Posted on 04/01/2002 6:56:17 AM PST by dead
Never let the facts get in the way of a good send-off - especially if you're a loyal monarchist, writes Gerard Henderson.
Christopher Skase and his ilk aside, these days the dead get a pretty good send-off. Obituaries seem to occupy more space than used to be the case - perhaps reflecting the aging of the population in most Western nations.
In fact, celebrities seldom enjoy so much fame as when they make the "recently departed" list. So it came as no surprise the Queen Mother (nee Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon) achieved wall-to-wall publicity following her death at age 101 last weekend. This was accentuated by the fact that her passing occurred during the traditionally quiet news period over Easter.
The Queen Mother was among the most well-known people of the 20th century. She was remarkably popular in Britain as well as within many Commonwealth nations and the United States. She lived to a grand age without upsetting too many people. In any event, at 101 she had outlived any personal enemies by at least a generation. Little wonder that she joins the famous dead as a recipient of both praise and fawning. Fair enough.
The Queen Mother had her good points. Yet like all of us, born after The Fall, she was by no means perfect. However, you would scarcely recognise this when reading - or listening to - the news coverage over the past few days. With, no doubt, much more of the same to come.
Two comments come to mind. On Sky News Australia on Sunday, monarchist David Flint praised the Queen Mother for her stance during World War II (as Queen Elizabeth), making the point that between 1939 and 1941, Britain and the leading Commonwealth nations stood alone against Hitler and Nazi Germany - and indicated that she played a unifying role at the time. Fellow monarchist Kerry Jones praised the Queen Mother for her role as grandmother in holding the royal family together. Understandable adulation, to be sure. But what about the facts?
These days the Queen Mother and her late husband, George VI, are most often praised for rallying the British during World War II. There was the courageous Winston Churchill (as prime minister) and the King and Queen standing up against the might of Nazi totalitarianism. The task was even more difficult due to the fact that, during the early part of the war, Germany was in an alliance with the Soviet Union and the US was neutral.
The plot is accurate enough. But some of the actors are miscast. The King and Queen are famous today for the role during World War II only because their advice was rejected by a majority of British politicians. The fact is that in the late 1930s George VI and his wife were among the main cheerleaders in favour of Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing Hitler. Had the monarchy's advice been accepted, the Nazis would have conquered continental Europe. The full (sorry) tale is spelt out by Andrew Roberts in his book Eminent Churchillians.
In recent days old footage has been shown of the King and Queen on the Buckingham Palace balcony with Churchill welcoming the end of the war in Europe in 1945. Fine pictures, indeed. There is, however, another Buckingham Palace balcony film which is rarely shown today. It depicts the King and Queen with Chamberlain on his return from the 1938 Munich conference. As Roberts said, this "was a gesture of royal approval" for Chamberlain's appeasement policy "which was as unmistakable as it was unconstitutional". The monarch is not supposed to take sides on contentious political issues, appeasement included.
The political leaders of the appeasement camp at the time were Chamberlain and Lord Halifax. When Chamberlain stepped down as prime minister in May 1940, the King and Queen let it be known that they favoured Halifax over Churchill. In Five Days in London: May 1940, John Lukacs said the Queen "disliked Churchill". The free world was fortunate the monarchy's strategic judgements and political preferences did not prevail.
The King was not very bright; he was a real live Bertie Wooster character out of a P.G. Wodehouse novel. The Queen, however, was very street smart. She was one of the first public figures in the 20th century to get into what has come to be called "spin" - well before the Kennedy family some decades later. Even today she is praised for remaining in London during the Blitz. In fact, the royal family retreated each night to Windsor Castle. The decision to avoid the German bombs was a sensible one. It's just that the mythology is in marked contrast to the documented facts.
Yet, for all her cleverness, the Queen Mother was just as flawed as her husband in assessing Hitler. As Andrew Roberts points out in his biography of Lord Halifax, titled The Holy Fox, in November 1939 she sent Halifax a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf. In her accompanying letter, the Queen Mother made reference to Hitler's "obvious sincerity". Really.
It's much the same with the Queen Mother as a family role model. It all sounds fine - until the facts are examined. For whatever reason, the Windsors are one of the more dysfunctional families in Britain. The maternal grandmother cannot fairly be blamed for this predicament. However, unlike Diana, she did not attempt to break away from the traditional royal manner of child rearing, where children saw little of their parents.
