BORIS cutie - Another fine mess: Brexit-dogged Johnson's UN trip goes awry

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson landed in New York this week on a speedy Royal Air
Force jet, bringing his vision of a post-Brexit "Global Britain" to the United Nations.

Then he sat on the tarmac for more than an hour. The captain informed passengers that
another VIP's plane was occupying the stand. It was the first hint that Johnson's trip to the
U.N.'s General Assembly might not run entirely smoothly.

The annual gathering — a diplomatic-media bear pit where scores of world leaders compete
for attention in the middle of a teeming, gridlocked Manhattan — can be a daunting
experience for new leaders. But for Johnson it could have been something of a respite: a
chance to leave the melodrama of Britain's stalled departure from the European Union behind
for 72 hours, show a Brexit-befuddled world that Britain is still a serious global player and
cement his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

That was never going to be easy, and it got spectacularly harder on Tuesday, when the U.K.
Supreme Court ruled that Johnson acted illegally when he suspended Parliament just weeks
before Britain is due to leave the EU on Oct. 31. The 11 justices ruled the suspension
"unlawful, void and of no effect."

Absorbing the news before dawn at a luxury New York hotel, Johnson's advisers were taken
aback. The damning, unanimous ruling was much worse for the government than they had
hoped.

With lawmakers set to return to Parliament on Wednesday, Johnson's trip was abruptly cut
short. He flew back to London immediately after his speech to the General Assembly on
Tuesday evening — one he was still drafting on Tuesday afternoon.

When he did deliver it, it was decidedly unusual — a vivid screed about the dark dangers of,
and then about the utopian possibilities of, an increasingly tech-drenched future.

"Can these algorithms be trusted with our lives and hopes?" he asked, before pivoting to
positivity: "I am profoundly optimistic about the ability of new technology to serve as a
liberator and remake the world wondrously and benignly."

In the speech, Johnson mentioned Brexit only once — as a pointed aside while recalling the
myth of Prometheus, who was chained to a rock by Zeus and sentenced to have his liver eaten
out by an eagle for eternity.

"And this went on forever," he quipped, "a bit like the experience of Brexit in the U.K, if
some of our parliamentarians had their way."

Earlier, Johnson had soldiered on as if it were business as usual, giving a speech to business
leaders and holding a series of meetings with other world leaders.

He brushed aside questions about whether he would resign, said he "strongly" disagreed with
the court decision and suggested he might try to suspend Parliament for a second time. He
also rebuffed calls by the opposition to resign for misleading Queen Elizabeth II when he told
her to give her formal assent to Parliament's suspension.
Rapid movement followed by sudden halts and reversals have long marked the roller-coaster
political career of Johnson, who ricocheted between high office and political back benches
before becoming prime minister two months ago.

His carefully cultivated air of chaos — the shock of blond hair, rumpled shirt and mumbling
self-deprecation — led many to write him off as a national leader.

But he got the U.K's top job when Britain's political deadlock over Brexit finally exhausted
his predecessor, Theresa May. Johnson promised the governing Conservative Party he would
deliver Brexit on the scheduled date of Oct. 31 "do or die."

Since then, Johnson has run straight into the morass that entrapped May: a country split down
the middle between supporters and opponents of Brexit, and a Parliament that has rejected the
divorce terms on offer but also opposes leaving without a deal.

He is stuck and — alarmingly for a politician who wants to be liked — he's divisive. Outside
the Supreme Court in London last week, some Brexit supporters chanted "Boris is our leader."
But pro-European Britons spit out his name in conjunction with crude expletives.

Even before the court ruling, Johnson had a rough few weeks. Parliament passed a law to bind
his hand, ordering the government to seek a delay to Brexit if it doesn't approve a deal with
the EU by late October. Two ministers quit his Cabinet over Brexit — one of them his own
younger brother, Jo Johnson.

He was accused in the Sunday Times of giving public funding to a female friend (he denies
wrongdoing) and was berated by the father of a sick child on a visit to a hospital.

