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