Also it is widely recognised that the Queen Mother seldom undertook a domestic chore in her life. She was dutiful in performing official tasks but for the rest, lived a life of indulgence. Sure, in life a well as in death, she was victorious. But let's save us from the all-too-familiar (post-mortem) hagiography.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.
1. Did she look the other way when her husband raped a woman?
2. Did she illegally profit from a $100,000 investment in futures that turned into millions, and then lie about it?
3. Did she register (like a bride) for outrageously expensive china, flatware, and gifts that she expected rich friends to purchase for her?
4. Did she call someone a "Fuc*ing Jew Ba$tard!" and then lie about that too?
No?
Did you catch at the end when he said, in effect, that sometimes the myth that grows up around someone may be more important, and valuable, than the reality of the person? I thought that was interesting- for a lefty, a thought that was a pretty large admission- and he did give Churchill credit for having a gut level anamadversion to hitler & national socialism...
In any event, using Roberts in this way is doubly inappropriate, as evidenced by Roberts' own tribute to the Queen Mother in the Daily telegraph yesterday.
Strange that this guy should use Andrew Roberts book Eminent Churchillians to slam the late Queen Mother. Roberts is not a liberal…
Is there a “correct” side for a conservative to be on regarding the embrace of Britian’s royal family?
I’m certainly no liberal, but have no love for the royal family. No hatred either, they’re just sorta silly and irrelevant.
And while one could take issue with the author’s timing, I found his information informative.
No, except that traditionally, a "conservative" believes in "conserving" institutions or traditions that have been proven by the ultimate test -- the test of time. The British monarchy has a real and important constitutional role -- it is the representative of the concept of the British state. It is above party politics. It is neither left, nor right. Theoretically, it can intervene when Parliament does something really silly by dissolving that body and calling for new national elections. All acts of Parliament are undertaken in the name of the crown and must receive the sovereign's assent before they become law.
In part, the movement to pass a constitutional amendment to "protect the US flag" shows that there are some things taken as totemic of nationality and statehood -- the American flag is the closest analogy to the British monarchy that we have.
A constitutional monarchy has several advantages over a purely elective republic, including the severance of partisan politics from statecraft. The monarchy as an institution is also totally divorced from the foolish or silly behavior of individual members of the royal family. The fact that the English seem perfectly ready to discard the monarchy shows how their educational system has failed them, in a manner similar to way ours has failed us.
I will shed a tear for her, as she was the last of a great generation of women--my mother's generation--who really knew how to make a man happy by being loving and supporting, and who enjoyed the duties of wife and mother, doing both jobs fantastically well.
1st guy: yeah, old fred is gone.
2nd guy: yeah, great guy loved him.
1st guy:and last month ,poor jimmy passed away,what a saint!
2nd guy : jimmy, a true saint,poor fella
1st guy: what about mike?
2nd guy: mike?, that mother f***er is still alive!
Nobody likes to speak ill of the dead, even somebody as priveleged and pampered as the queen mum. If you're looking for a balanced piece on her , you'll have to wait a while for the memory of her death to fade. The media seem to take the place of paid mourners for celebrities these days.
Just an observation or 2
Slainte,
CC
I hate to tell this guy, but the UK doesn't have a constitution.
I hate to tell you, but you're wrong. The UK doesn't have a written constitution -- it has an unwritten one, but one that's just as binding and just as "constitutional" as our own.
Furthermore, I fail to see how meeting the Prime Minister could possibly be considered as unconstitutional, since they usually do it every week.
Nobody would stand for such a thing -- such a blatantly unconstitutional act would simply not be tolerated. At a minimum, the monarch would dissolve Parliament. At a maximum, there would be open revolt in the streets.
Our own Congress could also pass such an act, but it wouldn't stand, NOT because we have a written constitution, but because other power elements in the government and the populace wouldn't stand for it. Similarly, the Crown and the people would not stand for the assumption of dictatorial powers by the PM. Your argument that because the British constitution is "unwritten" makes a coup or unconstitutional acts more likely does not hold water.
Furthermore, I fail to see how meeting the Prime Minister could possibly be considered as unconstitutional, since they usually do it every week.
What was unconstitutional was not the King's meeting with Chamberlain -- it was the King's apparent endorsement of Chamberlain's appeasement policy, via the public appearance with him on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. Chamberlain's results from Munich could be and were criticized in Commons by the opposition. The King's public appearance with him was tantamount to a partisan statement of support for the majority party in Commons and hence, unconstitutional.
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