The tendency of an advanced civilization is in truth Monarchy. Monarchy is indeed a government which requires a high degree of civilization for its full development. ~ Benjamin Disraeli
Sovereignty andkingship are never decided by academic debate. They are seized by force. TheOttoman dynasty appropriated by force thegovernment of the Turks, and reigned over them for six centuries. Now theTurkish nation has effectively gained possession of its sovereignty… This is an accomplished fact… If those assembled here … see the matter in its natural light, we shall all agree. Otherwise, facts will still prevail, but some heads may roll.
Royalty is aGovernment in which the attention of thenation is concentrated on oneperson doing interesting actions. ARepublic is a Government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting things.
As long as the humanheart is strong and the humanreason weak, royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffuse feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding.
MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarchruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. InRussia andthe Orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs and in the disposition of the human head, but inwestern Europe political administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being somewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head.
I esteem monarchy above any other form of government, and hereditary monarchy above elective. I reverencekings, their office, their rights, their persons; and it will never be owing to theprinciples I am going to establish, because the character and government of apatriot king can be established on no other, if theiroffice and theirright are not always helddivine, and their persons alwayssacred.
Lord Bolingbroke,The Idea of a Patriot King (1738), quoted inLetters, on the Spirit of Patriotism: On the Idea of a Patriot King: And On the State of Parties, at the Accession of King George the First (1749), pp. 83-84
Among many reasons which determine me to prefermonarchy to every form of government, this is a principal one. When monarchy is the essential form, it may be more easily and more usefullytempered witharistocracy ordemocracy, or both, than either of them, when they are the essential forms, can betempered withmonarchy. It seems to me, that the introduction of a real permanent monarchical power, or any thing more than the pageantry of it, into either of these, must destroy them and extinguish them, as a great light extinguishes a less. Where it may easily be shewn, and the true form of our government will demonstrate, without seeking any other example, that very considerablearistocratical anddemocratical powers may be grafted on amonarchical stock, without diminishing the lustre, or restraining the power and authority of the prince, enough to alter in any degree the essential form.
Lord Bolingbroke,The Idea of a Patriot King (1738), quoted inLetters, on the Spirit of Patriotism: On the Idea of a Patriot King: And On the State of Parties, at the Accession of King George the First (1749), pp. 92-93
It's a sign of the tragic immaturity ofBritain as a nation that we should be obsessed in the year 2000 witha reactionary old woman who has never done anything except act as a parasite on the body politic.
Bolingbroke has one observation, which in my opinion, is not without depth and solidity. He says, that he prefers a monarchy to other governments; because you can better ingraft any description of republic on a monarchy than any thing of monarchy upon the republican forms. I think him perfectly in the right.
The chief glory ofPrinces, and the chief of their Titles...is, That they areGod's Deputies andVicegerents here onearth; that they represent him, and by consequence, that they ought to resemble him. The outward respect paid them, carries a proportion to that Character of Divinity which is on them, and that supposes an imitation of the Divine Perfections in them.
Gilbert Burnet,A Sermon Preached at White-Hall, On the 26th of Novemb. 1691. Being the Thanksgiving-Day for the Preservation of the King, and the Reduction of Ireland (1691), p. 2
Britain is fortunate indeed in havinga breed of distinguished people ...whom people come from all over the world to see. It would be an act of cruelty to impose that function of royalty on any normal family of citizens, but seeing that there is a family which is born to it as the fruit of a long historical evolution it would be an act of great political folly to establish aPresidency...I have such a strong sense of the political usefulness ofBritish royalty to substantial and competentprogressive forces in the society.
Excepting those who see only a boisterous celebration, this macabre work [El entierro de la sardina] makes people uncomfortable.Malraux comments that the figures are not men and women in fancy dress, they are butterflies hatched for one brief moment from a larvel world, the revelation of freedom.Goya's picture therefore symbolizes not a dream fulfilled so much as a desire to be free. You might think ironsmiths, bricklayers, stable hands, knife grinders, peasants, chambermaids, and others with little to lose would protest the heavy hand ofEl Deseado. Wrong.Spaniards trapped at birth at the bottom of the heap were fiercelyconservative. AsKlingender explains, the more these people suffered, "the more fanatical did they become in their loyalty toChurch and crown, which they associated with their memories of a better life in the past." They saw inFerdinand the restoration of Spanish values.
