Charles I

Three hundred and sixty years ago today the English Puritans dared to murder their anointed King. Kings had of course been killed before, but never so openly and never with the claim of "legality."

The American Society of King Charles the Martyr will hold its annual mass and meeting tomorrow at S. Stephen's Church in Providence, Rhode Island. The British SKCM of course commemorates the anniversary annually as well.

In this excerpt from Cromwell, Alec Guinness movingly portrays the King's final moments.

On the 131st anniversary (1780), as Americans were engaged in another rebellion against another King, the heroic loyalist Rev. Charles Inglis, rector of Trinity Wall Street, preached this sermon on "The Duty of Honouring the King." Other materials related to King Charles the Martyr can be found here.

Remember!

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Five Easy Steps toSave the Church of England

Her Majesty could do worse than make Theodore Harvey the next Archbishop of Canterbury and new Primate for all of England. Here is what he would have pushed at the Lambeth Conference to reform the Anglican Church:

1. A return to the majestic language of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer;

2. An end to the "ordination" of women;

3. A revival of the tradition of choirs of men and boys and with it an emphasis on choral (rather than congregational) singing;

4. Acceptance of the Oxford Movement's emphasis on ancient ceremonial; and

5. An affirmation of an "un-American" hierarchical worldview.

As another fellow scribe here at The Monarchist commented, "we are utterly of the same mind". In other words, if Mr. Harvey is so inclined, he might consider joining our ever expanding gentlemen's club.

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Yo, Jesus! (Douglas Wilson, cont)

I HAVE IN THE LAST POST COMPARED him to a Roman legionnaire standing against the barbarian hordes. This did not please everyone (I will not say least of all the barbarians). So I shall drop it for this review. Besides, it is of no great issue.

For in this work (A Primer on Worship and Reformation, Canon Press, 2008) we find Doug Wilson more as a Roman calmly visiting fellow Romans, only to find them rather like barbarians already. He is not a man with his finger in the dike, but a man addressing fellow men, all of them up to their necks in the rising waters, asking if, well, wouldn’t a dike have been a very good idea after all? And would you like a bucket? Yet perhaps the time for buckets has passed; and had we better find a ship? And won't you please come with me?

If you are bamboozled and downhearted by the huge erosion of the old Christian ways in our lands - as I am sure many Monarchist readers are - you will find this little 80 page book timely and instructive and well worth a purchase. (It comes out in November).

He is not here going after the liberals - whose own perverse error will go even after themselves in time, like a hungry snake eventually devouring its tail - he is not rushing to provide punishment for those to whom punishment has already in many ways come (I think one of the greatest punishments for atheism, is atheism) - he is sitting down with his friends, modern American evangelicals, and staging an intervention. For the modern evangelical American church is in trouble. It desperately needs an intervention. It is an alcoholic drunk with the cheap plonk of merchandise, witless worship and Mammom, neglectful of the true cup of Christ; it is a shameless fatty, obese with Christian-themed power-bars (really) and absent at the Lord’s Supper. This is a tragedy. The book hopes for a remedy.

HE HAS TWO ARGUMENTS. Firstly: “[m]aking all necessary adjustments for the changes in time and place, the modern evangelical Church, eyes fat as grease, bastion of born againism, is fully as corrupt as the Church prior to the Reformation.” Secondly: how inwardly to solve this, and how outwardly that shall manifest itself and continue. That is, we have a crime; and Wilson, in effect, takes up his deerstalker and here sets to work solving it - and not just solving it, tells us how it might be undone altogether.

Now, the first argument need hardly be substantiated. Of course, he probably goes a little far in the comparison with late-medieval Romanism: it is unlikely that the modern evangelical church in America is really on the cusp of proposing to execute those who refuse to buy Dashboard Christs. But we know much of it is in a bad way. We have all seen the odd relic of ‘Jesus Junk’ featured on some godless British programme, or in some godless British newspaper, pored over with all the solemnity and bemusement of a Victorian gentleman reporting on the religious rituals of the Thingumajiggy tribe of Outer Wotsitland. We all know the stereotypes. But it’s still worth reading his chapter on them; for they are errors fallen into by fellow Christians, and we are all responsible, for we all of one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We are in the same covenant as those who have gone astray. There will be no reformation away from these errors, nor we will ourselves keep from them, unless we take our brethren with us, and repent together. (This a key point Wilson himself makes in later proposing his reformative solutions).

Wilson is here briefly, as he puts it, “a satirist” to make them “turn red and embarrassed”. He reveals that such trading in these impudent products - cheesy logo t-shirts (e.g. with “Christ Supreme” in the “Krispy Kreme” font), the Veggie Tales (in which bible stories are retold using animated… fruit), Christian death metal, Christian pop, Christian mints with scripture printed on them (Testamints) - is a 4 billion dollar annual industry.

