in me is uneasy at the idea of us merely differing in emphasis as opposed to principle, though I think that that statement is true enough. (Somewhat awkwardly, I now realise that I was the first in this exchange to suggest that we differed in emphasis!)
Perhaps that brings us back to the temperamental difference between the radical and the conservative (though, frankly, and as much as I would like to claim the title, I am not sure I have earned the right to be called a radical). I feel, yet again, that it always, always goes back to Messrs. Burke and Paine—and there’s an idea for a retelling of the Burke and Hare story…
Of course, I do not deny that Britain has hit upon an effective way of life, though I disagree that this happy outcome has much if anything to do with the monarchy (except, perhaps, that it is a consequence of resisting the monarchy!). And here’s a thought. Perhaps I could be convinced to support the monarchy, so as to always have something to fight against. But no, that would be frivolous. Principle demands that I reaffirm my view that secular democratic republicanism is the best and most justified form of government yet discovered—and that I would like to see it established in Britain. And, yes, one ought to appreciate Britain’s role in creating the possibility of that form of government (while lamenting its historic and continuing attempts to strangle it).
A couple of parting thoughts (or should that be “shots”?). We have indeed created an effective political system, but as to whether it is currently working “astoundingly well” is (to understate the case) rather questionable! Finally, and this is yet another thing we shall just have to discuss elsewhere, what do you mean when you say “God save the king”? Because I am reasonably sure that you do not believe in a creator, let alone one who cares about the overrated famiglia Windsor. Are you trafficking in delusion, then?
Also in anticipation of continued disagreement, and in gratitude for this enlightening exchange,
Yours,
Daniel