Some Further Thoughts on the English Constitution, the Duke of Windsor, and the British Empire
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
The U.S.S. Constitution, 1803. A different kind. Inalterable.
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Last week, on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II of England, I posted a column that consisted mainly of remembrances of my own life and experiences in re Great Britain, some comments on the English Constitution, and a lengthy disquisition on the last short-time English monarch, most recently labelled "The Traitor King," Edward VIII, then to become the Duke of Windsor. That column brought forth a variety of responses, several of which I am going to share with you here.
First, a set of further observations on the English Constitution and how the Monarch continues, infrequently to be sure, to interfere in governmental-and-state decision-making, where the unwritten Constitution rule supposedly forbids such interference. Given how many times in U.S. history principles set forth in plain language to be found in the U.S. Constitution have been violated (see e.g., the "Dobbs" decision and its violation of the Establishment Clause) it is remarkable how few times the English (unwritten) Constitution has been violated, at least in terms of the modern requirement for monarchical-non-participation. But it has happened for those of us fascinated by the subject (as I am) the accounts are well-worth repeating.
A dear English friend of mine, a Professor of Modern European History (now retired) had these (modified) notes to contribute on the subject.
“In the early years of the 20th century, as power continued to slip away from the monarch as it had been doing steadily under Queen Victoria, her successor (and first son, who had been known as the Prince of Wales while waiting the many years to come before he became King, just as was experienced by the new King, Charles III), Edward VII was strongly opposed to the Liberal government's years long effort to pass what was called the "People's Budget." He refused his assent to the government's attempt to create enough life (that is non-hereditary peers, [Lords]) in the House of Lords to ensure that the measure would pass.
“The solid Tory majority in the Lords spent years blocking the bill which had been passed by the Commons. This led eventually, in 1911 to the passage of Act of Parliament that precluded the House of Lords from permanently holding up legislation passed by the House of Commons. The powers of the House of Lords have been steadily diminished since that time. The point here is that while Edward VII did strenuously try to interfere with major legislative powers of the Commons, he eventually lost. But that was not the end of it.
“First, in 1931 George V (the successor to Edward VII) directly interfered with the formation of a Government from the Commons, an act that the Constitution supposedly prohibited. The then Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay Macdonald, who had quite properly intended to resign having lost his majority in the House of Commons during the economic crisis, asked the King for a dissolution so that a general election could take place. This was the clear constitutional path that should have been followed.
“However, the King, whose political sentiments were hardly concealed, had improperly discussed the crisis with leading Tory (Conservative) members of the House of Commons, and also with some Liberal members in the new House of Commons minority who had supported the MacDonald coalition. These Members, mobilized to do so by the King (which was by that time an unconstitutional act). And so, MacDonald responded to appeals to the "national interest" and flattery, to which he was far from immune, to form a "National Government." It was composed of Tories (in the great majority, Liberal, and a minority of "National Labour" members who were prepared to join it). So, MacDonald, to his eternal shame, led a government that was Tory in all but name, giving it a political cover that it did not deserve (but certainly exploited) until 1935. Following that episode, the Labour Party in parliament was decimated until after the end of World War II.
“As for Edward VII's second son, the father of the future Queen Elizabeth II, who became George VI upon the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, there was a close relationship between the King and his wife the Queen (who also happened to be named Elizabeth) to the Tory Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In September 1938, they were publicly euphoric (see the next paragraph) that the Munich Agreement of September 30 had achieved Chamberlain's famous phrase "Peace in Our Time," when in fact many observers were predicting that by favoring the Nazis and enabling the then-peaceful takeover of part of an independent Central European nation in was actually helping to pave the road to the next European war. (The rest of that country, Czechoslovakia was taken over by the Nazis without so much of a cough from Great Britain and France the following spring.)
“Before Chamberlain returned to brief Parliament on his "great achievement" he was waylaid by an invitation to Buckingham Palace where he was honored with a photograph of himself and his wife flanked by the King and Queen, all smiling for the camera. This was a clear breach of constitutional protocol about which none of the Tory press seemed to give a damn. But further, the Royals in fact were all in favor of aiding Hitler in achieving his "Drang nach Osten" (drive to the East [against the Soviet Union]), which of course what "Munich" was really about.
“Then leap forward many years to the latter part of the reign of the late Queen Elisabeth II. On the eve of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence the Queen was greeted by a small group of admirers as she and other members of her entourage left church at Balmoral, her home in Scotland. In reply to a supposedly spontaneous comment from a member of the public about the referendum, she said words to the effect that she hoped that people would think very carefully before they voted. The purpose of this response could not have been clearer. The question to her was almost certainly planted and she almost certainly expected it. It later transpired that the Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, who was alarmed that the polls indicated opinions only 1 or 2 points apart, had discussed with advisers how the Queen might be of service to the anti-independence campaign. Afterwards, reporting on a conversation with the Queen, he commented to the effect that "she purred like a kitten."
