Episode 10: Modernization of the Monarchy

Admit

the shadow of the law.

Emerging from a memorable immovable

task of defining this hour

a story you can tell this

is but an apparition yesterday.

Listen to me.

It's up

tempo transition.

Heard in London misconducts in Coventry in Oxford

and rhythm off a new revolution in the in

Britain.

Programme tend modernization of the monarchy.

Indiana University Radio a documented essay about contemporary Britain.

We present the shadow of the lion with William Kinzer as your

narrator.

Who today rules Britain.

It would be difficult to say but one would guess that it really happens behind the

dingy grey facade of Whitehall that Victorian jungle of government

offices and ministries whiskery secretaries and civil servants

diplomats and politicians and to which the world looks for

indications of Britain's future.

Beyond

and across the park facing the mom.

Amid the high rise heresy of towering office blocks and surrounded by

traffic. Buckingham.

Palace.

Home of the sovereign a symbol of fantasy in an age of

Commerce and then a third in the utilitarian

advantage to having a moniker.

The future of the monarchy has been frequently discussed in Britain in

pubs in Parliament over cups of tea the country over.

Geoffrey Marshall a political scientist at Oxford University feels

that although many complain of its expense royalty is really more

economical them say the American presidency.

And as I say that's a utilitarian advantage is at the same time there's a general prejudice

again. Interfering with the monarchy in this in this country and it's one

of those things like the House of Lords which since it behaves itself in

terms of democratic decision making then nobody has any great

ambitions to overturn it odds are because they can't think of anything they'd prefer instead.

Nothing in particular is done about it.

You wonder what the people think about the monarchy and leave

her in the quiet of a quaint fishing village along the Cornish coast. You talk with the harbor

master Frankie Curtis in his words.

All right really doable. We do definitely bowling that night but I mean

yes we would. I mean we've always been brought up to for a king in the

grade in the road and I think

yes we were agreeable of a sort of Him and Him Malcolm

Muggeridge ponders the question or rather people think about the Monaco You know they turn

up to see it at the show.

They make jokes about it in private sometimes all of outtakes.

I daresay they they they have a certain sympathy with the

incumbents. They certainly feel as I do myself it doesn't do any particular

harm. It's all expensive but it's not as expensive as other

things that we spend money on. It is useful to

have a symbolic head of state the Queen at

this moment is entertaining the president also. Well I do. He

doesn't look dismiss such aggressive exciting sort of a man and it's a rather good thing

that she takes on that. Job of looking after

the president. Forster somebody has gone to

the mystical side of it. The role of the Queen as head of the nation the head

of the Commonwealth head of the church I don't think means anything to all those people.

Actually you know I think if the monarchy was abolished tonight very few people would get in

trouble tomorrow.

There is in Britain and every day apathy that ignores the

existence of the sovereign coins are passed in the barter of daily business

stamps are licked and used without awareness of the portrait they convey. The

Queen and the consequence of royalty are taken pretty much for granted

except for certain royal occasions which swell national pride.

And yet one gathers that there are a great number of traditionalists in Britain

that if it should ever come to a public decision the monarchy would

survive. It is in spite of Malcolm Muggeridge as dire

prediction that it may all come to an end. The average

British citizen not unlike the citizenry of the world isn't thrown out at the

pageantry and thrilled at the sight of royalty. But as

Don I would walk to my Yorkshire school teacher observes it's a

fluctuating loyalty I should say.

If for example the Queen went on and. On a state visit to Europe or a

Commonwealth visit to Australia or something or another he would again be the first one to

grumble about the Queen having a good holiday. Other countries expense that

I blame to the fact that the man in the street isn't and why just do the

rigors of a royal tour and also be the

Queen's person explains the Wirral to us he thinks he's having a good holiday like he has at

Blackpool at the country's expense.

I actually think there are only seven European monarchies left five of

these being descendants so are married to descendants of Queen Victoria the

matriarch of Europe. Only in Britain is there still a monarchy

on a grander scale complete with religious processions courtiers

mass adulation and above all a full blown title

ever stuck recy. Yet for many it seems an outdated

institution full of trappings and traditional doings reminiscent of

Britain's past. Modern Britain has come to look at the personality

rather than the institution or so at least as the feeling of Geoffrey

Marshall in Oxford.