Take a moment and ponder on that and - weep. For it is worthy of our tears.

As he puts it, they have no longer Logos - the Word (Christ) of John 1 - at the heart of their faith, but logo. This is of course a peculiarly American disease for the time being, though I suspect we escape only through dint of there not being enough British Christians to sustain a 4 million dollar industry in such nonsense, let alone a 4 billion one. We escape, that is, simply by being perhaps closer to death. (Yet Wilson’s proposals are proposals to solve that too).

And it is stirring, whatever your nationality, or the state of your church, to read such forthright, honest, clear-eyed criticism of this trash - there is something in his certainty and pith which savours of the man who has confidently seen the other side of the hill, and comes back knowing there are better things, and ready (as he is, and does) to share of them.

And here, particularly in the latter half of the solution, is where the English reader will be most especially struck by this work.

THE FIRST HALF OF THE SOLUTION is inward or attitudinal, and most important: it is the solid foundation. “The flotsam and jetsam at your local Jesus Junk Store is what we find floating on the surface after the shipwreck of reverent worship”. So we need reverent worship back. We need faith properly practiced. Obvious enough. But how? Not simply the outward forms, for they - practiced faithlessly - are what drove people into the arms of this idiocy. First we need to fix our inside position.

We must be, argues Wilson, High Church Puritans (the subtitle of the book). We must not give up on Church, and split, and split, and split again, in the name of purity: but stay and purify the church we are in. This makes us Puritans, who historically did just that, hence their (abusive) name. And we must abandon individualism, the great heresy of our time, and the cause of much of the consumerist and frivolous liturgical drivel he laments. Not by saying, like a leftist, that we are less than individuals; but by acting in the knowledge that we, as Christians, are more than individuals. We are a Church too: we are a corporate body: we must submit to each other and to authority and most of all to scripture. In this we are High Church too, for we have a high view of it. So we are High Church Puritans. These are, quite logically, when you think about it, the only ways - bound at all times, firstly and lastly, and always by obedience to Scripture - that anyone is going to be able to both avoid the depths of modern evangelical uselessness and bring our brothers and sisters in Christ along with us out of it. If we are to rescue them, we need to do more than stand upon the opposite shore and shout. We must make certain they are in the boat with us, and working at the oars with us, (and explain that this because our Captain in Heaven has ordered us to do so in Scripture, and the plans for the boat are even contained therein); even if this means holding one’s nose at the stink of their heresy whilst we share the galleys with them, and remind them what an oar is.

The second half of the solution Wilson posits is more outward, but utterly dependent on the true evangelical faith as formed by the first half: it is the method of worship filled up with this faith, the vase into which we pour the water, and which somehow keeps the water from going stagnant, and helps it, in time, to grow great things. And it is striking for any faithful traditionalist Anglicans amidst our noble readership. They will, I trust, already have been struck by his recommended attitude of High Church Puritan faith - for has it not been thankfully displayed in recent months by the Godsend of GAFCON? Well, he further urges and argues for a number of active manifestations of this faith that sound, oddly, rather like a Church of England in rude health; as it once was, and might be again.

1) The primacy, efficacy and inerrancy of the Word of God (which as Wilson points out, was first opposed not by Rome, but by the serpent in Eden: “Did God *really* say…”) cf. Article VI of the Anglican Church, ‘Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation’!

2) A liturgy which follows the Old Testament-foreshadowed and New Testament-fulfilled pattern of i) guilt offering - confessing our sins; ii) ascension offering - offering ourselves to God; iii) peace offering - sitting down at the Lord’s Supper. Cf. the Book of Common Prayer’s Holy Communion service, which follows this to a tee!

3) “When we understand what is actually happening in a worship service, our contemporary flippancy evaporates … What happens when a small group of saints gathers in a clapboard community church somewhere out in the sticks? At their call to worship, they ascend to the City of God, to the heavenly Jerusalem. They walk into the midst of innumerable angels.” Cf. the Book of Common Prayer’s Preface before the Lord’s Table in Communion!:

“Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord most High. Amen.”

4) So, says Wilson, put down the amp, and step away from the light-as-froth contemporary praise. Take up the Psalms. The modern style of praise had its place, because it is faithful; and anything faithful is better than the most beautiful irreligion. The old hymns, denuded of faith by men and women slipping away, repelled modern Christians into the arms of this breezy, artless worship style, where at least there was faith. But, being faithful once more, it is time to go back to the old, rich methods: the chanting of the psaltery, our “battle hymnal”, which alone has the full picture of our walk. Cf. the Book of Common Prayer, which contains - of course - the entire psaltery, and is set out for chanting, as is still regularly practiced in (some) churches!

