The Monarchist 2.0

When it comes to elevated spectacle, the republicans are hopelessly out of their depth.

The Aesthetic Sphere: The lares, penates, processions, titles, ranks and relics of our symbolic Crown hollow the ordinary and lift us from the drudgery of the humdrum.
Relevant Quote: "If your job is to leaven ordinary lives with elevating spectacle, be elevating or be gone." - George F. Will
Related Concepts: Pomp, Pageantry, Patriotism, Circumstance, Heraldry, Ritual, Grandeur, Splendour, Trappings, Symbols.
Previous Posts: In Defence of Pomp; The Decent Draperies of Life; From Honours to Merit Badges

WHEN IT COMES TO ELEVATED SPECTACLE, the only ritual the republicans are any good at is Beating the Retreat. What is their response to this argument, I wonder; that ceremony doesn't matter; that they don't like pomp and pageantry and parades; that knighthoods are uninteresting hangovers; that they don't much care for grandeur in the monarchist mold, because in their opinion the presidential kind is - ahem - superior? Or is it rather that they enjoy the spectacle as much as anyone else, and would seek to preserve as much of it as possible?

Because when it comes to comparing the binding, defining and inspiring power of the institutions of Great Britain, power that is indissolubly linked with the pomp and ceremony of the British Crown, and its associated grandeur, history, honours, titles and ranks; with the embryonic institutions of a shiny new republic, which is without history and devoid of any intrinsic meaning or merit, and which explicitly reject the ties that bind them to their predecessors and counterparts; republicans are dead in the water, and they know it.

Perhaps that is why some have whispered in favour of restoring knighthoods! I have never understood this inclination by some who desire to see the backside of monarchy but want to keep its colours, who don't mind holding onto the titles, heraldry and processions of our inheritance that have been operative throughout our history, yet would gladly see the Royal connection disappear.

This is a critical point, for if the fact and ceremony of the historical and, particularly, the Royal associations are removed and alienated from these institutions, honours and privileges; they shall cease to have the same fundamental meaning and force, and sense of honour, symbolism and gravitas. Removal of the Royal would have the most undesirable consequences, in terms of a dilution of the impact and intrinsic power, merit and meaning imputed to their continued existence.

The bottom line is that monarchy offers a more attractive presentation of state. Receiving a knighthood is a real honour. Trooping the Colour and Changing the Guard are fascinating spectacles. The swearing-in of a new governor-general is a simple, moving and dignified ceremony, there is no preaching from the pulpit, just the steady grace of an impartial Crown. And the investiture of a new monarch can be a once-in-a-lifetime overtly religious experience, though mass secularisation and democratisation will no doubt make future coronations a less powerful visual expression than in the past, if they are not eventually discarded altogether. One wonders if we are headed for banality whether we choose to or not.

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A new Vice-Regal blue flag — with the Shield of the New Zealand Coat of Arms surmounted by a Royal Crown in the centre — will be flown for the first time at a ceremony at Government House Auckland on 5 June and at Government House Wellington on 17 June.

The new flag, which has been approved by Queen Elizabeth II of New Zealand, and is supported by the Governor-General, Hon Anand Satyanand, was announced by the Prime Minister, Rt Hon Helen Clark, on Monday 2 June 2008 — the Queen’s Official Birthday in New Zealand.

Governor-General (1953-2008)

In January 1931 the hitherto present flag of the Governor-General was introduced, to reflect the Balfour Declaration of 1926 whereby the Governor-General was now the representative of the monarch in the Dominion of New Zealand, rather than a representative of the British government. The New Zealand badge was replaced by the Royal Crest in full colour. The words “Dominion of New Zealand” were displayed on a gold scroll beneath the badge. The gold scroll beneath the crest formerly contained the style “Dominion of New Zealand”. This was changed to “New Zealand ” in around 1953, after the term 'Dominion' was replaced officially with the term "Realm of New Zealand".

Governor-General (1937-1953)

As neither Governor-General Lord Bledisloe nor his ministers were sympathetic to the 1931 British Commonwealth change, the old dominion flag below was retained, and the new flag was not flown until after Lord Galway's arrival in 1937.

Governor-General (1908-1937)

In 1907 New Zealand's status was officially transformed from self-governing colony to dominion. To mark the transition to independence, the New Zealand Government requested that the garland of laurels on the Governor’s flag should be replaced by one of fern leaves, the fern leaf was already recognised as one of New Zealand's national symbols. In a letter of 5 January 1908 the Governor requested that the garland around the badge on his flag be changed from the usual green laurel leaves to a garland of fern leaves, and referred to the garland of maple leaves surrounding the badge on the Flag of the Governor General of Canada as a precedent. This was approved without hesitation, since the regulations only stipulated that the device on the flags of Governors should be surrounded by a “green garland”. The type of leaves was not specified.

