Long live the King!

CORONATION

He’ll stand there facing the anointed one,
And when the time comes he’ll lift it up,
The Crown, the sacred and profound,
Bejewelled in the now and glorious past.
It will be heavy in his hands, gravity
Weighing on this prince of the church
His ancient duty to confer the divine,
And ensure the earthly continuum.
Intoning the ritual, the Archbishop
Will hold the fate of nations over the head
Of their monarch, enthroned before him.
He’ll pause for a perceptible moment,
Poised for the final act, and all around
Will be still, just for a heartbeat,
No breath will be taken until the Crown
Rests upon the brow of this being, the King.

And then it’s done. The voices rise . . .
Hallelujah! God Save the King!

I wrote the above to perform at my club’s celebration of the coronation of King Charles III. It may not describe exactly the physical placement of the crown upon the king’s head but it does attempt to express some of the magic.

For magic it is, like all religious rites. And this is what republicans, in Australia at least, don’t, can’t and won’t understand. They have failed entirely to grasp the lessons of history – the great republican Augustus turned himself into an emperor (and a god); the republicans of the American Revolution offered George Washington a throne (he refused and they instituted an elected king instead); the Corsican corporal did an Augustus and his supporters at home and abroad have done their best to make him a god, too. In Great Britain (and Ireland) where Charles III reigns, the people restored the monarchy in the person of Charles II after the Commonwealth experiment of Oliver Cromwell. In Spain, too, after Franco. Norway separated from Sweden and constituted itself as a monarchy. Monarchy works, monarchy endures.

Republicans will tell you, as Troy Bramston and Chris Kenny have eloquently written in The Australian, that monarchy by family succession is utterly illogical, that the rituals by which a monarch is engaged by the Divine are ridiculous and passé in this day and age – especially in Australia, a migrant nation 12,000 miles from Buckingham Palace.

How can anyone disagree? I have no religious belief – but I know that faith and its magic live in all people, even in Bramston, Kenny and me. Religion seeks to explain the mysteries of existence to us. It doesn’t do it for me but I have to recognise what the minister of the church I was sent to as a child told the RE class at my high school one day: “Man is a worshipping animal.” I’ve never forgotten that and never ceased to ponder its truth.

History demonstrates to us that for some completely illogical and confounding reason people, nations, yearn for a monarch, a head of state. Why do we need a head of state at all? How is it that an individual chosen by some bizarre method can be set up to represent what a nation believes and values? And yet that’s what we do with a coronation, and that’s what republicans want from a president. Every four years the people of the United States elect (for want of better term) one of their number to wield extraordinary powers over them, powers long since relinquished by the constitutional monarchs of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain etc etc etc. Don’t tell me the president of France, like Napoleon before him, is not a de facto king. And presidents still get sworn in, anointed, under God.

Republicans in Australia have tried to convince their fellow citizens over many years now that all we have to do to become a republic is sever ties with the British monarchy (which founded the country) and install a president instead of the Governor-General (the king’s representative here). We can do this by legislation of our Parliament, as we did when the Queen Elizabeth II was created queen of Australia, and her successors as monarchs of this country. We can become a republic, nominally at least, just by saying so. This is a Good Thing because, after all, republics are logical, efficient, and guarantee equality among people.

So why don’t we? Perhaps Australians see that other countries which are republics are not exactly ideal examples of this style of governance, never have been and never will be. Perhaps the majority of people understand that a president (however chosen) will inevitably come into conflict with Parliament and the Government (under an increasingly presidential Prime Minister). Who prevails and how? They view events to our north and across the Pacific with astonishment, wonder and not a little fear and loathing. But that’s not the real reason, is it?

The Big Man is looked up to in all societies, even in these late, sophisticated stages of Western Civilisation. Augustan dictators are practically the norm. They are not constantly under attack from rebellious citizenry. People instinctively require an institution that stands above the hurly burly of daily government; they need some symbol to keep the lords of politics at bay, to remind those barons that, in the people’s eyes at least, there is a higher power that presides over their very life and death.

Non-Australians will not understand this next question. Sorry. My fellow Australians, what do you think might have been the outcome in 1975 if Governor-General Sir John Kerr had been president and therefore commander-in-chief of the armed forces? Those of us who were around on 11 November 1975 when the GG sacked the Government remember the chaos of that day, the inflammatory speeches and the hotheaded calls for the military to take charge. The troops stayed in their barracks and rightly took no part in the political battle. I doubt that forces under presidents everywhere would have been inactive in the circumstances.

You know the best thing about the British monarchy and Charles III as King of Australia? They are not here. They are Over There. Long may that remain so.