Royalty: Proof That Crime Does Pay (in Britain & Elsewhere)

The Polemicist

by Michael House

LONDON England—(Weekly Hubris)—(5/2/11)—By the time you read this, William Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (currently going under the alias Windsor), Heir Presumptive to the throne of Great Britain, will have married Ms. Katherine Middleton. The young woman came to the particular attention of His Royal Highness when she walked half-naked down the catwalk during a fashion show at their mutual university. Whereupon, the young prince made his Royal pleasure known to his intimates with the observation: “Wow, Kate is hot.” How different from the home life of our own dear queen.

For Queen Elizabeth had selected for her by a Wicked Uncle, Earl Mountbatten, an obscure Greek princeling called Philip, who later turned into the foul-mouthed xenophobe with whom we are all familiar.

As I wrote in a previous piece, most of the media went into collective orgasm at the news that William Windsor was to marry.

What is royalty? Why does it make ostensibly sensible and normal people behave like idiots?

The hereditary principle was the touchstone of government throughout the world for many centuries. The royal family was the one that acted most ruthlessly, had the most efficient army, looted the country most successfully.

Today, in some countries, only the name has changed. Gadaffi is not the King of Libya; he is the “brother leader.” Yet his family had all the trappings of royalty—a ruthless, efficient kleptocracy. In “socialist” North Korea, the hereditary principle is still going strong. And, just as in a monarchical system, it does not matter that the heir is a buffoon—he just has to be his father’s son in order to become the Dear Leader or whatever comic opera title is chosen. The genocidal thug Hafez al-Assad was not King of Syria—though he might as well have been—and when he died, his son Bashar became President.

Evil though the systems of government are in China and Iran, I have to grant them this: none of the post-revolutionary leaders in either country tried to set his son up as a successor.

After the execution of King Charles I in 1649, Oliver Cromwell, the great democratic warrior against monarchical absolutism, was proclaimed Lord Protector of the realm for life in 1653. He was king in all but name. He was addressed as “Your Highness” and conferred knighthoods on his cronies. He was offered the throne in 1657 but, after much agonizing, he refused. But he nominated his son Richard as the next Lord Protector, and no doubt he would have become King Richard IV had Charles II not been restored. Cromwell came to power because he had a powerful and well-trained army at his back. As in most “royal” families, legitimacy came from force of arms.

Britain’s present “royal” house was built, not on force, but on religious bigotry (although plenty of force was deployed later to keep the throne from others with a more legitimate claim.) When Queen Anne died in 1714, her nearest Protestant relative acceded to the throne, despite there being at least 50 Catholics who were more closely related to Anne. However, the Act of Settlement of 1701 prohibited Catholics from ascending the throne. So an obscure German princeling, George, Prince-Elector of Hanover, was invited to become king.

Three centuries later, we still haven’t got rid of them. Millions of tax pounds are spent every year so that Charles Windsor has a lackey to put his toothpaste on the brush for him in the morning (fact). This family has extracted huge sums of money from the people over the centuries, and yet still managed to create about themselves a semi-mystical aura, so that normally sane people go weak at the knees in the presence of “royalty.” It’s a great trick to pull off, to pick someone’s pocket and have them bow or curtsey to you while you are doing it.

The sensible Greeks kicked out their German king quite quickly, but we Brits are, for the moment, stuck with this dysfunctional family of adulterers, divorcees and arms-salesmen (“Prince” Andrew fits all three categories). And the mass hysteria surrounding the wedding suggests that they will be difficult to dislodge.

Language is a funny thing. In the US, “Republican” is a term of abuse. In the UK, it is a badge of honor.

Martin Amis is a novelist—or, to be strictly accurate, he writes novels. His father, Kingsley Amis, was a fine writer, whose first novel, Lucky Jim, was one of the major events in fiction of the 1950s. Martin went into the family business but, alas, did not thrive. Although he has been lionized by elements of the literary establishment, much of his stuff is unreadable.

Martin has recently been bad-mouthing Britain. His latest novel, State of England, is an attack on his country’s “moral decrepitude.” So, Martin has decided to emigrate.

He despairs of Britain’s superficiality, celebrity culture, philistinism and moral decrepitude. So he is moving to . . . the United States. You can’t make this stuff up.