How to do change – What we can learn from the Monarchy

Dear all,

Change. It can be good, it can be bad. Understanding why change evolves into either is priceless. The first thing to point out here, is that change is inevitable. The one constant is that there are no constants. Generally, long term structural change occurs due to changing needs and expectations of the state and society as a whole. It is therefore up to the state to react in order to prevent these changes overwhelming the best parts of the existing order.

As an existing regime, there are two options. The first is to try and hold change back, but potentially become unstable in the process. The second is to create a viable middle way that accepts change, but in a limited and controlled way. The limitations of the first are obvious. No western European absolute monarchy exists. It would be inconceivable to a powerful monarchy to successfully resisted change in the long run. Eventually, something snaps and the whole edifice comes crumbling down. This means the second is the best. This sounds sensible. To mitigate forces that threaten to completely up-end the whole state is better than destruction of the status quo.

The problem is that it is not that simple. I mean the best route is clearly the second, but how to achieve this is not obvious. The biggest problem is that often in revolutions something that looks a lot like the second happens. Yet, in revolutions end up with unmitigated, undesirable radical change. For example, many rulers in times of crisis often co-opt the legitimacy of new ideas to bolster their regime. In actuality, this opens the door for their critics, who often further destabilise the existing regime. Look at Louis XVI, for example. In 1789, he co-opted the ideas of the liberal constitutionalism to attempt to strengthen his monarchy. This was counter-productive. The result was the French Revolution and the death of Louis. I have set this argument out in depth in my last article – so do have a look at that now if you are unconvinced.

What I aim to set out in this article is some common themes about managing long-term political change. It is to answer the conundrum of: Why is some change radical and some change gradual.

My answer is essentially the following. There are three things common to most successful forms of management of change. The first is to purposefully create an aura of ambiguity in what your objectives are and what your regime symbolises. The second is to try to form common ground with your political opponents by appeal to common threats or objectives. The two combine should enable a sufficiently strong ideological support for the controlled phasing out of old structures.

The third thing is a need to keep control of the relevant political structures of implementation in periods of change. There is need for some form of ultimate veto, something that the existing regime can use to say no to change in extremis. I will explain this in the last part of the blog.

This may seem a little abstract at the moment, but don’t worry, I hope to ground it in reality. I will use the example of the British Monarchy contrasted with the failed French one

‘Controlled Ambiguity’

Rule Britannia (England and the UK from 1688 to 1820)

One of the most clear examples of where change has been managed successfully is the transition in England from a monarchy with considerable power to a more or less powerless one. Many people point out that the monarchy is more or less redundant today. I think that although this is true, it misses the point. The point is that it still exists. What’s more, even today it has some residual power. The fact that the monarch can get a half hour audience with the Prime Minister even to this day amazes me. When the Prime Minister’s time is the most precious resource in the country, the fact that an individual can have by birth right a share of it is not insignificant. The influence the Queen has over Prime Ministers is probably understated, and is expressed in a very subtle way. The Queen is undoubtedly politically skilled. She has so much experience at the very heart of British politics.She therefore is undoubtedly able to give often effective advice, enabling her half-hour appointment to be maximally effective. As a result, the Queen still has some influence over policy. Therefore, even to this day, the monarch has power.

If we look back only a century, we can see that the monarchy in, more or less, its current constitutional form, was able to exercise a relatively significant degree of power. Edward VII, in the early 20th Century, was a relevant political actor. He forced the Liberals to call an election in order to get their controversial People’s Budget through the Lords. In this sense, to call the British Monarchy a powerless institution is a useless truism that doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. It still is an institution, and is still at the nexus of ceremonial and constitutional life in the UK. This can be utilised even to this day by the monarch to eek into the decision-making process. In this sense, the UK monarchy has transitioned out of the centre of politics, but it has done so successfully, retaining some power and its position as an institution.