Evan S. Connell,Francisco Goya (2005) p. 194.
Unreasonableness in royalty is a hereditary trait.
This war [World War II] would never have come unless, under American and modernising pressure, we had driven the Habsburgs out of Austria and Hungary and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany. By making these vacuums, we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl out of its sewer onto the vacant thrones.
Winston Churchill,pensée of the Prime Minister to Foreign Office dated April 8, 1945.
In thoseancient days, when thegooddestinies had been decreed, and afterAn andEnlil had set up thedivine rules ofheaven and earth, then ...Enki, the master of destinies, ... foundedcities and settlements throughout the earth, and made theblack-headed multiply. He provided them with aking as shepherd, elevating him to sovereignty over them; the king rose as the daylight over the foreign countries.
The tendency of an advanced civilization is in truth Monarchy. Monarchy is indeed a government which requires a high degree of civilization for its full development. . . . An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariate of what is called arepresentative government.
Aside fromSwitzerland,France (after the advent of the Third Republic) and a smattering of city-states, nearly all the states ofEurope between 1815 and 1917 were either empires, kingdoms, principalities or grand duchies. In all of them, the office of head of state was hereditary, not elective. Between the more or less enlightened despotism ofRussia and theliberal monarchy ofNorway there was a bewildering variety ofconstitutional forms. Yet none of these entirely deprived the hereditary sovereign ofpower, nor did away with that crucial institution of government, the royal court. Moreover, quite apart from their domestic political powers - which remained great in terms of patronage even if they were circumscribed in other respects - theemperors,kings,queens,princes and grand dukes had a distinctive role in the sphere ofinterstate relations. Despiteindustrialization and all the other associated phenomena of modernization, dynastic politics still mattered. Wars were fought over the successions to the dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein and the throne ofSpain – to give just two examples - not merely because they furnished ingenious statesmen with convenient pretexts for nation-building. When attention is focused on the most important of all thenineteenth-century dynasties, the Saxe-Coburgs, it becomes apparent that there was much about this supposedly modern epoch that was still distinctly early-modern.
Niall Ferguson,The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. 93-94
Constitutional monarchies, through their structure, avoid those four republican perils: excessive rigidity, as in theAmerican system, which is reduced to near paralysis whenever thePresident is seriously threatened withimpeachment; political conflict and competition between the Head of State, Prime Minister and Ministers, a hallmark of theFrench Fifth Republic (an inherently unstable model curiously followed in a number of countries); extreme instability, which often haunted the Latin versions of Westminster; and regular resort to the rule of the street to solve conflict, which permeates those systems which live under the shadow of theFrench revolution.
In your opinion,India means its fewprinces. To me it means its teeming millions on whom depends the existence of its princes and our own.Kings will always use their kingly weapons. To useforce is bred in them. They want tocommand, but those who have to obey commands do not want guns: and these are in a majority throughout the world.
Mohandas Gandhi, Chapter XVII,Hind Swaraj, 1909. Quoted inMahatma Gandhi : The Essential Writings, edited by Judith M. Brown. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. (p.321)
If instead of insisting onrights everyone does his duty, there will immediately be the rule of order established among mankind. There is no such thing as thedivine right of kings to rule and the humble duty of theryots to pay respectful obedience.
Mohandas Gandhi, "Rights or Duties?",Harijan Magazine, 6 July 1947. Quoted inMahatma Gandhi: The Essential Writings, edited by Judith M. Brown. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008. (p.91)
Of the various forms of government that have prevailed in the world, a hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.
Edward Gibbon,Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (1776-1788).
Americans also seem to believe that the monarchy is a kind ofmediaeval hangover, encumbered by premodern notions of decorum; the reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution — perhaps the first modern political institution.
