Regimental Outrage

Is Paul Hellyer advising the British government?

Fury has been mounting since the Defence Secretary told the Daily Telegraph earlier this week that the “ancient cap badges have largely gone” and some traditional regimental names are now just “attached in brackets”.

Under Mr Hammond’s proposals, the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS), would become just 3 SCOTS and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlands would be names 5 SCOTS.

(HT)

In what sense is this a Tory government?

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Anton Lorien: Like a Diamond

H/T: Rambling Royalist

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Happy Birthday to Her Majesty!

Thanks to Royal World!

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Lucky Scribes!

The main Diamond Jubilee weekend is just around the corner – just above two months away.

Buckingham Palace, photo by David Iliff

There are many jubilee activities, as we are sure the main part of our regular readers are aware of – if not all. Some of the activities have been featured here at this weblog. Many more have been reported elsewhere.

We are glad to present and report here at The Monarchist a most fortunate item of news. It is especially happy news for the gentleman scribes here at The Monarchist.

These scribes have done great work for the cause of the monarchy and monarchism. As a reward, they will each get a personal invitation to an exclusive luncheon at Buckingham Palace in the main Jubilee weekend with none other than Her Majesty the Queen herself.

The luncheon is set for Saturday the 2^nd of June this year. The scribes will receive personal invitations in the mail shortly.

Yours truly is personally looking forward to this luncheon, and I am sure the other scribes are delighted at the news as well.

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The Secret of the Crown - A Book Review

It can be safely said that John Fraser is a member of the Canadian Establishment. The Master of Massey College, former editor of the now defunct Saturday Night magazine and friend of many of the great and good of modern Canada. In his wilder days he helped Mikhail Baryshnikov defect and was involved in the short-lived Beijing Spring. A sensible chap, as the other chaps might say, with an interesting CV.

Unfortunately for Mr Fraser he has done something very rash indeed. He has published a book about the monarchy in Canada. This is an act of madness. Few people read books, too much work, fewer people can afford books, too much debt, and even fewer seem to have an interest in reading about anything as stuffy as the monarchy. Nor has Mr Fraser been very savvy about this book. Yes there is a very fine picture of Kate and Wills right on the cover. Little of this slender book is spent on the royal couple. There is more in this book about Wills' father, Prince Charles, than about the happy glowing couple.

So a slender book about the unfashionable part of an unfashionable institution. Bad enough. Then Mr Fraser really does it: This is a pro-monarchy book about the monarchy in Canada. At this point the good and great of our ex-dominion leave the table with their port, muttering to themselves that old Fraser has gone balmy. There are many things that people can get away with at Toronto parties these days, things which even a generation ago would have shocked and appalled. In modern Canada anything goes, that is unless you are monarchist.

Whatever else might be said of this book, its publication is something of a landmark and its author is a brave man. To have spent a lifetime among our semi-republicanized elite, the self-hating WASPs who rule us, and have emerged both sane and a monarchist is no mean feat. He is to be congratulated and even admired. Did we mention that Mr Fraser is also a church going Anglican? A Sunday School teacher no less? Like I said, a brave man.

The book itself is hardly a treatise on monarchy. It does not draw upon the vast legal, constitutional and cultural legacy of the Crown in Canada, a work that could easily run to the length of an encyclopedia. This is also not a history of the monarchy in Canada, or a biography of any particular royal or of the royal family as a whole. It is not an in-depth account of the workings of Rideau Hall. This is not a scholarly work meant to send shivers down the spines of republicans.

Instead what Mr Fraser has presented us with is a rather idiosyncratic work. There are long digressions, including one about a refugee Chinese agronomist who gets into a bicycle accident in Toronto, that seem to bear only tangentially on the overall theme. The book is packed with numerous anecdotes about the monarchy, about Canada and about John Fraser's interactions with both.

This is not to say that these anecdotes and digressions are not charming or memorable, they certainly are, including a priceless one of Prince Phillip handling journalists which Fraser himself witnessed. Yet those seeking a tightly reasoned defence of the Crown in this country will be disappointed. The book simply does not congeal around a clear theme. Even the charm of these stories depends very much on the reader. If you are an anglophile monarchists, as I am, then this a very fine way to spend a warm Spring or Summer afternoon. If you are not, then this book is too long and too sentimental by half.

