Right or left, moderate or extremist, North or South, Republicans around the world are finally united on at least one point: the vivid, shared regret of the coronation of King Charles III And everyone wonders indignantly how it is possible that a modern nation like the UK still tolerates – they use that verb – an anachronism like the monarchy. I’ll pass on the answer that Hugo Vickers, a esteemed historian of the gods, gave me a few years ago windsor: “You see, we English are pragmatic types and it seems to us that an elected head of state involves more risks than an hereditary one.” The former has time and may be tempted to use the power and secrets at his disposal in office abuse to prepare for a favorable future. A king has no such interest and consequently no temptation.”
In truth, for centuries a king in England has lost all temptation to power that is not based solely on ceremony and image. It is nothing more than a symbol and one that should also be used sparingly. He can only address his subjects with the approval and permission of the government. And as Walter Bagehot writes in his classic The English Constitution (1867): “If Parliament decides to cut off his head, the ruler can do nothing but sign his death warrant.” As for cutting off royal heads, have the English, however, have some experience. We often forget that in 1649 they were the first Europeans to behead a ruler that Charles I (distant ancestor of the contemporary of the same name) was guilty of absolutist practices. After him came the dictator Cromwell: enough to convince the British not to try a republic again.
But the key to the British political system will always be that pragmatism. Thus, by order of Charles II, the regicide Cromwell was dug up and dismembered and restored to the throne, but it was a son’s vengeance, and temporary at that. Today the statue of Cromwell dominates Parliament Square in Westminster, not far from that of a 20th-century Prime Minister who was instead a fervent royalist Winston Churchill.
It is confirmation that, as the great monarchist theorist Edmund Burke wrote in the eighteenth century, English institutions have come into being through accumulation over the centuries. In France, noted Burke, who obviously hated revolutionaries, a ceremony like the coronation would never be possible because the political system claims to be based solely on reason. In England, on the other hand, it is the result of the successive layering of values, beliefs, customs and laws which together have built national identity.
I doubt these remarks will convince the critics. But as a staunch Republican, I ask myself: What is more anachronistic? A monarch who, in the most solemn ceremony of his reign, entrusts the sword of state to a young woman who is openly lesbian, or a prime minister who proposes a future of “god, country and family”? A coronation that emphasizes difference and inclusivity, or a democracy that even forbids talking about gender identity in schools?
Add to that the fact that no one in the world produces ceremonies as immaculately magnificent as the English monarchy, and you will understand that global public success is assured for a very long time to come. Also with positive effects on the coffers of the multi-billion dollar tourism on the island. And the British, as we have seen, are pragmatic…