But speaking to reporters on the plane to New York, Johnson seemed relaxed and more self-
aware than he often appears in public. He shrugged off the hospital confrontation, saying
there was nothing wrong with "a spot of lively interchange with members of the public."

Johnson's successful stint as mayor of London between 2008 and 2016 shows that he can be
an effective ambassador for the U.K. But his message in New York — that post-Brexit Britain
will be "more global, more outgoing and more open to the rest of the world than ever before"
— was drowned out by the crisis engulfing him in London.

Still, Downing Street officials insisted the trip had been a success, pointing to a joint U.K.-
France-Germany statement blaming Iran for the attack on Saudi oil facilities and urging
Tehran to comply with its nuclear responsibilities.

Johnson's friends say it would be unwise to write him off just yet. His most prominent friend
at the U.N. was Trump, who may see in Johnson a leader with a divisive style — and woes —
to match his own.

The two men have significant differences, especially on tackling climate change, a priority for
Johnson. But the president was effusive when they met on Tuesday.

"I know him well. He's not going anywhere," Trump told reporters. "Don't worry about him."

A Response to Hollywood’s War Against Christianity

Viggo Mortensen, the same actor who played Strider/Aragorn in the Lord of the
Rings trilogy, seems to enjoy getting naked in his non-Tolkien films, evincing, perhaps,
certain latent exhibitionist fantasies: In Eastern Promises, he fought off, el fresco, two
Russian mobsters in a steam bath; in The Road, he chucked it all to swim out to an abandoned
boat to retrieve supplies for him and his son; and just recently there he was, full frontal, in a
film that displays not just his body, but also some of the most anti-Catholic and nihilistic
biases I have ever had the displeasure to witness, in the inaptly name Captain Fantastic.
The plot of this messy pottage of a movie, a loose re-make of a 1986 film The Mosquito
Coast, which in turn was based on the (better) 1981 novel by Paul Theroux, revolves around
an uber-capable Dad (I’ll just call him that, for his name matters not) homeschooling his six
children in some wilderness locale, where he teaches them how to hunt, fish, rock climb, dress
wounds, set broken bones, engage in hand-to-hand combat and everything else, in a darker
version of Swiss Family Robinson. In the evening, they read books, with the children plowing
through the “classics” according to Dad’s schedule: From Brothers Karamazov, to Lolita to
textbooks on quantum entanglement.
So far, I was intrigued, and Christian homeschoolers a year or so ago were using as
inspiration for their beleaguered efforts the trailer of this film, which had Dad’s eight-year old
show up her two regular-high schooled loutish cousins with her encyclopedic and accurate
knowledge of the Bill of Rights, a concept of which the two louts were woefully ignorant. Yet
a panegyric for Christian homeschoolers this film is most definitely not: Dad also drills into
his children some sort of hippie rationalistic quasi-Marxist-and-libertarian philosophy, one of
the many impossible paradoxes of Dad’s muddled thoughts, for all his purported intelligence.
He criticizes his daughter at one point for describing a book as “interesting,” a term too bland
and vague, yet he and his children sprinkle random f-bombs and other “vague” and
nonsensical vulgarities throughout.

