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Sept. 19, 2022 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters
01:31:14
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #483
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Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters This is episode 483.
On this day, the 19th of September 2022, the day of the Queen's funeral.
And we've got a very special episode prepared today, where we're going to be examining the queue, the...
We're going to be saying goodbye to Her Majesty the Queen, and we're going to be examining as well the importance of monarchy to the English people.
We're not going to be throwing out any promos for any other shows or premium content we've done today either as well, because I think that would be inappropriate given the time.
So, with all that said, let's get into it, eh?
Yeah, let's talk about the importance of queuing.
Because I think, actually, the passing of Queen Elizabeth actually shows that the concept of a queue is actually kind of fundamental to British culture.
Like, it symbolizes...
It's like the British version of the trolley question, as in, you know, do you return the lone supermarket trolley?
Or do you allow it to, you know, just fall into the bushes and...
It symbolises, are you the sort of person who upholds order and respects your own civilisation?
Well, yeah, it's a sign of, like you say, respect to each other as well.
You understand that if you don't put that trolley away, somebody else is going to have to, or it's just going to be left there and made a mess.
Exactly.
And to Brits, the queue is very much the same thing.
It's a symbol of fairness.
It is a symbol of order.
It is the right way things should be done.
And so the queue to see the Queen lying in state became something of an attraction of its own.
Now, I mean, I know that sounds funny, but this is genuinely quite totemic, actually.
And people seem to be taking quite a lot of pride in it.
in the queue, which I think is really sweet.
And so basically, you may remember on Friday that the queue had got to something like five miles long and 14 hours in duration.
And so they closed the queue, which is not something I realized that they could do.
And so of course people began queuing for the queue.
Oh, why wouldn't you?
Well, I mean, how can you stop them?
If you can go to the next one, you see people just, you know, it was described, of course, as the most British thing ever, which, I mean, it is.
Proud to say it is.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm very proud of that.
And so one person on Twitter, I think, had a great take on this, Louise.
She says, we've reached peak Britishness.
You can queue for a full day, and you can watch news all day about said queue.
You can broadcast self-interest opinions about the queue, and you can track the queue 24-7 online.
If we add weather updates in each stage, we've completed it, mate.
So that is actually completely true.
And the thing is, I was watching, like, the queue tracker, and at one point there were, like, 13,000 people watching just the queue tracker, and it was just like, okay, and then, you know, it came up saying, like, queue's paused, you can't join the queue, and of course people are doing it.
Well, the fun thing is that it tells a story in itself, and that story is of the desires and whims of the British people.
They want to be able to see the Queen lying in state because they know that this is an important moment for all of us.
It's something historic that we're living through.
It's part of the continuation of over a thousand years of history.
Yeah, but it's also the way in which it's being expressed.
It's not disorderly.
No.
It's decent.
But anyway, so the queue was resumed, of course.
Entry to the queue has resumed, we are told, from the Department for Digital, Cultural, Media and Sport.
But the expected queuing time was of 24 hours and overnight temperatures were cold.
And so you got some interesting faces in the queue.
And I thought that actually the person who distinguished himself the best was footballing star David Beckham.
I'm impressed.
Yeah, I didn't really expect it, but he joined the queue.
He was there for over 13 hours in total, apparently, and he was just in the queue like everyone else.
Do you not think that this shows how, before the monarchy, in a sense, we're all humbled, that somebody like David Beckham, such a large star, so rich and famous, can join the queue and, as we can see here, be stood with everybody else, shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the masses...
Yeah, I mean, even I know who David Beckham is.
He's that famous, and I don't follow football.
So, you know, if you don't know who David is, everyone knows who David Beckham is.
And what was really interesting, he was just totally humble about it.
He was wearing a little flat cap, just totally normal.
You know, he didn't have armed guards or anything.
He was just stood in the queue with everyone else.
He was just a regular dude.
Apparently Sharon Osbourne was there as well.
But I didn't see any pictures of her.
Oh, there's one.
Oh, there we go.
There she is.
I'm impressed.
Normally I'm not a fan of Sharon Osbourne.
No, I'm not.
But this gives her a step up a little bit for me.
You can see it's like the old sort of Brits, right?
Like the British Brits.
People are just...
Well, interestingly on that, the Osbournes quite famously have recently just moved back from America, because Ozzy Osbourne himself said, I don't want to die in America, because he knows he's not got that much time left, so he's feeling the calling of his homeland.
But anyway, going back to David Beckham, I think this is really honourable.
He was offered to jump the queue by an MP, and he said no, that would be wrong.
In fact, he said, my grandad wouldn't have jumped the queue.
Give him.
I mean, this is like...
Again, it's weirdly symbolic.
I don't know how to describe it.
But it's important that you get well-respected public figures who behave in the right way.
He's doing the right thing.
He's setting an example.
Yeah.
And there's a clip from him in the queue.
And it's really nice.
It's just really wholesome.
Let's have a watch.
We all want to be here together.
We all want to experience something where we celebrate the amazing life of our Queen.
And I think something like this today is meant to be shared together.
So the fact that we've been here, we're eating Pringles, we're eating sherbet lemons, you know, we're eating sandwiches, having coffee, so doughnuts as well.
You didn't think that you'd be in the queue with David Beckham, did you?
No, I didn't, but big respect to him.
He's stood with us, and he's paid his respects how he wants to, and I think that's amazing, and it's just been really good.
And how long have you been in the queue, David?
I think we all got here, yeah, 12 hours.
Right, okay.
And how's it been on the knees?
Because we've seen you sort of like...
Knees are okay, it's the back.
Ah, right!
And the feet, but...
But notice how, like, just the working-class lady behind him, like, he's a working-class lad.
Yeah.
You know, you can tell in his accent, you know, and so he's the same as her.
It's just success.
You know, it's the thing that differentiates them.
It's interesting as well.
They've been in the queue 12 hours together.
That's a lot of time to be able to speak to somebody and get to know them a bit better as well.
Yeah, yeah.
And she spoke to him, you know, very...
Familiarly, as if it were.
But, like, David Beckham, his mum was a hairdresser and his dad was a kitchen fitter.
Like, you see what I mean?
Like, they come from the same sort of place.
You know, it's just from Hackney back in the 60s when it wasn't like it is now.
But it was really nice.
If you can get the next one, you see when he finally gets in there, he, you know, wipes a tear away after the 13 hours waiting.
It's honestly really wholesome.
Good for him.
There was other famous people, like Tilda Swinton, an actress who went down again.
These people are kind of British representatives when they go overseas, right?
These people are obviously British, that's the thing.
And so it's nice to see them paying their respects.
Especially someone like Tilda Swinton, who's been involved in Hollywood for a long time.
It's nice to see, at the very least, she hasn't become too disconnected from her origins and heritage.
I mean, her father was Sir John Swinton, a major general in the army, so she comes from the upper class, whereas you see David Beckham comes from the lower class.
But there are other people there who we know, like Peter Whittle, made an appearance, as you can see down in the front there.
Oh, yes.
Good for Peter.
So I watched many hours of the queue from Westminster Hall, people going through and just, you know, paying their respects.
And it was really weird, because it was relaxing to have on.
Because there's complete silence in the hall, and it's just like the shuffling of people walking through.
So it's the sort of quiet stepping in an echoey hall.
Actually, it was very relaxing to have on.
But also, the changing of the guard was amazing, so I thought we'd watch a clip of it.
Oh yeah, of course.
Just see it.
So for anyone who's just listening, it's totally formalised.
The guards go in behind the ones already standing there.
They wait as the other ones march slowly and in a very regimented way to where they're supposed to be.
And the whole thing...
Someone mentioned to me, it's like a German glockenspiel clock.
You know, where it's like, you know, you've got the unirregular time on the hour.
Things, you know, moving around and then bong and then...
But, um...
But yeah, and it's only when everyone's in place.
The guy smacks the cane on the floor or the sword on the floor.
And the other guys pick up the thing.
Very slowly and well-timed.
It's all very deliberate.
It's incredibly deliberate.
And they step forward, the other guards...
Move into their place in a second.
And then they all march out.
And I just really like this.
Like, this is...
Do you know what this tells me?
Yeah, go on.
This tells me that things are working as they should be.
When I see something like this, they're in control, they know what they're there for, they know what they're doing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think that's the right way to frame it.
Things are as they should be.
But yeah, everyone there.
Almost everyone.
And then, there we go.
You can see everyone just waiting patiently.
When we give them the signal, they carry on.
Thank you.
I see.
As they should be.
Unlike Philip Schofield, who decided to skip the queue, which didn't go down well with very many people, and of all people, like, you know...
Now, the BBC put out an article saying, well, look, he's got an excuse, right?
There is no excuse.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't care.
The MPs actually did skip the queue, which, okay, fine.
They shouldn't have done, but they did.
But Philip Schofield isn't an MP.
You know, Philip Schofield is a TV broadcaster.
There was some outrage, apparently, as the BBC tell us, from some who believe the hosts of ITV's This Morning program jumped the queue on Friday.
Obviously, in comparison to David Beckham queuing for hours.
