Anglo-Saxon Traditions — and the Flying of a Cracker Jack Flag
Blimey, blokes — what a weekend it was!
We watched the royal funeral procession and pageantry of His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. It was a somber, surreal spectacle: Reality T.V. with just enough spit and shine to ease our lurid fascination. Hushed, posh-sounding commentary by British pundits explaining the rituals of royal internment. A proper beetle-like parade of buttoned-up, bespoke black.
We also witnessed the dumpster fire of a U.S. Congresswoman calling for — and then retracting — the launch of a nativist, racist, nationalistic caucus that would push for “Anglo-Saxon political tradition.” At the same time the Brits had lowered their Union Jack to half-mast, one of our own was flying a Cracker Jack flag to test reaction to an America First agenda.
Perhaps Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene could have saved herself some trolling and polling anguish if she had paid attention to the Anglo-Saxon tradition the rest of us were watching play out.
With all due respect, and heartfelt condolences to the Queen and her family, the funeral dirge we heard sounded more like a death knell for an entire monarchy than a single man. It felt like the elegiac end of an era. The closing of a Firm whose business of selling buggy whips and bequeathing titles had dried up long ago.
Rep. Taylor Greene was hawking something equally obsolete over the weekend. The notion that America should shutter its borders, close in, and unwind modern-era gains in trade, tech, education, international relations, environmental protection and immigration. Her America First policy platform was akin to pulling up the castle drawbridge and flooding the moat.
And the racist dog whistle of her “Anglo Saxon” tradition was as shrill as the Royal Navy’s playing of boatswain’s whistles outside St. George’s Chapel. (Really? A chorus of kazoos?)
If Rep. Taylor Green had tuned into the pomp of Prince Philip’s funeral, she might have been struck by the circumstances: Her Royal Highness sitting alone, distanced by loss, COVID precautions and self-imposed sovereign isolation. Aging heirs on the long trudge to the church and their assigned stations in life, their waistcoats heavy with regalia, looking every bit like a page out of C.S. Lewis.
She might have been reminded of the dysfunction that befalls all families (and nations), especially those defined by centuries-old standards and sense-less conventions. Men and women raised to revere “duty” — but hobbled in attempts to “do.” Lines of progeny progression that must feel like chains, to those closest to the throne and to those many rungs down. (Prince Andrew, for those keeping tabs, is ninth in line, behind three toddlers and Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry’s unborn child.)
She might have been struck, as we were, by the sad lot of scandal on parade: Prince Charles’ forced first marriage and subsequent dalliance and divorce; the lingering tragic tale of Princess Diana; Prince Andrew’s unsavory cavorting with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; a trans-Atlantic rift between Princes William and Harry; the allegation of arched-brow concern as to the skin color of Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.
And that, it seems is where Anglo and Saxon and America First converge.
Until now, the monarchy has been as white as Windsor marble. A color, or non-color, that must hold immense appeal to Rep. Taylor Greene and those who would like nothing more than a country of sameness, full of Camillas and Williams, Catherines and Edwards. Meghans, not so much.
But times change. New people, ideas, languages and melanin levels come into our lives, our families, our countries. You can’t turn back the tide — and why would you want to? Change, after some initial disruption, tends to make us better. It broadens horizons, opens minds and clears the air of stuffiness and stodgy ways. Even the British monarchy, the Mount Olympus of Anglo-Saxonism, is reevaluating its role and scope, patronages and peerage system.
Remember a decade ago, when female members of the British royal family were granted the same rights as males to ascend to the throne? At the time, it was considered “a majestic moment for gender equality.” Change doesn’t come quickly to the Commonwealth.
Or to those like Rep. Taylor Greene hanging on to an idealized, white-washed version of the past — and a white-hooded view of the future.
RIP, Prince Philip.
And RIP to Rep. Taylor Greene’s attempt at a tea and Trumpets Anglo-Saxon caucus.