The Secret of the Crown is unlikely to persuade any republicans who might pick it up. If anything it might reinforce that nagging suspicion among monarchists in Canada that the monarchy is something you either get or not. It either makes perfect sense or looks to be a pile of antiquated nonsense. That it fails to convince, however, does not mean it fails to inspire.

The book is filled with clever insights and poignant phrases, it is something closer to a rallying cry than an apologia. Those looking for a label might use "Monarchist Pride." Should such a term be acceptable. Pride is the very thing monarchists avoid, it being a sin and all. Defenders of the Crown in Canada may not all be aging WASPs and old boys from UCC, though Fraser had the honour of being expelled at about the same time as his friend Conrad Black, but they do have certain common characteristics.

The Canadian monarchist is a circumspect individual, reticent until well aged spirits are served. A monarchists' pride parade would be a contradiction in terms. Blocking a whole street for several hours would be disrespectful to others. A protest carrying signs might attract undue attention. Talking too often or too loudly might get one struck off as a fanatic. Reading this book one imagines John Fraser to be a rather typical monarchist in these respects. He even sort of apologies in the book for not having been forceful enough in defending the monarchy.

In probably the best line of the book Fraser notes: "Our enemy was not hatred, but indifference buttressed by spurts of mockery." Been there, done that and gotten the contemptuous looks to prove it. In the eyes of many in modern Canada defending the monarchy is akin to arguing for a flat earth. So very different from the "tribal monarchy" of yesteryear, which Fraser very well describes in the early part of this book. From unquestioned assumption to aging anarchism in less than a human life time.

The indifference has one basic source, the decision by Canada's elite from Lester Pearson onward to junk the monarchy. Being insidious chaps they understood that a frontal assault on the Crown in the 1960s would have been politically suicidal. Fraser recounts the well known story, at least in monarchist circles, of CBC personality Joyce Davidson saying in 1959 that she was indifferent to an upcoming royal visit. The wrath of the general public was deafening toward the young woman, who eventually moved to the United States. A decade latter it's unlikely that Davis' off hand remark would have arched even a Tory's eyebrow.

With the end of the Age of Deference, which Fraser dates to between 1960 to 1965, came the Age of Prurient Contempt. We know it better now as the Age of Murdoch, in dishonour of the republican media baron. Canada has no Rupert Murdoch. We did however have Lester Pearson, a genial and well intention man who kicked off the quasi-republicanization of our constitution. It was Pearson who advised Her Majesty, in the wake of Truncheon Saturday, that the monarchy's days in Canada were numbered.

The Queen has outlived Mike Pearson, Pierre Trudeau and may yet outlive Paul Hellyer. She has certainly outlasted that misguided attempt to remove the "royal" from our air force and navy. They are royal again. This is the power of persistence. Keep doing the right thing, the proper thing and you will out last the fashionable nonsense of the age. A century from now very few will remember Rupert Murdoch. Those that do will recall how he tried and failed to destroy the monarchy. The Queen, simply by being the Queen, by embodying values the rest of the world has abandoned, has bested the Murdochs of the world.

The great political value of the Crown is that it stands aloof from partisan politics. The great cultural value is that it stands above the tyranny of the moment. It is what it is. A resplendent example in a fallen age. John Fraser reminds us of that, pushed along with scores of charming anecdotes about the Queen Mother, Prince Phillip, Prince Charles and Her Majesty. For this he should be thanked. Modern Canada needs all the dignity and charm it can get.

The Secret of the Crown: Canada's Affair with Royalty

By John Fraser

House of Anansi Press

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Her Majesty at Westminster Hall

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O Lord, Make Thy Servant

Composed by William Byrd:

H/T: The Pittsford Perennialist

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Her Britannic Majesty at King's Lynn

Her Britannic Majesty visited King's Lynn Town Hall on Accession Day earlier this month:

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Funeral of King George VI

The last journey of the last emperor sixty years ago today.

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The Falklands are British

Howler of the day: "the world today is not going to tolerate any ludicrous and archaic commitment to colonialist ideology."

-- Sean Penn on the Falkland Islands


I am not surprised that Sean Penn backs Argentina over the Falkland Islands, but such a statement is the stuff of Hollywood idiots. I hesitate to speak badly of the man given his seemingly good volunteer work in Haiti, and I realize he was meeting with the President of Argentina as a "Haitian Representative" (really?), but could there be a more ludicrous assessment of the situation. No doubt President Obama agrees with Mr. Penn (Obama has many Hollywood millionaire pals, especially of the environmentalist strain), for why else would he be calling for a negotiated settlement, rather than the traditionally expected full-throated backing of the United Kingdom?

