CHAPTER ONE - THE DEVELOPMENT & THE DECLINE OF THE WESTMINSTER SYSTEM

(Written in May 2007)

All too often the Queen and members of her family are accused, mainly by a subjective media, of existing in an indolent state of luxury on taxpayer monies, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. At over eighty years of age, Her Majesty works harder than many people even half her age. The Prince of Wales toils assiduously for good causes and raises more money for charity than any other person in the world. Similarly, Princess Ann deservedly earns the title of one of the hardest working royals in history. Furthermore, the Queen does not receive a salary but is only paid an allowance for costs and the upkeep of the royal establishments and yet even that is only a partial return of the monies the Government receives from the Crown Estates¹³⁴.

Despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary, the media, and those who take pleasure in denigrating the Monarchy, continue with their iniquitous lies and infamous absurdities. Even the announcement in May 2007 by General Sir Richard Dannatt KCB CBE MC, Chief of the General Staff of the United Kingdom, that a decision had been made not to allow Prince Harry to join his regiment in Iraq¹, produced the usual denouncements of favouritism, whereas the truth is that it is quite the reverse.

What this decision has actually shown is that, as third in line to the Throne, Prince Harry is not free to lead a normal existence. Whilst he, personally, was always ready to place his life on the line to serve his country, his presence would have created a target that would have put the lives of others in danger.

Indeed, the exponents of, to quote from Robert Burns², ‘sour bigotry’³, should appreciate that being a member of the Royal Family is, on many occasions, anything but a privilege, but rather an onerous burden that Prince Harry will have to endure for some time and a cross which his brother, Prince William, will have to bear for the rest of his life.

Whatever one may think of the war in Iraq, or of that in Afghanistan, the hearts of all those who care go out to soldiers fighting on the front-line against terrorism. Although Muslim for well over a thousand years, it is only in recent times that Iraq has been a war-zone of bloodshed and tyranny; one finds it difficult to imagine that the once oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein⁴ was in times past the homeland of thriving civilisations which existed five thousand and more years ago, even before the Pyramids which seem, to most people, to be the sole illustration of those ancient and illustrious times.

The problem is that we know so very little about the real past of those ancient cultures. We can, of course surmise that they would not have been blighted with the asinine election campaigns of our modern politicians with their absurd billion dollar core and non-core promises (did not Disraeli⁵⁷ say of his own party: the mule of politics that engenders nothing⁵). However, we do know that even in those distant ages, there were kings and governments and cities with law and order. The Bible itself tells us in Genesis 4:17 that Cain was building a City.⁶

To build and maintain a city obviously requires law and order which means that some sort of civilisation existed long before anything yet uncovered by man. Whilst the earliest written records that are available to us date from the early civilisation of Mesopotamia, there must have been in existence an intelligent culture in Britain which created the ‘standing stones’, the most famous of which is of course, Stonehenge⁷. The name is possibly a derivative of Saxon English meaning a stone structure or ‘hanging stones’ of which construction commenced around 2800 BC, thus predating by around 300 years, the pyramids of Egypt!

Stonehenge comprises huge stone slabs and boulders being somehow unaccountably transported for more than 150 miles from the Preseli Mountain Range⁸ in Wales to Salisbury Plains. The amazing thing about these ‘standing stones’ is their inexplicably accurate alignment to the summer solstice and other astronomical observations. Likewise inexplicable are the mathematical computations used in the earlier construction of the great burial mounds found throughout Great Britain.

In his ‘Guilt and Sorrow’ the nineteenth century romantic poet, William Wordsworth⁹ wrote:

Pile of Stone-henge! so proud to hint yet keep
Thy secrets, thou that lov’st to stand and hear

No one has as yet been able to unlock the secrets of Stonehenge or to uncover the civilisation that constructed it. There are many theories, one of which is that Britain is the remainder of what was once a much greater area of land spreading southwards towards Africa called ‘Atlantis’, first written of by the Greek Philosopher Plato¹⁰ around 360 BC in his dialogues ‘Timaeus and Critias’¹¹.

However, whilst there is no surviving record, the indisputable fact is that Stonehenge is itself proof that 5,000 years ago there existed in Britain an intelligent civilisation which would have had a law and order society. We will never know whether that ‘society’ was ruled by a king, but we do know through mankind’s first known written records of Sumer in the Mesopotamia of pre-Babylonian days that kings did exist at the time!

Mesopotamia is the first civilisation so far known to mankind, evolving in 8500 B.C. and progressing into what became the advanced Sumerian culture of around 4000 B.C. It was they who developed the first known writing in the form of lines and shapes called ‘cuneiform’ and, it is thought, were the first people to construct the wheel, used originally for the manufacture of pots.

The Egyptian civilisation closely followed, but it was from Ur¹² in Babylon that Abraham travelled to establish Israel. It is therefore not surprising that there is a great similarity amongst the legends of ancient times and those recounted by Moses in Genesis.

Most of the Kings and chieftains of these early times were warlords, ruling by force, but along with civilisation came rulers who were perhaps more politicians than military men. Indeed, many of the early Egyptian, Greek and Roman rulers owed their positions to cerebral rather than physical attributes.

However, they all submitted themselves to one or more higher deities and accepted, in religion and often in governance, the strictures and advice of the priests. In some societies the priests became the rulers and established what is known as theocracies. Modern- day Iran is one such theocracy where since 1979 the political institutions remain subject to the clerics. Ancient Israel was once ruled by prophets; and even modern Israel, although democratic, is subject to rabbinical law.

All early religions required a sacrifice of one sort or another for a blessing or an appeasement. Abraham¹³ was required to sacrifice Isaac¹⁴ and was released from this only because of his absolute obedience. The significance is, however, that Abraham accepted the necessity in having to sacrifice his favourite son, whose miraculous birth to the 90 year old Sara¹⁵ and the 100 year-old Abraham made him exceedingly precious indeed.

Religion, therefore, became intertwined with secular rule, and the King became accepted as the living representative, and often a sacrifice to the deities. Because the King was needed to govern, it became customary for other humans or animals to be sacrificed in his place. It was thus that the ‘king’ became the physical representative of whatever deities his people worshipped.

The Roman Emperors went a step further and declared themselves to be divine beings. It was in an attempt to emulate the power and authority of the Caesars that the German and Russian Emperors called themselves: ‘Kaiser’ and ‘Czar’ which are derivatives of the word ‘Caesar’

However, when Rome accepted Christianity as its official religion, instead of the Emperors declaring themselves to be gods, as was the earlier custom, they were thereafter consecrated unto the Almighty God, as was our Queen at her own Coronation.

In fact, the British coronation ceremony follows almost exactly the ancient Israelite ceremony of dedicating and sacrificing the sovereign to the service of God and the people, thus making the Monarch a ‘priest-king’. It is because of her binding Coronation Oath that the Queen has indicated that it is not within her right to abdicate.

The Anointing also has a very special purpose for the Queen. It has been said that: this has imbued her (the Queen) with a conviction of something irrevocable and that She must do everything within her power to maintain the Gift of Royal Privilege and Obligation bestowed upon Her. Shakespeare¹⁶ wrote in his ‘Richard II’: Not all the water in a rough sea can wash the balm from an anointed king.

It is interesting to note that a poll conducted some years ago held that 30% of the people polled believed the Queen had been chosen by God to reign¹⁷.

However, whatever one may think in this regard, what is true is that from the time Augustine¹⁸ converted the pagan Saxon King, Æthelberht¹⁹, in 597 AD, our monarchy has been based on the scriptures of the Holy Bible.

We, today, owe so very much to the Saxons who found themselves in Britain more by accident than design. Being an island kingdom, Britain had been subjected for several thousands of years to many invasions with predators drawn to the riches of the island of pearls, gold, flints and above all, tin. Trade with Europe and later with the civilisations of the Middle East had been taking place for several thousand years prior to the Roman invasion.

The Saxons were never traders. They, together with the Angles and associated tribes, were living in the swamplands of Schleswig in what is now Northern Germany and Southern Scandinavia, and having no fertile lands or treasures had therefore been of no interest to the Roman Empire.  The Roman historian, Tacitus²⁰, wrote in his ‘Germania’ that the habitat of the Angles was:  defended by rivers or forests. Nor in one of these nations does aught remarkable occur, only that they universally join in the worship of Herthum; that is to say, the Mother Earth.

The known involvement of the Saxon people with Britain goes back to the Roman occupation when in around 300 AD several hundred were brought over by Rome as ‘Foderati’ or mercenaries and stationed to protect the extreme borders against raids. However, when facing defeat in 410 AD, the Romans extracted some 5,000 of their soldiers to defend Rome itself against attack, but with raids - predominantly by the Vikings²¹ – increasing, the Britons adopted the Roman practice of hiring Saxon mercenaries. However, unlike the Romans, they reneged upon their contract and denied payment to the mercenaries, who, seeing the weakened state of those they had been hired to protect, turned aggressor and settled down on land they forcibly occupied in lieu of payment. The richness of the soil and the wealth of the country in general led others from the Saxon lands to migrate, at first in small and non-invasive numbers, and then in such quantities as to provoke a dire threat.

