Our Pet Queen Read online

  Hazlitt Originals

  A new series of original, commissioned e-books of varying length and subject matter, featuring both established and emerging authors from around the world. From investigative journalism and fiction, to travelogues, polemics, and interactive tablet creations, Hazlitt Originals aspire to push the boundaries of story form.

  Titles in the series

  Our Pet Queen: A New Perspective on Monarchy, by John Higgs

  Braking Bad: Chasing Lance Armstrong and the Cancer of Corruption, by Richard Poplak

  The Gift of Ford: How Toronto’s Unlikeliest Man Became its Most Notorious Mayor, by Ivor Tossell

  You Aren’t What You Eat: Fed Up with Gastroculture, by Steven Poole

  The Man Who Went to War: A Reporter’s Memoir from Libya and the Arab Uprising, by Patrick Graham

  Also by John Higgs

  I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary

  The KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds

  The 20th Century: An Alternative History (forthcoming, 2015)

  Copyright © 2014 by John Higgs

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

  HAZLITT is a registered trademark of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication is available upon request.

  Library of Congress Control Number available upon request.

  eISBN: 978-0-7710-3845-7

  Cover design: Michèle Champagne

  Cover photo © 2009 Canadian Press Images

  Published by McClelland & Stewart,

  a division of Random House of Canada Limited,

  a Penguin Random House Company

  www.randomhouse.ca

  v3.1

  For Dennis the cat.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. What Is That Strange Mood in the Air?

  2. Our Cat Is Not Very Nice

  3. Heads of State

  4. The Question of Cruelty

  5. Leading from the Front

  6. The Collapse of Monarchy in the Christian Era

  7. A Tale of Two Beheadings: Part 1 – England

  8. A Tale of Two Beheadings: Part 2 – France

  9. Whales, Swans and the Problem of Charles

  10. Dementia and Revolution

  Notes

  1. What Is That Strange Mood in the Air?

  Imagine that you are visiting London on a warm summer’s afternoon, and the revolution happens.

  At first it’s not entirely clear what’s going on, but there are a lot of people heading down The Strand to Buckingham Palace. Something interesting is happening, and you’re curious enough to be swept along with the crowd. It feels like a street party, but there’s a strange mood in the air. It’s not a mood you’re familiar with.

  By the time you’ve reached the golden fountain in front of the palace, you know that something unprecedented is unfolding. You are struck by memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Tiananmen Square protests. You’ve stumbled across something that will be written about in the history books. You are going to have a story to tell those back home.

  The huge, black iron gates in front of the Palace are disappearing under a wall of climbing Londoners. Surely the ironwork is not strong enough to withstand this sort of pressure? A sea of people surrounds the forecourt, blocking all routes to and from those gates. The crowd are vocal and agitated. From your vantage point up on the side of the fountain, you have a clear view of what is happening. It’s only now that you realize the situation is dangerous. There is no controlling this crowd, and no escaping from it either. And what is that strange mood in the air?

  Maybe you’re a republican, or maybe you’re a royalist. The chances are you are one of the vast majority who sit between these two positions, people who don’t really care too much one way or another. And why should you? It’s not as if that question has a great deal of relevance in your life. There is a loud crack as the iron gates give way. People must have been hurt by the collapse, but you can’t hear any screams. Only a cheer that builds and sustains.

  There is a route opening up ahead of you now. You could leave the safety of the fountain and run straight ahead, following the crowd, through the gates and … and you’re already doing it, you rarely get chances like this in life, of course you take them. The pinkish gravel of the great forecourt crunches under your feet as you run. The surrounding crowd are disappearing into the huge, brutal façade of the looming building. From the corner of your eye you spot the Palace Guards in their unmistakable red jackets and absurd tall furry hats. They remain unmoving in their positions, through fear rather than protocol. A thought flashes through your head: that strange atmosphere in the air reminds you oddly of the old horror film The Wicker Man.

  You’re nearly at the Palace. An armchair comes smashing out of a window in front of you, causing you to swerve. Then you’re through a door, there are staircases and corridors in all directions, and the decor is so opulent and lavish that the whole thing feels like a dream. You’re heading up a staircase, two steps at a time, listening to whoops and hollers from all around. You keep away from areas that are smoking or burning. Then you’re running along an empty corridor, and it’s such a good corridor to run down because it’s so long and wide. To think that running down such a corridor is usually frowned upon!

  It’s a sheer fluke, but you just happen to be the person to find her. It was like she was waiting for you, as if you were always going to burst into that particular room. It’s the face from the stamps, looking up at you, waiting to see what you will do.

  And this immediately sobers you up. What, exactly, will you do?

