It’s the Queen or tyranny
by Mary Harrington, UnHerd:
[…] And yet despite the dignified pathos of last Saturday, we can be sure that some will celebrate the Queen’s birthday by calling for her deposition. For many progressives view the Queen as an unacceptable relic of the past. Never mind personal travails; monarchy, they say, is undemocratic, even if the Queen never wields her power. We should have an elected head of state.
But far from being a relic of despotism, constitutional monarchy is our best protection against its reappearance. The story we like to recall traces a thousand years of royal continuity — the same deep history which progressives say demonstrates the obsolescence of our monarchy. But in truth this story skates over a profound rupture: the end of absolute kingship.
School history today doesn’t often dwell on England’s transition from the absolutism of Henry VIII’s day to the modern settlement. France had its Revolution, America had its Founding, but the significance of Britain’s “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 is under-discussed, despite its importance.
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