May 1953 — Vol. 34, No. 5 — The Crown
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When the curtain rises on the coronation
it will be a curtain rising on a deep vista of history.
Not the least of the benefits of this ceremony is that life
in the present takes on a profounder meaning in the larger
context of time which its pageantry recalls.
The coronation is an act of the highest poetry in the Commonwealth's
life, saddened on this occasion by the death in March of Queen
Mary - widow of a King, mother of two Kings, and grandmother
of the reigning Queen.
In relation to the Crown we are mystics. Our Queen is not
a person exalted above us by Divine Right, nor a person of
our own choosing. We have a part in her dignity, but she does
not achieve that dignity at our will.
The Queen is the unimpeachable figure of all that is good
in government; her crown is a symbol standing above creeds
and parties. In a materialistic age, when the world is threatened
by dangers never before known, the British Monarchy endures
in noble strength. It is, in essence, the exaltation of dutiful
example as opposed to the hazards of ruling by the mailed
fist and the fleeting greatness of dictatorship.
One virtue in the coronation rites is that they are out
of date. How could the stability and continuity of the national
history be more impressively shown? Our Queen is crowned with
the same ritual as that with which her predecessors have been
crowned for more than a thousand years.
This is the oldest state ceremonial in Britain, and perhaps
the oldest in the world. The first preserved ritual of an
English coronation dates from the eighth century. There is
one attributed to St. Dunstan, said to have been used by him
at the coronation of King Ethelred in the year 978.
The forms are ancient, but the spirit embodied in them never
grows old. That spirit is the solemn recognition of the sacred
character alike of royalty and loyalty.
The Constitution
The coronation service epitomizes some salient features
of the constitution, that unwritten constitution about which
generations of philosophers, lawyers, historians and politicians
have marvelled.
Our institutions, with all their unbroken historical continuity,
are still extraordinarily flexible. A French writer remarked:
"The English have left the different parts of their constitution
just where the wave of history had deposited them." He might
have carried on his metaphor by remarking that succeeding
waves and ripples modify the constitution imperceptibly, so
that only he who watches closely can detect changes or tell
when and how they occur.
Out of all the beating of history on the shores of time
has come for commonwealth countries the philosophy of responsible
government: not representative government only, but that sort
of responsible government which is given by. an executive
accountable to a parliamentary majority, bound to heed the
advice it receives from parliament.
As head of such a government, the Queen has three rights,
according to Walter Bagehot in his authoritative work The
English Constitution. These rights are: the right to be
consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn.
The acts, wishes and example of the sovereign are a real
power in government. Parliaments and ministers pass, but the
wearer of the Crown abides in life—long duty. W. E. Gladstone,
who was four times Prime Minister of Britain, put it eloquently
in his Gleanings of Past Years: "The Sovereign, as
compared with her ministers, has, because she is the Sovereign,
the advantages of long experience, wide survey, elevated position,
and entire disconnection from the bias of party.
"There is not a doubt," Gladstone continued, "that the aggregate
of direct influence normally exercised by the Sovereign upon
the counsels and proceedings of her ministers is considerable
in amount, tends to permanence and solidity of action, and
confers much benefit on the country without in the smallest
degree relieving the advisers of the Crown from their individual
responsibility."
Casual readers of history may think that the sovereignty
of the Crown has been whittled down to the vanishing point,
but apparent encroachments upon the Crown have added to its
true dignity. The formal powers of the Crown under Queen Elizabeth
II are virtually the same as those which belonged to it under
Edward VI. The Queen is still the supreme executive authority;
the Queen in Parliament is still the supreme legislative authority;
the Queen is still the "fountain of honour" and the "fountain
of justice"; the Queen is still commander of the military
forces of the realm.
It is pointed out by J. A. R. Marriott in English Political
Institutions that the monarch's judgment in foreign affairs
is "ripened by a continuous experience of affairs, such as
no minister can possibly, under our party system, hope to
enjoy."