Memo to Sean Penn: Ninety percent of the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands are British, and wish to live under the sovereignty of the British Crown. If sovereignty was transferred to Argentina without any say from these people, then it would be Argentina that would be the occupiers, and only then could it be called colonialist. People put far too much weight and emphasis on distance and geography in an interconnected world (by far the biggest reason why Britain is in the EU, after all), but if continental proximity is really the most powerful indicator of a nation's right to extend its borders, when pray will the United States finally give Alaska to Canada. I am waiting for your answer President Obama. I expect nothing less than an immediate negotiated settlement through the United Nations. We will no longer tolerate this ludicrous and archaic infringement of Canadian sovereignty.

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David Flint on the Diamond Jubilee

Prof. David Flint on Australian TV about the Diamond Jubilee:

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Three Queens in Mourning

Another excellent article on the genius of monarchy by Father De Souza

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Accession Proclamation, 1952 (Canada)

Canada was the first realm to proclaim Her Majesty as Queen 60 years ago today

WHEREAS it hath pleased Almighty God to call to His Mercy Our Late Sovereign Lord King George the Sixth of blessed and glorious memory by whose decease the Crown of Great Britain, Ireland and all other His late Majesty's dominions is solely and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, Now Know Ye that I, the said Right Honourable Thibaudeau Rinfret, Administrator of Canada as aforesaid, assisted by Her Majesty's Privy Council for Canada do now hereby with one voice and consent of tongue and heart, publish and proclaim that the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary is now by the death of Our late Sovereign of happy and glorious memory become our only lawful and rightful Liege Lady Elizabeth the Second by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith, Supreme Liege Lady in and over Canada, to whom we acknowledge all faith and constant obedience with all hearty and humble affection, beseeching God by whom all Kings and Queens do reign to bless the Royal Princess Elizabeth the Second with long and happy years to reign over us.


Given under my Hand and Seal at Arms at Ottawa, this Sixth day of February, in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifty-two, and in the first year of Her Majesty's reign.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

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Gentlemen, your hats

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'The King walked with death'

We begin commemorating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee with Prime Minister Churchill's moving and eloquent speech sixty years ago in remembrance of His Late Majesty, King George VI: 'For Valour'.

When the death of the King was announced to us yesterday morning there struck a deep and solemn note in our lives which, as it resounded far and wide, stilled the clatter and traffic of twentieth-century life in many lands, and made countless millions of human beings pause and look around them. A new sense of values took, for the time being, possession of human minds, and mortal existence presented itself to so many at the same moment in its serenity and in its sorrow, in its splendour and in its pain, in its fortitude and in its suffering.

The King was greatly loved by all his peoples. He was respected as a man and as a prince far beyond the many realms over which he reigned. The simple dignity of his life, his manly virtues, his sense of duty - alike as a ruler and a servant of the vast spheres and communities for which he bore responsibility - his gay charm and happy nature, his example as a husband and a father in his own family circle, his courage in peace or war - all these were aspects of his character which won the glint of admiration, now here, now there, from the innumerable eyes whose gaze falls upon the Throne.

We thought of him as a young naval lieutenant in the great Battle of Jutland. We thought of him when calmly, without ambition, or want of self-confidence, he assumed the heavy burden of the Crown and succeeded his brother whom he loved and to whom he had rendered perfect loyalty. We thought of him, so faithful in his study and discharge of State affairs; so strong in his devotion to the enduring honour of our country; so self-restrained in his judgments of men and affairs; so uplifted above the clash of party politics, yet so attentive to them; so wise and shrewd in judging between what matters and what does not.

All this we saw and admired. His conduct on the Throne may well be a model and a guide to constitutional sovereigns throughout the world today and also in future generations. The last few months of King George's life, with all the pain and physical stresses that he endured - his life hanging by a thread from day to day, and he all the time cheerful and undaunted, stricken in body but quite undisturbed and even unaffected in spirit - these have made a profound and an enduring impression and should be a help to all.

He was sustained not only by his natural buoyancy, but by the sincerity of his Christian faith. During these last months the King walked with death as if death were a companion, an acquaintance whom he recognized and did not fear. In the end death came as a friend, and after a happy day of sunshine and sport, and after "good night" to those who loved him best, he fell asleep as every man or woman who strives to fear God and nothing else in the world may hope to do.