It is the gilded peg from which our unlovely system of social distinction and hierarchy depends. It is an obstacle to the objective public discussion of our own history. It tribalises politics. It entrenches the absurdity of thehereditary principle. It contributes to what sometimes looks like an enfeeblement of the national intelligence, drawing from our press and even from some of our poets the sort of degrading and abnegating propaganda that would arouse contempt if displayed inZaire orRomania. It is, in short, neither dignified nor efficient. ~Christopher Hitchens
TheBritish monarchy inculcates unthinkingcredulity andservility. It forms a heavy layer on the general encrustation of our unreformed political institutions. It is the gilded peg from which our unlovely system ofsocial distinction and hierarchy depends. It is an obstacle to the objective public discussion of our own history. It tribalises politics. It entrenches the absurdity of thehereditary principle. It contributes to what sometimes looks like an enfeeblement of the national intelligence, drawing from our press and even from some of our poets the sort of degrading and abnegatingpropaganda that would arouse contempt if displayed inZaire orRomania. It is, in short, neither dignified nor efficient.
Christopher Hitchens,The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish (1990),Chatto Counterblasts
The first False Issue one normally encounters is the claim that it has 'no real power'. One never quite knows what 'real' is intended to mean here, but the conventions of the False Issue lead one to guess that the word is doing duty for 'formal'. Thus is the red herring introduced. A moment later, the same speaker is telling another listener of all the good things that monarchy is a 'force' for. These good things invariably turn out to be connected to power. They are things like 'stability', 'unity', 'national cohesion', 'continuity' and other things for which powerless people would find it difficult to be a force.Edmund Wilson would have had little trouble noticing, furthermore, that all the above good things are keywords forconservative andestablishment values.
Christopher Hitchens,The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish (1990),Chatto Counterblasts
We find that thepresidency has become too secretive, too powerful, too trammelled, too ceremonial, too impotent or too complicated, depending on the president under discussion or the critic making the analysis. On one thing all are agreed - there is a danger of an 'imperial' or 'monarchical' presidency. An incumbent inWashington knows he is in trouble on the day that cartoonists begin to represent him as a king.
Christopher Hitchens,The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish (1990),Chatto Counterblasts
In today'sBritain, the idea that there could be aConstitution more powerful - and even sacrosanct - than any crowned head or elected politician (thus abolishing the false antithesis between hereditary monarchs and capricious presidents) is thought of as a breathtakingly new and daring idea.
Christopher Hitchens,The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish (1990),Chatto Counterblasts
In their last ditch, the royalists object that this is all too bloodless and practical; that people need and want the element ofmagic andfantasy. Nobody wants life to be charmless. But the element of fantasy and magic is as primitive as it is authentic, and there are good reasons why it should not come from the state. When orchestrated and distributed in that way, it leads to disappointment and rancour, and can lead to the enthronement of sillier or nastier idols.
Christopher Hitchens,The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish (1990),Chatto Counterblasts
We know well that thePrimitive Church in her greatest purity were but voluntary congregations of believers, submitting themselves to theApostles, and after to other Pastors, to whom they did minister of their Temporals, asGod did move them. So asEcclesiasticus, cap. 17, says, God appointed aRuler over every people, when he divided nations of the whole Earth. And therefore if a people will refuse all government, it were against the law of God; and yet if a popular State will receive a Monarchy it stands well with theLaw of God.
Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet, C.J.,Bruton v. Morris (1614), Lord Hobart's Rep. 149; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe,Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 100.
Yet in factabsolute monarchy, however modernist and innovatory, found it impossible—and indeed showed few signs of wanting—to break loose from the hierarchy of landednobles to which, after all, it belonged, whose values it symbolized and incorporated, and on whose support it largely depended. Absolute monarchy, however theoretically free to do whatever it liked, in practice belonged to the world which theenlightenment had baptizedfeodalite orfeudalism, a term later popularized by theFrench Revolution. Such a monarchy was ready to use all available resources to strengthen itsauthority andtaxable revenue within and its power outside its frontiers, and this might well lead it to foster what were in effect the forces of the rising society. It was prepared to strengthen its political hand by playing off one estate,class or province against another. Yet its horizons were those of its history, its function and its class. It hardly ever wanted, and was never able to achieve, the root-and-branch social and economic transformation which the progress of the economy required and the rising social groups called for.
