"My wife and I are greatly saddened to hear of the sudden death of Alex Salmond. His devotion to Scotland drove his decades of public service. We extend our deep condolences to his family and loved ones at this time.”
Having a small claim to be one of the King’s publishers, I feel entitled to express some disappointment at the way his career is turning out. While he was still styled ‘H.R.H. The Prince of Wales’ and I ‘Director of the Brynmill Press’ (he, since then, having risen, I fallen), our Press reprinted his “The Prayer Book and Our English” (pp. 21-29, The Real Common Worship, 2000, ed. Peter Mullen). The essay (originally delivered at the Presentation of the Thomas Cranmer Schools Prize, December 19, 1989) seemed to be written by someone with taste, conviction and, given the state of opinion in the Church he was due to become titular head of, no little nerve. He spoke up for what, after 400 years of use, the Church of England was abandoning, the King James Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer; and he spoke up against what it was replacing them with, the New English Bible and Common Worship. He began by contrasting what the KJV might suggest as his opening, “Hearken to my words”, with what the NEB might, “Give me a hearing”, one both poetic and commanding, the other neither. (The latter sounds like someone with a grievance against the court.)
He also spoke up, more generally, for what anyone of a conservative inclination must welcome, especially in the heir to the throne: the importance of our heritage and the lessons to be learned from our forebears, of eternal values and principles -- even of turn-ups and double-breasted suits. He had, evidently, a sense of humour; and he had some good lines too. He didn’t concede that new translations were necessary because his subjects-to-be were no longer any good at reading but -- even if you did concede that -- he asked, “Whoever decided that, for people who aren’t very good at reading, the best things to read are those written by people who aren’t very good at writing?” and “Poetry is for everybody … But banality is for nobody. It might be accessible for all, but so is a desert.” Who wouldn’t be proud to be the subject of such a king (let alone to be his publisher)?
And everybody knows. of course, of his championing of tradition in architecture and the design of towns.
But then, only five years after that speech, he spoiled it all. I am still pleased to have played a (dignified if not efficient) part in publishing that speech of his but pleased to be a subject of his I am no longer. In a 1994 documentary he said that when he became King, he wouldn’t want to maintain the 500 year-old tradition of being styled “the defender of the faith”, he would want to be “the defender of faith”, i.e. of faith as such, the thing in itself, das Ding an sich, this faith and that faith and the other, any and all faiths, even those that collide with, deny and contradict one another. But, of course, as any fool can see, to defend all faiths is no different -- it being rather the bent of faith to be singular -- from defending none: I believe this therefore not-that.
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible:
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages;
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God;
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father,
by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation descended from heaven.
He was incarnate by the Holy Ghost out of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried:
And he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures:
And ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father:
And the same shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead:
Of whose kingdom there shall be no end;
And (I believe) in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and life-giver,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who, with the Father and the Son, together is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
And (I believe in) one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church,
I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.
And I await the resurrection of the dead:
and the life of the coming age. Amen.
I do not believe what the Sufists or Shintoists or Islamists or Buddhists or even our cousins-in-faith the Jews believe. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty …etcetera. I believe it; it is my faith and, therefore, what I defend.
But just five years after accepting the invitation to be Patron of the Thomas Cranmer Schools Prize (Cranmer, Cranmer! who gave us the Book of Common Prayer and was burnt at the stake for faith’s sake), H.R.H. The Prince of Wales announced that he would want to introduce into his title as King words that run counter to 500 years of tradition, that are a declaration of apostacy and (perhaps worst of all) are very, very stupid. They are stupid not only in themselves as making a nonsense but politically stupid. Did he think that if only he relaxed his belief, those of contrary beliefs would relax theirs? Did he think that announcing a loss of conviction on his part would inspire others to lose theirs? To the benefit of all? We could all be happily belief- and conviction-free together? Did he think that it would strengthen the state, the Church and the monarchy if only the titular head of all three confessed that he’d lost confidence in the ancient traditions of all three?
