The Return of the King…
Boy, do I remember Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I read it in its entirety to my boys when they were 6 or 8 or something. Well, if either was six when we started, he’d have been eight by the time I finished anyway. It took a good two years, especially with the younger one dropping off to sleep each evening after I’d read about fifteen minutes, so I could never make much progress.
For bedtime book reading, it was a kind of Everest. Everest without rest.
The last of the three books is called The Return of the King and it culminates with joy and celebration when the rightful heir to the throne finally ascends it. Years ago, I found it all terribly poignant and gripping. Later, though, I read Terry Pratchett’s Men at Arms. He has a different take on all this. Throughout the book, there are repeated hints that a certain Corporal Carrot, of the City watch (the police) is, in reality, the last descendant of the kings of Ankh Morpork, the great city of Pratchett’s Discworld, where the throne has stood empty for centuries.
Debunking the the myth |
‘Tell me, captain… this business about there being an heir to the throne… What do you think about it?’
‘I don’t think about it, sir. That’s all sword-in-a-stone nonsense. Kings don’t come out of nowhere, waving a sword and putting everything right. Everyone knows that.’
The return of the king might seem a matter to celebrate when it first happens:
‘But what will he do the next day? You can’t treat people like puppet dolls… a man has got to know his limitations. If there was a king, then the best thing he could do would be to get on with a decent day’s work…’
As always, Pratchett is the champion of sanity, decency and good sense. Yes. Why should it be so wonderful to have a long-absent king return? What makes monarchs so great? Looking at the present royal families of Britain, where I have my roots, or Spain, where I live, I can’t help feeling it would be a great improvement if they got on with a decent day’s work instead of engaging in the tiresome behaviour they seem to enjoy far too often.
These thoughts all came back to me as I was working on my podcast, A History of England, which does me a lot of good, if only because I have to learn, or re-learn, so much English history.
On 29 May 1660, his thirtieth birthday, Charles II rode into London looking terribly fine on his horse, to take the crown which had been removed from his father’s head, not long before that head was removed from its shoulders.
It’s a pity we don’t have a photo of the son’s arrival in London. I imagine that his expression might have been a little solemn at first, if only to cover both self-satisfaction and apprehension. He had reason to be worried, since he didn’t have much force with him, and couldn’t be sure that the London population would receive him well. A little later, when he saw his welcome, I expect he was all smiles, with perhaps even more self-satisfaction to hide.
His accession to the throne ended the period of the English republic, or Commonwealth, and Britain has been a monarchy ever since. For better or for worse. And, in my opinion at least, mostly for worse, especially over the last thirty or forty years (Di, Prince Andrew, Meghan).
Charles II's return was met with great feasting. That was perhaps in part because the collapse of the Commonwealth had looked to many as though it might degenerate into renewed civil war. The last one had ended only ten years earlier, and people had vivid memories of its horrors.
Nell Gwynn Best known mistress of Charles II |
Louise de Kéroualle sent by the king of France to be mistress of the king of England |
Why, not even the king could resist it, but had to accept the fall of his own government and its replacement by people he found far less congenial.
Nor was it only Catholics who suffered during this supposed golden age. Things were just as bad at the other end of the scale, with radical Protestants – Presbyterians, Baptists, even Quakers – facing persecution. In deeply Presbyterian Scotland, there was what came to be known as the ‘killing time’, the persecution was so fierce. Why, thumbscrews would even be displayed in court, to show offenders what treatment awaited them if they were found to be uncooperative.
A wonderful thing, the Return of the King? Well, writing that episode convinced me that, while for some it might have been, for many it wasn’t.
These days, I’m more than ever convinced that Pratchett got it far more right than Tolkien did. All that sword-in-a-stone nonsense? It’s for the birds.
No comments:
Post a Comment