They said they were doing their job as broadcasters and were filming ahead for a piece to be aired after the funeral.
Mm-hmm.
Something you mentioned was that a queue is almost a sign of civilisation.
The ability to get many people, all of them strangers, some of them from different status backgrounds as others, someone like Tilda Swinton and David Beckham standing side by side with the average person on the street, without, you know, fights breaking out, without, obviously they've got the police there, but without massive discontent going around.
Like, in other countries, in the continent, a queue would turn into a mob.
Whereas in England...
The occasions that spring to mind are in India, where, like, you know, there was some few years ago, a food truck had turned up, and, like, people just charged this truck, and, like, 12 people died or something in the stampede.
It's like...
Why?
Yeah, exactly.
If you'd all just stood and waited your turn, you would all have gotten food and nobody would have died?
Like, you...
It's insufferable.
This is the unity of the English people, though, isn't it?
It is, but it's also just...
As you're saying, things being done properly.
It's like, look, everyone would have got food, nobody would have died.
Everyone got to see the Queen, nobody died.
Everything was as it should be.
Things were properly ordered.
But, of course, anyway, going back to...
Philip Schofield and I can't remember the name of the woman.
Holly Willoughby?
That's it, Holly Willoughby, yeah.
Wearing a mask for some reason.
It's like, really Holly?
You're not going to give the Queen anything, don't worry.
People were not impressed, which I find amusing, just because of the next one.
See, like, just people memeing all over this.
Even the follow-back Pro-Europe, you know, even those were like, oh, you can't jump the queue.
Well, once again, even they're recognising, look, I might not be in support of this, but that's just not how things are done.
Exactly, it's not on.
And if you go to the next one, you can see just people started making memes of this.
It's like, oh dear.
Philip, faux pas is definitely how you could describe it.
I mean, honestly, right, and I really do think that people kind of see Q-jumping as an attack on British civilisation.
It's the attack on civilization itself as a concept.
For one, it's just rude.
Yeah, exactly.
It's rude, it's unfair, it's not how things should be ordered.
There are loads and loads of reasons.
But anyway, let's get to the diversity, because we've seen the British queuing and paying their respects as they should, and then we get to our new friends, such as Adio Adeshine, Oh, a 19-year-old?
Yeah, who sexually assaulted two women in the queue?
He was just training for his gynaecology degree, I'm sure.
I guess he must have been.
Right, so apparently he was arrested, and the allegations are the defendant was part of the queue to the arresting in the state of Queen Elizabeth II. His alleged victims are said to have been among the people who are lining the banks of the river, and he exposed himself and...
I don't know, touched someone.
So he's been charged with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of breaching a sexual harm prevention order.
So this is not the first time he's done this, it seems.
And the thing is, I know that he wasn't born here because he threw himself into the Thames to try and escape.
Who the hell would do that?
You don't go into the Thames, that's disgusting!
Why would you do that?
You have to think it to yourselves!
Why have we not already deported this man?
Well, exactly, because he has to...
Are the lefty human rights lawyers all of his human rights?
I don't care.
But, you know, how to spot a foreigner, they'll willingly dive into the Thames.
Anyway, so the next piece of diversity, a wonderful diverse citizen, was a man called Mohammed Khan, who decided to try and charge the Queen's coffin.
God knows what he was going to do, but literally within like two seconds he'd been taken to the floor, and he'd apparently pushed over a seven-year-old girl who was paying her respects.
So what an absolute monster this person is.
Like, sorry, what were you planning to do to the Queen's coffin when you got there, mate?
And really, you couldn't wait for the seven-year-old to finish paying her respects.
At the very least, you know, as much as, you know, we're being colonised, we're being taken over, we're being dominated by the foreigners, at least he couldn't get across the final act of insult, disrespect and domination.
At least as a nation we can still get behind and say, no, you're not to disrespect the Queen's coffin.
Yeah, he'll be in court today, apparently, although I've seen reports that it might be Wednesday.
But either way, Breznak hanging.
Anyway, so again, just to round off the queue, Sky News felt the need to cover the last person in the queue.
Before the queue closed, finally.
Makes sense.
Yeah, yeah.
It was just, you know, it was just interesting.
And then they interviewed a few other people who were like, I was trying to join the queue, but I just couldn't get out of work, or I couldn't get here in time, whatever it is.
And people genuinely lamenting the fact they couldn't join the queue.
I'm sad I wasn't able to be part of the queue, to be honest.
And so it's, like, to any foreigners watching, it...
This is important to British people.
And you can see that the queue itself became a big deal.
But anyway, let's move on to the funeral, which has happened.
And before we came on, the Queen's Coffin was proceeding through London.
So that's as far as we got before we had to start the podcast.
But of course, you know, the royal website put out the arrangement for the funeral, and so today she was travelled in procession from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch, then it will go to Windsor once this has all been done, and then a committal service will happen in St George's Chapel in Windsor.
And so, the procession spaces to Westminster Abbey are filled up by 9am today, so, like, you know, lots and lots and lots of people turned out to see this.
And I was, if you can get to the next one just so you can see them, you know, just like, look, just, there's no more queuing, basically.
Everything's full.
Don't come.
But anyway, so I was watching the BBC coverage this morning, and it was actually surprisingly good.
The BBC's commentators were not atrocious for once.
Nagam and Chatty wasn't making any snide comments about colonialism.
Oh, thank goodness.
At least at some point they can retain a sense of propriety, I suppose.
Yeah, even the BBC were like, oh God, you know.
We're going to have to be respectful to the monarchy.
And to the concept of Britain.
Oh, God.
But yeah, so at 10.30 the procession had arrived at Whitehall.
We'll watch some of the clips in a second.
Apparently there'll be 96 tolls of Big Ben today, obviously for the 96 years of Queen Elizabeth's life.
There were huge crowds applauding as the procession went through Whitehall, which was really nice.
So let's watch clip number one of things being done properly.
You can see it's the Queen's Royal Guards, the Navy, and bagpipes playing as the Queen's coffin and bagpipes playing as the Queen's coffin is marched forward on this This carriage itself is hundreds of years old.
Probably about as old as the United States.
And on top you've got the Royal Setdown Orb and of course the Crown, the jewels that were sourced from the Empire, which people have been complaining about.
But as you can see, things are being done properly, right?
Yeah.
And those complaining about being sourced from the Empire, all I say is tough luck, losers.
Yeah, deal with it.
Come and take them.
So yeah, that was things being done properly, which I approve of.
And so this next one is just the procession arriving at Westminster Abbey.
The whole way the bagpipes were playing which I thought was nice.
Everyone in lockstep.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I imagine there was a lot of rehearsal to this.
Of course.
Appropriately.
And it shows.
Yeah Bo was mentioning My god we are good at pageantry aren't we Oh, yeah.
Don't you want a republic?
No.
No, if we have to get rid of all of this, no.
The thing is, like, everything on the coffin has historical significance and has a tie to something that had happened in the past.
You know, I don't know it all.
You know, I just was watching a lot of the commentary and covering it.
It's like, you know, this particular wreath was cut from a particular tree that was planted by, like, one of her ancestors and stuff like this.
It's like, oh my god, you know...
I mean, to put it in a phrase that you've used before, I think, or something similar, I don't need to know exactly why all of it is there or what it specifically symbolises, because it's magic.
In essence, it's magic, and the magic works.
These things are on there for a reason, and I know they're there for a reason.
And so it's like, even if I don't know what that reason is, I can respect the fact that they're there for a reason.
But anyway, this is the procession into Westminster Abbey, where there are going to be loads and loads of heads of state from all around the world, not just the Commonwealth and other notable and important people.
But let's play this next clip.
Oh, the earth And low after my skin Won't destroy this body Yet in my flesh shall I see God,
whom I shall see for myself, whom I shall see for myself, and my life shall be whole and full of life. and my life shall See, I love the fact they've got the choir singing and everything in Westminster Abbey.
It's beautiful.
Like you said, nobody does pageantry like us.
Westminster Abbey, right?
I know you're going to talk about this later, but Westminster Abbey initially started life in 1052 as St Peter's Abbey, commissioned by Edward the Confessor, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England.
You know, like William the Conqueror was crowned here.
So this is a building that literally is like a...
Almost a thousand years old.
Almost a thousand, yeah.
I think it was initially founded in like 1030-something.
But it was fully finished in 1052.
Yeah, it was built up over time.
But yeah, so this...
And then this is like a Norman building that has been extended onto it.
But the point is, this has been going on for a thousand years.
And this is the first funeral service at the Abbey since 1760 as well.
So the weight of history, the hand of history lays on this place so heavily.
The thing about the point of historical tradition and depth is that you literally can't fabricate it.
There is only one way to have a thousand years of history, and that's to do the same thing for a thousand years.
It cannot be falsified.
It cannot be made fraudulent.
It can only be authentically done by doing the thing.
That's the thing.
That's what makes it so unique and so important.
There's only one way to achieve a thousand years of continuous history, and that's to defend it.
So the next one is, I just thought was quite nice, is a rendition of God Save the King in the thing, with a particular focus on King Charles.
