The multimillionaire scion of the super-wealthy, landowning Windsor family was 2 years ago accorded some powers over the Westminster Parliament and Government, powers that previously were exercised by other members of his family. This landed elite of privileged oligarchs have, over centuries, abrogated to themselves significant power over Britain’s elected parliament. The powers that Charles III possesses today have their origins hundreds of years ago. King Charles III can now continue with his life of luxury – what the flunkies describe as ‘a life of service’. King Charles III can reside as it suits him at his properties at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham in Norfolk, Holyrood, or Balmoral in Scotland, or at many other similar palaces that the Windsors own throughout Britain. King Charles also owns properties in Romania. Enormous mansions, stately cars, foreign holidays, travel around-the-world by helicopter and private jets, as well as an array of domestic servants and aides standing ready to satisfy his every whim, will form part of the life of the new king.
In an ancient liturgy, some of which originated with the coronation of King Edgar in 973, the Archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey formally conferred this immense power on the landlord, who is now also the supreme governor of the Church of England. The oil that was used by the archbishop to anoint the king was produced from olives that had been harvested from the Monastery of Mary Magdalen in Jerusalem and was administered on a spoon that dates from the 12th century. The involvement of the Anglican hierarchy in the coronation ceremony is itself recognition that the monarch is considered by them to be sacred. He will also now have the power to appoint senior clergy in the Church of England.
The three-hour ceremonial hogwash was accompanied by a grovelling display of subservience by elected Members of Parliament. ‘Coronations were only fit for barbarous, or semi-barbarous ages’ said the Irish peer Earl Fitzwilliam in the House of Lords in 1838. Around one hundred heads of state attended this obscurantist display of pantomime optics and fancy dress. The event itself directly cost the British taxpayers around €114 million. But there is some opposition. Several people with banners proclaiming, ‘Not My King!’, were arrested at a demonstration during the coronation ceremony.
Plunder
The wealth of the British monarchy is the product of rapacious greed, robbery, extortion, and bribery over centuries: robbery of the churches, robbery of the commons, robbery of the colonies, and wars of conquest. Common lands were seized by monarchs and their friends as they enclosed fields and meadows, leaving smaller farmers with unviable plots of land and thus being forced to move to the cities in order to seek work from the emerging capitalist class.
By 1500 much of the common land in England had been stolen and enclosed by the aristocracy, In the process, tens of thousands of people were made homeless, and when they resisted, such as for example in Norfolk, the earl of Warwick sent an army of 14,000 against them. Thousands of insurgents were slaughtered then, and several hanged.
In addition, the dissolution of the monasteries provided enormous additional wealth to these monarchs and privileged aristocratic families, as priories, convents, abbeys, friaries, and their contents were expropriated.
Britain is not alone in this. Throughout history monarchs and their aristocracies around the world enriched themselves with vast swathes of land and estates at the expense of ordinary working people. The title to their royal possessions came about through murder, invasion, and fraudulent dealing. Land and bishoprics were allocated through royal patronage. Dukes, earls, barons, viscounts, and marquesses queued up for their share of the swill. This aristocracy was essential for the conduct of royal wars. War itself became a lucrative business.
Power
As well as being the British king, Charles III is also the unelected head of state of fourteen other countries, all of them within the British Commonwealth. However, due to the growth of class and national consciousness, the foundations of this club are beginning to shake. Forty-two Commonwealth countries no longer recognise the British monarch as their head of state.
Barbados became the most recent to declare itself a republic. Several other Caribbean states, including Jamaica, have indicated that they will shortly follow suit. The dominions, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada may also soon opt to remove the English king as their sovereign.
