Since the Act of Union in 1707, there have been only thirteen British monarchs, the first being Queen Anne. The current royal family, if we discuss direct and not remote ancestry, dates back only to William of Orange, who was king from 1689 to 1702, prior to the Act of Union. Anne was his successor and reigned until 1714. She was in ill health most of the time.
Had the throne passed to Anne's nearest relatives, it would have gone to a member of the House of Stuart, who were Catholic. Anne was an Anglican, but she was the daughter of Charles II who became Catholic on his deathbed and who harbored strong Catholic sympathies, in spite of living a wild life, his entire life. Indeed, his father Charles I was a High Church Anglican who teetered on that edge himself. George I was chosen over 60 Stuart claimants simply because the Whigs had taken control of parliament, and he was a protestant.
I note this as people not familiar with the English monarchy, or perhaps more accurately the monarchy of the United Kingdom, seem to assume that the throne has always been inherited. Not so. It's been inherited since George I, when he was crowned the King over Catholic claimants who held undoubtedly better claims.
The second item of interest there is that the British monarchy is, therefore, by recent tradition, and by law, "Protestant", which his to say, Anglican.
Those watching the coronation yesterday, if they were not familiar with the process, would have been struck by how deeply religious it was. I don't think people, or perhaps more accurately Americans, expected that, as Americans have the stupid Disney view of monarchy, in which there'd be a two-minute coronation involving beautiful people, rather than an hours long service. Moreover, people with some religious knowledge, but not familiar with the process, would have been surprised that it was recognizable as a Mass, in Catholic terms.
Indeed, some commentators, including the Catholic Cardinal who participated in it, noted that it has "some" Catholic elements.
"Some"?
Baloney, it's 100% Catholic in form save for the King having to take the mandatory oath that he support the United Kingdom's Protestant faith.
That became a topic running up to this because, in spite of the impressive performance, the Church of England is in real trouble in England. It does remain strong in some places, but not in its old footholds. In the United States and Canada, its North American expression, the Episcopal Church, is in really deep trouble. In the UK, more Catholics attend services weekly than members of the Church of England, which is really something given that Catholics are a minority religion in the UK and have been at least since Elizabeth I forced the "religious settlement" on the country. Lest that seem too encouraging for Catholics, all devout religious adherence has been on the decline in the UK for a very long time, a product of the disaster of the Reformation, which is playing out presently.
Be that as it may, at least to Catholic eyes, the absurdity of the English Reformation is brought to full light by such events. The ceremony was so Catholic that the question has to be asked why the Church of England doesn't just come back into the fold, something which is becoming increasingly difficult in light of its recent accommodations to popular social trends.
Which brings me to my next observation.
I know one fallen away Episcopalian who is deeply anti-Catholic. It's interesting how that tends to be the last thing that those raised in the "main line" Protestant Churches retain. The Baby Boomer children of adherent Main Line Protestant churches may have chosen to ignore their faiths in favor of the world and its delights, but they remember the fables and hatred that the Reformation used to justify its actions, and still cite it as if they were buddies with John Calvin himself. Odd.
I know that I'm personally tired of it. But in part, that's because I'm tired of having to listen to two people I personally know debate religious topics as if it's a sport. It isn't. It's serious. But then maybe I'm tired of people who argue just for sport as well.
Profoundly Christian, and frankly about as close to Catholic in form as you can get and not be Catholic, another interesting aspect of the coronation was reinforcing the United Kingdom's Christian heritage.
And that's a good thing.
The Coronation really brought the monarchy haters out in droves, which was interesting. Lots of "Not My King" and "Not My Queen" individual protests were here and there. Well, unless Parliament abolished the monarchy, if you are English or a resident of the English Commonwealth, he is your king. You don't have to love him, but that doesn't mean he isn't the king.
This also brought out a lot of sanctimonious blathering by people who hail from former imperial possessions about the horrors of the British Empire. Well, whatever they may be, King Charles III and his mother Queen Elizabeth II weren't responsible for any of them.
