How does a monarchy differ from a republic?
Under a monarchy, society is seen as an extended family. “Royalty,” a scholar has written, “forms the nuclear family of the whole nation — or even, by inter-marriage, the nuclear family that binds nations together.” Or, as Vincent Massey put it in his Coronation Day broadcast: “The queen is the head of our nation, and our nation, as we contemplate her headship, becomes a household itself.” Contrariwise republics see society only as a public corporation.
How does monarchy work?
In a constitutional parliamentary monarchy such as Canada, the underlying structure of the law and its imagery are that the queen/king is doing everything in person. The Crown’s function is to set the entire apparatus of government in motion. The queen creates a government, summons, prorogues and dissolves Parliament, issues election writs, sends bills to Parliament to be made into laws, proclaims laws once passed, administers the laws, provides judges and civil servants to carry out her commands through her government, makes treaties, and sends her armed forces into action.
All such queenly acts are done by and on the advice of ministers (minister means “servant”) who, as members of the committee of her Privy Council called the cabinet, are her only legal advisers, and are drawn from members of Parliament who enjoy the confidence (i.e. can command the majority support) of the House of Commons.
At the same time this works democratically, with ultimate responsibility for giving the sovereign her advisers lying with the electorate. It is a marriage of two principles: royal authority and democratic control. If royal authority and its imagery are forgotten, however, the other parts of the system lose their meaning. That is why in recent times MPs who do not understand the Crown have interrupted the Speech from the Throne with applause or jeers and why people talk about electing a government instead of electing a Parliament.
Quickies
Did you know …
• that the coronation is a symbolic bringing together of every role of kingship: acclamation, oath to govern justly and defend the people, ritual death and rebirth through anointing, robing in special clothes, crowning, enthronement, and “homage from great of the land”?
Louis XIV’s Maxims on Kingship
• “The function of kings consists mainly in letting good sense take its course.”
• “A king should listen rather than speak, because it is difficult to say much without saying too much.”
• “Every time I make an appointment, I make one ungrateful person and a hundred with a grievance.”
• “It seems to me that we [kings] must be at the same time humble on our own account, and proud on account of the office we fill.”
• “A man reigns by work and it is ungrateful and presumptuous to God, unjust and tyrannical to men, to wish to reign without working.”
Who originated our system of justice available to all?
This cornerstone of our modern society comes directly from King Henry II, the monarch who ruled the Angevin Empire, consisting of England and the greater part of France, from 1154 to 1189. A fully part of France, from 1154 to 1189. A fully literate ruler, fluent in French and English and with a good knowledge of Latin, Henry II came to the throne after a period of bitter civil war, during which law and order had completely broken down. The king ordered his chancery to begin issuing writs that ran in his name, allowing any freeman in the kingdom to obtain a remedy in the local court, or if that failed, in the king’s court. To make sure that his justice was readily accessible, the king also sent out judges who made regular journeys around the kingdom. About the year 1180, he set up a Royal Court at Westminster, which sat permanently. With the decline and disappearance of serfdom in the succeeding centuries, “freeman” came to include everyone in the kingdom.
Quickies
Did you know …
• that as fount of justice, the queen is seen to be so dedicated to her people’s welfare that she is presumed by law never to condone wrongdoing?
What is “loyal opposition”?
A concept developed under constitutional monarchy. It means that if you do it peacefully and lawfully, you can oppose the measures of the government of the day without being regarded as disloyal. The Criminal Code of Canada states: “No person shall be deemed to have a seditious intention by reason only that he intends … to show that Her Majesty has been misled and mistaken in her measures.”
Quickies
Did you know …
• that the royal prerogative is power that belongs to the queen simply in right of being sovereign and is not conferred on her by statute of Parliament? “Reason to rule, but mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last is prerogative.”
Regal Remarks
• Henry II, about his ex-Chancellor, Thomas Becket: “Who will free me from this turbulent priest?”
• Rudolf I, on his approachability: “I have not become King to live in acloset.”
• Edward III, about his son, the Black Prince at Crécy: “Let the boy win hisspurs!”
• Louis XII, who before ascending the throne was Duke of Orleans: “The King of
• France does not avenge injuries done to the Duke of Orleans.”
• Sigismund: “I am the Emperor Sigismund and above the rules of grammar.”
• Frederick III: “The House of Austria is destined to rule the world.”
• Maximilian I: “If only we had peace we’d be sitting in a rose garden.”
• Charles V, on Martin Luther: “A single friar who goes contrary to all Christianity for a thousand years must be wrong.”
• Mary I: “When I am dead and opened, you shall find 'Calais' lying in my heart.”
• Elizabeth I, in her Golden Speech to Parliament: “Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown: that I have reigned with your loves.”
• Philip II, on the defeat of his great armada: “I sent my ships against men, not against waves.”
• James I: “No bishop, no king.”
• Ferdinand I: “Let justice be done, though the world perish.”
• Charles I: “I am the martyr of the people.”
• Louis XIV, when his grandson became king of Spain: “The Pyrenees have ceased to exist.”
• Peter I “the Great”: “I hope God will forgive me my many sins because of the good I have tried to do for my people.”
• Louis XV: “After me the flood!”
• Francis I, to the child Mozart: “You are a little sorcerer!”
• Napoleon I: “There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.”
• Nicholas II: “I do not wish for war; as a rule I shall do all in my power to preserve for my people the benefits of peace.”
• Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, when compared to the “democratic” king of Sweden: “I could govern like the king of Sweden if my people were like the Swedish people.”
How international