The Crown has a unifying function in home affairs. It often
provides a golden bridge for retreat of a government from
some hastily—conceived or injudicious bridgehead. Sir
Charles Petrie says in Monarchy in the Twentieth Century,
writing about the time when King George VI came to the throne:
"on all sides there was a deplorable lack of unity; everywhere
the politicians were stressing what keeps men apart rather
than what brings them together, but King George VI saw to
it that the Crown was at once the emblem and the hope of a
more sane state of affairs."
In plain terms, the executive, represented by the Crown,
is sufficiently strong to ensure the peace and order of society,
and yet not sufficiently strong to disregard the wishes and
happiness of the community.
The Queens of England
Wearing the Crown is no sinecure. It entails work. Queen
Anne called herself "a crowned slave." And Shakespeare referred
to the Crown in these words: "O polished perturbation! golden
care! That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide to many
a watchful night!"
The queens of England have not been the shadowy queens of
tragedy or romance. In her mammoth work Lives of the Queens
of England, published in 1853, Agnes Strickland tells
the stories of 34 queens between the death of the last monarch
of the AngloSaxon line, Edward the Confessor, in 1066, and
the death of Queen Anne, last sovereign of the royal house
of Stuart, in 1714. Thirty of these wore the crown—matrimonial
as consorts, and four the regal diadem of the realm. Two more
have been added as queens regnant - Victoria and Elizabeth
II - and nine as consorts.
What changes are involved in the nearly 900 years spanned
by the lives of these 45 women! Their reigns extend over the
ages of feudalism, of chivalry and romance, of splendour and
misery, the crusades, the attempts to add the crown of France
to that of England, the wars of the Roses, revolution, the
rise of the parliamentary system.
The Commonwealth now has a new Queen, who comes to the throne,
like Elizabeth I and Victoria, in the freshness and vigour
of youth.
Her life up to now has given Queen Elizabeth II these advantages:
a happy childhood, in which she was tended by parents free
from the pressing duties of state; a liberal education, in
the sense that it was not confined to insular points of view;
and practical contact with the world, similar to that received
by princes during their services with the armed forces.
She has much of her father's strong moral sense, it was
pointed out by Hector Bolitho in the British Vogue Export
Book Supplement, blended with her mother's charm. She
has also something of Queen Victoria's will - "the will that
made the old Queen declare to a minister: 'I was brought up
to know what was right and what was wrong - never let me hear
the word "expedient" again'."
The Rule of Law
The function of the Crown as the fountainhead of justice
is one of its greatest virtues. No matter how elaborate the
machinery of legislation and administration might be, the
life of the individual citizen could be rendered miserable
by any defect or delay in the administration of justice.
The Queen cannot at her pleasure alter the laws of the land,
but in her coronation vow she sets the standard for all those
who are charged with making and maintaining the law. The charge
given her is in memorable words: "Be so merciful that you
be not too remiss; so execute justice that you forget not
mercy. Punish the wicked, protect and cherish the just, and
lead your people in the way wherein they should go."
It took many centuries to mature the law which is administered
under the Crown. Among the most notabie advances were the
Habeas Corpus Act which provided the necessary guarantees
for safeguarding the individual, and the Act of Settlement,
which took judges from under control of the executive and
made them irremovable except on a joint address from both
Houses of Parliament.
By these, and hundreds of minor gains, that rule of law
was established which is still a pattern for the world. The
forward march of legal processes may be traced in continuous
line from King Alfred's DomeBook or code of laws of
the ninth century, and the laws and customs of these ten or
eleven centuries have been absorbed into the lives of many
countries.
Crown and Parliament
In government, the sovereign acts only upon the advice of
constitutional advisers responsible to parliament. Herein
is a paradox: while the powers of the Crown have been increased,
the power of the Crown has been curtailed. Marriott explains
it by pointing to the development of an administrative system
in which the chief officials, while nominally the servants
of the Queen, are in reality politically responsible to Parliament.
The most significant clause in the Grand Remonstrance of
1641 required the King to choose counsellors and ministers
in whom Parliament had confidence.
