MAY 19th, ROYALLY SPEAKING

 

On May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn, the infamous second wife of King Henry VIII is executed on charges including adultery, incest and conspiracy against the king.

 

On May 19, 2018, Prince Harry of Britain marries Meghan Markle, an American actress, in St. George’s Chapel within the grounds of Windsor Castle. Some 600 guests attend the ceremony and nearly 2 billion people worldwide watch the televised event.

 

Most young’uns, and this includes young’uns of all ages😉, are much more aware of the second more recent royal event than the first.

Yet, by an order of magnitude, this first bore significance to Christian and post-Christian civilization.

 

Anne Boleyn is credited with luring a king away from Pope Clement VII and all subsequent popes because Rome wouldn’t grant King Henry an annulment (divorce) so he could marry his current infatuation. Anne, in turn, refused to become a mistress, so the King made himself effectively England’s pope and The Church of England was born.

 

To be fair, Martin Luther broke from Rome first to give birth to Lutheranism, but Henry accelerated a process that was already happening, and the Protestant Reformation and subsequent denominations began popping up like mushrooms after the rain.

 

Much of what happened to the western world would follow, including The Enlightenment and secular thinking that came with it, philosophically related to the questioning of the religious universe. We live with these consequences, both good and bad, to this day.

But what about Harry and Meghan, you say? What about them, indeed. Puffery turned to dust, it seems. Unless, in some yet to happen chain of events, their departure from England will mark the beginning of the end of Britain’s constitutional monarchy, their nuptials are forgettable. Even if this turns out to have the mentioned result, it is of little significance to those of us who are not English, which is most of us.

 

Just ruminating on the English Royals and the odd hold they have on us commoners even today.