Introduction

“By the end of this century, there will be only five Kings left those of Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, Clubs, and England,” King Farouk predicted in 1951, according to his biographer Michael Stem. The only time Kings and Queens in packs of cards were abolished was in France during the Revolution when they were replaced by Citizens and Citizenesses - but it made playing cards games so boring that nobody used the new packs.

However, Farouk had good cause for making such a prediction. His overthrow was then the latest in a long line since the Russian Revolution and the rise of Socialism and Communism had swept away not only the Russian Imperial Family, but also the dynasties of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Turkey, Spain and Portugal following the First World War, and, after the Second, Italy and a number of East European kingdoms. The contagion was spreading to the Middle East with revolutions in Iraq and Egypt the tide seemed unstoppable. Other kingdoms were to topple after his, those in Libya, Burma, Laos and Cambodia.

Farouk’s prediction about England proved correct, but the five most stable countries in Europe also retained their monarchs. Moreover, in Spain the restoration of the monarchy was part of the means of re-introducing democracy, and King Juan Carlos later defended democracy against an attempted army coup. He has also added to his popularity by running and financing one of the world’s most successful and admired soccer squads, Real Madrid. In other countries now, monarchy is being considered as a way of healing past division: most recently in Afghanistan, but also in Eastern Europe, King Simeon of Bulgaria has returned to his country and the Crown Prince of Yugoslavia has been allowed back and had some of his property restored. Nevertheless, it is interesting that Farouk recognised something special about the British monarchy. Perhaps it was as a result of having had an English governess as a boy.

The traditional customs connected with the British monarchy certainly bring colour and elegance into the monotonous ugliness of a machine-ridden age. Britain’s royal occasions are the envy of other nations for in themselves they symbolise the perfection of performance which most civilized people crave. The buildings and regalia associated with past Kings and Queens form one of the chief tourist attractions which bring millions of pounds worth of foreign currencies that are spent here.

While the monarchy is mainly a conservative force, helping to maintain stability, this very fundamental stability enables the country to absorb more radical changes in its political and social structure than would otherwise be possible without risk of disorder. To quote the late Malcolm Muggeridge: “Monarchy is the bridge between what is fluctuating and what is everlasting in human affairs.”

“The evil men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones,” said Mark Anthony of Julius Caesar. We remember Henry VIII’s cruelty and Charles II’s mistresses but ignore their merits. Let me begin with a King about whom only good (except that he burnt some cakes) is known, which may explain why he is forgotten in our cynical age.

Alfred the Great delivered England from the Danes. He was a scholar and an author in fact the father of English prose for before him only verse had been written in our native tongue. He was an educator of his people. He codified the laws and enforced them. He built up the English navy from a tiny beginning.

Few know anything about King Canute except that he got his feet wet trying vainly to command the tide a travesty of the facts. He was King of England by conquest before he was 20, and when he died aged 40 most of northern Europe lay under his rule and at peace, for he genuinely desired it and brought it to all the people he protected. He was the creator of the first United States of Europe. Under his new code of laws both the rich and the poor became for the first time equal, and the practice of condemning people to death for trivial offences ended, so did all forms of slavery. The coinage was reformed in England. It disturbed him that many of his people began to worship him as a God. He decided that he must destroy this belief by publicly demonstrating that he was as human as they were and that was why he staged the incident of attempting to command the tide. When he failed, he took off his crown and had it placed upon the great cross in the Minster at Winchester as a token of his humility. Never again did he wear it.

William the Conqueror, despite his ruthlessness, was a just and far-sighted ruler, and there was little lawlessness in his reign. He caused the Domesday Book to be compiled and created the New Forest which, had he not, might today be instead a concrete jungle.

Henry II introduced a system of common law to the whole kingdom, in place of the various provincial customs administered in the shires and hundreds and in the innumerable private jurisdictions. He commenced the new procedure of trial by jury, instead of the old barbarous method of trial by compurgation, ordeal by hot iron or battle with one’s adversary.

Edward I has been called the English Justinian. The first eighteen years of his reign saw the beginning of our statute law. The legally minded King passed statute after statute through his Parliaments which changed the very substance of the law. Hitherto it had been traditional and unwritten. His first statutes remained so long the basis of our law of real property that a knowledge of them became essential for all English lawyers up until our day. He founded Westminster School, whose alumni of distinction include Ben Jonson, Dryden, George Herbert, William Cowper, Sir Christopher Wren and Edward Gibbon.

Edward III founded the Order of the Garter to signal the triumph of chastity over temptation. He brought over many Flemings who laid the foundations of our textile industry and was also the first monarch to appoint Justices of the Peace.

Cambridge University was probably founded in the reign of Henry III. In 1229 he offered asylum to scholars exiled from Paris. Two years later he told the Mayor, who was objecting to this, that scholars from abroad brought honour and profit to England and that they should be pleased to accept them.

Henry VI was a great patron of learning. He founded four university colleges and Eton originally for poor scholars who could not pay for their schooling. His successor Edward IV began Windsor’s beautiful St. George’s Chapel which was completed by Henry VIII. He was the friend and patron of William Caxton and his book collection became the nucleus of the old Royal Library and later one of the treasures of the British Library.

The jewel of Westminster Abbey is the magnificent Chapel built by Henry VII whose victory at Bosworth Field brought peace after the havoc caused to the country by the Wars of the Roses. He curbed the power of the nobles and worked hard to revive the country’s lost maritime prosperity. He financed John Cabot on his voyages of exploration to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the practical result of which was our exploitation of the Newfoundland fishery.

Henry VIII worked hard to build up the English navy that had almost vanished during the Wars of the Roses. He was ever ready to experiment. Guns increased in range and power and Englishmen rapidly became as skilful as gunners as they were as archers in the Middle Ages. When he ascended the throne, there were only seven ships in the Royal Navy and, when he died, that number had grown to fifty-three. Henry was also a gifted musician and his composition ‘Greensleeves’ has become part of our musical heritage. We owe to him many of our most attractive historical buildings: Hampton Court which he took from Wolsey and then embellished, and the handsome gate tower with its ornate clock which is the most attractive feature of St. James’s Palace.

Elizabeth I had, it was said, a heart that was cold, but it was a heart of oak. She came to the throne of a country in despair and left it prosperous, rich in a renaissance of all the arts. It was also said that she loved nothing and nobody but England.

Charles I was the most outstanding art connoisseur of his time patron of Velasquez, Bernini and Van Dyck. He amassed the most valuable collection of Renaissance paintings ever assembled in England. Most were sold abroad by Cromwell but a few survived to form the nucleus of the finest royal art collection in the world today.

Under Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan Republican regime all theatres were closed. We owe it to Charles II that they were reopened and that the brilliant comedies of manners of Wycherley were staged. In the great dining-room of Christ’s Hospital hangs a painting by Verrio which occupies most of the wall: it depicts a scene at the court of the Merry Monarch but no debauched courtiers are to be seen only grave men of learning, and in the foreground before the throne are girls and boys of the school. The latter are in blue coats and yellow stockings, the Tudor costume of 1552 when it was founded by Edward VI to educate poor children. The picture was painted to commemorate the foundation of the royal mathematical school at Christ’s Hospital by Charles II.

The Merry Monarch was also a great patron of other arts. He founded the office of Master of the King’s Musick, had an expert knowledge of architecture, supervised in person alterations and improvements to royal palaces. He had, too, a passion for gardening, recreating St. James’s Park, planting flowers and walks of trees which are still there today. He also planted Love Walk, that beautiful avenue of trees going from Windsor Castle to the Great Park and laid out Greenwich Park. To him we owe the Theatre Royal in Drury...