And what side did he take when race-baiter Mary Headley -- born in Harlesden, brought up in Kilburn, calling herself Ngozi Fulani and dressed as if she were more African than any actual African ever would be anywhere in or out of Africa -- was racially attacked by 84 year-old Lady-in-Waiting, Susan Hussey -- Lady Hussey having taken the bait and asked her where she was from? Well, Susan Hussey may have served his mother loyally for 70 years, but he didn’t let that stand in his way of throwing her under the bus (that bus that is always patrolling somewhere or other, on the lookout for someone to run over).
And then in those riots that followed the Southport stabbings, he saw only “aggression and criminality” countered by “compassionate community spirit”. He saw only what it was respectable to see, only what respectable opinion authorised him to see, only what his government said it saw. Other things he did not see. That the rioters might have had anything, anything at all, to riot about, he did not see; that decades of immigration of masses of people of traditions foreign to our own might be something to riot about, he did not see; that a succession of governments hearing, seeing and speaking no evil of this immigration but a great deal of evil of anyone opposing it might be something to riot about, he did not see. He saw no truth in the rioters’ cry, “Give us our country back!” And he did not even see that the people uttering such a cry were naturally of the King’s Party -- For King and Country -- the very people likely to support the monarchy were it ever threatened by republicanism. And yet might not a King be expected to see such things? (Including where his own bread is buttered?)
And then there is the death of Alex Salmond and the matter of Scottish independence which, while he was alive, Salmond did so much very nearly to bring about. Nobody, I suppose, would want (well, I might) the King to say he was pleased Salmond was dead (Ding Dong the witch -- a witch -- is dead) but he might, mightn’t he, have found room, somewhere, to mention, in some form of words or other, that this petticyulair deceased person’s devotion to Scotland and public service had been a devotion to disuniting the Kingdom and diminishing his own kingship? Did have to be just saddened? And did he have to implicate his wife in his sorrowing, as if it could have been anything other (let’s hope) than affected and insincere?
Of course, on such momentous issues as whether the United Kingdom should Remain or Leave and whether Scotland should be Independent or not, the King must keep quiet. Such questions are political and he must remain above politics, must he not? We can’t have the sovereign having a say on questions about sovereignty, can we? All such questions are versions of, “Under which king, Bezonian?” and, therefore, none of the King’s business. On such questions, who else is he but Bezonian?
But there is one question concerning sovereignty on which it might not, perhaps, be unreasonable for the sovereign to have a say: whether we should have a sovereign at all or not. Say, it became an actual practical rather than merely theoretical issue whether the Kingdom should become a Republic, should he, the King, stay out of it? It would be political, wouldn't it; and if the King must keep out of politics altogether, mustn’t he keep out of this too? But wouldn’t that be absurd, the King expected to remain silent on the question not just of whether he should be King but whether anybody should? That there should be in politics a King’s Party but the King himself not of it? He neutral between those who want to maintain his kingship and those who want to bring it down? It’s absurd. But if he might have a say about that political question, are there no others he might not have a say about too?
That we are a monarchy is, after all, a political fact, an important part of our politics, not just ( … I don’t know … ) bunting hung across the national street or baubles on the national Christmas tree. If we are to have a King at all, this ‘staying out of politics’ on his part must have limits. The question is only where those limits are, where we should draw the line round them. If the question of whether to have a sovereign at all may fall within them, whether to pool the Kingdom's sovereignty in a supra-national quasi-state like the EU or whether to break up the Kingdom into parts or, even, whether, perhaps, unnamed foreign judges should be free to compel us to give a home to an Albanian criminal, here illegally, just because he has got his Lithuanian girlfriend pregnant? (Theodore Dalrymple, “European Court of Human Rights”, The Salisbury Review, October 14, 2024) Of course, the monarchy keeps out of all these troubling political questions for fear that entering into them might bring about its downfall. But there are risks attached to keeping out too -- when what that means is not distinguishing between one’s friends and one’s enemies or, even, favouring enemies over friends. After all, we have rid ourselves of monarchs before -- including one called Charles -- why not again? And next time, conceivably, just as it was conservatives who, in order to save conservatism, got rid of the last Conservative government, it might be monarchists who, to save, the monarchy get rid of the monarch.
Duke Maskell
Reactionary Essays, at dukemaskell.substack.com