The plot, such as it is, thickens when we hear that the family’s Mum, who is noticeably
absent, has been committed to a mental hospital. According to Dad, his erstwhile wife is
suffering from, and I quote from vague memory, which I hope fades soon, an “imbalance in
serotonin levels, compromising her neuronal functioning.” So far, so bad, for we soon
afterward hear that Mum has also now committed suicide, with the full description, in Dad’s
commitment to telling the plain truth to his children, of “slitting her wrists.”
The rest of the story follows Dad and his busload of children returning to the “world” after
this decade of not-so-splendid isolation to attend Mum’s funeral. From the get-go, we are
barraged with a propagandistic full-out war against Christianity, and Catholicism in particular,
with a not-even-trying-to-be-concealed derision. As the children witness fat people for the
first time, they wonder, how can people get so obese? One of the youngsters claims
innocently that they “look like hippos,” for which he is rebuked, claiming they should never
“make fun of people,” that is, as they take pains to declare, except Christians, hardy-har-har.
When a police officer pulls them over, suspiciously eyeing these wandering waifs, he quickly
retreats off the bus when the children try mockingly to evangelize him.
Libertarian Nihilism
So what do Dad and offspring believe? The family stops for a picnic, after robbing a grocery
store as Dad fakes a heart attack, to celebrate “Noam Chomsky day,” noted linguist and
libertarian socialist. When one of the (again) younger sons protests, asking “why don’t they
celebrate normal feasts, like Christmas,” Dad replies (again from vague and unwilling
memory): “Would you rather honor the birth of a mythical ‘elf,’ or a great humanitarian?”
One might wonder why Prof. Chomsky was described as an elf, but then, that is not what Dad
meant. He asks his son to make an argument from reason, to convince and convert the rest of
the family as to why they should celebrate Christmas, but the boy turns away, shamefaced at
his obvious inability to do so. One of the finales has the same boy quoting Chomsky back to
his Dad, now fully converted to the right and just cause, after a brief dalliance with the
Christian illusion. It is curious, however, that they continue to use the Lord’s name as an
invective. Why not Mohammad, or Zeus or, indeed, Chomsky himself?

If there are any redeeming qualities to this film, it’s that the anti-Christian bias which runs
through Hollywood is on full display, signifying not only the truth of Catholicism, but also
allowing us to see behind the subversive Disney-esque mask, slipping off a bit to reveal the
grinning death-head within. I read that this film received a ten minute standing ovation when
presented at the Cannes film festival. At the risk of understatement, that was not the reaction I
had. Then again, it bombed at the box office, showing that the people usually know more than
the purported “elites.”
On a related note, I wonder if Viggo and company would have made a similar film against
Islam, far more “repressive” than Catholicism, but from what I have seen, I don’t think they
have the courage.

Anti-Catholicism on Full Display

Witness the climax, if it can be described as such, which has the family bursting in on Mum’s
funeral, being held in a Catholic church, all dressed like flower children out of some hippie
opera. Dad interrupts the priest’s sermon, offering a rather vulgar peroration on the futility of
the “service” (a Catholic Mass, of course), and the injustice of burying his wife in a (bleeping)
“golf course” (which is beside the cemetery), when she was, after all, a Buddhist and, in her
last will and testament, declared that she wanted to be cremated and her ashes flushed down a
toilet.
Hmm. Has anyone heard of compos mentis? Of course, no causal relation is even hinted at in
the wife’s apostasy, her rejection of her Catholic faith, her adoption of the nihilistic religion of
Buddha, and her subsequent manic depression and suicide.
During the Dad’s diatribe, banging on the casket, the soft, wan, chubby priest (in Hollywood,
it seems they are always so) stands by mute, eventually gathering a few of the funeral
directors to hustle Dad out the door.

Ah, yes, the beauty of pagan nihilism, full of its own form of ceremony and symbolism. Need
I bore you with the rest of the film? Dad at one point walks off his hippie bus in the middle of
a campground, in the scene with which I began, full frontal in his birthday suit, confronting
shamelessly a poor old couple, as well as his own children.

Dad and company in the end do dig Mum up in the depth of night, transporting her remains
cross-country in their bus, then, as the body burns in a beautiful lakeside setting, serenading
her with an impromptu folksy homeschool version of an 1980s Guns N’ Roses anthem. And,
yes, in this theatre of the absurd, they do fulfill her wishes by flushing her earthly relics, such
as they are, down an anonymous airport toilet.