If you look back at the 19th and 18th centuries

you can see something quite interesting that I think today we what one does get

in the British set up is far too great an

adulation for the actual incumbents of the office that actual people

involved and too little respect for the institution and the 980

ventures the situation reversed in the sense that people could perfectly well respect the institution of

monic a world having no respect at all for the actual

incumbent. I mean a lot of British monarchs are either mad or

immoral and nobody minded saying so.

The company today of course is her most excellent Majesty Elizabeth the

Second by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Ireland. And over other realms and territories queen head of the

Commonwealth defender of the faith solver of the British supporters of my twin.

She is the 40th monarch since the Norman Conquest. She is said to be

shy conscientious painstaking. A close friend of hers is

journalist author Dermot Mora who has written several books about the monarchy.

He speaks of her life in Buckingham Palace as Exhibit A mystic gaited as a

project many kids go she's forced to live a great deal of rugged life in

public. Indeed that is the way of the the means of the moment is

kept up you must be you've got to be disabused and a model

of what you may call the the national ideal of

domestic life but what you've got to expose a good deal of my private life to

public scrutiny.

But Dermot Mora will freely admit that there is an element of mystery

involved a great deal of secrecy surrounding the monarchy.

MR It is if it's actual.

I think it was the great war the better to read about I did you have to go that it would be

wrong to let you know they lied about magic and the magic is

maintained in the silent sandstone base building to which tourists

come to peer at from behind an iron picket fence. Buckingham Palace.

How awesomely Still it seems. Only the passing traffic the murmur of the

crowd the measured beat of a marching sentry built as a huge

hollow rectangle much of the palace is hidden from view. And because the front

rooms are uninhabited except on a few state occasions the palace seems all

the more formidable and faceless. But each morning at 11:30 in the

palace forecourt there is color and sound.

The changing of the guard and afterwards after the

crowd disperses and the pigeons flutter back beneath the eaves of the palace.

One might linger and wonder what it's like behind the palace walls.

Dermot Moore knows let him tell you we're going

to go in Madrid by the what is called the privy preventer. They

did fail at the right hand engine as you pleased about it. Who knew that long

car door consists of rooms occupied

by pet is permitted to push buttons. The private federal

prisons secretary the keeper of the pre-birth

the money buys most of the House would sort of war above that

in the grade or above that open out of the code on the first

floor are the small rooms of the Queen

and the Duke of Edinburgh.

Actually the palace has 600 rooms half a mile a quarter was cleaned

by hundred cleaners. Forty acres of garden kept by nine darkness

and a leak large enough to swallow the whole of Barkley Square.

Then on the far side and seated

behind the front would you see

the mixed side of the square contains

the State Departments the offices have dictating machines and intercoms

with a row of names and the one in red saying the queen.

The third would you approach by the visitors engines and contains.

Various rooms are occupied by people like that in waiting iniquities

and so on and I'm quite certain I don't know that fact about us at all but I'm on the

top floor they used to have been the answer is up there and they're just

not used to have whole rooms up there before she married.

There are more than 300 clocks in the palace. Several TV sets exempt

from license of course and maintained by the Royal electricians.

As for the decor Well it's been a good deal and brightened up a

belated use through the use of your terrible believes of regular wallpapers I

found it trying to the eyes. There's a good little That's from predominance of

red now it's always a good deal being repainted in general like colors

as to be expected.

There exists the influence of every tenant from Queen Victoria to

Elizabeth the Second.

The isolation of the Palace makes it almost a world apart and island

observed from a distance. We're courtiers act as a cushion between royalty

and reality. The queen is relieved of all awkward encounters and

Mundine duties.

Ladies in waiting for instance accompany the queen everywhere answering telephones picking up

handkerchiefs arranging payments and chops for the Queen never carries

money. Her entourage helps to enhance her remoteness but

since she and Prince Philip must have with him always a dresser valet a chauffeur

and one or two detectives entertaining the royal couple can be quite a

commitment.

