# The English Constitution #### II. The Monarchy. *Highlight [page 61]:* it is nice to trace how the actions of a retired widow and an unemployed youth become of such importance. *Highlight [page 61]:* It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations. The nature of a constitution, the action of an assembly, the play of parties, the unseen formation of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, difficult to know, and easy to mistake. But the action of a single will, the fiat of a single mind, are easy ideas: anybody can make them out, and no one can ever forget them. When you put before the mass of mankind the question, “Will you be governed by a king, or will you be governed by a constitution?” the inquiry comes out thus — “Will you be governed in a way you understand, or will you be governed in a way you do not understand?” *Highlight [page 62]:* If any energetic man could by audacity or craft break down the constitution, and render himself permanent ruler according to his own will and pleasure, even though he might govern well, he could never inspire the people with any sentiment of duty towards him: his sceptre was illegitimate from the beginning, and even the taking of his life, far from being interdicted by that moral feeling which condemned the shedding of blood in other cases, was considered meritorious *Highlight [page 63]:* The characteristic of the English Monarchy is that it retains the feelings by which the heroic kings governed their rude age, and has added the feelings by which the constitutions of later Greece ruled in more refined ages. *Highlight [page 63]:* He had not to deal with a community in which primitive barbarism lay as a recognized basis to acquired civilization. We have. We have no slaves to keep down by special terrors and independent legislation. But we have whole classes unable to comprehend the idea of a constitution unable to feel the least attachment to impersonal laws. Most do indeed vaguely know that there are some other institutions besides the Queen, and some rules by which she governs. But a vast number like their minds to dwell more upon her than upon any thing else, and therefore she is inestimable. A Republic has only difficult ideas in government; a Constitutional Monarchy has an easy idea too; it has a comprehensible element for the vacant many, as well as complex laws and notions for the inquiring few. *Underline [page 63]:* But we have whole classes unable to comprehend the idea of a constitution unable to feel the least attachment to impersonal laws. Most do indeed vaguely know that there are some other institutions besides the Queen, and some rules by which she governs. But a vast number like their minds to dwell more upon her than upon any thing else, and therefore she is inestimable. *Highlight [page 63]:* A family on the throne is an interesting idea also. It brings down the *Highlight [page 64]:* pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life. No feeling could seem more childish than the enthusiasm of the English at the marriage of the Prince of Wales. *Highlight [page 64]:* All but a few cynics like to see a pretty novel touching for a moment the dry scenes of the grave world. A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and as such, it rivets mankind. *Highlight [page 64]:* Its use is not in what it says, but in those to whom it speaks, *Highlight [page 64]:* a royal family sweetens politics by the seasonable addition of nice and pretty events. It introduces irrelevant facts into the business of government, but they are facts which speak to “men’s bosoms” and employ their thoughts. *Underline [page 64]:* a royal family sweetens politics by the seasonable addition of nice and pretty events. *Highlight [page 64]:* Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding. *Highlight [page 64]:* The English Monarchy strengthens our government with the strength of religion. *Underline [page 64]:* The English Monarchy strengthens our government with the strength of religion. *Highlight [page 64]:* the mass of the English people do not think so i they agree ewith the oath of allegiance; they say it is their duty to obey the “ Queen;” and they have but hazy notions as to obeying laws without a queen. *Highlight [page 65]:* The parliament, the laws, the press, were human institutions; but the Monarchy was a Divine institution. *Highlight [page 67]:* A principal reason why the monarchy so well consecrates our whole state is to be sought in the peculiarity many Americans and many utilitarians smile at. They laugh at this “extra,” as the Yankee called it, at the solitary transcendent element. They quote Napoleon’s saying, “that he did not wish to be fatted in idleness,” when he refused to be grand elector in Sièyes’ constitution, which was an office copied, and M. Thiers says well copied, from constitutional monarchy. But such objections are wholly wrong. No doubt it was absurd enough in the Abbé Sièyes to propose that a new institution, inheriting no reverence, and muade holy by no religion, should be created to fill the sort of post occupied by a constitutional king in nations of monarchical history. Such an institution, far from being so august as to spread reverence around it, is too novel and artificial to get reverence for itself; if, too, the absurdity could anyhow be augmentel, it was so by offering an office of inactive uselessness and pretended sanctity to Napoleon, the most active man in France, with the greatest genius for business, only not sacred, and exclusively fit for action. But the blunder of Sieyes brings the excellence of real monarchy to the best light. When a monarch can bless, it is best that he should not be touched. It should be evident that he does no wrong. He should not be brought too closely to real measurement. He should be *Underline [page 67]:* A principal reason why the monarchy so well consecrates our whole state is to be sought in the peculiarity many Americans and many utilitarians smile at. *Underline [page 67]:* the solitary transcendent element *Underline [page 67]:* When a monarch can bless, it is best that he should not be touched. It should be evident that he does no wrong. He should not be brought too closely to real measurement. *Highlight [page 68]:* aloof and solitary. As the functions of English royalty are for the most part latent, it fulfils this condition. It seems to order, but it never seems to struggle. It is commonly hidden like a mystery, and sometimes paraded like a pageant, but in neither case is it contentious. The nation is tivided into parties, but the Crown is of no party. Its apparent separation from business is that which removes it both from enmities and from desecration, which preserves its mystery, which enables it to combine the affection of conflicting parties — to be a visible symbol of unity to tose still so imperfectly educated as to need a symbol. *Underline [page 68]:* It seems to order, but it never seems to struggle. It is commonly hidden like a mystery, and sometimes paraded like a pageant, but in neither case is it contentious. *Underline [page 68]:* ts apparent separation from business is that which removes it both from enmities and from desecration, which preserves its mystery, which enables it to combine the affection of conflicting parties — to be a visible symbol of unity to tose still so imperfectly