A History of the king's Bodyguard

 

 Last month I was invited to a lecture held by a local History society, the speaker was a member of the King's Yeomanry (whose full title is King's Guard of the Yeoman of the Guard), which functions as his bodyguard, though nowadays the police and army do much of the grunt work of guarding the Monarch. It was well attended, as a republican I have no interest in the pomp and "grandeur" of the Royal family and its institutions, but I do enjoy history, and I was curious to see how someone who has devoted themselves fully to it acts and what case they'd put forward. I decided I wouldn't ask hostile questions, if I did ask a question it would be purely for clarity. In the end, he answered most of my questions before I asked them.

The speaker is a former Army serviceman and from a Yorkshire Mining town, there's a stereotype of Yorkies being a bunch of militant socialists, I've experienced enough of them to know that isn't true, though it was still a little weird to reconcile that accent and attitude with constant deference to privileged poshos. Just seemed wrong to me. The historical part of the talk was quite interesting, the King's bodyguard was first established in the aftermath of the death of Richard III at Bosworth field, the victorious Henry VII was quite shaken seeing Richard hacked to pieces and resolved not to let that happen to him. So, in effect, one of the most important institutions in a system of unquestioned obedience was started by a rebel and regicide.

The talk continued up to the present day, some interesting titbits include that despite serving under several Queen's Mary, Elizabeth I, Anne, Victoria etc. It wasn't until Elizabeth II that they changed the rules to call themselves protectors of the Queen. Another bit I found interesting was that the reason why a deceased Monarch's coffin is carried by the Grenadine Guard and not the King's Yeomanry is because they dropped Queen Victoria's dear Albert, and thus lost that "privilege". Another interesting bit that caught my ear was that up to 1830 civilians were allowed to purchase positions within the Yeomanry and used it as a source of enrichment, either by getting the King's ear or by paying attention at court and profiting through insider information. The speaker did not give specific examples of this corruption, but he did mention expeditions to Australia and the Virginia Colonies were influenced by this system, which was a brief reminder that the Monarchy was an active and key participant in the Imperial expansion with its evils of war, plunder, slavery etc. Afterwards membership of the Yeoman of the Guard was restricted to serving military, first the army then eventually expanding over the years to include all branches of the Armed Forces, eventually expanding to allow service women to join.

Currently, the membership of the Yeoman of the Guard is around 200 members, including a number of retired and pensioned members. The speaker wanted us all to appreciate that the money for the Guard comes directly from the King, not the government, not the public, but the King personally. Of course, this raises the question of where the King gets his money from, but I promised not to start an argument. We all know where the King gets his money from, either the British public, or his massive commercial holdings, which he has thanks to the British government so again the British public, or straight up dodgy dealings with foreign super wealthy.

 But a fraction of this money goes to the Guard for their service, though there is a difference between retired and pensioned, only 14 Yeomen have a pensioned paid by the King, the rest don't get anything until one of the fourteen die. That's not my words, that was the speaker's words. Again, I could've asked him why the King doesn't pension all retired Yeoman's since ceremonial duties aside they are still expected to get a bullet or dagger for him. But again I held my tongue, and as reward received even more evidence of the King's penny-pinching and ingratitude.

Eventually we got to the part where Elizabeth II died and the funeral arrangements. It was quite brutal, the Speaker and his fellow Yeomanry had to work 24-hour shifts fulfilling all the requirements of the ceremony. If you're wondering how they managed that, they worked on a rotation basis with a break every hour, but they couldn't leave or get proper rest because they would be needed to go stand by a door or a corner of a room or next to some painting or artefact or crowd management. In addition, they had nowhere to sleep when they did get some time off. He showed us photographs of them slumped in chairs because Mice would run over them if they slept on the floor. The death of Elizabeth II was an important event in the history of the Monarchy and yet despite the thousands of flunkies working overtime to get the event just right, no one thought to get some of the hundreds of unused rooms in the palace prepped for rest. 

Or perhaps, they just didn't care, while he was telling us anecdotes about the funeral he recounted one where the new King Charles came into the rodent infested room full of exhausted Guardsmen slumped in chairs and made no effort to improve their lot. The whole talk gave me feelings like I was in another world, this man was gushing about the Monarchy, but he never said anything I would consider worthy of praise or admiration. The Monarchy at best seemed distant from him even when he was in the room with them, and at worst completely uninterested in his welfare or the service he was providing. His sword forged by Wilkinson's Sword was nice, it put my 1934 German Policeman's Sabre to shame, and his uniform that resembled a Beef Eaters looked fancy, but I imagine it's a nightmare to clean, my old Cadet dress uniform was, and it was made in the 20th century. But apart from getting to go to some Royal Garden parties, which the majority of them have no King in attendance, there wasn't anything he said that I could even parse as reason for any of this nonsense to continue to exist. I did not even get a sense that he liked, and respected the current King Charles, he and his wife had a couple anecdotes about Charles's mother that seem like they were supposed to be endearing but when Charles was mentioned it was purely as an acknowledgement that he is the current holder of office.

 It was an interesting talk, but my object to understand what lies within the minds of the Crown polishers remains elusive.

