NEW MONARCH, OLD MONARCHY

This morning, the Archbishop of Canterbury presided over the ritual of crowning a new king, one that goes back a thousand years in England. Let's face it, it's a great show since the Brits do ceremony better than anyone else. It is something to see.

On the face of it, monarchy is an anachronism, the remnants of which seem so quaint and dated, especially to us democratic republicans in America. Yet, we Americans tend to love the British monarchy. This is especially true of us Episcopalians since the monarch is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Archbishop is head of the Anglican Communion. Deep down, we are glad our mother country has clung to the ancient tradition of monarchy.

Actually, monarchy was the prevailing political system in the world for most of human history. The first nation state, in Egypt, was united and led by arguably the greatest monarch ever, the pharaoh. He was revered as a god, descended from gods. This system worked well because it lasted longer than two thousand years during which the Egyptians enjoyed spectacular achievements. We are still awed by their legacy.

In modern history, the system of monarchy reached its height in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the reign of Louis XIV (1661-1715). 

He united the three old power bases, the monarchy, the nobility, and the church to form an absolute rule under the king. He famously declared "I am the state." While it worked well for him, it left two problems for his successors, adaptability to changing conditions and ability of his heirs to enforce the absolutism. Royalty is a system of birth, so whoever is born into the position gets the job however fit he may be for it. On the first problem, a large, wealthy and assertive middle class developed that had been left out of the old system. On the second issue, Louis XV had little interest in anything other than his mistresses. Louis XVI was wholly unsuited for the role and was overwhelmed by the office. A perfect storm of factors converged in 1789 to start the great French Revolution. In his bungling way, Louis tried to stop the revolution but wound up being put on trial for treason. In executing him, the people were really killing absolute monarchy. Even so, it took the French nearly a century to finally work out the democratic republic they have today.

What happened in France was certainly not lost on the British. In fact, it was events in England that provided a model for the French. In the 1640's, the English king, Charles I, got into a war with Parliament, essentially over power, and came out on the losing end. He was tried for treason and beheaded. A few years later his sons came to the throne, and James II was run out of the country in 1688. Parliament then replaced him with its choices, William and Mary, thereby establishing Parliament forever as the undisputed power base of the government. Monarchy could continue, but only by the will of the Parliament. England/United Kingdom has had a constitutional monarchy ever since even though it does not have a written constitution. They kept the monarch as a figurehead while developing a government of the people. This is the position in which Charles III finds himself today.

The monarchies that survive today, as Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia, and Spain, have followed the British model. They adapted well to modern democracy. The most ancient houses expired in the Twentieth Century because they failed to adapt to the changes going on around them: the Romanovs of Russia, the Hohenzollerns of Germany, and the Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary.

Although monarchy remains popular in Britain, it remains to be seen if this will continue. That will be up to the people in the United Kingdom. Survival will depend on how adaptable the royal family is to the (rapidly) changing conditions in Britain. The new king seems tuned in to the need for change in an evolving multi-cultural nation-state. He will have to work hard because the royal family has lost a lot of its patina of specialness. In the past few decade we have come to see them as really just ordinary people put into very extraordinary circumstances. After all, they are human beings like the rest of us. So, in the end the people will have to judge whether keeping the monarchy is worthwhile. So far so good but I would hesitate to jump to any conclusions about kings and queen in the future. There was a time when the two most advanced countries in the western world chopped off the heads of their kings. Getting rid of a king is not unthinkable even in the most stable of nations.