5) Treating our children as Christian children, rather than hovering around them till they display some signs of faith, and if, having been treated as potential infidels, they plump for infidelism, being flabbergasted. He proposes we treat them as members of the covenant too. For that is what God promises they are. In effect, though he doesn’t quite say it here, he is proposing the baptism of infants and confirmation for communion - lest faithful children be turned aside by the doubt of prevaricating Presbyterian and Baptist doctrines on these points (which Wilson singles out as troublesome).

The two further things he urges, and which can really be considered valuable additions to the CofE stock-house are:

6) Better preaching. This is not so much new, as something to rediscover; for the Church has known the greatest of men, from Cranmer, to Whitefield, to Edwards, to Wesley, to Ponsonby and Roberts in its pulpits. But it needs reverently energetic, confident preaching again and still, which treats the Word of God as the Word of God - a sword, with a mind of its own, not a museum-piece letter opener; and one to be used like the sword which prepared the OT sacrifices, to prepare us as living sacrifices for God, as scripture demands, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12).

We need, says Wilson, preaching imbued with metaphor and liveliness, just as God’s Word is; throwing off the shackles of timid, Radio 4 reasonableness, where one must proceed by hook and by crook, and carefully fasten one’s message to the tent poles of p.c. prejudice. We need proclamation not suggestion. We must return simply to the Word of God preached as the Word of God would have us preach it; using the Old and New Testaments together, as the Prophets and Apostles before us, and adopting their plain, confident, direct, scripture-filled style recorded and seen throughout their preaching and sermons in scripture.

7) Weekly communion: as the seal and ongoing outworking of the body of Christ, a special blessing, we must partake of the Cup of the Lord; the living Christ; come before the God of Hosts through the flesh of his son; not the bread and wine being transformed, but the body of Christ, the Church, being transformed into the likeness of his being - holier, more faithful, more obedient, more fruitful - through this weekly meeting in faith, not hoping for a personal moment with Jesus, but a corporate moment with God. This is a far cry from the traditional (i.e. pre-20th century) Anglicanism of quarterly communion. And I think there is much to be said for it. For, whilst the quarterly communion is done out of a lively faith in a Just God (to partake of whose sacraments unworthily is literally a deadly sin), does not St Paul warn us that whatsoever is done of doubt is sin too? It is a demanding thing to live as perfectly as one can, so as not to fall short each week of that communion; but then we are not meant to make accommodation for sin.

SO THIS LEAVES THE ANGLICAN reader in a slightly different place to his American readership. But what is remarkable is that it is equally valuable to both, and leaves both with much hope (and work to do). It is marvellously applicable to our troubles here, and would be profitably read by all curious Christians in the old Anglican holdouts, and even those who have forsaken the CofE for want of seriousness and true faith. For we Anglicans are blessed in having much already done for us, as we see here, by the Reformers, and in that indispensable little Prayer Book of ours. We have naught to do, so much as to turn back, in full faith, and take up the holy things of old with the grateful faith of now. And yet the High Church Puritan ethic - reverencing scripture and ecclesial authority which also reverences it - and holding onto those who are with us, even when they are against us - is peculiarly and marvellously suited to our lot of late as well (for there are many that be against us). I think it more than probable that together, God willing, there can be fruit - and such fruit! - of Wilson's gracious arguments here.

Indeed a national church, catholic and reformed, established under law - strikes me as the perfect vessel, and I bless God for giving it to us; for I think perhaps the Americans have suffered unduly and worse from their lack of an established denomination that can thereby hold them together in covenant as a people. Their splitting apart has been hastened accordingly, and much of hell has broken loose as a result; almost exactly parallel to how they continue to suffer from the want of a monarchy in their turbulent, nonsensical political sphere, a fateful doom good King George himself prophesied. (And which sadly, with our quiet 20th century coup of the politicos, we have not avoided either).

A Primer on Worship and Reformation: Recovering the High Church Puritan by Douglas Wilson is due to be released on November 11, 2008 and is published by Canon Press, from whom this book can be pre-ordered at www.canonpress.com.

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"We're trying to save Western civilization"

AFEW CENTURIES AGO a father across the pond might justly have relied on Yale or Harvard, or beloved Oxford, to form his son in the ways of God; to make a civilised man - that is, one not in bondage to the things of the world, or the whims of the fallen body and soul, but ordered, amiable, devout. As Thomas Sowell has astutely noted, we are only ever one generation from the barbarians conquering, for we bring the barbarians in every time we have children. Man remains fallen, even when a babe; “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5). There is little more melancholy, but important, than this! Break the chain, fail to graft them in, and the whole thing, as Burke has warned us in his ‘contract of the dead, living and unborn’, falls apart.

