Recent events in Afghanistan have underscored the importance of the country's Monarchy in conferring legitimacy to the post-Taliban regime. Sometime this year, H.M. Mohammed Zahir Shah is due to return after 29 years of exile. It is unclear at this writing, however, whether he or any of his sons will come to occupy the throne in the future.

Indeed, all sides in the country (and the media almost everywhere) are at great pains to insist that the King's return does not mean a restoration. Yet at the same time, all are agreed that it is essential that His Majesty give his blessing to the new regime. Truly a great paradox.

It is an understandable one. For the return of the King is a frightening archetype for many. If the Afghan King should enjoy his own again, where does it end? For this reason, the Iranian government are most distressed at the prospect.

In a larger sense, restoration is a fear which haunts all republics. The laws of return which barred or bar the heirs of France, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Austria from even visiting their nations is an eloquent testimony to the fear of the new regimes. This is of course fitting; robbers rarely feel secure in their plunder.

But the issue is more complex than this fact alone. Republics, borne of revolutions, are of their nature destructive. They do not create. Every institution we enjoy in the West to-day stems from Monarchical creation or patronage. Parliaments, government ministries, universities, judiciaries, armies and navies, provincial and civic governments, learned societies and academies --- all of them. Moreover, they cling to remaining or resurrected trappings of Monarchy to give themselves legitimacy. American colleges, Congress, and a few State legislatures retain the mace --- in origin a symbol of royal protection. The Gardebataillon which protects the person of the President of Austria does so in the Hofburg, and carries the double-eagle standard of the Imperial Guard. A major court case being fought between State and Federal governments in the U.S. over control of public lands revolves around whether the States or the Feds inherited the Sovereignty of the Crown in 1776 (or '83, if you prefer). One could multiply these examples by many more.

This presents republics with a difficult problem. To establish their own institutional legitimacy, they must assert their connection to their monarchical origins: if you go to the websites of various republican cabinet ministries, you will see this. But at the same time, they must constantly justify their overthrow of their Monarchs. So the website of the Army of Mexico, say, treats at great length of the wonderful work done by successive Spanish Viceroys in building up native Mexican forces. Then, in the site's account of the revolution, the point of view reverses one hundred per cent. The effect is schizophrenic, to say the least.

But it does make sense. In the late 1960s, Valentin Tomberg wrote: "Europe is haunted by the shadow of the Emperor. One senses his absence just as vividly as in former times one sensed his presence. Because the emptiness of the wound speaks, that which we miss knows how to make us sense it." True as this line is of the Holy Roman Emperor (perhaps truer now than when written as the EU becomes ever more an Emperor-less Empire), it also applies to republican European nations, the Americas, India and Pakistan, South Africa, and many other places. Amid the panoply of Presidential Guards, Congresses, and so on, the presence of the empty throne is palpable.

But it is not only a question of governmental structures. The Church, founded by the legitimate heir of the House of David, is a powerful witness to Monarchy, no matter how many churchmen attack it; whatever they may say, the altar is a throne. Turn your attention to the arts: opera, ballet, classical music, theatre --- all developed under royal protection, and their conventions reflect this. Many an American theatre or opera house has a royal box. The rituals of the hunt were similarly developed, and are carefully followed in the States, France, and other republics. Even the rules of simple etiquette come to us, ultimately, from royal court practice.

This makes perfect sense, because man is psychologically Monarchist. He longs to give life and loyalty to something or someone over him almost as much as he wants to take all for himself. Thus the battle between republic and Crown takes place in all of our hearts and minds. Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller puts it rather well in his Tao of Freedom:

Here and there the symbolic links with the archetypal structures of the unconscious still remain and give a measure of psychological sustenance to humanity. The Queens and Kings of England still stand as archetypal symbols of the soul of their people, their crowned and anointed heads bearing not merely earthly diadems, but the effulgence of a transcendental glory from beyond this world. The Tenno reigns in austere splendour in his vast palace in Tokyo, and as the representative of the Kami deities, performs annual sacrifices and blessings for the fertility and prosperity of the islands of Dai Nippon. But in most portions of the globe, the gods have died, and with them have passed the Kings, the earthly representatives of archetypal splendour. The old Tao has departed. As in the China of Confucius, warlords and usurpers march over the countryside and strut in palaces. The earthly city and the city of God have lost their linkage, and humanity vainly builds towers of Babel to reach heaven once more.