The king has the power to overrule decisions of Parliament, although he will probably not need to use this facility just now, as his and his family’s interests are being ably protected by this Labour Government under the leadership of Keir Stamer. He and his cronies show no interest in ending this profoundly undemocratic situation. However, it is worth noting that the elected Labour government in Australia, led by Prime Minister Geoff Whitlam was removed in 1975 and replaced by the opposition on orders from Queen Elizabeth’s representative, the Governor General, using his constitutional authority on behalf the British monarch. So much for the fallacy that the monarchy is only a harmless, but colourful display of pageantry! It is worth noting that several members of the so-called British nobility joined fascist organisations in the 1920s and 1930s. Others were openly antisemitic. Edward VIII (uncle of Queen Elizabeth II, and the one who abdicated) and his wife were entertained by Hitler at Berchtesgaden in 1937.
The notion of a single dynastic family occupying the British throne presents the useful delusion that decent, English family folk are in charge of the country and that the royals could be like any other family, sharing all the joys and disappointments that ordinary families experience. Charles’ late mother, at one time one of the wealthiest women in the world, has been described as having been universally popular among her subjects. But inequality and poverty in the UK did not lessen during her reign. Nor did the massive tax evasion that is taking place in British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, where nearly 40% of tax revenue losses are facilitated. The division and injustice that are the heritage of Britain’s colonial empire continued. The British taxpayer paid £40 million a year for the upkeep of Queen Elizabeth II and that of her retinue. In 2005 she negotiated with the Westminster City Council to reduce the property tax on Buckingham Palace by £1 million. So, from whence derives her popularity! The extended royal family are all members of the wealthy propertied class, supported in their luxury by public taxes, while many citizens live in misery, and public services decline or collapse.
Dynasty
Monarchy as a form of rule is based around an unelected Head of State, whose power and privileges are bestowed solely by virtue of his or her membership of a particular family.
Dynasties established themselves through war and conflict, the Bourbons in France, Spain and Naples, the Tudors in England, the Romanovs in Russia. The Hapsburgs acquired many European crowns and lands through wars and a dynastic matrimonial policy. Their influence spread across Austria, Spain, Burgundy, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Bohemia, Lorraine and Tuscany. One of their number, Ferdinand Maximilian, was Emperor of Mexico between 1832 and 1867. The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were always members of the Hapsburg family. The English monarchy itself came about through a constantly altering network of warring tribes and states, where at various times, first one and then another gained supremacy, such as for example the victory of Henry Tudor over Richard III at Bosworth in 1485. The continuing slaughter amongst a privileged elite of aristocratic families in England and France, and more widely the wars between barons in the thirteenth century, are noted for their barbaric cruelty and widespread practice of beheading, blinding and dismemberment. The next two centuries saw a steady rise in the concentration of more and more land and other riches in the hands of fewer and fewer aristocratic families.
The so-called tradition of English monarchy is an invented tradition. The English crown has been worn by non-English dynasties for more than four centuries, the Scottish Stuarts since 1603, the Dutch William of Orange, steward of the Dutch United Provinces, from 1688, and since 1714 by the German Hanoverians, descendants of the Electress Sophia. The Hanoverians were a family of minor German princes, with no real power base on the European continent, but with some connection to the Stuart dynasty. The new king Charles III is of the Hanoverian dynasty, and belongs to the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family, whose name was altered in 1917 to the more English-sounding Windsor in order to suit the exigencies of World War 1.
Today 22% of the world’s countries have a hereditary ruler as their head of state. From Japan and Thailand to Norway and Sweden, from Jordan and Saudi Arabia to Africa and Spain, single families stand at the top of government. There are six monarchies remaining within the European Union, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Luxembourg, as well as three royal Principalities, Lichenstein, Andora and Monaco. Two further European monarchies, Britain and Norway are outside the EU. This is a scandal and an affront to democracy.
Some of the allies of the US amongst the Arab states of the Gulf are monarchies, ruling without the consent of their peoples, amidst massive inequalities, widespread nepotism, and corruption.