Eventually, Britain succumbed to the invasion, and the Saxons, along with the Angles and the Jutes settled in lands along the east coast of Britain and followed the line of the Thames as far as Oxfordshire. Their sheer numbers were able, over time, to purge the Christian religion from the occupied lands and to substitute, instead, the worship of their Saxon gods.

The Saxons also eradicated the language of Roman Briton, replacing it with their own largely vernacular language, the dialects of which were basically understood by most of the occupying tribes, whereas the more elitist and scholarly Latin was not. This commonplace ability to communicate was a binding factor amongst the ordinary people and, as time progressed, the disparate peoples who now occupied Britain were able to become one single nation due to the unifying factor of one collective language generally understood by most.

This, of course, also facilitated the development of the early processes of law and government and it was in this manner that Saxon Britain deviated from the rest of Europe and developed its own code of laws and methods of governance. It is now so very strange that British law and British justice, once admired throughout the world, even by its enemies, has now been made subject, by the British parliament itself, to Roman Law and the Napoleonic code of Europe!

THE CONCEPT OF THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGSHIP

The way in which the Saxon kings ruled was also dissimilar from other parts of the world, for the Witan⁷⁹⁹, the early precursor of the House of Lords and Privy Council, exacted authority from an early stage. The Witan chose their kings on the basis of the person most suitable to rule whether or not he was the eldest male son.

Although Augustine converted King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity in 597, the edict of Pope Gregory²² was not, to impose Roman traditions upon the Saxons but to adapt their heathen practices and convert their temples for the use of the Christian Church. It was thus that the names of Saxon gods have been immortalised in the English, and subsequently weekdays internationally.

Of course, prior to the Saxon invasions of the 4^th and 5^th centuries, Christianity had thrived, particularly during the latter days of the Roman occupation and, it is now believed, even before the Emperor Constantine²³ converted to Christianity. Gildas, who was a monk at Glastonbury in the twelfth century, wrote, from records thought to be later destroyed by fire, that Christianity came to Britain during the reign of Tiberius Caesar⁷³² who ruled from AD 14 until AD 37. Britain was not subjugated by Rome until successfully invaded by Tiberius’s nephew, Claudius Caesar⁷³³ in AD 43. 

Constantine’s father, Constantius, had been Emperor of the West; and Constantine spent much of his childhood in Britain. He was in York when his father died and he was proclaimed Emperor in his place. It is thought that his mother had been converted to the Christian Faith by the early British church. The huge basilica, St John Lateran²⁴ in Rome, remains as an impressive tribute to Constantine.

Whilst kings of England were consecrated unto God, this did not mean a combining of church and state, which always remained separate, even though some political and most clerical offices under the King were held by priests. This was because education and literacy were, until the advent of the printing press, the sole prerogative of the church.

The state and the church were combined in 1534 when Henry VIII¹¹⁸, as a result of the Act of Supremacy²⁵, was recognised as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, but England continued to remain a secular monarchy and not a theocracy, as it was the state which controlled the affairs of the church, albeit in the name of the King. Nevertheless, this joining of state and church created a complex situation which was totally mishandled by the Stuart dynasty; for the Scottish kings, who had been strongly influenced through intermarriage with the French monarchy, believed inexplicably in the divine right of kingship, where the very soul of the King was believed to be the Spirit of God. This was, of course, very similar to early civilisations which had revered their shamans or sorcerers for their magical powers which they believed were an expression of divinity.

Just prior to his accession to the Throne of England, James I (then VI of Scotland³⁹), a direct ancestor of the Queen, wrote to Cecil, the secretary to Elizabeth 1 For my part, I hold it the office of a king as sitting upon the throne f God As James I, King of England, he later stated in a speech to the English parliament²⁶: Kings are justly called Gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth. In another speech to parliament in 1609 James said:  The State of Monarchy is the supremest thing on earth, for kings are not only God’s lieutenants, and sit upon God’s Throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. He said of parliament: I am surprised that my ancestors (he was a great-great grandson of Henry VII⁴⁴) should ever have allowed such an institution to come into existence. This attitude was an underlying reason for the Civil War of 1642-165 1 and the consequent execution of James’s son, Charles I³⁷, and his replacement by a parliamentary republic and then a dictatorship. It is interesting to note that only one other English monarch, Jane 1⁷³⁴, had been beheaded although at least six others had been killed or murdered for failing to respect the conventions of English kingship.

THE WESTMINSTER SYSTEM

The mistake that the Stuarts made was that, being only superficially Protestant, they believed implicitly in the ‘divine right of the King to rule’ whereas in England there had been constitutional developments entrenching the ancient Saxon beliefs that the King ruled by ‘the (divine) right of the people’. Dr Geoffrey Fisher GCVO, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1945 until 1961 and later Baron Fisher of Lambeth²⁷, explained that the difference was that the British Crown was worn, not by ‘Divine Right’ but because it was ‘God-called’. William I²⁸ (the Conqueror) appreciated this difference, as did his son, Henry 1²⁹, who granted the first Charter of Liberties (or Rights) ³⁰ to the people.

We do know that it was during the reign of Henry I that a parliament - comprising the bishops and the King’s tenants-in-chief - met. This council was the early foundation of the House of Lords. It was more than a century later in 1265 that the famous Parliament of Simon de Montfort³¹ met and for the first time incorporated a representation of burghers from towns and counties together with lesser clergy and knights.

The treaty of Magna Carta¹⁵⁰ gave the parliament, although embryonic at the time, the right to tax: No scutage nor aid shall be imposed on our kingdom, unless by common counsel of our kingdom.

As a consequence, subsequent parliaments - although initially haphazardly constructed and meeting on a random basis throughout the ensuing centuries - had the power to be a constant bar to the absolute rule of kings who tended to summon them to meet as seldom as possible, and then generally only when they needed funds.

Whilst there had been earlier charters granted by the King guaranteeing the rights of the people, the first Magna Carta, forced from King John³² at Runnymede³³ on the 15th June 1215 by leading nobles backed by an army of some 2000 knights and retainers, established not only the guidelines for future parliaments but essentially the basis on which the conventions of parliamentary government were formed. Additionally, the control of the nation’s finances, originating from Magna Carta, led to the authority of the Commons and its ability to eventually create a parliamentary system of government.

As well as ensuring that certain taxes were no longer to be left to the prerogative of the King and could only be collected by the common consent of the realm, the Great (or Magna) Carta basically guaranteed the freedom of the courts and, most importantly, the concept of habeas corpus. The Charter was incorporated into the Statute Roll in 1297 and was confirmed on some fifty five further occasions by succeeding kings.

The partition of the parliament into the two Houses of the Commons and the Lords had the effect of entrenching the essence of Magna Carta and the rule of law into the parliamentary system. It was this fundamental principle that exacerbated the differences which led to the Civil War of the 17th century.

The Westminster doctrine therefore developed as a result of the centuries-long struggle for power between the King and the parliament. It was a struggle which could well have cumulated when, in 1649, following the Civil War, the parliament imprisoned and, later, executed the King. However, although the parliament had assumed absolute control of governance, it did not know what to do with supreme authority and failed miserably, resulting in almost total chaos ending only when, in 1653, Oliver Cromwell³⁴ closed down the parliament and assumed for himself total authority as Lord Protector. Never had any English king held such absolute power. Fortunately, his republican dynasty ended when his weakly son, Richard³⁵, abdicated and in 1660 parliament was restored and it invited Charles II³⁶, son of Charles I, to take up the throne thus re-establishing the constitutional checks and balances of the fledgling democracy that had existed prior to the republic.

Heavily influenced by his mother, Queen Henriette-Marie⁷⁷⁵, a daughter of King Henry IV of France, Charles II could be said to be at most, a closet Roman Catholic, at least sympathetic to Roman Catholicism. He maintained extremely close ties to his maternal cousin Louis XIV³⁸, King of France, during the entirety of his reign; but he never forgot the execution of his father, and respected at all times the supremacy of the parliament, even though he secretly resented it. It was only on his deathbed that he acknowledged his Roman Catholicism.

That same influence no doubt led to his brother, James II³⁹,  who was a soldier and in no way a diplomat, refusing to put aside or trivialise his Roman Catholic beliefs. It was this rather obstinate, but at the same time worthy, attitude that led to the second and final confrontation between parliament and the King resulting in the Parliament inviting William of Orange⁴⁰, a grandson of Charles I, to invade and assume the throne along with his wife, Mary⁴¹, the elder daughter of James II. Parliament later said of James that he has sought  to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom.

