In Defense of Britain’s Royal Family

Imagine you were given a priceless 3,000-year-old heirloom. While this ancient heirloom had played a central role in some pretty remarkable history, it was also incredibly important to the present. Embodied within it was a message of hope and enlightenment, and of what the future holds for mankind.

Most people would hold such an important possession in high regard. They’d work hard to guarantee its preservation, to ensure it was never damaged. The sound-minded individual would handle such an artifact with tremendous care, respect and admiration.

Not British Prime Minister David Cameron.

In Perth, Western Australia, last week, Mr. Cameron was at the vanguard of a full-frontal assault on a 3,000-year-old English heirloom, an enduring institution that has defined British history, and that even today beams a message of hope to the world. Speaking at a conference of Commonwealth states, Cameron laid out a plan to destroy the British monarchy as we know it. He wants to do this by changing the centuries-old laws governing the succession to the English throne, particularly those regarding females inheriting the throne and English royals marrying Catholics.

Mr. Cameron’s aim, as Trumpet columnist Ron Fraser wrote Monday, is essentially the destruction of the British monarchy.

Were it to happen, this would be a catastrophe—not only for Britain, but even for the world!

England’s monarchy has been the backbone of the nation and the unfailing institution on which all other elements of national power and character have depended. For centuries it has been the glue binding together the United Kingdom and its many dominions. The monarchy embodied the greatest attributes of the British Empire, the indomitable English spirit, the wealth and splendor of the Commonwealth, the class, culture and quality of English civilization.

For hundreds of years, the royal family was the face of Britain.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, England’s royal family presided over Britain’s growth into the largest empire this world has ever known. That globe-girding empire was a blessing to the rest of humanity, revolutionizing everything from commerce and banking to infrastructure, agriculture and medicine. Indeed, much of the world, from America to Australia, India to South Africa, has at one time or another been branded with the mark of the British royal family.

British royals have helped transform international politics and law. Be it King John and the Magna Carta, Henry viii and the Act of Supremacy, or William of Orange and the Bill of Rights, the monarchy has been at the forefront of Britain’s and the world’s judicial and political evolution. The Magna Carta, a revolutionary legal charter signed and sanctioned by England’s King John in 1215 to provide a framework for relations between king and country, has inspired nearly all modern democracies and their constitutions, including America’s Declaration of Independence.

On the battlefield, English royals—be they in the form of bold military geniuses, skillful statesmen or a fortress of inspiration and hope for a downtrodden nation—have played a critical role in all of Britain’s major military conflicts. During the Hundred Years’ War, it was King Henry v’s military genius and courageous leadership that proved decisive at Agincourt. When the Second World War erupted in 1939, King George vi refused to escape to Canada; instead the king remained in England where, together with his wife and two young children, he was a bulwark of faith and inspiration to a nation under attack.

The day after King George died, Winston Churchill praised his old friend in a moving remembrance speech. The king’s dignified and courageous conduct, said Churchill, “may well be a model and a guide to constitutional sovereigns throughout the world today and also in future generations.” If Churchill had his way, the English monarchy would have been the model monarchy.

If Mr. Cameron gets his way, England’s monarchy will be extinguished.

David Cameron believes the English monarchy is biased against females. Perhaps he should read his history. Has he forgotten the legacy of Elizabeth i, the matriarch of Elizabethan England? It was Elizabeth, a woman with terrific political acumen and strong personal character, who in the early 17th century put England on the path to becoming a global economic and political power. As queen, Elizabeth confronted the Roman Catholic influence in England and stoked English nationalism (associated closely with the Protestant movement).

This lady, as the Encyclopedia Britannica stated, was “the glittering symbol of the nation’s destiny.”

Then there’s Queen Victoria, Britain’s longest-ruling monarch. Of all the impressive feats of English royals over the centuries, few compare to those of Victoria. As queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the empress of India, Victoria sat on the throne at the height of Britain’s imperial grandeur. She was queen of more than a nation; she ruled a staggeringly expansive, unspeakably wealthy empire. Under Queen Victoria, wrote Churchill in A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the “sovereign [became] the symbol of empire.”

Under Victoria, the royal crown became the glue binding the vast and diverse British Empire together. The monarchy inspired loyalty and hope in Englishmen around the world. “High devotion to her royal task, domestic virtues, evident sincerity of nature, a piercing and sometimes disconcerting truthfulness—all of these qualities of the queen’s had long impressed themselves upon the minds of her subjects,” wrote Churchill. Even politicians who opposed Victoria and her policies respected “the watchful sense of duty that always moved her.”

Note the word duty, an attribute rarely attached to leaders today. Queen Victoria, like so many English monarchs down through the ages, had a driving sense of duty to England, to the empire, and in many instances, to humanity.

In the closing years of his life, Winston Churchill watched as liberal, anti-royalist sentiment crept into Britain’s political establishment. Ever the Victorian, Churchill continued to seek solace in the history of his nation under the monarchy. “There is no doubt that of all the institutions which have grown up among us over the centuries, or sprung into being in our lifetime, the constitutional monarchy is the most deeply founded and dearly cherished by the whole association of our peoples,” he wrote.

That’s quite a statement—one much more deeply rooted in history and reality than the recent statements about the monarchy from Britain’s current prime minister.

As much as Churchill valued Britain’s monarchy, and understood the pivotal role it played in English history, there was a dimension of the monarchy that even he never grasped. He never realized that God had a hand in the establishment and perpetuation of the British monarchy,and that God created that royal dynasty for a specific reason!

If you’ve got a Bible, you need to take it out and prove this for yourself. In short, God promised Judah’s King David 3,000 years ago that He would establish a royal dynasty beginning with his son Solomon, and that that royal lineage would continue ruling on a throne until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Believe it or not, Britain’s royals are descendants of King David—and therefore living manifestations of God’s promise!

Study our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. This book is the key that unlocks Bible prophecy, especially end-time prophecies about Britain and America, as well as the history and prophecy of England’s monarchy. If you’ve already got that book, then request The Key of David. Together, these books will open your mind to some of the most interesting, inspiring and important truth you could ever learn.

It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from, be it England, the Commonwealth, the U.S., or someplace in Africa, Asia or South America, you have a vested interest in the preservation of the British monarchy. Not because of its historic role as the enduring institution at the heart of Britain. Rather, because embodied within this priceless heirloom are great spiritual truths, truths that will stir your imagination and arouse hope, and truths God wants you to have.

Truths that this gloomy, unpredictable world needs more than ever.