I knew that I had recently reread a brief account of the coronation of Emperor Hans I but had to look for it. It is not in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, which features Hans as a character, but in A Stone in Heaven, when Hans has been succeeded by Dietrich, then Gerhart.
"...no blood of the Founder ever ran in [Hans Molitor's] veins. His coronation was a solemn farce, played out under the watch of his Storm Corps, whose oath was not to the Imperium but to him alone."
-Poul Anderson, A Stone in Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 1-188 AT V, pp. 52-53.
Such things do happen in the real world but not currently in Britain. And republican views can be expressed. Here is remarkably moderate British expression of anti-monarchism: "Those of us who would prefer a different Constitutional model..."
15 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I remember that bit from A STONE IN HEAVEN, implying that earlier Emperors also had coronations, even if no mention of them were made.
Yes, Hans Molitor was not a descendant of Manuel Argos, and that still bothered many people, as we know from THE GAME OF EMPIRE. At least Hans was a reluctant usurper as well as a strong and well meaning Emperor. And his son Gerhart, while unpopular, was shrewd and able.
Strictly speaking, the UK oath of allegiance is made to the Sovereign alone, and to his heirs as designated or defined by law.
You know my view, which was that of Anderson, the form of the state does not matter as long as the people it governs believes it, monarchy or republic, to be LEGITIMATE. And the vast majority of Britons don't want a republic.
BTW, most republics are farcical jokes! Either they are corrupt kleptocracies or thuggish despotisms. (Snorts!)
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Does the monarchy keep Britain from being a corrupt kleptocracy?
Polls indicate that views are changing. It may not be such a vast majority any more. For some events, like the Queen lying in state, people turn out. Queen Elizabeth II held the institution together for seventy years but it remains to be seen how much of that was down to her alone.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No matter what form of gov't a nation has, ALL gov'ts, without exception, will have some elements of kleptocracy in them, because human beings are so flawed and prone to corruption.
So, yes, you can find kleptocracy in the UK, and in the US, France, Sweden, Russia, Maoist China, India, Thailand, etc., etc. It is also my observation that the most tyrannical and corrupt regimes in the world today are republics.
You may well be right that support for the monarchy in the UK is no longer as strong as it used to be. Yes, by her sheer dedication to duty Elizabeth II was a major factor for why the monarchy was as strong as it proved to be for 70 years. Only time will tell if Charles III and, presumably, William V can do the same.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Might a British monarch dedicated to service do this? After a lot of consultation about how best to go about it:
live in an apartment in one corner of Buckingham Palace;
draw a salary just large enough to be comfortable;
invest Royal wealth in eliminating homelessness, poverty, especially child poverty, and ecological destruction.
A two stage project. First, emergency measures, e.g., get all the homeless off the streets. Secondly, longer term, address the causes of basic problems. Employ large numbers in producing non-polluting energy and in cleaning up the environment.
Merely maintaining the status quo means perpetuating all the problems.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Now you are touching on a complicated subject I needed some time to think about and look up, the finances of the Crown. FAR too briefly, Crown lands and investments are managed by a corporation called the Crown Estate, with the board of directors appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister. The directors are charged by statute to maximize profits by using the best business methods.
All annual profits from the Crown Estate are then remitted to the UK Treasury, which then in turn remits, I think, 25 percent of those funds to the King. The Sovereign, thru agencies like the Royal Household, uses that money for the staffing and maintaining of palaces actually used by the royal family. That 25 percent is also used to defray the costs of the official, social (things like receptions, state dinners, garden parties), ceremonial duties, etc., of the King.
Even when supplemented by things like the income from the estates of the Duchy of Lancaster, traditionally reserved for the Sovereign's personal use, I don't think the King or Queen has that huge a sum of money at his command! NOTHING like the hundreds of billions of pounds he would need to implement the kind of program you suggested.
I am also skeptical of how successful such a program would be, because that is exactly what the UK gov't has been trying to do thru welfare since Clement Attlee's premiership. Why repeat what we both know has not worked all that well?
I am also reminded of how Charles III, when Prince of Wales, set up the Prince's Trust, using income from the Duchy of Cornwall to extend low interest loans to persons wanting to found new businesses. Many people were surprised when many of these businesses succeeded and the Trust actually made a profit when those loans were repaid. That is much better than just another dole/welfare program.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Dole/welfare is only for emergency cases. I proposed new jobs with positive purposes. I expected the kind of counter-argument you deployed. The monarch has SOME money that could be redirected for the kind of purposes that I suggested. The alternative is just to accept that things continue as they are which is not good. Life is moving backwards for a lot of people.
