Monarchy

This is a series of papers delivered to the Temenos Academy to mark the Queen's Golden Jubilee. Themes include ideal kingship in Buddhism and early Ireland (including the role in sustaining cosmic harmony), treatments by Dante and Shakespeare as well as a vintage piece by the late Kathleen Raine on Monarchy and the Imagination. She remarks: 'just because the foundation of the monarchy is not political it safeguards those freedoms and values which are the mark of true civilisation'. This means that the monarch 'is the shared symbol of a sacred authority above politics or personal power of whatever kind'. In other words monarchy is a vocation and presidency an achievement. A good companion to Ian Bradley's book reviewed in the last issue.