educated as to need a symbol. *Highlight [page 68]:* The Queen is the head of our society. If she did not exist the Prime Minister would be the first person in the country. He and his wife would have to receive foreign ministers, and occasionally foreign princes, to give the first parties in the country; he and she would be at the head of the pageant of life; they would represent England in the eyes of foreign nations; they would represent the Government of England in the eyes of the English. *Highlight [page 68]:* A nation of unimpressible philosophers would not care at all how the externals of life were managed. Who is the showman is not material unless you care about the show. But of all nations in the world the English are perhaps the least a nation of pure philosophers. It would be a very serious matter to us to chalnge every four or five years the visible head of our world. We are not now remarkable for the highest sort of ambition; but we are remarkable for having a great deal of the lower sort of ambition and envy. The House of Commons is thronged with people who get there merely for “social purposes,” as the phrase goes; that is, that they and their families may go to parties else impossible. Members of Parliament are envied by thousands merely for this frivolous glory, as a thinker calls it. If the highest post in conspicuous life were thrown open to public competition, this low sort of ambition and envy would be fearfully increased. Politics would offer a prize too dazzling for mankind; clever base people would strive for it, and stupid base people would envy it. *Underline [page 68]:* of all nations in the world the English are perhaps the least a nation of pure philosophers. *Underline [page 68]:* The House of Commons is thronged with people who get there merely for “social purposes,” as the phrase goes; that is, that they and their families may go to parties else impossible. *Underline [page 68]:* If the highest post in conspicuous life were thrown open to public competition, this low sort of ambition and envy would be fearfully increased. *Highlight [page 69]:* The literary world, the scientific world, the philosophic world, not only are not comparable in dignity to the political world, but in comparison are hardly worlds at all. The newspaper makes no mention of them, and could not mention them. As are the papers, so are the readers; they, by irresistible sequence and association, believe that those people who constantly figure in the papers are cleverer, abler, or at any rate somehow higher, than other people. *Highlight [page 69]:* English politicians are the men who fill the thoughts of the English public; they are the actors on the scene, and it is hard for the admiring spectators not to believe that the admired actor is greater than themselves. In this present age and country it would be very dangerous to give the slightest addition to a force already perilously great. If the highest social rank was to be scrambled for in the House of Commons, the number of social adventurers there would be incalculably more numerous, and indefinitely more eager. *Underline [page 69]:* t would be very dangerous to give the slightest addition to a force already perilously great. *Highlight [page 69]:* The idea that the head of the government is the head of society is so fixed in the ideas of mankind that only a few philosophers regard it as historical and accidental, though, when the matter is examined, that conclusion is certain and even obvious. *Highlight [page 69]:* In the first place society as society does not naturally need a head at all. Its constitution, if left to itself, is not monarchical, but aristocratical Society, in the sense we are now talking of, is the union of people for amusement and conversation. The making of marriages goes on in it, as it were, incidentally, but its common and main concern is talking and pleasure. There is nothing in this which needs a single supreme head;it is a pursuit in which a single person does not of necessity dominate. By nature it creates an “upper ten thousand;” a certain number of persons *Highlight [page 70]:* and families possessed of equal culture, and equal faculties, and equal spirit, get to be on a level — and that level a high level. By boldness, by cultivation, by “social science” they raise themselves above others; they become the “first families,” and all the rest come to be below them. But they tend to be much about a level among one another; no one is recognized by all or by many others as superior to them all. This is society as it grew up in Greece or Italy, as it grows up now in any American or colonial town. *Highlight [page 73]:* Lastly. Constitutional royalty has the function which I insisted on at length in my last essay, and which, though it is by far the greatest, I need not now enlarge upon again. It acts as a disguise. It enables our real rulers to change without heedless people knowing it. The masses of Englishmen are not fit for an elective government; if they knew how near they were to it, they would be surprised, and almost tremble. *Underline [page 73]:* It enables our real rulers to change without heedless people knowing it. *Highlight [page 74]:* The House of Commons has inquired into most things, but has never had a committee on “the Queen.” There is no authentic blue-book to say what she does. *Highlight [page 75]:* It is a fiction of the past to ascribe to her legislative power. She has long ceased to have any. *Highlight [page 75]:* In the bare superficial theory of free institutions this is undoubtedly a defect. Every power in a popular government ought to be known. The whole notion of such a government is that the political people — the *Underline [page 75]:* In the bare superficial theory of free institutions this is undoubtedly a defect. Every power in a popular government ought to be known. *Highlight [page 76]:* governing people — rules as it thinks fit. All the acts of every administration are to be canvassed by it; it is to watch if such acts seem good, and in some manner or other to interpose if they seem not good. But it cannot judge if it is to be kept in ignorance; it cannot interpose if it does not know. A secret prerogative is an anomaly- perhaps the greatest of anomalies. That secrecy is, however, essential to the utility of English royalty as it now is. *Underline [page 76]:* All the acts of every administration are to be canvassed by it; it is to watch if such acts seem good, and in some manner or other to interpose if they seem not good. *Highlight [page 76]:* When there is a select committee on the Queen, the charm of royalty will be gone. Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic. We must not bring the Queen into the combat of politics, or she will cease to be reverenced by all combatants; she will become one combatant among many. The existence of this secret power is, according to abstract theory, a defect in our constitutional polity, but it is a defect incident to a civilization such as ours, where august and therefore unknown powers are needed, as well as known and serviceable powers. *Underline [page 76]:* Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic. *Highlight [page 76]:* The mystery of the constitution, which used to be hated by our calmest, most thoughtful, and instructed statesmen, is now loved and reverenced by them.