Yet now Yale turns out Queer Theorists, and Harvard produces Businessmen; Oxford, in this generation, has produced both a male prostitute and a murderer; that is, “the enemy is within”, and he’s got a piece of chalk in his hand, and tenure in his back pocket. And he is busily inducting men and women into the ranks of the damned (certainly the damned ignorant).

An American theologian named Douglas Wilson represents one of the best hopes of this not proving fatal, for he - despite his wild protuberant beard and doughty Anglophile nature - is no barbarian, but the equivalent of a Roman legionnaire standing forthrightly against them.

His (relatively) new University, New Saint Andrews, in Moscow, Idaho, teaches the lost youth of the world, adrift in oceans of grot and ignorance, how to get home, and not disgrace themselves before the cloud of witnesses about us in this life, nor disappoint the Creator in the life to come. That is, it teaches them the most important thing of all: how to, in the words of that most noble Westminster Catechism, “glorify God and enjoy him forever”.

It is an authentically Trinitarian education. God, Christ, the Holy Ghost - order, authority, creativity; majesty, judgement, renewal; mercy, redemption, comfort - Father, Messiah, Spirit direct every focus, govern every principle, inspire every element.

Christ, whom God pleased to fill all in all, is at the centre of their devotion; the students are at his feet; and graduates fluent in the ways of Latin, Greek, the Church Fathers, the Psaltery, Classic Apologetics, Reformed Theology, the Holy Scriptures and English Literature are regularly produced.

It is, as Wilson puts it, a campaign to save Western civilisation; and how! Students go about clad in the gowns Cambridge shamefully threw off in the 70’s. Fellows teach in the small tutorials New Universities scorn in favour of depersonalised lectures to audiences of 500+. Books can be bought from the campus pub.

But this is not the extent of his ambition. He has other spears, trained just as lethally over the hearts of those who have done Christendom damage. And to this end he writes. He has two books out this year: ‘A Primer on Worship’ and ‘Heaven Misplaced’. We have been lucky enough to get early copies, and in the coming weeks shall look at both in turn.

This week: the Primer. In the meantime, have a look at Wilson's excellent blog: Blog & Mablog

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On the origins of the Sunday Roast...

"13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:

14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

(Hebrews 9:13-14, AV)

AND SO, AS ONE'S THOUGHTS AND NOSTRILS TURN from prayer books and Church to the matter of the Sunday roast, one wonders if there is some happy connection between our crispy Sabbath meal and the eternal Sabbath meal eaten earlier at the altar.

Do we eat roasted bulls and heifers in grateful memory that their sacrifice to God is no longer necessary? Just as we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the risen Christ in memory of his final sacrifice that superseded them?

I would like to think so. I am fairly convinced, anyway, that the only thing better than roast beef is the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and am pleased to see this an opinion expressed by our God and Father in the Holy Scriptures too.

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A proper church once more?

Orthodox bishops declare the end of the worldwide Anglican communion

THERE IS NOTHING AN ENGLISH COUNTRY LORD LOVES, wrote Macaulay, so much as his good English church. Those who will love her, and keep a weather eye open for her health, and who will guide her back to the pastures of orthodoxy, have seemed of late, however, as thin on the ground as an anorexic sunbathing.

So whilst one is not absolutely sure how to take the news of this morning, it seems a start, and better than the unhealthy drift hitherto. Let us have an honest Anglican Church again. I have nothing necessarily against anyone wishing to have a church that subscribes to *their* views, rather than the other way around - which is, after all, merely what the liberals have childishly wrought. But it seems a bit thick for them to do it in someone else’s name, on someone else’s premises.

I only hope the Africans, in the name of cleaving rightly to the truth of the ages, do not abandon those in the States, Canada and England who feel quite as besieged as they do. If they are to snap themselves off from the West, do not let that be an end: rather, let us co-operate and rebuild the institution here. God knows it is needed like never before.

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Who Will Rid Us of This Archfoolery?

I'm with Ian Dale, as I am with His Grace, Archbishop Cranmer, now that he has persuasively unplugged this nuttery and nonsense and insanity with all the balance it requires. I have always thought Rowan Williams was weak and fundamentally unfit for his post, but now he's being just downright dangerous. Thankfully, the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury is not the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, but I wonder if Her Majesty has the power to dismiss him? If so, fire him at once. Terminate with extreme prejudice.

Update: How do you solve a problem like sharia?

