The abdication of responsibility
by Karl Gustel Wärnberg, Artillery Row:
A monarch quitting undercuts the point of the institution they represent.
Stepping into the smoking room room at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, one is met by portraits of British titans such as William Gladstone and Prince Philip. But on the right-hand corner of the innermost wall you will find a portrait of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark: since March 1997, the first Honorary Lady Member of the club. Between 1960 and 1961, the queen was a student at Girton College, Cambridge, where she read Prehistoric Archeology. In addition to her membership of the Oxford and Cambridge Club, Queen Margrethe is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. However, from 14 January this year she will no longer be Queen of Denmark.
[…] Not long after Queen Margrethe announced her intention to abdicate, the first calls for more abdications began. In my native Sweden, calls for King Carl XVI Gustav to resign in favour of his more popular and stylish daughter, Crown Prince Victoria, have been heard. Others see the news of the Danish abdication as an opportunity to vent their deep-seated longings for a republic. Yet, although unpopular in some quarters, a monarch’s, typically, unelected position and life-long tenure should be seen as a guarantor of the stability and continuity of the State. Indeed, it is its very embodiment. An abdication in favour of a younger, stronger, and, perhaps in some places, more popular, heir negates this very essence of the monarch’s role.
The modern world that we inhabit is one filled with cries for democratisation and liberalisation, which castigate any semblance of hierarchy or elitism. Yet we let ourselves be ruled by elected officials who can impose restrictions on our liberties, and those same officials are often the object of public scorn. The abolition of the monarchy would not only fail to eradicate hierarchical divisions but would in fact shine an even starker light on the ineptitude of the hierarchies that would dominate in its wake. Monarchy is a more elevated form of government precisely because it stands above the scheming world of politicians, representing the pre-political loyalties of a shared home.
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