I am not sure of the point of all this, except to denigrate Catholicism, indeed any supernatural
symbolism. The only thing extolled in this thinly-veiled piece of pagan, even satanic,
proselytism, is the freedom to do and think whatever you want, with no one “telling” you so,
except unbridled “reason,” a freedom unhinged from truth, for, as they would say, only
freedom can make you free.
A Theological Response
Pope John Paul II remarked upon this in Veritatis Splendor:
Certain currents of modern thought have gone so far as to exalt freedom to such an extent that
it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values. This is the direction taken
by doctrines which have lost the sense of the transcendent which are explicitly atheist. The
individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment which
hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil. (#32)

And as the former Pontiff makes clear a few paragraphs later:

God’s law does not reduce, much less do away with human freedom; rather, it protects and
promotes that freedom. In contrast, however, some present-day cultural tendencies have given
rise to several currents of thought in ethics which centre upon an alleged conflict between
freedom and law. These doctrines would grant to individuals or social groups the right to
determine what is good or evil. Human freedom would thus be able to “create values” and
would enjoy a primacy over truth, to the point that truth itself would be considered a creation
of freedom. (#36)

The hypocrisy in this film is rank and fetid, for they do not draw out the conclusion of their
premises, which would be utter moral anarchy: All the “trappings” of the family are Christian:
Lots of children, an obvious fidelity between husband and wife (in the flashback moments),
close familial bonding, the love of music, the favorite of which is Bach’s Goldberg
Variations (which, like all of Bach’s music, was motivated by his love for and devotion to
Christ and Our Lady). Even the “great books” they read are almost all fruits of a Christian
civilization.
Of course, one might argue that pagans have some of these goods as well, but we might
respond, not in the main. Our modern agnostic culture, which has more or less discarded its
Judaeo-Christian foundation along with an eternal perspective on life, has consequently lost
whatever moral moorings it may have had, and is not known for their plethora of children and
close family bonding. Rather the opposite. Dysfunction, drugs and death abound, not grace
and a flourishing, joyful home life.
What the producers of this film have done is to take these accidental Christian trappings,
which are indeed attractive (as are all the children) and gut them of their substance, the very
thing which in reality holds family life, and society, together: Christ, prayer, inviolable moral
principles, a supernatural sense, living for eternity, delayed gratification, sacrificing of self. In
place of these true principles is placed a mockery of prayer, immorality and sexual license,
living on a purely natural level of pleasure and a vague notion of self-fulfillment. Gather ye
rosebuds while ye may, for when life is over, it’s over, quite literally flushed down the most
convenient waste bowl.
This is much the same way that media rarely ever show all the tragedy, brokenness and
emotional trauma that result from casting off God and his commandments, for that would not
sell the goods. It’s always dressed up, like a Trojan horse, in the wrappings of beauty, joy and
good will. What they want, I suppose, is a sort of pseudo-, even an anti-“Christianity,”
without the rules and rigor, leaving one completely free.

I came across the day after watching the film an analysis by Cardinal Ratzinger from
his Principles of Catholic Theology, wherein the future pope accurately describes our world’s
inverted view. After pointing out that the Gospel message began with one word to the
Virgin, Kaire! Rejoice!, in the “Good News” that Christ brings, most people, sadly,
[a]ll too often … compare this attractive designation—with melancholy, if not with bitterness
—with our own daily experience of Christianity and the impression made on us by Christians,
with the joylessness, the cramped scrupulosity, the narrowness of spirit that seems to us to be
the most telling refutation of what Christianity claims to be. The feeling that Christianity is
opposed to joy, the impression that punctiliousness and unhappiness, is surely a more likely
explanation of why people leave the Church than are any of the theoretical problems the faith
may pose today.

Films such as Captain Fantastic simply reinforce this false impression. Although the
producers, actors and viewers may not be able to articulate their thoughts with the same
clarity and style as Ratzinger (but then, who of us could?), and whatever their own
culpability, they in all likelihood believe at some level that Christianity is just such a force of
evil and slavery. Cast off its moralistic shackles, whispers the Serpent, and then thou whilst be
free! Christ, the impious “elf,” the “pale Galilean” as pagan emperor Julian derisively called
him, is the real liar, the enslaver, the spoiler of Dionysian joy, as Nietzsche would have it.
Yet, Ratzinger goes on to gently point out what has in fact happened, as society has followed
Nietzsche’s exhortations to reject Christian morality:

A glance at any magazine stand will show us that mankind has completely freed itself of what
the French called the “Catholic sickness.” There are no longer any forbidden trees. But has
mankind become healthier? Has it become free? As we can read in a variety of commentaries,
even the avant-garde of libertinism would deny that it has: disgust and boredom consume
them—lack of freedom has increased.