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Old Town Steeples

DEAD MALLS DOT COM. Now that is a cause I can support, wear a ribbon for and donate generously to. Ugly, ubiquitous and impersonal; our civilization has become culturally mauled by the "mall culture". Let us - quickly now, for Christmas is fast approaching - raze them to the ground and scorch their parking lots. It is the festive season.

As if it needs saying, we need to escape the strip malls and find a way to return to the traditional main streets of our towns and cities. Not so, writes Brad Edmonds, who points an unjoking finger In Defense of Strip Malls (there's always one!):

As we drive along the large highways through a city, it is all too easy to wave one's hand and say: "look at all these unseemly strip malls that make this place look like every other!" But if we are looking for a hardware store, need a cup of coffee, or need some engine repair, our tune changes: we are grateful that we can easily spot the Home Depot, the Starbucks, or the Buick dealer. The locale saves search costs, for which we are glad indeed, and we demonstrate this feeling by voting for them with our own money. That's why they appear. That's why they stay.

Mr. Edmonds misses the point: the consumer will shop where he needs to, and if this means driving to the nearest strip mall and box store that anchors them, so be it. But malls largely exist because they have monopolistic protection from local governments through large-scale zoning and perverse tax incentives, incentives that encourage urban sprawl and pervert the market. Not so little Stalinist triumphs of state planning.

But thankfully deadmalls.com may be indicative of a small Christian triumph of our own that is in the making. Getting back to Main Street means getting back to our churches, or at the very least, in view of them. As David Warren wrote last week:

A mall is an environment in which a church would be out of place; and were there even a chapel, it would be in some discreet glassy enclosure like the chapels in our airports. That is, designed for people “on the move,” to visit in response to some transient panic.

Whereas, on Canada's old Main Streets, there were churches built of brick and stone. Protestant Canada had churches of many denominations, rather than many parish churches as in Catholic realms, but the outward effect was the same. In driving, riding, even walking towards a town, the first thing you saw was steeples. And what you heard, on a Sunday morning, was the most beautiful symphony of bells.

Indulge me for a moment, all you younger people. Consider this contrast for a moment, and what it tells you about the “progress” of our national life. Consider alone, the effect of warmth upon the human spirit; and compare the interior of an old-fashioned church to that of the latest mall. And now walk along our sad urban streets on a Sunday, and feel in your bones the cold of winter.

Which is not to say that the person determined to find a church will not find one today: they are still there, embedded in the gums of our older neighbourhoods, like an old man's remaining teeth, many of them not yet turned into discount furniture outlets. They have made their own accommodations with the cold world. Parishioners now drive in from across town; almost every church I know has a parking problem. Few have the luxury of walking to church any more: in their Sunday finest.

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Wigs and Robes in the Republic of Uganda

It would appear that Uganda did not get the memo on modernity. The Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament pictured here seems to be still stubbornly stuck in the past, clinging to that widely discredited notion, tradition. More specifically, British tradition.

Here's another shocker: the fanatical lengths to which some Ugandans want a practicing Christian country. Apparently the Lord's Resistance Army is at war with the government and will stop at nothing to establish a theocratic regime based on the Christian Bible and the Ten Commandments. Its leader, Joseph Kony, might want to brush up on one of its moral imperatives though, namely thou shalt not kill.

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Reforming the Reformation

I wonder what the great Archbishop Thomas Cranmer will say of this:

Church of Rome set to overtake the Church of England in Britain

Roman Catholicism is set to become the dominant religion in Britain for the first time since the Reformation because of massive migration from Catholic countries across the world.

Catholic parishes will swell by hundreds of thousands over the next few years after managing years of decline, according to a new report, as both legal and illegal migrants enter the country.

It says that the influx of migrants could be the Catholic community’s “greatest threat” or its “greatest opportunity”.

While in some places the Catholic Church has responded positively, in others it has been “overwhelmed” by the scale of the challenge. The growth of Catholicism in Britain comes as the established Church of England and the Anglican provinces in Scotland, Wales and Ireland face continuing, if slow, decline.

So much for the Reformation. As it was in the beginning, it is in the end: For the Christian West, it would appear that all roads lead to Rome. Even if they are in Canterbury or York.

Update: His Grace weighs in

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The Man who Stole and Broke the Stone of Scone, and Lived to Tell About it

The most prominent - indeed legendary - heretic alive in the British Crown Commonwealth today, is a Scottish Nationalist Republican by the name of Ian Hamilton. His is an act of pure, premeditated sacrilege. Leading an expedition of Scottish nationalist students to Westminster Abbey on Christmas Eve, 1950, his singular act of ballsy thievery in swiping the Stone of Scone, the coronation stone, from St. Edward's Chair, makes the accumulated rantings and lifetime treachery of creatures like George Galloway seem trite in comparison. That he broke the ancient stone in two pieces while attempting to escape from the Abbey, amplifies his larceny from a mere "touch of treason" (to use his own autobiographical words), to a crime against humanity's great treasures. Thanks to his perfidy, the Stone of Destiny is now a reconstructed Scottish ruin.


