Henry Channon Quotes
The present King and Queen are popular, very, and increasingly so, but they have no message for the Labour Party who believe them, and rightly I fear, to be but the puppets of a Palace clique…. Still, it is the aristocracy which still rules England although nobody seems to believe it.
Henry Channon, 1897-1958, British Member of Parliament, Diary, June 3, 1937
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
1st Viscount Bolingbroke. See {627799} for the origin of the bias against merchants and money men. It also represents a rigidity of class structure that characterized England until very recently. The landed gentry were the first class citizens. Usually titles went with the land. In America, someone who would be successful as a merchant or a banker could achieve the highest of social status and political influence. This was not true in England where a merchant that was far more wealthy than a landed lord was not accepted by the aristocracy.
England had, under Henry VIII, left the Roman Catholic Church where the King replaced the Pope as head of the English Church. Henry’s successors then had to organize and manage the national Christian church. James was discussing the hierarchy of the Church of England and there was a suggestion that Bishops be eliminated and have every priest directly responsible to the crown. Bishops would be powerful figures who might form a power center. (They did later). However, King James I observed that the King is God’s choice and rules by divine right. So there had to be bishops to crown kings. The bishoprics were retained.
The Russian autocrat found it hard to believe that peasants and merchants could have any rights at all as they did in England. He faulted the female ruler, the great Queen Elizabeth I. By modern standards Elizabeth had awesome power and the English People very little, but Elizabeth was relatively restrained in her use of power and paid attention to the effect of affairs of state had on the people." Ivan the Terrible
Sir Henry Channon, often known as Chips Channon, was an American-born British Conservative politician, author and diarist. Channon moved to England in 1920 and became strongly anti-American, feeling that American cultural and economic views threatened traditional European and British civilisation. He wrote extensively about these views. Channon quickly became enamoured of London society and became a social and political climber.
