Every so often, the frivolities of the British royal family seize the world’s attention. The House of Windsor belongs to an institution that seems profoundly out of place among the modern democracies. Its weddings and coronations fascinate as much for appearing the apogee of celebrity culture as for being the rituals of an archaic regime. Somehow, the Crown has been permitted to endure, the last vestige of a vanquished age.
However much some might romanticize the royals, though, others are quick to use their celebrations, such as the wedding Saturday of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle, to rally dissent. The Crown, they say, belongs to the era of hereditary aristocracy, whose other institutions have disappeared for good reason. Why should it alone be suffered to persist, and at taxpayer expense? Isn’t the monarchy an outrage to basic principles of representative government? Either it retains residual powers, in which case it stands for the antithesis of democratic legitimacy, or it has withered into obsolescence, in which case it is a parasite on the public purse.
In their haste to malign the monarchy, though, these critics betray an ignorance of its evolution. The relationship that has developed between the British Crown and mass democracy is mostly symbiotic, albeit increasingly ignored and misunderstood. It bears repeating that the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy. Its monarch rules, but according to the constraints of constitutional law. In fact, it is better to say with the historian Macaulay that such a sovereign does not rule at all. “The prince reigns,” Macaulay writes; he “does not govern.”
The laws by which the British monarchy is constrained find expression in three vital conventions. These stipulate that the sovereign accept the advice of his or her ministers, act only on the advice that ministers propose and speak discreetly of ministers themselves and of the policies for which they stand. Observing these conventions permits the sovereign to remain politically impartial and avoid obstructing public opinion, as articulated through parliamentary representatives. The Crown may be the head of state, and of the state’s various branches. But as a constitutional sovereign, its powers to proclaim war, ratify treaties, veto legislation or appoint judges are exercised in accordance with – indeed, through the medium of – ministerial advice.
On the other hand, constitutional monarchs like Britain’s do retain residual prerogatives. The Crown may lawfully influence the ministers on whose advice it acts, most visibly in the weekly audience with the prime minister. It may also act without ministerial advice when appointing a prime minister or considering the dissolution of Parliament.
Exercise of these powers might seem to infringe unjustly upon representative government, but republican regimes too accord prerogatives to unelected offices. In the United States, members of the Supreme Court and chairmen of the Federal Reserve wield considerable powers, despite being appointed to their posts. And just as American democracy has often benefited from insulating these officials from popular pressure, so Britain has profited from the residual powers that it has permitted the Crown. Democracy is the better for certain self-limitations.
Yet constitutional monarchy’s most important function by far is to supply a symbol of the constitution itself that is at once majestic and visceral. In the words of Walter Bagehot, the monarchy represents the “dignified element” of the British regime. It stands especially as a living totem for the ends to which that regime implicitly aspires.
Like a respected aristocrat, the constitutional monarch inspires a “mystical reverence” owing to the antiquity of her house and office and to the pageantry with which she and her family live. But since the “efficient” and, therefore, controversial elements of her office are nearly always exercised by her ministers, the lawful sovereign stands above political partisanship. Though at the very center of the state, she is politically impotent. Though regal, she is inoffensive. She can thus be a magnet for a loyalty whose ardor is both strong and safe.
It is worth considering how useful this arrangement could potentially be, especially in periods such as ours whose partisanship is so indignant and policy so shortsighted. If Bagehot’s account is sound, then it identifies one possible way in which democratic politics can remain civilized.
Constitutional royalism can partially disconnect patriotic devotion from mercurial politicians. It can thus curb the treatment of political rivals as traitors and criminals. It can similarly inspire respect for public duty. It is in the name of the Crown that the Cabinet rules in Britain. It is in loyalty to Her Majesty that the opposition dissents. Where the monarchy reminds not of arbitrary privilege but of public purposes, of honorable conduct and even political justice, there it can move political agents to take greater care, seek wider counsel, and show deeper tolerance.
In a time of threatening populism and cultural disorientation, we might benefit from dwelling on the merits of this quixotic regime. It may be less an anachronism than a missed opportunity.
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