NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
SUNDAY SPECTATOR
July 3, 2011
Blessed country
History repeats itself, but in a leisurely way. For the first time in a while, a Royal Navy lieutenant, and heir to our throne, named Prince William, is visiting Canada. His predecessor called by in 1786. Much has changed since that time, and our country has grown, at least in population. Much has stayed the same: for instance, the fact of French and English. Technology, and superficial glitz, mask some of the continuities.The later King William IV was the third son of George III, of beloved memory: our chief and standard in the battle against the American revolutionists. William's niece, Victoria, our Queen at Confederation, was among the finest, fairest, and grandest monarchs in the history of the planet. Under her mild and merciful regime, Britain came to preside over "the greatest Empire the world had ever seen," by the careful calculation of our ancestors. Canada played a signal role within the Imperial scheme. By reputation, hewers of her wood and drawers of her water, we provided not only copious resources, but in our people a very (British North) American spirit of optimism, enterprise, and "can do." From tiny, sparsely-distributed settlements, we built a mighty continental realm, not merely on the extraction of resources, but on their trade, and our subsequent investments, the mappemonde. "A mari usque ad mare" - "D'un ocean à l'autre," - or, in the Psalm: "And He will have the Dominion, from sea also unto sea, and from the river unto the ends of the Earth." The "He" in this text is God, incidentally, and while the original may have referred to some river in Mesopotamia, our ancestors took it to be the St. Lawrence, at the heart of the old Canadian territory. (The continuing proposal to add another "sea" to that motto is cheap, childish, and illiterate.) All of this under Queen or King, for Canada from her beginnings, to the present day, has been a monarchy. Quebecers, who forget their own legacy when they dishonour our royal house, have lived continuously under a monarch since the arrival of Cartier. Our present Queen inherits an office that went down in France, during their terrible revolution, but is still standing in this New World; and the old France that was so ignobly overthrown lives on within our fair Dominion. Though I have to admit the flame is guttering. Ditto for those unspeakable republicans within Canada today (and their like in Australia, etc). There are people for whom every noble thing is a cause for detraction; for whom every evocative symbol conveying our actual identity through time, must be expunged; people who demand that we build on sand, that we utter forth always from a vacuum. I do not like these people. But back to King William IV. He had 10 children, by the conventional count; possibly a few more, certainly not less. But before my reader leaps to the conclusion that he was an embodiment of old-fashioned family values, it must be said that none of them were legitimate. The mother of most (if not all) was the beautiful actress, Dorothea "Jordan" (stage name), herself the illegitimate progeny of a distinguished if somewhat wild Irish household. Indeed, she had three children already by one of her former lovers when she moved in with the Duke of Clarence, as he then was. It was hard not to love Dorothea, as the future King William found. Among her several merits was a complete indifference to politics, and public opinion. She did occasionally appear with him, at social events, but eschewed the state ones. And for all her children, and high society connections, her stage career was never interrupted. A woman, as I've always said, can have children, and a career, too. I mention all this in case any gentle reader is under the impression that the current Royal Family is deficient in those bourgeois qualities we have come to assign to public figures. The idea that the monarch should set an example of family life began with Victoria, I'm afraid, who was a little prim. Also, perhaps, she was looking for new roles, at a time when absolute monarchs, or even seriously powerful monarchs, were being succeeded by the "constitutional" kind. It was, I am sad to say, one of her few mistakes in judgment, and one carried down by her descendants into our age of tabloid gossip, and easy divorce. For the monarch should not be the symbol of anything but the integrity, legitimacy, and continuity of the state. I utterly adore Elizabeth II, who is among my heroines - but I shouldn't have to adore her personally. That she is my Queen is enough. The publicity rubbish associated with this latest royal visit, I could do without. Prince William and Kate are, so far, taking their roles seriously, and our job is only to line the parade routes. It is a marvellous thing to have, at the head of our state, an institution above politics. It is even better to have rulers who live in another country. We should count our manifold blessings. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top