The parliament listed twelve main complaints including the dispensing or suspending of laws of which he did not approve - levying money for his own use without parliamentary consent; grossly interfering with elections, corrupting the legal system by establishing his own courts and initiating arbitrary prosecutions - imposing excessive bail, fines and punishments; and maintaining a standing army in peacetime without the consent of Parliament. Following the arrival of William in England, James fled London on the 11th December 1688, throwing the great Seal of England into the Thames, and by this act was held to have abdicated.

On the 12th February 1689, parliament drew up a Declaration of Rights⁵⁰⁴, affirming the ancient rights and liberties of the people and this was presented on the next day to William and Mary at a formal ceremony during which they were, jointly, offered the crown.

This was the first occasion on which an incoming sovereign had been required to enter into a contract with the parliament. According to the 17th century jurist, Sir Edward Coke⁴², the legislative supremacy of the parliament at this time became: transcendent and absolute¹⁵².

The Declaration of Rights was enshrined in the Bill of Rights of 1689, the long title of which is: ‘An Act for declaring the rights and liberties of the subject and settling the succession of the Crown’. The intent of the Act was not to transfer the totality of the sovereign’s power to parliament but rather to limit the Sovereign in acting against the interests of the nation as a whole. The ‘powers’ that were assumed by the parliament were solely as trustee for the people. It was required that parliament thereafter be allowed to function free from any control by the Monarch. Whatever dispensing and suspending powers that remained with the Monarchy were removed, and taxation could not be levied without parliamentary consent.

Writing nearly two hundred years after the Bill of Rights was enacted, Macaulay⁴³ in his ‘History of England’ written between the years of 1849 to 1861, said: It is because we had a preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in the nineteenth.

It was at this time that the King ceased to have power over the life and death of his subjects, but he was still the executive head of government with the right to select and chair the council (or cabinet) of ministers. Since parliament had, in 1688, invited William of Orange, a great-grandson of James I, to assume the throne from James II, the succession was established as a right of the parliament.

It was, actually, only following the invasion and establishment of the Norman dynasty, that the crown adopted the principle of hereditary primogeniture⁷⁹⁸. In Saxon times, it had been subject to election by the council or Witan; and often bypassed the direct line in favour of a person whom it was thought would be a more suitable king. 

The greatest deviation in the direct line of succession from 1066 was the Tudor dynasty. Generally the crown moved on to, or was seized, only by close claimants, but the claim of Henry VII⁴⁴ was a long bow to draw. Owen Tudor⁴⁵, whose Welsh name was ‘Owain ap Meredith ap Tewdur’, married Catherine of Valois⁴⁶, widow of King Henry V⁷⁹⁷. The couple had five children, the eldest of whom, Edmund, married Lady Margaret Beaufort⁴⁷, one amongst many of the minor claimants to the Throne, being a descendant of Edward III⁴⁸ through John of Gaunt⁴⁹. Their son, born a few months after Edmund’s death, was Henry Tudor.

The seizing of the throne by Richard III⁵⁰ in place of his nephew, the child-king Edward V⁵¹, caused a revolt in which Henry defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth⁵² in 1485 and, being a descendant of the royal line through his mother, he was crowned king, by consent of the parliament, that same year.

When it became clear that the heiress presumptive (the Protestant Princess Ann⁵³, younger daughter of James II, was not likely to produce a live heir, it was the parliament which legislated through the Act of Settlement of 1701 that the protestant Princess Sophia⁵⁴ (a granddaughter of James I), would in that event, succeed Ann. In the terms of the Act: Princess Sophia Electoress and Dutchess dowager of Hanover and the heirs of her body being Protestants upon whom the crown of England is settled by an Act of Parliament.^{500 & Annexure 12}

The extraordinary circumstances of the period 1660 to 1714 saw two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren of James I becoming monarchs of England: Charles II and James II; and then William III and Mary II, Anne I and George I⁵⁵  (the son of Sophie, who had died just two months before Anne in 1714), who was invited by the parliament to ascend the throne. It was at this time that there began a dramatic and permanent transfer of power from the King to the parliament.

The precedent of ministers meeting in cabinet in the absence of the King was established - not as is said. because George was a German barbarian who was ignorant and spoke no English and therefore left the ministers to govern on their own, but because he was required by the English government to further British interests on the Continent. 

Whilst Walpole⁵⁶ was considered to be the first ‘prime’ minister, he never acknowledged himself as such. He was the ‘first minister’ and the leader in the parliament. Any power he exercised was on behalf of the King who was, in effect, still the nation’s chief executive.

It was the King who chaired the cabinet council and it was only in his absence that it was chaired by the ‘first minister’. In fact the term ‘Prime Minister’ was only first used in an official document when Disraeli⁵⁷ signed the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, and had no special precedence in the Kingdom until the Order of Precedence of 1905 recognised the office.

Whilst the English of George I was very bad, perhaps even excruciating, it did improve and after some years he was actually making notations on ministerial documents in English. However, he, together with the entirety of the Government, would have been proficient in French, thereby completely disproving the theory that the King was unable to communicate with his ministers.

Furthermore, the Court of Hanover was one of the most progressive and cultured in Europe. George was an Elector, which meant that he was one of the Council which ‘elected’ from amongst themselves the Holy Roman Emperor. In fact, it is possible that George himself may have been elected Emperor had he not been made heir to the throne of England.

George I came to the throne by right of the Act of Settlement (12 and 13 William III, cap 2, 1702)⁵⁰⁰ which legislated that the crown would go to his mother, Sophie or to the issue of her body. However, the parliament could easily have amended this Act and, in fact, Queen Anne had made it known to her half- brother, the ‘old Pretender’, that the Throne could pass to him if he renounced Roman Catholicism and became a protestant. He refused,  the Act remained as is,  and the throne passed on her death to her cousin George.

Other than his being the most senior protestant in line to the throne, the British parliament wished to make use of his connections to extend their influence in Europe to equal or even surpass that of France with which they were then at war in ‘The War of the Spanish Succession' (1701-14). His son, George II⁵⁸ was actually the last king to lead British troops into battle at the Battle of Detingen in 1743.

History books also deride the Hanoverian dynasty as one which was morally corrupt, saved only by the example set by Queen Victoria. It is very easy to judge the times of three hundred years ago by our present standards, which themselves can in no way be said to be pristine! Why pick on the immorality of the Georges and ignore the depravity of the Stuarts? James I, and Anne I were all said to have had homosexual lovers whilst Charles II had countless public mistresses who begat him some sixteen illegitimate children from whom several of our current dukedoms descend.³⁶

Whilst George III⁵⁹ and his wife, Charlotte⁶⁰, were the first happily married king and queen of their dynasty, George had had his fill of mistresses; and was even rumoured to have entered into a morganatic (and therefore illegal) marriage with a shoemaker’s daughter, a Quakeress, Hannah Lightfoot⁶¹.

Even Queen Victoria⁶², as a young person, was said to have been somewhat broad­minded. As Queen she could see nothing wrong in her Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne⁶³, openly having a mistress, until her puritanical husband, Albert⁶⁴, persuaded her otherwise. The age of Victorian prudery was not the product of the Queen but that of the Lutheran Albert, the Prince Consort, whom Victoria had married in 1840. Albert, whose father’s sister was Victoria’s mother (herself said to have had an improper relationship with her secretary, Sir John Conroy), wrought huge changes in British society causing, Lord Melbourne to bemoan: ‘‘This damned morality will ruin everything!’’

Prince Albert died of typhoid in 1861 at the very young age of 42. Benjamin Disraeli eulogised: With Prince Albert we have buried our Sovereign. This German Prince has governed England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and energy such as none of our kings have ever shown.  However, Victorian morality was in many ways hypocritical. Men still kept mistresses openly and high society remained licentious. Country house-parties were renowned for their orgies conducted now behind bedroom doors, and yet, in company, it was considered to be imprudent to even mention a lady's ‘leg’! In this day and age, when alternative ways of sexual expression are taught to teenagers in schools, who are we to condemn the lack of morality of the early Hanoverians? We should not forget that it was under them that England became more of a church-going nation than ever before and moreover exported its Christian ideals throughout the world.

Whilst people today, with all our material and worldly advantages, may not go to church and may not even believe in God, we cannot escape the fact that we, under the Crown of the United Kingdom, are Christian nations, in that our laws, our societies and our cultures are based on biblical traditions. We therefore owe a lot to the Hanoverians, for if it were not for them, Westminster democracy may never have developed and we could well have gone the same way as France, and not been the saviour of the democratic world - such as it is  - today.

