I fear for the monarchy

What little I’ve read about the forthcoming coronation fills me with a sense of foreboding. By the sound of it, Princess Anne, our busiest and (whisper it softly) best royal, shares my feelings.

She seems to be aware how dangerous her brother’s modernising instincts are to the survival of our indispensable institution. An awareness, I’m afraid, that isn’t shared by the small but influential coterie fronted by The Guardian and the BBC.

Since most of those people have been to good schools, they’ll be able to shroud their preference for an elected president in a dense fog of academic jargon. But blow it away, and you’ll find nothing behind but the destructive urge that’s the defining characteristic of that lot.

With their education they must realise the scale of the catastrophe that would follow should they succeed in turning Britain into a republic. When that revolting Blair tried to get rid of the institution of Lord Chancellor, he found even that impossible – so wide and intricate was the constitutional ganglion around the post.

Trying to get rid of the monarchy would produce an instant collapse of government, followed by the kind of social unrest comparable to the one that did for Charles I. Charles III would be unlikely to lose his head on a Whitehall scaffold, but he’d lose his crown – and Britain would lose everything that makes her British.

That is an existential threat, and to ward it off the monarchy should stay close to the principle expressed by Matteo Ricci: Simus, ut sumus, aut non simus” (“We shall remain as we are or we shall not remain at all”). Some tweaks here and there are unavoidable and even desirable. But only as long as they don’t compromise the inherently conservative nature of monarchy.

Princess Anne understands all that. But does her brother? He should really listen to his sister who said that King Charles’s plan to slim down the monarchy “doesn’t sound like a good idea from where I’m standing”.

The Royal Family, she added, brings “long-term stability, continuity and goodness” to the UK and Commonwealth. The princess didn’t specify what the demise of the Royal Family would bring, leaving that task for wretches like me, people unbound by any protocols.

It’s not just His Majesty’s idea of a cheaper, more populist monarchy that scares me, but just about everything else he says during the run-up to his coronation. For example, he is planning to apologise for the historical links between the monarchy and slavery.

Any such apology would be a tacit admission of the family’s criminal record, which is indefensible constitutionally, questionable morally and illiterate historically. Anne seems to realise that too, saying that her own view is “slightly different, maybe more realistic”. She said: “Come on… don’t be too focused on time scales and periods. History isn’t like that.”

She is exactly right. History isn’t like that. But those who want to destroy the mionarchy are — and worse.

Incidentally, the same people who yelp the loudest about the monarchy being undemocratic despise democracy more than any monarch in recent memory ever did. Every poll I’ve seen shows that the British love their monarchy and certainly don’t think the king should apologise for slavery.

But hey, they are just hoi polloi. None so contemptuous of the people as those who seek to destroy tradition in their name.

Admittedly, his mother set the royal bar so high that Charles faces a hard task. But he makes it much harder by espousing progressivist bilge in unison with those who hate him and everything his family stands for.

His mother the late queen was a figure of utmost dignity, respected even by those who hated her and the institution she headed. She was never mocked, even though some people spoke of her with a good-natured chuckle.

Mockery can be a more murderous weapon than hatred. The Catholic Church might not have found itself on the receiving end of Luther’s diatribes, had it not in the previous centuries been exposed to cutting ridicule by writers like Boccaccio, Ariosto and Rabelais.

Alas, certain things Charles III is planning for his coronation seem to invite malicious mockery. Such as his idea of TV viewers taking the oath of allegiance as they watch the ceremony.

When I first scanned those reports, I thought of every Briton reporting to the local courthouse, putting a hand on the Bible and then doing what American schoolchildren used to do at the beginning of every day (do they still?): “I pledge allegiance to… [King Charles III, rather than the flag of the Unites States]”.

That shows how important it is not to scan reports, but to read them word for word. Turns out what His Majesty thinks we should do is scream allegiance at the TV screen. I can’t help thinking that such an oath would be less than legally binding, making it out and out kitsch.

Anyone with a shred of humour is bound to laugh, and not necessarily in a very good-natured way. First they laugh, then they cry, then they march – and then they vote. Or, even worse, revolt.

The monarchy must preserve its grandeur, its pomp and circumstance precisely to perform its key function of continuity that Anne spoke about. Is it too late to crown her instead?

Yes, I know orderly succession is essential, and those who accede to the throne must be those legally entitled, not necessarily those best suited. But a man can have wild dreams, can’t he? In reality, such dreams never come true. Anne will remain the best monarch we’ve never had.