Eric Hobsbawm,The Age of Revolutions: Europe 1789-1848 (1962), p. 23
The state of Monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not onlyGod's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God'sthrone, but even by God himself they are calledgods.
James I of England, speech to Parliament at Whitehall (21 March 1609), fromPolitical Works of James I.
The insuperable objection to monarchy is that the king orqueen is elevated, and respect is accorded, for no reason other than birth ... No one who believes either in the claims of merit or in the pursuit of equality can defend the system.
One might raise the objection that monarchy is a wicked system of government because it attempts to imitatethe greatmonarcha of the cosmos and therefore contains a certain element ofblasphemy. Yet the very cell of human society, thefamily, in its natural form is also a patriarchal monarchy guided by the same natural-cosmic principle. ~Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Government by royal power is representative, and to this extentChristian. The dialectic of monarchy is world-historically both well-established and unchanging.
Monarchy was historically always the best protection against any sort ofoligarchical rule and it was the historic role of monarchs to side with the lower classes against thenobility.
One might raise the objection that monarchy is a wicked system of government because it attempts to imitatethe greatmonarcha of the cosmos and therefore contains a certain element ofblasphemy. Yet the very cell of human society, thefamily, in its natural form is also a patriarchal monarchy guided by the same natural-cosmic principle.
ProfessorHans-Hermann Hoppe likens thedemocratic procedure to a small child wanting his wishes fufilled immediately, and protests in tears if there is a delay or a negative reaction. A monarch, as a member of a dynasty, can plan for the distant future, even for generations.
From childhood, monarchs were prepared for their duties. They “inherited” their profession as traditionally as craftsmen did theirs. The son of a tailor became a tailor, and so forth. These tailors produced sometimes bad garments, occasionally excellent ones but usually passable ones. So, too, with monarchs.
WeBritons should rejoice that we have contrived to reach much legaldemocracy (we still need more of the economic) without losing our ceremonial Monarchy. For there, right in the midst of our lives, is that which satisfies the craving for inequality, and acts as a permanent reminder that medicine is not food. Hence a man's reaction to Monarchy is a kind of test. Monarchy can easily be "debunked", but watch the faces, mark well the accents of the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut — whom no rumor of the polyphony, thedance, can reach – men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it.Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honormillionaires,athletes, orfilm-stars instead — even famousprostitutes organgsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served — deny it food and it will gobble poison.
C. S. Lewis, in "Equality", inThe Spectator, Vol. CLXXI (27 August 1943)
Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it comes from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.
Abraham Lincoln, speech at Chicago, Illinois, July 10, 1858; in Roy P. Basler, ed.,The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), vol. 2, p. 500
Conservative orrightist extremist movements have arisen at different periods in modern history, ranging from theHorthyites inHungary, theChristian Social Party ofDollfuss inAustria,Der Stahlhelm and othernationalists in pre-HitlerGermany, andSalazar inPortugal, to the pre-1966Gaullist movements and the monarchists in contemporaryFrance andItaly. The right extremists are conservative, not revolutionary. They seek to change political institutions in order to preserve or restore cultural and economic ones, whileextremists of thecentre andleft seek to use political means for cultural and social revolution. The ideal of the right extremist is not atotalitarian ruler, but a monarch, or a traditionalist who acts like one. Many such movements inSpain,Austria,Hungary,Germany, andItaly have been explicitly monarchist. The supporters of these movements differ from those of thecentrists, tending to be wealthier, and more religious, which is more important in terms of a potential for mass support.
Seymour Martin Lipset, "Social Stratification and 'Right-Wing Extremism,'" inBritish Journal of Sociology (1959:10), pp. 346–382
It is as if one could forget that the sovereign power resides in my person only, sovereign power of which the true nature consists of the spirit of consultation, justice, and reason; that my courts derive their existence and theirauthority from me alone; that the discharge of that authority, which they exercise in my name only, always remains with me and can never be employed against me; that independent and undividedlegislative power belongs to me alone; that it is only by my authority that the officers of my courts proceed, not in the creation of laws, but in their registration, publication, and execution; that they are allowed to remonstrate only within the limits of their duties as good and useful councilors; that public order in its entirety emanates from me; that my people are one with me; and that the rights and interests of the nation, for which some dare to create a separate body from the monarch, are necessarily united with my rights and interests and rest only in my hands.
