Why The British Monarchy Survives Against The Odds

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Queen Elizabeth II in 1959. Creative Commons photo.

(OPINION) The queen is dead. Long live the king! And thus seamlessly, in the blink of an eye, and the heartless juxtaposition of these two little sentences, a grieving Britain picks itself up and gets going again. “The king never dies” is written in our common law — because continuity is absolute.

Dynastic succession seems bizarre to republican readers. How can it be that there is not a fight, not even a delay? No vote nor even rancour? For there he is, King Charles III our king, acceding to the throne, in a ceremony televised for the first time in history, embodying the elegance, grace and strength of those ancient mysteries we thought were gone for good, within two days of the late queen’s last breath.

What has made this continuity of blood even acceptable? For it is surely not the power of a gun.

Supreme governor of the Church of England, “defensor fidei” (defender of the faith), our liege lord (from “allegiance”): the clue is in all the words that surround the office and the rituals that every other nation on earth has long since jettisoned.

Britain’s monarchy stands as the world’s only remaining state religious institution. The coronation is more than “mainly a religious ceremony” according to the BBC’s anchor on Saturday, as if that remaindered it for everyone not religious. It is a symbol among much else of the world’s oldest and only global narrative: God’s story. It goes all the way back to the crowning of Edgar by St. Dunstan in AD 973, drawing, it is said, an on even older Frankish ceremony. It takes place in Westminster Abbey, the national shrine. The oath is administered by the highest clergyman in the land. His office takes precedence even over the monarch himself. There is not just the formula “So help me God” repeated as does the U.S. president at the end of every secular statement; there is not simply an oath “upon my honor and integrity,” as in Turkey, or upon the honor of the nation, as in Ukraine. The new queen in 1953 was asked, “Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the gospel?” And she, and now as he will, pledged to do this, kneeling at the altar of the greatest temple in the land, hand upon Bible; “the most valuable thing this world affords,” the priest intones. And of which the priest then adds:

Here is wisdom.
This is the royal law.
These are the lively oracles of God.

Then, in the even more amazing rite of unction that stretches in one unbroken line from the anointing of Solomon by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet in the Hebrew Bible, the king is anointed with oil under a gold awning in a ceremony of the utmost holiness. The archbishop hands him the symbols of his rule:

Receive this orb set under the cross, and remember that the whole world is subject to the power and empire of Christ our redeemer.

It is this that is the radioactive heart of Britain’s monarchy, and the secret of its strength. It is both a protection against tyranny and a remedy for weakness. For, long forgotten by secular pundits, it models itself on the Christian belief that authority is what it is because it has been crucified; that only Christ the servant king is truly powerful, and because all are fallen, all can be restored only through him.

“I serve” was the motto for many of our monarchs. King Charles III, despite being a very different personality, has promised to live up to his mother’s example of service in a further personal reinforcement of continuity that testifies to the remarkable effectiveness of our constitution.

That her example was one of service has been now much noted. “We are awed by her legacy of tireless, dignified public service,” said former U.S. President Barack Obama, reported in the Daily Mirror. That had been her promise broadcast to the empire from South Africa, then a British colony, as she turned 21. “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”

This has been taken literally in England for at least 800 years since the 1200s, when King John instituted the tradition of Royal Maundy, the symbolic distribution of food and clothing to 13 poor people in memory of Christ’s injunction — “mandatum” in Latin — to his disciples to "love one another." Thirteen was the number of the disciples, and it is thought of either as an angel, or Christ himself. On the night before he died, Christ took a towel and washed his disciples’ feet, telling them that they should do likewise. The queen’s chief almoner still wears a symbolic linen towel for the distribution. When her subjects speak of their love for their monarch, they are merely reciprocating the love that is embodied in the monarchical idea.

For the monarchy, embodiment, not representation, is the point. Members of Parliament may represent those who elected them. They embody very little. The monarch, on the other hand, represents no one. But he, whether saint or sinner, embodies in his constitutional presence everything we have: the rights and freedoms conferred on his people by the God under whom he serves. There is a higher power to whom he is answerable, and of whose loving impartiality he is a sign.

By 1363 the monarchs were also washing the feet of 12 beggars and did so until 1658, in a power reversal that often stuns republicans. The men were so terribly poor that their feet had to be washed three times before the monarch could handle them.

The monarch was not alone in performing the rituals of the Maundy service according to historian Virginia Cole. Henry III’s children assisted him as part of their political and religious training.

Cole’s study of the role of royal children in the thirteenth-century Maundy notes that the service had a political purpose as well. Humbling himself by doing the “pedilavium,” or foot-washing, proclaimed paradoxically the monarch's greatness. Attendance at a Maundy service became an obligation for all major European ruling houses.

The giving of Maundy money persists to this day, now by recognizing Christian pensioners according to the number of the monarch’s years, who have distinguished themselves with acts of service.

Service is written into the warp and weft of British life. Understated, and barely even noticed, we have “ministers” of state, military and police “services,” public “servants” and a whole system of checks and balances that have meant that a little old lady with a handbag and a twinkly smile touched the world.

Her son, with his more prickly character, his passionate nature and his catastrophic first marriage, will be different — but not so different in his devotion to Christian service. For he single-handedly did more to improve the prospects for young men mired in inner-city despair than any government department with his Prince’s Foundation. It has, according to its website, helped 950,000 young people turn their lives around with training and grants. His environmental prescience made him the original Extinction Rebel. And his Renaissance-like roundedness — a prowess in art as a renowned water-colorist and in sport as a polo player who can outpace any journalist on tour — sets the bar high. His example of elegant masculinity flows with, rather than against, his love of beauty, countryside and tradition. His rootedness in his country’s history is also at ease with a need to be realistically flexible about modern life’s demands.

True, the calls for a republic are beginning to rumble with the queen barely cold, and the poor king can expect a pretty rough ride once her memory fades. But it is for Parliament to deal with that, and that is the trick. Late philosopher Roger Scruton eloquently expressed the paradox when he compared the magic of monarchy to the gleaming light from the top of a Christmas tree, which the British people well remembered, having climbed up and placed there themselves.

My prayer is that by his example of humanity and discipline, he may help to restore our cynical nation’s good manners, its toughness, its humble yet confident belief in itself; that with his practical positivity, our trajectory of self-hatred might be reversed; and that with his example of community service, he might creatively and securely bind us together in a love that reaches around the world, and that knows and can replenish its Christian source.

Yes! Long live our king!

Dr. Jenny Taylor is a Fellow in Media, Communication and Journalism at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge.