On January 13, 2022, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, will no longer officially use the title of "His Royal Highness" because of his deep involvement in epstein's sexual assault case, and all his honorary military positions will be withdrawn by the Queen, and he will face the legal trial as a civilian. Prince Andrew reportedly lost 1 Royal Navy position, 1 Royal Air Force position and 8 Army positions in the UK (including the position of Colonel of the Grenadier Guards Infantry Regiment, one of the most senior Army units). It is inevitable to wonder why Prince Andrew, who served in the Royal Navy and flew helicopters in the War on the Isles of Anglo-Armamar, had so many positions in the British Army, which did not have the title of "Royal". It all starts with the intricate relationship between the British monarch and the army.
Queen Elizabeth with Prince Andrew in army uniform
Political system
There is a widely circulated theory at home and abroad that the British Army did not have the title of "Royal" because the Bill of Rights of 1689 prohibited the monarch from maintaining a standing army in peacetime without the approval of Parliament, so the Army belonged to Parliament; and the predecessor of the Army was Cromwell's "New Model Army", who defeated Charles I in the Civil War in the middle of the 17th century, resulting in the latter being sent to the guillotine, and his son Charles II was reluctant to grant the Army "Royal" after the Restoration in 1660. Title up.
In fact, the Army did not bring much psychological shadow to Charles II. On the contrary, he believes that his father's defeat and death were largely due to the lack of a reliable and victorious armed force, which could only rely on the army temporarily conscripted in wartime. Therefore, after the restoration, he retained part of the "New Model Army" and the remnants of the Royal Army in the name of the "Guard", following the system and code of the European continent, especially France, and with the addition of new armies in Scotland and Ireland, the prototype of the modern British Army was laid. At the same time, he allowed the traditional local militia to be dismantled, making the army in his hands the only fighting force on land in England.
What really has a lingering feeling for the army is actually the parliament of England. Strictly speaking, Charles I did not die at the hands of the Army, he was sentenced to death by a special court of parliament. On the contrary, the English Parliament was first purged by Colonel Pride in 1648, and then forcibly dissolved by Cromwell's troops in 1653, and the famous saying "In the name of God, go!" was also falsely rumored, and the subsequent five years of military rule left an unforgettable memory for English society. Thus, based on the experience of the Civil War and the Republican period, the king wanted to have a standing army to defend his royal power, and the parliament was particularly wary of the king's use of the standing army to trample on the freedom of England, and the two sides began a "cat and mouse game". Using its power to approve taxes, Parliament forced the King several times in 1667, 1674, and 1679 to disband some of the newly formed troops; the King took advantage of various opportunities to expand the army and send some troops to the colonies or to serve in the French army to circumvent the jurisdiction of parliament. It was not until after the Glorious Revolution that the army's position in the British political system was largely determined. The army's expenditure must be fully allocated by the parliament, which annually passes the Military Discipline Act to approve the army's military expenses and military discipline, and the size of the army is determined according to the amount of military expenditure.
However, army officers and men do not consider themselves "armed by parliament". The reason is simple: while the bill in Parliament can determine "how many people" there is in the Army, it is up to the monarch to decide "who" the Army has. The appointment and dismissal of army officers is considered a royal prerogative, and officers above the rank of second lieutenant are required to receive a letter of appointment issued by the Minister of War in the name of the monarch. In contrast, letters of appointment for Officers of the Royal Navy are issued in the name of the Admiralty. Many monarchs will even go out of their way to sign it in person, and the British constitutional scholar Bai Zhihao mentioned that Queen Victoria personally signed all the letters of appointment of army officers, but because the number was too large, there was often a backlog of thousands of copies, so that many officers did not get formal letters of appointment until after retirement. Army officers and men must also swear allegiance to the British monarch when enlisted and promoted, while the Royal Navy did not have this link. In addition, before 1858, the Army's Secretary of War and the Commander-in-Chief in charge of military orders had been co-located in the Horse Guards between St. James's Palace and the former Whitehall Palace, and the parade ground outside was where the British monarch had always held birthday parades.
The cavalry at the gate of the Guards Cavalry Battalion became a "punch-in resort"
History and culture
The relationship between the monarch and the army is not limited to these superficial forms, but has real influence. The grace of the monarch was important to the generals of the British Army.