Governor (1874-1908)

In October 1874 Sir James Fergusson announced that, "... that the seal or badge to be worn in the Union Jack used by the Governor of New Zealand when embarked in any boat or other vessel shall be the Southern Cross as represented by four five-pointed red stars emblazoned on the white shield aforesaid, and the monogram NZ in red letters in the centre of the Southern Cross. Succeeding Governors found it convenient to use this flag on shore and it became accepted as the official vice-regal flag.

Governor (1869-1874)

In 1869 the Admiralty directed that "Governors ...administering the Governments of British Colonies and Dependencies be authorised to fly the Union Jack, with the Arms or Badge of the Colony emblazoned in the centre thereof". There was at the time no colonial badge for New Zealand. Accordingly in October 1869 the decision was made to including a Jack with the "Southern Cross, as represented in the Blue Ensign by four five-pointed red stars in the fly, with white borders to correspond to the colouring of the Jack; in the Jack by four five-pointed white stars on the red ground of the St George's Cross; and in the pendant by four stars near the staff similar to those in the Ensign".

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Prince Charles as The Duke of Rothesay*, accompanied by The Duchess of Rothesay, unveiled the Queen Mother Memorial Gates at Glamis Castle yesterday.

Above: The crest on the Queen Mother Memorial Gates. Below: Glamis Castle in Angus was the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. It is the home of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and has been the family hearth of the Lords of Glamis since 1372.

* Just as The Prince of Wales is the ancient title bestowed upon the heir to the English throne, The Duke of Rothesay is the ancient title bestowed upon the heir to the Scottish throne. The thrones of England and Scotland were united under the Act of Union in 1707.

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I was in New York City during the past week, enjoying the traditional Catholic festivities of a rich friend's wedding. (I like how the rich live - I like how I live when I'm with them). It was quite literally (and figuratively) a moveable feast in the vicinity of Manhattan's midtown, where hundreds of us were chaperoned from location to location on coaches equipped with porters and champagne.

It was on the way to this moveable feast and the opulent Cathedral Mass that preceded it, when I happenstanced across the British Empire Building, which was established in 1933 to showcase the culture, commerce and industries of the British Commonwealth. I was quite startled to come across it, as there's no evidence of anglophilia in the area to prepare the passerby, just the upscale shops of 5th Avenue.

By the way, if you are ever in New York, be sure to have lunch at The Boathouse in Central Park where you can wine the afternoon hours away watching the Gondolas and row boats float by. Whatever you do, don't deprive yourself of your dignity and be a tourist. Do what I do and pretend you're a New Yorker. Go to all the best bars and lounges. Take the subway everywhere. Go to St. Patrick's on Sunday. Take in the history, the great monuments and the fabulous museums, but make it look like you're visiting for the umpteenth time. Even offer to provide directions to people who look lost and stupid. I'm proud to say that looking lost and stupid only happened to me once while in New York - it was when I passed the British Empire Building.

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Mocked is the child that struggles into adolescence and makes uncertain way towards maturity, adulthood and acceptance. Laurier's laughable "Tin Pot Navy" was mercilessly scorned in its 1910 infancy, yet the RCN rose to be the third largest navy in the world by the end of the Second World War. And so it was with the "Old Eighteen", the first class of accepted Gentlemen Cadets, eighteen in number, who entered the Royal Military College of Canada on June 1, 1876. The cadets were ridiculed by a few politicians and a minority in the Press as "Mackenzie's Pets", referring to the Prime Minister, Alexander MacKenzie, who took a personal interest in establishing RMC. To some it appeared transparently absurd that these 18 cadets could make any meaningful difference to the defence of vast, militarily tiny Canada.

A tradition of RMC is that every new Cadet must learn the names of the original class pictured here above in front of the "Old Stone Frigate":

1. AGG Wurtele, 2. HC Freer, 3. HE Wise, 4. WM Davis, 5. TL Reed, 6. SJA Denison, 7. LH Irving, 8. F Davis, 9. CA DesBrisay, 10. VB Rivers, 11. J Spelman, 12. CO Fairbank, 13. AB Perry, 14. JB Cochrane, 15. FJ Dixon, 16. GE Perley, 17. HW Keefer, 18. D MacPherson

Most ludicrously, viscious whispers circulated that each of these "Carpet Knights", as they were then absurdly dubbed (i.e., a knight who spends his time in luxury and idleness having been knighted on the carpet at court rather than on the field of battle), had a "personal servant with nothing else to do but serve his master’s slightest wish"; or that the "food was recklessly expensive and luxurious, almost, in fact, Lucullian." The rumours couldn't have been more starkly at odds with cadet reality: months of physical and mental anguish at the hands of their military tormenters.