The Hashemite dynasty came to power in Jordan in 1921 with the support of the British. The current monarch, King Hussein represents that autocratic family today. However, many countries have abolished monarchy. King Farouk, so called king of Egypt and Sudan, was ousted in 1953 following a military coup led by Nasser and a group of army officers. The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been imposed by Britain, fled the country in January 1979 in the midst of revolutionary developments against his monarchical dictatorship. The United States supported the repressive regime of the Pahlavi monarchy for many years, by supplying arms and stationing many thousands of troops in the country. King Idris of Libya, who had been supported by the colonial powers and the US, was deposed in 1969, under pressure from a growing socialist and nationalist movement in the country. King Zahir of Afghanistan was ousted in 1974. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, the poorest country in Africa in 1975, whose repressive regime the United States had also backed, was booted out the same year following a left-wing revolt by lower ranking military. Fifty years later the British king is still in situ!
Autocratic monarchical rule is not just a problem in the ex-colonial countries. The colonial world itself is also riven with so-called royal families. The recently deceased Buthelezi, who described himself as king of the Zulu people in South Africa, played an insidious role in dividing the revolutionary movement against apartheid and was much praised by Margaret Thatcher.
European monarchs throughout history have been unrestrained in pursuit of their colonial interests. For example, Britain took over Sudan in part to stop French expansion in the Sahel. Portuguese, British and German imperialism pursued expansion in southern Africa. Russia and Britain competed in Afghanistan and Persia, Britain, and France in South Asia. King Leopold of Belgium conducted a brutal and savage policy in the former Belgian Congo, including torture, murder, and mutilation, on his estates. King Leopold personally owned the rubber plantations where these horrific practices were perpetrated. Wilhelm III of Prussia imposed a brutal regime of repression in the former German colony of Namibia where he tried to annihilate the Herrero people at the close of the nineteenth century. But few regimes reached the level of immense brutality as the British campaign to defeat the Mao Mau and the Kikuyu people in Kenya in the 1950s, during which thousands of Kenyans were tortured and murdered. Queen Elizabeth II paid a courtesy visit to Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion.
War
The history of monarchy is a history of war. The brutal and murderous record of colonialism around the world is part and parcel of monarchical rule. The Middle Ages saw almost all of Europe with a political system that was dominated by monarchs. Everything, from the military and the churches to tax collection was ranged around the sovereign. In the case of France, the emperor was, in his own words, the state itself.
In the sixteenth century the Protestant English Queen Elizabeth 1 fought the Catholic powers of France and Spain. A period of almost uninterrupted European wars took its toll on the workers and peasants of central Europe. Uninterrupted devastation prevailed in a series of almost perpetual and senseless wars.
Monarchs waged several wars in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, and the Seven Years War. The nineteenth century was a period in which monarchs still determined foreign policy. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 many of the smallest German states and the ecclesiastical principalities disappeared. But, in 1872 the German Emperor William I, the Russian Emperor Alexander II and Francis Joseph of Austria met in Berlin in an attempt to restore the Holy Alliance formed by their predecessors in 1815, all in an endeavour to defend conservative and monarchical interests in Europe.
Frederick the Great of Germany, and his successors, in the Hohenzollern tradition, subdued the desires of the nobility by guaranteeing that their social status would remain unaltered and by offering them posts in the civil and military bureaucracies. Germany under Bismarck found its most reliable ally in Austria’s Hapsburg monarchy, even though Hapsburg influence had earlier been forcibly driven from Germany and Italy.
At the outbreak of World War 1, during which tens of millions lost their lives, George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Czar Nicholas II of Russia were first cousins. In August 1915 the Czar of Russia, from the Romanov dynasty, took supreme command of the Russian army. As far as the officers were concerned the emperor had always been the Supreme Commander. The majority of them had monarchist principles and were completely loyal to the autocrat. By the end of the War, following mass uprisings by organised workers and their political organisations, the Romanovs in Russia, and the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns in Austria and German had been booted out, as had the Turkish Ottomans.
During the age of imperialism Britain occupied India in defence of its trading enterprises in silk, spices, and other commodities when the East India Company was incorporated by a royal charter from Queen Elizabeth I in 1600. Land which had been tilled for generations by Indian farmers was stolen. As a totem of conquest Queen Victoria at the close of the nineteenth century had herself crowned as ‘Empress of India’. The British army massacred thousands of Indians after the rebellion of 1857. Britain waged war against China in the ‘opium wars’, which caused millions of Chinese citizens to become addicted to opium by 1900. They fought against Russia to prevent its incursion into Britain’s spheres of influence in the Near East. They fought against South Africa in defence of their mining interests, and against the United States of America in an attempt to prevent independence.
