I

CHAPTER I

THE KING, THE PEOPLE AND THE CONSTITUTION

T has been a comparatively easy task to estimate the position in history of each of the three great ceremonies which we have been contemplating. Nearly a century has passed since Napoleon, fifteen years after the taking of the Bastille, solemnised the apotheosis of the French Revolution by crowning himself emperor. After that lapse of time we can take the measure of all the results of the great movement which culminated in the imposing pageant at Notre Dame de Paris. The circumstances of the Coronation of Queen Victoria, a generation later, have likewise passed into the domain of history. We see now that it marked the beginning of a new era, which is more distinct from its immediate past than any previous period of profound change in the known annals of the human race. The revolution in the material and social conditions of mankind, then initiated, is still proceeding, and none of us can foresee whither it will lead. But we know that the modern world, which had progressed with gradual evolution from the period succeeding the invention of gunpowder and of printing, came to an end in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and that the assumption of the crown by Queen Victoria coincided with that crisis in the history of civilisation. Only a single generation divides us from the proclamation of the German Empire, so we are less competent to judge of the effects on mankind of the unity of

Germany, signalised by that event. Sufficient time has, however, elapsed for us to appreciate some of the results of the conversion of a race, eminent in the realm of thought, into a nation united on a military and commercial basis. Its relative importance in the history of the world can already be conjectured.

When we turn to the Coronation of King Edward an objection may be made, with some show of reason, that it is beyond human power to estimate the true significance of a celebration, however impressive, before its echoes have died away. The splendour of the scene, dazzling to the senses, the national pride evoked by its imposing circumstances, were well calculated to affect the calmest judgment, and to make each patriotic spectator of the stately rite feel that he or she was taking part in an august event of which the historical importance was beyond doubt.

Warnings abound in history of the vanity of contemporary appreciations. Thus by the bivouac fire after Valmy, Goethe, who had been Minister of War of one of the vanquished allies, declared that the defeat of Prussia, by the revolutionary levies of France, had made that battle the beginning of a new era of liberty the fact being that it was the first step towards the establishment of the most absolute militarydictatorship ever seen in western Europe, which left the indelible stamp of autocracy on all the tangible results of the French Revolution. A poet has some excuse for talking like a seer. But the historian or political philosopher has no license to trespass on the domain of anticipation, as Tocqueville must have found out if he had been permitted to look down upon the development of democracy in

We

America, which once occupied his prophetic soul.1 will, therefore, refrain from treating the Coronation of King Edward as a celebration which marked the commencement of a new era, though circumstances seem clearly to indicate that it had that character. It may, however, be said, without rashness, that if in the future the assumption of the crown by Edward VII. is not looked upon as a signal landmark in the annals of the British Empire and of the world, it will have been the fault of the British people.

The ceremony which took place at Westminster, the heart of the Empire, on August 9, 1902, was of twofold importance. It was the consecration of the imperial idea, conceived in the last generation of the nineteenth century and quickened by the inspiration of the Crown which was assumed by the King, on that great day, with its lustre thus enhanced to a degree unknown in past ages. It was the

maintenance of an immemorial tradition celebrated under unprecedented circumstances. The usage by an ardent yet practical people of an archaic rite to signalise the modern splendours of their empire, the recognition, by a free democracy, of a hereditary crown, as a symbol of the world-wide domination of their race, constitute no mere pageant, but an event of the highest historical interest, whatever the future has in store.

In the earlier pages of this work certain passages and incidents in the history of Europe and of civilisation have

1 The opening sentences of his Démocratie en Amérique have a somewhat ironical interest in these days of monopolies and trusts and railway-kings: "Parmi les objets nouveaux qui pendant mon séjour aux États Unis ont attiré mon attention, aucun n'a plus vivement frappé mes regards que l'égalité des conditions. . . . Bientôt je reconnus que ce même fait étend son influence fort au délà des mœurs politiques et des Lois" (Introduction, ed. 1836). Again, later in the work, he remarks, "Si l'on me demandait où je place l'aristocratie américaine, je repondrais sans hésiter que ce n'est point parmi les riches, qui n'ont aucun lieu commun qui les rassemble" (Vol. ii. c. 8).

been dwelt upon, which to the superficial glance may seem to be not directly connected with the Coronation of King Edward. Their relation to that event will now become apparent. We have gone back to the French Revolution, when, in the view not only of poets like Goethe, but of calm observers and thinkers, the monarchical idea was undermined and doomed to perish. We have followed the unlooked-for turn which that great movement took, and noted the special reasons why England was not involved in it. We have seen how the revolutionary legend revived when the nations of the continent no longer associated it with the horrors of war, and how they were caught in its final recrudescence, England alone escaping by reason of the loyalty which the young Queen had inspired in the hearts of the people whom she had ruled for ten brief years. We have scanned the annals of the other reigning houses of Europe. We have found that only in one of them besides our own has the sovereign power remained unchanged or has devolved without interruption, during the nineteenth century, and in that one which has not shared the vicissitudes of the other continental dynasties, the imperial family of Russia, two, and probably three, of its monarchs died in that period by the assassin's hand.

The insurrections and civil wars which have chequered the history of Europe, in the intervals of invasions which altered its map, the tragedies which have stained some of its thrones, have served to remind us of the superior happiness of England where, during two-thirds of the nineteenth century, the most marked domestic tendency, in an epoch of social and political change, was the gradual strengthening of the bonds of affection between the sovereign and the people. We have pointed out that the increased stability

of the throne, in the classic land of liberty, has been a powerful example and influence in preserving monarchical institutions in other European states. But the comparison of our constitutional experiences with those of continental nations has not diverted our attention from the revolution which has taken place in our own country, and which issuing thence has altered the conditions of existence throughout the globe. We have recalled the antique character of many of the material circumstances of life at the date when Queen Victoria was crowned; we have described in some detail the elements composing the political forces of England at that moment, which was coincident with a turning-point in the history of mankind. We have shown that the material revolution, which was then beginning, has affected every class of the population in its social and political relations more profoundly than any legislative acts. We have seen that, in consequence of the changes so produced, the needs, the aspirations and many of the ideas of all civilised nations underwent a greater transformation during the threescore years of the reign of Queen Victoria than during at least three previous centuries.

Yet, when we come to the Coronation of King Edward, after sixty years of astounding progress in the evolution of the human race, we see the monarch invested with the ancient emblems of sovereignty which his ancestors bore; we see the investiture performed with the same venerable rites; we see the King surrounded with the same Estates of the realm which stood around the throne in the Middle Ages. All this, moreover, was no mere spectacle retained by a people proud of its antiquity. Indeed, that criticism might have been applied to it with some justice in the