The nearer one stood to him the more these facts were apparent. But the newspapers and photographs of modern times have made vast numbers of his subjects able to watch with emotion the last months of his pilgrimage. We all saw him approach his journey's end. In this period of mourning and meditation, amid our cares and toils, every home in all the realms joined together under the Crown may draw comfort for tonight and strength for the future from his bearing and his fortitude.

There was another tie between King George and his people. It was not only sorrow and affliction that they shared. Dear to the hearts and the homes of the people is the joy and pride of a united family. With this all the troubles of the world can be borne and all its ordeals at least confronted. No family in these tumultuous years was happier or loved one another more than the Royal Family around the King.

No Minister saw so much of the King during the war as I did. I made certain he was kept informed of every secret matter, and the care and thoroughness with which he mastered the immense daily flow of State papers made a deep mark on my mind.

Let me tell you another fact. On one of the days when Buckingham Palace was bombed the King had just returned from Windsor. One side of the courtyard was struck, and if the windows opposite out of which he and the Queen were looking had not been, by the mercy of God, open, they would both have been blinded by the broken glass instead of being only hurled back by the explosion. Amid all that was then going on, although I saw the King so often, I never heard of this episode till a long time after. Their Majesties never mentioned it or thought it of more significance than a soldier in their armies would of a shell bursting near him. This seems to me to be a revealing trait in the royal character.

There is no doubt that of all the institutions which have grown up among us over the centuries, or sprung into being in our lifetime, the constitutional monarchy is the most deeply founded and dearly cherished by the whole association of our peoples. In the present generation it has acquired a meaning incomparably more powerful than anyone had dreamed possible in former times. The Crown has become the mysterious link, indeed I may say the magic link, which unites our loosely bound, but strongly interwoven Commonwealth of nations, states, and races....

For fifteen years George VI was King. Never at any moment in all the perplexities at home and abroad, in public or in private, did he fail in his duties. Well does he deserve the farewell salute of all his governments and peoples.

It is at this time that our compassion and sympathy go out to his consort and widow. Their marriage was a love match with no idea of regal pomp or splendour. Indeed, there seemed to be before them only the arduous life of royal personages, denied so many of the activities of ordinary folk and having to give so much in ceremonial public service. May I say - speaking with all freedom - that our hearts go out tonight to that valiant woman, with famous blood of Scotland in her veins, who sustained King George through all his toils and problems, and brought up with their charm and beauty the two daughters who mourn their father today. May she be granted strength to bear her sorrow.

To Queen Mary, his mother, another of whose sons is dead - the Duke of Kent having been killed on active service - there belongs the consolation of seeing how well he did his duty and fulfilled her hopes, and of knowing how much he cared for her.

Now I must leave the treasures of the past and turn to the future. Famous have been the reigns of our queens. Some of the greatest periods in our history have unfolded under their sceptre. Now that we have the second Queen Elizabeth, also ascending the Throne in her twenty-sixth year, our thoughts are carried back nearly four hundred years to the magnificent figure who presided over and, in many ways, embodied and inspired the grandeur and genius of the Elizabethan age.

Queen Elizabeth II, like her predecessor, did not pass her childhood in any certain expectation of the Crown. But already we know her well, and we understand why her gifts, and those of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, have stirred the only part of the Commonwealth she has yet been able to visit. She has already been acclaimed as Queen of Canada.

We make our claim too, and others will come forward also, and tomorrow the proclamation of her sovereignty will command the loyalty of her native land and of all other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire. I, whose youth was passed in the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian era, may well feel a thrill in invoking once more the prayer and the anthem, "God save the Queen!"

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A Prayer for our Diamond Queen

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Happy Australia Day!

Since our loyal kith and kin in the Land of Oz are one day ahead of most of us, I am posting "today".

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'Captain Coward'

Not exactly a piece of pure and exalted manhood. That's a long way down indeed.

The survivor statistics tell the tale. More women from third class — deep in the bowels of the ship, where it was hard to escape and instructions were vague or nonexistent — survived than men from first class. Almost all of the women from first class (97 percent) and second class (84 percent) made it. As Butler notes, the men from first class who were lost stayed behind voluntarily, true to their Edwardian ideals.

They can look faintly ridiculous from our vantage point. Benjamin Guggenheim changed into his evening clothes that night: “We’ve dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.” Whom would you rather have around your wife or daughter, though, when there is only one slot left on the lifeboat? Old Guggenheim in his white tie and tails, or the contemporary slob in his Bermuda shorts and flip-flops?

