Yes, I watched the queen’s obsequies on Monday from start to finish – first the funeral at Westminster Abbey, then the committal service at Windsor, and in between the magnificent procession through the fabled streets of London. And yes, I was moved. And impressed. Never in our lifetimes has there been such a remarkable ceremonial display. It made the opening and closing ceremonies of any given OIympics look like the grand opening of a carwash. And for me the day’s events, which I viewed mostly on GB News, were greatly enhanced by the contributions of various historians and royal know-alls, above all the brilliant David Starkey.
Born and raised in America, I never had much truck with royalty. Yes, I was fascinated by the history of the English monarchs – especially the Tudors, Starkey’s specialty. But except for a brief, weird flirtation, back when I lived in Amsterdam, with the Dutch queen Beatrix, who has since abdicated, I always had a proper republican allergy to the idea of ordinary people – “subjects”! – bowing down to their purported betters. The whole set-up wasn’t just inequitable and outrageously unfair to taxpayers – why should British citizens support a so-called “royal family” who live not just in one 775-room palace but in several of them, apparently for variety’s sake? – but also to the royals themselves, who are doomed by an accident of birth to live exceedingly unnatural lives combining privilege on an unimaginable scale with a degree of inhuman deprivation, on a number of fronts, that would be considered cruel and unusual punishment if imposed on death-row murderers.
Watching The Crown on Netflix during the past few years has helped me to appreciate the logic – although that’s not quite the mot juste – of monarchy, at least along the British model. In the U.S., our head of government is also our head of state – that is, an elected politician, who by definition is likely to be disliked, if not despised, by roughly half of the population. In Britain, the sovereign is, or is supposed to be, above politics and therefore, according to the theory, can serve as a national symbol uniting Tories with Labourites, Brexiters with Remainers, Pepsi fans with imbibers of Coke.
In his commentaries on GB News since the queen’s death, Starkey has elaborated on this premise in a way that has sometimes bordered on the mystical. He’s discussed the royal family as embodying continuity over the centuries and as thereby playing a crucial role in the preservation and perpetuation of England’s – and, later, Britain’s – national myth. Again and again, moreover, he’s contracted the British constitutional monarchy favorably with the American constitutional system. Admittedly, at a time when the Democratic Party and Joe Biden’s puppeteers are doing their best to exploit the weaknesses in the American system in an apparent effort to bring the whole edifice crashing down, anything else – up to and including Juche thought – can start looking pretty good.
But the plain fact is that for the British system to work the way it’s supposed to, you need somebody on the throne like Elizabeth II – a woman who was so fiercely disciplined, so devoted, heart and soul, to a life of service, that she apparently went through her public paces for over seventy years without a single misstep – smiling, waving, shaking all the oily hands, making all the insipid small talk with nary a grunt or grimace. Furthermore, you don’t just need an exceptional individual like Elizabeth in the top job: you need her to be there for a very long time – for, indeed, a record-setting period of time – so that after a certain point, several generations of her subjects have never known another sovereign and she comes to seem, yes, immortal, just like Hirohito before we put him in his place. Still, the question remains: is it ever fair to compel anybody, in the name of duty, to keep her mouth shut about everything going on in her country – even as she herself is officially the very personification of that country?
In any event, could Charles ever possibly be the kind of monarch his mother was – perfectly proper, totally disciplined, always at a lofty but at the same time somehow humble remove? Well, his manifest grief over her death has certainly won him a great deal of good will, both at home and abroad. And his promise to put his pet causes behind him, the good (support for traditional architecture) along with the bad (climate change and, good God, homeopathy) was a relief. But there’s reason to fear that he won’t be keeping that promise for long. In a September 17 address to a gathering of “faith leaders” at Buckingham Palace, he spoke of his “duty to protect the diversity of our country by protecting a space for faith itself.” He came very close to apologizing for his own Anglicanism and for the Anglican oaths he would take at his coronation. From any other freshly installed king, this little speech might sound like routine stuff; but Charles isn’t just any king. He’s a king, alas, with a long history of intense admiration for Islam.