Photo of RMC's MacKenzie Building in Kingston, Ontario in 1880. Officer cadets are on parade in the foreground.It is not surprising that this response by some was born of a political establishment horrified at the prospect of taking responsibility for defence matters, let alone paying for them. For soon after the Fathers of Confederation created the Dominion of Canada, the British government made a strategically smart move vis-à-vis their Regulars stationed in the garrison towns across British North America: They packed up and left. Public opinion may have been ill-prepared, but for any yearning child, it was just the thing. While those inauspicious beginnings were feeble compared to the scale of the country's defence requirements, the demand was nonetheless supplied, however inadequately, and for a century that followed Canada policed its own sprawling settlements, most notably in the NorthWest Rebellion of 1885, and made a decisive contribution to the Imperial and Allied expeditionary efforts from the Boer War on. Had Britain instead continued to mollycoddle the Little Canada that Could, it is loathsome to contemplate the "what-ifs" of the 20th century.

It would be an invidious work of supererogation for any Graduates of the Royal Military College to highly extol the work done by men who have passed through our beloved Alma Mater; as their deeds, more especially during the Great War, speak for themselves wherever the British Flag flies, in the four corners of the World.

Better still, their names shall live evermore in the hearts of all their old comrades, and the names of their heroic Dead are graven in Granite and Bronze “in Flanders Fields” and many other places, including their own beautiful Memorial Arch, that all men may read and know, to the end of Time, what manner of fruit sprang from the small seed, of “Truth, Duty, Valour,” sown in the “Old Stone Frigate” in the year 1876.

The Coat of Arms of RMC is not a College of Arms grant, but a grant by Royal Warrant.

The militaristic crest atop fashions an armoured arm holding three green maple leafs under the British Crown.

The tripartite shield features a blue section for military engineering with a scaling ladder leading to a mural crown, a red section with crossed swords symbolizing infantry, and a gold chief with three grenades representing the artillery branch. In the centre is an inescutcheon bearing the Union Jack honouring the role of the military college and its alumni in defending King, Country and Empire in the various wars.

"Truth, Duty, Valour" is the RMC motto that was chosen by the College's first Commandant, Colonel Hewitt.

They don't make them like this anymore. A senior cadet in 1954 dressed in the college's ceremonial scarlet tunic and pill box with fourth year sash and bars, "standing at ease" in old Fort Frederick on the campus of RMC. Both posture and dress appear parade perfect, harkening back to an era when the military codes of discipline, deportment and drill were a paramount preoccupation.

With the awarding of a university degree starting in 1959, the focus of RMC began to change in the 1960s and 70s. The admission of women in the 1980s also had its influence, along with the creeping realities of modernity, "human rights" and the politically correct 1990s. Arguably, military professionalism has not waned, but they can no longer get in your face and "drill-it-into-you" like they did in the days of yore.

Because, let me tell you, "when I was a rook they used to..."

Beaverbrook,
Class of 1987, RMC Ex-cadet, Member of the Old Eighteen Thousand

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The Red Ensign Brigadiers are looking to expand their ranks. Will you be there?

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University dishonours tradition by axing crosses from its coat of arms

by Alan Ferguson

It was entirely predictable, I suppose, that the pointy-heads haunting the halls of academe should be leading the charge to erase what remains of the evidence of Canada's Christian heritage. I refer to the decision by Simon Fraser University to obliterate from its coat of arms two "crosses" -- or, as one university official provocatively called them, "crusaders' daggers."

Of course, once you've magically transformed the reputed instrument of Christ's death into an offensive weapon linked to medieval wars, it is so much easier to make a case for your pusillanimous actions. Nobody at SFU is prepared to admit it (they're tripping over their own tongues trying to pretend it's something else), but the crosses are toast only because they are a symbol of Christianity. And in today's hand-wringing culture of Christian self-abasement, to flaunt your particular religious icons in the face of a "diverse" world is an unforgivable breach of secular etiquette.

