Fred Hughes
THE subject of whether the British monarchy should be abolished is back in the news again.
A recent Yougov survey indicates at least 41 per cent of people aged 18-24 preferred an elected head of state compared to 31 per cent who want to retain the monarchy.
Yougov also surveyed 4,870 adults aged 15-49 and found in contrast, that some 53 per cent supported the monarchy, although it is a decline of five per cent from a similar survey in 2019
It’s an old argument that comes and goes. I recall the end of the war in 1945, a time when monarchy rode high in the popularity stakes. Archived film shows King George VI with his wife Queen Elizabeth, and their daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, receiving tumultuous cheering from a crowd of around 100,000.
Standing alongside the Royals on the balcony was the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, the emblematic wartime leader.
Two months later, a landslide poll rejected the old regime in favour of a radical Labour government with a nationalisation programme.
Many then, thought the institution of monarchy was under threat. But seven years later the public took to its heart a new monarch, an attractive mother of two, who fitted the times perfectly. Churchill was back at Number 10, and Royal popularity was secure.
Of course, 1945 wasn’t the only time that British monarchy seemed shaky. The first challenge came with King John’s acceptance of Magna Carta in 1215, the contract signifying the king’s willingness to the principles of a restraining government, a foretaste of the House of Commons.
The monarchy was discharged altogether in 1649, when Parliament executed Charles I, creating the Interregnum, including the years 1653-1658 when a commoner, Oliver Cromwell, ruled as Lord Protector. In 1660, the experiment with republicanism faltered, and the monarchy was restored with Charles II being fetched from exile.
Within a few years the throne was again shaken by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 with the Catholic King James II being overthrown and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch spouse, William of Orange.
In modern times, it’s worth reflecting on the new order of international governance following the Great War in 1918 when the monarchs of four of Europe’s greatest empires were ousted as republicanism reset the future for the losing combatants. The question still lingers for historians – would republicanism have been the British monarchy’s fate if Great Britain had lost the war?
And how close was the monarchy to collapse during the abdication crisis of 1936 when Edward VIII gave up the throne to marry an American divorcee? Then there was the Queen’s outwardly standoffish reaction to the death of her divorced daughter-in-law, Diana. A close shave that unquestionably caused palpable damage for the Royals, recovered to some degree by Her Majesty’s perceptive broadcast to the nation.
What of today then, in our rapidly changing nation? What is the point, I ask, of retaining a workaday kingin-waiting now in his early 70s?
Personally speaking, in a world where we all are governed by technology, I don’t see the point of employing kings and queens primarily for their ancestry status.