Elements of Royalty · 6:20am Sep 22nd, 2022
Dear Readers (including and especially all you Whig History buffs):
I wrote tonight's story, "This Armor," about a year ago. I didn't think much about it until recent events.
Monarchy is a strange thing for an American. We've never done it, we look down upon countries that do as being "backwards" or whatever. We are a nation of Whigs. Progress means democracy, and monarchy just gets in the way of that. And yet, outside of a few isolated cranks with more degrees than sense--I worked in academia for 20 years, I know the type--there was nary a bad word to be said about Queen Elizabeth II, anywhere.
I think a big part of the staying power, and the legacy, of Her Majesty and the British Crown in general, is what the Crown does not do, as much as what it does. Ye olde English historian Walter Bagehot's famously describes the British government as divided into the "dignified" monarchy and "efficient" civil government, a division which I (a budding political scientist of a type) first encountered in AP Comparative Government in high school more years than I care to remember ago. But much more normal and interesting people probably heard of it from the Netflix series The Crown, in which a young Crown Princess Elizabeth, heir to the throne, gets some private tutoring:
- "There are two elements of the Constitution:" wrote Walter Bagehot in 1867. "The efficient and the dignified. Which is the monarch? Your Royal Highness?
- The dignified?
- Very good. The efficient has the power to make and execute policy and is answerable to the electorate. What touches all should be approved by all. The dignified gives significance and legitimacy to the efficient and is answerable only...?
- ...To God.
- Precisely. Two institutions, Crown and government, dignified and the efficient, only work when they support each other. When they trust one another. You can underline that.
- Do you teach this to your other pupils?
- No, just you.
And yes, Great Britain has a constitution. But you won't find it under glass or preserved in any archives. It's not written anywhere. Their "constitution," such as it is, is an accumulated series of traditions and practices and "things which are just not done, dearie." The British Crown is the embodiment of that, the stabilizing force in a political system that in the past ran very hot and very tense. All these traditions came from bitter experience of Royal oppression, anti-Royal revolutions, wars over succession to the throne and state religions, and centuries of off-and-on-civil war. (A good chunk of my own ancestry is Scotch-Irish. As in "people who once lived in Scotland but caused too much trouble so they were sent off to re-populate Northern Ireland with good Protestants but the people there hated them too so they noped out to America and became rednecks.")
If it had just been all that, the British Monarchy would be just as ill-thought of today as those of France, or Germany, or China. Or perhaps not even thought about at all (search your feelings, Scandinavians reading this, you know it to be true). But the first sign that something was different happened around 1215 AD, in a meadow in England called Runneymede. A king was cornered by a group of nobles in a conflict over what the limits of the power of the king were, and the king, after some grousing, agreed that he wasn't all that and whatever passed for crisps in the 11th century. And then his successor stuck to it. And his successor, and so on. And so did the nobles, and their successors, and so on.
That document was called Magna Carta. (Doesn't even have a "The" in front of it.") It's been quoted by kings and nobles, saints and scholars, prime ministers and presidents, for over 800 years. The American Bar Association even built a memorial at Runneymede to commemorate it, it's that important.
And if you read the story I just published, you might see a few commonalities between IRL and fictional ungulates. The name of the village, for one. The names of the nobles who signed it, for another. Celestia keeping (Wally B again) "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn." And some pony-fied paraphrasing of two very famous legal provisions.
But under it all, Celestia, a monarch at the very dawn of her reign. Figuring out how to keep a kingdom of three groups of ponies who, we know from canon, didn't much like each other at first, together. The answer, of course, being the same as the one the English Crown came to. (Minus, the temptation to transform into a corrupted version of herself. Which, y'know, also canon but a Y-7 version of reality.) Sometimes, to rule means not ruling. To let your subjects figure things out for themselves. To resist the temptation to say "I'm in charge," and instead to ask, "what do you propose to do?" That's the Celestia I tried to write. And as it turned out, a lot of things fell into place with that, from a personal headcanon on how Equestria is ruled, to where she learned to make pancakes with fruit faces, to why she worried and missed and loved her sister even when they were separated for one thousand years.
Come to think of it, the only truly fitting monarch is an immortal being at least at C-Tier demigod level, to say nothing of S-Tier ipsum esse subsistens, who outlasts their subjects and yet understands each of them. (Which would also explain certain... other commitments of mine.)
But for this side of Heaven (or at least Equestria) our monarchs must be mortals. And among mortals given the title, Elizabeth was among the best, in her league or anywhere else. Monarchy is, after all, dependent entirely on the character of the monarch. The words I heard most often to describe her were consistency and grace. When things were good, she was there. When they were bad, she was there. A constant, steady presence comforting her people encouraging them, maybe giving them a stern look from time to time, calling them to be their best selves. Not the Captain of the ship of state, but the calm, steady, experienced hand on the wheel, keeping the rudder aligned, knowing where all the shoals were, and steering them onward.
Various and Sundry: All of this is a good excuse to say my Iron Author story is still not done yet. (I did another editing pass on it! And I found things I need to change! And yes, I paid an artist to do cover art for it! What more do you want from me??? 
) Other fictioning is going well, Quills and Sofas continues to pay dividends as the one group of people who can get me to write stuff (without paying me) and occasionally giving me virtual cookies. New job is a source of joy, but work there is slowly ramping up too, so I'm enjoying free time and good writing while it lasts.
I liked your take on Celestia and how see rules. It’s an idea that is often suggested in the show and which dozens of stories have been written. I’ve always seen her in that way myself.
Looking forward to your Iron Author story! And good luck in your new career, too!