John Churchill , Duke of Marlborough ( 1650–1722 ) is considered one of the greatest generals in English history , and his place in the army is certainly inseparable from his talents , but his relationship with the monarch cannot be ignored. He was a servant of James II in his youth, and his sister was James' mistress. Because of this relationship, he was appointed second lieutenant in the army at the age of 17, and since then, he has been in full swing, and at the age of 35, he has become at least a general and become the de facto number one of the army. His wife Sarah was later Queen Anne's maid and girlfriend, and the Duke of Marlborough was favored by Anne, and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British Army during the War of the Spanish Succession, leading the anti-French coalition forces to several major blows to France.
Even in the 20th century, when the constitutional monarchy was very mature, the actual influence of the British monarch in the army was still lingering, and the British commander-in-chief Douglas Hague (1861-1928) in the late World War I was a good example. Although most military historians consider Haig to be a Chinese man, he had a close personal relationship with the royal family, served as an aide-de-camp of Edward VII, and his wife Dorothy was queen Alexandra's maid, and the two were married at Buckingham Palace. In 1915, when the British commander on the Western Front, John French, was ineffective, King George V instructed Hagrid to take his place and instructed Hagrid to write to him at any time when things happened. Under Hagrid's mediocre and reckless command, the British lost two million athletes without corresponding results, and the king's frequent military intervention forced Prime Minister Lloyd George to resign.
The fate of dukes and haigs of Marlborough is also a testament to the influence of the monarch in the army. Although the Duke of Marlborough made great achievements, he was deposed in 1711 and exiled for a time, which not only had the international situation and partisan political factors, but also the feud between his wife Sarah and Queen Anne. In contrast, the lackluster "Butcher of the Somme" Haig, because he was a royal redman, was able to be made earl and received a large bounty after the war, and died in great mourning, and Edinburgh Castle and London Whitehall still erected his equestrian statues.
In fact, in 1710, the Duke of Marlborough had a dispute with Queen Anne over the selection of the head of a dragoon regiment colonel, and finally the meritorious veteran had to submit to Anne as a female class on military issues, which fully demonstrated that the British monarch was the veritable "supreme commander" of the army.
This can be said to be closely related to the military functions of European monarchs since the Middle Ages. As the head of the military nobility, the king is the "defender" of the country, and it is naturally the obligation and even hobby of many kings to lead the noble knights under his command to fight on the battlefield. At the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror took off his helmet and led a counterattack; at the Battle of Agencourt in 1415, Henry V was "mighty of war"; even on the eve of the naval battle of the Spanish "Armada" in 1588, Elizabeth's speech to the British army on the land of Tilsbury became famous.
Even in modern times, spears and armor have been replaced by muskets and artillery, but war is still regarded as "the king's business" In the second half of the 17th century, the standing army in Europe had a strong aristocratic color, and for many noble sons and even illegitimate sons who could not inherit titles and family property, joining the army was the "right way", and military merit might be able to increase the ranks and knighthoods, and the word "cadet", which was originally used to refer to the younger son of the noble family, also began to have the meaning of "cadet" in the 18th century.
In such a British army, it is not surprising that the vast majority of officers and soldiers believed that their service was to the king as the head of the nobility, not to the elected parliament. As for the title of "Royal", it is only the monarch's recognition of the professionalism of an organization, and does not reflect its estrangement from the monarch, just as the Royal College of Physicians is not a "hospital", and the Royal Society is not a "QinTianjian". It is true that some meritorious units and professional branches of the British Army have been awarded royal titles, such as the Royal Fusiliers and the Royal Corps of Signals, but the highest-ranking unit in the Army is the five Guards Infantry Regiments standing guard at Buckingham Palace, none of which have royal titles, after all, it is a great honor to be able to take care of the king's home.
Family traditions
However, the British political system and the history and culture of Europe can not fully explain the military position of Prince Andrew, after all, the royal family members have so many army titles, which are rare in today's European monarchies, and such British royals are everywhere, even Andrew's sister, the eldest princess Anne, has 10 British army positions.
This can be said to be partly a "family tradition" of the British Royal Family. The previous Stuart dynasty was heavily influenced by the French Bourbons in every way. Louis XIV, the "Sun King", although he had spent his life in exhaustion, never personally led his troops to battle, at most with his mistress to watch the battle from afar; the same was true of Charles II and James II of the Stuart dynasty, who laid the foundation of the British Army, but only at a critical juncture like the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 was they willing to march in person.
