Act
II
Later in the afternoon. The Terrace of the Palace. A low balustrade separates it from the lawn. Terrace chairs in abundance, ranged along the balustrade. Some dining room chairs also, not ranged, but standing about as if they had just been occupied. The terrace is accessible from the lawn by a central flight of steps.
The King and Queen are sitting apart near the corners of the steps, the Queen to the King’s right. He is reading the evening paper: she is knitting. She has a little work table on her right, with a small gong on it.
The Queen
Why did you tell them to leave the chairs when they took away the tea?
Magnus
I shall receive the Cabinet here.
The Queen
Here! Why?
Magnus
Well, I think the open air and the evening light will have a quieting effect on them. They cannot make speeches at me so easily as in a room.
The Queen
Are you sure? When Robert asked Boanerges where he learnt to speak so beautifully, he said “In Hyde Park.”
Magnus
Yes; but with a crowd to stimulate him.
The Queen
Robert says you have tamed Boanerges.
Magnus
No: I have not tamed him. I have taught him how to behave. I have to valet all the beginners; but that does not tame them: it teaches them how to use their strength instead of wasting it in making fools of themselves. So much the worse for me when I have to fight them.
The Queen
You get no thanks for it. They think you are only humbugging them.
Magnus
Well, so I am, in the elementary lessons. But when it comes to real business humbug is no use: they pick it up themselves too quickly.
Pamphilius enters along the terrace, from the Queen’s side.
Magnus
Looking at his watch. Good Heavens! They haven’t come, have they? It’s not five yet.
Pamphilius
No, sir. It’s the American ambassador.
The Queen
Resenting this a little. Has he an audience?
Pamphilius
No, ma’am. He is rather excited about something, I think. I can’t get anything out of him. He says he must see His Majesty at once.
The Queen
Must!! An American must see the King at once, without an audience! Well!
Magnus
Rising. Send him in, Pam.
Pamphilius goes out.
The Queen
I should have told him to write for an audience, and then kept him waiting a week for it.
Magnus
What! When we still owe America that old war debt. And with a mad imperialist president like Bossfield! No you wouldn’t, my dear: you would be crawlingly civil to him, as I am going to be, confound him!
Pamphilius
Reappearing. His Excellency the American Ambassador. Mr. Vanhattan.
He retires as Mr. Vanhattan enters in an effusive condition, and, like a man assured of an enthusiastic welcome, hurries to the Queen, and salutes her with a handshake so prolonged that she stares in astonishment, first at him, and then appealingly at the King, with her hands being vigorously wrung and waved up and down all the time.
Magnus
What on earth is the matter, Mr. Vanhattan? You are shaking Her Majesty’s rings off.
Vanhattan
Desisting. Her Majesty will excuse me when she learns the nature of my errand here. This, King Magnus, is a great historic scene: one of the greatest, perhaps, that history has ever recorded or will ever again record.
Magnus
Have you had tea?
Vanhattan
Tea! Who can think of tea at such a moment as this?
The Queen
Rather coldly. It is hard for us to share your enthusiasm in complete ignorance of its cause.
Vanhattan
That is true, ma’am. I am just behaving like a crazy man. But you shall hear. You shall judge, and then you shall say whether I exaggerate the importance—the immensity—of an occasion that cannot be exaggerated.
Magnus
Goodness gracious! Won’t you sit down?
Vanhattan
Taking a chair and placing it between them. I thank your Majesty. He sits.
Magnus
You have some exciting news for us, apparently. Is it private or official?
Vanhattan
Official, sir. No mistake about it. What I am going to tell you is authentic from the United States of America to the British Empire.
The Queen
Perhaps I had better go.
Vanhattan
No, ma’am: you shall not go. Whatever may be the limits of your privileges as the consort of your sovereign, it is your right as an Englishwoman to learn what I have come here to communicate.
Magnus
My dear Vanhattan, what the devil is the matter?
Vanhattan
King Magnus: between your country and mine there is a debt.
Magnus
Does that matter, now that our capitalists have invested so heavily in American concerns that after paying yourselves the interest on the debt you have to send us two thousand million dollars a year to balance the account.
Vanhattan
King Magnus: for the moment, forget figures. Between your country and mine there is not only a debt but a frontier: the frontier that has on it not a single gun nor a single soldier, and across which the American citizen every day shakes the hand of the Canadian subject of your throne.
Magnus
There is also the frontier of the ocean, which is somewhat more expensively defended at our joint expense by the League of Nations.