As we all know, Nietzsche, whose philosophy underpins this film, died insane and disease-
ridden in an asylum. Disgust and boredom indeed.

An unwitting hint of this inevitable conclusion is given in the final scene, wherein Dad
capitulates to the “system” in order to keep his children, moving into a regular house, sending
them to a regular school. In the drawn-out moment, we see Dad and children around the
kitchen table, Dad now silently staring, as his offspring pore over their “homework” from a
bland and bureaucratic system.

One should not seek for too much of a point in such a muddled mess. What we can reply is
that any attempt to seek happiness and salvation outside of the truth in an unbridled
existentialism, seizing all the hedonistic pleasure of life in every moment, however subtle and
refined and painted in the colors of talented, beautiful children, always ends badly. As Saint
Augustine would put it, to seek self to the exclusion of God, however humanly excellent,
leads only to emptiness and despair, for we were made not for ourselves and this life, but for
God and eternity, as Augustine discovered the long way round. At some point we must choose
in a most fundamental way what City we belong to, God’s or Satan’s, the Church or the
world, truth or lies, the way of life or the way of death.
For only the Truth will set us free, however much that truth may be obscured and twisted by
the forces of evil.
Faith-based Movies are 'Exploding' in Hollywood and 'Changing Lives'

In the late 1800s, Horace and Daeida Wilcox, decided to create a nice, quaint Christian
community in southern California. It would serve no booze, and it would even give free land
to churches (at least Protestant ones), so that righteousness could be proclaimed.
 

By 1903, the bustling little city had enough voters---166 men---to officially incorporate. It
was called Hollywood.

Meanwhile, movies were first being created over on the east coast. For example, there were
films made in New York City. But a pioneer motion picture maker, D. W. Griffith, found the
Los Angeles area as the ideal place to make movies. What did southern California have to
offer movie-makers? An ideal climate, good lighting, and good geography, including
mountains and beaches, deserts, and forests.

Specifically within the Los Angeles area itself, beginning around 1914, film-maker Cecil B.
DeMille discovered Hollywood as the ideal town for movie-making. First, he had to ride on a
horse and shoot a lot of the rattlesnakes there. Of course, Cecil B. DeMille would go on to
make many blockbusters, including “The Ten Commandments.”

In light of Hollywood’s overall history---with many godless and explicitly anti-God films for
the last 100 years or so---it would seem that the Wilcoxes’ vision for their Christian hamlet
has turned to ashes for the most part.

And yet, any Christians who’ve written off Hollywood need to realize what incredible
influence it continues to have, worldwide. Ted Baehr of Movieguide, a sort of missionary to
Hollywood, has worked tirelessly to support the good and lessen the bad coming from there.

The great news is that recently active Christians are trying to make a difference for Jesus in
the box office---even if many of their efforts are independent films (not supported by any
Hollywood studio).

In an article in Yahoo News (3/29/18), called “Movie theaters cash in as Hollywood turns to
God,” Frankie Taggart notes, “Religion is reclaiming cinema for sacred purposes at a rate
never seen in history, with faith-based movies exploding from an obscure cottage industry last
century into a multi-billion-dollar business.”

Over the Easter weekend, I kept up a recent tradition. Each time a new “God’s Not Dead”
movie came out, I went to see it during its opening weekend. The newly released third
installment is subtitled “A Light In Darkness.” I liked it and recommend it---but I must admit
I still like #2 the best.

In his article, Taggart quotes “comScore media analyst Paul Dergarabedian,” who points out:
"You can't just suddenly have executives in board rooms saying, 'Faith-based movies are big
right now so let's do one.' You have to come from an authentic place. Those in the faith-based
community will know if it's not the real deal."
In “God’s Not Dead: A Light In Darkness,” sermons from the African-American pastor that
the David A. R. White character visits---since his church had been burned down by arson---
are incredibly powerful. Either the actor playing the black minister, Gregory Alan Williams,
knows the Lord, or the people who gave him those lines do. Williams portrayed “the real
deal” (as does White) to quote Dergarabedian.