The Glorious Revolution

We should therefore look into the nature of how the monarchy was able to transition from a powerful to peripheral, but still important institution. This occurred between roughly 1688 and 1820. Before I get into the meat of the article itself, I want to define what ‘Whigs’ and ‘Tories’ were at this point. Both groups were embryonic political parties. The ‘Whigs’ were what today we might call liberal. They wanted to protect and promote a distinct political agenda. Key to this was a commitment to parliament and constitutional monarchy. In contrast, the ‘Tories’ generally wanted to support traditional structures, the monarchy and the Anglican church. It’s important to give some clarity here because both were very important throughout this period. They both represented significant reservoirs of political support, and would be essential to the story of the evolution of the monarchy.

A good starting point should be the Glorious Revolution of 1688. This has traditionally been the central event in the story of declining monarchical power – in my opinion, unfairly. James II became king in 1688. He was a Catholic, that should be emphasised above all else. For Protestant Britain, Catholics were the evil in the world. There was a genuine, almost existential fear of ‘Popery’ for the average Briton. It was the one thing that almost everyone could unify against. It was therefore quite an achievement that James II could get onto the throne in the first place. It is testament to the political skill of his elder brother, Charles II, that this was achieved.

James himself, however, was not as skilled a political operator as his predecessor. He quickly burned the bridges with monarchist ‘Tory’ allies, turning them into resolute opponents. He did this by attempting to create a new power base from a coalition of non-conformist protestants and the demographic sliver of Catholic Britons that remained in Britain. When James had a child in 1688, this was the final straw for both ‘Whigs’ and ‘Tories’. His child would undoubtedly continue the Catholic policies of his father. For Protestant Britons, this seemed like the final nail in the coffin for Protestantism. Out of fear of the protestant settlement being rolled back, attempts were made by leading nobles to invite James’ Dutch cousin and his wife, William and Mary, over to England. Long story short, there was a successful coup, and William III and Mary II became joint monarchs of the British Isles. They were forced to sign a ‘Bill of Rights’, and for the foreseeable future the ‘Whigs’ became politically dominant in Britain.

This has traditionally been seen by ‘Whig’ historians as a watershed in British history. For them, it seems to symbolise a new sort of British monarchy, one restrained to parliament, one forced into a secondary position and one that accepts these basic facts. This interpretation is somewhat misleading as an explanation for structural change. In fact, the monarchy would have the constitutional means and often the will to increase their power at the expense of parliament at points throughout the next 150 years.

Despite this, the Glorious Revolution’s significance should not be underplayed. The Glorious Revolution was important – but not in the way ‘Whig’ historians made out. It was important as it provided the conditions for the successful transition from monarchy to parliamentary democracy. The conditions for the existing monarchy taking up new forms of legitimacy were created by the Glorious Revolution. The monarchy would no longer just be legitimate because it was a monarchy. The Glorious Revolution provided allowed the idea of monarchy would slowly adapt over the next 150 years.

It did this through what I would like to call through ‘controlled ambiguity’. This was the effective co-option of new forms of legitimacy by monarchs to strengthen their position. It needs to be stressed that this was only successful because it was strictly controlled by those who wanted to maintain the constitutional status quo. Without this strict control, ambiguity in where your legitimacy as a regime can cause serious problems. As I have pointed out in a previous blog post, ambiguity in where legitimacy is a recipe for instability if the existing regime has no control. In revolutions, this is exactly what happens.

The Catholic Threat and the ‘Controlled Ambiguity’

Let me show you why this distinction is so important, and how it played out in Britain. For a half century after 1688, we had a series of monarchs that positioned the monarch in a way that could accommodate the concerns of the ‘Whigs’. The monarchy did this as a result of two largely semi-intentional processes. One emphasised the danger of external threats and the other created ambiguity over why the monarchy was legitimate. These two things, combined with the strict hold over power for the 150 year period by the British monarchy, enabled a smooth transition out of the limelight.