Case in point: when the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies was founded in 1993, Charles became its patron (he still is) and delivered its inaugural address, described earlier this month in the Middle East Eye as “electrifying.” Characterizing Islam as part of Europe’s “past and our present” (yes – in the form of armies of conquest), Charles identified “equity and compassion” as the “guiding principle and spirit of Islamic law,” praised the rights that Islam grants women (no mention of forced marriages or honor killings), celebrated the “remarkable tolerance” of medieval Islam, and asked Muslims in Europe to appreciate “the importance of integration” while asking non-Muslims to respect Islam and “avoid actions which are likely to cause deep offence.”
At no point in the intervening twenty-nine years has Charles moderated this message of appeasement and dhimmitude. Au contraire. In 2010, he urged fellow environmentalist fanatics to “follow the Islamic way,” whatever that means; in 2013 he announced he’d been taking Arabic lessons so he could read the Koran in the original. A few weeks ago it was reported that his charity had accepted £1 million from two half-brothers (which, of course, equals one brother) of Osama bin Laden – a huge scandal-in-the-making that evaporated as soon as the queen died. Years ago, the grand mufti of Cyprus maintained that Charles had secretly converted to Islam. Given his non-secret record, it’s not hard to believe.
No surprise, then, that as soon as Charles ascended to the throne, Muslims – and his fellow Islamophiles – cheered. On September 13, one H.A. Hellyer expressed hope in Time Magazine that Charles’s love of Islam could bridge the divisions between British Muslims and the filthy British infidels who still think they run the place. Yeah, that’ll do it. Enthusing about Charles’s affection for the religion of peace, Hellyer noted that Charles has reportedly expressed disagreement “with dress restrictions imposed on Muslim women in various European countries.” Not a word about his view of dress restrictions imposed on Muslim women in various Islamic countries.
Can this man possibly be a king who stands above the issues in the way his mother did? Besides, is that the kind of head of state that today’s Britain needs? We’re talking, after all, about a country where the police now systematically ignore the mass Muslim rapes of white working-class girls even as they arrest law-abiding citizens who dare to mention those rapes on social media. Does Britain need a king who stands silently by while such dark official crimes go on in his name – or does it need a king who, in the name of his nation’s long and noble tradition of civil liberties, angrily demands an end to them? Queen Elizabeth was indeed a great lady, but she felt obliged to follow her prime minsters’ “recommendations” by awarding knighthoods to vile Muslim scum like Iqbal Sacranie, who said that death was “a bit too easy” for Salman Rushdie, even as national heroes like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson, who richly deserve royal honors, were passed over.
And think about this. Charles, for all his quirks, is far from the family’s black sheep. Imagine if Prince Andrew had been the firstborn. Imagine if, upon Elizabeth’s death, a man had succeeded to the throne who we all know traveled on Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” to his Caribbean island where Epstein and his guests famously pursued the carnal knowledge of any number of illegally trafficked minors. What would the crowning of Andrew have done to the concept of a monarch who hovers above politics, above conflict, above controversy? How quickly would the House of Windsor have crashed and burned under the weight of the new king’s Jeffrey Epstein connection?
Then there’s this. Even as the memorial tributes to the queen were warming the hearts of Brits who cherish the dream of a united multicultural kingdom under one universally beloved sovereign, young Muslim and Hindu men were beating the living daylights out of each other in the streets of Leicester. The corporate media whitewashed the situation, blaming it alternately on Hindu nationalism and on heightened emotions following an India-Pakistan cricket match. Poppycock. And no, the heavies here aren’t the Hindus, whom Britain’s elites love to blame in such circumstances because they’re educated and affluent and can therefore be labeled as “privileged,” whereas Muslims – adherents of a violent supremacist ideology – are always cast as the victims. On Tuesday of this week, the turmoil spread to Birmingham, where 200 masked and hooded Muslim men surrounded a Hindu temple.
Given this jihadist strife – which is commonplace these days not just in Leicester but all over England – does the U.K. (to say nothing of Canada, Australia, and Belize) really want a king who not only refrains from standing up for freedom of speech and public order and against totalitarian religion but who actively embraces Islam, the most tyrannical of faiths, and who has instructed the people who are now his subjects that they shouldn’t criticize it? With a man like Charles in charge, which system now looks more appealing: the British one, under which Charles – born into a family famed for its longevity – will remain head of state until he dies, or the American one, under which Biden, if he doesn’t kick off first, can (barring widespread voter fraud) be removed at the will of the electorate on November 5, 2024?
