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The Position of the English Monarchy Today
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Extract
On November 29, 1934, the youngest surviving son of George V was married, to the accompaniment of national excitement greater than that caused by any similar event since Queen Victoria's jubilee of 1897. On May 6 of the present year, the nation and the Empire celebrated George V's jubilee, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession to the throne, and popular enthusiasm was even greater than in November. The stability and popularity of the British monarchy is impressive in a Europe which less than twenty years ago saw most ruling monarchs dethroned, and has since witnessed the deposition of Alfonso XIII in Spain and (more recently still) the assassination of the most successful Balkan king. Except for Italy, where the development of Fascism has greatly weakened the position of the king, monarchs exist in Europe only in three Balkan countries and in those regions of northwestern Europe where democratic government has been long established—Scandinavia, the Low Countries, and the British Isles. It is a common assumption that the limited monarch has been found not only compatible with but a support to the democratic capitalistic state.
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- Foreign Governments and Politics
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1935
References
1 The rumor (apparently widespread on the Continent) that the marriage between Princess Marina and the Duke of Kent is a prelude to a restoration of monarchy in Greece, supported by England, has probably no serious foundation. But the unusually meticulous precautions against trouble in London during the wedding festivities were caused by a fear of foreign plotters. The Princess Marina, a second cousin of her husband, belongs to the deposed royal family of Greece. She had eight bridesmaids (all relatives): (1) her three sisters, also “princesses of Greece;” (2) Juliana, the heiress to the Dutch throne, a distant cousin; (3) the Princess Elizabeth of York; (4) the Lady Iris Mountbatten and the Lady Mary Cambridge, descendents of George III; (5) the Grand Duchess Kira, also a descendant of George III, who belongs to the deposed Russian imperial family.
2 See especially The Letters of Queen Victoria, Third Series: 1886–1901, ed. by Buckle, G. E. (1930–1932)Google Scholar. It must be remembered that these letters are only selections from a vast correspondence, and that the editors had a certain discretion imposed on them.
3 Dean Inge remarks of Edward that “those who were brought into close contact with him think that he had not more than fair average ability.” England (1927), p. 241Google Scholar.
4 The honest and (if one reads between the lines) informative official life by Sir Sidney Lee quite destroys the legend.
5 See Wilson-Fox, A., The Earl of Halsbury (1929), pp. 288–289Google Scholar, and Wallas, Graham, Our Social Heritage (1921), pp. 233–234Google Scholar.
6 Quite the opposite was true earlier, when scandalous stories, whether true or false, about members of the royal family appeared frequently in the periodical press.
7 For instance, in Viscount Snowden's Autobiography.
8 This story had some support in fact, in that the king had not limited himself to the consultation of his ministerial advisers.
9 See Sir Frederick Ponsonby, op. cit., pp. 155–156. Sir Frederick Ponsonby, now Treasurer to His Majesty, is son of General Sir Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria's distinguished private secretary. He is also brother of Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, leader of the Labor party in the House of Lords.
10 For instance, Mr. John McGovern, M.P. for the Shettleston division of Glasgow, interrupted the king in the midst of his speech from the throne in the House of Lords on November 21, 1933, and in the House of Commons on February 5, 1935, attacked the royal family as “parasites,” and made pointed and specific comparisons between the incomes of the king and the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and those of the unemployed. He was encouraged by Mr. David Kirkwood, another member of the Independent Labor party, member for the Dumbarton district. The New York Times reports such incidents more fully than do London newspapers. See especially the special correspondence of Mr. Charles A. Selden in the issue of November 22, 1933.
11 From time to time, some of its more socialistic leaders are accused of disloyalty. Thus, Sir Stafford Cripps, M.P., on January 6, 1935, told the University Labor Federation that when the Socialists come into power they will have to “overcome opposition from Buckingham Palace” as well as from other places (New York Times, January 7, 1935). This reference, seized on by the English press as an attack on the king, is to be taken literally, as an attack not on the king but on the king's entourage. Sir Stafford Cripps explained his attitude toward the monarchy itself in a speech two weeks later: “I believe that for a social democracy a constitutional monarchy in the developmental stages is obviously a right thing to have if you start with it. I do not say necessarily you would construct it if you did not start with it, but if you have it, it would be absolute folly to do away with it” (Manchester Guardian, January 21, 1935).
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