It was thus that, during the later reign of George III, great-grandson of George I, it became convention for future first (or prime) ministers to enjoy the confidence of a majority in the House of Commons. Indeed, it was not until this reign that what had developed over the years in practice was put into words by the then prime minister, Lord North⁶⁵ (prime-minister 1770 to 1782): Your Majesty is well apprised that in this country the Prince on the Throne cannot with prudence oppose the deliberate resolution of the House of Commons.⁸¹³

King George III was the last to chair a Cabinet Council (in 1781) and his son, William IV⁶⁶, the last to dismiss a government which still held a majority in the Commons when he dismissed the Melbourne ministry in 1834 and by the time Victoria, the granddaughter of George III, ascended the Throne in 1837, the system of government was fairly similar to that which we have today.

It was during her reign that the nineteenth century law authority Blackstone⁶⁷ stated that:

Parliament has sovereign and uncontrollable authority in the making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving and expounding of laws concerning matters of all possible denominations ecclesiastical or temporal, civil, military, maritime or criminal. This being the place where that absolute despotic power, which in all Governments must reside somewhere, is entrusted by the Constitution of those Kingdoms. All mischief’s and grievances, operations and remedies that transcend the ordinary course of laws are within the reach of this extra­ordinary tribunal. It can regulate the succession to the crown, as was done for Henry VII and William III. It can alter the established religion of the land, as was done in a variety of instances in the reigns of Henry VIII and his three children. True it is that what the Parliament doth no authority upon earth can do.⁸¹³

This means that, under the Westminster system, the parliament, comprising the King, the lords and the commons, has the right to make or unmake any law.

Time and time again, the British parliament has legislated against the tenor of constitutional convention, even to the extent of extending its own life, such as in 1716 and 1914. The precedent has therefore been set for the convention ‘that parliament can do no wrong’ for it can legislate to legalise what was hitherto an illegality.

Whilst the parliaments of most Crown Realms are restricted only by their respective constitutions, the British parliament is not, for the British constitution is vested in the parliament and regrettably now openly flouted by the executive. However, it was during the reign of Victoria that the evolution of Westminster took what I believe was a wrong turn with the transfer of much of the royal prerogative to the executive.

In the United Kingdom, the lower house of the parliament has virtually nullified the House of Lords and abrogated sovereignty to the European Union so that it can be said that the parliament now comprises the European Union, the Queen and the Commons. 

However, in the Realms, such as Australia and Canada, the opinion of Coke and Blackstone on the supremacy of parliament remain applicable, as their written constitutions have ensured the sovereignty of their parliaments, even though there is an increasing trend to empower the offices of prime-minister, creating the illusion of ‘presidential prime-ministerships’.

The Australian Constitution is the only one under the Crown which its parliament (or parliaments) have no power to directly amend. This can only be achieved by a vote of the people at referendum, which is why executive power continues to remain vested in the Queen and exercisable by the Governor-General as Her Majesty’s representative (section 61)⁷³⁵

However, in 1986 the Federal and State Parliaments enacted the Australia Acts^{68 & Annexure 2} which, although introduced ostensibly to remove all vestiges remaining in the state legislatures of old colonial Acts passed by the British Parliament in the nineteenth century, also seemed to empower the Australian Parliaments, combined, to be able to amend the Constitution Act of 1900 of the United Kingdom⁶⁹ of which the Australian Constitution⁷⁰ is a schedule. This is of tremendous concern should one political party control all seven parliaments in Australia.

Albert Venn Dicey’s⁷¹ ’Law of the Constitution’ of 1885, was the first publication to explain the concept of parliamentary democracy and to detail the following three principles which distinguished Westminster democracy from all other constitutional systems:

The legislative supremacy of parliament.

The prevalence of the rule of law. 

The dependence of the Constitution on the conventions.                                     

Constitutional monarchists, including myself, have been wont to proudly point to the Westminster system as being based on what is termed the ‘doctrine of the separation of powers’ in that the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, as organs of the Government, are prevented by constitutional convention from exercising or interfering with the functions of each other. The process is supposed to be that, whilst the legislature enacts the laws, the executive must administer them and the courts interpret them.

It was always felt that the separation of powers is a protection of the freedoms of the people, for if they were all entrusted to one entity, then that would surely lead to an abuse of power and a threat to democracy. However, when one analyses the process of government in any country under the Westminster system, one finds that this doctrine does not hold true in the absolute sense and, in fact, has never held true other than as a matter of honour which, unfortunately, is sadly lacking in the parliaments of this modern age.

Prior to the recent modifications to the Lords, it could be said that the British legislature was somewhat independent of absolute control by the Prime Minister, as the hereditary Peers could never be influenced by the party whips. However, changes to the House of Lords in 1911⁷³⁷ and 1999⁹⁵ have so emasculated their potency, that it can now be said that the parliament is today dominated absolutely by the executive. Similarly, in Australia, the senate was established by the Constitution to be both a house of review and representative of the interests of each State in the Federation.

Regrettably, it has since become a second party-political chamber controlled by the whips, and therefore its role as a protector of the people’s democracy has been impaired. The mistake that so many make is to equate ‘democracy’ with modern parliamentary government. In its original Greek translation democracy means ‘people power’, not rule by a few which is, sadly what our Parliaments have now actually become, due not to any constitutional change but rather to public indifference.

The sovereign, as well as being an integral part of the legislature is also the head of the judiciary and the supreme executive authority in the land. When the prerogative resided in the King, it was exercised on a strictly impartial basis without fear or favour. However, now that much of the prerogative, or power, of the crown, is exercised by the Prime Minister, that impartiality is no more.

Even though the Lord Chancellor, as head of the judicature, was always a member of the cabinet, at the same time he was an officer of the Crown and sat in the House of Lords and was thus able to maintain a sense of impartiality. Today his office has been severely politicised, and no longer enjoys a measure of autonomy, as opposed to the situation in the Realms, where law officers still continue to zealously guard their independence from political interference. The only saving factor, in spite of the diminished prerogative, is the continuing strict impartiality of the Queen; a requirement expected of each Governor-General in the Realms, but regrettably not always adhered to, .

WORLD GOVERNMENT

George Orwell⁷², made famous by his works ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’, once wrote: He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past.⁷³⁶ How very true the writings of this prophetic man have become, particularly in his ‘1984’, as we experience, in the sterile society of 2007, the increasing intrusiveness of government into our day to day lives.

The nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth saw the loss of most monarchies throughout the world. For the first time there were revolutionaries disseminating anarchism. Theories of secret societies abounded, but have not there been conspiracies amongst humans, ever since gathering into communities, for the sole purpose of gaining power for themselves? The 19th century Ralph Waldo Emerson⁷³ was quite right when he wrote: Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members⁸⁰²

The ancient empires sought to conquer or otherwise subdue and rule their known worlds. The Roman Empire may have been the first world government, for there was little of the civilised world left outside its borders. The next world government could be said to be the British Empire, for its flag flew in all four corners of the globe.

Dante’s⁷⁴ book ‘Monarchia’, written in 1329, touches upon the vision of universal supremacy; and the 1625 ‘De Jure Belli ac Pacis’ of Hugo Grotius⁷⁵ is looked upon as the origins of international law.

Over the past thousand years, particularly since the time of the Crusades⁷⁶, there has been a plethora of secret societies from the Knights Templar⁷⁷ to the more esoteric freemasonry orders. The late middle ages saw the establishment of the Rosicrucians⁷⁹ and in the eighteenth century, the Illuminati⁷⁸. 

It is interesting to note the comments of famous individuals of past ages on the subject of conspiracy. In 1798, George Washington⁸⁰ stated:

It is not my intention to doubt that the doctrine of the iluminati and the principles of Jacobinism⁸¹ had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am.

And, in 1844, Benjamin Disraeli made the very intriguing comment: The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. 

Given the comment of Mayer Rothschild⁸² in 1828:  Allow me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who writes the laws and the earlier observation of Thomas Jefferson⁸³ in 1816:

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

 It is no wonder that many books have been written - and today's internet is replete with theories - of the many conspiracies of the banking and business communities to control global wealth. Until only recently, to talk about global domination was taboo.

Today President George W Bush⁸⁴ openly talks about the new world order, which he supports - provided, of course - it is his new world order! The United Nations⁸⁵, the World Bank⁸⁶, the International Monetary Fund⁸⁷, and other such-like organisations may influence and even control on a global scale, but they do not rule. Indeed, no one entity has ever reached the heights of supreme global dominance as those who control the European Union⁸⁸.

I have written so many times on the manner in which the European Union has become more than simply a 'common market' and today has sovereignty over the laws and the parliaments of its member nations. It has, in fact, if not in name, created an empire over which a bureaucracy rules, unanswerable to any elected legislature.

