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When I was a child and knelt on a big hassock in the rectory pew of a Suffolk church, I used to wonder, while flies droned against the green-tinted diamond-paned windows, and the crowing of roosters came with drowsy sunshine through the open door, whether the dear, sadfaced lady in a widow’s cap, whose picture hung in our nursery above the gray rocking-horse, knew that my father was praying for her good health.
I used to wonder, too, whether she ever reflected howat that particular moment, from one end of England to the other, men were breathing her woman’s name into the hearing of the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the only Ruler of princes. How wonderful for that little lady to think of this universal supplication—how humbling, how uplifting! Did she bow her head very, very low, I wondered, as the choric prayer of England rose in the hush of those Sabbath morns from city to town, from village and hamlet—the voice of her great little England approaching the confidence of God on her behalf
“Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria, and so replenish her with the grace of Thy Holy Spirit, that she may alway incline to Thy will, and walk in Thy way. Endue her plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant her in health and wealth long to live; strengthen her that she may vanquish and overcome all her enemies; and finally, after this life, she may attain everlasting joy and felicity.”
The innocent wonder of childhood lies far behind me on the dusty road of life. He who prayed and she for whom he prayed have both out-soared the shadow of our night. Other children play in that Suffolk glebe, a different voice wakes the Sabbath echoes in that village church, and another inhabits the majestic splendour of the throne of England.
Here in Canada, far away in the West, with the croon of the Pacific Ocean in my ears and the scents of a deep,cool, pine forest stealing into the candles through the opening of a tent, I find my wonderment following the ancient trail of a far-away childhood. Does Edward the Seventh, I asked myself, ever reflect that in all the zones of the world, night after night, year in, year out, at the old familiar call, “Gentlemen, the King!”—men of Shakespeare’s blood and Alfred’s lineage spring to their feet, as at the sound of a trumpet, and the local welkin rings with the anthem of the British? Is he conscious, wheresoever he be at this moment, of the low, strong, rumbling Amen of our anthem, which rolls through the tent as we set down our glasses and resume our chairs—“ The King! —God bless him.” Every night, in every quarter of the globe, as constant as the stars, as strong as the mountains, this pledge of loyalty, this profession of faith by the clean-hearted British—“ The King! —God bless him.”
Presently the chairman rises to propose another toast, but my thoughts cling to the ancient trail. I see a vision of Windsor Castle, with the Royal Standard streaming out against the sky of summer turquoise, exactly as it shone for my boyish eyes in a box of bricks. The fragrance of England’s May-breathing hedgerows and the deep, earthy scents of her glimmering woods of oak and elm, come to me from the fields of memory. All that makes England demi-Paradise—her rose-hung hedges, her green woods, her creeping rivers, her April orchards, and her March-blown hills—all this gracious pageantry rises in a green and tender mirage to the eyes of my musing. And as I feel the spell and magic of “this other Eden” I feel also the pomp and splendour of the British throne, I understand how it is that whithersoever I go in Canada, men stand up like soldiers at the toast of the King, and, though but a moment hence they were laughing over a light story, sing with exaltation the anthem of the British: “The King! —God bless him.” He is to these dwellers in a far land, these English Esaus, who “tramp free hills and sleep beneath blue sky,” the magic name which opens for them the gates of the past, and shows again the pleasant vision of childhood. At the name of the King rises the vision of England, Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey—all the crowded historic greatness of free and glorious England—this memory, with childhood’s picture of Yeomen of the Guard, Lord Mayor processions, and the swirl of craft under the Thames bridges, leaps in one fond, yearning affection to the exiled heart at thetoast of the King. All that men learned of England at the knees of their mothers comes like a vision at the call of the King. At that name Esau dreams his dream of home.
How great and good a thing to be the head and fountain of a world-wandering people! What a sublime reflection for a single individual that men and women, scattered across the great globe, and sundered from each other by every sea that rolls beneath the stars, regard his name as a band binding them in a great communion. To be the captain of the British people—is there higher office on the earth? To feel oneself the symbol and the sigil of a great race marching to wider freedom—is there nobler inspiration under heaven?
How often I have raised my glass in London to the toast of his Majesty, and murmured like a schoolboy repeating his lesson the concordant affirmation, “The King—God bless him.” But here, separated by a continent and an ocean from the shores of England, what significance there is in the toast, and what emotion in the voices of those who stand to drink! Here in the Island of Vancouver, all formality slips from the proceeding, and our toast is sacred, like a religious service. We are men seeking to express communion. We are free people uttering the ritual of our unity. The flag which drapes the table enfoldsan empire. The name of the King knits us into a common family. With what a proud challenge it rings out: “The King! —the King!” And then, quietly, under the breath, the short emphatic prayer: “God bless him!”
My thoughts go back over the long journey from Quebec to the city of Victoria. Scarce has a day passed but in some city or village we have stood to drink the loyal and ancient toast. Not only in the proud club-houses and hotels of prosperous cities, but in little lake-side hamlets, in new-built prairie towns, and in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. And, not only have we been called upon to drink that toast by the millionaire, the politician, and the university professor, but by broken men, who drift from land to land, from city to city, who drink too deeply and who live too madly, but in whose tempestuous and all but lawless brains beats still the lilt of England’s song: “Gentlemen— the King!” For that moment we are all gentlemen. For that moment Esau wears the European livery of his brother Jacob.
It is thus throughout the vast Dominion of Canada. It is thus in the mighty Empire of India. It is thus in ancient Egypt. It is thus in South Africa. It is thus in Australia. Shore calls to shore the ancient pledge, and the ships that sail between link voice to voice. Hark, how it rings across the world, that cry, “The King! —God bless him!”—from one whole continent, from a hundred peninsulas, from five hundred promontories, from a thousand lakes, from two thousand rivers, from ten thousand islands, and from seventy out of every hundred ships at sea. What pride, what pomp, what honour, what responsibility—to be the inspiration of that prayer.
— Harold Begbic