Taggart also observes, “The box office totals may not sound huge but they add up to a genre
of filmmaking that has amassed almost $2 billion since the end of the last century, according
to Box Office Mojo.” Of course, about a third of that is from “The Passion of the Christ” by
Mel Gibson (who started the recent trend in 2004).

The most important thing is that these films are changing lives. After the first “God’s Not
Dead” came out in 2014, I got to do a radio interview with David A. R. White, who helped
produce the film and has now acted in all three of the “God’s Not Dead” series, including the
lead in the latest film.

He said that the success of recent Christian movies shows that, “Faith is not dead in the
United States. I think that hunger is there for spiritual content. People want answers. They
want to learn about their faith, and they also want to be entertained, of course, because it’s in
a movie theatre. But at the same token, they’re yearning for that spiritual content.”

Ironically, my local movie theatre where I saw “God’s Not Dead3” has two other Christian
movies playing there currently---“Paul, the Apostle of Christ” (with Jim Caviezel), and “I Can
Only Imagine,” a surprise hit which was number three in the box office one weekend. Yet
none of these three movies are showing on the theater’s marquee.

Nonetheless, I’m grateful for this revival of films with Christian themes in the movie houses.
Maybe, all of these are baby steps toward the fulfillment of the vision the Wilcoxes had for
Hollywood as an ideal Christian community.

Mortgage Rates Have Plummeted. Should You Refinance?

Have you been paying attention to mortgage rates? They're the lowest in years, and they've
fallen so far in a relatively short time that it might make sense to refinance to a lower rate and
cut your monthly payment — even if your current home loan is only a year old.

Refinancing also is a great way to tap into a home's rising value. Multiple studies indicate that
home values nationwide have recovered so well that they're now higher than they were before
the Great Recession.

You may be ripe for a refi. Ask yourself these questions to know if it's the right move.

Why do you want to refinance?

A refinance can be a great way to cut your monthly mortgage payment.

More
We've already mentioned two excellent reasons: 1) You want to take advantage of today's low
mortgage rates; and 2) You want to cut your monthly mortgage payment.
Thanks to falling rates, homeowners who refinanced in the spring of 2019 are saving an
average $1,700 a year, or about $140 a month, says Freddie Mac.

Another great reason to refi is if you have a variable-rate mortgage and can lock in a low
fixed rate.

Adjustable-rate mortgages — or ARMs — often have attractive rates to start, but your interest
rate can rise after the introductory years are over. With a fixed-rate mortgage, there are none
of those sorts of surprises.

Be careful about refinancing if your goal is to cash out some equity to pay other bills. If you
have as much trouble with the refi as you did with the other debt, you could wind up losing
your house. 

Plus, under the 2017 tax law, the interest on the cash-out portion of the loan probably isn't
deductible if you use the money to pay down other debt.

Can you dump your current loan?

Make sure your lender will let you out of your existing mortgage.

More
Your existing mortgage loan may carry a penalty if you pay it off early, like during the first
few years.

These prepayment penalties aren't common, though you might find them with interest-only
mortgages and other unconventional loans. The cost could make you decide quickly against a
refinance.

Also, some local government grant programs, such as for fixer-uppers or first-time
homebuyers, carry special terms that can make refinacing difficult.

You might have to jump through lots of legal hoops that are in place to prevent house flippers
from using the grants to buy properties they intend to resell quickly.

Read your loan documents carefully to find out if you have a prepayment penalty or other refi
restrictions. 

Would the lower rate really save you money?

Calculate whether a refinance makes financial sense.

More
When you refinance to take advantage of a lower interest rate, you could cut your monthly
payment — but wind up spending more over the long run.

If you have a 30-year mortgage and have made payments for 15 years, refinancing into a new
30-year mortgage would saddle you with tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in
additional interest charges if you stick with the new loan for its entire term.

