Monarchy

My own preference is for constitutional monarchy, in a parliamentary democracy system. So I'm really talking about the monarch as a figurehead.

This is what I like about monarchy:

1) It gives a sense of historical continuity.

2) Royal weddings, coronations, babies, etc. are events which bring about national togetherness, and are landmarks in social history.

3) The monarch has a platform from which to intervene in public debates, and is more likely to be above intellectual fashion and political pressures because of the accident of birth. For instance, King George V organising the Buckinham Palace conference in 1914, or the role King Charles II seems to have played in containing the excesses of the Papal plot hysteria.

4) Royalty tend to have an influence on culture. For instance, white wedding dresses are said to have been pioneered by Queen Victoria. The romance of the Scottish Highlands are also said to have been influenced by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. I think this is a good thing, though I understand why some might be indifferent or even hostile to it. It seems quite endearing that a country would take its lead from monarchs in this way; it seems quite familial.

5) My favourite quotation on monarchy is from C.S. Lewis: "It would be much more rational to abolish the English monarchy. But how if, by doing so, you leave out the one element in our state which matters most? How if the Monarchy is the channel through which all the vital elements of citizenship – loyalty, the consecration of secular life, the hierarchical principal, splendour, ceremony, continuity – still trickle down to irrigate the dustbowl of modern economic Statecraft?"

Sells mags.

Anyway: Vale- Henri d'Orleans, one of two pretenders to the French throne. Although we don't usually support the more liberal side here, he died on 21st, the actual anniversary of Louis XVI, which almost seems like posthumous approval