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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The Stately Homes of England

We only keep them up for Americans to rent...

Some of England's peers have found more creative solutions. They not only inhabit their ancestral piles, but run them as businesses too, dangling their glittery goods like fishing lures to attract much-needed cash. "In the United States, we tend to have a romantic view of owning a great British estate," says Tom Savage, the director of museum affairs at Winterthur, the 175-room Delaware estate of the late chemical heir Henry Francis du Pont, which houses the foremost collection of American furniture and decorative objects. "But often the veil falls when you see inheritors to whom collecting is not a choice but an encumbering obligation: Out of economic necessity, they're doing everything in their power to hold on to what they've got."

...and Noel Coward.

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The Naval Hymn

Cross-posted at Royal Salute

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Roger Scruton - The City and The Soul

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The Duke and the Windmills

Reports The Sunday Telegraph:

In a withering assault on the onshore wind turbine industry, the Duke said the farms were “a disgrace”.

He also criticised the industry’s reliance on subsidies from electricity customers, claimed wind farms would “never work” and accused people who support them of believing in a “fairy tale”.

Writes Clive Aslet:

You have to hand it to the Duke of Edinburgh. At 90, he is still as incisive as ever. Once again, the Royal family has articulated what ordinary people, without the ear of the media, have long felt. His son might have called the wind farms that are besmirching our mountains and waving their giant arms inanely out at sea “a monstrous carbuncle”. Prince Philip chose “disgrace”. So they are.

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Remembering In Flanders Fields

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

I memorized the poem, many years ago, as I'm sure you did. It is a ritual of Canadian childhood. While achieving acclaim in America, it never become indelible in the American mind. Through out the Empire and Commonwealth it achieved iconic status, spurring the creation of the poppy campaigns seen every November. The poppy somewhat confuses Americans. For the Chinese it has other connotations.

The reading of the poem, the solemn viewing of grainy film, the occasional visit by an aged veteran - in my case a Canadian participant in the Great Escape - is part of the catechism of Canadianism. Why did they die? For freedom. Why did they suffer? For Canada.

It was all a very earnest attempt, by ernest teachers, to impart, as best they could, the nature of a war few of them experienced. They - unlike most of us - knew someone who was there. An uncle, a father, a grandfather. The names chiselled on walls that were only names to us, were to them family names and off-tint photographs.

To most of us, the students, the ritual, however much we wanted to feel what we were suppose to feel, was largely empty. There can be no places further apart, in mind and feel, than Flanders in 1917 and Canada today. We were much too lucky to understand. There was no personal connection. The odd student had escaped from a far away war-torn country, but was often too young to recall or understand. Most our families had not fought in the war. Our ancestors were buried elsewhere and for other reasons.

The war became real to me, as far as it can to someone like me, when attending the University of Toronto. It was the same school that John McCrae attended, more than a century before me. His name is inscribed near Soldiers' Tower. The names that had been inscribed at my elementary school were names from along ago, from people who were adults. They were two steps removed.

The names at Soldiers' Tower had been my age. They had walked the same halls. The difference between myself and them was only the accident of time. Most of the names were those of officers. In addition to all the burdens of war, these early twenty-somethings had the burdens of command. Imagine yourself at that age, trying not only to survive but to lead others into life and death. Only chance separated myself and them, as it had separated the survivors and those on the wall.

For all our secularism, and professed multiculturalism, we are still at root a Christian country. Except in the very early years of Canada there has always been, at least in English Canada, a fairly strict separation of church and state. The rhythms of our culture, as of most Western literature and art, however are Christian.

When the word sacrifice is used in remembrance ceremonies its origin, and echo, is Christian. It is Christ on the Cross. Just as He suffered for us, they the soldiers suffered for us. To the believer, then, November 11th has a double meaning, as it would have to those who first marked Armistice Day nine decades ago. Even a comparatively secular contemporary writer, Rudyard Kipling, infused his short short The Gardener with Christian allusion and allegory.

For good, and ill, Christianity is no longer the living religion it was then, or even thirty or forty years ago. It is seen today as a weekend hobby, resorted to in times of crisis, and then pushed to back of mind. Little, arguably nothing, has come to replace that living force in our culture. David Warren alluded to this in a recent column on Faith and Freedom. You can deny, as I do, that freedom requires faith. It does require, however, some sort of system of belief and value. A nation driven by whim and will is not a nation that will long be free. The Founders of both Canada and America understood this fact. They deferred, to a greater or lesser extent, to religion to provide that moral backbone for society.

