The recent death of Queen Elizabeth II and accession and coronation of King Charles III—and, to some degree, the death of Constantine II of Greece—have once again sparked some popular interest in the world’s oldest institution (although not profession). The recent publication of three very excellent and very different books (The Habsburg Way, by the Archduke Eduard von Habsburg; Jacobitism in Britain and the United States, 1880–1910, by Michael Connolly; and The Enduring Crown Commonwealth: The Past, Present, and Future of the UK-Canada-ANZ Alliance and Why It Matters, by Michael J. Smith and Stephen Klimczuk-Massion) dealing with very different aspects of monarchy, are indications that although continually attacked, monarchy is not merely fascinating for moderns, but continues to be objectively important.
The first book I mentioned not only chronicles how one of Europe’s most venerable dynasties managed to stay in power for so long, but how any family might use some of their skills for its own success. The second book explores how a group of late-19th century intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic used a supposedly dead and irrelevant ideology to trenchantly critique modernity, in ways that remain relevant today. The final work shows how the British monarchy remains key to effectively animating a power grouping that for the authors is essential if Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are to survive in the long run. These extremely varied topics are themselves indicative of the complex nature of monarchy.
European heirs
Indeed, monarchy itself is not so easy to define. Mention the word, and the modern mind—fresh from being ordered to its room in masks by our freely elected masters, whilst the same impose their racial, gender, and hormonal views on a more or less unwilling society—immediately exclaims “tyranny.” Images of Nero, Henry VIII, and a wildly distorted George III are summoned up before said mind, subjected to an obligatory two minutes of hatred, and then once again sent triumphantly back to the mental recesses from whence they came. That task accomplished, one is able to return to the weary world one actually inhabits, feeling that at least one is ‘free.’
And yet, and yet, there are still people who openly call themselves monarchists. If the ‘M’ word is uttered, the malefactor’s hearers often reply: “So, you want to be a lord or something? If we had a monarchy again, you’d be nothing!” My favourite response to this was made by an American lady living in Germany, who answered “What makes you think I’m something now? Do you think the chancellor cares if you or I live or die?” There was no answer to that. At any rate, let us put that argument aside, as well as those who do indeed look for titles or orders of knighthood as social accessories, and concentrate on those who are serious about holding this unpopular view.
Of course, there are as many kinds of monarchists as there are monarchies. This runs quite a gamut. Bhutan is a kingdom to be sure—and as a Buddhist state was almost a theocracy—until the king opted to create a parliament and surrender a great deal of his power to it. Thailand and Cambodia are also Buddhist monarchies; while the king has little political power, without him, in both cases, the country would collapse into factionalism. Japan’s emperor is also severely reined in by his politicians, but still is so sufficient an incarnation of the national spirit to be essential to the powers that be. The Muslim rulers range from true absolutists, as in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the seven United Arab Emirs to the more Western-style kings of Malaysia, Morocco, and Jordan. The King of Tonga bears the distinction of being the world’s only Methodist monarch; in Africa, Lesotho’s king is a devout Catholic, while his colleague in Eswatini is Christian of some sort, but polygamous. Throughout Africa, Indonesia, India, and Pakistan there are various traditional sub-national monarchies that have differing relationships with their respective colonially-created national governments, although the princes in the latter two states, having joined either India or Pakistan in their independence in return for pensions and recognition of their titles and privileges, were defrauded of them by both governments in the 1970s.
But it is the European monarchies which interest most monarchists in the Western world. King Charles III, of course, presides over 15 Commonwealth realms, including Great Britain on a figurehead basis of sorts, as do his colleagues in Spain, Scandinavia, and Benelux. The princes of Monaco and Liechtenstein, oddly enough, have the most actual power over their subjects. Monarchists in those countries are dedicated either to maintaining the status quo or extending their monarch’s powers in order to restrain the political classes, to some degree, however slightly. The Carlists in Spain, Latin America, and the Philippines are a special case, which will be explained presently.
In the rest of Europe, of course, monarchists are interested in restoration, which—prior to the establishment of the Soviet-American dyarchy after 1945, which made it impossible—was a basic plank in the manifestos of groups or parties that considered themselves conservative or ‘of the Right.’ Today, the situation in Portugal is fairly straightforward. The accepted heir, Dom Duarte Nuno, is actually the descendant of the older dispossessed Miguelist line, which lost the 19th century civil war to the junior liberal branch—that branch’s last member, King Manoel II, recognised Duarte Nuno’s father as his heir. Moreover, Portugal has a body of monarchist thought of its own, Integralismo Lusitano, which puts forward the traditional, anti-liberal notion of altar-and-throne, subsidiarity-and-solidarity monarchy. Closely bound up as well with orthodox Catholicism, most Portuguese monarchists are part of the monarchists Causa Real party, which has branches throughout the country.
France, however, paints the opposite picture. The country’s first problem is the daddy of all dynastic disputes, between the legitimist heir, de jure Louis XX, the Duke of Anjou, and the Orleanist claimant, de jure Jean IV, the Count of Paris. Although historically the legitimists have been the more traditionally-minded, both heirs in recent years have come out against gay marriage and adoption, in favour of the Yellow Vests, and, basically, all that right-thinking French believe. Both have a number of organisations that favour their respective claims. Then there are organisations, like the Alliance Royale, that believe the succession is a question to be settled after restoration. It is fair to say as well that there are monarchists of one sort or another in most Catholic conservative organisations in France. Every year, around the anniversary of the murder of Louis XVI on January 21, there are masses for him throughout the country. In these, both the underlying unity and the visible disunity of French royalism is displayed.