And then (now in my voice) there was an episode involving Edward VIII when he was briefly the un-coronated king in 1936, reported in a previous column of mine on this devious man, quote: "For four days after Hitler undertook his first foreign aggression and re-occupied the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles in March 1936, Edward (by then King and head-of-state even though not yet coronated) instructed his government not to react to it. They didn't (and neither did the French). Whether that was because of a directive from Edward or not, he, according to German intelligence, did deliver it."
And so, while in the 20th century, right down to Elizabeth II in the 21st, English monarchs who, according the unwritten Constitution, are not supposed to interfere in the processes of government, they do from time-to-time. It will be interesting to see if Charles III, who has strong opinions on a variety of issues, including (good for him) climate change, will be able to abide by the rules.
On the British Empire and the Role of the Monarchy in Creating it and then Maintaining it Right down the Present Time, in one Form or Another
I am not going to get into any detail here on my own thoughts on the matter (not touched upon in my previous column either). But I am going to share with you several references and pieces of commentary on it from friends of mine.
Immediately after the Queen's passing, my good Friend Rohn Kenyatta, a regular contributor to these OpEdNews pages, had a lengthy (and very-well-thought-out-as-is-his-way) column on the subject. Here are several especially insightful quotes from that column, which is entitled "Hell To The Queen : The Red, The White, The Royal Blues and Sumo Wrestlers."
"As mind bending as European/Western culture may find it, there were many nations with royalty, kings and queens, princes and princesses. In fact, the world's first royalty came from Asia and Africa. But The Queen is the only one that truly matters, which is why I dutifully capitalize The Queen. With brutality and colonization, the European wiped out most of the royal families in pursuit of free riches or, as it is put in polite circles, the "commonwealth". In turn, the European installed himself as royalty in these lands. This is simply a statement of fact. Click Here." "Of the 56 nations in the ‘commonwealth’ every last one of them are places where the people are melanic. I wonder how many times The Queen lived in those places. Clearly, she was a white supremacist according to her own grandson, and her daughter-in-law to whom he is married. I wonder how many black, brown, red and yellow children she is complicit in murdering during World War II, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and innumerable violent colonialist actions in Africa, both overt and clandestine. I wonder how many rapes of the aforementioned children's mothers she sanctioned."
Another friend has this to say (in a letter, so I will not put his name to the quote):
"I also have a like/dislike attitude regarding England and your article dredged it all up! So I thought I'd just make a list of the good, the bad and the ugly.
"On the good side there are many. Although I switched majors from English Lit to Philosophy in college, I did wind up with a MA in English in graduate school. So there's that.
"My mom taught me to read before kindergarten, and by age six I had read the Sidney Lanier version of 'King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.' I became so obsessed with knights and jousting, etc., that in third grade I gave the boys in my class at St. Joseph's Academy (NYC) each the name of a Round Table knight and convinced them all to join in sword fights in the park at recess using their arms as swords. Needless to say, I was unceremoniously hauled up to the headmistress on the top floor and told my behavior was unacceptable, to which I protested that the knights were great Christian defenders! Apparently, it struck a chord because about a week later, my parents received a letter from the school instructing the parents of all third-grade boys to have wooden swords made as the bishop intended to knight the boys in the school's chapel in May. Result: by age eight I was a knight.
"I absolutely loved English cars --- especially English sports cars that I would buy, drive and sell - Jaguars XKEs, Austin Healeys, [and I'm restoring" a 1961 AC Greyhound 2+2 GT coupe. [As it happened, I too have owned several English cars, including when I lived there doing a post-doc in 1963-65, an ancient Jaguar XK 140, and then about 15 years later in the U.S. a rather old Jensen-Healey.]"
"I generally like the English people - especially their eccentricities, humor and music. . . . Never met the queen either but was a wedding guest for a weekend at the Duke of Rutland's Belvoir Castle for the marriage of his niece. . . Slept there in a bed where a British monarch once slept. After three nights of partying with the Duke and Duchess I thought to myself, So, that's how they live."
"And then there is the countryside. Glorious and unmatched."
And then to finish up with this subject for quite some time I should think, if you want an article that sums up the "Bad[s] of the [British] Empire" (and there are many) it's all there in one articulate, looong (New Yorker-style) book review. As its author says: "Britain is rarely seen as among the worst [Imperial] offenders, given a reputation for decency that the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has spent more than two decades trying to undermine. 'Legacy of Violence' (Knopf), her astringent new history of the British Empire, brings detailed context [to the subject]."