Under that scenario, the smart move would be to refinance into a 15-year mortgage. Though
you may wind up with a higher monthly payment, you'll pay far less interest.
Closing costs are another consideration to balance against a lower rate. Across the U.S.,
borrowers paid mortgage closing costs averaging $5,779 in 2018, according to the real estate
data firm ClosingCorp.

If you save $100 a month in interest but the refinance costs you $5,000 at the closing table, it
will take over four years to recoup that expense with the money you're saving.

And that brings up another important point: Think hard about how long you plan to stay in the
home. If there's any chance you might be moving in a year or two, it may be difficult to make
back the costs.

The bottom line

A mortgage refinance can provide savings and financial flexibility to homeowners. Proceed
with caution, be informed of the new loan's terms, and take a close look at your existing loan
so you understand the true cost of a refi. 

Take a look at today's best mortgage rates where you are.

Retaining the royals: why has the British monarchy survived – and thrived?
From the millions who tuned in to watch the televised wedding of Prince William and Kate
Middleton to the celebrated arrival of series three of Netflix's royal drama The Crown in
November 2019, global fascination with the British royal family, it seems, shows no sign of
abating. Why, as the world sees a decline in the number of monarchs, does our love affair
with the British royals continue to flourish?

November 19, 2019 at 8:50 am

And how does the institution retain its popularity? Sarah Gristwood investigates…
The royal family (so the theory used to go) ride into the 21st century atop a tidal wave of
British tradition. They represent, for better or for worse, the nation’s love affair with the past.
Every time we see the Queen wearing a centuries-old crown, walk through the Houses of
Parliament to celebrate the even older deal struck between Commons and Crown, we reach
for another digestive biscuit to dunk in our mug of English Breakfast tea.

 The rise and fall of ‘Royal Highness’: a brief history of royal titles and what it
means for Prince Harry’s baby
 Monarchy timeline: from the Middle Ages to the modern era
In recent years the theory has been modified, to acknowledge the changes that have come to
the British monarchy. The strength of our royals – so this theory runs – is that they are
prepared to change when necessary. Yes, even their head, a queen who in 2016 celebrated her
90th birthday. She pays taxes, she sends a token tweet, she joins her grandson Harry to play a
prank on the Obamas. Remember the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games? She even
took part in a James Bond movie.

A performer dressed as the Queen parachutes into the Olympic Stadium during the opening
ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012. (Photo by Press Association)
 There is, of course, much truth in both these theories. We love tradition, especially when it is
softened by a little flexibility. But maybe the real secret to the long success of the British
monarchy is its connection, not to the stodgy old ways of the stately home, but to the
aggressive, thrusting, young nation that we used to be.

By this theory, the reason we’ve never had a lasting revolution [against the monarchy] is that
we got there so early. We executed King Charles I at a time, 1649, when the major states of
Europe hardly knew an alternative to monarchy. After that we were immunised against
revolution, and the immunity has lasted until the present day.
Magna Carta

Looking back, of course, one sees a long chain of events that have shaped – curbed, coloured
– the British monarchy. We’ve celebrated one in recent years – King John’s sealing of Magna
Carta in 1215, requiring the king to rule only under law. (Scotland in 1320 saw the
Declaration of Arbroath, which while primarily a declaration of the nation’s independence
seemed also to suggest that a monarch might be made by popular choice.)

 6 Magna Carta myths explained

 What did Magna Carta mean to the English in 1215?

And although in many ways the kings of England actually assumed more authority during the
few centuries that followed, this is an idea that has never gone away. Even in the days of that
earlier, authoritarian, Queen Elizabeth I, the bishop John Aylmer could write that England
was governed by a ‘rule mixte’ of prince, peers and people – assuaging fears of a female
monarch with the assurance that she did not in any case rule autonomously.

