FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - What if the Queen...

Rant Number 483 28 March 2012

What if the Queen became a Christian? Huh! What then? Like in that quirky old movie, ‘If...’, radical subversion could break out, though not quite in the way the leftish movie director made out.

Father Frank’s ‘If...’ works like this. Buckingham Palace stupefies the hitherto dozing, sybaritic nation: Elizabeth II, this sturdy octogenarian, is born again. She has decided to embrace Christianity. Why not? Technically baptised and confirmed, the Queen is also officially Defender of the Faith. Until now a feeble joke – ‘Defender of what? You can’t be serious, mate!’ - but no longer – beware! The Queen really means it.

The Monarch of course reigns - she does not rule. That means Parliament has the whip hand. Yet, according to theorist Walter Bagehot, the Sovereign, though not absolute but constitutional, has the threefold right to advise, to encourage and to warn. So, Diamond Jubilee time, Elizabeth avails herself of that right. It is not British ‘ingenuity, resilience and tolerance’ – yawn... the banal, bromide national pseudo-virtues her advisers got her to tell Parliament last week – but... God! Faith in the King of Kings. The Ruler of the Cosmos. Her audience is stunned.

The Queen perorates: ‘I rededicate myself to the service of our great country, our ancient Christian nation. I warn you, people and Parliament, that we are on the road to ruin. We have forsaken our God-given heritage. We have forgotten Christ. Our society is sinking back into paganism, into the worship of the idols our ancestors fought hard to overthrow. My Muslim subjects rightly call this jahiliya, an age of ignorance and unbelief. That is the real crisis. The national tragedy. Our young people are adrift, sans jobs, sans ideals, sans faith. Our nation is rudderless, floundering. It is my duty to advise, encourage and warn you, my people – we must mend our ways. We must turn again to the Good Shepherd of our souls. People of Britain, hearken to the Saviour! Cry God for Elizabeth, St George and Britain!’

A deadly silence. Liz II then turns towards the Bishops’ Bench. 26 Anglican mitred heads look on, aghast. ‘As for you, my purblind prelates, I warn you. With my Coronation Oath I swore to uphold the Protestant religion. One of you handed me the Bible, with the words “The most valuable thing the world can afford”. Indeed. But you ignore Scripture. You do not teach it. You do not stand by its precepts. Some of you don’t even believe in God! Shame on you! You do not preach Christ crucified, you don’t proclaim the Cross to the nation. Instead, you parrot the obsessions of a heedless hedonistic culture. You seek to carry favour with the Spirit of the Age. Remember: he who marries the Spirit of the Age will soon find himself a widower! You must fight off the wild wolves which seek to devour your flock. I, your Queen, warn you: preach the Gospel! Stop aping the ways of this wicked world! Sacrifice yourselves! Do not take: give! Be bold, be brave, be heroic, be ruthless! Challenge secularism! If need be, be prepared to suffer martyrdom! Always tell your flock of the joys of Heaven and of the darkness of Hell. Woe unto you, if you do not preach the Gospel!’

Loopy? Not really. Elizabeth would be speaking not just as a Christian but patriotically. She would be serving the genuine interests of her subjects. She would be truly a Patriot Queen.

Dig this. An idea that harks back to Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke. One of the greatest political geniuses England has ever produced. Against the bloated Whig aristocracy, Bolingbroke championed the cause of a true, popular monarchy. The wealthy and their Parliament do not speak for the people, he observed. The oligarchy of rich men, landowning gentry, had replaced the monarchy. With the notorious, Inglorious Revolution the older, genuinely Royalist spirit of the country was overthrown. Trough the House of Common an effective dictatorship of oligarchs was established in England. The Monarch became a puppet of the oligarchy. Ditto today. A capitalist, not a landowning oligarchy, of course, but the reality is the same. The people do not really rule. The Patriot Queen, Elizabeth II, cannot either, sure, but at least this Christian ruler can advise, encourage and warn. And she does it!

They won’t hearken unto the Queen, of course. The movie ‘If...’ ends with the noise of gunfire. Sheer carnage. Mayhem breaks out. The schoolboys shoot. The Establishment ponces shoot back. Jolly good civil war.

Well, a cue perhaps? There is the old expression, ‘Take the Queen’s shilling’. It meant serving in the Forces. The idea is that the Queen is in charge of the Army. No longer, of course. The oligarchs, the capitalists, Parliament are. But the Patriot Queen has her subjects’ genuine welfare at heart. She upholds the public good – maslaha in Arabic. So she can ‘encourage’ Encourage whom? About what?

Encourage the Forces. Remember Cromwell? The great defender of Parliament? So revered is his memory by MPs that his statue stands outside Westminster. In his right hand is the sword, in his left a book. The Bible. The twin instruments of his rule. This great champion of Parliament did not hesitate to disband it. Cromwell shut down Parliament. The public good demanded it. Parliament had become useless, a snare and a delusion. So the Army took over. The rule of the Saints followed.

All right, I know, I have mixed disparate categories. Cromwell was the antithesis of a Patriot King but...he still got plenty right. When Parliament has outlived its usefulness, when it stands against the common good, when it enacts pagan legislation...it has to go.

So, the Queen has only to drop a hint to her generals and...do you get my drift?

The priest must watch out here. The Thought Police is probably monitoring this. Wot! Calling for a coup d’etat?! Violence! The suppression of an anti-Christian Parliament? You mad, Fr Frank?

But surely this is about my ‘If...’ scenario. Dear snoopers, MI5 or whoever, if you have to nab or blame anyone, don’t blame me. Blame the Queen.

Revd Frank Gelli