Thanks Bruce!
This Brit supported and respected the Queen, but I, and most of Britain, is deeply concerned about Charlie. I didn’t know about his islamic tendencies, but I do know he’s an elite leftist.
He, like the Queen has to earn our respect, if he doesn’t the monarchy, which is notional anyway, will be driven out by the people, hopefully peacefully.
He cannot use the army against us, because it is a BRITISH army, not a ROYAL one, we have Royal Navy and Royal Airforce to protect our shores, but it is a British Army.
The Army is as loyal to the monarchy as any of the other services , taking its oath of loyalty to the monarch . Like the monarch it does not interfere in politics .
Queen Elizabeth II was half Scottish. Have you noticed that E II named three of her four children after Scots and/or the House of Stuart (the Scottish monarchs of the U. K.)–Charles, Anne, and Andrew? Charles III should tread carefully and lightly. The last two King Charles monarchs of the U. K. did not fare too well/are not remembered too fondly. One even lost his head–ouch! The brother of the other was so ‘out of step’ with his country (he was Catholic while the country was Protestant) that while he ‘kept his head’ he nevertheless lost his throne. And besides, E II looked very youthful at age 73, Charles III does not.
I really dont see where you get ANY Scottish connection to Queen Elizabeth, apart from dying in Scotland, which I suggest she wanted, as her Mother was born in Belgium and her Father in Germany, neither of which is near Scotland.
The entire ”royal” family are NOT Celts in any manner.
Nor are they English, as far as I can tell. In fact, Queen Victoria was only half English. They were/are the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha.
Why do supposedly educated people who regard themselves as republicans, know so little about the constitutional monarchies they so avidly revile?
Let’s start with this idiotic assumption that the king rules and what he says gets done ie that the king is somehow directing national policy and will change national policies to his whim. No, those policies are the result of the normal cut and thrust of politics run entirely by politicians. The king signs bills that have passed the parliament and they thus become acts f law. He has no choice in the matter. He acts on the advice of his ministers. He’s apolitical. He has no policies. None whatsoever. That’s the beauty of this system.
How about the myth that taxpayers pay for the royal family? Wrong. In essence, the royal family makes a substantial profit for the treasury, not only by being such a great tourist attraction, but also by the generosity of the late queen and now also the king, to surrender voluntarily the entirety of the profits from the royal estates to the exchequer and receive only a minor proportion in return for the expenses of the king’s offical duties. The king gets no pay, no retirement, no pension and dies in the job. Any takers?
Last I heard… Britain/England acquired their wealth by conquering other nations and placing ‘Taxation without Representation’ on those countries…
Kinda like the Roman Empire… aye?
Nope. Not at all. Britain’s wealth came from trade, industrialisation, innovation, exchange of ideas, Christian morality, seafaring, anti-slavery (ie principled Christianity), agriculture, medicine, public health (ie sewerage, clean water).
Not really like the Romans at all.
In all of that, the monarch played an important part. They stole nothing.
What a romantic view you have of the monarchy! Most of them spent their lives plotting how to murder their relatives and anyone else who threatened their grasp on power. The recorders of history have put a gloss on their activities in order to survive the wrath of these monarchs. Read some real history not the sugar coated sycophantic tripe of the tourist ad men.
Not since the Glorious Revolution of 1689 . We’ve had a constitutional monarchy since then .
“What a romantic view you have of the monarchy!”
Nope. I’ve lived in one for 72 years and my view is well established from experience. Once again you lump all responsibility onto the monarch and forget it was politicians who decided things.
You should learn some history yourself. We utterly rejected the US system of a powerful, elected monarch ( called a president but in every other respect a largely untrammelled monarch) and the US experience of wars of independence and then devastating civil war. I’m Australian. We chose a far more sensible path. Look it up …. If you can read.
Britain, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and NOT just England.
FYI England is not an Island as its not even a Peninsula.