Let's watch. Let's watch.
Let's watch.
I mean, it must be a horrible day for him, you know.
They're singing in his honour, but this is still his own mother's funeral.
God Save the King, of course, is ancient as well, just in case any foreigners are thinking, well, how long has that been going on?
It was adopted as the Commonwealth and Empire's national anthem in 1745.
So...
Older than the United States, during the reign of King George III. But of course, the phrase itself in English history predates that by many, many centuries.
I mean, as early as 1545, God save the king was the watchword of the Royal Navy.
So to know if someone was on your side, you'd say, God save the king, and they would say...
Long-terrain over us.
And so, this is, again, just, again, the hand of history just lies on this thing.
So, the funeral service is then processed through London.
There's going to be a minute's silence at 8pm today, which, you know, just to mark Remembrance of the Queen.
And people are invited to mark the occasion privately at home or at community events and vigils.
And then, okay, so all of this, I think, is important magic.
And then we get to hear from the experts.
Oh my god, as Nick Dixon points out on Twitter, the experts are back.
It's like, yeah, I'm an expert in crowd behavior, and I do not believe that everyone queuing in London is mourning the Queen.
Well, certainly that man who jumped into the Thames, perhaps not.
Yeah.
Well, he's not English, so I don't really care.
The guy who's trying to tip over the Queen's coffin?
Possibly not.
Brilliant observation, Stephen.
But anyway, in this article, he says, he's got some good points, right?
He says, those who strongly identify as British and who see the Queen as the embodiment of Britishness are attending for the simple reason they see it as an obligation to do so.
Attendance is an affirmation of who they are, and not attending would be a denial of their identity.
Moreover, as with any pilgrimage, the fact that it is grueling is not off-putting.
It is precisely what makes it a meaningful sign of commitment and belonging.
For these people, the loss of the monarch is experienced as a personal death.
It is grieved profoundly.
That's a good summary.
That's all very correct so far.
I think the actual framing of it as a pilgrimage is very good.
And also, once again, whether or not they want to accept it, whoever this expert is might be one of those ones who would say, oh, there's no such thing as English culture.
Is pointing out, actually there is, and it's deeply felt in many English people, whether they outwardly recognise it consciously on a day-to-day basis or not, all of a sudden this happens, and they feel the call within them.
Sorry if I'm sniffling.
I caught my kid's runny nose over the weekend.
But he carries on anyway, saying, You see where this is going, don't you?
I do see where this is going, but so far, yes, I agree.
This is right.
This is correct.
You are right.
This is where most other countries see themselves as an us versus them.
And this is where the leftists, the Islamists, whoever, the foreigners who are seeking to topple over the Queen's tomb, suddenly you are realising, hang on a second, there's becoming a shared concept of you're not us, actually.
And so he says this.
This has a chilling effect.
It means that certain things, such as challenging the hereditary transfer of power and wealth, cannot be said not only through direct repression, as in the arrest of those expressing Republican views, but also through self-censorship.
Oh, cry me a bloody river.
I do not care.
For we are led to believe that everyone else loves the monarchy and demands due to deference to the monarchy and the monarchy will be reluctant to challenge for fear of a backlash and in that turn reinforce the impression that these views are universal and what has been called a spiral of sirens.
Good.
Don't want to hear.
Don't want to hear from you.
So the worry that they're expressing here is that this might actually unify the English people and create a sort of...
Not just the English either, the British.
Well, the British people and create an almost shared consciousness, a collective consciousness of the kind that they try and inspire in everybody else.
In classes.
Yes, in classes, in identities, races.
But the English and the British, no.
Exactly.
Having this shared British identity that brings everyone together and say, actually, it's wrong to attack Britain.
The Republicans are going to be like, well, but I really want to attack our country and the history and everything it's built on and stands for.
If you don't want us to do that, how are we supposed to subvert your institutions and heritage?
That's exactly the complaint.
What this is doing is creating barriers to communist subversion.
Say the Guardian.
Yeah, exactly.
Good.
I don't care.
Self-censor.
Be quiet.
You know, I don't want to hear from you at this particular point, right?
And so, yesterday, Owen Jones, again, communist subverter, did a live stream talking about this, and it was hilarious.
Of course, you've got the most anti-British person, Owen Jones, flanked by Dr.
Shirland, joking, obviously she's the most anti-British, descended from Nigerian royalty, of course, so...
These are two people who I wouldn't want discussing such a thing.
I mentioned it on the premium video the other day with Connor, the parable of Chesterton's fence.
The idea of you've got a fence, someone comes along and goes, I don't know why this is here, let's destroy it.
No, you're the worst person to try and destroy something.
Well, that's Owen.
But the thing is, Dr.
Scheller, as she's descended from royalty, she actually understands the concept of royalty.
Her grandfather was some sort of Nigerian prince or something.
He's not dipping into anyone's emails asking for money, is he?
No, no.
Genuinely, she's got a claim to the Republic of Nigeria, actually.
Oh my goodness.
That's scary.
But she is actually not...
Picking up the criticisms that Owen Jones is picking up, right?
He's picking up standard leftist criticisms.
The democracy.
Yeah, exactly, right?
But she, her complaint was, look, I don't think King Charles will protect me.
And that's very interesting, isn't it?
Because that's actually a very conservative, very traditional view of what the monarch is supposed to do.
The sector of the realm.
Yeah, exactly.
As Machiavelli famously put it, you know, a prince should have no thought other than war.
Yeah.
You know, that's your job.
And so Owen Jones spends a lot of this optimistically saying, well, do you think we'll see a republic?
And he gets Aaron Bustanian of Navarra Media, who's just like, not in our lifetimes, mate.
It's not happening.
And it's exactly, it's not happening, you communist scum.
Cope and see.
Yeah, exactly.
Go and dilate in the corner, Owen.
And we can see, actually, this is measurable, right?
So there has been a remarkable amount of goodwill that has been extended to King Charles, which I think is very appropriate.
So before he became king, he had an approval rating of about 39%.
You know, 39% of people thought he would do a good king.
Now it's 63% of people.
So you can see a massive increase in how people think he'll do.
And only 15% think he'll do a bad job, down from about 30%.
So you can...
The people love a good redemptive arc.
They do.
And this has been a hell of a redemptive arc for Charles.
Before that he was, you know, conducted himself in a less than proper manner in the past.
People have seen him as a disgrace, and yet when the time came for him to step up and do his duty, he has.
Yeah, I mean, like, what's very interesting is that, I mean, I take it you watched his dress, right?
I've seen parts of it.
It wasn't even very long, but it was good, actually.
There are a few parts that, as an anti-woke crusader, I might be like, oh god, he said that word.
But overall, a very good tone, and he did a good job of it.
And so 94% thought his address to the nation was good, with only 3% being critical.
What were you going to criticize?
He didn't pledge allegiance to communism or something.
But apparently younger voters were less positive, with only 46% believing he would do a good job, with a quarter saying he would do badly.
But the thing is, there's still almost twice as many young people who think he'll be good than bad.
So that's, again, even in the Zoomers, there's much more goodwill towards the monarchy than antipathy.
They probably couldn't explain it, why that is, if you asked them.
Of course not.
But they don't need to explain it.
It's something that's felt.
And Charles seems to be actually doing a good job for his first week on the throne.
He just kept working, actually, which is respectable.
He, as the Times put it, he worked like a Starchonovite.
If anyone doesn't know, the Starchonovites were a sort of communist movement that were dedicated to working as hard as they could for the people.
That's a strange turn of phrase by the times there.
But he travelled from Scotland to London for the proclamation, fitting in a warp-out with Nordic's Prime Minister.
Before flying back to receive a motion of condolence and speaking to a bunch of head of states.
So he's been busy.
And so the question is, well, is Charles going to be a divisive and politicised monarch?
And, well, we have an interview from when he was in 2018.
A BBC documentary marked his 70th birthday, and Charles said he would no longer make public interventions on political matters when he becomes the king.
Quote, I'm not that stupid.
So there we go.
I thought that the entire thing was beautiful, actually.
Very well executed.
Everyone conducted themselves appropriately, apart from a couple of foreigners.
To be expected in these days, sadly.
The fact that it's only been one or two big news reports about people like that is nothing else if not promising to me.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
A good sign, I suppose.
But let's take a look at monarchy and England in general.
The two are completely intertwined with one another.
You can't have England without the monarchy, and you can't have the English monarchy without the English.
Because we...
It's a shared history.
It's a shared heritage that we all have between one another that connects the English people to one another.
and I thought it would be interesting to look at how that's going right now, because, as you've mentioned, the Republicans have taken an opportunity to try and stir up some controversy during this period in the most disrespectful manner possible.
But I thought, obviously, we can't really see past this paywall right here.
But the most recent surveys that have been done on British support for the monarchy show kind of what you would expect, which is that the older generations are far more decisively in support of it.
You've got the 25 to 49-year-olds, 56% support, and above that you get more and more.
With the younger generations who are less supportive of it, Although you do get 33%, 18 to 14-year-olds, still in support.
