by The Laird o’Thistle
October 21 2007

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for his efforts in raising the profile of global warming in international consciousness must have brought great satisfaction to his friend the Prince of Wales. It also goes some way in validating Prince Charles’ own pioneering efforts to raise environmental consciousness dating back into the 1980s. Whatever his own admitted eccentricities, the Prince of Wales seems to have basically good instincts in the issues he has chosen to campaign for over the years. And in some of the causes, he was following in the footsteps of another member of the British royal family whose efforts in raising ecological concerns seem to get overlooked nowadays. Prince Philip, after all, was one of the founders of the World Wildlife Fund and is on record speaking eloquently on behalf of care for the environment.

I suspect that an important part of the Windsor commitment to care for the earth is related to a somewhat uncomfortable (for some) fact about them. In addition to the palaces and properties held by the Crown Estate, the Windsors themselves own several large estates, working estates. The descendants of “Farmer George” (King George III) are actually farmers.

Britain has been reminded of this twice over the last few months. Over the summer it was announced that one of the Queen’s two prize dairy herds at Windsor, her Ayrshires, was to be eliminated because it had become unprofitable. The announcement raised to greater public awareness the fact that farmers in Britain, across the board, are having a more and more difficult time making it. For the present, the Queen’s herd of Guernseys is hanging in there… thanks to the breed’s higher yield of rich cream and milk fat.

A few weeks later the most recent outbreak of hoof and mouth disease occurred near enough to Windsor for the livestock on the royal farms to fall within the restricted zone and raised the possibility of the Queen’s own beasts having to be destroyed if the disease spread.

What strikes me in this is that the fact that the Queen and Prince Philip both at Windsor and Sandringham, and the Prince of Wales at Highgrove, are active farmers who take a very real interest in the production and profitability of their estates – both Crown and private. This sets them in a rather pivotal role in contemporary Britain. Nowadays most of the British people are urbanized and largely out of touch with the countryside except for going there on occasional holidays. The real needs and struggles of the stewards of the land are more foreign to many Britons than the nightlife of Paris or Hong Kong. This was commented on repeatedly during the Blair years, in relation to the cluelessness of much of New Labour’s ruling elite. But it is also broadly true of any urbanized population, especially the young. Care for the land, and food production, are largely abstractions… so long as there is a Tesco’s nearby.

Now, this writer is a bit biased in regard to these matters, because I grew up on a farm myself. I’ve fled before more than one headless chicken in my childhood, mucked through pigpens, and known the name of various yearling beef that provided our fine Sunday roasts. Even in my transition to town life nowadays I still enjoy the apples off my own tree and the contemplative tedium of picking and stemming my own gooseberries. The work that went into producing this year’s big batch of red plum jelly was well worth it. Yum! I know that food takes work, not just to earn it but to produce it. And I deeply honor those who continue to engage in the tilling of the land and the keeping of the livestock in mindful and humane ways as stewards of creation.

Many writers on the history and traditions of monarchy assert that in ancient times there was a belief in a particular link between Monarch and Land. Their destinies were interwoven. Arthurian legends of The Wasteland make much of this. Perhaps it is providential that in these critical days the current British royal family continues to “cultivate” their own particular linkage to the countryside, providing reminders to society that England must remain a “green and pleasant land,” and so must Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and all the earth.

Recently, after too many years hiatus, I rewatched the classic movie The Shooting Party, set on an English country estate on the eve of World War I. Many of the goods and ills of that twilight era are sensitively set forth. At the end of the film comes the tragedy of the death of a gamekeeper in a hunting accident. The much-distressed lord of the manor, played by the late Sir James Mason, comforts and prays with the dying man as his life ebbs away. As the party later carries the gamekeeper’s body back to the house an aristocratic guest from eastern Europe remarks, “He was only a peasant.” The host’s granddaughter immediately turns to him in dead earnest, “But we knew him, you see.” In a different way, in this very different time, the House of Windsor is saying much the same thing about the current state of the countryside. It is not “just” a commodity or an industry, it is something known, and respected, and honored.

In coming years the link of Crown and countryside seems set to endure. Besides the Prince of Wales’ ongoing commitments to both agriculture and the environment, Prince William is also quite keen on country life and is apparently set to succeed his grandfather as Ranger of the Great Park at Windsor in the next few years. The Crown will thus continue to provide a living reminder to successive governments of the needs and interests of the ever-decreasing but the vital constituency of those who live on and work with the land. And out of that, I don’t doubt, will also come continued advocacy for the well-being of the global environment and the preservation of the natural world.

Yours Aye,

– Ken Cuthbertson