This is a problem ever more evident in republican countries. But worse yet, in most of the world's remaining Monarchies, the political classes, who rule in the shadow of their royal masters, slowly but surely chip away at their countries' crowns. Whether one speaks of the republicans in Australia; Mr. Blair's dealing with the House of Lords and royal symbolism in Britain; oaths in Canada; abolishing the royal Te Deum in Belgium; or what have you. Often, it seems that royals themselves either gladly acquiesce in such doings, or further them through peccadilloes of their own.

A major factor in the decline of Monarchy has been the near universal acceptance of the central myth of democracy --- i.e., that elected officials speak for the people. Many a constitutional Monarch unhesitatingly accepts whatever his ministers put across, since to do otherwise would not merely be political suicide, but would be (so the Monarch thinks) opposing his people. Yet republican experience indicates the opposite. Nevertheless, it has always seemed that this reality is never commented upon.

In the very few times in the 20th century when a constitutional Monarch or his viceroy have crossed swords with professional politicos in power, almost invariably it is seen --- in retrospect --- that the Monarch's views were correct, and tended more toward safeguarding the welfare of his subjects. Yet this knowledge has done little to dispel the myth. Throughout the 20th century both such historical experience and the psychological facts mentioned earlier seemed to go unnoticed.

Moreover, we are currently engaged in a war against Islamic terrorists. In this country, at least, as always happens in such times of crisis, the flag is being waved, and our democratic virtues extolled. In the current climate, any questioning of democracy is considered subversive. More disturbing still, the fact that our opponents have a moral code is being cited as proof that we must eliminate public morality, lest we become like them. If you oppose homosexual marriage, for example, you are an ally of Bin Laden, according to some of the major American media. Having been a mile and a half from the Pentagon when it was hit, I am certainly in favour of defeating El Qaeda; the fact that this conflict seems to have wiped the famous grin off Mr. Blair's face does add a little spice. But it is a tragedy that this war is being used in many quarters as evidence that the republican system is automatically superior to any other.

In common with many Monarchists, I am frustrated that, despite all the evidence, all the arguments possible, the opportunities presented by the fall of Communism seem to have passed us by. King Simeon II has not worked a miracle in Bulgaria; the fact that no one could will be ignored, no doubt, and political failure will certainly delay the King regaining his crown. King Michael is still merely fluttering around the edges of Romanian political life, the Savoys are still banished from Italy, and Crown Prince Alexander's return to his Belgrade palace has yet to return him to his throne.

Nevertheless, it may that things are changing, and people are beginning to connect the dots. In the past few years, three important books have been published, each of which are worthy of reviews the length of this article. Robert B. Kraynak's Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World is a powerful critique of modern liberal democracy from an Augustinian viewpoint. Libertarian Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, has just published Democracy --- The God That Failed: The Economics And Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, And Natural Order. Therein, Dr. Hoppe declares the superiority of Monarchy over liberal democracy from an Historico-Economic viewpoint. Lastly, Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P., has brought us Christendom Awake. This work, a plea for the revival of Christendom, shows how Monarchy is an essential element of any decent social order in Europe --- along with many other things.

None of these authors present a practical programme. But they perform an importance service. Before the 18th century revolutions which began our long, sad, retreat from Monarchical sanity, republican ideas were being discussed by intellectuals. This was necessary, before any actual overthrows could occur. When these upheavals were at last realised, their success was made possible, as Thomas Molnar points out in The Counter-Revolution, by the fact that their royalist opponents to a greater or lesser degree shared many of their ideas.
Obviously, something similar must occur again, if the generality of the empty thrones are to be filled. While both explicit Monarchical sentiment, and the unconscious yearning for the Crown are widespread, for them to be effective in bringing about restorations, they must be joined with articulate intellectual theory. The fact that such theorising is perhaps beginning is certainly a hopeful sign.

Nor is it the only one. As most of my readers will know, The Lord of the Rings is doing quite well at the box office. Like its literary progenitor, it is a Monarchist work. A friend of a friend (here in republican Hollywood) said, after seeing it: "At first, I was really uncomfortable with all that King stuff. But afterwards, I thought maybe it was me and the modern view that was wrong." If such a conversion is possible in Tinsel Town, where else may it not occur?

For the fact is that as long as the human spirit remains itself, there will always be hope for restoration. The last Monarchist will die when the last human being does. And so, if any of my readers are discouraged, let them take comfort from this short poem, featured in the Lord of the Rings:

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not touched y the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall bee blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
Be assured: some day, the thrones will be filled.

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