The Royal Wedding: William and Kate

Unless you were pronounced legally dead sometime last October, you’ve definitely heard about the royal wedding.  And if you haven’t been lost in the jungles of Borneo since Tuesday, you saw — or will see — at less part of the ceremony.  But if you’re like most people you probably don’t realize what just took place.  Yes, Kate Middleton joined the next generation of British Royalty when she married the man who will be king — Billy Mountbatten-Windsor, but there’s more to it than that.  The Mountbatten-Windsors have been running the show (in one form or another) in England for close to 1,000 years.  Only Queen Margrethe II of Denmark has a longer pedigree in Europe.  Over the last millennium, the House of Windsor (as it is styled now) has gone from being absolute off-with-his-head monarchs to reign-but-not-rule royalty and has seen everything (literally) in between.  In the last 30 generations, there have been 49 kings and queens of England — give or take a couple of disputed ones and Oliver Cromwell (a religious head case.)  In that time, their realm, the United Kingdom, has given the world, among other things, literature, banking, capitalism, industry, a common language and representative democracy.  England’s political and cultural legacy is felt in every corner of the earth.  And it all started when Bill’s distant ancestor William the Conqueror (affectionately called William the Bastard) crossed the English Channel in 1066, with an army, to claim what was illegitimately his.

The history of the world is intimately tied to the history of England, and the history of England is intimately tied to the royal family.  No other family has done more to shape the course of human experience.  Some have risen to great power and prominence, shining brilliantly over their time and place, but they have all faded into relative obscurity.  The Julia family of Rome founded the Roman Empire and the Augustan Age.  Genghis Khan and his descendents ruled vast empires in Asia and Eastern Europe. The Medicis and the Borgias held sway over Italy during the great blossoming of the European Renaissance.  The Fuggers financed the Age of Discovery.  The Rothschilds and the Barings shaped the beginning of the modern world and the Industrial Revolution.  Yet none of them could hope to host an audience of perhaps a billion people in the 21st century.  Even the Chrysanthemum Throne of Japan, the oldest continuous dynasty in the world, doesn’t command that kind of attention.

The Windsors took centre stage on Friday, April 29th because — for a thousand years — they’ve been able to adapt to the world around them.  Many royal dynasties — the Bourbons, the Romanovs, the Qing (Manchus) — failed to renew themselves as history marched past them.  As the divine right of kings gave way to the will of the people, they stood in the path of progress, blindly clinging to their former glory.   They forgot their raison d’etre.

Here’s the history lesson.  From the beginning of time, royalty has been the centre of the nation.  Tribal chiefs offered protection, direction, organization and the law (albeit arbitrary) to a collection of people with common interests.  As tribes grew into states, the monarch give diverse peoples, physically separated, a shared purpose.  The wealth of the nation — money and ideas — was collected in one place and redistributed for the common good.  For example, roads were built and paid for by people who would never use them, with the understanding that the benefits would eventually be shared by all.  The king embodied this altruistic ideal.  Despite what modern history books will tell you, royal power has always been derived from the strength of the people, and strong monarchs returned that power in the form of a national ego.  This symbiotic relationship helped to concentrate the power of the people and funnel it into great achievements in learning, art and science.  It eased the creation of wealth, responded to disaster and established law.  But most importantly, the monarch offered the key to prosperity: stability.  Dynasties fail when monarchs no longer fulfill this obligation or abuse the trust given to them, and the people naturally reclaim their power.  The genius of the Windsors is that, over time, by fair means or foul, they’ve recognized the winds of change and adapted to accommodate the wishes of the people they serve.

In the 21st century, it’s easy to dismiss royalty as a very expensive anachronism; a gaudy bauble left over from a former time.  It’s also just as easy to resurrect the magic kingdoms we all knew as children and turn Kate into a fairy princess, complete with her Prince Charming.  That’s been done before, with disastrous results — more than once.

The truth, however, is very different.  Most people can’t name five British Prime Ministers since 1952, but there are very few people in this world who do not recognize The Queen.  That’s not by accident; it’s the prestige she has maintained as the personification of Britain.  This is the legacy that William and Kate will inherit — not the territorial kingdom handed down from William the Conqueror.  That belongs to the people.  William and Kate are now the next generation of royalty.  Their celebrity is ceaseless and relentless.  They are expected to be the living symbol of the very best of Britain, the Commonwealth and the English-speaking world.  They must be all things to all people; they must give up their personal lives for the greater good.  In short, they are no longer just people: they have become an institution of the nation, and perhaps even of the world.