31% are Republicans who want an elected head of state, because that will only ever result in good leadership, I'm sure.
LAUGHTER And then 36% say they don't know.
And if anything, that's quite good, because there is an uncertainty about these things that comes with youth.
You're still figuring out the world.
And if anything, it's good to me that these kids are saying, well, I don't know, rather than going blindly ahead with a...
Personal self-assurance that they know exactly how the world works.
I'm sure as time carries on, these younger people are going to, as many do, become more conservative, learn more about their history and heritage, recognise what the traditions they come from, and then probably end up supporting more and more.
And the trends throughout history, throughout the decades, do show hope in that direction.
If we go to the next one, where...
They say in this PBS of all places, talking about it, saying that yes, what actually tends to happen is that they tend to get more and more conservatives as they get older, they get more and more monarchists, and they show more support for the monarchy as they get older.
They say the pattern is not new.
Gap between younger and older people was much the same in 1994 as it is now, even though those people who would have been 18 to 24 back then are the monarchists nowadays, are the royalists are the people who support them.
Back in my teenage years, I probably was like, oh yeah, republics sound like a great idea.
And now I'm like, no god, republics sound like an awful idea.
Look at them.
Do you want to be like France?
Do you want President Macron?
President Biden?
The Americans seceded from the monarchy so that they would be able to form a republic and undo themselves from the tyranny that they were experiencing with, what, a 3% tax?
And now how much are you all taxing yourselves?
Because, oh, I guess if the people voted for it, Biden's private army of IRS agents.
Yes, rating knock on your door.
Where did that $600 go, says Nancy Pelosi?
Yeah.
The whole thing, like, Americans do kind of treat George Washington like a king as well.
They do kind of honour him like a king.
And certain others like JFK is kind of deified as well, but I think Washington himself stepped down after four years in his first term specifically because he said he didn't want to be a king.
He didn't want people to see him that way.
Too bad, Washington.
People kind of see you that way anyway.
Perhaps it would have actually been a better idea if you had become a king, let's be honest at this point.
But they say at the end of here, perhaps the success of the monarchy lies in its ability to offer people a sense of stability in what is otherwise an ever-changing world.
And I'd certainly say that's part of it.
And for a publication like CBS, that's not a bad conclusion, certainly from what I would expect from them.
And any anti-monarchist sentiment and pro-republic sentiment that might be going on, I can say with pretty much certainty that I don't think we'll ever get as bad as it did during the 1600s.
We'll never go back to that period.
No, but that was Charles trying to import French monarchical ideology into England.
I could talk about this for hours, but the English monarch was never an absolute monarch.
It was French monarchical absolutist ideology that Charles had adopted.
And that caused a civil war.
That's how much the English don't agree with it.
Those kings in the past who did try and assert absolute power over the populace were kind of reined in.
That's how you get something like the Magna Carta, isn't it?
Oh yeah.
All of English constitutional history has essentially been trying to reset the Norman monarchy into the Anglo-Saxon monarchy.
The Anglo-Saxon monarchy was not overreaching or tyrannical.
And the Normans came along with French ideas.
They had to be stopped.
Yeah, we'll get onto that as we carry on, because I did find a magnificent thread on Twitter that's just going through...
Each little tweet is just a little miniature biography of a king.
And it's kind of wonderful how, when you go back far enough, a lot of these people...
Obviously, we've got the ceremony, we've got the pomp, we've got the tradition that's been built up over a thousand years...
But you go back to the, say, 800s, 900s, some of these people are just guys.
You see them die in just like a fist fight at a pub somewhere.
Occasionally, yeah.
Some of them die in battle.
Some of them die in battle, but there's a long history of these being people, not gods in themselves.
No, not at all.
I'm going to do a thing, but this goes back to Tacitus, when his description of Germania, where he says, look, the Germanic, as in the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, I'm not absolute rulers, and they don't even, like, actually dispense justice.
It was the priests that dispensed justice in pre-Christian time.
You know, they were there to, you know, essentially be a symbol of unity.
And so, like, the whole thing, it's not really very different to, like, 2,000 years ago, actually, in ethos, at the very least.
No, but we've also mentioned some of the filthy Republicans and their arguments, and their arguments always amuse me, because there is this website, republic.org, and if you scroll down, you can see their latest video, Why the Monarchy Must Go.
I mean, maybe a bit soon here, lads.
Yeah.
Just as a quick thing here, right, so the United Kingdom, as in the political body that is Britain, Exists because of the monarchy.
Without that, there's no reason for England, Scotland and Ireland and Wales to have any kind of political union.
Because, I mean, initially it was the union of the crowns between England and Scotland.
England having Wales as essentially a province, a princedom.
And so without that, why would we have that?
So you wouldn't have a Republic of Britain.
You would have an English Republic.
And can you imagine just, I've said it before, but how far right an English Republic is going to be?
That'd be great.
The Scottish Republic's going to be a communist hellhole.
Peter Hitchens has at times suggested that we should just secede from the United Kingdom.
Yeah, I've said this as well.
I'm sure he's stealing my lines here, but a Kingdom of England would be a very different thing not having Scotland and Wales in it.
No, absolutely.
Congenital leftists.
I'd say they're tearing us down, pulling us down with them.
It's not even pulling us down, it's pulling us to the left.
If the political entity was England, it'd be a much more conservative place.
Of course, I don't want Scots influencing my politics.
Not normally, but anyway.
But they ask here, why do we want a republic?
And there will be no prizes to anybody who guesses the answer.
And it is simple.
Hereditary public office goes against every democratic principle.
Oh, I don't care.
I don't care.
Democracy is not the be-all and end-all.
God that failed, some might argue.
Yes.
And simply because people have convinced themselves that we are at the forefront of history, where the most enlightened thinkers to have ever existed, will not change the reality of democracy not being the best tool for every occasion, shall we say.
I mean, Hitler was elected.
What now?
Like, what do you want?
I would say, referring to Hopper, who wrote Democracy, The God That Failed, he suggests that to succeed in politics means becoming an incredibly effective sociopath and liar.
So if you're able to succeed in politics, the likelihood is that you're not a particularly good person.
Whereas on the other hand, a monarch who is raised from birth to be a ruler, to be a leader, to behave in the appropriate ways...
Yes, you can get tyrants, and this is what people, like the Republicans, always point to.
Oh, we've got tyrannical leaders in the past.
Yes, but we've also got plenty of do-nothing leaders who basically just sat around and spent a bunch of money and didn't really do anything good or bad, which is, if you're just wanting stability, pretty much okay.
And then there are plenty of people who are just good people.
Yeah, I mean, you get, like, genuinely good leaders who do good things, and it's like, I would rather a King Alfred than a parliament that we've got now.
Yeah, I'd rather King Alfred than another Boris.
Yeah, exactly.
Or, God forbid, Liz Truss, wherever she's going to be taking it.
I don't even dislike Liz Truss, really.
It's just...
I don't want these people to be, like...
I don't want to pledge allegiance to Liz Truss.
Or Joe Biden.
I wouldn't have hand in heart in front of a portrait of Liz Truss, that's for sure.
That's the thing.
The elected head of state, you've got to pledge allegiance to a partisan actor.
I don't like that idea, actually.
You know, the...
I mean, they say we can't hold the Queen and her family to account of the ballot box.
There's nothing to stop them abusing their privilege.
I've seen this argument.
I've had this argument with a few Republicans.
Like, oh, you're a slave to the Queen.
It's like, how the hell is she enslaving me, dude?
Like, I do what I want all day, every day, you know?
It feels like Parliament's in slavery.
I'm raising my taxes.
Parliament are the ones raising your taxes.
They're the ones telling you you're not allowed to go outside and socialise with certain people.
The Queen didn't put lockdowns in place!
No, she didn't.
And once again, as if the ballot box is going to be the ultimate arbiter of good decision-making.
It's nonsense.
And they made a statement about the Queen's death saying, Proclamation of a new king is an affront to democracy.
Good.
A moment that stands firmly against the values that most of us believe in, values such as equality, accountability, and the rule of law.
Accountability and the rule of law were basically established under monarchy.
And equality is not something I care about.
No, equality is, again, another false god.
It's a total nothing.
But yeah, you are exactly right.
And you can feel them right here with their fingers crossed, begging.
They go, the Queen's the most popular member of the royal family.
Once she's gone, nobody's going to like Charles.
Oops, it looks like the polls that you brought up a moment ago show that actually people do quite like Charles.
Two-thirds of the country are like, yeah, we'll give him a good shot.
But what's interesting is in the 14th century, I think it was, that the king was finally subject to laws he was responsible for enforcing, to his laws.
The king was made subject to his own laws.
Was that the beginning of parliamentarianism?
I believe so, yeah.
Yeah, I would imagine.
And so it's just like, oh, we want the rule of law.
It's like, you want a monarchical concept then, an English monarchical concept.
You didn't get that in France or in Germany or in Italy or wherever else.
You got that here, and so what you're saying is, I want English traditionalism when you say rule of law.
Well, yeah, and the other aspect is they always refer to a divine right of kings means they can just do whatever they want.
Yeah, but that's French.
Yeah.
That's not how things work here.
Yeah, how things work here...
That's why King John was sat running me, being like, you're signing this document.
And the Pope's like, oh, we're going to overturn it.
It's like, don't care.
You know, who cares what the Pope bloody thinks?
I mean, I would say the monarch has a divine duty to God, being the head of the church, which, if anything, is something to restrain them.
Yeah.
It's not like...
That doesn't mean they have absolute power over every aspect of their subjects' lives, and in this country, it never has meant.
And when it did mean that, we had a civil war.
I also think, and this is something that's changed about the way that I view things recently, certainly it got me thinking after the Queen's death, the role of a monarchy in the...
and the head of state...
Sorry to interrupt, but it just struck me, like, these people, like, yeah, we really don't like Louis XIV. And it's like, okay, neither do I. Right.
Yeah, I mean...
He's not our king!
Exactly!
Like, Louis XIV was like 1704 or something like that, that sort of, you know, 1700, that sort of time, and it's like, okay, you're having an argument with the French hundreds of years ago.
I mean, that was after the English Civil War.
Louis XIV was like, I am the state, and we'd already cut off one king's head, and we had brought Charles back on the understanding, no, no, look, there's a way of doing things, the Magna Carta way of doing things.
So these people aren't even having an argument with the British monarchy.
It just struck me all of a sudden.
Sorry.
No, no, you're absolutely right.
And like I said, I've been thinking about it a bit more recently.
I've been doing some reading, and it's changed my perspective on a few things.
I do still consider myself a libertarian, but I think you can be a monarchist and a libertarian.
I think Hopper shows you.
Yeah, absolutely he does.
But I do think that people...
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what people want in governance.
People want to have a greater meaning in their lives, and they defer to a higher authority through that, whether it be God, a king, or what's dethroned...
Your own father.
Your own father, but I think in a lot of people nowadays, because of this Enlightenment mentality that many people are in, democracy as a concept has dethroned God and the King for a lot of people.
Sadly, because I don't think democracy is...
I think democracy is deficient in fulfilling those desires and impulses that people want.
And most people, so whether they think about it on a daily basis or not, We're affected more by the Queen's death than they expected to because of the fact that they feel that.
They feel that they want somebody.
They feel like the Queen is, in a sense, their mother or their grandmother for a lot of people.
So they do feel it very personally.
And what I find interesting about the Republicans is like, oh, we want the people to decide.
Okay, we're going to go and ask Barry Stanton what he wants.
He's like, I want to elect a king.
Now what?
You know, like North FC are not like, you know, French intellectual Republicans.
They're like, no, I want me king.
You know, love me Commonwealth.
Simple as.
Simple as.
Because they recognised that the Queen was someone who dedicated every single day of her life to serving this country.
She was not somebody who had arbitrary power to do whatever she wanted.
She was, in essence, a servant to the people.
As is proper.
Yeah.
You know, she had to sacrifice a lot.
Her family abdicated.
Edward, who was supposed to take the throne, abdicates, and then all of a sudden she goes from just being a princess to being the next in line to the throne, and that changes her life entirely, and she still stepped up.
In many ways, it is a gilded cage.
It absolutely is.
I'm a lot more free than the Queen was.
Yeah.
I do what I want.
And I've referenced Hopper a few times, and I think he sums something up quite nicely here, which is if you're a conservative and you believe in the idea of hierarchy and there being a natural order to things, you kind of have to accept...
view of looking at things.
And I'm just going to read a quote from this that I hope you'll agree with, where he says, conservative refers to someone who recognizes the old and natural through the noise of anomalies and accidents and who defends, supports, and helps to preserve it against the temporary and anomalous.
Within the realm of the humanities, including the social sciences, a conservative recognizes families and households based in property and cooperation within a community of other households as the most fundamental, natural, essential, ancient, and indispensable social unit.
Moreover, the family household also represents the model of the social order at large.
Just as a hierarchical order exists in a family, so there is a hierarchical order within a community of families of apprentices, servants, masters, vassals, knights, lords, overlords, and kings, tied together by an elaborate and intricate system of kinship relations and of children, parents, priests, patriarchs, tied together by an elaborate and intricate system of kinship relations and of children, parents, priests, And I think that's a very nice way of putting it.
It's also true.
It is very true.
You can recognise this.
Whether people want to deny the idea of hierarchy or smash it altogether, people defer to the higher authorities.
Right.
There is never...
I mean, humans are intrinsically hierarchical.
And this is the thing.
I don't tend to talk about hierarchy because there's often just no point.
It's like talking about what colour the sky is today.
I watched a Vice News documentary about Antifa, right?
A few years ago, Antifa were coordinating to overthrow systems of oppression, and the women in the Antifa commune were complaining that there was a hierarchy in the commune, and the men were learning how to throw the Molotovs while they were making the Molotovs in the kitchen.
If even the communist revolutionaries can't avoid hierarchy, I think that John Peter might be right and it might be intrinsic.
It might just be built into us, and you can't just focus on, ooh, he said lobster.
No, it's just true.
And the thing is, the great lie of smashing of hierarchies, of democracy being the only thing, seems to be coming down in front of people's very eyes, because you sent this through to me.
Before we go into that, just a very quick thing, right?
That's interesting, isn't it?
Like, it is a great lie.
Like, we're going to get rid of all the hierarchies and smash hierarchies.
No, what you want to do is just replace one hierarchy with another, right?
And so, okay, well that's the honest assertion of left-wing ideology.
And so, okay, what do you want to replace it with?
Well, we want to replace it with what?
People's assemblies?
You know, we want to replace it, we've got a parliament.
We want to just, yeah, we've got the parliament, and we see how that goes.
It just turns into people childishly yelling at one another.
Or, worse, it turns into people executing one another.
For being insufficiently pure and dogmatic to ideology, a la the French Revolution, right?
And so it's like, right, so what we've got is actually a really stable, long-lived system in which I'm free, you know, I'm actually free to own my property, work my business, you know, spend time with my friends.
Well, for now.
Yeah, until the leftists get control of everything.
But the point is, like, you know, historically, like, Burke has this great line in Reflections on the French Revolution, right?
Or he's like, you know, he gets a letter from someone in France.
He's like, well, until this point, I thought I lived in a free country, but I've been told that I'm not free.
And I don't know.
He's an intellectual, an aristocrat, a politician.
And he's like, well, I thought I lived in a free country.
And it's like, no, no, no, it's not a free country.
Of course it's a free country.
And those people telling you that you're not living in a free country, your freedom isn't true freedom, all they're doing is they're manipulating you so that they can get you under their thumb.
They're trying to sell you utopia, so you'll tear down what you've got.
But again, as Burke points out, all the good things that we inherit, they build up over time, and that's what the tradition contains.
There's a lot of good things that it is difficult to replace.
And so when the left is like, right, we want a new hierarchy, if they're not saying we want to abolish hierarchy as a concept...
Even though that's the lie.
What they're asking for is a new hierarchy.
But what's the new hierarchy based on?
It's based on adherence to a certain dogma.
It's like, right, I don't actually like that view of their hierarchy.
I don't want what they're offering.
Even if I thought they were competent, which I don't, and I thought they could put it in place, which I don't think they can, I think it'll be...
Exactly the same as everywhere else.
And you end up with something like China, you know, at the end of it.
And it's like, look, I just don't like it, don't trust it.
I do trust that which we've had since time immemorial and that I'm familiar with and I can feel safe in.
Yeah, even appealing to something like a hierarchy of merit, which is something that people on the right often do, can fall flat on its face at times.
Because if you've got a meritocracy of politicians, you might just end up with a meritocracy of people who are really good at screwing you over.
Yeah.
Well, the thing, like, at no point am I going to expect, and no one, it would be the most amusing thing to say, is Agents of the King will kick down our door, or anyone's door, Owen Jones' door, Dr.
Scholar's door, and drag them out and disappear them, right?
That's never going to happen.
That's never going to happen, you know?
But if communists took over your country, agents of the Communist Party absolutely would kick down our door and drag us away and then we'd disappear.
All you need to do is read Solzhenitsyn to hear first-hand details of that happening.
It happens during the French Revolution, it happens in Russia, it happens in China, it happens in Cuba, it happens in...
Cambodia, everywhere.
Everywhere that the communists take over, that happens.
But in the British constitutional monarchy, that doesn't happen.
So why would I choose the opposite?
That doesn't happen until the democratic institutions start to consolidate and centralise their power.
Exactly.
Which is why it actually makes me hopeful to see that young adults have a dramatic loss of faith in UK democracy recently.
And I'm sure...
I'm hopeful because people have a lot of faith in democracy.
I'm sure that most of these people are probably saying, oh, there's still inequality, they've not redistributed the wealth yet.
But perhaps this does speak to something deeper that people are recognising that, hold up, this...
Isn't always the best way of doing things?
Perhaps sometimes we do need to defer to a leader who's been raised from birth to know what they're doing, rather than a bunch of blubbering blowhards like we get.