Two images of the Stone of Scone under the seat of King Edward's Chair in Westminster Abbey, the traditional coronation chair of English monarchs since Edward I commissioned it in 1296 to house the historic rock. The Stone of Destiny, the ancient coronation stone of Scottish Kings and Queens, was captured as a spoil of war by King Edward from its Scone, Perth resting place, and brought to Westminster where it sat for 700 years, as a symbol of monarchical power and dominion over Great Britain. The Stone was permanently loaned to Scotland in 1996, and now sits in Edinburgh Castle.

Upon learning this gross betrayal against the King in the dead of the night, the British Government became understandably apoplectic, and ordered a major search for the stone, which turned up some three months later on the altar of Arbroath Abbey, in the safekeeping of the Church of Scotland. In "repatriating" the busted jewel, the adult punks (Mr. Hamilton was 25 years old and a law student at the time - hardly the antics of a prankish juvenile!) had managed to navigate around the police roadblocks, and eventually had it passed to a senior Glasgow politician who arranged for it to be professionally repaired. Once the London police were informed of its whereabouts, the Stone was returned to Westminster, and Hamilton and the others were threatened with prosecution by the Crown.

But alas, no prosecutions were ever made as thousands of Scots took to the streets to demonstrate in their favour. Also, official predictions were that any court proceedings would eventually require ownership of the Stone to be lawfully asserted and proved - potentially embarrassing the Crown, some were inclined to believe. What bosh. (Yes, yes, and while we're at it, maybe we should consider returning Napoleon's cannons to their rightful owner). Apart from Queen Mary, every monarch since Edward Longshanks has been acclaimed, enthroned and annointed on that Stone, including a line of Stuarts who had no doubt about it's hitherto firmly acquired location and ownership.

(Imagine the Italian Mafia sneaking into the Louvre to "repatriate" the Mona Lisa, and in so carrying out said repatriation, inadvertently tearing a gaping hole in Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece as they make their frantic escape.)

The mind boggles at the dark humour and irony of modern justice, a process that repeatedly rewards the culprit over the aggrieved. In a political calculation of monumental stupidity, Michael Forsyth returned the Stone to Edinburgh castle in 1996 (a clearly irritated Duke of York made it quite clear that the Queen was only lending it to Scotland), hoping that this gesture would revive Tory fortunes in Scotland. Forsyth's gesture was in vain and every single Tory lost their seat in the 1997 general election. To add insult to injury, Ian Hamilton was invited to the repatriation ceremony, but refused!

Of course, Labour is just as susceptible to the same silly old game of trying to buy off the nationalist separatist vote to no avail. During the official opening of the newly devolved Scottish Parliament in October 2004, Ian Hamilton was on hand to tell the assembled crowd that "every fibre of my being has been geared towards today and the declaration of a Scottish republic". "Farewell Britannia and advance Scotland." Eat your heart out Tony Blair.

In another era, Ian Hamilton would have lived to the ripe old age of 25, having been either decapitated, drawn and quartered, left to rot in the Tower of London or strung up by his oversized gonads. But this being the 21st century, the popular and otherwise pleasant man of words is having the time of his life as an interesting blogger, watching happily and confidently as his native Scotland creeps ever so deliberately towards full independence:

".. enduring is the thing. Just going on being Scots, and damning the consequences, and damning those in every generation who sell out to go over to the other side. Without bombs, without violence, without hatred, although it is difficult sometimes not to hate the Quislings, we must plod along. The Scottish race was here, under whatever name, long before the English were woad-painted savages. It reached a low ebb in the early twentieth century, but the tide has turned, and the flood now flows.." - Extract from "A Touch of Treason"

"Damning the consequences". Ian Robertson Hamilton, Q.C., wrote the book on damning the consequences. Whether or not he is ultimately rewarded in the process, depends an awful lot on what happens to Destiny.

UPDATE: HE MOCKS US STILL.
The Great Larkster, unrepentent to the end, has visited us in the comments!

Beaverbrook

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The Queen's Royal Christmas Podcast

Full text of Her Majesty's Christmas message to the Commonwealth

"I have lived long enough to know that things never remain quite the same for very long.

One of the things that has not changed all that much for me is the celebration of Christmas.

It remains a time when I try to put aside the anxieties of the moment and remember that Christ was born to bring peace and tolerance to a troubled world.

The birth of Jesus naturally turns our thoughts to all new-born children and what the future holds for them.

