Secondly: The Monarchy strengthens the Government with the strength of religion. It is the duty of a loyal citizen to obey his Queen; the oath of allegiance is no empty form. The Queen from her very position acts as a symbol of unity.
Thirdly: The Queen is the head of our society; she represents England in the eyes of foreign nations.
Fourthly: The Monarchy is the head of our morality. The example of Queen Victoria's simple life has not been lost upon the nation. It is now quite a natural thing to expect and to find the domestic virtues personified in the ruling monarch, and this in spite of the fact that history has shown what temptations lie in the way of those possessed of the highest power in the state.
Shakespeare voiced the feeling of the people for the kingship in the words which he put into the mouth of Henry V:
Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children, and our sins, lay on the king:
We must bear all.
O hard condition! twin-born with greatness,
Subject to the breath of every fool, whose sense
No more can feel but his own wringing!
What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect,
That private men enjoy?
And what have kings that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And lastly, the actual Government of the country may change but the Monarch remains, subject to no changes of Parliament, above and aloof from the strife of political parties, the steadying influence in times of transition.
The Sovereign has three rights: "The right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn." A comparison of the reigns of the four Georges with the reign of Queen Victoria shows that it was only during the latter's reign that the duties of the constitutional monarch were well and conscientiously performed. The Queen worked as well as her Ministers, and was their equal and often their superior in business capacity. To conclude: "The benefits of a good monarch are almost invaluable, but the evils of a bad monarch are almost irreparable."
On the death of the Queen, Mr Arthur Balfour, speaking in the House of Commons, described his visit to Osborne at a time when the Royal Family was already in mourning. The Queen's desk was still littered with papers, the inkstand still open and the pen laid beside it. "She passed away with her children and her children's children to the third generation around her, beloved and cherished of all. She passed away without, I well believe, a single enemy in the world. Even those who loved not England loved her. She passed away not only knowing that she was, I had almost said, worshipped and reverenced by all her subjects, but that their feelings towards her had grown in depth and intensity with every year she was spared to rule over us."
Appendix
Victoria Alexandrina, only daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. Born at Kensington, May 24, 1819. Became Queen, June 20, 1837.