The thing is, because these people come from privileged backgrounds, these people often be raised in the sort of Etonian way, which is essentially what you're asking for.
And so I think...
I think there's a difference, though.
There's a difference between being raised to be basically the owner and the ruler, like a monarch would be, and being raised to be a caretaker of the country.
These two different attitudes breed different methods.
I think the problem is...
What was I reading the other day that was talking about this?
The problem with democracy is essentially that the focus becomes wrongly aligned On becoming re-elected, and...
You get short-term goals that you're trying to go for, whereas a monarch, because they know that, well, 50 years down the line, I'm still going to be monarch.
Or I'm going to pass it on to my children.
Yeah, it's much more long-term.
But it's not...
It just...
It wrongly aligns the incentives, and then you've got the other problem, which is, okay, what if you're in a safe seat?
Well, then I can just be corrupt.
If I know that everyone in this borough is going to vote Labour forever...
Like Claudia Webb?
Except Claudia Webb shouldn't have a career as a politician.
She's awful, and yet she's going to be there forever because everyone there is just going to vote Labour because they do.
And that's, again, that's what actually makes Boris Johnson such a disappointment.
It's like, look, if you flip a bunch of Labour seats like you did, you know, everything's on the table.
You should have done something with it.
And looked at something.
And even the new statesmen of all places seem to be, through gritted teeth, admitting that, oh, the young people, they don't like democracy anymore.
They're starting to fail.
Oh my goodness.
So, once again, coping and seething.
And then I found this mega-thread, which Rory shared on Twitter, which I thought was excellent.
The Cultural Tutor is a very good account.
Yes.
One tweet biography of every English and British monarch since Alfred the Great in 1886.
And just this first image here is absolutely fantastic.
If you scroll down so you can see that.
That tapestry of faces of our rulers.
And that's...
Rory puts it quite well.
This shows in itself why it is that the monarchy is so important to England and why we need it, is the continuity.
The fact that we can trace back our history and our heritage over a thousand years and understand the lives and achievements of all of these people is something that we should be proud of.
Yeah, and there are plenty of monarchs that are genuinely impressive people as well.
Like Henry V there, Richard the Lionheart, Edward I. There are loads of them who are genuinely impressive and actually did good things.
But anyway, let's carry on.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I was just going to go through a few of these.
So we had all the way back in 1886 through 1899, Alfred the Great, who united the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, fought off Viking invasions.
They kept the Dane law in northern England, but he did oversee many important reforms and traditionally is thought of as the first king of England.
Alfred was genuinely amazing.
He was an actual philosopher, and he translated the Bible into Anglo-Saxon.
Oh, really?
Out of Latin, yeah.
And he sent that around the country.
He instituted a bunch of legal reforms and he had a very humble attitude.
He was like, I didn't really innovate any laws.
I just collected the laws we had, the established customers of the land.
I didn't really want to innovate because I didn't know that they would be happy, well accepted by the people who come after me.
What a thoughtful way of looking at things.
Yeah.
And you go to people like Edgar the Peaceful, who it says was in 959 to 975, his coronation in 973 created the tradition, which continues to the present day, which, once again, we can just trace it all the way back to over a thousand years ago.
We've actually just been covering all of this on Beau's Epoch series on the website.
We're just about to come to William the Conqueror in it.
We've been going through the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, from Alfred, through Æthelstan, to Æthelstan being like the first proper king of England, really.
The king of all England.
Yeah, well, I mean, he's been reading Anglo-Saxons by Mark Morris, and I've got a copy of that.
I need to give it a read, because it's just fascinating.
Like I say, it makes me proud to know where we come from, to know our heritage.
The envy of every other country, I swear to God.
Yes, no one else can really boast such an unbroken lineage, really, can they?
And then you get to people like Edward the Confessor, who was the final king of the House of Wessex, through to Harold Godwinson, who I believe made an agreement with William that, oh, don't worry, I'll just keep the throne warm for you, bro, and then crowns himself.
It's hard to know.
Like, very briefly, Edward the Confessor spent a lot of time in Normandy.
And was married to Emma of Normandy.
And so, actually, William may have actually had the legitimate claim over Harold Godwinson, who was Edmund Godwin's, like...
Essentially tried to usurp it.
We can't be sure, because again, this was a thousand years ago.
But it may well be that actually William was the rightful successor.
William might have been in the right.
He didn't have any kids of his own.
Very interesting.
Although I've got to say, I've got a soft spot for Harold Godwinson.
I thought he was great.
I need to read up more on this stuff because it makes me very proud to know all of this, but I don't know anywhere near as much as I should.
Well, this is why you should go check out Bo's Epochs, man.
No, I do need to listen to Epochs.
It's really good.
And the thing you notice about the 11th century is it's an entire century where there are just hard men, serious men, doing serious things all over the world.
It's really epic.
Hollywood should make movies of these people.
They absolutely should, but you'd have to cast only English people, or at least only European people, I should say.
There are loads of people, like Harold Hardrada, the last great Viking king who Godwinson defeats at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.
He spends half of his life as a guard for the Byzantine Empire.
For the Varangian guard.
And he took, apparently, quote, 80 castles and cities in Syria.
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And these people had unbelievably epic lives.
And, like, all over the Middle East.
We need to celebrate this far more than we do.
Exactly.
It's not just Northern Europe that exists in, like, 1100.
We need to bring back historical epics.
Yes, we do.
They're not in vogue anywhere near as much as they should be.
No, it sucks, doesn't it?
Yeah, it does.
And then you can go to Bad King John, as he's known as, in 1199-1216, the son of Henry and brother of Richard, who lost his father's Angevin Empire.
Did I pronounce that right?
Angevin.
Angevin.
Yeah, that's the Empire of...
Yes.
Bad King John, of course.
That's where the Three Lions comes from.
Oh, really?
It's their heraldry.
Ah, yes.
Yeah, so we controlled more of France than the French did.
Oh, glorious days.
Yeah, it was, yeah.
Yeah, it was.
Until, of course, King John came to the throne.
Yes, and then the nobles rebelled and forced him to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, which is foundational to our constitutional system and English rights as well.
Yeah, he wasn't Robin Hood's nemesis, even though he is often depicted as it.
The only king that's mentioned in Robin Hood is Edward, Edward I, maybe, I don't know, who knows.
But yeah, isn't it interesting that England didn't need a formalized constitutional system before the Normans?
It's just going to show you that there's habits and customs that we're just abided by, as Alfred points out.
And it's only with the Normans coming over and trying to do them in French ways, we're like, no, we're going to have a constitutional system.
Yeah, well, before then, things just behaved as they should.
It was custom and tradition.
As was proper for things.
And then you can go all the way through to some of the greatest hits, like Henry VIII. Oh, we're missing out on Edward I, Edward III, Henry V. Well, we've only got a certain amount of time.
I just thought I'd go through something.
Like the great conquering Richard the Lionheart.
If you'd like to take over.
The great conquering kings of England.
We're leaving them out.
No, no, carry on.
No, no.
We'll go on to Henry VIII as well.
No, I was mentioning...
We've only got a limited amount of time.
Kenneth Branagh being the iconic representation of Henry V there, by the way.
Yes.
But, I mean, we could go on about a lot of these people for ages, but it's just a reminder of the history that is in this land and the heritage and culture that we all share.
And my point is that the monarchy is a direct link to the past and something that we can all share between us that unites us in common ancestry.
And I think as well, and I can only speculate, but I think you can unite us in a shared hope for the future also.
And with that, I don't think we're going to do any video comments today because we actually had our very own Connor Tomlinson and John Wong go out to the funeral procession this morning They've been there since, what, 6am?
They got there really early at the crack of dawn so that we could get a bit of footage and speak to some people on the ground and see what's going on down there.
I think Michael might have edited something together for us.
Yeah, we haven't seen any of these video comments yet because we were obviously working hard to get all this together.
So, uh...
Let's see what the situation is there.
Hello, Lotus Eaters.
It's Connor.
I'm here with John Wong.
We both mad enough to get up this morning.
It was, well, I would say bright and early, but it was pitch black.
But we are here at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. It's very loud in the background.
We're here at the Pall Mall, as you can see by all the wonderful flags, straight behind us, and genuinely, there are thousands of people here.
I know we fear a hell of a lot, but the British people are very dispirited, but as Carl said in the recent podcast with Nick Buckley, the magic of Britain is very much still alive.
The crowds are...
Very diverse as a security, and there are more police here than I've ever seen in a lifetime, so it looks like everyone's been drafted in from policing everything else, but other than that, it should be a pretty incredible day.
Great.
So, nice little intro there.
What's going on with the white balance?
I don't know.
Export error.
Export error, apparently.
Let's carry on and just see a look at the crowds that we have here.
You can see that stretching back.
Assuming it looks like everything's covered in snow.
It is.
Let's just assume that, I don't know, God sent something.
Let's just assume there was an error.
Yes, let's just assume there was an error.
As Connor pointed out...
The mall not covered in trans flags.
For once.
Yeah, for once.
Nice to see.
I was in Manchester over the weekend, and sadly I saw more trans flags than I did UK union flags around the place.