While the message of sacrifice lingers in modern Canadian culture, the existence of evil is denied. There is no evil, we are told, only misunderstanding and reaction to suffering. This is why Remembrance Day has become only a ritual. Its meaning is lost, not only because of time, but because the spirit of that age is gone.

They who built the Cenotaphs and Soldiers' Towers believed in suffering, in redemption and in evil. Re-read the poem above, that last jarring stanza. "Take up our quarrel with the foe." The message delivered by those earnest school teachers is the pointlessness of war. That is not, however, what John McCrae believed. Like most of his generation, like most of those thousands of Canadians who lie buried with him in northwestern Europe, they believed in evil. More than this, they believed they fought for something good and against something evil. War was horrible, yes, but it was sometimes necessary to fight evil.

We all die, some of us die in great pain. From disease, from famine and from natural disaster. What separates death from natural causes, however horrific, and war is morality. War is a product of human thought and action, and so can and must be judged morally. That is why we remember and must, because of the moral dimension of war. We do not honour suffering for its own sake, we honour it because of what they sought to preserve. Let me close by quoting another poem, one that would have been familiar to John McCrae and his fellow officers:

Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the Gate:

"To every man upon this earth

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his gods,

And for the tender mother

Who dandled him to rest,

And for the wife who nurses

His baby at her breast,

And for the holy maidens

Who feed the eternal flame,

To save them from false Sextus

That wrought the deed of shame?"

It's from Macaulay's The Lays of Ancient Rome. Churchill memorized the poem while at Harrow. It was a standard text for generations of schoolboys. It faded from the curriculum in the years after the First World War. Macaulay was a Christian memorializing the feats of Roman pagans. While their creeds separated the stoical Romans from Victorian Englishmen, the themes of honour, duty, family and values worth fighting for crossed that divide. That we modern Canadians cannot understand Macaulay, and cannot understand that last stanza of In Flanders Field, is the unacknowledged tragedy of the last century.

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

Originally posted November 11th, 2010

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Why is the monarchy still useful to us do you think?

Young Fogey on BBC: "I think really the crown epitomises the equivalent of the soul of the man in philosophy. It is the life force of the state. Everything we have in this country emanates from the crown, it is the source of all power, but it also upholds those fundamental pillars of civil society. It is the national focal point - most countries of the world are born out of bloodshed and independence, like Independence Day in America and Bastille Day in France – we don’t have that, so the crown is the focal point for our national identity. We come together as a nation, it unites us as a people. Social cohesion comes into being through things like royal weddings and diamond jubilees, and through that it gives us in an era of globalisation, when we seem to be unsure of who we are, it provides us with that grounding element that we need. In addition to that it is the supreme example of civic duty, the monarchy exemplifies the Big Society, the concepts of engaging in philanthropic activities and engaging in charitable endeavors, and also very much the issue of moral leadership, through examples of the Queen and her mother through self-sacrifice and dedication to duty.

So those are the things that the sovereign and crown serve as head of the nation as opposed to just head of state. Head of state is the constitutional functions, opening parliaments and signing bills - but as head of the nation, the Queen and the monarchy are the spiritual and social heart of the nation. Those are two separate roles. I don’t think any other form of government enables the playing of those two things together."

You can listen to the rest of the Young Fogey BBC interview here.

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"A serious country cannot have a viceroy as its chief of state"

So says Conrad Black, who is himself a monarchist, a Catholic and a Lord. The problem is not the monarchy, writes Lord Black, the issue for non-British Commonwealth realms is its non-resident status:

As for Canada, its problem with the monarchy is that it is non-resident and, literally, un-Canadian. If the Cambridges were here for one or more five-year terms, they would be a smash, not least as ambassadors for Canada opposite other countries. (This is no rap on David Johnston, an outstandingly qualified Governor-General in every respect.)

If for any reason, some such idea as this is not a runner, the governor general should become a co-chief of state with the monarch, and not just a stand-in. A serious country cannot have a viceroy as its chief of state other than for two weeks every three years or so when a monarch from overseas, however distinguished, and who is officially shared with other countries, is physically present in Canada.

We have good people and good institutions. What is needed is a little creative thinking. The republicans, pounding the table and just demanding the abolition of the monarchy, are not contributing much to what should be an interesting and certainly is a timely, discussion.

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My meeting with the Prime Minister

Meeting Prime Minister Harper 17th October 2011 (Photo by Jill Thompson)

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