THE DISEMBOWELMENT OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE EMPOWERMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

The European Union developed from the embryonic European Economic Community, which was created by the 1957 Treaty of Rome⁸⁹. The United Kingdom joined the EEC by acceding to the Treaty of Rome on the 1st January 1973. Members of the British parliament at the time now admit they had never read the treaty!

The Treaty of Rome has subsequently been amended and added to by subsequent treaties, all of which have been incorporated into British law by Acts of the British parliament resulting in the complete subjugation of both parliament and law to the European Union. The latest treaty (Treaty of Nice⁹⁰) to be acceded to in 2007, will incorporate most of the provisions of the European Constitution which was abandoned after being rejected by the voters of France and the Netherlands in 2005.

The European Union operates through four principal institutions, these being the European Council of Ministers⁹¹, the European Court of Justice⁹², the European Commission⁹³ and the European Parliament⁹⁴. The Council has complete authority over the issuing of directives and is the real source of power within the Union.

The parliament, although comprised of elected representatives of European Regions within the Union, does not allow its members to introduce their own legislation, but only to do the bidding of the Council of Ministers. The administration of the Union and, in particular, the drafting of its legislation, is assisted by some 3,000 non-elected committees which often meet in secret and on which no member of the European parliament sits. In fact little is known of the composition of these ‘committees’. The parliament of the Union is, therefore, actually a camouflage, with rule by a selected few.

The sort of Westminster democracy we enjoy under the Crown of the United Kingdom is a total anathema to the dictatorial rule that is the ideal of the Union. This is why it has been the intent of the Union to work assiduously to fragment the United Kingdom and invalidate its constitutional instruments. It has broken Britain into nine regions each answerable direct to Brussels, so that there is no longer any ‘England’ on the map of the Union.

Over recent years moves have been made to dismantle the hereditary constitutional offices of the Kingdom, including the House of Lords which, as a non-elected chamber was never able to be controlled by the political regime. The member nations of the union have been separated into 93 regions which themselves are divided into sub and sub-sub regions totalling some 1,291!

In the 16th century, William Shakespeare, that great writer and poet whose words the British have always turned to in times of war, of stress and of trauma, portrayed in Hamlet’s  Orphelia’s mourning her father thus: Which bewept to the grave did go. His words could well have been used to bemoan the demise of British democracy for, on the 7th March 2007, the British parliament approved proposals to dismantle the House of Lords and make it an elected chamber, politicising and thus subordinating this final safeguard in the institution of Westminster democracy to the executive, which has subjected its own self to the domination of the European Union. 

In 1999, the House of Lords Act removed the right of most hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House⁹⁵. Only ninety two hereditary peers, seventy five of whom were elected by other hereditary peers and seventeen appointed, have been allowed to remain until a decision has been made on total reform.

Whilst the 1832 Reform Act⁹⁶ had the effect of empowering the Commons, it was in 1909 that a major confrontation between the two houses of parliament led to the humbling of the Upper House from which it never recovered. The confrontation was prompted by the ‘socialistic’ budget of the then Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd-George⁹⁷, who was possibly the most corrupt politician of the 20th century. Lloyd-George had been a member of the Commons from 1890. He ended his political life in 1945 as ‘Father of the House’ but will always be remembered as morally, financially and patriotically corrupt.

He was morally corrupt because, during thirty years of his marriage, he openly kept a mistress (Frances Stevenson) whom he married almost immediately following his wife’s death. He was financially corrupt because he was responsible for the greatest ‘cash for honours’ scandal of the 20th century (as Tony Blair⁹⁸ has been accused of in the 21st). He could also be said to have been patriotically corrupt because, as Prime Minister, he was responsible for seizing much of the royal prerogative from George V⁹⁹, who had been weakened by the constitutional crisis of 1911⁷³⁷ and the Great War against his cousin the German Kaiser¹⁰⁰.

George V had ascended the throne in 1910, and was immediately thrust into a major conflict between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. This had commenced in 1909, the last year of the reign of his father, Edward VII¹⁰², when the Lords rejected the Liberal government’s budget. This had been drawn-up by the Welsh nationalist, Lloyd George, who in his hatred of the landed gentry, had included provision in the budget for extraordinary high taxation as a means of destroying the establishment classes. The Commons retaliated by legislating to remove the power of the Lords to reject legislation and, following the impasse of two general elections, the Prime Minister, Asquith¹⁰³ , gave the King no option but to threaten the Lords with the creation of new Peers which would swamp and thus destroy the integrity of the chamber. The threatened Lords gave in and also accepted, through the Parliament Act of 1911⁷³⁷, the ending of their authority over future money bills.

Lloyd-George took rapacious advantage of some mistakes which were made by the Prime Minister, Asquith, and colluded with other dissidents to form his own coalition, thus becoming Prime Minister in his own right in 1916. He immediately set about establishing a War Cabinet with tyrannical powers, over which he retained absolute control, sidelining both king and parliament. The House of Lords, which, through his earlier actions had been completely demoralised and destabilized, gave no opposition.

Lloyd-George cared nothing for honour or convention, even arbitrarily appointing Sir Joseph Maclay¹⁰⁴ from outside the parliament to the War Cabinet as Minister of State. It was in this manner that the first, embryonic, ‘presidential prime-minister-ship’ was established.

The Times reported: Mr Lloyd-George’s Ministry is without doubt the boldest political conception of our time. Some indeed will regard it as a constitutional revolution. Indeed, Lloyd-George’s attitude can be epitomised in his comment: What is a Government for except to dictate. It is interesting to note that a newly appointed young federal (Liberal) cabinet minister in Australia made a very similar comment only earlier this year.

The honours system had always been used to reward those persons who had provided service to king and country. However, Lloyd-George manipulated the system for the specific purpose of raising funds. His agent, Maundy Gregory¹⁰⁵, became the first and, so far, the only person to be convicted of selling honours. During the six years of his prime-ministership, Lloyd- George was responsible for 120 hereditary peerages and more than 1,500 knighthoods.

When, some two hundred years ago, Thomas Carlyle¹⁰⁶ wrote: Lives the man that can figure a naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a naked House of Lords⁸⁰³, he could never have known how prophetic his words would be, for the detestation of Lloyd George towards the hereditary concept, caused him to deal a near-fatal blow to the democracy of the United Kingdom by emasculating the constitutional authority of the House of Lords.

Eighty years later, Tony Blair, who could well have been Lloyd George’s protégé - particularly in the disposal of honours - has completed the duplicitous task.

Since the time of Lloyd-George, the principle of hereditary succession has been the major target of the politically correct and the Fabian¹⁰⁷ influenced media and so successful has been their campaign that today most people agree that it is wrong to inherit a constitutional position, and that all offices should be elected.

It is this contrived change in public attitudes that has enabled current politicians to eliminate the ancient constitutional offices of the Crown which have provided the vital links of liaison between the Sovereign and the parliament and which have been in position for over five hundred years, thus further isolating the Queen from the processes of government which, of course, is their purpose.

Whilst an elected office is, by its very nature, political - and therefore subject to influence, corrupt and otherwise, a hereditary position owes no obligation to anyone; it was thus by the very right of hereditary succession that peers were protected from the domination of the political parties and free to vote according to conscience. Uppermost in the minds of most peers has always been the protection of the freedoms of the people against the avariciousness of governments, for, as is the case with the Monarch, most hereditary peers are not politicians and care nothing for political office.

The removal of these non-partisan, non-controllable, peers from the parliament was perhaps a necessary stage in implementing the full control of the Union over the affairs of the nation, and the absolute removal of the Common Law, which is law based on judicial precedents, and binding only if imposed by the highest court of the land which is, of course, the very House of Lords now brought under the control of the political parties, and ultimately the European Union.

There is therefore a mere remainder of the traditional ‘rights’ which include those still able to be exercised by the Monarch. These ‘rights’ are either statutory or prerogative. Statutory rights are those which have been conferred upon the Monarch by Acts of the parliament whereas prerogative rights are essentially common law ‘rights’ not yet superseded by legislation of the Parliament.

One of the great impediments to a stable constitution in the United Kingdom is that any Act of the parliament will supersede an earlier Act regardless of the consequences to the royal prerogative or the constitution. Convention dictates that no parliament can be bound by its predecessor and on this basis, the accession by the parliament in 1973 to the Treaty of Rome and subsequent treaties is therefore open for any subsequent parliament to revoke. However, the British Government recently held that certain sections of the Statute of Westminster¹⁰⁸, which prohibit the British Parliament from legislating on the ‘Succession’ and the ‘Royal Style and Titles’ without the consent of the parliaments of the Realms, remain applicable and on this basis have disallowed Bills to amend the Act of Settlement. Accordingly, the Statute of Westminster, as an Act of the British Parliament of 1931, has been held to be binding on successive Parliaments.