And it was not Just Britain. In the Indian Ocean other European colonial powers also established trading companies that were royally sponsored and were permitted to raise military forces.
Slavery
Britain’s royal family supported and profited from slavery. Britain led the slave trade for a long period. Slavery was an important aspect of the British empire, as Africans were transported in their thousands to the colonies to work on sugar and cotton plantations. Many monarchs had direct links to the slave trade. In fact, members of the royal family monopolised the early slave trade through the Royal Africa Company. Queen Elizabeth 1 authorised pirates to capture and sell Africans, while a portion of the proceeds went to her. She gave her own vessel to the slave trader John Hawkins for the purpose of capturing slaves on the African coast. Several members of the British royal family were amongst the initial shareholders in the slave-trading Royal Africa Company, amongst them James II who was the largest shareholder. British slavers placed three million Africans into chains between 1640 and 1807. A royal charter was issued to the Royal African Company by Charles II for the purpose of buying and selling slaves who had been kidnapped from countries on the African coast. During the Demerara uprising of 1823 British colonists brutally supressed a slave revolt in what is known today as Guyana.
Autocracies across Africa, such as Ethiopia and Dahomey, were drawn into facilitating the slave trade. But today only three African monarchies remain, Morocco, Lesotho and Eswatini.
Aristocratic involvement in the slave trade continued for four hundred years, supported by a succession of monarchs, including in the nineteenth century King William IV, uncle of Queen Victoria. About eleven million slaves were kidnapped with the approval of various European royal dynasties and sent to British, French, and Spanish colonies in the Americas, the largest number being transported to the Portuguese colony, Brazil. The European powers pillaged the countries that they colonised and sought to obliterate native populations. The Aborigine people of Australia were reduced in numbers by the British from 350,000 to 50,000 through massacres, forced emigration and epidemics over a period of two hundred years. Mauri lands in New Zealand were confiscated by the crown, as the guarantees promised in the Treaty of Waitangi were ignored, while violence and atrocities were unleashed across the country. Indigenous peoples in the Royal Dominion of Canada experienced broken promises, dispossession, and attempts to erase native culture through such measures as Canada’s residential school system.
Royal involvement in colonial exploitation continued for centuries. Countries were plundered and looted in the interests of empire. The Tudor and Stuart dynasties set up royal monopolies and exclusive patents in order to secure their domination in trade and commerce. In the seventeenth century a colony of English settlers was systematically given land in Ireland that had been confiscated from the native Irish by King James I in what became known as the Plantation of Ulster. Following the victory of King William at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, an attempt was made by the British crown to annihilate Irish laws and customs, and the entire framework of Gaelic civilisation. The socialist leader James Connolly explained that the Irish social and legal system had until then constituted ‘the highest point of civilisation and culture in Europe’. William of Orange had been brought over from Holland and offered the English throne in order to forestall restoration of a Catholic dynasty. James II, who was ousted as king, came to Ireland with the aim of trying to raise an army to fight against his rival William for the English crown. In the words of James Connolly, ‘never in all the history of Ireland, has there been a war in which the people of Ireland had less reason to be interested either on one side or the other’. The search for gold motivated many monarchs in Western Europe towards foreign conquest. The Portuguese dynasty sought the valuable mineral along the African coast, in India and the Far East. The Spanish travelled across the Atlantic Ocean .to South America. The British ruling class sought their gold in Australia.