The Titanic went down, they say, to the strains of the hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” as the band courageously played on. It lent a final grace note to the tragedy. Today, we don’t do grace notes. We’ve gone from “Women and children, first,” to “Dude, where’s my lifeboat?” As the women of the Costa Concordia can testify, that’s a long way down.

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Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames

The elevated spectacle of a slow moving pageantry on the River Thames celebrating the diamond jubilee of the world's preeminent hereditary monarchy promises to captivate the attention of the largest television audience in history. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee pageant will showcase one thousand ships - the biggest collection of boats in 350 years - each of which will take 90 minutes to pass any one spot. Applications from across the Commonwealth were three time overscribed. A million waving and cheering people are expected to line the Thames.

The mustering of boats will cover 30 miles, the procession beginning at Hammersmith and ending at the Tower Bridge. The largest boat will be the 68-metre Royal Barge; the smallest a kayak. Every realm of the Crown Commonwealth will be represented. There will be American whaling boats, a slipper launch from Canada and surfer boats from every state of Australia. Boats will include Amazon used in Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and a motor boat used by Churchill and Eisenhower to review the Anglo-Canadian-American D-Day Allied Forces.

This wonderful river pageantry is the brainchild of HRH Prince Charles, who will fittingly serve as patron of the event. Lord Salisbury, whose great grandfather was Prime Minister of Great Britain during Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, is appropriately chairing the organization overlooking it. Incredibly no public funds will be spent - all of it corporate sponsors or private donations from the public.

Perhaps the daftest thing sofar offered on this comes from London's Mayor, Boris Johnson, who opined that it would be an "anticipatory drum roll" for the Olympics, as if our Diamond Queen is merely playing "warm up" for this year's international summer athletes. Good morning, Boris! You may leave your dunce cap at the door.

Very well then - there is only one remaining unanswered question concerning the greatest assemblage of boats in more than three centuries: Which canoe will the republicans be protesting on?

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Not So Quaint

A Canadian institution:

Appreciating that the Crown is our concept of the state helps us resolve the most contentious issue in the burgeoning monarchy-republic debate: whether the institution is Canadian or British. Historically, Canada and the United Kingdom shared the same Crown. With the enactment of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, however, the Canadian and British Crowns became two distinct institutions, reflecting Canada's evolution from a self-governing colony to an independent state.

Where does the person of the sovereign fit in all this? The Queen embodies the Crown; she is essentially the holder of the Crown as an office. For this reason, the sovereign is both the Queen of Canada and Queen of the United Kingdom. Although they are separate and distinct, she holds both offices and embodies both Crowns.

I've never been entirely convinced of the wisdom of emphasizing the Canadian nature of the Crown. There is no getting around the fact that the Queen resides in Britain most of the year. Instead I think we should be comfortable with the "British" aspects of the Crown. Most of Canada's key institutions are British derived, though it is nation peopled by members of every race and creed. We should not shy away from our British heritage. It shows to new Canadians that we are an old country after all, that our values and traditions have stood well history's test.

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Uneasy lies the Jamaican head...

Uneasy lies the head that wears a Crown. - William Shakespeare

For those unaware, Jamaica will be celebrating 50 years of national independence this August 2012. Their prime minister, Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller, is planning to herald this august achievement by ditching their diamond Queen and by reintroducing the death penalty to its country's citizens. As David Flint over at ACM has noted, all we know for certain is that some unspecified form of politician's republic will come with the gallows. Happy birthday, Jamaica!

Quite frankly I am aghast that one political party can use its temporary mandate to overturn the monarchy forever. Speaking as an irredeemable medievalist, I do not believe that one generation has the democratic right to overturn the cumulative work of generations that preceded it, but at the very minimum I would have thought that the people would need to be consulted in a referendum on a clear question on so fundamental an issue as this. This is particularly worrisome if in fact 62% of its population truly supports the institution. Just who and where are these friends of the Jamaican Crown, and why are they not better organized?

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"A very British Canada"

Who killed Canadian history? One can only imagine what Jack Granatstein would think or write about this little corner of the web, if he ever saw it. We are (gasp!) "a very British blog".

I've had my own regrettable exchange with the man (something about the present catching up to me, and the future leaving me in the dust), who congratulated me (accused me) for my role in returning Canada to colonial status. The temptation is to do as he has done and lash out, but two people wrestling in the mud only gets both dirty. Better to keep calm and carry on (egad, there's that Britishness again).