Eight years later, the Rump of the Long Parliament passed
an Act abolishing the office of king. By 1688 a compromise
had been reached: the king continued to reign, but he ceased
to rule. Sir John Eliot, who died for his views on parliamentary
independence a half—century earlier, had said pithily:
"Parliament is the body: the King is the spirit."
There may have been fits of absent—mindedness in the
long course of development of relations between the Crown
and Parliament, but the British have followed a shrewd political
sense that showed itself even in the earliest historical times.
The British system of government strikes its roots so deep
into the past that scarcely a feature of its proceedings and
powers can be made intelligible without reference to history,
and yet the end result is an institution fitting perfectly
the temper of the times and the needs of the people.
Crown and Commonwealth
The Crown has acquired overwhelming significance as the
core and symbol of Commonwealth unity.
The formal centralizing institutions of the Empire have
disappeared one by one as Empire developed into Commonwealth,
but the status of the Crown has been progressively exalted.
Last year saw variety introduced into the Queen's titles,
but the Crown's unique unifying influence remains.
The parliamentary institutions of the commonwealth countries
are the guarantee of democratic strength, and it is a tremendous
stabilizing influence to have at the head of these institutions
a monarch who is independent of, and outside, politics.
It was under the Crown that Britain's free institutions
were born and brought up. Magna Charta, signed five hundred
and eighty years before the liberty vaunting French Revolution,
was, it is true, a forced concession. But it did not shatter
the Crown, only certain arbitrary powers then exercised by
kings under the Crown.
As things stand today, the Commonwealth is an association
of people, as well as of countries. There are spiritual, psychological
and intellectual forces drawing them together despite their
differences of race, religion, language, literature, law and
economic influences.
The prime ministers of the Commonwealth who assembled in
London in January, 1951, were guilty of no exaggeration when
they said that this historic Commonwealth, under the Crown,
is "singularly well constituted to enable it to study and
in some measure to comprehend the vexed questions which beset
the world."
Unity in Diversity
Broadening of the Commonwealth, by inclusion of republics
for example, does not diminish but rather enhances the importance
of the symbolism which indicates its sense of unity and common
purpose.
The Commonwealth has no spider—web of contractual relations.
It is held in no parchment bonds or hard steel shackles. The
unique relation of the Crown to all the self—governing
nations, the republics, the territories and the colonies,
makes possible their equality of status and enables them to
advance in self—government without violent constitutional
changes.
Strange it is to people not of the Commonwealth to realize
that here is a galaxy of nations which functions without a
central constitution or executive authority. Its binding force
is loyalty to a Crown, and it is so cohesive that this Commonwealth,
alone in the world's history, has dared to decentralize three
powers which were always before jealously guarded and tenaciously
held by central authority: framing tariffs, controlling immigration,
and creating and maintaining navies.
In a moving address that won applause from all parties in
the House of Commons in February, Prime Minister Louis St.
Laurent hailed the Commonwealth as "an effective instrument
for the good of free mankind throughout the whole world."
He was speaking to a bill changing the Royal Style and Titles
for use in Canada, under which the Queen becomes "Elizabeth
the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada,
and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth,
Defender of the Faith."
This bill results from the Prime Ministers' conference last
year, when it was agreed that each member of the Commonwealth
should use the form of title it decided to be most suitable.
What mattered at that conference was that the Commonwealth
should continue to display vigour and vitality in adapting
itself to new situations. As Nicholas Mansergh said in a recent
issue of the Westminster Bank Review: "Had its Prime
Ministers adhered to customary and conventional usage they
would in fact have set a limit to the development of the Commonwealth."
Diversity in Unity
An American ambassador called the British Empire "a school
of government that inevitably leads to self—government."
On the way up the ladder from dependency to nation, there
is great diversity.
The principle underlying the diversity in forms of government
which we see today is that government should be adapted to
the conditions, the needs and the stage of political development
of the people in each particular state or territory.
Whatever its present condition politically, in every country
of the Commonwealth there have been planted seeds of freedom,
civilization and culture. To every country under the Crown
have been carried free institutions and the rule of law.