British people. Arm yourselves, rise up. Storm the castle and take the kingy wingy down and throw out the moo slims that rape, pillage, abuse and kill you.
Justified fear is not a “phobia.” Even here in America, I can see that the U.K. press is every bit as dishonest as ours, if not worse. Even when grossly under=reporting acts of islamic violence, it, is forced to admit that it is a Very Big Problem. I see no reason to take in people who hate you and intend you harm. We’d all better wise up.
The U, S. didn’t have a choice regarding Islam, since from 2009-2015, the Obama/Biden Admin. transported a few million Muslims into the states. Obama said in his book, he’d always stand with the Muslims, following his socialist, Muslim father. He was deceptive in his double faith revelation. Then Biden’s administration brought 70,000 Afghanis in 2021, leaving Americans behind in Afghanistan. The U.S. is dealing with Biden’s Admin., busing thousands of illegals at night for the past 2 yrs. without knowledge of who they are. Apparently, to push their Socialist agenda according to Saul Alinsky. Other nations are facing the same transition. A Vienna woman in Austria proclaimed, “this doesn’t seem like Vienna, but Syria.”
I am and have been horrified by the continued grooming and rape of young white British girls . . . . . yet the British government does nothing to prevent or bring to justice those who are perpetrating this. Now to read that Charles is such a twit that he admires those who are engaged in this behavior is just beyond belief. I rather hope that his reign is relatively short and that William will ascent to the thrown, with Catherine as Queen. They seem to be much more reasonable people. Perhaps because William had a mother who was more of a “commoner.” Catherine also comes from people who are “less Royal” and she seems to be more of a regular mother when it comes to how she interacts with her children and the rest of society. I only good thing that Charles has done that I have seen–he refused a private audience with Megan. Thus forgoing her pleas for more money, British government security, etc.
From what I’ve seen of the BBC and most other Brit news, they likely kept the grooming stories swept as far under the rug as they could,. Anything to keep it out of the public consciousnesses.
Sorry, but William has caught the climate change virus from his dad and looks as though he’s going to be a clone of him.
Look to “The Flying Inn” by G K Chesterton, a tale about Islam overtaking England.
King Charles with his attraction and admiration towards Islam is very revealing about his religious education he received in the Church of England, Which in the United Kingdom is also called “The Anglican Church.”
The King with is favorable spirit to Islam reveals that the Anglian church didn’t teach and ingrain the Bible doctrines about the Nature of Jesus into the his mind and heart when he was still a prince.
Likewise back then he was a prince his “higher education “ didn’t cover the many different aspects of how the religion of Islam rejects the many clear Bible teaching about the nature of Jesus.
For Islam denies the Bible doctrines about of and about the actual natural of Jesus which is blasphemous.
For Islam denies that Jesus is the Son of God. Meaning that Jesus of the only Son of God the Father. That is in blatant contradiction to the information revealed in the Bible.. As found, for example, Matthew 3:16, 17, First John 2:22, 23. Likewise, Jesus is God the Son, as seen in Hebrews 1:8. First John 5:20.
The Deity of the Son taught in the Bible .For in Colossians 2:9 It reads “For In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form. ” [N.I.V.]
That Jesus is God is further revealed in the Bible in John 1-1-3. Colossians 1:15-17. Romans 9:5 Second Peter 1:1. Titus 2:13 First John 5:20.
So, in the Light of the Bible it’s then no surprise that in Islamic countries, the Muslim clerics attempt to discourage the people from reading the Bible, by their words and even owning a Bible, by their actions.
For those Islamic clerics would have no hold or control over the people if they discovered the truth of the sculpture, Bible, Second Timothy 3:16 and the Jesus is the way to heaven, John 14:6.
