On the Gap Between Public and Private and Dr Lucy Worsley

[danieldwilliam]

Last night, or perhaps the night before Dr Lucy Worsley’s new television programme started on the BBC.  She’s looking at how the physical and mental selves of monarchs affected them personally and through them the state.  In particular she’s looking at some of the ways the gap between the expectation and propaganda image of a perfect specimen and the physical and mental actuality caused personal and political problems for the state.

The opening example and perhaps the best known was Henry VIII’s infertility and his need, for personal, dynastic and broader political reasons to have a settled male heir.  Less obvious was the link between Charles I’s rickets affected legs and his refusal to back down.

So, I’m watching a programme about the confusion between the physical body of the king and the politics of the state.

Early that day I found myself writing this sentence

“This is broadly the position in the US constitution and reflects a period in history when the state was usually bound up in the person of the monarch and had a marked tendency to arbitrary rule and the confusion of the private whim of the king and the public good.”

So, democracy ahoy, not least as a way of separating the public from the private.
EDIT: There should be a cut here, but I think LJ or more likely me is playing silly bugger with them.

Comments

[andrewducker]

I remember that the movie Excalibur has a whole bunch of theme/plot revolving around the concept that "The land is the king" and as Arthur falls apart so does the country.

It strikes me as a fairly poor way to run things.=, even with the aid of watery bints.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Indeed, strange women lying about in ponds is no basis for a system of government.

There’s a technical term for the failure state of regimes which escapes me right at the moment but the upshot appears to be that one of the strengths of democracy turns out not to be that regimes don’t fail but that the proces of regime failure and replacement is less catastrophic.

So, all your system of government eggs in the basket of the current king siring and raising a suitable heir who doesn’t fall off a horse or catch typhoid or become an heretic leads to bad times all round.

[andrewducker]

There’s a technical term for the failure state of regimes

"Revolution"

And yes. The massive advantage of democracy is that you don't have to kill anyone to change rulers, you just have to persuade a bunch of people that someone else is better. More stability, less stress all around.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

LOL.

That's not quite the word I'm thinking of.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Not relevant to your point but I did enjoy that, I find her a very engaging presenter.

But yes, the country not being thrown into turmoil because a woman doesn't give birth to a son at the right time is definitely a good thing!

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

So do I. She seems to really enjoy her subject and that seeps through.

Her, Mary Beard, Bethany Hughes and Dan Snow likewise I find contagiously enthusiastic.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Ah, Dan Snow.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

If I didn’t already have a Plum Name I might be tempted by Snow.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

What's a plum name?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

A nom de plume as re-imagined and re-engineered by my mate M.

A plum being a slang or vernacular term for testicle or fool.


For example.

D “…. Sort of like Che Guevara, I’m adopting it as a non de guerre. Or rather a nom de plume in this case. Pens. Swords. So on. Etcetera.”

M “You certainly are a plum.”

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Official ambassador of the ERS following his rather good advert during the AV Referendum.