Democratic Royalism

In the decades before the First World War no British institution epitomised national identity more forcefully than the monarchy, and no other institution inspired such a universal feeling of loyalty and attachment. The crown reached this position in the half-century after 1861 by giving up its residual political power to a more powerful and more representative House of Commons and transforming itself into a powerfully symbolic institution, by concentrating its efforts on ceremony. The politicians who transformed the monarchy in an era of mass politics, mass movements and massive ceremonial displays constituted a cross-section of the political world. What were these men doing? What was in their minds as they planned enormous royal spectacles in London? This book focuses on the action of five different individuals who created the modern monarchy: Walter Bagehot, W.E. Gladstone, Lord Esher, Randall Davidson and the Duke of Norfolk.

In the decades before the First World War no British institution epitomised national identity more forcefully than the monarchy, and no other institution inspired such a universal feeling of loyalty and attachment. The crown reached this position in the half-century after 1861 by giving up its residual political power to a more powerful and more representative House of Commons and transforming itself into a powerfully symbolic institution, by concentrating its efforts on ceremony. The politicians who transformed the monarchy in an era of mass politics, mass movements and massive ceremonial displays constituted a cross-section of the political world. What were these men doing? What was in their minds as they planned enormous royal spectacles in London? This book focuses on the action of five different individuals who created the modern monarchy: Walter Bagehot, W.E. Gladstone, Lord Esher, Randall Davidson and the Duke of Norfolk.

In recent years, periodic discontent with the monarchy has become an aspect of political life in both Britain and the Commonwealth. While a number of important books have attempted to reappraise the British royal family, the study of anti-monarchism has by contrast been neglected. Down with the Crown seeks to fill this gap and to modify assumptions about the failure of radicals to contest monarchy effectively by looking at the issue of anti-monarchism in British politics from the French Revolution to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. It also deals with debates about the House of Lords and with the republican movements in former colonies such as Australia. At a time when European integration, devolution in Wales and Scotland, and reform of the House of Lords are forcing Britain to take stock of its governing institutions, this book represents a significant contribution to the debates surrounding the House of Windsor.

A TRILOGY TRANSCENDENT is a kind of loose trilogy of novels originally written in 1980 and sharing a common transcendental theme which has particular though not exclusive reference to modern art and its examination and appreciation from a pro-avantgarde standpoint that is often in opposition to philistine reaction from a variety of conservative quarters, whose penchant for 'the concrete' tends to exclude abstraction.

What did the 2006 military coup show us? It demonstrated that the crux of the Thai crisis is far more serious and much wider in scope than had previously been thought. The monarchy is surely not a victim in the protracted conflict, but the root cause and continuing factor that has eroded Thai politics. The coup set in motion more prejudicial uses of the lese-majeste law, and in the process, has led to more political prisoners. It has also shredded the military into several segments, turning generals into desperate royalists who continue to live off the monarchy in order to survive. Issues of violence in the Thai south and the Thai-Cambodian dispute became greatly intensified in the age of militarized politics. The coup also produced unique colour-coded politics and created crises of legitimacy. This book is a collection of essays that reflect developments in Thai politics in the post-coup period.

Examines the politicisation of empathy across the British empire during the nineteenth century and traces its legacies into the present.

The Omnidoxy is the founding treatise of the Astronist religion and was solely authored by the philosopher and religious founder, Cometan. Partitioned into twelve disquisitions, each of which are further divided into hundreds of discourses, which are themselves titled by those which are known as rubrals, The Omnidoxy has been codified according to a unique writing structure known as insentence. The Omnidoxy not only forms the foundations of Astronism, but it remains the primary modern contributor and the book that ignited the establishment of the Astronic tradition of religion which encompasses the philosophy of Astronism. Introducing brand new philosophical concepts such as cosmocentricity, reascensionism, transcensionism, and sentientism amongst many others, The Omnidoxy remains the principal signifier of a new era in philosophy. The Omnidoxy births hundreds of new belief orientations, schools of thought, neologisms, disciplines of study, theories, and concepts which, when combined and considered collectively, have formed the basis of Astronism. The authorship of The Omnidoxy rests with the single individual philosopher, Cometan who began writing The Omnidoxy at the age of seventeen driven by what he terms as personal inspiration. The historical origination of The Omnidoxy rests in its authorship by Brandon Taylorian during early 21st century England, specifically in the northern county of Lancashire. Like in all textual criticism, the timing and location of the codification of The Omnidoxy is integral to understanding why and how it was written, especially by considering the influential factors impacting Taylorian during his construction of the text, particularly the cultural, political, religious, and social contexts of Taylorian's personal life and of wider society at the time. This forms an important branch of study within omnidoxicology known as omnidoxical criticism, or omnidoxical exegesis in which scholars study and investigate The Omnidoxy in order to discern conclusive judgements inspired by how, where, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances The Omnidoxy was written.

This book explores mid-nineteenth-century French legitimism and the implications of popular support for a movement that has traditionally been portrayed as an aristocratic force intent on restoring the Old Regime. This type of monarchism has often been understood as a form of elitist patronage politics or, alternatively, identified with ultramontane Catholicism. Although historians have offered a more nuanced view in the last few decades, their work, nevertheless, has predominantly focused on legitimist leaders rather than their followers and their professed feelings of loyalty to monarchy and monarch. This book’s originality therefore is twofold: firstly as an analysis of popular rather than élite monarchism; and secondly, as a study which portrays this form of royalism as a political movement characteristic of a period which saw the emergence of mass politics, while parties were still non-existent. It not only discusses the social and cultural settings of (popular) monarchism, but also contributes to the history of political parties, citizenship and democracy.