Americans always profess to be shocked that our fellow Americans—well, many of them, anyway—seem to take an inordinate interest in the comings and goings of the British royal family. When, for example, Prince Harry or the Duchess of Cambridge, or any one of their better-known relatives sets foot on this continent, they tend to get the media treatment and public attention usually reserved for Hollywood celebrities or rock ’n’ rollers or big-time athletes—maybe more.
Didn’t we fight a revolution 200-odd years ago in order not to have a monarch?
Well, yes and no. As The Scrapbook is always at pains to point out, the colonies revolted not because they didn’t like the idea of King George III but because the British Parliament of the day refused to grant to American colonists the political status they thought they deserved as British subjects (“no taxation without representation”). As we have learned since 1776, constitutional monarchies (Belgium, Great Britain, Denmark) are not necessarily inconsistent with democracy, and republics (China, Soviet Union, Cuba) don’t necessarily feature political liberty.
So our affinity for the British royal family probably has as much to do with mutual history, language, customs, and longtime strategic alliance as a love for glamour, pageantry, or public theater.
Which brings us to the interesting fact that, this week, the current sovereign, Elizabeth II, becomes the longest-serving monarch in British history. Her great-great-grandmother Victoria became queen in June 1837 and died in January 1901—a span of 63 years and seven months; the onetime Princess Elizabeth became queen when her father, George VI, died in February 1952—and on September 9 will surpass Victoria’s tenure on the throne.
In one sense, as antimonarchists tend to suggest, the near-reverence in which Elizabeth is currently held has as much to do with endurance and ubiquity as anything else: A majority of Americans, and Britons, have never known any other British monarch. The queen, like Hadrian’s Wall or Big Ben, has always been there and is as much a familiar symbol of Great Britain as anything else, animate or inanimate. And befitting a constitutional monarch, we know as much about the interior life of Elizabeth II—what she thinks about what she does, for example, or the world at large, or the people she meets—as about the interior life of Big Ben. Into her seventh decade and counting as sovereign, from Winston Churchill to David Cameron, the queen has preserved the essential mystery of her singular role in the life of Great Britain while retaining the royal prerogatives once defined by Walter Bagehot: the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn.
Indeed, for Americans, there may be something to learn here. Britain’s democracy—albeit one with a royal family, hereditary peerage, and established church—has been sustained, to no small degree, over the centuries by the fact that the head of government (prime minister) and head of state (monarch) are two different people. PMs come and go, with the will of the people, but the individual who personifies the nation as head of state remains above politics.
Here, of course, we combine these two functions in one person. Democratic political systems tend to reflect the cultures that nourish them, and here in America, our system of divided government, featuring a strong executive, has served us well. But the near-royal status we tend to confer on politicians who live in the White House may be a two-edged sword. There seems to be an instinctive need for a head of state who embodies the nation. But when that head of state is a party politician, and not a dignified figurehead carrying out public duties, we run certain risks to the health of democracy.
Which is why, from across the big pond, The Scrapbook exclaims: Vivat Regina!