The birth of a baby brings great happiness - but then the business of growing up begins.

It is a process that starts within the protection and care of parents and other members of the family - including the older generation.

Dedicated teachers, friends and voluntary workers like these here at Southwark Cathedral have much to contribute.

As with any team, there is strength in combination: what grandparent has not wished for the best possible upbringing for their grandchildren or felt an enormous sense of pride at their achievements?

But, despite the many community projects like this one, the pressures of modern life sometimes seem to be weakening the links which have traditionally kept us together as families and communities.

As children grow up and develop their own sense of confidence and independence in the ever-changing technological environment, there is always the danger of a real divide opening up between young and old, based on unfamiliarity, ignorance or misunderstanding.

It is worth bearing in mind that all of our faith communities encourage the bridging of that divide.

The wisdom and experience of the great religions point to the need to nurture and guide the young, and to encourage respect for the elderly.

Christ himself told his disciples to let the children come to him, and Saint Paul reminded parents to be gentle with their children, and children to appreciate their parents.

The scriptures and traditions of the other faiths enshrine the same fundamental guidance.

It is very easy to concentrate on the differences between the religious faiths and to forget what they have in common - people of different faiths are bound together by the need to help the younger generation to become considerate and active citizens.

And there is another cause for hope that we can do better in the future at bridging the generation gap. As older people remain more active for longer, the opportunities to look for new ways to bring young and old together are multiplying.

As I look back on these past 12 months, marked in particular for me by the very generous response to my 80th birthday, I especially value the opportunities I have had to meet young people. I am impressed by their energy and vitality, and by their ambition to learn and to travel.

It makes me wonder what contribution older people can make to help them realise their ambitions.

I am reminded of a lady of about my age who was asked by an earnest, little granddaughter the other day: "Granny, can you remember the Stone Age?"

Whilst that may be going a bit far, the older generation are able to give a sense of context, as well as the wisdom of experience which can be invaluable.

Such advice and comfort are probably needed more often than younger people admit or older people recognise.

I hope that this is something that all of us, young or old, can reflect on at this special time of year.

For Christians, Christmas marks the birth of our Saviour, but it is also a wonderful occasion to bring the generations together in a shared festival of peace, tolerance and goodwill.

I wish you all a very happy Christmas together."

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Her Majesty's Speech

The Independent Television network has given Britons a short preview of the content of this year's speech from Her Majesty. This year's speech is said to reflect upon the interrelation between the different generations and Her Majesty points to the teachings of "the great religions" which emphasise this same bridge.

Her Majesty's speech will be broadcast to all her subjects throughout the Commonwealth and British monarchs have been broadcasting to their people since 1932 when George V used his speech to inaugurate the wireless' 'Empire Service' (replaced in our own day by the BBC's 'World Service'). Every monarch since has continued this tradition, with the exception of Edward VIII. The speeches were often delivered from the comfort of Sandringham, but this year Her Majesty will deliver the (pre-recorded) speech from Southwark Cathedral, See of the lately infamous Bishop of Southwark.

The first speech given by Her Majesty was delivered from that same desk which her father and grandfather had used to speak to their peoples. In her first Christmas broadcast Her Majesty began with a charming remembrance of her father and expressed her own desire to serve the Empire;

"Each Christmas, at this time, my beloved father broadcast a message to his people in all parts of the world. Today I am doing this to you, who are now my people."

In recent years the Christmas broadcast has been an opportunity for Her Majesty to reflect upon recent events such as the deaths of the late Princess of Wales and The Princess Margaret, as well as the September 11th attacks. George VI, in 1939, used the speech to urge his people to be strong in the face of coming troubles and throughout the last war the Christmas speech was a great source of morale to troops at home and abroad, stationed in all parts of the world. Even in our own day when it seems sometimes that monarchists are outnumbered it is touching and comforting to know that throughout Britain, and the Commonwealth, families gather around to hear Her Majesty's address to us, who are her people.

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The Radical Tory Manifesto

We, the undersigned, unite together with burning concern for the future of our country, with firm loyalty to her institutions, and firm hope for our future.

With burning concern, we note the state into which our country has fallen. We see the breakdown of family life, the loss of confidence in our institutions, the decay of public and private virtue, and the attack by an ideologically driven and squalid oligarchy on the common good. We refuse to swim with the tide, taking our stand instead on the solid ground of the Permanent Things, to which we pledge ourselves, and from the foundation of which we defy and transform our culture.

We recognise the inate dignity of every human being, as God-given, from conception to natural death.

We strongly affirm the integral place of the natural family in our common life, affirming marriage and family life as the foundation of society. We consider that the natural family, and the marriage which binds it together, is entitled to the highest consideration and the protections of the civil government.