Germany is a complicated case, because in 1918, in addition to the Hohenzollern German emperor and Prussian king, there were kings of Bavaria, Saxony, and Wuertemmberg, and a host of grand dukes, dukes, and princes who retained some autonomy under the 1871 constitution and who were all deposed in 1918. Moreover, the Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hessen-Kassel, and the Duchy of Nassau—annexed by Prussia in 1866—all had and have partisans of their restoration. Despite the best attempts of the current German establishment to associate monarchists with the Nazis, the dirty little secret is that most of the resistance to Hitler were monarchists of one kind or another—a pattern also true of Habsburg adherents in Austria.
Indeed, that latter factoid is one the Austrian establishment wishes would go away, and so the memory of the resistance in that country is virtually forgotten by schools and the like, as is the collaboration with the Nazis by socialist hero Karl Renner. At any rate, monarchists in Austria, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Croatia, while united in support of the Habsburgs, are divided by questions of personality, policy, and operation. But the consensus among them seems to be that a future confederation of states under the dynasty is the route to go. Such a union would be strong enough, its adherents hope, to stave off absorption by East or West. Poland too has a monarchist movement of several organisations—none of whom are committed to a dynasty, given the unique nature of Polish monarchical history.
French, German, and Central European monarchism seems positively stable compared to Italian royalist contingents. The first division is between those who remain loyal to the House of Savoy as the kings of Italy between 1870 and 1946. An institution with liberal roots, its last king, Umberto II, was nevertheless a devout Catholic, and last lay owner of the Shroud of Turin. There is, however, a dynastic dispute between Umberto’s son, Victor Emmanuel, and his cousin Aimone, the Duke of Aosta—and each has organisations committed to his cause. But Victor Emmanuel’s son, Emmanuel Philberto has no sons and, despite his attempt to make his daughter his heir, by Salic Law Aimone will inherit one day. But the adherents of the countries annexed by Sardinia in the Risorgimento also remain loyal to the dynasties of Bourbon Parma, Austria Este, Habsburg Toscana, Habsurg Lorraine (for Lombardy and Venetia) and of course, Bourbon of the Two Sicilies (who have a dynastic dispute of their own). Then there are such as the disciples of Attilio Mordini, who are neo-Ghibellines, looking to resurrect some sort of Holy Empire.
Despite the dynastic squabbles of members of the Romanov family—the Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna seems fairly well-placed—it looked as though Putin was actively toying with the idea of a restoration a decade ago. Those times have passed, however, and any such future looks as far away as it did in 1988. The marriage of her son, the Grand Duke George, to an Italian non-royal has not helped.
Ironically, it is in the formerly communist Balkans that the royals are doing best. The Serbian, Romanian (despite yet another dynastic issue), Bulgarian, and Albanian Royals all live in one or more of their old palaces. Despite Mr. Bush, Sr.s’ vetoing of restorations in Romania and Bulgaria, they are all playing a higher role in national life than one could have imagined thirty years ago. In Greece, in the wake of the recent death of Constantine II, Crown Prince Paul has returned with his family to live in their homeland.
Despite the extinction of the older line of the Spanish Bourbons and issues with the current head of the House of Bourbon Parma, the Carlists soldier on under the leadership of his childless uncle, Prince Enrique Sixto. They still call for the party’s traditional vision of the Spanish monarchy, rather than the crowned republic of today, presided over by Felipe VI.
Altar and throne
All of which having been said, one might wonder, what could attract anyone to monarchism today? Surely it has been defeated, once and for all? Not by a long shot. There is, of course, the romantic appeal of monarchy, which should not be forgotten. As Charles Fenyvesi wrote, back in 1978: “I am a monarchist when the sun goes down, and the scarlets and golds give way to an egalitarian darkness. It is a setting that inspires me to dismiss the insistent present and wander backward—to reflect, to revise, perhaps to regret. It is a time to remember a waltz, a quatrain of long ago, and to recall a lost kingdom.” Hence the popularity of The Prisoner of Zenda once, and The Lord of the Rings now.
But pleasant as such Ruritanian yearnings are—and monarchy evokes them as no other form of government can—they are far from enough to warrant political ideas, poorer though we would be without them. No, most of the conservative or counter-revolutionary ideas of Europe, from 1815 to 1945, are anchored deeply in monarchy. Ignoring it and its religious roots, you are left with what we have; a sterile Christian democracy that is now neither conservative or counter-revolutionary. Without altar and throne, subsidiarity and solidarity have nothing concrete to hang on, and it would be better if this were realised sooner than later.
This leads to perhaps the most powerful roots the institution has in the souls of its believers: religion. For Christian monarchy, at its best, was always seen as participation in the Kingship of Christ; and while there have been atheist monarchists, like Bolingbroke or Lovecraft, they are a small minority. Indeed, in recent years, the beatifications of Blessed Karl of Austria and Blessed Maria Cristina of Savoy, as well as the opening of the causes for the Servants of God Empress Zita (Karl’s consort), King Francis II of the Two Sicilies, Queen Elena of Italy, and Madame Elisabeth, sister of Louis XVI and murdered like her brother—among others—has led to many devout people giving monarchy another look. There has been a similar reconsideration in other Christian denominations: the continuing veneration of Charles I among Anglicans and Ordinariate Catholics, and the Tsar and other martyred members of his family among the Orthodox.
Of course, it may well be argued that among many living royals, standards of behaviour are not as high as it was among their sainted ancestors. But often enough—considering what our free and democratic society offers us—we do not live up to standards of their ancestors’ subjects. Perhaps if we do the one, they shall do the other.