Indeed, it's been eons since there was a king or queen really had extensive power. Maybe since King Charles II. The UK has been a constitutional monarch at least since Queen Anne. If monarchy had been what people imagine, one of her Stuart relatives would have been the next monarch, not King George I. So if people have a beef with the British Empire, it shouldn't really be with Queen Elizabeth, whom some proclaimed they could not mourn, or with King Charles III, whom some proclaim they cannot celebrate.
Let's make no mistake. Colonialism in general was bigoted and racist by its very nature. The underlying premise of it was that the European colonial power, and here we will limit this to European powers, was empowered by some sort of superior value which gave it a right to take the land of others and rule its people. That was the underlying thesis of colonialism everywhere. Generally the "superior" something they had was technology, which made it possible, but which didn't make it right.
But before we get too self-righteous about it, we probably need to take a look at in context, and over time, and then ask if the compulsion that gives rise to it is a universal human norm. That would not mean that it was right, but it might lessen the overall guilt.
Indeed, in spite of what people might now wish for claim, when European colonialism started the concept of one nation ruling over another was not only common, it was the norm. In the early 17th Century when British Colonialism really started, Ireland and Wales were already unwelcome members, to some extent, of the United Kingdom, and Scotland wasn't all that keen on it. Figuring out who governed in the Low Countries and the German Principalities requires an epic flow chart. Russia ruled vasts lands with no Russians. This condition would go on well into the 19th Century, and even to some extent into the 20th Century. Contrary to what people claim, national feelings existed, but people didn't regard empires and monarchies that ruled over a collection of nations to be abnormal.
And it would have been extremely difficult for Europeans, early on, to be confronted with foreign cultures beyond their seas and treat them as equals given the varied states of development. It's easy for us to say that the British should have landed at Jamestown in 1607 only after asking for permission, but frankly, it would have been impossible for them to have conceived it that way at the time.
This might not be the case for later European colonial efforts, but by that time competition between European powers nearly mandated acquiring colonies and a person would have to be naive to imagine that if the British had abstained, the French, Dutch, Germans, Spanish, and so on, would have done so also.
Indeed, frankly, if we were to land humans on Mars today, and find something waddle up and address us in some bizarre Martian tongue, I don't believe we'd abstain from colonizing the planet now.
Which gets to this point. I can't really think easily of a people anywhere that had the power to colonize, and didn't do it. Everyone did. It seems to go back to our earliest days. That doesn't make it right, once again, but it's obviously a common human trait.
Which means in turn that the only really valid criticism of empire that mean anything today has to come in terms of relatively recent historical context.
A conversation on this point the other day made me realize how different my "relatively recent" is. The actual conversation was on British primogenitor in the monarchy. I sincerely regard everything after 1066 as recent in terms of the British monarchy.
Apparently, other people don't.
In this context, however, i.e., that of empire, I'd probably go back to 1800 or so. If you are going to levy guilt on the British, therefore, you might have to start in 1858 when Parliament caused the British to officially take over India.
There's a lot to blame the English for after that, but then there's a lot to blame the French, Belgians, Dutch and Germans for after that as well.
It's really the late 19th Century and 20th Century when you get into the full-blown "shouldn't you people have known better" type of situation. The Scramble for Africa is pretty difficult to justify in any sense.
Which takes us, I suppose, to this. In its late stages, while it was still an empire, and should have known better, at least the British did a good job of trying to administer what it was administering well. Its actions weren't always admirable or successful. The Bengal Famine of 1943 provides a shocking example of that. And frankly, there's no way to reconcile the claim that the British were fighting for freedom only during World War Two, except comparatively. I.e., the Axis wasn't seeking to liberate colonial peoples, but to enslave them to somebody else less democratic yet. But, having said that, the British, more than any other colonial power, managed to depart from empire gracefully and with some rationale hope that the best things it had given to the people it had occupied would remain.
It didn't always work out, but to a surprising degree it did. British Dominions largely did evolve into full-blown parliamentary democracies and largely separated from the UK peaceably, although this was notably not the case with Ireland. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa are all democracies today due to the British example. So, frankly, is the United States, the UK's first failed imperial endeavor.
The coronation of King Charles III probably contains within it a series of lessons that will only be evident in the coming days. But for those who want to protest it, well you probably would better spend your time on real problems of the world, of which there are many.
Related Items:
