Liberty, Language and History

Abstract

A Victorian Certificate of Nationality clearly reveals the centrality of the monarch to Britons’ concept of the nation and state. In certifying British nationality, such a document confirms that a particular individual is ‘a Subject of Her Britannic Majesty’ — not a citizen of the British nation or the United Kingdom. David Cannadine has argued that the monarch was, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, celebrated as symbol of the nation in a more grandiose manner than ever before.1 In fact, he suggests it was during this period that the British became experts at, rather than bunglers of, royal stagings and pageantry. Given that many other European monarchies had disappeared by the early twentieth century, the British were able, as they are still, to convince themselves and others that elaborately staged royal rituals are part of a long-standing and unique British tradition — one existing since time immemorial. By so doing, says Cannadine, the British invest not only their monarchy, but also their nation with historical continuity, when, in fact, both have been recently invented or constructed.