Monarchy and the End of Empire: The House of Windsor, the British Government, and the Postwar Commonwealth
Monarchy and the End of Empire: The House of Windsor, the British Government, and the Postwar Commonwealth
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Abstract
This unique and meticulously researched study examines the triangular relationship between the British government, the Palace, and the modern Commonwealth since 1945. Through two principal areas of focus—the monarch’s role as sovereign of a series of Commonwealth realms, and her position as Head of the Commonwealth—it traces how, in the early twentieth century, the British government promoted the Crown as a counterbalance to the centrifugal forces that were drawing the empire apart. Ultimately, however, with newly independent India’s determination to become a republic in the late 1940s, it had to accept that allegiance to the Crown could no longer be the common factor binding the Commonwealth together. It therefore devised the notion of the Headship of the Commonwealth, as a means of enabling a republican India to remain in the Commonwealth while continuing to give the monarchy a pivotal symbolic role. In the post-war years of rapid decolonization, it became clear that this elaborate constitutional infrastructure posed significant problems for British foreign policy. The system of Commonwealth realms was a recipe for confusion and misunderstanding. Britain’s policy-makers increasingly saw it as a liability in terms of Britain’s relations with its former colonies, so much so that by the early 1960s, they actively sought to persuade African nationalist leaders to adopt republican constitutions on independence. The Headship of the Commonwealth also became a cause for concern, partly because it allowed the monarch to act without ministerial advice, and partly because it tended to tie the British government to what many within the UK regarded as a largely redundant institution.
Front Matter
- 1 1 The Holy Family: An Introduction
- 2 2 ‘The Pivot of Empire’: Monarchy and the Commonwealth, 1918–1945
- 3 3 ‘A Common Act of Will’: The Making of the New Commonwealth, 1945–1952
- 4 4 ‘A Personal and Living Bond’: Accession, Coronation, and Commonwealth Tour, 1952–1954
- 5 5 Winds of Change and the Royal Family
- 6 6 ‘A poor sort of courtesy to Her Majesty’: Republics, Realms, and Rebels, 1960–1970
- 7 7 ‘A Fragile Flower’: Britain and the Headship of the Commonwealth
- 8 8 A Royal ‘Duty’: Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings in the 1970s
- 9 9 ‘De-Dominionisation’ in the 1970s
- 10 10 ‘On Her Own’: The Queen and the Commonwealth in the 1980s
- 11 11 The Fall and Rise of the Royal Commonwealth
End Matter
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