Last week the ever controversial Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle finally crossed the line. Yes, the man who has previously been accused of everything from anti-Semitism to bullying the parent of a child with Down’s syndrome has only gone and said something not particularly pleasant about our beloved monarch.
Boyle is, of course, not the first comedian to have poked the bear that is the British people’s instinctive, royalist tendency in recent months. Jack Whitehall and James Corden also sparked controversy over gags made about, amongst other things, the Queen in “The Big Fat Quiz of the Year”. In August 2009 American stand-up comic Doug Stanhope had glass bottles thrown at him by an angry crowd at Leeds Festival for making derogatory remarks about the Royals. What these two incidents show is the true extent of how overwhelming and ingrained support for the monarchy is in Britain. In many cases this verges on a cult like devotion to a family most will never meet, and who have little real power over our lives.
When Europeans were rising up and usurping their monarchies, often with a rather grisly ending for the rulers in question, the British remained slavishly devoted to their own, citing their significance as a stabling figurehead and uniting us through our shared culture, tradition and history. This, despite the fact that since the time of Alfred the Great the throne has changed hands between different houses fifteen times, including Vikings, Scottish royals, German nobles and on one occasion a Dutch prince and his wife. This is not to say that the nationality of a ruler matters in any sense; indeed, due to the gulf between the medieval royalty, their people and the general culture of political and diplomatic marriage, these royal families frequently had more in common with each other than the people they ruled over. But to use the example of British historical tradition to justify the monarchy only needs a brief cursory examination of the patchwork, blood dyed tapestry of British history to be seen to be a little tenuous at best.
It is fair to say that the British people have never quite understood republicanism. Britain has been fortunate in a sense to have not had some of the arrogant, decadent buffoons that have ruled over other nations. Nonetheless, the British royal family is known for taking a rather dim view of any of its subjects attempting to make the case for its abolition. The 1848 Treason Felony Act to this day still prohibits the advocacy of a republic in print, even one which would be brought about by peaceful means. The punishment for this crime was and remains life imprisonment. It was not until the introduction of the Human Rights act in 1998 that the Law Lords ruled that the act had to be brought into compatibility with the Human Rights Act thus ending the prohibition of peaceful republican activity.
The core point comes down ultimately to principle, all other practical considerations and reasons for a royal family aside. Most intelligent people can accept the core principle on which the monarchy is based, that of the “Divine Right of Kings”, to be one of the most nonsensical justifications for ruling ever invented. The simple fact of the matter is that the only thing that separates any one of us from the Royal Family is who our parents are, or in the case of the Duchess of Cambridge, who we are married to. To place them on a pedestal is a decision based on hereditary privilege, and to love and support unequivocally is potentially dangerous. After all, the ruler may not always be a kind old lady, who respects the constitutional terms which have rendered them dormant and powerless against our democratic institutions.
In terms of the Boyle controversy, it is simply a hypocrisy to judge a man harshly for making a joke about a member of the Royal Family when you would accept it about a member of parliament or a leading sportsman or actor. Moreover, it shows that we remain in the grip of that most ancient of fallacies, the Divine Right of Kings.