As each year passes, the stranglehold of the Union over the everyday affairs of the United Kingdom grows stronger and stronger. In the month of May 2007 alone the British parliament passed 104 new laws to facilitate Union control over the affairs of the United Kingdom. Already most members of the Commons who, whilst admitting to the erosion, and even the enslavement, of British sovereignty, believe that the consequences of leaving the Union would be too high.

Whilst it is the Government and the parliament which now decide upon and execute foreign treaties, the convention was, and still is, that no treaty should in any manner affect the rights of the King’s subjects given to them by law. However, in accordance to the famous nineteenth century constitutionalist, Dicey, the rule of law is totally dependent upon the supremacy of law. Since it is the parliament that enacts law, then, according to Dicey, the parliament itself is supreme over the law. However, the parliament that Dicey referred to was one in which the Monarch retained a strong prerogative as its head. No one, either in the past or in the present, could ever have imagined that the parliament could itself legislate to give precedence over its laws to an alien power, albeit one on whose council its representative sits.

There is little difference between the rule of law under the Union in Britain today and the rule of law in Vichy France¹⁰⁹ under Nazi Germany¹¹⁰. The principle is the same. Subjugation has been achieved - but this time without the storm-troopers. The only exception is that there still exists, in the United Kingdom, a crown which, because it is shared with fifteen other nations and is integral to the constitutions of those nations, is inviolable. Under a Constitutional Monarchy, the powers of the nation are reposed in the Crown; and the implementation of those powers is divided amongst the King and the parliament which itself entrusts its authority to the leader of the majority, now called the Prime Minister.

These powers, which are not governed by constitutional enactment, such as taxes, became a part of the royal prerogative.

Up until the nineteenth century, the prerogative was exercised by the Monarch as his personal duty, but the reliance upon the parliament to create and maintain the Regency during the last illness of George III from 1810 to 1820 meant that the prerogative had to be shared between the Prince Regent and the Lords Commissioners.

However, doubt was raised about the legality of the Regency Act, ‘Care of King During his Illness, etc. Act 1811’, because the Great Seal of the Realm had been affixed by the Lord Chancellor without the consent of the King, but as George III was incapacitated and had earlier unwisely refused to sign a Regency Act, in spite of his previous illness in 1788, the Government had no choice whatsoever but to assume the prerogative in this instance.

Following the reign of George IV¹¹¹, who had earlier acted as Regent, the frustration at the lack of any positive electoral reform since the Statutes of Henry VI four hundred years earlier, led to widespread agitation, particularly since the aristocracy blatantly continued their abuses through the manipulation of a large number of elections to the Commons using what were termed ‘rotten boroughs’, which were electorates totally disproportionate to the population. Indeed, some of these ‘boroughs’ had only a handful of voters who were influenced, or even openly bought, by the landowner. The agitation, which intensified with the huge movements of people to city areas as a result of the Industrial Revolution¹¹³, persuaded the parliament to enact ‘The Representation of the People Act 1832’ (commonly referred to as the 1832 Reform Act), to remedy this appalling situation.

According to the Preamble to the Act, it was to: take effectual Measures for correcting diverse Abuses that have long prevailed in the Choice of Members to serve in the Commons House of Parliament. It also established the current system of a ‘cabinet’ of ministers comprising members of the House of Commons and to a lesser extent, the Lords. For the first time, the Monarch was to be recognised as the head of the parliament rather than that of the Government. On the 14th August 1854, In his memoirs, Charles C F Greville, Clerk of the Privy Council from 1821 to 1859, wrote:

From the Revolution (1688) to the time of the Reform Bill, that is during 150 years, the system of Parliamentary Government has been consolidating itself and was practically established; the Sovereign nominally, the House of Commons really, appointed the Ministers of the Crown.¹¹⁴

The last time a monarch personally gave Assent to a Bill of the parliament was on the 12th August 1854. The Crimea War¹¹⁵ had just commenced and the very Germanic Prince Consort and, by association, Queen Victoria herself, were immensely unpopular. The major transfer of the royal prerogative, however, occurred not as an Act of the parliament but rather as a result of the necessity to properly administer the constitutional instruments of government due to the long-term absence of Queen Victoria who, following the death of the Prince Consort in 1861, secluded herself at Windsor Castle for some twenty five years refusing throughout to perform many official and all ceremonial duties. Whole generations of subjects grew up without ever seeing their monarch! This meant that the Executive was forced to assume elements of the royal prerogative to ensure good government. However, they were all never handed back and it is because of this that Lords Commissioners continue to give Royal Assent in the name of the Queen.

Another convention that ended totally was the tradition that, on the death of the King, the parliament would be dissolved -  the old thinking being that since it was the Monarch who formally summoned the parliament, the summons expired on the Monarch’s death. However, with its increased autonomy, the parliament itself legislated in 1867 to remove this prerogative. 

Royal Assent to any Bill has not been refused since 1708. The story is that, in 1707 parliament passed the Scottish Militia Bill (1707) which was submitted to Queen Anne for Assent. However, her ministers had second thoughts about the wisdom of establishing a militia in Scotland at a time when there was an increasing support for the Young Pretender¹¹⁷, the grandson of James II, and the Queen was requested to refuse Assent. Prior to the reign of Queen Anne, monarchs would use the Royal Veto in a similar manner to that used by the President of the United States whenever the congress and senate passed legislation he, or those he may be obligated to, may not agree with.

The practice of a Royal Commissioner formally granting Assent originated during the reign of Henry VIII¹¹⁸ when he shied away from personally signing the Act of Attainder to execute his fifth Queen, Katherine Howard¹¹⁹, and a clause was incorporated into the Act to enable it to receive Assent from commissioners. The precedent virtually fell into disuse thereafter but was resurrected from time to time and utilised more frequently during the ill health of George III prior to the establishment of the Regency until the seclusion of Queen Victoria rendered it accepted custom.

The Commissioners are usually five Peers who are Privy Councillors and includes the Lord Chancellor. As ‘The Lords Commissioners’ they occupy a special place in constitutional convention. When announcing Assent a Lord Commissioner will rise and declare:

My Lords, in obedience to Her Majesty’s Commands, and by virtue of the Commission which has been now read, We do declare and notify to you, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled, that Her Majesty has given Her Royal Assent to the several Acts in the Commission mentioned.

However, just because the prerogative to refuse Assent has not been used for three hundred years in the United Kingdom it does not necessarily follow that it has fallen totally into disuse and been thus invalidated. It remains functional both in the UK as well as throughout the Realms, where it is able to be exercised, without executive restraint, by the Queen’s representatives, her governors-general.

In March 2007, the media reported that: practically in secret, the Prime Minister of Great Britain has abolished the Privy Council office.⁷⁹⁶ Until then, the Privy Council Office had been the administrative centre of the Privy Council, which dates from 895 AD. Its duties have been taken over by the Department of Constitutional Affairs, which, unlike the Privy Council Office, is answerable directly to the Government. Already the Prime Minister, by (mis)-using his numbers in the parliament has attempted to remove the position of the Lord Chancellor, which is the oldest constitutional office in the land. Whilst he failed in this particular endeavour due to an adverse vote in the House of Lords, he has succeeded in stripping the office of its authority. If there is no Lord Chancellor and no Privy Council, then the Queen is left virtually rudder-less.

The Lords Commissioners, who act as the officers of the Crown in granting Assent, comprise the Lord Chancellor and up to four other Privy Councillors, but in the event of their being removed, then it is likely that the Executive itself will attempt to exercise control of this responsibility - and will become literally ‘the fox guarding the henhouse’.

In January of 1999 the Labour luminary Tony Benn¹²⁰  admitted that under Blair: We have shifted from a parliamentary system to a presidential one because the British Constitution allows that to happen because the powers of the Crown are at the disposal of the Prime Minister.⁸⁰⁴ It could therefore quite legitimately be reasoned that there is no longer any rationale for the process of the Assent. However, it nevertheless remains a safeguard in the event of a rogue government, or a constitutional crisis requiring certain Bills not to pass into Acts. Furthermore in the Queen’s other Realms, her Governors and Governors-General have differing constitutional powers thus enabling them to exercise a greater prerogative in their own right.

Even through the Queen does not personally sign Bills into law, people can be well assured that they are all closely studied by Her Majesty and any concerns would have to be alleviated prior to formal Assent being issued by the Commissioners. Her Majesty takes her responsibilities as outlined by Bagehot¹²¹ very seriously, even if her governments do not. According to Bagehot, these responsibilities are: The Sovereign has, under a Constitutional Monarchy such as ours, three rights: the right to be consulted, the right to encourage and the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no other.⁷⁵⁸

The Queen’s grandfather, George V, although a staunch traditionalist, was actually quite a reactionary when he was young. However, this attitude was expunged from him by his teacher, Professor J R Tanner¹²² of St. John’s College, Cambridge, who indoctrinated him with Walter Bagehot’s ‘English Constitution of 1867’. This became his political bible and stood him in good stead as he faced the many constitutional changes of the first half of the twentieth century. It was also the handbook of his son, George VI¹²³, who studied Bagehot under J R M Butler¹²⁴ of Trinity College¹⁸⁸, Cambridge. Likewise, his daughter, our own Queen, had Bagehot instilled into the fibre of her very being by her tutor, Sir Henry Marten¹²⁵ of Eton.