We declare our allegiance to custom, convention and continuity, even in reform, and joyfully receive the rights of free Englishmen guaranteed us by Her Majesty our Queen, under Magna Carta and the Act of Settlement. We affirm that the civil and religious rights guaranteed by them lie at the heart of our national life.

We deny the vapid utopianism of our political masters, recognising that human beings are imperfectible. We further recognise the variety of social conditions in human society, affirming that true equality is only possible before the Courts and before God. Thus, we oppose government-driven attempts at levelling, while affirming our desire to seek Justice.

We uphold the role of the pillars of social order; that is, Her Majesty the Queen, the Police, the Armed Forces, and the other agents of the civil government in its proper, limited sphere. We uphold the institutions of civil society and moral order, such as the Church and the voluntary institutions which make up the Community, and deny the impulse of the collective.

We recognise our duty to each other, and reject moral and social individualism. We recognise the need for restraints upon power and passion, and therefore support the balanced Constitution and the rule of law.

We, who stand at the cusp of the Third Christian millennium, are the inheritors of the trust of our ancestors, who spilled their blood in defence of freedom and our Most holy faith. We who have received the burning torch from them, will not let it die, but will pass it stronger and brighter to those who will come after us. We will strive to be worthy of their trust.

In token of which, and with trust in God, we have this day set our names.

William Pitt the Younger (originally posted by Pitt here)

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Church and State

A few weeks ago, the Globe and Mail breathlessly broke the scoop that it had uncovered irrefutable proof that men and women of religious conscience and allegiance - specifically, Christian; were active in Canadian politics - specifically, Conservative politics.

One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

One is almost tempted to laugh: if this is what passes for news in Toronto, it is yet further proof of how little credence those who live elsewhere should pay Torontonians.

But that is undoubtedly both unfair and inaccurate. Toronto is as heterogeneous a constituency as one will find, and many Torontonians undoubtedly were themselves inclined to laugh at this absurd “stop the press” by the Globe. More to the point: the Globe’s revelation was fairly obviously taken quite seriously - as proof-positive of the insidious “hidden agenda” of those “crazy prairie preachers” - in locales well outside the Canadian Gotham, not least in Ottawa.

So, one cannot really laugh. There is quite evidently a belief abroad in the land that devotion to Christianity - in any degree beyond attendance at one’s own baptism and the purchasing of gifts for distribution every 25th of December - constitutes an inexcusable and anachronistic affront to “Canadian values”.

Realizing that, one is tempted to cry, and I do. I weep tears of sadness and pity; and I weep tears of anger.

I weep tears of sadness because I know what a tragedy for Canada would be the final exclusion from political life of devoted Christians – and I express this sentiment also in respect of men and women of active allegiance to the other great religious faiths, including Judaism and Islam – although these latter are not the immediate targets of the Globe’s hysterics. All of these great religions carry at their core a creed that includes the following: devotion to the sanctification and protection of human life and its intrinsic value; promotion of a fundamentally sound and healthy organization of human society, that upholds and defends the sanctity and protection of life; devotion to charity and to the selfless service of one’s fellow man; adherence to strict principles of honourable personal conduct; devotion to a quest for continuous moral self-improvement; a belief in and devotion to the pursuit of social and absolute justice; and the inculcation of the courage and readiness for hard and resolute action in the defence of all of the preceding, that flows naturally from the serenity of soul that faith provides. If these traits are to be feared and reviled, I can only wonder at and fear what is to be revered in their place.

I weep tears of pity, because the lack of understanding that underlies the Globe’s sentiments is nothing if not pathetic. For the concept of “separation of church and state”, as it was originally, truly and historically intended; did not by any means suggest that religion, and individuals of religious devotion, were to be excluded from political participation. It required, rather, that state policy, its formulation, and participation in its crafting; were not to be strictly identified with, and were not to be restricted to or flow strictly from; any one religious faith or its adherents. The attempt to inculcate a fear of, and to promote the exclusion from politics of active Christians, comes as near to an identification of church and state as Canadian politics has ventured since the nineteenth century – taking the “church” in question as secularism/atheism. In other words, it represents a philosophy/worldview that holds that only the anti-religious - i.e., those devoted to a religion that is defined in opposition to a historical one - have a legitimate place in the Canadian body politic. This constitutes a true violation of the principle of separation of church and state.

Finally, I weep tears of anger because I am, myself, a devoted and active Christian, and I perceive the sentiments expressed by the Globe as a part of an attempt to disenfranchise me, and to ridicule and quasi-criminalize a devotion that I hold very dear. I will not accept this with equanimity. I hope that others will likewise refuse to do so.

Posted by Walsingham

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