It is manifest that strong national feeling is not incompatible
with free association under the Crown. This was nowhere more
clearly shown than in the case of India. About to become a
republic, that country positively expressed a desire to remain
a full member of the Commonwealth.
A new concept was born six years ago when Canada took the
lead in enacting legislation from which, Mr. Mansergh points
out, a new pattern of citizenship derived. The British Nationality
Act of 1948 endorsed the new conception, in which the emphasis
had shifted from a fundamental common status to fundamental
national citizenships. The common status of Commonwealth citizen
was thereafter to be derived from individual national citizenship,
so that a Canadian was to be a Commonwealth citizen because
he was a Canadian, and not, as formerly, a Canadian because
he was a British subject.
Every development like this has brought forth lamentations
from some who see in it a sign of disintegration. Sceptics
viewed in this way the Statute of Westminster, which gave
the Dominions status as free and independent nations. It was
far from being anything of the sort.
As John Drinkwater wrote under the title The King's Majesty
in the Jubilee Trust Coronation Souvenir Programme in
1937: "It was as fine an achievement of imaginative statesmanship
as any that the modern world has seen. This association of
free peoples was, as has been well said, 'a league of nations,
with an unwritten, yet inviolable covenant, making peace certain
for a very considerable section of the world.' That inviolability
is proclaimed in a specific reference in the Statute: 'the
Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members
of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and...they are united
by a common allegiance to the Crown'."
Those noble words mean that in their free association these
commonwealth countries look to the Queen, each with the right
of direct appeal, and through the Crown they proclaim their
brotherhood. "It is," said Drinkwater, "a majestic conception,
and it has a unique spiritual sanction in the world of politics."
The Crown and the U.S.A.
All the world has a part in the past which is brought to
life by the coronation, but most of all the Western world.
Viscount Bryce, one time British ambassador in Washington,
wrote to his friend John F. Jameson of the Carnegie Institution:
"...the singular fact that the semi—educated don't seem
to realize [is] that the history of the United States before
the eighteenth century, and, to a considerable extent, down
to 1776, is the history of England."
It was from Britain that the colonists carried their bias
in favour of freedom, and it was upon a British base that
the political liberties of the world have been built.
In a booklet published to commemorate the 150th anniversary
of the inauguration of the first president of the United States,
Dr. John C. Fitzpatrick said this: "The Englishman's understanding
of liberty had been woven into his being by the struggle through
the centuries; it was the most precious possession brought
to America by the first English colonists."
The peoples of the English—speaking democracies have
a great advantage in their common heritage. The legacy of
political ideas and practical co—operation is not alone
to the commonwealth countries but to many where the Queen's
writ does not run.
No Decadence Here
Those who visit Britain for the coronation will see a country
dotted with war wreckage, but they will see roses amid the
ruins. They will be impressed by the way participants from
all the Commonwealth seem to say through the coronation ceremony,
in the mood of Fitz—James in Scott's Lady of the Lake:
"Come on Future; we've our back against the Past!"
Today, the Royal Crown encircles not only the ancient glories
of a particular people, but the hope and promise of a broadening
life for hundreds of millions of others.
The Commonwealth over which the Queen reigns is far from
perfect, but it is being constantly improved because of criticism
by its own people through .their legislatures, their
press and their institutions. Throughout all its affairs blows
the cleansing wind of democracy, based on freedom of speech,
of religion, of the press and of association.
Having dedicated herself to maintenance of these freedoms,
the Queen will receive the Crown. She will receive it, as
it is given, in a spirit free from ancient grudges, as the
symbol of her unity with her people, and as an emblem of the
unity of her people.
The Queen's duties will be formally assumed in an atmosphere
of dignity, and her people will partake in the dignity with
her, conscious of the tremendous past embraced and mirrored
in the brief coronation ceremony, and of the high hope they
hold for peace and advancement during this reign.
The British, said Comte Serge Fleury, remind us of those
personages the Renaissance artists show posed on walls and
in paintings - "figures draped in gorgeous mantles, stepping
slowly forward, as if they knew they had eternity ahead of
them in which to realize their important schemes. They walk
straight ahead, guided in full night by stars that belong
to them alone."
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