The passing of a monarch and the future of a nation

With the United Kingdom in mourning and looking to come to terms with a new Carolean age, Dan Boucher writes that the monarchy remains as important as ever to the country, and the stability it brings has arguably never been more needed.

Although, as I write, it is still very early days, it nonetheless seems fairly clear that the sad death of Queen Elizabeth II, after an unrivalled reign of seventy years, and the accession of King Charles III, are having a profound impact on the United Kingdom that would in many ways, I think, greatly encourage our late sovereign.  Two points in this regard are particularly worthy of closer consideration.

The Monarchy and the Union

In his seminal text, 'The Queen's Government', published to coincide with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953, the celebrated constitutional lawyer, Sir Ivor Jennings unpacked the importance of the monarchy for the United Kingdom on many levels, including in terms of maintaining the integrity of our multi-national union between England, Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland. It seems to me that this is secured on at least two bases, one of which was particularly highlighted in the last week of the Queen's life and is being particularly highlighted in the first week of the reign of King Charles.

In the first instance, in the place that might otherwise have been filled with the state and territorial ethnic identities, what we are actually confronted with in the UK is, first and foremost, the Crown, which is also a person, the monarch; the institution and person we all have in common. In this context it is striking, as Jennings observed, that rather than having a national anthem about a particular territory or ethnicity, what we actually have is a hymn that does not even mention England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland and is instead focused on the person of the monarch. This helps to raise the central questions of our civic identity above the confines of blood and ethnicity altogether, let alone any particular ethnicity within the UK, and focuses instead on the principles at the heart of our unwritten constitution held together in the monarchy, in and through whose name government is sustained.

In the second instance, the monarch has an important role to play in engaging with all component parts of the UK: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, affirming the central importance of each within the UK political nation. It is in this regard that the last week of the Queen's life and the first week of the reign of King Charles have been particularly noteworthy.

After the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, the Crown of England, Wales and Ireland went to James VI of Scotland, who promptly left Scotland for London and only returned on one occasion between then and his death in 1625. The people of Scotland, not surprisingly, felt somewhat deprived of their King. Happily, in recent times, UK monarchs – benefiting from modern travel – have spent time in all parts of their United Kingdom, not just England, but the final week of the Queen's life was to prove particularly significant in this regard.

In the first instance, Boris Johnson ceased to be the UK Prime Minister and Liz Truss then became the new UK Prime Minister at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and not in England, which helps to remind us that the constituent nations of the UK are all equally important. Of course, in the usual British way, this happened not by design but rather out of necessity as the Queen could not travel but it constitutes an accidental innovation that it would be worth repeating, and in other parts of the union as well. In the second instance, of course, and just if not more important, having died in Scotland, with Prince Charles by her side, the King assumed his new role as the monarch of the United Kingdom – His Britannic Majesty – in Scotland.

The first week of King Charles' reign, meanwhile, is similarly serving to underscore the multi-national nature of the union, with the Queen's coffin taken first to Holyrood Palace and St Giles Cathedral rather than being flown straight to London. Similarly, the new King has made a point of marking his mother's passing by very deliberately spending some time in each component part of the UK: Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A Gentle System of Government

In the hours following the Queen's death many were heard to express the following sentiment.

'She was there all my life. A constant presence at the very heart of the nation, and now she has gone. Although we knew that she could not live for ever and was 96, this is nonetheless upsetting and disorienting.'

Whilst that is so true, in seeking to come to terms with it, I have simultaneously been impressed, and almost surprised (even while I had long been aware of it as a matter of constitutional theory), by the gentleness of our system of Government.

As Her Majesty breathed her last, His Majesty immediately breathed his first (as His Majesty).

There was no painful void of uncertainty.

Whilst in one sense there is an emptiness, in that the Queen has gone and we miss her, in another sense rather than being confronted with uncertainty we are immediately confronted by one of the things that Her late Majesty represented, and which her memory continues to represent, continuity, as the Crown passes to her firstborn.

There have been occasions in our history where the succession has been less than straight forward even when the identity of the monarch was known. One thinks of the death of Queen Anne in 1714 after which (because of unfavourable weather) there was more than a month during which the new King George was absent and when he arrived no one (apart from a very few travellers to Hannover) had ever seen him before and he didn't speak a word of English.

By contrast, King Charles III was actually present, and often by his mother's side, throughout her entire 70 year reign. Many, many thousands of us will have met him and those who have not will know him as a constant part of our national life online, in our newspapers and on television. Indeed, our knowledge of the new King arguably presents us with the opportunity for the smoothest succession ever, because there has never been a monarch in history better prepared to serve his people or a people better prepared to serve their monarch.

In the context of the uncertainties that lie ahead arising from the COVID legacy, changes in Westminster, the cost of living crisis, the Northern Ireland Protocol and war in Ukraine, the continuity, stability and permanence that it is the task of King Charles to represent have arguably never been more needed.

Having made two serious constitutional points, I conclude with something that comes more into the category of the curious and the quirky – which can on occasions be viewed within our history.

At the end of July, it occurred to me that if Liz Truss became Prime Minister, the United Kingdom would, for the first time, be served by two Elizabeth's: Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Elizabeth. I took to twitter to observe that if this happened it would underscore the Elizabethan nature of the age in a way that seemed entirely fitting and appropriate for the Platinum Jubilee Year. I also noted that in this event, Liz Truss' first full day as Prime Minister would be the 7th of September, the birthday of the person who gave rise to the first Elizabethan age, Queen Elizabeth I.

In making this observation, I did not imagine for a minute that in addition to being the Prime Minister's first full day in office, it would also be the last full day of the Queen's seventy year reign. The fact that for the very first time in seventy years the Queen was joined for just one full day – the last full day of her reign – by a Prime Minister called Elizabeth and that this day was also the anniversary of the birth of the first Elizabeth is certainly rather striking.

While I would have much rather the Queen was still with us, there is perhaps something fitting about the way in which these curious timings help mark, with an almost providential, historical flourish, the end of our second Elizabethan age.