IN HOMAGE TO THE VIBRANT SARDONIC STYLINGS OF STEPHEN LEACOCK:

Building Monarchy Through Six Unsuccessful Steps:

Before we begin you must first hold the knowledge that monarchy is nothing to be scorned. It is a powerful institution, a glorious tradition, and a government sanctioned by the Divine. This topic demands your full attention, and your utmost respect. Now then, as long as you are listening carefully, we shall continue.

Firstly, as in any monarchy, it must begin with the permission of your closest and most convenient Almighty God. Preferably, the Almighty God of one’s choice will also be willing to encourage the departure of legions of your finest heroes upon glorious Crusades and Holy Wars in His or Her name. It is also inherently required that your chosen Almighty God be one of those rather strong but silent types, such that any and all serious or whimsical orders, judgements and warnings may easily be placed in His mouth directly by the monarch and/or his or her appointed officials of the Church.

Secondly, as found to be supporting all prosperous monarchies, there must exist a large, and rather docile working class, who are preferably quite dirty, uneducated, and unable to make their own decisions. These luckless peasants must be kept in a constant state of poverty and bewilderment, held forever compliant by the promise of protection from either real or imagined threats against which they would most unquestionably perish on their own. The peasantry is to be considered expendable in all instances, and its opinion of the monarchy itself may range from immense veneration to inconceivable fear and/or hatred, to be left unto each particular monarch’s individual discretion.

Thirdly, on a more bureaucratic note, trust must be placed in certain rich and powerful land owners by the empowered monarch, who must then obtain their vows of loyalty, naming them as recognized vassals. When choosing vassals, a monarch would be most rewarded to consider first one’s own personal relations, friends and business associates. This successfully accomplished, each vassal must now secretly plot to overthrow the current ruler and assume his or her place upon the throne. Preferably, a series of swift and brutal civil wars should not ensue, in which massive and bloody battles are fought, most often amongst the very villages and towns of the beleaguered peasantry themselves, whom the monarchy is both founded upon and sworn to protect.

Fourthly, as a general rule in wars of this kind, a monarch is highly advised to conspire against the last few remaining of one’s loyal vassals, so as to prevent them from joining sides with one’s enemies. Preferably, all assassinations should be carried out by means of poisons in the food of selected guests, while entertaining them at one of His or Her Majesty’s gallant formal dinners. This taken care of, a monarch is once again free to advance several malicious strategies against one’s contemptible foes. Where he or she would be best to specifically keep in mind the peasantry of the opposed, so as to send one’s own forces to burn as many of their fields, towns and villages, to rape as many of their young woman, and to kill as much of their precious livestock as readily possible.

Fifthly, and all but most importantly, a monarch must then apprehend the aforementioned pantheon of traitorous characters, who will by this time be weeping their pitiful confessions, and proceed to torture them in the slowest, most ghastly and unimaginable ways, until they admit the full lest of their actual or otherwise imagined accomplices. Upon which event, the prisoner is to be hanged, drawn and quartered, boiled alive in oil or burned to death at the stake, after which the few remaining bits and pieces of the offending corpse may freely be skewered to positions upon the castle walls to be devoured by the crows. As this is being done, the same process must be perpetuated until all offending parties, true or otherwise, have been apprehended, questioned, tortured and eventually made into nothing more than a few steaming sun-baked pounds of rotten, stinking bird-feed.

Sixthly, and in conclusion at this time, after a monarch has successfully ruled for many years. He or She is to be secretly assassinated by the heir to the throne, who is at the same time also to be secretly assassinated by previous decree of the recently deceased monarch in question, such that the kingdom is left without ruler or heir. At which point each of the corrupt, ruthless and profiteering vassals must now squabble violently over any and all insignificant portions of the kingdom in such a way as to make the previous civil wars appear none too revolting by comparison. After which the kingdom itself is summarily transformed, and left as nothing but scorched and lifeless piece of land. Whereupon the few surviving peasants will immediately pray, often and relentlessly, to God Almighty, who in His or Her infinite benevolence, shall then appoint a new monarch to save them from their current and unspeakable suffering; such that the divine and mighty tradition of monarchy, so favoured by both the people, and their local Heavenly Being, may yet be so gloriously continued.