Whilst the majority of the royal prerogative is now exercised by the Prime Minister, it could potentially still be resumed by the Queen, but at the probable cost of a constitutional crisis. With apathy now reigning supreme amongst the populace, few would be there to stand up for the Queen if she were to act against an elected, and what has become, an all-powerful Prime Minister.

Concerned at the extent of the powers now exercised by the British Prime Minister, the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom has proposed to limit the Prerogative exercised by the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers and give Parliament a greater say in its use. It is hoped that the parliaments of the Realms will do likewise and thus put an end to the trend towards presidential prime-ministership. 

There remain, however, some constitutional activities which cannot be undertaken by the prime minister, perhaps the most important of which is that, as yet, the Prime Minister, unlike Napoleon¹²⁶ cannot appoint or anoint himself; fortunately, it is still only the Monarch who can summon, prorogue or dissolve the parliament, albeit almost always on the advice of the Prime Minister. 

THE QUEEN

For almost the entirety of her reign, Queen Elizabeth II¹²⁷ has had to walk a tightrope between the avariciousness of politicians and the right thing to do in the best interests of the people, even though, in so doing, many of her subjects, who know nothing of how restrained her constitutional powers have actually become, constantly criticise or even condemn her.

In their lack of knowledge, they fail to realise how essential it is that Her Majesty does nothing that may give rise to a constitutional crisis, for, whilst Her Majesty reigns by the Grace of God, her rule is now always by the will of the parliament. The Queen’s previous Prime Ministers in the United Kingdom always respected the position she was in and always heeded her advice. This is no longer the case. We see the same thing happening in Australia and undoubtedly in Canada with Prime Ministers attempting to sideline the Queen’s representative or when that fails, to flout convention by nominating their puppets as viceroy. 

We have seen examples of this in Australia where, in 2003, the Tasmanian State Government appointed the vocal republican and former Diplomat-in-Residence at the Council of Foreign Relations, Richard Butler⁷⁷³, as the State’s Governor, and after only one year of what was a highly embarrassing debacle, had to pension him off with A$650,000 of taxpayer’s money.

The State Government of South Australia has only recently announced the nomination of Rear-Admiral Kevin John Scarce AO RAN (Rtd.)¹²⁹ as the next Governor of South Australia. Admiral Scarce immediately announced that not only was he a republican but that he intended to promote a republic! In his words: When the time comes I will be supporting Australia becoming a republic.⁸⁰⁵ 

The Rear-Admiral has since written to me to say: I am unapologetic about my long-term preference for a republic, and that: at some time in the future I expect that Australia would become a republic and when that time comes it would have my full support. These highly controversial and constitutionally inappropriate comments have alienated a large section, if not the majority, of what are to be Rear-Admiral Scarce's people when he is appointed Governor (57% of the South Australian electorate voted against a republic in 1999) and are a clear example of how not to flout Bagehot’s dictum to only ‘consult’, ‘encourage’ and to ‘warn’. The Queen openly speaks her mind on political issues only to her Prime Ministers and then always behind closed doors.

The pity is that, in failing to follow Her Majesty’s fine example, her vice-regal representatives - such as the Rear-Admiral - only tend to demean the office they are privileged to hold.

Such nominations are an obvious attempt by politicians to debase the system of Constitutional Monarchy and to encourage criticism of the Queen. By now, Her Majesty is well used to these antics. Indeed, only a few years into her reign, in 1957, the (then) 33 year old Baron Altrincham¹³⁰ of Tormatron, wrote in the ‘National and English Review’ that the Queen presents to the public the personality of: a priggish schoolgirl, captain of the hockey team, a prefect, and a recent candidate for confirmation. He went on to say that her manner is that of a debutante, her speaking style is a ‘pain in the neck; her court is outmoded; and those who surround her are almost without exception of the ‘tweedy’ sort’.⁸⁰⁶

He was televised being publicly slapped on the face. Lord Strathmore¹³¹, the Queen’s cousin, charged: Young Altrincham is a bounder, he should be shot and the Duke of Argyll¹³² barked: I would like to see the man hanged, drawn and quartered. Fifty years ago these sentiments would have been widely applauded but today attitudes have changed - may I say deteriorated - so much  so that it would be Altrincham who would be applauded and Strathmore and Argyll condemned. However, Altrincham’s feline remarks, probably penned to be amusing and although undoubtedly well meant at the time, became the inspiration for a campaign to destabilise the Monarchy, not only in Britain, but in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the other Realms.

Recent polls and in-depth think-tanks, all of which poll only a very few people with many seemingly conducted with possibly sinister purposes, call for the Monarchy to be reformed and modernised with all constitutional and religious functions of the Monarch removed. Some even want an end to the principle of succession, with the Monarch being elected. It has even been suggested that all of the Queen’s staff and advisers be government officials, thus bringing them all under the authority of the Prime Minister! I say sinister, because politicians would be the unworthy beneficiaries of any further debasement of the Monarchy and lost would be the democratic rights of the people, for it is only the Monarch who now keeps politicians from exercising total and absolute authority, both in the United Kingdom and in the Realms.

The Monarchy always represents the continuity, legitimacy and unity of the State and has been able to survive change because of its ability to adapt and because it is vested in the people, not in a single person or social class. It is the Crown, and not the wearer, which embodies the State, the laws and the rights of the people. Although Bagehot had perceptively said of Queen Victoria: The use of the Queen in a dignified capacity is incalculable, it is also contextually true that in a Constitutional Monarchy it matters not who is the Monarch because it is the Crown and the ‘system’ which is paramount, although, may I say, we have been extremely fortunate in having had, as our sovereigns, the Queen, her father and grandfather.

Her Majesty would be the first to agree that the Monarchy must move with the times if it is to continue to be relevant, but always provided that any modernisation does not impair its constitutional integrity and impartiality.

Whilst the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Her Majesty always recognises that she is also the Sovereign of all of her subjects, whatever their religion or philosophy may be. It is a failure to understand this position that has caused many Christians and even priests to condemn Her Majesty, and more particularly The Prince of Wales¹³³, for attending (but never participating in) the observances of other religions. Clergy within the Anglican Church have always been a powerhouse of dissent.

Many priests today refuse outright to pray for the Queen. In the United Kingdom several of the bishops personally supported the ominous break-up of the United Kingdom into European Regions and in Australia, most bishops are active republicans.

The Queen is also openly criticised for what is termed ‘wasting the hard earned monies of the taxpayer’. Many politicians take salacious delight in airing their prejudices whenever there is a request for any review of funding the cost of maintaining the Monarchy. The real fact is that the Queen costs the country nothing. Not even one penny! Conversely, the taxpayer benefits to the tune of many millions of pounds in cash each year from the Queen’s assets. I talk not about the fiscal benefits of the Monarchy with regard to tourism, nor about the millions the Royal Family raise for charity (the Queen is patron of some 620 organisations and charities), nor even the low cost of a monarchy compared to that of a presidency. I am referring rather to what is termed ‘The Crown Estates’¹³⁴.

When Charles II was invited to assume the Throne in 1660, he was granted revenues in the form of a ‘Civil List’¹³⁵ to cover the costs of the royal court and to meet his own expenditure because the properties of his father and the royal treasures of the Crown had been confiscated. The Puritan parliament of 1643 in declaring that: Royalty is useless, burdensome and dangerous for England⁸⁰⁶, had destroyed, melted down or sold much of the royal regalia, including the seven hundred year old gold filigree crown of Edward the Confessor¹³⁶. The remnants of the ancient regalia were sold for the incredibly low sum of £2,647.18s.4d. Some items, including the 170 carat spinel 'Balas' ruby presented in 1367 to the Black Prince (so called because of his black armour) by King Pedro of Castille¹³⁷, had been purchased by royalists for £15 and were fortunately later restored to the Crown.

By the time George III became king, many of the old estates had been returned to the Crown and these, together with dowry and other assets, were held in the King’s personal name with the revenue used to pay for the expenditure of the Court. However, in 1760 when George ascended the Throne, it was decided that these ‘Crown Estates’ would be handed over to be managed by the Government for them to manage and that the Government itself would provide an income therefrom for the King in the form of an enhanced ‘Civil List’.