Whenever this column strays into the sphere of religion, which is not often, astute readers rush to their keyboards to tap out familiar denunciations. I am forcefully reminded that religious belief has been the source of dreadful conflict since time began; that free individuals no longer need God to tell them what to do or think, and so on. But we aren't born with an onboard moral compass. We learn as we go. And our source is the life around us in Canada, organized into at least a semblance of civilization grounded in common traditions. Throw out the traditions, strike them from our heritage like the crosses from the coat of arms, and what's left to guide our journey?

SFU seeks to explain itself by pointing out that the City of Vancouver has updated its emblem, replacing fishermen and loggers with a more contemporary design. But a university's heraldic shield is not like some corporate logo to be rebranded every time a new CEO takes the chair. And it should not be subject to change at the whim of some passing politically-correct fancy. Unless, that is, we are determined as a country to wipe out every last trace of our founding heritage.

What next? Should we be boarding up our cathedrals to avoid giving offence to non-believers? And what about those biblical quotations posted outside churches? How dare they foist their opinions on us in public like that!

SFU says that "questions" were raised about its crosses from the "international community." We can guess what that means: The university risked losing high-fee-paying foreign students who might object to studying at an institution with some apparent religious affiliation. How dreadfully embarrassing! Imagine subjecting would-be scholars to such a sacrilegious sight.

Funny how, in huge swathes of the world, another major religion is experiencing a great renaissance among millions of people who find no shame in glorifying the symbols of their faith.

More Simon Fraser idiocy here: "Colonial...by design: rethinking the name Simon Fraser University"

Beaverbrook

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The University of King's College was founded in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1789. The Windsor campus was granted a Royal Charter by King George III in 1802. King's was the first university to be established in English Canada, and is now the oldest English-speaking university in the British Commonwealth outside Britain and continues to celebrate King George III's birthday with a holiday from classes every year.

There had already been one King's College in the New World. Founded by King George II in New York in 1756, its short life ended with the American Revolution, and the old "King's" was reorganized as Columbia University.

King's in Windsor was founded by United Empire Loyalists who moved to Nova Scotia in the wake of the Revolution. During the 19th century all students were required to take oaths confirming their devotion to the Anglican Church.

In 1920 a fire ravaged the College, burning its main building to the ground -- thus raising the question of how (or even whether) King's was to survive. But King's was determined to carry on, and so accepted the terms of a generous grant from the Carnegie Foundation to rebuild not in Windsor but in Halifax, the capital city of Nova Scotia, entering into association with Dalhousie University.

When World War II broke out King's was requisitioned by the military for the training of naval officers. King's functioned as a "stone frigate", providing a facility for navigation training before officers were sent to their ships. From 1941 to 1945, the College buildings became His Majesty's Canadian Ship, "HMCS King's", where officers were trained for the Royal Canadian Navy. In reflection of this naval past, the student bar on campus is still known as the HMCS King's Wardroom, or simply "the Wardroom."

During the war the Germans would occasionally broadcast names of Allied ships they had sunk. Because the ships had to keep radio silence these reports could not be verified, and it was suspected that many were false. Allies circulated lists of non-active ships in the hopes of feeding the Germans disinformation; when the German's broadcast that they had sunk HMCS King's their ruse was made plain.

Queen Elizabeth II approved the new coat of arms devised by the College of Arms in London in 1963 replacing the old one for which, it had been discovered, no permission had ever been given by any recognized authority. The Latin motto Deo Legi Regi Gregi translated means For God, Law, King, People. Having a Royal Charter, King's is permitted to use the crown above the arms.

On the crest, the crown to the left of the Pascal Lamb represents Oxford University on which King's is patterned. The Pascal Lamb represents the Fredericton Diocese. The St. Andrew's Cross (with the Pastoral Staff and the Key) symbolizes the Nova Scotia Diocese. Prince Edward Island, which is part of the Diocese of Nova Scotia, is represented by four green trees.

Beaverbrook

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For all the current talk of Islamofascism, the British have been quick to shed more than the burdens of Empire; they've turned their backs on the lessons of appeasement. In an article by Jonathan V. Last of the Philadelphia Inquirer, he describes a couple of examples of English accomodation to intimidation that had passed my attention:

England's chief inspector of prisons banned flying the flag of England on prison grounds because it featured the cross of St. George, which might be offensive to Muslims. Britain's version of the department of motor vehicles has also banned the English flag, as has Heathrow Airport.

It's one thing not to be able to fly the storied Union Flag that once flew alone against the Nazi wind for fear of being seen to support the BNP, but now one can't even fly the cross of St. George! Next they'll have to change the crests of Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta...

Time to start getting active and linking up with all those who share our fears which should be easy enough thanks to the links the Monarchist has provided on the right...

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