Vanhattan
Rising to give his words more impressiveness. Sir: the debt is cancelled. The frontier no longer exists.
The Queen
How can that be?
Magnus
Am I to understand, Mr. Vanhattan, that by some convulsion of Nature the continent of North America has been submerged in the Atlantic?
Vanhattan
Something even more wonderful than that has happened. One may say that the Atlantic Ocean has been submerged in the British Empire.
Magnus
I think you had better tell us as succinctly as possible what has happened. Pray sit down.
Vanhattan
Resuming his seat. You are aware, sir, that the United States of America at one time formed a part of your empire.
Magnus
There is a tradition to that effect.
Vanhattan
No mere tradition, sir. An undoubted historical fact. In the eighteenth century—
Magnus
That is a long time ago.
Vanhattan
Centuries count for but little in the lifetimes of great nations, sir. Let me recall the parable of the prodigal son.
Magnus
Oh really, Mr. Vanhattan, that was a very very long time ago. I take it that something important has happened since yesterday.
Vanhattan
It has. It has indeed, King Magnus.
Magnus
Then what is it? I have not time to attend to the eighteenth century and the prodigal son at this moment.
The Queen
The King has a Cabinet meeting in ten minutes, Mr. Vanhattan.
Vanhattan
I should like to see the faces of your Cabinet ministers, King Magnus, when they hear what I have to tell you.
Magnus
So should I. But I am not in a position to tell it to them, because I don’t know what it is.
Vanhattan
The prodigal, sir, has returned to his father’s house. Not poor, not hungry, not ragged, as of old. Oh no. This time he returns bringing with him the riches of the earth to the ancestral home.
Magnus
Starting from his chair. You don’t mean to say—
Vanhattan
Rising also, blandly triumphant. I do, sir. The Declaration of Independence is cancelled. The treaties which endorsed it are torn up. We have decided to rejoin the British Empire. We shall of course enjoy Dominion Home Rule under the Presidency of Mr. Bossfield. I shall revisit you here shortly, not as the Ambassador of a foreign power, but as High Commissioner for the greatest of your dominions, and your very loyal and devoted subject, sir.
Magnus
Collapsing into his chair. The devil you will! He stares haggardly into futurity, now for the first time utterly at a loss.
The Queen
What a splendid thing, Mr. Vanhattan!
Vanhattan
I thought your Majesty would say so. The most splendid thing that has ever happened. He resumes his seat.
The Queen
Looking anxiously at the King. Don’t you think so, Magnus?
Magnus
Pulling himself together with a visible effort. May I ask, Mr. Vanhattan, with whom did this—this—this masterstroke of American policy originate? Frankly, I have been accustomed to regard your President as a statesman whose mouth was the most efficient part of his head. He cannot have thought of this himself. Who suggested it to him?
Vanhattan
I must accept your criticism of Mr. Bossfield with all doo reserve, but I may mention that we Americans will probably connect the good news with the recent visit to our shores of the President of the Irish Free State. I cannot pronounce his name in its official Gaelic form; and there is only one typist in our bureau who can spell it; but he is known to his friends as Mick O’Rafferty.
Magnus
The rascal! Jemima: we shall have to live in Dublin. This is the end of England.
Vanhattan
In a sense that may be so. But England will not perish. She will merge—merge, sir—into a bigger and brighter concern. Perhaps I should have mentioned that one of our conditions will be that you shall be Emperor. King may be good enough for this little island; but if we come in we shall require something grander.
Magnus
This little island! “This little gem set in a silver sea!” Has it occurred to you, Mr. Vanhattan, that rather than be reduced to a mere appendage of a big American concern, we might raise the old warcry of Sinn Fein, and fight for our independence to the last drop of our blood?
Vanhattan
I should be right sorry to contemplate such a reversion to a barbarous past. Fortunately, it’s impossible—immpawsibl. The old warcry would not appeal to the cosmopolitan crews of the fleet of the League of Nations in the Atlantic. That fleet would blockade you, sir. And I fear we should be obliged to boycott you. The two thousand million dollars a year would stop.
Magnus
But the continental Powers! Do you suppose they would consent for a moment to such a change in the balance of power?
Vanhattan
Why not? The change would be only nominal.
Magnus
Nominal! You call an amalgamation of the British Commonwealth with the United States a nominal change! What will France and Germany call it?