In the financial year 2005-06 the revenue surplus from the Crown Estate paid into the British Government Treasury amounted to £190.8 million from which the Government returned only £37.4 million to the Queen, not as a salary - for the Queen receives none - but to cover expenditure incurred as head of state of the United Kingdom and Head of the Commonwealth including the upkeep of the royal palaces and the entertaining of over 48,000 people from throughout the Commonwealth each year.

It should also be noted that costs relating to Her Majesty’s position as sovereign or head of state of the Commonwealth Realms are met from this amount. It is only on an official visit that the host nation bears a part of the cost, as is the case with all State visits.

An amount of over £37 million may seem a huge sum to us ordinary individuals, but it pales into comparison with the £25 million ($A61 million) incurred by the Australian Prime Minister’s department alone and the £12 million paid last year to the British Prime Minister to cover running costs of his official residence! In essence the British public receives some £3.20 per person but returns only 62 pence per person back to the Queen!

Contrary to popular opinion, the Queen is not the richest woman in the world. Her personal wealth, believed to be some £275 million, pales by comparison even with many on Australia’s ‘Rich List’, let alone those on the international list where Liliane Bettencourt of France¹³⁸ is listed as having US$22.9 billion! Her Majesty does, of course, hold in trust for the Nation the wealth of paintings, artefacts and other treasures.

All in all, Britain, the Realms and indeed, the entire Commonwealth of Nations, get really good value from having as their sovereign and/or head, Her Majesty the Queen.

THE FUTURE OF WESTMINSTER

The 18th century statesman Edmund Burke¹³⁹ best described the basis of the Westminster system as: The King and his faithful subjects, the Lords and the Commons of this Realm - the triple cord which no man can break.⁸⁰⁷ Regrettably it is a trinity which today no longer exists.

Burke was born in 1729, just three years after George I ascended the Throne. He came to prominence not so much as a member of parliament and infrequent minister, but as a writer. He was something of a paradox, being a liberal and yet a conservative traditionalist. He supported independence for America, but opposed virulently the French Revolution¹⁴⁰.

His writings have since often been quoted. Indeed, some of his astute phrases are exceedingly prophetic in this the twenty first century. The well known phrase, used by vigilant organisations All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing was actually taken from a phrase in his 1770 treatise ‘Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents’ When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle’

Whilst the early origins of Westminster are rooted in the ancient Saxon traditions, the actual concept of the supremacy of the parliament did not take hold until the seventeenth century. Whilst the period of parliamentary rule following the Civil War was brief and totally incompetent, it nevertheless whetted the appetite of reformers. The break from Rome, under Henry VIII also led to a clergy which was more independent of kingly rule than ever before. Whilst most aristocrats were fairly well educated, the clergy were still by far the most literate grouping.

Charles II knew very well that he ruled by consent of the Parliament and was careful not to overstep the mark (as his brother James later did). William III (of Orange) and his wife Mary II, ruled not only by the consent, but by the permission of the parliament, as was the case with George I. No longer did any of these monarchs rule by sole right of their hereditary descent, which itself became simply a matter of convenience for the parliament in selecting who was to be the Monarch or ‘umpire’.

In the 17^th and early 18^th centuries, Westminster therefore developed into rule by a Parliament elected by the people but checked by the authority of the Crown wielded by the King who thereafter reigned but did not rule. However, in the latter years of the 18th century there were huge changes in the way in which the Westminster System evolved. It saw the thirteen, largely British peopled, colonies in North America secede from British rule in 1775, by way of a bloody revolution, and then go on to establish a republic in 1776. This was the first time that Britain had been successfully defied by one of its own settlements.

The 18^th century also saw the evolution of what we today call ‘Cabinet Government’. Since Charles II, it had become customary for the King to chair weekly meetings with ministers in his private apartments or cabinet.

When parliament invited George I to take the throne, following the death of Queen Anne in 1714, it established a different basis of governance with the Ministers assuming an independence hitherto unknown. The ministers would meet separately with the senior member (Walpole) chairing the meeting in place of the King.

The precedence of the weekly meeting with the Monarch continues, but in current times only to enable the Prime Minister to brief the Queen, and to receive advice from Her Majesty

Prior to the emergence of cabinet government in the 18^th century, the Privy Council, chaired by the King, was the principal instrument of government. The jurisdiction of the Privy Council is today restructured and clearly defined. There are presently about 520 Privy Councillors. The only occasion on which everyone is now all summoned is on the accession of the new monarch.

The assumption of the prerogative of the King by the executive head of the Government became more established some-time during the reign of George III, great grandson of George 1, and was accepted as convention during the reign and widowhood of his granddaughter, Victoria.

The replacement of the King as head of government was in accord with the evolution of our democratic traditions. The empowerment of the First or ‘Prime’ Minister, was not.

The coronation of British monarchs is a ceremony somewhat similar to that of bishops for both are consecrated unto God. In the case of the King, it is to rule in accordance with God’s rules. The Prime Minister has no such obligation.

The principles of parliamentary government were, I believe, thwarted by those developments which took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which empowered the executive with the royal prerogative, for in doing so the concept of king and parliament, a fundamental principle of Westminster, was degraded.

Nearly two thousand years ago the First Century Roman satirist Juvenal¹⁴¹ wrote in his ‘Satire VI Against Women’, the farsighted words Quis custodiet ipsos custodes which translated means: Who watches the watchmen?

In this current age, where ‘honour’ is considered old fashioned, to be relegated to the past and disregarded in the same manner that young people today treat neckties, we might well ask Who watches the watchmen particularly when every act of modern politicians, whether socialist or conservative, is to empower themselves. Even though the Queen must obey the demands of her elected Government, give speeches she may not personally agree with and make appointments she considers to be abhorrent, as long as the power of the Nation remains reposed in the Crown, politicians, in effect, become the watched ‘watchmen’ and are thus restrained from seizing absolute authority.

A major problem our constitutional system faces is that Westminster is reliant not on the written word but rather on convention backed by tradition. For example, the Australian constitution is more a document of Federation than governance which itself is based more on conventions than law. In the UK, there is no written constitution, only a few documents which, although vitally important, such as Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, fall far short of making up a documented constitution. Britain’s governance is therefore almost totally reliant upon conventions which is why the entire Westminster system breaks down when these conventions are ignored.

The Queen and her governors-general and governors must obey conventions, but her ministers, imbued with their momentary power, seem to flout them at will. Indeed, in times past our parliaments comprised men of honour and integrity, but in 2007 they are comprised, with some exceptions, of people who are either venal, ambitious, morally corrupt and/or intellectually handicapped.

Indeed, the only reason why most are in the parliament is because they have sold their very souls to their party machines for a ‘mess of pottage’ of power. They succeed on the back of the people’s apathy and due to the manner in which the entrenched party political system frustrates the election of persons of independent initiative. No truer word was said than by the Frenchman Montesquieu:¹⁴² The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.⁸⁰⁹

Indeed, many of the problems we face are due not to adversity but rather to prosperity, for as the seventeenth century Anglican clergyman and writer, Jeremy Taylor¹⁴⁴, so aptly but perhaps rather crudely stated: A fully gorged belly never produced a sprightly mind.

Other than constitutional lawyers and politicians, ordinary people should have no real need to know the detail of our Westminster constitutions, indeed most lawyers and politicians themselves know so very little, but they get away with so much due to the ignorance and laxness of the electorate. The American anarchist, Voltairine de Cleyre, had written:

...So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.¹⁴⁵

The only answer is for people themselves to take a greater interest in the elective and governing processes and to always stand up for what they believe is right and true. Some feel that this can be done by referenda on important bills, but the cost would be horrendous and, with a population which is not only largely uninformed but also influenced by a predominantly socialist media, the end result could well become total chaos leading to an inability of the Government to govern.

Should not the priority rather be a re-awakening of the rights and responsibilities of each and every citizen, possibly with public arenas which enable people to voice their opinions? We have talk-back radio, but only a very few radio hosts allow anything other than their own biased opinions to be aired. Public broadcasters, radio and television alike, have become socialist indoctrinators.

As long as people take for granted our democracy - hard won over centuries - those who are able to manipulate the system for their own ends will succeed, but barred only by the fact that our constitutions are ‘under the Crown’, thus ensuring that the ’temporary’ authority Government’s exercise must return to the people at the designated times for election.

The Queen is the guardian of that very Crown and needs our support and understanding - and not our criticism. Indeed, the time is now upon us to support all those who are prepared to stand up and fight for our freedoms and our democracy. I have previously mentioned in other articles this quote from Ben Chifley¹⁴⁶, Australia’s 16th Prime Minister, but it is so very apt and fitting to close this Paper:

If an idea is worth fighting for, no matter the penalty,
fight for the right, and truth and justice will prevail.¹⁴⁶