The Queen

Where Do Lawyers Come From?

Ever since our hairiest ancestors came down out of the trees and grouped themselves together against the dangers of an unforgiving world, we have made laws to govern ourselves.  In the beginning, they were simple tribal dictates that set out reasonable behaviour within the group.  Things like no stealing another guy’s vegetables, no peeing upstream from the village, everybody gets a slice of the mastodon, and no loud music after 11:00.  In those days, there was only one punishment for breaking the rules.  You were banished from the protection of the tribe and your life expectancy went from short and brutal to zero.  Early humans understood that society was fragile, and if some wise ass wanted to be a jerk, he endangered the entire group.  It was simple, rough and ready, but it worked.  Humans, as a species, not only survived but thrived as a communal beast.

As our society progressed and got more complicated, so did our laws.  We still had to protect ourselves against the unreasonable acts of certain individuals, but we measured the punishment in accordance with the severity of the crime.  We remember this period today in the often quoted homily “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  These were still simple laws, but they worked well because everybody in the group understood the rules, and they were enforced by the entire community.  For example, if Benjamin got caught eating Abraham’s carrots, he was expected to replace them – with a little extra for Abraham’s trouble – and all was forgiven.  Once again, these rules allowed us to progress as a society because we didn’t have to spend all our time guarding our property against theft and vandalism, and we could sleep soundly at night, knowing that there was still no loud music allowed after 11:00.

As our society progressed even further, more and more people came under the protection of the law.  Our rural villages developed into urban towns and started to interact with other large groups who had also adapted laws to protect their societies.  This caused a serious problem, though, because our social groups were getting so large that not everybody knew all the rules nor understood them.  Plus, although the rules between different groups were very similar, sometimes individual laws were surprisingly different.  For instance, if the people in Town A understood that donkeys must be tethered when those same people went to Town B, where donkeys were allowed to roam free, their first thought would have been, “Wow! Free donkeys!” and they would have helped themselves.  You can see how there’d be some misunderstandings; wars have been fought over lesser things.

Luckily, it was about that time that a guy named Hammurabi came along.  Hammurabi was a Babylonian king who took all the rules he could think of and wrote them down.  Actually, he had them chiselled into stone, but the result was the same.  It was called the Hammurabi Code; a big, heavy copy of it is sitting in the Louvre in Paris, if you want to take a look.  Hammurabi also set down all the punishments that fit the crimes so everybody in his kingdom knew exactly where they stood – vis a vis the law.  At first glance, this looks like: “Great!  Problem solved, and all is well with the world.  Society can now progress even further, and we’re well on our way to putting a man on the moon in less than four millennia!”

Unfortunately, this is where history spins us around and gives us a pointed kick in the groin.  Hammurabi either didn’t think or didn’t care that most Babylonians at the time were illiterate.  They had no idea what the hell all the squiggles on the stone were.  Ordinary people had to ask someone who could read to interpret the law for them.  These bloodsuckers charges outrageous prices and grew fat off the misfortunes of others.  They were called “law readers” or “lawyers” – say it slowly – and they’ve been skulking around our society ever since.

I will say no more about this because I’m scared of getting sued, but here are some laws, from around the world, that you may not have heard about but that are still enforced today.

In Massachusetts, it’s against the law to put tomatoes in chowder.
In Great Britain, it’s against the law to own and operate a television set without a license.
In Alaska, it’s illegal to wake up sleeping bears in order to take their picture.
Under the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14, Section 1211, enacted July 16, 1969, (note the date) it is against the law for US citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrial aliens – or their vehicles.
In India, it’s illegal to fly over the Taj Mahal.
It’s against the law for the citizens of Monaco to gamble in their own casinos.
It’s illegal to chew gum in Singapore.
There is a national law in Switzerland that requires every Swiss citizen to either own – or have access to – a bomb shelter.
The song “Happy Birthday to You” is still under copyright.  Therefore, it is technically illegal to sing the song publically – without paying for the privilege.
In Iceland, it’s against the law to own a pet.
In Alaska, Hawaii and Maine, billboards are illegal.
And finally, my personal favourite: in Great Britain, attempted suicide is a capital crime whose maximum penalty is death.