Vanhattan
Shaking his head indulgently. France and Germany? These queer old geographical expressions which you use here from old family habit do not trouble us. I suppose you mean by Germany the chain of more or less Soviet Republics between the Ural Mountains and the North Sea. Well, the clever people at Moscow and Berlin and Geneva are trying to federate them; and it is fully understood between us that if we don’t object to their move they will not object to ours. France, by which I take it you mean the Government at New Timgad, is too busy in Africa to fuss about what is happening at the ends of your little Channel Tube. So long as Paris is full of Americans, and Americans are full of money, all’s well in the west from the French point of view. One of the great attractions of Paris for Americans is the excursion to Old England. The French want us to feel at home here. And so we do. Why shouldn’t we? After all, we are at home here.
Magnus
In what sense, may I ask?
Vanhattan
Well, we find here everything we are accustomed to: our industrial products, our books, our plays, our sports, our Christian Science churches, our osteopaths, our movies and talkies. Put it in a small parcel and say our goods and our ideas. A political union with us will be just the official recognition of an already accomplished fact. A union of hearts, you might call it.
The Queen
You forget, Mr. Vanhattan. We have a great national tradition.
Vanhattan
The United States, ma’am, have absorbed all the great national traditions, and blended them with their own glorious tradition of Freedom into something that is unique and universal.
The Queen
We have a civilized culture which is peculiar to ourselves. It may not be better than yours; but it is different.
Vanhattan
Well, is it? We found that culture enshrined in British material works of art: in the stately country homes of your nobility, in the cathedrals our common forefathers built as the country houses of God. What did you do with them? You sold them to us. I was brought up in the shade of Ely cathedral, the removal of which from the county of Cambridge to New Jersey was my dear old father’s first big professional job. The building which stands on its former site is a very fine one: in my opinion the best example of reinforced concrete of its period; but it was designed by an American architect, and built by the Synthetic Building Materials Trust, an international affair. Believe me, the English people, the real English people who take things as they come instead of reading books about them, will be more at home with us than they are with the old English notions which our tourists try to keep alive. When you find some country gentleman keeping up the old English customs at Christmas and so forth, who is he? An American who has bought the place. Your people get up the show for him because he pays for it, not because it is natural to them.
The Queen
With a sigh. Our own best families go so much to Ireland nowadays. People should not be allowed to go from England to Ireland. They never come back.
Vanhattan
Well, can you blame them, ma’am? Look at the climate!
The Queen
No: it is not the climate. It is the Horse Show.
The King rises very thoughtfully; and Vanhattan follows his example.
Magnus
I must think over this. I have known for years past that it was on the cards. When I was young, and under the influence of our family tradition, which of course never recognized the rebellion of the American colonies as valid, I actually dreamt of a reunited English speaking empire at the head of civilization.
Vanhattan
Fine! Great! And now come true.
Magnus
Not yet. Now that I am older and wiser I find the reality less attractive than the dream.
Vanhattan
And is that all I am to report to the President, sir? He will be disappointed. I am a little taken aback, myself.
Magnus
For the present, that is all. This may be a great idea—
Vanhattan
Surely, surely.
Magnus
It may also be a trap in which England will perish.
Vanhattan
Encouragingly. Oh, I shouldn’t look at it that way. Besides, nothing—not even dear old England—can last forever. Progress, you know, sir, progress, progress!
Magnus
Just so, just so. We may survive only as another star on your flag. Still, we cling to the little scrap of individuality you have left us. If we must merge, as you call it—or did you say submerge?—some of us will swim to the last. To the Queen. My dear.
The Queen strikes her gong.
Pamphilius returns.
Magnus
You shall hear from me after the Cabinet meets. Not tonight: you must not sit up waiting for a message. Early tomorrow, I hope. Thank you for bringing me the news before the papers got it: that seldom happens now. Pamphilius: you will reconduct his Excellency. Good evening. He shakes hands.
Vanhattan
I thank your Majesty. To the Queen. Good evening, ma’am. I look forward to presenting myself in court dress soon.
The Queen
You will look very nice in it, Mr. Vanhattan. Good evening.
The Ambassador goes out with Pamphilius.
Magnus
Striding grimly to and fro. The scoundrels! That blackguard O’Rafferty! That booby bull-roarer Bossfield! Breakages, Limited, have taken it into their heads to mend the British Commonwealth.
The Queen
Quietly. I think it is a very good thing. You will make a very good emperor. We shall civilize these Americans.