Again, that existential fear of Catholicism comes into play again here. Both the ‘Whigs’ and the monarch had a common threat. This was Catholicism, but to say it was just Catholicism would be misleading. The fear of Catholicism was so prescient because it was a viable threat. The Jacobites, who supported James II’s right to the English/British throne, continued to maintain that James, and later his son were the legitimate Kings. With the help of French support, Scottish highlanders and the Irish, it seemed that it was not improbable that the current monarchs may be ousted. The shadow of uncertainty and potential civil war coloured the next 70 years after 1688. The threat of the Jacobites diminishing parliament’s role and destroying the protestant settlement was far too much for ‘Whigs’. They stuck like glue to the monarchy, realising that any threat to the post-1688 British monarchs was a threat to everything they stood for. The ‘Whigs’ and post-1688 monarchs became entwined and interdependent.

For the monarch, during this period, therefore, it was not necessarily clear what provided it with legitimacy. There were two alternative conceptions of what gave the monarchy its legitimacy. One was that the monarchy was legitimate because monarchies always are legitimate. This was the ‘Tory’ line. The other was that this monarchy should be protected as it was a friend to ‘Whig’ causes. In this sense, the monarchy, was able to establish ambiguity over where its legitimacy came from.

This cause was helped as the monarchs of the period generally did not challenge parliament. As a result, it was very hard for ‘Whigs’ to level the accusation of ‘tyrant’ at the monarch. This may have been relatively accidental. Out of the 4 monarchical reigns from 1688 to 1759, three were led by foreign monarchs who tended to be absent from day-to-day politics. William of Orange, for example, was far more concerned with foreign affairs than establishing political dominance in Britain. Similarly, the first two Georgian kings were largely absent from active politics, largely allowing ministers – most notably Prime Minister Robert Walpole – to provide direction to policy. This provided the context for a controlled retreat of monarchical power. The monarchy was able to remain strong and retain support. It had less and less influence on decision-making, but it was able to retain an essential stability that other monarchies would not.

George III

By 1760, therefore, the monarchy was less powerful than in 1688, but had a stronger degree of support. It had successfully negotiated away the threat of liberalism to the monarchy’s existence in the short term. However, this was reliant on circumstances and was not a recipe for sustainable monarchy.

It was into this context that George III became king. Although initially both unpopular and interventionist, he matured and stepped back from active politics. At first, he tried to reassert the political centrality of the monarchy and move away from the ‘Whigs’. As Linda Colley points out in her masterful Britons, after 1745, the threat of the Jacobites slowly faded away. As a result, the essential nature of politics had changed, and the monarchy and ‘Whigs’ were no longer interdependent. The monarchy had traditionally been fearful of reliance on the ‘Tories’, some of whom had Jacobite sympathies. When this threat disappeared, it became thinkable to ally with them again. George III did so. Partly as a result, there was increasing political opposition to the monarchy. The term ‘tyrant’ once again made sense for George III, and indeed ‘Whig’ criticism emerged during George’s early reign. Those like John Wilkes, a prominent critic of the existing regime, tapped into this dissatisfaction, attacking George III as a ‘tyrant’. It is therefore easy to understand why there was considerable support for the American War of Independence from prominent ‘Whigs’. Like their American brothers, British ‘Whigs’ saw George III’s Tory government as fundamentally tyrannical. For George, by the late 1780s, things changed. After the American fiasco, George changed tack.

George III would eventually more or less confine the monarchy to the side-lines of politics. This would be done through familiar methods. As from 1688 to 1760, the two same techniques would be used. ‘Controlled ambiguity’ as to the origins of George’s legitimacy and use of an external threat would enable the monarchy to safely shed its power slowly. This time, the external threat was France. France threatened the political existence of Britain. It became a common enemy across Britain from the 1790s-1810s. The monarchy became central as a symbol of what it was to British. Criticism was deflected away from the monarchy, as it became a secondary threat in light of the war. ‘Whigs’ like Charles James Fox who continued to see George III as a ‘tyrant’ were increasingly politically isolated.