You did it but I had to guess because it would be good to him to day in the green

without making rather a splash about it. She might wish to be

dated but in bodies that infect anybody except most

intimate friends who would

feel they must make a great to do about it.

Our song The Queen molds in a self-contained

circle of titled and we'll feed friends. But her social contact these days

may extend beyond the periphery of her fairyland existence. The Queen and the

prince quite often give informal luncheon parties to meet cricketers are

diplomats or business man. And she never gives the impression of being in an

unhappy isolation.

Rather. Her world seems complete.

Inside Buckingham bettas seat as he runs his show isn't it. I was right.

Does she want to do the menials for example or if you want

but she only that insists on spending at least one out a day in that outfit with the children and the

joining of her favorite hole.

As was Queen Victoria's is Balmoral the great granite Victorian

castle in Scotland. Nine weeks out of every year the queen retreats from

public to walk ride or shoot and generally relax in the

seclusion of its great estate and I.

Was lucky. Lord.

The rule of the monarchy in modern Britain is pheed and vulnerable.

A subject of considerable debate and criticism. And while an air of

influence still abounds with its accompanying ritual of respect the fact

is well known that the direct power of the monarch has diminished since the reign

of King George the sixth the queen act in England on the advice

of United Kingdom as does and in a message

sent by the Queen is a quote dictated by her Prime Minister author and

expert on the monarchy.

Dermot Marr I would remind you you most I think keep on distinguishing between the

Purina Queen's POV which is what is small and the green influence which is

substantial and group would agree because you see she is

there all the time. Ministers come and

go. She said as as her reign progresses you acquire

more and more experience. She was always being consulted on any

great men great matter would have news was going to carry through.

If they give her a formal constitutional advice to do this

that or the other she is bound to take it. But before we give her that advice they've got

to explain everything to her and she can put her point of view and she can persuade

them for all they were ready. It is the minutes of advise

and the queen acts on that advice. The real fact is that the

queen advises the Minister may or may not act on the advice

achieved the queen insists on being kept informed.

A red box is delivered to Buckingham Palace with all Cabinet minutes and papers

and whether the sufferer Nucingen Balmoral Windsor or in Austria she is

notified of vital decisions and issues and when in London she

receives her Prime Minister every Tuesday night for a face to face chat.

Despite its diminishing role in the running of the country the monarchy is

not entirely immune to national crisis and concern. And with

each passing year its mode of resistance to modern pressures seems

to narrow. Indeed certain royal personalities have helped to bridge the

gap between the magical make believe and the practical sphere of the outside

world. The most notable of course has been the Duke of Edinburgh Prince

Philip. He has been a godsend I think the Prince Consort has won the

admiration of almost everyone for as one Englishman put it

He's a man's man. He writes his own speeches appears on

television. Please Poland presents a formidable figure to complement the

feminine grace of the Queen. He's outspoken offers an initiative

and tries very hard to identify himself with the future.

Peter Walker explain what you've read about has taken a tremendous interest in

scientific and technical advances in the new management techniques and

industry and improved labor relationships in all these modern problems for a

number of reasons the monarchy today he seems closer to the realities of the

world but royalty still remains the pinnacle of class structure.

The standard bearer of the aristocracy.

Rules Britain would not have been difficult to answer that question in the

18th century for the country's then was ruled by the ruling classes

specifically the monarchy and two principal families by the end of the

century and dominance had distinguished or rather select group of some

one hundred and fifty prominent people today because of political

expedience because of land and possessions or national prestige was the number

of titled individuals has greatly increased by the mid

sixties. There were over 900 hereditary peers in Britain

indeed over half the Peerages that exist deep from

19 0 6 or later.

Oh and to learn more about this aspect of British life

you take a train to Kingston on Thames which is just up the river from London.

They are in an unlikely office over a betting shop. You meet Patrick

Montague Smith editor of Debrett's Peerage. He apologizes for

his crowded accommodations and explains that it's only a temporary location

and then he tells you about his publication as a.

Work of reference. We can trace back to the

periods which came out in the reign of troth and then went through various

hands under various name until John de Brecht friend

of a French family became editor and subsequently proprietor.

He died aged 22 and he gave her the name phone. It was of the

new parish and then he called it a bright parrot in the name of time.