It is strange thing though for a reputable historian to be ashamed of his country's inheritance, who adamantly wants to sever all identifiable links and ties with the past. He's an odd fish: a pro-military Liberal republican who will chastize anyone for holding anti-American views, but who himself is anti-British to his very core. He would probably deny this, but why else can he not fathom the thought that our britishness (small b) is inextricably part of our national identity. He finds it 'appalling' and 'abjectly colonial'.

Make no mistake, what is really going on is a simple return to normal. After forty years of pretending we were not a monarchy (successive governments have done their best to diminish and belittle it), we have a prime minister who is actually (shock!) loyal to Canada's heritage and traditions and is deliberately turning the clock back to its proper time. He is making the country into "a very unLiberal Canada" for the obvious reason that a nation's heritage should not be owned by any one particular political party, and the 8.1 percent who agree with Jack are having an extremely difficult time of it. The present has finally caught up to them, so to speak, and their political future is very bleak indeed.

The last word goes to a commenter,

If, after waking in the morning, Mr. Granatstein isn't embarassed by this petulant rubbish, then his family ought to be deeply concerned for him. Jeffrey Simpson who wrote a similarly contemptuous piece last year should sue him for plagiarism.

Pierre Trudeau entrenched the monarchy in the Constitution Act, 1982 as part of a deal to get his precious 'Charter of Rights and Freedoms'. After three decades of Liberal governments pretending that it was abolished, the current government is re-introducing Canada as it actually is with an ancient Crown covered in maples.

The only thing leaking in Mr. Granatstein's fantasy is his once-admired reputation.

Jack Granatstein: Winning the award for "the lowest overall tone".

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The Grand Old Duke

Old sailors...

As the Queen’s consort, Philip has been constantly at her side throughout her 60 year reign. And while we’re quick to jump on his reported inappropriate comments — which often turn out to be exaggerated stories — he rarely gets the praise he deserves for his tireless devotion to her, to the Commonwealth and to Canada.

In a review of the fleet in Halifax last year, he proudly wore the uniform of an Admiral in the Canadian Navy. He paused and chatted to naval vets. Like him, they served in dangerous waters in wartime, protecting convoys.

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Jean Chretien is joined by John Howard in the Order of Merit



The 2012 New Years Honours List from the Palace brings news that former Australian prime minister, John Howard, has been made a member of the Order of Merit by the Queen.

General information on the OM can easily be found on the web and so will not be canvassed here, but the appointment of Mr Howard to the Order deserves further consideration.

In Australia, there is a tradition of senior honours being bestowed on those that have reached the apex of  public life. Since the office has been "localised", three governors-general (two of whom also served as foreign minister) have been made made Knights of the Garter.  Sir Robert Menzies, Australia's longest serving Prime Minister, was made a Knight of the Thistle in 1963.  Sir Owen Dixon, regarded as Australia's greatest jurist, was made OM, also in 1963.

No Australian has received a knighthood on an official Australian list since 1990.  The last knighthoods from the Royal Prerogative to be bestowed on Australian residents were the KCVO on Sir David Smith in 1992, and the Garter on Sir Ninian Stephen in 1994.  It seems that Australia and Canada both now share the Order of Merit as the most senior honour in public life.

Now, John Howard has joined this exclusive group by being made OM - only the second Australian involved in statecraft ever to be so.  It is not necessarily an endorsement of his policies, but it is a statement by her that she considers him a first-rank political figure.  Given her sixty years on the throne, she has met more successful political figures than anyone else on the planet.  Howard's OM is high praise indeed.

The sad fact of course is that no former Labor politicians have been so recognised, although there have been worthy candidates.  This is less to do with the Queen, than the Australian Labor Party's strict, unyielding position on the honours system and its support for a republic occasionally turning very nasty and personal.  For example, Jack Egerton, a Labor stalwarrt from Queensland was expelled from Labor in the 1970s for accepting a knighthood.  Paul Keating's views are also well known on the matter of a republic.

Pleasingly however, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard has congratulated Mr Howard on his appointment.

Former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke would be a worthy recipient of the OM (uniquely, he held the AC before entering parliament).  But it is not unreasonable for the Queen to avoid giving such prestigious, intimate honours to people who have publicly and repeatedly said that they disapprove of her office.