Meanwhile, George III was able to increasingly garner support from being a national figure. This was a form of that ‘controlled ambiguity’ as to where real legitimacy for the monarch truly lied. Increasingly, George III gained legitimacy from being a national figure, harmless and unifying. As Linda Colley points out, this was facilitated by his bouts of illness. In 1789, 1801 and during much of the 1810s, he became mentally ill. This brought widespread sympathy and shattered illusions about him being ‘tyrannical’. How could someone who was so mentally fragile and vulnerable be an existential threat? It just didn’t really make sense. Although this was undoubtedly unintentional, George III did do things that did promote a monarchy as a ‘national’ institution. Key was that he increased the exposure of royal pomp. A 50th ‘Jubilee’ in 1809 provided an opportunity for celebration of monarchy. Street celebrations across the country gave individuals personal experience of the essential unifying character of the monarchy at a local level. In this way, the monarchy was able to make itself a national institution, especially when the French Revolution gave the alternative of a very French style Republic.

At the same time, George III retreated from his central position in politics. As in 1688-1760, this allowed two different types of political legitimacy to be pinned to the monarchy, as George did not push his luck. George’s monarchy lost its political centrality. As a result, George’s actions could not discredit what people thought about his monarchy. When he retreated from politics, he was able to find political space from which he could alienate no one.

In this sense, retreat from formal politics made George able to create ‘controlled ambiguity’ over why the monarchy was legitimate. The institution of monarchy retreated. It became an institution which toothless, but still retained residual power and a peripheral and stable place in British life. This was a really significant achievement.

Power and Control

There is one thing that in this process that need to be drawn out before we understand why change was gradual and controlled. This is that throughout this process the Kings and Queens of England always had ultimate control. This is to say that they always had the formal ability to control the direction of change if, and only if, worst comes to worst. If they felt threatened by change, they could always change its direction through resort to constitutionally guaranteed power. For the Kings and Queens of England, this was because of their centrality to the parliamentary system. Nothing could be done independently within the parliamentary system without the consent of the reigning monarch. The way this worked was relatively subtle. It was not primarily as a result of the monarch’s veto – although the threat of this did often prevent radical change being considered. No, it was instead because the Prime Minister was more or less dependent on the monarch. Although the Prime Minister increasingly pursued policy independently of the monarch, monarchs continued to have a central role in hiring and firing them.

To give an example, Robert Walpole pursued a largely independent policy from 1721 to 1742. Decreasing the national debt and maintaining the peace were key focuses for him for the first 18 years of his premiership. In 1739, when domestic parliamentary pressure pushed Britain into war with Spain, it was Walpole who made the decision, not the king. Despite this, it is nevertheless the case that Walpole relied on the King for his position. When George II succeeded George I in 1727, Walpole’s position seemed to be for a while under threat. Although he managed to avoid being dismissed, it was only through increasing support from the reigning monarch. He allied himself with the Queen and slowly cultivated good relations with the king. This was a recognition of the political reality that the King had ultimate control.

Even as late as 1806, the King still had this role of being able to control who was in power. Charles James Fox, a relatively extreme ‘Whig’ and critic of the government, was allowed to participate in government. Only through George III’s explicit consent was this able to go ahead – and in these circumstances it was only because of George III’s recognition it was in both the interest of both the nation and himself. In fact, as late as the reign of Victoria the monarch still maintained considerable control over who would constitute the government.

This is really important. The fact that the retreat of monarchical power occurred within a framework where the monarch unambiguously had power is crucial. Without this, the monarch is liable to lose control to the forces it ‘co-opts’. The monarchy gave power to those that gave it stability – accepting its diminished position. However, this was so effective only because the monarchy chose those who they wanted to give power over to. The monarchy would never give outright critics power unnecessarily, as we have seen with the case of Fox. In this sense a strong grip on power needs to be integrated with a sensible assessment of long term structural forces to ensure moderate change.

French Revolution

A good comparison here is the French Revolution. I mentioned this on a previous post, but I think its important to have another comparison to prove the point. In the French Revolution, attempts to moderate change failed – this, at the very least is clear. Louis XVI, former King of France, was executed. With his death came the birth of a radical Republic which would attempt to execute thousands upon thousands.