Easter Trivia

Just a few Easter tidbits.  Throw them into the conversation while you’re gorging yourself on chocolate.  They’ll amaze your family and friends, and you’ll look like the smartest person in the room.

The most expensive Easter Eggs in the world were made by Faberge for the Russian royal family.  In 1885, Tsar Alexander III decided he wanted to give the tsarina something nice for Easter.  Of course, when you’re Alexander Romanov, by the Grace of God, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland etc. etc., you can’t just cruise on down to Walmart Saturday afternoon for some chocolate bunnies.  Alexander commissioned jeweller Peter Carl Faberge to make a special “egg” for his wife that wasn’t just a jewel-encrusted bauble.  (Apparently, she had plenty of those.)  He requested that the “egg” contain something unexpected, a kind of obscenely expensive Kinder Surprise.  Faberge created The Hen, an egg that cleverly opened up to reveal a chicken, which also opened to reveal a miniature imperial crown and a tiny ruby pendant.  Empress Maria Fedorovna was delighted, and Carl Faberge never had to worry about lunch money again.

In all, Faberge made 50 Imperial Eggs for the Romanovs.  During the Russian Revolution in 1917, most of them were confiscated by Lenin and the communists.  In the 1920s, when the Soviet Union was slipping into bankruptcy, Lenin’s successor, Stalin, sold many of the eggs abroad to obtain hard foreign currency.  Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, enormously rich guy, Victor Vekselberg, has been buying the eggs back and returning them to Mother Russia.  Incidentally, of the original 50 Faberge Eggs only 42 are accounted for, so you might want to sneak in and check great-aunt Olga’s jewellery box — just in case.

Of all the holidays in the calendar, only Hallowe’en comes with a bigger sugar shock than Easter.  Somewhere around 90 million chocolate rabbits will be consumed in North America this year, and over a billion jellybeans.  I’m not sure if these figures include the treats bought by the cheap buggers who wait ‘til next Wednesday — when the bunnies go on sale.

In keeping with the tradition of spring and renewal, in many parts of Europe and eastern North America, it’s considered back luck if you don’t wear a new article of clothing on Easter.  The old practice of buying a new Easter bonnet is part of this tradition.

The first Easter baskets were made to look like nests.

Real eggs, not the chocolate variety, contain every single nutrient essential to human survival – and a whole pile of cholesterol that’ll kill ya.

It is a well-known fact that the tastiest parts of a chocolate rabbit are the ears, and now it’s been statistically proven.  A recent survey showed that approximately 75% of us eat the bunny’s ears first, 5% eat the feet first, and another 5% the tail. (ugh!)  The other 15% of us probably do something unnatural like dip him in our coffee or chop him into bits to share.  Sharing chocolate?  What an odd idea!

Pretzels, the proverbial beer snack, started out in the medieval church where monks used flour and water (two of the ingredients allowed during Lent) to create a treat for children who had learned their prayers.  They were called brezel in Germany and pretiola in Italy and were often given to babies to suck on during the long Easter church services.  The particular folded arms of the dough are reminiscent of the folded arms of devotion.

And finally, just so the anti-Christian louts don’t show their ignorance again this year, here’s a quick-and-dirty history of how we got from Jesus and the crucifiction to Easter bunnies and chocolate eggs.  The early Christians were not as stupid as some people seem to think.  Actually, they had a very clever Sales and Marketing department.  They realized that the heathen hordes already had some pretty healthy spring festivals that celebrated the end of winter.  What they did was attach Christ’s resurrection and the renewal of the spirit to the established idea of the renewal of the earth.  From there, it was mere baby steps to preaching the gospel in terms that the local peasantry could understand.  In fact, the name “Easter” probably comes from the ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess Eastre.  She was the goddess of the dawn and fertility, and her symbols were the egg and the rabbit or hare.  The Christians just cashed in on her success and slowly squeezed her out of the picture.  By the time The Venerable Bede was writing about her in the 8th century, she was already ancient history.

Happy Easter, everybody!