Thank you. Very well said. Both Queens, Elizabeth I & II, gave tribute and glory to the Lord God, Jehovah of Israel. They proclaimed their faith in Jesus, the Son of God, acknowledging the power of the Holy Spirit for wisdom and direction. The Bible is Israel’s history, and shares the reason for the trouble in the Middle East. The Islamic goal, led by Iran, has been to remove Israel. Bible history and artifacts that verify scriptures. Just recently, they found ivory from King Solomon’s palace, which was brought to him, by the Queen of Sheba. This all conflicts with Islam, though Ishmael was a banished son of Abraham. Mohammad’s limited history was 600 yrs after the life of Christ. The Old Testament was dated, ancient history revealing, beginning origins and Kings of early centuries. The Gospels reveal years before Christ and A.D. after His death and resurrection, as told by witnesses, 2,022 years ago. A day is a thousand years with the Lord. He said, I’ll see you in 3 days. Life is short.
Dhimmitude in western leaders and citizens is the indefensible and feckless province of the stupid, the naive and the ignorant.
Yeah, he’s as in charge as Joe Biden is.
“…back when I lived in Amsterdam, with the Dutch queen Beatrix, who has since abdicated…”
Your second assertion there requires some editing – not to mention that she didn’t abdicate because she lived with you.
The British political system is based on the compromise of the Glorious Revolution of 1689 . From that point on the King reigned but did not rule . Parliament ruled . No more Cromwells and certainly no foreign Louis XIVs . For that reason it doesn’t matter what our new King thinks about any political matter whatsoever . He will be making no policies . He will conduct no act of government . His putative sympathies are irrelevant .
}}} Charles identified “equity and compassion” as the “guiding principle and spirit of Islamic law,”
Charles is a moron studying to be an idiot and failing.
BADLY.
“Church and Religion are different. The [Christian] Church is the institution
that propagates [Christian] Religion, and like all institutions, humans
[have] perverted it to serve their own ends. It is an indication of the
strength of the religious instinct that the Church survives in spite of
itself. [We have removed the] institutional structure.”
“Islam did the same thing.”
“No, Islam only denied its priesthood the security of place and tenure.
Lacking security, the imams and mullahs are also notably lacking in
charity — ‘Three things I have never seen, the eye of an ant, the foot of a
snake, and the compassion of a mullah.'”
– Alexis A. Gilliland, ‘The Pirates of Rosinante’
Islam is a religion of a desert people, for whom charity and compassion are necessarily limited by a decided lack of resources, and thus, wealth. While certainly individuals are always capable of charity, especially when they themselves have amassed wealth, there is very little of that inherent in any of the surahs of the Quran. In fact, I defy anyone to list a half dozen surahs which suggest compassion and consideration. Christianity has such compassion as its very basis. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, which all by itself could define the primary basis for Christianity, spoke of compassion and kindness as a basic quality of human behavior.
That’s not even an indictment of Islam vs. Christianity, it’s merely a statement of observable fact. Don’t expect a behavior from the followers of a belief system which never evokes that behavior. You may encounter it, but that’s never the way to bet.
}}} He’s apolitical. He has no policies. None whatsoever. That’s the beauty of this system.
Horsepucky. Elizabeth II was apolitical. Charles is anything but. And despite claims to the contrary, you can bet that will continue.
As to the monarchy being inherently apolitical, that is ridiculous. The monarch certainly sets goals and encourages policies towards ends they believe in. they cannot demand, but they can certainly push. They have a massive amount of political clout they can use towards any agenda they see fit to support. And there are politicians/ministers who assist in transforming those policies into reality in the UK system.
}}} For that reason it doesn’t matter what our new King thinks about any political matter whatsoever . He will be making no policies . He will conduct no act of government . His putative sympathies are irrelevant
This is just absolute garbage. You want to see how a monarch plays in the UK system, just watch the UK version of “House of Cards”, particularly the middle trilogy.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098825/
I have YET to encounter anyone involved with UK politics even suggest in any regard that the series’ depictions of politics is anything but accurate.
If Mr Bruce Bawer loves a Royal Funeral he can look no further than Thailand when the last King died some years ago.
The best thing the Americans ever did was kick the bloody British out and I was born in Britain but thankfully I am an Naturalized American Citizen since many decades already.
Prince Charles, = Quote, “He expressed outrage at the publication of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. And he calls Islam “one of the greatest treasuries of accumulated wisdom and spiritual knowledge available to humanity.”
I know he needs to read the Koran, maybe he will change his mind ?
Look to The Flying Inn, a novel by G K Chesterton for the future of Islamic England.