Walter Bagehot

But there was a power behind the Prime Minister; George III. was madly eager to continue the war, and the nation--not seeing how hopeless the strife was, not comprehending the lasting antipathy which their obstinacy was creating--ignorant…

If Lord North had been able to throw the undivided energy and the undistracted authority of the executive Government into the excellent work of making a peace and carrying a peace, years of bloodshed might have been spared, and an entail…

The Parliament may be wiser than the people, and yet the king may be of the same mind with the people.

But there is a still worse case, a case which the life of George III.--which is a sort of museum of the defects of a constitutional king--suggests at once.

He may have an inborn tact for finding it out; but his life will never teach it him, and will probably enfeeble it in him.

And a monarch in the recesses of a palace, listening to a charmed flattery unbiassed by the miscellaneous world, who has always been hedged in by rank, is likely to be but a poor judge of public opinion.

A man made common by nature, and made worse by life, is not likely to have either; he is nearly sure not to be BOTH clever and industrious.

He must have incessant industry, for no less will keep him abreast with the involved detail to which those principles relate, and the miscellaneous occasions to which they must be applied.

He must have great natural vigour, for no less will comprehend the hard principles of national policy.

Now to know that Parliament is wrong, a man must be, if not a great statesman, yet a considerable statesman--a statesman of some sort.

To do so with efficiency they must be able to perceive that the Parliament is wrong, and that the nation knows it is wrong.

Is it likely that this sort of monarchs will be able to catch the exact moment when, in opposition to the wishes of a triumphant Ministry, they ought to dissolve Parliament?

History, too, seems to show that hereditary royal families gather from the repeated influence of their corrupting situation some dark taint in the blood, some transmitted and growing poison which hurts their judgments, darkens all their…

For the most part, a constitutional king is a DAMAGED common man; not forced to business by necessity as a despot often is, but yet spoiled for business by most of the temptations which spoil a despot.

But when we perceive by the roundabout example of a colonial governor how difficult the task of a constitutional king is in the exercise of the function of dissolving Parliament, we at once see how unlikely it is that an hereditary monarch…

I dwell on the evils which impair the advantage of colonial governorship because that is the most favoured case of super-Parliamentary royalty, and because from looking at it we can bring freshly home to our minds what the real…

We hardly appreciate this common feeling in our colonies, because WE appoint THEIR sovereign; but we should understand it in an instant if, by a political metamorphosis, the choice were turned the other way--if THEY appointed OUR sovereign.

He is sure to leave upon the colony the feeling that they have a ruler who only half knows them, and does not so much as half care for them.

But even in this case the advantage of this extrinsic authority is purchased at a heavy price--a price which must not be made light of, because it is often worth paying.

The intervention of an extrinsic, impartial, and capable authority--if such can be found--will undoubtedly restrain the covetousness as well as the factiousness of a choosing assembly.

He will temporise; he will try to give a seemly dress to unseemly matters: to do as much harm as will content the assembly, and yet not so much harm as will offend the nation.

In the order of nature, a new assembly must come before long, and he will be indisposed to shock the feelings of the electors from whom that assembly must emanate.

Again, too, on the selfishness of Parliament an extrinsic check is clearly more efficient than an intrinsic.

At such a minute a constitutional king--such as Leopold the First was, and as Prince Albert might have been--is invaluable; he can and will prevent Parliament from hurting the nation.

But a zealot of a Premier will not appeal; he will follow his formulae; he will believe he is doing good service when, perhaps, he is but pushing to unpopular consequences, the narrow maxims of an inchoate theory.