  One option is to call out and hand her over to the mob. This is the twenty-first century, after all, and the idea that power should be decided by a matter of birth is indefensible. The unearned luxury in every room of this palace has confirmed this. Balzac’s notion that “behind every great fortune lies a great crime” flashes to mind.

  In the circumstances, handing her over would be entirely understandable. But let us just pause this scenario for a while, so that we can think a little deeper about the whole concept of royalty and how it relates to the modern world. It would be a crying shame to throw the Queen to the mob, just as we hit one of those rare periods of history when maintaining a monarchy actually makes a great deal of sense.

  2. Our Cat Is Not Very Nice

  There’s no easy way to say this, but our cat is not very nice. This might not immediately appear relevant, but stick with it.

  Really, he’s a miserable cat. As far as he’s concerned, people are things to scratch and furniture is something to shred. He is jet black, too big, and he makes the type of noises usually emitted by demons with toothache. Pleasant cat noises, such as meowing and purring, are not his thing. There have been dark evenings where I have found him staring at me with his cold, unfeeling eyes and had an instinctive urge to cross myself. The only time our cat expresses anything remotely resembling affection is when you stand in the corner of the kitchen where the cat food is kept. He will then start rubbing against your legs and making a noise which I think is supposed to be a purr. He does this with all the sincerity of a marketing message on the side of an overly friendly bottle of juice. He won�
��t eat the food, of course. He just wants to see you put it out.

  Living with this cat has given me great insight into the role of monarchy in modern society. By this I don’t mean that monarchy is flawed but essentially familiar, and therefore loveable. It is true that, despite everything, my family are all extremely fond of the cat. We accept him for what he is, and would miss him terribly if he was not there. Families are supposed to be odd, angular bodies which are crazy in their own unique way. Perfect families don’t exist, and would be no fun if they did. In many ways having the cat as the most sociopathic member of the family is a real stroke of luck.

  Rationally, we would be better off without the cat. Visitors would be more likely to return, and keeping him is not cheap. If we got rid of him the furniture would be less tatty and we would spend less time bleeding. By keeping him as part of the family, we let emotion trump rationality. This is the reason why many people accept the existence of monarchy in the twenty-first century. But the cat offers a deeper insight into the existence of royalty than that.

  If you observe the day to day life of a house pet, you get a conflicting sense of whether or not they are living the good life. On one hand they are pampered and provided for, and all their transgressions are forgiven. On the other they are utterly dependant on humans to provide their food and shelter. Those humans also prescribe the limits of their freedom, the routines of their lives, and whether they will be allowed to keep their God-given pair of testicles. They may have everything they need, but there is a cost. I am all for being pampered and provided for, but I do not think that, given the choice, it would be the sort of life I would choose.

  It was pondering the sorry lot of my unpleasant cat that altered my perspective on monarchy. Previously, I had unconsciously accepted the consensus viewpoint, which was that royalty were supposed to be our betters, and that we were their subjects. The idea was that they possessed some non-existent quality of superiority, and we were supposed to play along and pretend that this quality existed for fear of upsetting them. I can’t say I was ever particularly taken by this scenario. It was something of a relief, therefore, when the penny dropped and I finally understood the status of monarchy in the modern age.

  The monarchy are not our superiors. They are our pets.

  Sure, we spend too much money on them. Yes, we should have had more of the spare ones neutered. But once royalty are understood as pets, the concept of monarchy goes from being an irrational anachronism to a wonderful solution to the problem of heads of state. It is not just that they have funny little faces. It’s not that familiarity is comforting, or that it’s useful to have someone to blame bad smells on. It’s not even a case that they are kept out of spite in the knowledge that it annoys the neighbours. It’s that, at this particular stage of human development, monarchy is a system that actually makes sense.

  That is not a sentence I ever thought I would write.

  The confusion comes about because the monarchy have not always been our pets. They used to be something else entirely. This has distracted us, and disguised the true nature of the shift in their status. To understand how royalty went from almighty overlords to beloved household mongrels, it is helpful to look at the concept of heads of state. Why does such a position exist in the first place?

  3. Heads of State

  In 1999 Australia held a referendum to decide whether they should ditch the British monarch from the position of Australian Head of State. It looked to most observers like the Queen’s days in the Southern hemisphere were numbered. Queen Elizabeth II, it was felt, had very little relevance to modern democratic Australia. Even the Queen’s staunchest supporters would have to admit that, whatever her good points may be, nobody was ever going to mistake her for an Australian. It seemed odd for a country to use someone so different and unconnected to themselves as their figurehead.