Louis XV of France at the "scourging session" (3 March 1766), quoted inCitizens (1990) by Simon Schama.
Monarchy is acentralizedaristocracy. At all times and in all places, the aristocracy commands. Whatever form is given to governments, birth and wealth always obtain the first rank, and nowhere do they rule more harshly than where their dominion is not founded on law. But in a monarchy, the king is the centre of this aristocracy; it is true that the aristocracy rules as elsewhere; but it rules in the king’s name, or if you will, the king is guided by the knowledge of the aristocracy.
Monarchy is, without contradiction, the form of government that gives the most distinction to the greatest number of persons.Sovereignty in this kind of government possesses enough brilliance to be able to share a part of it, with the necessary gradations, with a crowd of its more or less distinguished agents. In a republic, sovereignty is not tangible, as it is in a monarchy; it is a purely moral concept, and its greatness is incommunicable. In addition, in republics public offices are nothing outside the capital city, and moreover, they are nothing except insofar as they are occupied by members of government. Then it is the man who honours the office, not the office that honours the man.
Thomas Müntzer,Letter to the Princes, as cited inTransforming Faith Communities: A Comparative Study of Radical Christianity, p.173
[I]f we’re going to jeer atNorth Korea for being ade facto monarchy, we must also acknowledge the main advantage of such a system: no divisive squabbling over who has the right to rule. On my book tour for “The Cleanest Race” I used the example of my British mother: a firm supporter of the monarchy with different estimations of the various royals. She doesn’t like the idea ofCharles becoming king, but accepts that it will and must happen.
These Courts are not presumed to be the best acquainted with the rights and prerogatives of the Crown: in regard to such matters, we must look differently and respectfully to other authorities.
SirJohn Nicholl,Goods of King George III, (1822), 1 St. Tr. (N. S.) 1283; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe,The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 68.
The monarchy is a true system because it is bound to an absolute middle point; to an essence that belongs to humanity but not to the state.
Novalis, "Faith and Love; or, the King and the Queen" (1798) inNovalis Schriften, Volume 2 (1907), p. 151
Whenever kingship approaches tyranny it is near its end, for by this it becomes ripe for division, change of dynasty, or total destruction, especially in a temperate climate … where men are habitually, morally and naturally free.
Nicole Oresme, ̆De Moneta (c. 1360), Charles Johnson's translation,The De Moneta of Nicholas Oresme, and English Mint Documents (London, 1956), Ch. 25: "That a Tyrant cannot be lasting."
Monarchy always appears to me a silly, contemptible thing. I compare it to something kept behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when, by any accident, the curtain happens to be open — and the company see what it is, they burst into laughter. ~Thomas Paine
Whether I have too little sense to see, or too much to be imposed upon; whether I have too much or too little pride, or of anything else, I leave out of the question; but certain it is, that what is called monarchy, always appears to me a silly, contemptible thing. I compare it to something kept behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when, by any accident, the curtain happens to be open — and the company see what it is, they burst into laughter.
Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
Our Royal Family is wholesome and good, rather unimaginative Berkshire gentry...what is practised in their name is still a cult of personality, even though they are neither enriched by it or made politically powerful by it. Isn't adulation of any person, pop group, block or stone a condition we should be out of?
Royalty pollutes people’s minds, boy. Honest men start bowing and bobbing just because someone’s granddad was a bigger murdering bastard than theirs was.
The monarchy is a political referee, not a political player, and there is a lot of sense in choosing the referee by a different principle from the players. It lessens the danger that the referee might try to start playing.
There is no doubt in my mind that, from the third-person point of view, monarchy is the most reasonable form of government. By embodying the state in a fragile human person, it captures the arbitrariness and the givenness of political allegiance, and so transforms allegiance into affection.
Roger Scruton,The Meaning of Conservatism (2001), p. 193
The gates of monarchs Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through And keep their impious turbans on.
I give this heavy weight from off my head, And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand, The pride of kingly sway from out my heart; With mine own tears I wash away my value, With mine own hands I give away my crown, With mine own tongue deny my sacred state, With mine own breath release all duteous oaths.
