Better a Knightless Realm than a Cavalier Republic

Well of course better a King and a Knight's Kingdom than any strange, watered down or half-assed concoction of same. But this being an imperfect world, we are sometimes required to ponder the consequences of unsatisfactory choices. So it was with a certain bemusement to discover Kiwi republicans who support the restoration of titular honours in New Zealand. I happen-chanced across it by way of one of those useful press releases that the republican movement keeps pumping out, which nobody ever bothers to read, yet miraculously gets caught by Google.

Hope springs half-empty or half-full, I suppose, depending on your outlook, though I do think the semi-monarchist meanderings of Dean Knight and David Farrar amount to half a giant leap for mankind. For republicans, these guys are as soft as they come, and one wonders whether these fine, if slightly twisted, gentlemen, who obviously support the trappings of monarchy, might be persuaded to support the continued presence of Her Majesty if it meant reinstatement of Kiwi honours.

It is a crime against honour that egalitarianist politicians in Canada, Australia and New Zealand have muzzled our Queen from granting knighthoods to her own subjects, whilst those citizens in America, Ireland and the rest of the world are permitted to regularly receive such honours. It would be an even greater crime, in this humble scribe's opinion, to relent to this creeping regicide by going down on bended knee before the reigning politician, as if somehow a worthy substitute. Because tradition and its trappings must be authentic, hold that magnificent sense of gravitas, especially where honour is concerned. You simply can't fake this stuff.

It is a fact born of our collective history that the inspiring power of the institutional honours, titles and rank associated with knighthoods has been fused indissolubly with the pomp & ceremony of the British Crown. If the Crown were to be removed and the Royal associations were to be alienated from these institutions, they would obviously cease to hold the same historical grandeur, meaning and force. That wisdom of British Columbia's wonderful motto is an appropriate call to arms here: Splendor Sine Occasu. Splendour without diminishment!