Why did this happen? Well, my answer would be that there was a failure in ‘co-option’ of long-term forces. The root of this failure comes from a lack of control over the relevant political structures.

As in the case of Britain, Louis attempted to ‘co-opt’ historical forces to strengthen his regime. Unlike in Britain, he did this in response to a domestic crisis. For Louis this crisis was crippling debt from a broken financial system and intervention in the American War of Independence. This had resulted in Louis being forced to try to raise taxes. To gain legitimacy to do this, he was forced to call the ‘Estates General’. He quickly lost political initiative, with part of this body declaring itself sovereign as a ‘National Assembly’. The King tried to ‘co-opt’ the legitimacy of this new body – becoming a ‘patriot-king’, whose legitimacy was ambiguous. On the one hand, he and those around him saw himself as legitimate because he was king. They bought into the notion of the ‘divine right of kings’. On the other hand, the liberals of the ‘National Assembly’ saw Louis as legitimate because he was a ‘patriot-king’. He was tolerable within the constitutional framework only because he had been essential in the process of making France a Constitutional Monarchy. For liberals, Louis seemed like ‘our man’.

This would probably be recipe for long term stable constitutional change if it were not for the fact that Louis did not have control of the situation. From July 1789 onwards, the ‘sans culottes’ of Paris increased their grip on the city. These were mainly poor artisanal workers who were under immense socio-economic pressure. Starved of bread, they pinned the blame of this onto the existing regime. In response to several poor decisions by Louis XVI, the Parisian mob was unleashed on the existing regime. They were largely successful in taking semi-formal control of the city. A ‘National Guard’ was founded by the Parisian ‘sans culottes’. This more or less took political control away from Louis. What’s more, the ‘National Assembly’ increasingly controlled the military as Louis failed to take an active role in day-to-day politics. As a result, he lost the ability to control change when it threatened to undo the essential pillars of the existing regime. As Parisian politics radicalised, Louis was stuck on the rocks, forced to watch as discussions about what to do with him intensified in their radicalism. In this way, when you ‘co-opt’ new ideas to strengthen a regime that is losing support, direct control is needed. The ability to have at the very least some exercisable hard power if things go wrong is necessary. In Britain, this was the ability to have ultimate control of the parliamentary system. In France, this was absent once Louis lost control of the military.

Conclusion

I wrote this post because I wanted to establish that change has to happen in response to changing circumstances and forms of legitimacy. It just does. Things change, and with it the strength and stability of an existing regime also changes. It is inconceivable that a monarchy as conceived of in the 17th Century could continue to this day.

If change is necessary, then it needs to be done well. Attempting to avoid radical, revolutionary change – a threat to the fundamental stability of the state – is therefore essential.

This can be achieved through ‘co-opting’ new forms of legitimacy. Often this works best when there is ambiguity over where real legitimacy lies. With the British case, the monarchy created ambiguity through not using its formal powers to their limits. By tactically retreating, it was able to gain new legitimacy from liberal ‘Whigs’. The ‘Whigs’ felt like the monarchs in this period were ‘our men’. Still able to exercise power at crucial times, the monarchy therefore was able to carve out a stable position for itself. It was able to strengthen its support through emphasis on common threats, usually Catholic Continental French ones. At a time when it was transitioning from a central to peripheral political player, something which could be quite dangerous, also essential were its formal powers. The power to appoint and fire was essential and should not be understated. Under George III, the monarchy finally transitioned into something very robust. Instead of just being ‘liberal’ and therefore legitimate, it became a national symbol. It became a defining feature of Britishness. This combined with its relatively uncontroversial, peripheral but still important political position, it became the institution we see today.

It is therefore both control and ambiguity that can make change run smoothly. These two things are central and essential to do change well.

Yours,

WFF

Bibliography

Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837

Tim Harris, Restoration, Charles II and his Kingdoms

David Womersley, James II

Christopher Hibbert, The French Revolution