  Opinion polls showed that the number of Australians who strongly or partly favoured becoming a republic consistently outnumbered those who wished to remain a monarchy.1 The Newspoll opinion poll in August 1999, for example, showed 51 per cent of Australians in favour of a republic and 35 per cent against. So it was something of a surprise when, three months later, the people of Australia voted to keep the Queen.

  Most analysis of the surprise referendum result focused on the thorny issue of selecting a replacement for the monarch as head of state. It was all very well agreeing that the monarchy should be replaced with something more sensible, but it was not readily apparent what that more sensible thing should be. The option offered in the referendum was for an Australian-born president who would serve five-year terms and be appointed by a bi-partisan government panel, and whom the prime minister could dismiss if they weren’t getting on. Very few people could muster much excitement for this scenario, or indeed discuss it without yawning. There have been other, more intriguing possibilities offered since then, such as Germaine Greer’s suggestion that Australia could be steered by a council of aboriginal elders. But there has been considerably less discussion about why Australia wanted a head of state in the first place.

  A head of state is the highest-ranking person in a nation or a sovereign state. Historically, that person would be an absolute ruler with a title such as King, Lord or Sultan. If they were strong enough to exercise power over other kings, then they could use an even grander title such as Emperor, Tsar or Kaiser. Individuals such as these had the power to make decisions on behalf of their nations and territories. But with the collapse of the old Imperial world around the First World War, and the rise of democratic individualism, power has typically shifted from the head of state to the head of government. The head of state is still officially the highest ranked official, but in terms of protocol rather than terms of power. A head of state would still get a better seat than the head of government at a banquet, but beneath all the deference there is no doubt which of those two officials is agreeing the menu.

  The head of state has become a strange position, symbolic but impotent. If an historic head of state such as Henry VIII of England told you that they wanted you dead, you would be advised to start making peace with your maker. If a modern head of state such as Michael Higgins, President of Ireland, told you the same thing, you would most likely phone them the next day to make sure they got home okay.

  A head of state is a symbol, and that symbol is a representation of the sovereign state itself. Here we have entered the realm of magical thinking, in which we accept that one thing can be said to be symbiotically linked to another. When a king was incapacitated in some way, for example when Charles The Mad of France thought that he was made of glass and was terrified that he might shatter, it was felt this was damaging to the whole of France. This train of thought is perhaps most explicitly explored in the Arthurian legend of The Fisher King. When a king was impotent, wounded or spiritually bereft, then the kingdom itself became an arid waste land. The land of Mordor in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was never going to be a prosperous tourist location, for example, because the horror of that place mirrored its ruler, Sauron. In a similar manner, when a country is going through something of a golden age, its ruler cannot help but be perceived as ebullient and vivacious. Even Elizabeth I of England, whose paranoia, isolation and unfortunate face would not usually be thought highly of, was written about in terms that implied she was damn sexy.

  None of this is in any way rational, of course. Those who pride themselves as serious thinkers tend to dismiss symbolic thought as irrelevant. Yet magical thinking is unavoidably human. It is a product of some of our very earliest neurological evolution.

  During the fantastically complicated development of visual perception, one of the earliest things that our brains became skilled at identifying was vertical symmetry. The ability to identify symmetry2 was a godsend for our pre-human ancestors when they peered out at the world with early, barely usable eyes and tried to make sense of what was around them.

  As our simple prehistoric brains began to divide the world up into separate o
bjects and different categories, it became apparent that some things were more relevant than others. Paying attention to predators, in particular, was more important than paying attention to rocks. This was where the ability to recognize symmetry became important, because if you spotted vertical symmetry in the natural world you were almost certainly looking at the face or body of a living thing, and that was worth keeping an eye on. The rest of the natural world, such as rocks, puddles and clouds, were conveniently free of such bilateral symmetry and hence not so important. Our inbuilt tendency to assign importance to symmetry is still apparent in the functioning of our more advanced modern brains, for example in our preference for partners with symmetrical faces or in the way we design our buildings or clothes.

  Spotting a face was one thing, but it was still necessary to determine whether that face was going to eat you or not. Neurological evolution had the difficult task of finding a way of determining the intentions of entities that the visual system had identified. It did this by attempting to construct a mental model of what that conscious entity might do next, through experience and visual clues. If a face you had never seen before was baring its fangs and advancing towards you, then that was probably bad. If the face was familiar and had previously given you milk and food, and you hadn’t done anything recently to annoy it, then you could probably relax.

  All of this mental model building was very taxing for our early animal brains. Fortunately, our ability to spot symmetry had divided the world into entities with intent and entities without, which cut down the work somewhat. You didn’t need to use large amounts of brain power to work out what a nearby rock was going to do next. The brain, as it grew and evolved, got very good at assessing external entities which demonstrated unpredictable behaviour.