 

This was unrelated but while writing this I found this poster in an Archive

What is to be Done? By Errico Malatesta

 "What is to be done?” is the question that, more or less intensely, always troubles the minds of all men struggling for an ideal, and urgently comes back in moments of crisis, when a failure, a disillusionment induces one to re-examine the tactics adopted, to criticize possible errors and to seek more effective means. Comrade Outcast is right to bring up the question again and invite the comrades to think and decide about what to do.

Today our situation is difficult, and even dreadful in some areas. However, he who was anarchist before, remains anarchist after all; although we have been weakened by many defeats, we have also gained a valuable experience, which will increase our effectiveness, if only we are able to treasure it. The defections occurred on our side, which were actually rare, help us after all, because they rid us of weak and unreliable persons.

So, what is to be done?

I am not going to dwell upon the unrest occurred abroad against the Italian reaction. Certainly we can only expect benefits from anything that helps the proletariat of the world to know about the true conditions of Italy and the incredible infamies that have been committed and keep being committed by the bourgeoisie cops in order to stifle and destroy any emancipatory movement. We just read about an international rally of protest against fascism, that took place in New York on the 18th of the current month — and we are sure that our friends and those who have a sense of freedom and justice will do whatever they can in America, England, France, Spain, etc.

However, we are mainly interested in what is to be done here in Italy, because this is what is to be done by us. Although it is good to take into account all the auxiliary forces, it is very important not to rely too much on others, and seek our well being in ourselves and our own work.

In recent years we have approached the different avantgard parties with a view to joint action, and we have always been disappointed. Must we for this reason isolate ourselves, or take refuge from impure contacts and stand still trying to move only when we have the necessary strength and in the name of our complete programme?

I think not.

Since we cannot make the revolution by ourselves, i.e. our forces alone are not sufficient to attract and mobilize the large masses necessary to win, and since, no matter how long one waits, the masses cannot become anarchist before the revolution has started, and we will necessarily remain a relatively small minority until we can try out our ideas in the revolutionary practice, by denying our cooperation to others and by postponing the action until we are strong enough to act by ourselves, we would practically end up encouraging sluggishness, despite the high-sounding words and the radical intentions, and refusing to get started, with the excuse of jumping to the end with one big leap.

I know very well — if I had not known for a long time I would have learnt recently — that we anarchists are alone in wishing the revolution for good and as soon as possible, except some individuals and groups that champ the bit of the authoritarian parties’ discipline, but remain in those parties in the hope that their leaders will resolve someday upon ordering a general action. However, I also know that the circumstances are often stronger than the individuals’ will, and one day or another our cousins from all different sides will have to resolve upon venturing the final struggle, if they do not want to ignominiously die as parties and make a present to the monarchy of all their ideas, their traditions, their best sentiments. Today they could be induced to that by the necessity of defending their freedom, their goods, their life.

Therefore we should always be prepared to support those who are prepared to act, even if it carries with it the risk of later finding ourselves alone and betrayed.

But in giving others our support, that is, in always trying to use the forces at the disposal of others, and taking advantage of every opportunity for action, we must always be ourselves and seek to be in a position to make our influence felt and count at least in direct proportion to our strength.

To this end it is necessary that we should be agreed among ourselves and seek to co-ordinate and organize our efforts as effectively as possible.

Let others keep misunderstanding and slandering our goals, for reasons we do not want to qualify. All comrades that seriously want to take action will judge what is better for them to do.

At this time, as at any time of depression and stagnation, we are afflicted by a recrudescence of hair-splitting tendencies; some people enjoy discussing whether we are a party or a movement, whether we have to associate into unions or federations, and hundreds of other similar trifles; perhaps we will hear again that “groups can have neither a secretary nor a cashier, but they have to entrust one comrade to deal with the group’s correspondence and another to keep the money”. Hair-splitters are capable of anything; but let practical men see to taking action, and let hair-splitters in good faith, and those in bad faith above all, stew in their own juice.

Let anyone do whatever they like, associate with whoever they like, but let them act.

No person of good faith and common sense can deny that acting effectively requires agreeing, uniting, organizing.

Today the reaction tends to stifle any public movement, and obviously the movement tends to “go underground”, as the Russian used to say.

We are reverting to the necessity of a secret organization, which is fine.

However, a secret organization cannot be all and cannot include all.

We need to preserve and increase our contact with the masses, we need to look for new followers by propagandizing as much as possible, we need to keep in the movement all the individuals unfit for a secret organizations and those who would jeopardize it by being too well-known. One must not forget that the persons most useful to a secret organization are those whose beliefs are unknown to the adversaries, and who can work without being suspected.

Therefore, in my opinion, nothing that exists should be undone. Rather, it is a matter of adding something more; something with such characteristics as to respond to the current needs.

Let nobody wait for someone else’s initiative; let anyone take the initiatives they deem appropriate in their place, in their environment, and then try, with due precautions, to connect their own to others’ initiatives, to reach the general agreement that is necessary to a valid action.

We are in a time of depression, it is true. However, history is moving fast nowadays: let us get ready for the events to come.