ROYALISM: AN INFANTILE POLITICAL DISORDER

 

Foreword by Master Louis-Philippe Mitouard:

This was written by Count Richard Ironsteed at a time some twenty years ago when the Barony of Atenveldt and other Aten baronies, including al-Barran, were in a crisis over their baronial succession, as well as over other abuses by the Crown of Atenveldt and Prince and Princess of the Sun.

Things have changed somewhat over the years. The laws on baronial succession have been tightened — at that time the Crown could remove a ruling noble without stating any cause, a law that was changed as a result of the crisis mentioned in the article. Even so, the article is quite germane in giving a 'founder's' view of Royalism. The king's word being law certainly wasn't the opinion of a founder of one of the kingdoms that has since made that phrase famous. -L, February 2003

ROYALISM: AN INFANTILE POLITICAL DISORDER

by Count Richard Ironsteed MSCA, OPel, OLA, First King of Atenveldt, Cofounder of the Kingdom of Atenveldt, February 1983 (A.S. XVII)

Reprinted by permission of the author from Barongate by the Runnymede Press Copyright © 1983 Rick Cook.

One of the most peculiar aspects of recent politics in the Kingdom of Atenveldt has been the emergence of a "Royalist" faction espousing an SCA version of absolutist monarchy. This group is most noticeable in the Barony or Atenveldt, but is represented throughout the Kingdom.

The central tenet of royalism (also sometimes called "Monarchism" and "Divine-Rightism") is usually expressed as: "The King/Queen/Prince/ Princess is the King/Queen/Prince/Princess and his/her word is law, so he/she can do anything he/she wants." as far as can be determined the numbers of true Royalists are rather small, but they are vocal and include several royal peers. (A royal peer is a Duke, Duchess, Count, Countess, Viscount or Viscountess.) As a political philosophy, Royalism attracts notice because it has been used as an excuse for most or the inflammatory and unpopular actions by ruling nobles in recent years.

Taken in perspective, there are a number of extremely odd things about the Royalist position. Among those is that:

·       It is historically inaccurate.

·       Despite claims by Royalists, it is in no way part of SCA or Atenveldt custom, usage or tradition.

·       It is obviously unworkable.

·       In spite of its obviously political character, most of its adherents insist that it is not a political philosophy.

The royalists claim that all who are not Royalists are advocating a democratic/bureaucratic state that will trample on everyone.

The last point is especially striking, not only because it is a false dichotomy, but because Royalist philosophy is routinely cited to justify outrageous actions that ignore or contravene the wishes of most local members of the SCA.

There seem to be four main reasons for adherence to Royalism.

For a King or a Prince, being a Royalist means never having to say you're sorry.

Dislike of the democratic/bureaucratic state, which the Royalists claim, is the goal of anyone who opposes them. This is, of course, a Straw man, but a potent one for some SCA members.

The belief (carefully nurtured by the Royalists) that this is the way things are supposed to be.

As a rallying point for those who dislike or oppose the general trend of events or specific officers for reasons which, it baldly stated, would be thought petty or otherwise unacceptable.

The first and fourth are probably the most important for the minority of deeply committed Royalists, while the majority of adherents probably take the position for the second and third reasons.

Both the characteristics of Royalism and the reasons for adherence for it deserve consideration in more detail.

ROYALISM IS HISTORICALLY INACCURATE

For a student of history, the lack of real-word basis for the royalist position is one of its most striking aspects. Even casual reading shows that absolute monarchy is in no way medieval. Absolute power was often claimed by monarchs, but it almost never existed. Kings had to consider the wishes of their nobles, officers and people and those that did not rather quickly ceased being King.

The 16th to 18th centuries are most often regarded as the age of absolute monarchism, but a close examination shows that even during this period the King's power was seldom total. There was always a counterbalance, formal or informal.

This is perhaps belaboring a minor point since the Royalists themselves show an ignorance of history that is astonishing in a group whose stated purpose is to recreate it. There has been little or no attempt by royalists to claim historical precedent for their stand.

ROYALISM IS CONTRARY TO THE CUSTOM AND USAGE OF ATENVELDT, DESPITE THE CLAIMS OF THE ROYALISTS

As co-founder of this Kingdom and its first King, I find this assertion of precedent particularly obnoxious. At no time was Royalism or anything approaching it practiced or even openly espoused in this Kingdom's early years. Nor was it practiced or espoused in the Kingdom of the West while we were part of that Kingdom.

To the best of my knowledge, I never heard terms like "Royalist" or "Monarchist" until the last two or three years. Certainly the concept these ideas express—that the King has ultimate, total authority without regard for the wishes of his subjects—was repugnant to us all in the early days.

In fact, well in the middle 1970's, the real center of legislative power in this Kingdom lay with the Kingdom seneschal. He could block the King at any time and there was nothing the King could do about it.