Dangers
The formal legislative powers of King Charles III are somewhat limited. He still maintains a key role in the appointment of Ministers, army chiefs, judges, and Lords of the Realm. Judges belong to the so-called King’s Bench. On a proposed dissolution of Parliament, or the formation of a new government, the king has the power to refuse such a request and to send the emissary away to see whether an alternative government more to his liking can be constructed. Ending monarchy is essential for the defence of democracy. The ruling class, or a part of it, could under certain conditions conspire with sections of the state bureaucracy and of the military to overthrow an elected socialist government that was intent on taking decisive action to transform society and remove all inequality and privilege. The king also has
powers over the army, while members of the royal family are senior figures in the military hierarchy. It is important to abolish the position of king and to remove the mystique of monarchy in order to prevent the royal throne from becoming an alternative pole of attraction for reactionary forces in society. The Italians got rid of their monarchy more than three quarters of a century ago, in 1947.
During the American War of Independence in the eighteenth century the Prime Minister Lord North followed the policy of King George III who prosecuted that colonial war. But times have changed. Many of the monarch’s powers have decayed through lack of use, but that is not to say that the king is a servant of Parliament. Though times have changed, there should be no complacency when it comes to democratic practices and procedures. The office of monarch in England encompasses both the monarch and the government. In certain circumstances the king could reactivate the previous role of the Crown in Parliament and attempt to frustrate the decisions of an elected socialist government. The dangers that are inherent in royal influence should not be underestimated.
Abolition
Lenin explained that it is ‘to the advantage of the bourgeoise to rely on certain remnants of the past, such as monarchy. The liberal thinker Walter Bagehot speculated in 1867 that without the queen in England ‘the present English Government would fail and pass away’.
The institution of monarchy today serves to bolster the capitalist system and right-wing governments. It also strengthens religion. Propagating myths about the rule of kings and queens helps to distract some workers and communities from class struggle. A chimera of national unity is built around a popular monarch, unity of the rich and poor, unity of the exploiters and the exploited, unity of the privileged and the destitute. Monarchical rule also assists in countering the idea of progress, economic, social, cultural, and political with a synthetic notion of tradition. As a way of strengthening capitalist rule and of preserving imperialist interests the British government at various times, imposed monarchy on other countries, such as Greece, Persia, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. A slew of kings and queens also emerged across countries on the African sub-continent.
Early monarchical societies derived their stability from a balance between the monarch, the nobles, and the clergy, each in their own way representing the ruling class. But today, with the power of the nobility and the churches in terminal decline, it is the capitalist class which has most to gain by supporting illusions in royalty. Representatives of the British royal family, their flunkeys and their sycophants serve the interests of the wealthy propertied class.
Abolishing the institution of monarchy is not just about changing the rules governing parliament and the various strands of government, including the appointment of Ministers, who are currently described as ‘Ministers of the Crown’. Getting rid of monarchy means also getting rid of the imperial court, and all medieval privileges and honours. The history of the British monarchy is intimately bound up with the history of the kleptocratic clique known as the aristocracy. As Lenin described it, monarchy is little more than ‘a system of social estates, landed proprietorship, land tenure…religion and national oppression’. Bringing an end to monarchy in Britain would also entail taking over the many estates and lands that are currently in the possession of the Windsors and their hangers-on. The British aristocracy secured their extensive wealth and land holdings from their association with monarchy. Their traditional obligation to support the monarch in time of war secured for them their immense wealth and privilege. Most royalist commanders throughout history were peers. There was a time when parliamentary seats were bought, as though the principle of the democratic vote was but another form of aristocratic property.
The multitudinous wealth of these avaricious creatures, buildings, massive mansions, and castles across the United Kingdom, should be sequestered by the state without compensation. These properties can then be put to public use, whether as homes for working people, hospitals and health facilities, educational institutions or just for the enjoyment and leisure of workers and their families. Over the last hundred years or so some of these aristocratic parasites have been selling their properties, but the extremes of inequality that this class signifies remains undiminished. For example, the Duke of Westminster possesses 130,000 acres of land and £9 billion in personal wealth. Earl Cadogan has personal wealth of £5 billion. The cancellation of all knighthoods and other royal honours would be part of that process of abolishing monarchical rule.
The House of Lords, though somewhat reformed under the last Labour government is based on the hereditary principle and patronage and should also be abolished. None of these so-called Lords was elected. There are currently ninety-two hereditary peers still sitting in the House of Lords, plus a number of senior Anglican bishops and clergy. Some of the members of the House of Lords are members for life.
