Why Prince Harry must fight hard against his inner chav (British constitutionalism)

This has been an eventful month for the third in succession to the throne. Yesterday, Prince Harry graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. A week or so before, he was revealed as having visited a "lap-dancing club" in Slough in the early hours of the morning.

The two occasions, it will be argued, are not of comparable significance in the young man's life. But their very difference, and their following each other so quickly, tells us something about the constitutional monarchy, its past, and the future in which it must live.

Graduating from Sandhurst is one of the outward manifestations of the traditional middle class. Contrary to any belief that it is an aristocratic institution, the traditional middle class is what Sandhurst embodies. Aristocrats and royalty may go there, but their fellow trainees are overwhelmingly middle class. Getting into Sandhurst is a traditional middle-class triumph. Going to lap-dancing clubs is not. Middle-class youths might go to them, but they would not want it to be much known that they do. They know that the places are "naff" and indeed the resort of "chavs". The Slough lap-dancing club is no more middle class, as an institution, than Sandhurst is aristocratic.

The monarchy has survived because it adopted the tone of the broad middle classes just before and after the First World War; chose Sandhurst above whatever was the equivalent of the lap-dancing club. That choice made the monarchy acceptable to the broad working classes as well.

The sovereign responsible was George V. He had seen the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies disappear in the space of little more than a year because they had become remote from the broad mass of their subjects. He understood that the way for his dynasty to survive was to embody those subjects, not lord it over them. The leading socialist thinker of the day, Harold Laski, a republican, wrote: "He was identified with the spirit of hard work and personal sacrifice which had won us the war…his family life epitomised middle-class virtues and avoided overt ostentation…The monarchy, to put it bluntly, has been sold to the democracy as the symbol of itself."

By "the democracy", Laski meant the masses. But the monarchy had not been "sold" as the masses' symbol. It simply was. This explains the House of Windsor's predominant Philistinism, which so many of us from time to time like to mock - I hope affectionately. Pausing in front of a Cézanne, at a London exhibition, George V is said to have called out to his consort, Queen Mary: "Come over here, May, if you want a good laugh." The Duke of Windsor, who briefly became Edward VIII, is said to have remarked of his nephew, the present Lord Harewood, who became an opera critic and administrator: "It's very odd about him and music. You know, his parents were quite normal." It meant that royalty shared the tastes of that broad middle class.

George V bequeathed the middle-class monarchy to his son and granddaughter, George VI and the present Queen. But there is another tendency in the recent history of the Royal Family, as it shed its political powers and evolved into a completely constitutional monarchy. That is the tendency embodied in the Prince of Wales who became Edward VII. By the time he became king, in 1901, Edward could be popular. He was lucky. His mother, Queen Victoria, had lived so long that he was by then elderly; his most active carousing lay behind him. But what if he had become king in the 1870s, 1880s or early 1890s, as he easily could have?

He was still young enough for excesses. Lillie Langtry was only the most famous of his mistresses. There were plenty more. He took up gambling - the newly fashionable baccarat. It was illegal to gamble for large stakes, even in a private home. In 1890, a baronet, Lt Col Sir William Gordon-Cumming, was accused of cheating at baccarat at the Yorkshire mansion of a social-climbing shipowner. The Prince of Wales had been present. It went to court. Gordon-Cumming lost, and was disgraced.

The gambling, the host, the whiff of raffish new money - all were grist to republican socialists. Gordon-Cumming's counsel, an eminent Liberal, somehow suggested his client had been victimised to protect a prince engaged in illegal gaming. The prince had already been in court in connection with a divorce case, and was lucky to escape with his reputation outwardly intact. Would he have gone in for the same behaviour had he been king? Why not? His genes, inclinations and age would have been the same. Above all, the middle-class monarchy would not then have restrained him. There was some of it in his reign, which is why he was popular. But it came to fruition later with his son, George V.

Slipping into a lap-dancing club, with the private detectives nearby, is not the same as illegal gambling and adultery. But the broad middle classes, to whom I attach all this importance in relation to the monarchy, would still think it sordid. It is also faintly ludicrous. It leaves someone open to being thought "naff" or a "chav". It also came not long after the matter of the swastika armband. Republicans seize on such stuff, just as they seized on that earlier Prince of Wales's self-indulgences.

Even if he is only third in succession to the throne, Prince Harry's lapses could be useful to those who want to destroy the throne itself. This is an adverse criticism of them, rather than the Prince. But the Prince should understand these things. Who advises Prince Harry? Don't royalty employ professional public relations people these days? If so, they have slipped up with some of what is related to the public about Prince Harry. But only some. He has graduated from Sandhurst, which is not easy. If he goes to Iraq, he will face real danger, as did that other middle-class monarch, George VI, who served at Jutland. What is happening, then, is a struggle for possession of the Prince between the spirits of George V and the younger Edward VII. Which will win?

