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Naturally, then, the English revere their monarchy. They recognize its symbolic mission, perceiving in its stately pomp and pageantry the reflection of a glorious national history.
It is a monarchy, furthermore, which weighs but lightly on the taxpayer. The crown revenues are derived from estates once belonging to the Royal Family, which were turned over to the state by George the Third, who accepted in lieu thereof a fixed Civil List. As the revenues from the Crown Lands exceed the Civil List, the nation is decidedly the gainer by the arrangement.
Moreover, the King of England is a hardworking, pains-taking public servant whose daily round of arduous duties is no less wearisome and exacting than that of any great man of business. His recent gift to the nation of nearly five hundred thousand dollars (almost the entire Civil List) shows that he is not lacking in patriotic self-denial. The direct power of the Crown is limited, but the personal influence of its wearer is very great. That this has been aught but a good influence since the days of William the Fourth no one can truthfully assert.
Space does not here permit an extended discussion of the British aristocracy. A few words relative thereto, however, may serve to dispel some American misconceptions with regard to it.
According to Continental standards, it is an aristocracy at all. In Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy, every son of a noble is a noble. The titled class is very large, as a rule very worthless, and posseses numerous privileges subversive to the rights of so-called inferior men. In Great Britain only the head of the titled family is noble. His sons are commoners in the eyes of the law and remain such until the eldest succeeds to his father's place, or until any one (or all of them) secures a peerage in his own right through some contribution to the advancement of the country deemed worthy of notice by the Crown. Younger sons, as a rule, must scramble for themselves. Consequently, the race retains its push and initiative, the middle classes constantly receive infusions of the best blood, while titular distinctions remain open to anyone with the brains, ambition and worth to earn them.
A great scientist, for instance, becomes Lord Kelvin; a great poet Lord Tennyson; a great statesman Lord Beaconsfield; a great soldier Lord Kitchener. Attain success and the King registers it for all time.
On the other hand there are some very, very old families in England--many of them without titles, but none the less noble for that. They are not decrepit, bloodless, decayed old families either.
Thomas Fitzalan Howard, for instance, is fifteenth Duke of Norfolk of the second creation. He would be the nineteenth Duke were it not for an act of attainder passed against one of his ancestors which caused a cessation of the title through four lives. Furthermore, he is descended from the Fitzalans who were Earls of Arundel way back in the time of the first Edwards. So be it. Thomas Fitzalan-Howard is