The honest misconception on this point (as distinct from the politically motivated deception) arises from the fact that the King reigned no matter who ruled. The Crown was seen as the symbol of the ideals we were trying to uphold and whenever humanly possible nothing was done to tarnish its image. Disagreements were kept privy and in most cases resolved by discussion rather than a show of force.

Although the King did not control the political process, he was far from being a helpless puppet. A King held considerable symbolic power by virtue of his position and usually had a great deal of personal prestige as well. By using these to obtain the support of nobles, peers, officers and the populace, he could rule as well as reign. The important point is that a King who reigned did so not as an absolute monarch, but by being the spirit and voice of his people.

It is perhaps significant that the ruling nobles who have been most staunchly Royalist have been the ones who were the most personally unpopular. This is a point we will return to later when we consider the motivations for Royalism.

III. ROYALISM IS OBVIOUSLY UNWORKABLE

A voluntary organization which is basically social cannot long endure as a dictatorship. The Royalist answer to dissent is "if you don't like it, you can leave." In fact that is precisely what happens.

As members feel their wishes are contravened or ignored, they will simply drop out and new members will not come in to replace them. Eventually a Royalist organization will consist solely of the people who feel they have a chance to become a ruling noble and perhaps a few of their hangers-on.

The usual Royalist response to this observation is to point out that Atenveldt does exist and has existed for some time. True, but as noted above, this group has never been run according to Royalist principles and in tact is not so run now. There are still checks on the power of the King, although the Royalists are attempting to do away with them by such actions as removing Barons who disagree with the Royalist position.

There is also the problem of maintaining relations with the mundane world. The Kingdom, or even the Barony of Atenveldt, is long past the point when events can be held in someone's back yard. To function, we must make contracts with mundane entities such as parks departments and the Phoenix Arts Council. We must also be able to make commitments further than six months in advance. Since Kings and Princes change every six months and since under the Royalist theory, a King is only absolute when he is on the throne, this would be difficult. Our ability to get the facilities we need is already somewhat constrained because we are seen as "weird" by officialdom and any drastic shifts in policy would further damage those fragile relations,

As a practical matter, the Royalist position is unlikely to succeed. Although many people may be driven out by the unpleasantness' many others will choose to stay and oppose it. Mundane history shows the response to absolutism is a rising tide of democratic sentiment. As the Royalist actions have become more pronounced or extreme, and as the Royalists have co-opted more of the traditional counterbalances to royal authority, there has been an increasing interest in non­traditional methods of checking abuses of royal power.

Royalism may force the development of a parliament, but it is unlikely to establish the unchallenged primacy of the King.

ITS ADHERENTS CLAIM ROYALISM IS NOT A POLITICAL MOVEMENT

In spite of its obviously political character, most Royalists deny that Royalism is a political movement. In fact for most of them "politics" is a pejorative.

While the existence of a political movement in a group without formal political process is somewhat difficult to define, there is no question that by most definitions, Royalism is a highly political stance. Certainly it is not a code of ethics, such as Chivalry, an aesthetic movement or even a style of fighting. In fact, outside of politics, there is little or nothing that can be called Royalist. Aside from their views on what are clearly political questions, many Royalists have nothing in common.

Examination of statements by Royalists shows that for them "politics" has two meanings. It refers either to the turmoil and unpleasantness produced by differences of opinion on major questions or to the very act of expressing some disagreement with the actions of the King or Prince.

For some of the more extreme Royalists, "politics" is simply a code word for any kind of dissent from their opinion, active or passive. In this sense, Royalism can indeed be said to be "non­political" and those who are not whole-hearted Royalists are in fact "playing politics."

ALL WHO ARE NOT ROYALISTS ADVOCATE A DEMOCRATIC/ BUREAUCRATIC STATE

This is, of course, nonsense. But, as the philosopher Ludwig Wiggenstein said in another context, it is important nonsense.

As we have seen, Royalism is a relatively recent development in Atenveldt and has no exact analog (as far as I am aware) anywhere else. That being the case, it is not surprising that not everyone agrees with it.

Given the nature of power which Royalism proposes to put in the hands of a ruling noble, opposition is inevitable and in fact comes from many quarters. While there may be some who advocate the democratic/bureaucratic state the Royalists profess to fear, I have never yet them or heard of them.

(The closest anyone has come to advocating a democratic/bureaucratic state is Woodford of Lorien and his case will be covered later in the discussion of reasons for Royalism.)

Essentially, this is the fallacy of the excluded middle. For most royalists, anyone who opposes them must favor a Society in which there are no Kings and everything is decided by a vote.