I have often thought that the case against retaining the monarchy, which I usually construct in terms of the way it institutionalises deference, can be expressed much more simply: it rots the brain.
I believe that the royal family are a focus ofpatriotism, ofloyalty, ofaffection and ofesteem. That is a rare combination, and we should value it highly.
This romancing about the royal family is, I fear, only a minor symptom of the softening of thebrain ofsocialists enervated by affluence, social prestige and political power.
I have always regarded and written of monarchy as a profoundly corrupting influence upon our national life, imposing an intricate snobbishness on ourdominant classes, upon ourreligions,educational,military,naval andcombatant services generally, burking the promotion of capable men and reserving power in the community entirely for the privileged supporters of our Hanoverian monarchy.
H. G. Wells ,New Statesman, 23 December 1944. Quoted in W. J. Stankiewicz,Crisis in British Government: The Need for Reform London, Collier-Macmillan, 1967.
Likehomeopathy, mostalternative therapies are closer tomysticism than to medicine.This may explain their appeal to the British royal family, whose survival depends on another irrational faith - the magic of hereditary monarchy, which was so fiercely debunked byTom Paine and other Enlightenment pamphleteers. TheQueen is said to carry homeopathic remedies with her at all times.Princess Diana was a devotee of reflexology, the belief that pressure applied to magical 'zones' in the hands and feet can heal ailments elsewhere in the body.Prince Charles has been a prominent champion of 'holistic' treatments since 1982, having been persuaded of their effectiveness by that absurd old charlatan SirLaurens van der Post.
...an intense propaganda by public men, in the press, and in the cinema, has been carried on day after day for years in order to establish in the people a superstitious "loyalty" towards the Royal Family...[which] makes a rational and intelligent attitude towards social problems impossible.
Leonard Woolf,Quack, Quack! Essays on unreason and superstition in politics, belief and thought, 1935. Also quoted in W. J. Stankiewicz,Crisis in British Government: The Need for Reform London, Collier-Macmillan, 1967
In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And this kingdom will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it alone will stand forever, just as you saw that out of the mountain a stone was cut not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the copper, the clay, the silver, and the gold. The Grand God has made known to the king what will happen in the future. The dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy.
Whatever I can say or do, I'm sure not much avails; I shall still Vicar be of Bray, Whichever side prevails.
Samuel Butler,Tale of the Cobbler and the Vicar of Bray, in Posthumous Works.
I dare be bold, you're one of those Have took the covenant, With cavaliers are cavaliers And with the saints, a saint.
Samuel Butler,Tale of the Cobbler and the Vicar of Bray.
In good King Charles's golden days When royalty no harm meant, A zealous high-churchman was I, And so I got preferment.
Vicar of Bray, English song written before 1710. Also said to have been written by an officer inGeorge I's army, Col. Fuller's regiment. The Vicar of Bray was said to be Rev. Symon Symonds; also Dr. Francis Caswell. A Vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, Eng., was alternatelyCatholic andProtestant underHenry VIII.,Edward VI.,Mary, andElizabeth. See Fuller—Worthies of Berkshire. Simon Aleyn (Allen) named in Brom's Letters from the Bodleian, Volume II, Part I, p. 100.
Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, acrown of thorns.
Thomas Carlyle,Past and Present, Book III, Chapter VIII.
Fallitur egregio quisquis sub principe credet Servitutem. Nunquam libertas gratior extat Quam sub rege pio.
That man is deceived who thinks it slavery to live under an excellent prince. Never does liberty appear in a more gracious form than under a pious king.
Der Kaiser of dis Faderland, Und Gott on high all dings commands, We two—ach! Don't you understand? Myself—und Gott.
A. M. R. Gordon (McGregor Rose),Kaiser & Co., later calledHoch der Kaiser; published in theMontreal Herald (Oct., 1897), after the Kaiser's Speech on the Divine Right of Kings. Recited by Captain Coghlan at a banquet.
As yourselves yourempires fall, And every kingdom hath a grave.
'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor With a hairy old crown on 'er 'ead? She 'as ships on the foam—she 'as millions at 'ome. An' she pays us poor beggars in red.
