Many years ago, my father asked my grandfather, Scottish immigrant Laurence Joseph King, about the abdication of the Duke of Windsor. My dad was then a teenager with Marxist ideas and considered it ridiculous that an abdication was insisted upon by the British Government. To Dad’s shock, Grandpa Larry responded, “He could not be King because he would not do his duty.” It took many years for my Dad to realize the wisdom of his father’s words.

I must say that I agree with my grandfather. It is very dangerous when the Crown rests upon the wrong head and my grandfather’s words apply, not only to the Duke of Windsor, but to many other Royals from many nations and centuries. Queen Elizabeth I of England, Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria-Hungary, and the last Shah of Iran definitely bear this out.

Blessed Emperor Karl once said that, as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, he certainly had rights, but that those rights were tempered by his duty. This duty is, in my opinion, best expressed in the words the current Queen of England spoke in her first address to the nation, “The whole of my life, whether it be long or short, shall be dedicated to your service.” The last word is best left to the Marquis de Custine.

During the 1830’s, the Marquis, a French Catholic Royalist, paid a visit to Tsarist Russia which he believed could save Europe from the lingering  ideas of the French Revolution. The Marquis left Russia deeply disillusioned by how the Tsar governed the State, the Orthodox Church, and the people by personal decree and backed up by police state tactics. 

The Marquis wrote that nations which prize “fidelity to insane masters” are neglecting their duty. Monarchy is only venerable, he says, when it governs justly. He concluded, “When Kings forget the conditions under which man is permitted to rule over his fellow men, the citizens have to look to God, their Eternal Governor, Who absolves them from their oath of fidelity to their temporal master.”