THE MONARCHY

The throne behind the power

Walter Bagehot called Britain a republic in disguise. Peter Hennessy. a historian. thinks Bagehot was wrong. The monarchy has a central political role. he argues. most-visibly-when governments totter-and change

BY INVITATION

HEN Walter Bagehot. journalist and banker. was dashing off-in 1865-66 the essays for what became his most celebrated work. The English Constitution . a new politics was taking shape in Britain. Derby and Russell were about to leave the political stage. Disraeli and Gladstone to fill it. The extension of the franchise-something that Bagehot. who was no democrat. feared mightily-was approaching. Not only has the spread of that franchise been completed since Bagehot's death in 1877. but the reach of the state and its apparatus has extended far beyond what any mid-Victorian imagination. even one as vivid as Bagehot's. could have foreseen. Yet

in late 20th-century Britain we still live in the shadow. almost in the thrall. of Bagehot's perceptions. at least whenever a scholarly pen begins to scratch the words monarchy or cabinet on a page. It is still to Bagehot's writings that we. and those set in authority over us. turn first for the benchmarks against which we measure change or decay. In the view of-the late Sir Kenneth Wheare c Bagehot found the English constitution. It took some finding-... At the same time. in the modern sense. he invented the Constitution-... It is not an exaggeration to say that. before Bagehot wrote. there was no English constitution that people could recognise or apprehend as a living and working thing. Bagehot showed that there was magic in the constitutional mystery that it was-not-dull or marginal and. above all. that it mattered. Such was his gift that even kings and queens in waiting were directed to his writings for knowledge of their future role. In 1894 J. R. Tanner. fellow of St John's I-College. Cambridge. and expert in maritime history and constitutional law. instructed the Duke of York (the future George V) on the kingly side of