Our Pet Queen by John Higgs

Author:John Higgs [Higgs, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7710-3845-7
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2014-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

6. The Collapse of Monarchy in the Christian Era

Somehow the British monarchy survived this major change in the definition of monarchy. This is in itself quite unusual. Most of the other European royalty did not fare so well.

As we’ve already noted, the position of king or queen was, in part, a symbolic representation of the kingdom itself. Divinity was originally either associated with the ruler themselves, such as Egyptian pharaohs who were believed to be the offspring of the sun god Ra, or it was the domain of the highest ranking priest or shaman. That high priest would work closely with the king, bringing a connection to divinity within the walls of the royal court. This system worked fine in the pagan world, but the arrival of Christianity complicated matters.

Christ was more than King of the Jews. His religion was not limited to people from a specific tribe or geographical region. He was the spiritual focus for anyone who wanted him, and his congregation was larger than the subjects of any one king. The spread of Christianity meant that divinity moved away from the ruler’s grasp. Their head priest was now part of something far bigger than any particular kingdom.

The problem became more acute with the rise of the Roman Church and the power of the Pope. This put the king’s high priest in something of an awkward position. That priest had to serve two masters. He had to use a lot of diplomacy in the presence of his king to hide the fact that, of those two bosses, it was the Bishop of Rome that was really the top dog.

This left the king with two options. The easiest response was to just live with it, and this is what most European monarchs chose to do. The Pope could be a good friend and his declarations could grant legitimacy to wars or conquests which might otherwise appear unjustifiable and profoundly unchristian. True, the complicated politics of European relations in pre-Enlightenment Europe meant that staying friendly with the Pope was sometimes easier said than done. King Philip II of Spain, for example, is remembered as a staunch defender of the Catholic faith and a major ally of Rome’s in the struggle against Protestantism, but even he felt he had to declare war against the Pope on one occasion. Generally speaking, though, staying in the Pope’s good books was the simplest and wisest option.

That was not the route chosen by King Henry VIII of England. Henry had initially been a loyal ally of the Pope in the fight against heresy, and Pope Leo X granted him the title of Defender of the Faith in 1521. This title was awarded in gratitude for a book Henry wrote called Defence of the Seven Sacraments, which argued that the Pope ruled supreme and that the Protestant ideas of Martin Luther were as dumb as it gets.

Henry didn’t have any religious issues with Roman Catholicism. He practised a form of worship that was essentially Catholic for his entire life.

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