This is rhetorically useful, but it obscures what is actually happening. The truth is that no one wants a Society in which there is no King and only a small number of people want some sort of parliament. What most non-Royalists do want is a check on the excesses and abuses of power by ruling nobles.

Of course, if you accept the idea that a ruling noble's word is law, any attempt by an SCA official to fulfill his or her duties which imposes the slightest let or interest on a ruling noble is automatically "bureaucratic interference."

There is an air of unreality about this entire matter, since the charge has been leveled not just at officers doing their duty under the laws of the SCA. The rubric of "bureaucratic interferences' has been applied to such things as prohibition of illegal acts at SCA events or simply trying to find out if a ruling noble had indeed connived at grand theft at an event.

THE REASONS FOR ROYALISM

Given its lack of precedent, general unworkability and unpalatability to a large part of the populace, one is driven to ask why Royalism exists at all.

The answer must in part be speculative since none of us possess the ability to peer into the souls of others. However there are several compelling reasons why Royalism is attractive to certain SCA members in Atenveldt.

I. FOR A KING OR A PRINCE, BEING A ROYALIST MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY.

A King or a Prince who has any freedom of action also has the capacity to make mistakes. Since the Principality of the Sun has lost the tradition of a support structure to aid the King or the Prince, he can make some beauties.

A weak or small-minded ruling noble will find the temptation to claim the royalist justification for his or her actions well nigh irresistible. The bigger the error, the more attractive the temptation becomes. It is significant that the Royalist cry is raised the loudest at just those times when the action of the King or Prince is the most unreasonable.

As a rule, the Kings and Princes who have been the most ardent royalists have been the least successful as rulers. By and large, the same things that attracted them to Royalism have guaranteed they will not be successful on the throne. They tend to be standoffish and associate only with those of their own faction. They seldom seek advice from those outside their group or even try to talk with their officers. As a result, they tend to be out of touch with the groups they rule and have very poor information on which to make decisions. This sets them up to make more bad ones and increases their personal unpopularity.

In extreme cases, the noble may find that his bad decisions have cost him the support he needs to govern.

Psychologically, claiming omnipotence has long been recognized as a defense mechanism against feelings of insecurity and lack or self-worth. Another such defense is a refusal to make contact with people that is usually interpreted as arrogance.

It is also perhaps psychologically significant that most (but not all) Royalists will go to great lengths not to discuss these issues with anyone who might disagree with them. They are willing to read manifestos from the throne or otherwise lecture, but in a one-on-one discussion they either ignore these matters or limit themselves to platitudinous appeals for unity. The term for this is "confluence" and it is another trait associated with insecurity and feelings of worthlessness.

II. DISLIKE OF THE DEMOCRATIC/BUREAUCRATIC STATE

For a variety of reasons, many SCA members dislike and distrust democratic or bureaucratic institutions. If you refuse to recognize that there are other positions besides Royalism and democracy/bureaucracy then this becomes a reason to be a Royalist.

In fact, the democratic/bureaucratic SCA so beloved in the Royalist rhetoric is a straw man. No one wants it and there is no chance that it will ever happen. Ironically, the driving force behind the democratic tendencies that do exist at a local level in this area is Royalism and its destruction of the traditional checks on ruling nobles.

This fear of a "New Order" arises from one of two things. One is a simple lack of communication. Most Royalists seem to dislike airing of differences of opinion with those holding opposing views, labeling such discussions "politics." As a result they tend to have distorted ideas of what "the other side" wants or is up to.

The other reason is that this fear is a potent lash to drive others into their camp. Since no one wants the democratic/bureaucratic state they excoriate, claiming that it is the ultimate goal of non-royalists is a useful tool to build support. In fact, even Royalists who know better, or who should know better, advance this fear as a reason for their position.

In this context, the Royalist use of Woodford of Lorien' s pamphlet TRENDS OF CHANGE is particularly instructive. TRENDS grew out of a study Woodford did for an MBA class and as a personal project he expanded it and later published it. As part of TRENDS, Woodford noted a number of problems he saw the Society facing and suggested some solutions. A reading of TRENDS makes it clear that its entire purpose is to serve as the basis for further discussion, that the ideas were totally Woodford's own and that he was by no means wedded to the solutions he proposed.

TRENDS attracted considerable notice since in the interval between its writing and publication, Woodford became a member of the Board of Directors. It also caused considerable uproar since most of the people who read it did not know Woodford and many of them jumped to the conclusion that A) he was speaking for the Board and B) he planned to implement the ideas in TRENDS exactly as written,

AFTER the hue and cry began in other areas, the Royalists picked it up and began pointing to TRENDS as the non-Royalists' vision of the future. The timing here is particularly significant. Pre-publication copies of TRENDS had been circulating in the Barony of Atenveldt for months before TRENDS was published and at least some of the Royalists had read them. Further, a number of the long-time Royalists knew Woodford well and knew that he was neither a radical nor a fanatic. Finally, a number of the Royalists are well enough in touch with the realities of SCA politics to know that the proposals in TRENDS could not be implemented at any level without action by the Board and that the Board would never approve most of Woodford's proposals.