Abolition of monarchy, the House of Lords and all royal privileges and titles should form part of the programme for of the British Labour Party. Trade unions, labour and socialist parties, as well as progressive democratic forces across the globe should make a similar demand. It is unconscionable for a socialist government to cede power over an elected parliament to an unelected, super-wealthy, oligarchical family. The revolutionary founders of the British labour and trade union movement would be flabbergasted at the failure of the Labour Party, during its eleven periods in government, to abolish royalty, aristocracy and all the class exploitation that accompany such heinous and extreme inequality.
Contrary to the belief of some on the British left, the monarchy will not just fade away. The accumulation of scandals itself will not bring about its abolition. Such a revolutionary action requires a conscious and clearly stated political intervention, accompanied by a widespread, international campaign of political education amongst workers and communities.
Unpopular
According to the National Centre for Social Research, the number of people in Britain who support preserving the institution of monarchy has slipped to a forty-year low. Only just over half of British people today have a positive view of the new king, according to a YouGov poll that was taken after the death of Elizabeth II, with around 26% favouring a republic. Amongst those aged between 18 and 24 the percentage that supports an elected head of state was 38%. Support for the monarchy is now largely to be found amongst older age groups.
A similar process is evident in other countries where a monarch reigns. Ratings for the Dutch royal family are falling year by year. According to a poll that was carried out by the Dutch national broadcaster in 2013, the year when Willem-Alexander was crowned, the Dutch monarchy had the nominal support of 80% of the Dutch population. Today the figure is 55%. Support for a republic has been rising. Two thirds of people in the Netherlands feel that the annual cost of the monarchy, €35 million, is too much. During the Covid-19 pandemic the Dutch royal family ignored the restrictions that were being imposed on Dutch citizens. They had themselves filmed on their holiday compound on the Greek coast. According to a survey conducted by Le Soir in 2017, two thirds of Belgians hold the view that their country’s monarch, King Phillipe, is costing them too much.
Ex-King of Spain, Juan Carlos, abdicated in 2015 in the wake of revelations about his financial dealings. Crowds celebrated on the streets of Marid. Using his position as monarch to accumulate personal wealth, Juan Carlos filled his palace in Zarzuela with gifts from many of the world’s dictators. Following an elephant hunt in Africa he provided his mistress with a present of €65 million. According to Forbes magazine, Juan Carlos had amassed up to €1.8 billion in personal wealth. His friend, the British Prince Charles, as he was then, and his family spent holidays at Juan Carlos’ summer residence in Mallorca.
Support for the abolition of monarchy and the ending of royal family privileged will continue to grow across the globe.
Socialism
Abolition of monarchy and hierarchical rule should be a demand for all countries, whether they be in Asia, Africa, Europe or the Middle East. No aristocratic family should retain control over any aspect of democratic institutions. Getting rid of this inherent inequality, and its consequences, poverty, and alienation, poses the question of an alternative method of organising society. Socialism, based on common ownership of society’s resources as well as the means of production, distribution and exchanges and the provision of efficient and equitable public services in health, education, social care, and housing provision is the only realistic and effective alternative. However, abolition of monarchy will not just happen by accident, or by some natural process of decay. It must be demanded and fought for. The call for a republic, which is a demand that is advanced by some on the left and should be supported, undoubtedly would represent a step forward for democracy. However, a republic, referencing the three demands of liberty, equality and fraternity of the French revolutionaries in the late eighteenth century, while an important part of establishing democratic social and political control, and the abolition of privileges, is on its own far too limited and ill-defined in terms of how a new society would be organised. Many of the world’s so-called republics are riven with poverty, inequality and privilege. The Socialist Republic is the only real alternative. This can only be achieved under the leadership of the organised labour movement, drawing around itself workers, their families, communities and all oppressed layers in society.
If the British ruling class believe that they can recreate the idyll presented by John of Gaunt, a royal prince and military leader of the fourth century, ‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise.’ they are badly mistaken.