His Sandhurst performance, and his apparent willingness to undertake distinctly non-self-indulgent duty in Iraq, suggests that the omens are good for monarchists and bad for republicans. But plenty of cruel things written about royalty are true. "An overgrown schoolboy, loud and stupid" - that was the view of the author Edmund Gosse. It is the view of plenty of people today about Prince Harry. But it was written about George V, that epitome of the middle-class monarchy, not long before he became king.

What strikes me most is not Britain is a monarchy, but rather how in practice it is a democracy fitting the definition used by Walter Williams: "the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives... the law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not represent reason. They represent power. The restraint is upon the individual instead of government. Unlike that envisioned under a republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and permissions that are granted by government and can be rescinded by government."

And it has been a democracy ever since the 19th century.

As I read this article, I'm reminded of a recent blog post made at the Claremont Institute about the difference between British and American conservatism, or indeed, the fundamental difference in national identity of Britain and the United States:

http://www.claremont.org/weblog/004835.html

American Conservatism

by Richard Samuelson

As we contemplate the character of American conservatism, it’s worth considering a couple of comments by America’s premiere Anti-Jacobin and, at least according to Russell Kirk, America’s first conservative.

“Locke taught them [the Philosophes] principles of liberty. But I doubt whether they have not yet to learn the principles of government.”

And he wrote his grandson, George Washington Adams (how’s that for a name?): “there is, George, a cause of mankind and there are Rights of Men. Study them without enthusiasm, and be cautious how you act.”

In other words, Adams did not think that the French Revolutionaries were wrong to think that there are rights of men. He suspected that their understanding of those rights was imperfect, and he knew that their understanding of government was poor. Hence he predicted that oceans of blood would flow once the revolution started.

I have long suspected that the creeping historicism to be found in Burke’s conservatism is somehow connected to the reality that he was living in a land that had a sovereign legislature. Parliament’s will was law. That being the case, law and justice were distinct. Hence, Burke could only counsel prudence, and caution when dealing with change.

America’s constitutional tradition, by contrast, retains the connection between law and justice. (In that sense, as John Phillip Reid points out, American law has much more the character of common law than does modern English law). Our constitutional tradition is oriented toward the rights of men.

The upshot of all that is there is a reason why America’s first conservative was also the premiere defender of the Declaration of Independence in Congress. If conservatism acknowledges the importance of particularity, it should accept the Declaration as the foundation of America's constitution tradition.

What utter rubbish.

This sort of attitude is what millennia (sp) of fuedal obeisance will get you. The stipid cow must have missed Milton's "...tyrants are lovers of licence, not liberty..."

No written constitution, no judicial review. Period.

Still, in all, they had their Big Bang in 86, and their economy has come to life as it has shaken off its constraining state ownership and debilitating regulation and restriction.

Thank you for the Big Bang Mrs. Thatcher.

Even over here among the colonies we love you and we miss you!

"The leading socialist thinker of the day, Harold Laski, a republican,..."

A little off the point of the post, but this is a curious turn of phrase. Laski, btw, was at the philosophical core of the militant Labour movement in the UK immediately post-war. It was his ilk that nearly drove the UK to destruction (on the same course as the French are currently on). Perpetual strikes, work stoppages and job actions brought the country to the verge of dissolution 'til Thatcher set things right.

"Nothing curious at all. It may be impossible for Americans to underatand, but in monarchies the idea of a republic attracts progressive intellectuals and radicals."

I know they like to think of themselves as republicans but really it's more populist/anti-monarchists. Ultimately, since all forms of socialism must inevitably devolve into coercive totalitarianism, republicanism or anti-monarchism are only waypoints on the road to hell.

The British definition of republicanism is just what most unimnformed think of a republic these days: any system of government that doesn't have a monarch as its head. No more, no less.

In contrast, Americans still use the definition of a republic that originated in ancient Greece and Rome and later picked up by the Founders. Walter Williams put this forth:

"So what's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, "You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe." Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.

In recognition that it's Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties, the framers used negative phrases against Congress throughout the Constitution such as: shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, and shall not be violated, nor be denied. [Note: notice how accurate the American Founders' predictions have come true in the modern day Westminster systems of government: it has power concentrated in the Parliament, particularly the lower house if it is bicameral, and through the elections, the Prime Minister serves as the virtual elected unrestrained dictator. What the Parliament defines becomes law] In a republican form of government, there is rule of law. All citizens, including government officials, are accountable to the same laws. Government power is limited and decentralized through a system of checks and balances. Government intervenes in civil society to protect its citizens against force and fraud but does not intervene in the cases of peaceable, voluntary exchange."

Of course in much of the Westminster world, this difference is ignored or even ridiculed. Not a surprise since a lot of British constitutionalism doesn't really inherit directly from ancient Greece or Rome, unlike the US system.

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