He who knows not how to dissimulate, can not reign.
Louis XI. See Roche et Chasles,Hist. de France, Volume II, p. 30.
L'état c'est moi.
I am the State.
Attributed to Louis XIV of France. Probably taken from a phrase of Bossuet's referring to the King: "tout l'état est en lui"; which may be freely translated: "he embodies the State".
Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare.
He who knows how to dissimulate knows how to reign.
Vicentius Lupanus,De Magistrat. Franc. Lib. I. See Lipsius,Politica sive Civilis Doctrina. Lib. IV. Cap. 14. Conrad Lycosthenes—Apopothegmata. De Simulatione & Dissimulatione. Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy, Part I. Sect. II. Mem. III. Subsec. 15. Palingenius—Zodiacus Vitæ. Lib. IV. 684. Also given as a saying of Emperor Frederick I., (Barbarossa), Louis XI, and Philip II. of Spain. Tacitus—Annales. IV. 71.
A crown! what is it? It is to bear the miseries of a people! To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents, And sink beneath a load of splendid care!
A king is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness' sake. Just as in a Family one man is appointed to buy the meat. If every man should buy, or if there were many buyers, they would never agree; one would buy what the other liked not, or what the other had bought before, so there would be a confusion. But that charge being committed to one, he according to his discretion pleases all. If they have not what they would have one day, they shall have it the next, or something as good.
The King of England is one of thoseprinces who hath an Imperial Crown; what is that? It is not to do what he will; no, but it is that he shall not be punished in his own person if he doth that which in itself is unlawful.
Lord Bridgman, C.B.,Case of Hugh Peters (1660), 5 How. St. Tr. 1144.
God himself, with reverence be it spoken, is not an absolute but a limited monarch, limited by the rule which infinite wisdom prescribes to infinite power.
Lord Bolingbroke, "Patriot King".
An hiatus in government is so detested and abhorred, that the law says, "the King never dies," that there may never be a "cesser" of regal functions for a moment.
Wilmot, L.C.J.,Case of John Wilkes (1763), 19 How. St. Tr. 1130.
A people whom Providence hath cast together into oneisland orcountry are in effect one great body politic, consisting of head and members, in imitation of the body natural, as is excellently set forth in the statute of appeals, made 24 H. 8, c. 12, which stiles the King the supreme head, and the people a body politic (these are the very words), compact of all sorts and degrees of men, divided into spirituality and temporality. And this body never dies.
SirRobert Atkyns, L.C.B.,Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686), 11 How. St. Tr. 1204.
It is true that the King never dies; the demise is immediately followed by the succession; there is no interval: the Sovereign always exists; the person only is changed.
Lord Lyndhurst,Viscount Canterbury v. Att.-Gen. (1843), 1 Phill. 322.
AllGovernments rest mainly on public opinion, and to that of his own subjects every wise Sovereign will look. The opinion of his subjects will force a Sovereign to do his duty, and by that opinion will he be exalted or depressed in the politics of the world.
Lord Kenyon,Trial of John Vint and others (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 640.
The Queen is a subject.
Lord Bridgman,C.B., Scot's Case (1660), 5 How. St. Tr. 1069.
Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi.
French saying.
The person of the King is by law made up of two bodies: a natural body, subject to infancy, infirmity, sickness and death; and a political body, powerful, perfect and perpetual.
Bagshaw,Rights of the Crown of England, 29.
The Sovereign can only act by advisers, and through the instrumentality of those who are neither infallible nor impeccable— answerable, indeed, for all that the irresponsible Sovereign may do, but liable to err through undue influence, and to be swayed by improper motives.
The master is answerable for the negligence of his servant, because it may be considered to have arisen from his own misconduct or negligence in selecting or retaining a careless servant; that principle cannot apply to the Sovereign, to whom negligence or misconduct cannot be imputed, and for which if they occur in fact, the law affords no remedy.
Lord Lyndhurst,Viscount Canterbury v. Att.-Gen. (1843), 1 Phill. Rep. 321.
The law was the golden met-wand, and measure to try the causes of the subjects; and which protected his Majesty in safety and in peace.
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