For so long as Australia is a constitutional monarchy, and the Australian Labor Party obliges its members and leaders to promote its republican platform regardless of what they may think of it privately, it will forever be diminished and absent from the highest reaches of public life.  This is not an argument for changing the Constitution - after all, like its competitors, Labor is a mere political party, not a constitutional institution.  The Constitution should never be changed for the convenience of a particular political party.

This situation will only change if  Labor senses it no longer needs to invest emotionally in a republic, either by its members or its leaders.  Time will tell.

In the meantime, congratulations to the Hon. John Howard, OM AC SSI.

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What Century?

The wise Young Liberals of Canada are looking for boldness and relevancy in the 21st century, and what better way to bring forth their brave new vision of the country than to ditch the monarchy. Gotta admire the neat rationality of it all, to say nothing of their diamond timing:

WHEREAS Canada is a multicultural nation, built by people from many diverse backgrounds and where at present no Canadian citizen can ever aspire to be head of state of our own country;

WHEREAS Canadians believe in earning one’s position in life and not being simply born into privilege;

WHEREAS our head of state should be a true representative of the People of Canada;

WHEREAS Canada prides itself in being a democratic nation, with democratic institutions;

WHEREAS foreign law bars individuals not of the Anglican faith from rising to the position of head of state of Canada;

WHEREAS Canada’s head of state should conform to Canadian laws of gender and religious equality represented in the Charter of Rights and Freedom;

WHEREAS Canadians pay more to maintain the monarchy than the British;

WHEREAS an unelected individual can and is prepared to supersede the will of the Parliament;

BE IT RESLOVED [sic] that the Liberal Party of Canada, urge the Parliament of Canada to form an all party committee to study the implementation of instituting a Canadian head of state popularly elected and sever formal ties with the British Crown.

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Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Defender of the Empire and Civilization

Unofficial Poet Laureate of the English Speaking Peoples

Youngest Nobel Laureate for Literature

Born December 30th, 1865 - Died January 18th, 1936

A medley of Kipling related material from this blog and elsewhere...

The Complete Poems

Wikipedia Biography

"Not this Tide"

Rudyard Kipling

141 Years Old and Still Looking Good

Kipling and the Iron Ring

Kipling's Game

Kipling's Empire

Kipling's Business

Kipling the Propagandist

Kipling the Globetrotter

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The Christmas Broadcast – 2011

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The Christmas Broadcast - 1957

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Christmas and the Great War

Merry Christmas to all!

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Messiah

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John Edmond: Christmas in Rhodesia

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The Viscount Bolingbroke

260 years ago today (December 12 in the old calendar), Henry St John, 1^st Viscount Bolingbroke passed on.

Alexis Simon Belle: Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Lord Bolingbroke wrote The Idea of a Patriot King, in which – amongst other things – he wrote:

Among many reasons which determine me to prefer monarchy to every form of government, this is a principal one. When monarchy is the essential form, it may be more easily and more usefully tempered with aristocracy, or democracy, or both, than either of them, when they are the essential forms, can be tempered with monarchy. 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 greater light extinguishes a less. Whereas it may easily be shown, and the true form of our government will demonstrate, without seeking any other example, that very considerable aristocratical and democratical powers may be granted on a monarchical stock, without diminishing the lustre, or restraining the power and authority of the prince, enough to alter in any degree the essential form.

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The Coronation Portrait of Edward VIII

King Edward VIII like we've never seen him before. Had he not abdicated, everything else staying the same, Elizabeth II would still be our Queen today, albeit with 30 years on the throne, not the 60 years we are on the cusp of celebrating in 2012. The abdication crisis turns 75.

King Edward VIII in his coronation robes Photo: Illustrated London News

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Kenyan Independence

On December 12, 1963, Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth II attained the title Queen of Kenya – in the twelfth year of her reign. Exactly one year later, or 366 days, on December 12, 1964, Her Britannic Majesty was no longer to reign over “the land of endless sunshine.”

The Last Farewell by Anglo-Kenyan singer Roger Whittaker:

My Land Is Kenya – also by Whittaker:

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Hardinge Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury

Hardinge Giffard, 1^st Earl of Halsbury

Hardinge Giffard was born on September 23, 1823 – in the reign of George IV. He passed on, 98 years old, 90 years ago today – on December 11, 1921. Lord Halsbury was the most prominent opponent in the House of Lords of what was to become the Parliament Act 1911, whose centenary is marked this year.

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