BRITISH CROWN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 July 1939, Page 3

BRITISH CROWN

ROYALTY FAR MORE THAN SYMBOL ONLY. Royalty is not only, it is far from only, a symbol, writes Lord Elton. The King and the Queen are also a man and a woman, whose whole lives are set to the fierce light that beats upon a throne. Indeed, it is of the essence of the ancient idea of monarchy that the monarch should be of like nature, and of a similar outlook, with . his people. In the sovereign, the citizen sees not a man exalted above himself by divine right, still less a man of his own choosing, whose place he might conceivably himself assume. He sees one whose exacting destiny it is to become by unquestioned and heredity succession at once the apotheosis, and in a sense the servant, of all his subjects. In that high calling there is no respite and no discharge. What it constantly demands in sacrifice of tranquillity and leisure can be imagined, though it is seldom enough disclosed. What it can sometimes demand is surrender of personal happiness was revealed to the whole world in the sad events which preceded the present King's accession. It was precisely because. all over the world, millions of simple folk had learned to look to the British Crown as the embodiment of their own highest ideals, that the tragic choice between his throne and his happiness had eventually to be faced by the wearer of the Crown. From a fortnight which rocked Britain to its foundations the Crown emerged, against all apparent likelihood, with its lustre actually enhanced. For it had been common ground to all the chief actors in the tragic drama, as to the millions who had hung breathless upon its every turn, that the interests of the monarchy itself must override all other considerations whatever.