That's disgusting.
But now you can see the amount of people who were there.
Once, like Connor pointed out, not exactly the most diverse crowd, but...
No, no, it's fine.
Nah, we can carry on like this.
So, I think this is where Connor starts to speak to some of the people.
No, this is him commenting on the police presence there.
If you look behind me, you can see all the coppers in formation.
They've been drafted in from here, there, and everywhere.
A fella in the crowd just next to us said, if you were going to rob a bank, then today would be the time, which is a quite good line.
It's better than them doing all the Macarena today, isn't it?
So...
But there is something distinctly, again, there's an English aesthetic about it, because, and Carl said this quite often, we seem to have reduced the police uniform to flat caps and high-vis jackets.
Oh yeah, look at that.
And there's something slightly magical lost.
The constabulary.
That looks much more comforting to me, with that uniform, than when you see them in the high-vis.
Yeah, I hate the high-vis jackets.
They look more like someone I could just go up to and be like...
First time we've clapped for the constabulary in a while, but it's refreshing.
But if there's just the Bobby on the street corner, I can go up and be like, oh, something's gone on down there.
Or if it's just the high-vis guy, I just think he's after me.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And I just think...
I think of them as being essentially...
Yeah, not carrying out a duty, right?
They're there as essentially protectors of a regime, you know, the sort of Sadiq Khan regime, not like people who carry the duty to the country.
Certainly the types that around Manchester go around in the vans that say it's an offence to cause an offence.
You're not working on behalf of the best interests of the people.
You're not working to keep them safe.
You're working to keep them under control.
It's very different.
And here, Connor is speaking to our very own Lord Nerovar.
Oh, really?
In person, that's right.
We found him in the crowd and Connor thought he'd go and say hello.
All people were actually here with Lord Nerevar.
How are you doing, my friend?
Greetings.
Fantastic.
So, other than, of course, Our Majesty's funeral, why did you feel compelled to come down today?
I'm an Englishman and I felt the need to come down and pay my respects.
It's a momentous occasion.
It's a massive historical moment.
It's an honour to be here.
So, something that Rory especially said around the office the other day is that he was looking at the amount of time people were spending queuing.
And of course, after lockdown, after a lot of the political turmoil we've had in recent years, they can feel that England has been dispirited, or at least the British spirit has been dampened on.
Looking around, does this make you a bit more optimistic, or are you pessimistic about the fact that such a momentous occasion is what's required to bring out a bit of patriotism?
Well, it's a little bit of both, I suppose.
I mean, looking at all of this, I think Carl was right in saying that England is back.
English magic is back.
We've not had it for a long time, and it's...
Just coming down here and seeing the ordered chaos, I think that's the way you can kind of describe this, that we have ordered chaos in this country, and this wouldn't happen in Afghanistan, would it?
If their monarch died, it'd be pushing and shoving.
We'll ask Callum that one, but yeah, it wouldn't be quite as orderly, definitely not.
Also, there's not quite nearly as many police.
I do wonder where they drafted everyone in from, but I think the uniforms look much, much better.
Obviously, there's been a bit of concordance as to whether or not you see in American media, they say, oh, is the monarchy going to wane after the Queen?
Because some people are Queenists, not monarchists.
What do you think the British public are going to be like in six months' time during the reign of King Charles III? Do you think the same energy, the same sentiment is going to be kept up?
Do you think the goodwill is going to carry forward?
Well, look around you.
If this was all just Queenists, we'd see a lot more Americans about.
Looking around, you can hear nothing but English accents.
There are English people everywhere you look.
This is a very unique English phenomenon.
And saying that it's just Queenists, I think, is doing them a disservice.
People are here to honor the monarchy.
We're not seeing massive protests around the Queen's death.
We're seeing massive congregations.
If they were just Queenists, then surely we'd be seeing massive anti-monarchist sentiment right now.
I'm sure we're seeing a bit, but we always see a bit.
It's no more than usual.
They're just getting a bit louder.
This, I think, is proof that we still have faith in our monarchy, if the polls doesn't prove that already.
Fantastic.
Thank you very much.
Good to actually meet you in person, my friend.
That was a great response.
Yeah, it really was.
Yeah.
That's a good point.
If they were Queenists, there'd be a lot more Americans around.
Yeah, which is probably true.
Once again, showing the engorged brains of our regular viewers.
Yeah, our subscribers are the best.
They really are.
And this is him speaking to a lovely woman called Leslie about what she thinks is going to happen in the future with King Charles.
Sorry, what's your name?
Leslie.
So we've got quite an international viewership and we've seen, especially in the American news media, a lot of them have been saying, well, we don't know where the monarchy stands now because quite a few people were very enthusiastic about the Queen, but they weren't so enthusiastic about Charles when he was a prince.
How do you feel about the current king's incumbent reign?
Are you enthused?
I think he's been absolutely amazing.
He's just lost his mother and has had to do his king duties right across the UK and he's carried out everything with magnificent professionalism.
And I think he'll be a brilliant reign.
It's as simple as that.
I think time passes and different people's views pass and etc, etc.
He's got a massive act to follow.
Clearly the Queen was reigning from a very young, beautiful princess into Queen for 70 years.
And, you know, he's basically a statesman coming to the throne.
And, you know, he's 70 plus.
But I think the crowd will get behind him.
You've seen that after the aftermath.
Of the Queen's passing when it was announced.
And I think, yeah, William also, Prince William, Prince of Wales now, will also learn greatly from him.
There's a different way of doing things.
The Queen had to create a path for herself.
She was the only woman, as the Queen Consort said last night, amongst a world of men.
So, it's just wonderful to see the support on the ground for the monarchy and the people inhabiting.
I mean, that woman's intuitions are completely correct as well.
You know, the polling shows.
Charles has been much more popular than people expected him to be.
Yeah, once again, the Republicans can go cry in the corner if that's what they want, because if they expect that the average prole, if your average working man on the street is going to be eager to be rid of the monarchy, you're absolutely wrong.
Yeah, as she said, simple as.
Yes.
But let's move on to the written comments, shall we?
I think what we might do, they're still out there.
If they get some more footage, we might see what else we can get for the future.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
If we get more, we get more.
It's good to document these things.
Maybe afterwards we'll see if we can get Michael to try and re-render those clips.
Hopefully get them...
It's not Michael's fault, obviously.
I mean, I know we're white, but come on.
Yeah, this is deathly pale.
But maybe we'll put them out on the lotusthesis.com YouTube channel.
That's why I was thinking.
Anyway, Marcus says, there really is something magical about all this, isn't there?
Yeah, I think so, actually.
Omar says, I love how the Queen's death turned into a cultural landmine, ready to destroy any anti-British sentiment.
Every cope and seething commentary from regressives is rebuffed by a single not right now.
Now, suddenly, these queue skippers find they need to read the room and walk on eggshells around us for once.
Yeah, there is something beautiful about that, isn't there?
There really is.
I just don't care.
Finally, they're in the position that most of us have been in for years at this point, so they finally get a taste of their own medicine.
Not that it'll change them, but just that they know what's coming for them.
Maybe, but the dialectic is very much not in their favour, you know what I mean?
They've not advanced any arguments, and they've just been basically, just roundly just, this is disgusting, you're a disgusting person.
yeah i can only hope that this regresses their arguments because of the support that the monarchy has lucas says i queued with people from all around the united kingdom including northernireland for 16 hours to see her majesty stepping into westminster hall uh which has been there since 1097 and bowing my head towards her majesty's coffin made me flush into holding back tears after everything our culture has endured recently i stood there and knew i was gazing upon the soul of britain the linchpin that keeps it together it's an amazing comment Beautifully put.
Yeah.
Al says, watching the changing of the guards really choked me up.
So elegant and respectful.
As an American, I envy you Brits and your rich history.
It could have been your history.
It could have been your history.
Well, 3% tax.
I was going to call you Callum then.
3% tax, Harry.
I mean, that's enough to make any man want to revolt, isn't it?
Well, yeah, surely.
Isn't it?
Surely.
Isn't it?
God, I pray to God for a 3% tax.
Please.
Liz, you promised tax cuts.
Do something right, okay?
- Okay. - Come on.
Maureen says, "I've been watching the livestream "in the funeral for hours now.
"It was meant to be on the background while I was working, "but I couldn't concentrate.
"It was mesmerizing.
"You really sense it is unifying people.
"That wreath contained myrtle cut from a plant "grown from the original myrtle "from the Queen's wedding bouquet was so thoughtful." Like, all of these small things that you don't...
I don't know, you know, but, like, that's the way it was.
It's quite beautiful.
It's poetic, almost.
This feels like a worthy farewell to a golden era, mournful but composed, incredibly respectful towards Queen Elizabeth II. Jordan says, Exactly.
That's exactly right.
Like, there's a general sense of respect.
Omar, in fact, this is another good comment from Omar.
I'm not sure there could be a better dividing line than the privileged elite deciding whether or not to respect the queue.
British line up in order to wait on their turn.
The globalist, anywhere elite, take their shortcut because it's a PR requirement that they want over and done with as quickly as possible.