Of course I don't expect any British Sovereign to make these kind of changes. But some of us continue to question how wealth is accumulated and what it is used for, the cost of the coronation being one example.
Paul.
BTW, welfare systems DO work. Society would be even worse than it is without them.
Kaor, Paul!
Then would you advocate for the PM proposing that Charles III be granted another 25% of the profits from the Crown Estate, to be used for experimental housing developments of the kind he sponsored in that model town he founded (I forget its name, despite looking it up)? Or 50% of the profits? The funds could be allocated for use by an Experimental Housing Foundation and be free of political interference by Parliament. Naturally, there should still be controls against fraud, embezzlement, needless waste, etc.
You talked about housing the homeless, but that has many complications. What are you going to do about the mentally ill who can't take care of themselves AND won't seek help? In the US such persons used to be forcibly institutionalized in mental hospitals. You can guess what happened: all too often the mentally ill/insane were abused/mistreated/neglected a la the infamous Bedlam Hospital! The reaction to that was to close down and empty out the asylums, no matter the all too predictable bad consequences. Such as now homeless mentally ill being either preyed on or assaulting others themselves. MY view is that SOME involuntary institutionalization is necessary, with attempts to guard against abuse.
Also, what are you going to do about homeless who are alcoholics or drug addicts AND refuse to seek help? Realistically, you can only help such persons who agree to accept help. The others will just have to be left to the criminal justice system when they commit crimes.
A third category are homeless persons who are that way not because of mental illness or self destructive irresponsibility, but sheer bad luck. Many of these are likely to be capable of being helped.
These are only just some of the problems that hypothetical Royal Housing Foundation will have to consider to have any realistic hope of making some kind of progress.
I have no objection to some kind of "safety net" welfare. BUT, too often, in both the US and UK, it has not stayed with modest goals, but has become an open ended dole creating a permanent dependency class subsisting off the State. And that is bad!
I question the questioning of the persons you mentioned, because these persons always seem to relapse to ideas I believe to be bad, dangerous, unrealistic, futile, counterproductive, etc. It boils down to going back to hopeless things like socialism. No, free enterprise economics, as moderated by the LIMITED State, in whatever form, are the only ways that has been shown to work.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Solving existing problems is not easy but they remain existing problems. Any argument that winds up just accepting the way things are winds up perpetuating the problems. There are empty buildings and unhoused people. In Britain at present, there is a cost of living crisis. There are wage earners who need to use food banks. How is this economy working?
The King's private/personal wealth is estimated at £2 billion. There is scope for some program of change.
Paul.
BTW, I think that real change will happen when enough people insist on it and begin to implement it, not when someone like me thinks of a good idea, so there is limited value in discussing the details of a proposed reform program at this stage. Big crowds turned out for the coronation. Very few demonstrated against it and some of those were unnecessarily arrested by the police. The present British Constitution is rock solid for the time being.
Kaor, Paul!
I "accept," as you say, "...the way things winds up perpetuating the problems" because I don't believe in hopeless, impossible unrealism. Also, it's my belief that the kinds of problems afflicting the economies of the UK and US are partly due to incompetent meddling by the State, where efforts to prevent slumps/recessions ends up making them worse. I would advocate for cutting taxes, reducing gov't spending, breaking down barriers to trade and commerce with other nations, etc.
Good, that King Charles' personal fortune is about two billion dollars US! That means sound management by the Crown Estate should generate an income covering not only the expenses of the monarchy but also funds that could be used for other purposes, some of which I speculated about above, in my prior comment.
I simply can't believe in some kind of mystic "real change," because nothing in real history and how real people act and behave makes me think that is going to happen. But this is an old point of disagreement between us.
You might not much care for the British constitution. but reflecting on how most of the rest of the world is governed might make you think what you have in the UK is not that bad!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But "real change" has happened throughout history: neolithic, agricultural, industrial and technological revolutions.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But those changes have not removed our instinctual drives, urges, aspirations, etc. Nor have they removed our innate propensity for being quarrelsome, aggressive, or prone to strife/conflicts/wars, etc. In fact many of those changes occurred precisely because of such drives/conflicts motivating people to change and adapt.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But human beings emerged from non-human beings. That was the greatest change of all.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course! That I can agree with.
Ad astra! Sean
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