But today's British royal lineage is established by the Succession to the Throne Act of 1701, according to which the English throne is inherited by the Protestant descendants of Sophia, the Elector of Hanover. Sophia's husband, Ennest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, led his army to the Franco-Dutch War, the Great Turk War, and the Nine Years' War, and was promoted to "Marquis of Hanover", and around the same time he was promoted to "King of Prussia" as the Elector of Brandenburg. We know that Prussia later became an important military power, in fact, Hanover did not hesitate to let go, for example, the famous Prussian military theorist Karl von Clausewitz was trained by the Hanoverian military scientist Gerhard von Schähnhorst.
The son of Ernest Augustus and Sophia was George I, the first king of the Hanoverian dynasty of England. Growing up in such a "martial arts" environment, George, although not tall, was physically strong and rode a good horse. At the age of 15, he accompanied his father on the campaign at the Battle of the Bridge of Konz in 1675, witnessing the first defeat of Louis XIV. He not only fought until the end of the Franco-Dutch War, but also left for the famous Battle of Vienna in 1683 when he was newly married, and organized a tight defense line in Hanover in 1707, forcing the famous French general Marshal Villar to dare not cross the thunder pool. After joining England in 1714, George I, although he did not know much English and was not familiar with English politics and law, was a veteran of the battlefield in the army; after he succeeded to the throne, he issued a large number of monarchical decrees to regulate the manners, discipline and uniforms of the army, and tried to restrain the disadvantages of buying officials, eating empty salaries, and deducting military salaries.
Although the Hanoverian dynasty has always been at odds with father and son, its enthusiasm for the army has been passed down from generation to generation. George II fought with the British as early as the Battle of Odenarde in 1708, killing even his crotch mount, and won Swift's poetry for this. After he ascended the throne in 1727, he was also very enthusiastic about the army, and even carried a notebook with the names and characteristics of thousands of army generals. In 1743, at the age of 60, George II also personally commanded the Combined Forces of Britain, Hanover and Austria in the Battle of Daytingen in the War of the Austrian Succession, becoming the last British monarch to march in person.
George II at the Battle of Daytingen
Later monarchs such as George III, George IV, and Victoria, although they had no actual military experience, still cared deeply about the army. In addition to her lifelong tireless signing of the letter of appointment, Victoria also inspected the army on horseback at the beginning of her accession to the throne in 1837, rather than riding a carriage like a female Taoist family, as the Prime Minister had suggested. Perennial seasick, she said that the Navy was "the worst in morals and in any way imaginable," but said that "I have always had a special affection for the Army"; indeed, she envied Nightingale for being able to personally take care of the "noble and brave heroes" and strongly supported the latter's efforts to improve the health of the Army.
Queen Victoria in a military uniform and with the insignia of field marshal
Many princes who grew up in such a royal family also naturally entered the army, for example, 5 of George III's 7 sons who lived to adulthood joined the army. There is no shortage of these princes and grandchildren who finally held high positions in the army. George II's second son, William, Duke of Cumberland, served as Commander-in-Chief of the Army from 1744 to 1757, quelling the 1745 Jacobite rebellion in the Scottish Highlands, with a gunshot wound he suffered in his early years on the battlefield; Frederick, Duke of York, the second son of George III, served as Commander-in-Chief of the Army from 1795 to 1827, and the military reforms he presided over contributed to the Duke of Wellington's eventual defeat of Napoleon, which is still in the English nursery rhyme "The Grand Old Duke." Victoria's cousin George, Duke of Cambridge, ran the Army from 1856 to 1895 and was Britain's longest-serving commander-in-chief, but it was also because of his conformism that the British Army gradually lagged behind Continental powers such as Germany and France.
The two world wars of the 20th century marked the fading of the sword and light of medieval and modern aristocratic warfare, and the British royal family also lost a lot of German color. The British royal family changed their German surnames at the end of World War I and stripped the German army of british titles for relatives of the Hanover family.
Perhaps to reflect Britain's identity as a "maritime nation," the late Prince Philip, who was born in the Navy, sent all three sons, including Andrew, into the Royal Navy or Marine Corps. But the indissoluble relationship between the British royal family and the army will continue. It is reported that Prince Andrew's honorary military position will be assigned to other members of the royal family. After all, Britain's maritime power has been weakened, and even the largest warship, the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth, has been launched with few followers; in contrast, the Changing of the Guard At buckingham Palace, although almost daily, can attract tourists from all over the world.
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