To them, it's an inconvenience.
Yeah, and that's what made David Beckham so respectable about it.
Yeah, he knows that it's an important moment for him and the rest of the country, so he's going to take his turn and not cut in.
Whereas Omar's absolutely right here.
Philip Schofield doesn't care.
Holly Willoughby doesn't care.
They just want to get it over with.
Oh, we're going to cut the queue because I've got places to be.
And their defence of, like, oh, well, we were there to record for this morning, it's like, oh, right, so you really don't care.
Well, that would have been great footage of the queue for this morning, then, wouldn't it?
It was literally, I was there for the job, and then I left.
You know, I didn't jump the queue.
I didn't want to be there at all.
Okay, thanks, Philip.
But Omar says, I never imagined the trolley problem analogy would be so deep and thorough a test of character.
I'm more amazed that these people are so out of touch they don't realise how this would affect their reputation for receiving backlash.
Yeah.
Sophie says, Americans have no right to make fun of the queue.
I haven't seen any Americans actually making fun of the queue.
I think Americans are more jealous than anything.
They don't have anything like this.
I've seen the footage from Black Fridays in America.
Me too.
Bunch of savages just falling over each other for a cheaper pair of ugly leopard spot pants.
Meanwhile, the English are super civilized and behave themselves good on you, England.
You're wonderful.
That's lovely.
Thank you.
Callum says, I'd just like to say I've never skipped a queue in all my life.
I don't ever recall skipping a queue.
I don't know how I would do it.
I've been accused of it once or twice when people who I know have been already further along in the queue and sort of waved me over.
But I always feel terrible if that happens, and you kind of have to retreat to the back of the queue if people call you out on it.
Yeah, only if people are accepting of it.
In fact, actually, no, the most recent time, there's a music festival where I'm from, Nantwich Jazz and Blues Festival, and earlier on this year, I was standing in the queue, because I was trying to go see a friend's band, and it was massive, and a bunch of people I knew tried to cut in by being like, oh, I'm just going to come over here and talk to Harry, and I said, no, get to the back of the queue right now, this is so rude.
Yeah.
Riss says, God rest the Queen and God save the King.
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
Chris says, still can't believe she's gone.
You can see the weight of her loss on the pallbearer's shoulders.
There's so much magic exceding from your culture.
Good magic.
We need that kind of magic right now because darkness crept across the land.
That's why they attack it.
Henry says, How long do you think Charles has got?
He could live into his 90s.
I was going to say, his mother lived into her 90s.
His father lived almost to 100 years old.
So I think as long as he keeps on top of his health, I think he could be around for a while.
Although there's sausage fingers.
There is sausage fingers, but that can happen sometimes to anybody, really.
Dan says, there's just something about the sound of bagpipes that brings an energy you can't match with other instruments.
And I agree, I really like that.
Funerals, of course, but I had a piper at my wedding leading the procession and piping my wife down the aisle was magical.
Funny thing, my wife being Indian and the piper was her idea.
Anthony says...
JC says...
Yeah, that's the thing.
It is seditious, right?
That is what they're talking about.
It's seditious.
Can we have a Republic of Britain?
No, you'd have to abolish Britain as a state to have a republic.
Then you get an English republic, a Scottish republic.
So what you are describing is basically sedition.
Baron von Warhawk says, It seems to me that the so-called experts and commies tend to despise magic.
They seem to hate how ancient traditions, culture and customs of England have created a shared magic simply because it's not rational and cannot be measured by science.
It's not scientific.
It cannot be subverted or deconstructed, which means communists can't understand it and therefore they hate it.
Yeah, and it prevents the new man created at year zero who exists outside of space and time.
The point of the tradition is it belongs somewhere in a place on a continuum of a society.
I would also add to that, shared by a common people.
Shared by a particular people as well.
Exactly, yes.
Absolutely.
So it describes a relationship between the people who are already alive, where they belong, a particular place, and history, and implies a future.
And so this is everything the communists hate.
Well, they're trying to destroy our future.
Absolutely.
But you can't have a communist revolution while such a thing exists.
This is what, what's his face, the Italian Gramsci was talking about with the reason that the Russians could endure a communist revolution is because essentially they had a very weak civilization.
They didn't have this sort of, you know, closely knit, well...
Like, deep relationship of the people to the place, to the institutions, to the history.
And so you could overthrow that.
But in the West, you have a very...
And even, like, in America, in France, you do have, like, this very close-knit sort of integrated society.
Yeah.
One of the hallmarks of Russian society, as far as I know it, is that the people have always been deeply distrustful of one another.
Yeah.
Whereas the English, if I go to somewhere that I know the majority population is English, I can be happy to walk around on my own at even silly times of the night where you would feel unsafe doing that.
And you could go to areas in America and Canada of English descent and you'd feel exactly the same.
All the people are basically the same.
This sort of inherited view of how society should be.
You just fit right in.
Sometimes foreigners, intelligent and observant foreigners, can observe it and put it better.
In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek comments that...
No matter the political leanings, no matter the differences that they may share, if two Englishmen meet each other in a foreign land, they will immediately be able to trust and understand one another far more than anybody who might even be ideologically more close to them who is a foreigner.
Yeah, I think that's totally true.
I think it's totally true.
Chris says, Something I noticed about the UK monarchy.
It brings us all into a family structure.
Charles watches and mourns his mother, but his subjects surround him and sing her praises.
It is a beautiful tapestry of community and love.
It is not uniquely British to create community, but there is no place more connected to its past than the UK. That's a great point, because think of the woman who Connor interviewed, where she was like, you know, he's just lost his mum.
Everyone's saying that.
It's like, yeah, okay, but you could come back and say, well, he has been prepared for the last 50 years to lose his mum and become the king.
To that I say, so what?
I don't care how well prepared he is for it.
He almost just died.
Well, exactly.
It is the familial aspect of it that I think is being picked up on so many people.
He is right.
It creates a family out of the nation, which is nice and better than a social contract.
Absolutely.
I'm just reloading my document because some of the things haven't loaded.
And that's the thing about the idea of the social contract that democracy, or at least an absolute democracy, brings us into.
Because people don't see any shared ties, they see shared burdens, which is why they feel the need to accept just being taxed more and more and more.
Because if you're part of the social contract, well, I've sacrificed for this contract, so you must do as well.
Screw off, it's my money.
Leave me alone.
Yeah, I hate this attitude.
Callum's got a good comment here.
How long has monarchy been around and how long have republics been around?
Which has done most for the world and which has achieved the most?
I'd say monarchy and the British monarchy in particular.
So the concept of republic...
It's been around for thousands of years, but republics themselves only last a few hundred years at best.
You know, that's the problem with republics is that because the continuity of them is never stable, it's not like presupposed what's coming next.
The position ends up getting destroyed.
The republic ends up getting destroyed.
I mean, this is why Benjamin Franklin, like, oh, a republic if you can keep it.
So, exactly, if you can keep it.
Like, you know you are going into this inherently.
And the thing is, republics have their own benefits.
Like, they're incredibly powerful.
Like, when you create a republic, you are creating a powerful institution.
You are weaponizing the state in many ways.
And republics often do much better than their contemporary counterparts, which is why they become dominant, like the Romans and the Americans, right?
The Athenians are much the same.
And so it's very interesting that republics represent something that is...
It's not about stability and continuity.
It's about an expression of power.
It's raw dominance.
But that just means that, as you said, the instability that is kind of inherent in them means that when they do come collapsing down, it's very bad for everyone.
Well, yeah.
this is why you've got lots of artwork of the fall of rome and it doesn't look very fun does it no you're looking forward america uh jordan says the greatest challenge to any republican is to make an argument against monarchy that is not purely material as in money uh purely selfish as in i don't like the current monarch or appealing exclusively to democracy uh which go as in you know that goes against the principles of revelation in france so yeah you know what is the argument you
At this point, if it undermines democracy, that's a selling point to me.
Well, that's the thing.
The purely material is essentially a selfish argument anyway.
So that's basically the same thing.
And then appealing to democracy...
Again, it's kind of selfish.
When the people appeal to democracy, they're not appealing to...
I mean, they have the idea of the general will, this sort of ethereal thing, but everybody assumes that their will is what the general will represents.
So they're not saying, oh, I want the people to decide.
It's like, no, I want to decide without being crowned dictator.
Yeah, exactly.
I want to decide.
Because, again, like, if you...
Okay, well, let's farm out the opinion to the people.
Let's have a referendum or whatever.
Oh, we get Brexit.
Oh, you get Trump.
You get, you know...
And then it's, no, we need the second referendum.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Like, you know, Charles is now 65% approval rating or whatever.
Oh, we're going to get a monarch back.
North FC will just vote for the king.
It's just like...
I vote for the king.
Exactly.
You actually don't want democracy.
What you want is just my way.
That's what it is.
But anyway, I think we've...
Yes, I think that's all we've got time for.
Thank you very much for joining us on this episode of the podcast of Lotus Eaters.
We'll be back again tomorrow at 1pm.
Thank you again.
Goodbye.
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