TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE KING AND THE CORONATION.
E have described elsewhere the splendid ceremonial which marked the crowning of King George and Queen Mary, and have noted the sympathy and goodwill with which all ranks and classes have taken their part in the consecration of the King and his Consort to the service of the nation. Here we desire to dwell, not on the cere- monial or even on the popular feeling, but on the deeper issues involved in kingship in these islands and in the Empire and its dependencies. Though the Coronation has no effect upon the legal or constitutional status of the Sovereign it may yet be very fitly termed the endorsement of the King's sovereignty by the nation. The year which has elapsed since the King's accession to the throne may in a certain sense be regarded as a year of probation. How has King George stood that test ? In our opinion—and we profoundly desire to speak the words of soberness and truth and not of courtiership or flattery— he has stood it unscathed. The nation and the Empire can feel, and we are sure do feel, that they have every right to co-operate by their sympathy in the momentous obligations which the King undertakes in the Coronation Service. Remember, that service is no act of national adulation, no heaping of incense before the royal thrones, no slavish sacrifice offered to majesty and power. Neither Church nor people sing mere pans to the Sovereign, nor prostrate themselves at his feet with expressions of unlimited obedience. The service is not designed to display the King's magnificence. It is much more nearly to be compared with the initiation of a knight. What is prominent is the setting apart of the King to his high duties. Duty, indeed, is the keynote of the whole ceremony. The King has laid upon his shoulders a heavy burden, but it is one made bearable by the thought that as long as he is true to his charge he will have the help, nay devotion, of his people. That is the meaning of loyalty. The King is the knight sworn to the service of his country, and while he remains true to that service, as he will remain true, the people will be true to their allegiance. The rights of the Crown are swallowed up in its duties. We have spoken of the year that has passed as a year of probation and of how well the King has acquitted himself in that year. It has been a year in many ways difficult for the Sovereign, but in no instance has the King failed or done less than we had a right to expect of him. No one, of course, doubted the King's sense of duty or his intense desire to do his best for the nation, but we should be concealing the truth if we did not say that there were many of his subjects who doubted whether the King would show that instinct for constitutional rule and that ready understanding of his people which marked his father and his grand- mother in so high a degree. The King has shown the true instinct for constitutional rule. In writing on May 14th last year of King George we ventured to declare that he had qualities which we felt certain would win for him the heart of the British race. His high character, his stainless honour, and, above all, his entire sincerity could not, we felt sure, but triumph over every difficulty and win him that universal respect which we now have a right to say he has won. It is no small thing to win that respect. Some nations have been described, and rightly described, as " too obedient "; others as too easily moved to love and sympathy—too easily won. That is not the mark of our race. But the fact that it is difficult to win the respect of Englishmen makes that respect well worth winning. The conquest of those who are always ready to be pleased and eager to be conquered is a small matter. It is no small matter to pierce the armour of criticism, of natural reticence, and of un- willingness to commit themselves lightly to admiration and friendship which belong to the inhabitants of these islands. But when once the armour which guards the warm heart below has been pierced there are none who are more steadfast in their affections. King George has pierced the armour and got to the man below, and he has done so, we might almost say, without knowing it. The last thing that the King has thought of in the year that has just passed has been popularity-hunting. The arts of those who seek popularity and attempt to ensnare men's hearts are so far from him that we do not hesitate to say that he could not practise them even if he desired so to do. Kindliness and good humour he no doubt possesses, but there never was a King w' I was less capable of laying himself out as a sovereign charmer. His is essentially an untheatrical nature. No doubt he has the good manners and high courtesy which traditionally belong to his family, and which belonged even to George IV. But this natural courtesy and kindliness is something very different from what we mean when we say that the King has not made, will not make, and could not make, any conscious attempt to win his people to him by the devices which many monarchs have deliberately studied. The King has won his way by straightforwardness, by sin- cerity, and by devotion to duty, and by nothing else. He has been himself, that is all, and he has been himself, not out of any " conscious naturalness," but because he could not be anything else. But this is a far sounder foundation upon which to build than a cal- culated charm or a dramatic assumption of royal beneficence.
In writing last year about King George and in endeavour- ing to treat the King with the sincerity with which he has treated the nation we pointed out that in this very sincerity of his there might lurk a danger. Prejudice is apt to follow close on the footsteps of sincerity. But prejudice is near kin to suspicion, and suspicion clouds the mind. But a King, we went on to say, must keep his mind un- clouded. Prejudices are luxuries in which he cannot afford to indulge even for an hour.
"He must erase from the mirror of his mind every scratch that has been made thereon by accident, or even by deliberate ill- will. He dare not allow any public purpose to be deflected by a personal instinct of dislike. There must be no 'Dr. Fells '—whether of men, nations, causes, or institutions— in the records of his brain. Even if by nature he shuns so Olympian an attitude, and regards it as inhuman, he must be con- tent to remember that such inhumanity is part of kingship. George III. well-nigh ruined his country by his prejudices, both positive and negative. Had he been able to subdue them, how different would be the history of his reign, and how different the verdict of posterity upon him as a king. No doubt, if we examine those prejudices impartially, much may be said in the abstract in defence of them. For example, it is difficult to subdue a sense of sympathy with George III. for his prejudice against Fox, for Fox's character, public and private, was enough to make any decent man detest him. He was factious, dissolute, selfish, untrust- worthy, a gambler, a voluptuary, a cynical sentimentalist, and a politician without principle or even scruple. Yet the verdict of history has gone against, and rightly gone against, the King for indulging his personal prejudices in the case of Fox. Take, again, the King's positive prejudice in favour of Addington. If one could think of George III. merely as a private individual, one might respect him for liking, in a corrupt age, an honest, stupid, mediocre man ; but who can doubt that his prejudice in favour of Addington did great harm to the nation ?"
We venture to say without the slightest fear of contra- diction that those who know the King best, and who have been in immediate contact with him during the past year, would be the first to declare that in this respect the King has come unscathed through the ordeal. He has maintained his sincerity, but he has banished what we have just de- scribed as sincerity's twin brother. He has been able to keep his mind free and detached, and yet has not faller into the pitfall on the other side, the pitfall of cynicism, which is almost as great a danger as that of prejudice. Truly it is a difficult and narrow path, but the King has trodden it.
Lest we may seem to have written too optimistically or to have fallen into the error of adulation, let us hasten to say that we are not so foolish as to suggest that the King is perfect, or in any way approaches to perfection, or that he will not make mistakes in the long years of reign for which we all hope, because he has not made any mistake in his first year. Unquestionably the King will make mistakes like other men, and unquestionably also as the years go on be may develop some of those prejudices of which we have spoken. As long, however, as sincerity and singleness of aim are his guides and he can resist the supreme danger of being flattered into folly—the danger is almost as great from honest as from dishonest flatterers—the kingship will suffer no wrong at the hands of the present Sovereign. The man who is true to himself as well as to the rest of the world, whether he be sovereign or subject, holds a talisman against Fate.
Previous page