The Stuart kings tried to assert their ‘divine right’ – and the end of that story is very well
known. Except, of course, that the execution of Charles I was not the end. This was an age
that could see little alternative to the hereditary principle: even Oliver Cromwell, while
publically refusing the role of king, tried to arrange that his own descendants should succeed
him. Then in 1660, little more than a decade after his father’s death, Charles II was invited
once more to take up Stuart rule.
All the same, a line had been crossed. In 1688 the country’s ruling class and ruling body could
decide that the unpopular and Catholic James II and VII should be replaced by his daughter
Mary; and when it was clear not only Mary but her sister Anne would die without a living
child, it was parliament’s voice that invited Anne’s third cousin, the Elector of Hanover, to
become George I, ignoring a host of heirs closer in blood.
The 1689 Bill of Rights placed strict limits on the monarch’s power, which continued to
dwindle under successive Hanoverian kings as parliamentary reforms saw their rights of
patronage whittled away. But though the French Revolution may have scared, it could not
really shake the British monarchy. And after all, Britons wouldn’t want to do anything our
ancient French enemy had done – not in the days of Napoleon’s threat, certainly.

 12 facts about the Stuarts

 Who was Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart monarchs?
The model family

William IV and Victoria after him were horrified to learn they could not even choose their
own prime minister. It was the great Victorian Walter Bagehot who wrote provocatively that
Britain was “a secret republic”. But that was the secret of the royal family’s survival, perhaps.
And it was Victoria’s husband, Albert, who carved out for the crown another, a moral, kind of
authority as the nation’s first and model family – one which, in spite of any evidence to the
contrary, they have retained almost until the present day.

But the royal family has embarked on several major changes even more recently. It was in
1917 that the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha changed its name to the less ‘Hunnish’ House
of Windsor, the same summer that saw the Tsar of Russia swept from power (to be
subsequently killed, with his family). Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey all lost their
monarchies with the First World War – a side effect of their having been on the losing side,
maybe.

 Victoria and Albert: a marriage of misery? 

 Prince Albert: the death that rocked the monarchy
But other monarchies went, too, in the first half of the 20th century – those of Italy,
Yugoslavia, Portugal, followed later by Greece. King Farouk of Egypt declared that by the
turn of the century there would be only five kings left in the world – “the king of hearts, clubs,
diamonds and spades – and the King of England”. He was wrong about the monarch’s gender,
and Europe still boasts a handful of other monarchies, notably in Scandinavia and the Low
Countries. (And in Spain, which first replaced and then recalled their monarchy.) But his
basic point holds good, and there is no easy single answer as to why.
The royal family in the 20th century has seen some real downturns in its popularity, many of
them during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, however eager we may be to celebrate that reign
today. But somehow, whether by good judgement or good luck, the ‘firm’ (as Prince Philip
has called it) retains as its trademark a blend of change and consistency that keeps it bobbing
along, indomitably.

 Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip: 8 milestones in their marriage

 Troublesome royal in-laws through history
 Prince Philip: a life of duty and devotion
The popularity game

The dawn of the 20th century had brought a new readiness among the royals to be seen –
though not necessarily heard – as often as required. Before the First World War, for example,
royal weddings had long been private ceremonies. After the war all that changed, and such
occasions became valuable crowd-pleasers – while, conversely, its detachment from party-
political affairs allowed the monarchy to remain above the Westminster fray. It allowed it to
provide, in the words of the Buckingham Palace website “a focus for national unity”.
Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon leaves her home for her wedding to the future King George VI,
in 1923. After the First World War, royal weddings became “valuable crowd-pleasers” says
Sarah Gristwood. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

Not that the royals won’t change the tradition and trim the privilege, when necessary. The
Queen’s decision to pay taxes and to cut down the Civil List is only part of that readiness seen
in 1917 to play the popularity game. To try to be whatever we want them to be. The change in
tone that followed Diana’s death may be the ultimate example – and, indeed, she may have
played a role she never intended in reshaping the monarchy. While the furore around Diana’s
death finally proved to the royal establishment the need to adapt, she also gave us, in her sons
and now her grandson and granddaughter, royals better equipped to give the institution a
successful 21st century.