Everything in this book published annually provides a record of the leading elements of

Britain's aristocracy the peers baronets Knight age and the companion

age.

Originally as I say they had a third of it to do for King to get that

title and when their titles became hereditary it was NATO

different form who succeeded. It's very different from the continent in

most continental countries you've got a sort of ennoble class that in

this country it's never been restricted into a separate

compartment of life in other words you could rise from from the bottom

to the peerage editor Montagu Smith explains how a title is

inherited.

A soon as a man dies the success

furnishes proof his birth certificate to show his

son of his father his father the marriage certificate shows he's the

Testament. Then he will receive a writ of summons to attend the House of

Lords take the seat. And of course now we have the system of

disclaiming periods that is if the throne doesn't wish to

take. His spirit she have a method by

which he spoke for his life time and when he dies

his brain will have the choice of whether

he wishes to remain a peer or to claim his title.

He's referring of course to the new period to be able of 1963.

Actually no titled person is allowed to sit in the House of Commons. So

prior to the passing of this bill any member of the house receiving the periods

had to give up his seat. Patrick Montague Smith reminds you that there are

lords sitting in the House of Commons but these possess courtesy titles

or happened to be Irish peers who are not allowed to sit in the House of

Lords.

Ah yes. How does our Lord.

And that extraordinary assembly of Duke's servants marquees by

cards barons bishops and judges who are the way the hours in their

club like the atmosphere or amble occasionally from an empty room to chamber

to indulge the privilege of being Britain's. Second legislative body

and house of the Lord with its dark room is embellished

with graphic woodwork and a card to ceilings and a curious charm that

transcends its unimportance

by House of Lords which pays Piers four and a half guineas for a

tempting but needs only three for a quorum and which act only

on bills of choice or supreme need which can do no more

than delay a bill one year or in the case about money below only

a month.

The House of Lords as observed by Malcolm Muggeridge

it's a convenience of politik because it enables it

enables you to reword. Machine

politicians without bribing them I mean in America have to be bribed. Yeah

you can give the peerage. It doesn't cost anything and it keeps them happy. It's an

inexpensive method of buying off inconvenient political supporters.

As a status symbol to be sure is even more attractive today and upper

class ambitions are perhaps more in evidence now than ever before.

Despite the popular picture of the almost bankrupt aristocrat

oppressed by the social front he must maintain possessed of a crumbling

mansion and plead by death duties.

But I don't think one should shed too many tears over this. I mean I don't think the landed

aristocracy although one sort of see spectacular examples of

the old X O Lord Y surviving by showing people around his

country seat and half a crown or a shot. I don't think these are

the tip of the iceberg I don't think on the whole bit. The remnant of the

landed gentry admitted doing two bad ones badly one way and another.

Yes as Geoffrey Marshall explains there are ways to circumvent

death duties to preserve the country estate through the National Trust to

maintain that era of Ascot rules Royce's and townhouse

luxury.

And so the long standing drama of British aristocracy still unfolds

in that tight little island accessed by economic EU.

Who rules Britain cogwheels a government of

diplomacy and power in evidently termed this day in the environs of

Whitehall doning street or the Palace of Westminster. And though the

queen graciously arrives by royal coach each year to open Parliament the

distance between the palace and this political world seems increasingly

remote. OK usually even criticism is heard as in

1065 when a member of the House of Commons arose to question the

official sanction of princes Margaret's visit to the United States. Yet

regarding the same visit to New York Herald-Tribune felt she had represented the British

crown with a fine combination of majesty incest and added.

The Crown has proved itself for a senior adaptable and useful as an

essential source of stability in the gym scene as a focal point for Commonwealth

loyalty as a personification of British

I.

From Indiana University Radio we have presented the modernization of the monarchy

program 10 in a special series of documented essays about contemporary

Britain entitled The shadow of the lion. As written and produced by

liberal a bad time and then a writer was William Kinzer production assistant John

Hopkins. The engineer builder program consultant David canard.

This is done to make speaking.

The shadow of the lie and there's been a series made possible by an Indiana University

faculty research grant and there's a presentation of Indiana University

Radio.

This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.