In other words, prominent Royalists had known the contents of TRENDS for months, knew Woodford, and knew the proposals in TRENDS were not going to be put into effect. Yet they made an issue of TRENDS, not when they found out about it, but when it became an issue elsewhere—a year after copies started circulating here.

Just as Royalism has been one of the greatest goads to the growth of parliamentarianism in the Barony of Atenveldt, TRENDS has been one of the greatest impetuses to Royalism. The difference is that the parliamentarians are reacting to substance and the Royalists are jumping at shadows.

THE BELIEF THAT ROYALISM IS THE SCA IDEAL

The Society has always had a rich and diverse hagiographic tradition and supporting an argument by making up history is hardly a new technique. Royalism represents the first time in this area that such myth making has been turned to overtly political ends.

As we have seen, Royalism has no historical basis in the early days of Atenveldt. However there are a lot of people who don't know that and a few people who either didn't understand what was going on years ago, misremember how things were or who will deliberately distort events to gain a point.

For these reasons, many newcomers are told that the SCA is and always was a Royalist organization and those who don't agree are rebels trying to change things. As a legend, this is on par with the story that Dukes and Duchesses have a royal presence. But it has garnered the Royalists support of some fairly new members, although probably not deeply committed support.

ROYALISM AS A COVER FOR PERSONAL ANIMOSITIES

Not all disagreements in Atenveldt are along Royalist/non-Royalist lines but, particularly in the Barony, giving a disagreement Royalist overtones will get you strong, but uncritical, support in some quarters.

This appears to have been much more important in forming the Royalist core than it is today. Several of the earliest and most vociferous Royalists took that position because they were upset with things happening in the Barony. Strictly speaking, these were not Royalist issues at all. In fact, some of them involved the exercise of authority by the Baron in ways that these people felt were capricious and arbitrary. Interestingly, this group's original stance was populist rather than Royalist; That is, they claimed the actions infringed on the rights of the "free people of Atenveldt" rather than those of the Coronet or Crown. At that time it would be more correct to speak of an "anti-baronial" faction.

For some of these people, it was particularly important to cloak their real grievances because they would not have been acceptable if stated directly. Some of the "capricious" and "arbitrary" actions objected to involved curbing behavior that was totally unacceptable or just plain illegal. This is a tendency which has continued to some extent in the Royalist tradition. Actions not merely by the King and Prince, but by their associates become acceptable by having the veil of Royalism drawn over them.

ROYALISM: AN INFANTILE POLITICAL DISORDER

The use of the term "infantile" here is obviously not to be taken to mean that Royalism is connected with the early days of this Kingdom. There is no such connection. (A point which has been frequently made, but which needs emphasis in view of the claims of some Royalists.)

Nor is it to be taken as a pejorative, although some of the actions of Royalist adherents have been distinctly infantile in that sense.

Royalism, rather, is infantile in the sense of being a beginning, a phase of birth and rapid growth in the political history of the SCA in this area. As this is written, it is hard to tell what is being born here, but that will become clearer in time.

Certainly it is not the birth of a Royalist state. As we have seen, that is impossible. A purely Royalist state cannot support and maintain itself and it is extremely unlikely that one can even be established.

The most likely possibilities are that we are witnessing either the birth of a parliamentary principality or the rebirth of the kind of support structure and consensus-building devices found in other areas.

At this time, the pull for some sort of representative body with at least a check on the legislative powers of ruling nobles is getting stronger and stronger. Despite Royalist mutterings, the recently concluded forum is held to have been a great success and plans are under way for more of them. Disaffection with the ruling nobles has definitely increased in the last few months and some people are actively claiming that the present system is flawed beyond hope.

The other possibility appears somewhat more remote, but is more attractive, at least to me personally.

As a general rule, the other SCA groups that have avoided the kinds of problems we are now having in the principality have done so by building formal and informal structures to support the Crown. They have established traditions which force a King or Prince to consult before he acts and which provide social and peer pressure to see that he considers the various interests in his area when he does act. These traditions and other formal and informal support structures make it easier for a man to be a good King and harder for him to be a bad one. In fact, where they are well developed, it is possible to have a King who knows nothing and cares less about the SCA still do an adequate job. For a variety of reasons these structures were never particularly strong in Atenveldt and they broke down completely six or seven years ago. Given commitment and work, they could be rebuilt. As they begin to function and the ruling nobles start making better decisions, the pressure for a parliament would wither away and the ruling nobles of Atenveldt could return to their place in the original scheme of things.