Magnus
How can we when we have not yet civilized ourselves? They have come to regard us as a mere tribe of redskins. England will be just a reservation.
The Queen
Nonsense, dear! They know that we are their natural superiors. You can see it by the way their women behave at court. They really love and reverence royalty; while our English peeresses are hardly civil—when they condescend to come at all.
Magnus
Well, my dear, I do many things to please you that I should never do to please myself; and I suppose I shall end as American Emperor just to keep you amused.
The Queen
I never desire anything that is not good for you, Magnus. You do not always know what is good for you.
Magnus
Well, well, well, well! Have it your own way, dearest. Where are these infernal ministers? They’re late.
The Queen
Looking out into the garden. Coming across the lawn with Sempronius.
The Cabinet arrives. The men take off their hats as they come up the steps. Boanerges has taken advantage of the interval to procure a brilliant uniform and change into it. Proteus, with Sempronius, heads the procession, followed immediately by the two lady ministers. The Queen rises as Proteus turns to her. Sempronius moves the little table quickly back to the balustrade out of the way, and puts the Queen’s chair in the centre for the King.
The Queen
Shaking hands. How do you do, Mr. Proteus?
Proteus
May I present the President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Boanerges?
The Queen
I remember seeing you, Mr. Boanerges, at the opening of the Transport Workers’ Summer Palace. You wore a most becoming costume then. I hope you have not given it up.
Boanerges
But the Princess told me I looked ridiculous in it!
The Queen
That was very naughty of the Princess. You looked particularly well in it. However, you look well in anything. And now I leave you all to your labors.
She goes out along the terrace. Sempronius follows with her knitting.
Magnus
Sitting down. Be seated, ladies and gentlemen.
They take chairs of one sort or another where they can find them, first leaving their hats on the balustrade. When they are seated, their order from the King’s right to his left is Nicobar, Crassus, Boanerges, Amanda, the King, Proteus, Lysistrata, Pliny, and Balbus.
A pause, Proteus waiting for the King to begin. He, deep in thought, says nothing. The silence becomes oppressive.
Pliny
Chattily. Nice weather we’re having, these evenings.
Amanda
Splutters. !!!
Magnus
There is rather a threatening cloud on the western horizon, Mr. Pliny. To Proteus. Have you heard the news from America?
Proteus
I have, sir.
Magnus
Am I to be favored with the advice of my ministers on that subject?
Proteus
By your Majesty’s leave, we will take the question of the ultimatum first.
Magnus
Do you think the ultimatum will matter much when the capital of the British Commonwealth is shifted to Washington?
Nicobar
We’ll see it shifted to Melbourne or Montreal or Johannesburg first.
Magnus
It would not stay there. It will stay at a real centre of gravity only.
Proteus
We are agreed about that. If it shifts at all it will shift either west to Washington or east to Moscow.
Boanerges
Moscow thinks a lot of itself. But what has Moscow to teach us that we cannot teach ourselves? Moscow is built on English history, written in London by Karl Marx.
Proteus
Yes; and the English king has sidetracked you again. To Magnus. What about the ultimatum, sir? You promised us your decision at five o’clock. It is now a quarter past.
Magnus
Are you inexorably determined to force this issue to its logical end? You know how unEnglish it is to do that?
Proteus
My people came from Scotland.
Lysistrata
I wish they had stayed there. I am English: every bone in my body.
Boanerges
Vociferously. Same here!
Proteus
God help England if she had no Scots to think for her!
Magnus
What does the Cabinet say to that?
Amanda
All their people came from Scotland or Ireland or Wales or Jerusalem or somewhere, sir. It is no use appealing to English sentiment here.
Crassus
Politics are not suited to the English, if you ask me.
Magnus
Then I, the only Englishman left in politics, apparently, am to be reduced to complete nullity?
Proteus
Bluntly. Yes. You cannot frighten us out of our position by painting it red. I could paint your position black if I liked. In plain terms we require from you an unconditional surrender. If you refuse it then I go to the country on the question whether England is to be an absolute monarchy or a constitutional one. We are all agreed on that: there will be no resignations. I have letters from the absent members of the Government: those present will speak for themselves.
All The Other Men
Agreed, agreed.
Proteus
Now, what is your answer?
Magnus
The day for absolute monarchies is past. You think you can do without me; and I know that I cannot do without you. I decide, of course, in favor of a constitutional monarchy.
The Men
Greatly relieved and delighted. Hear! hear!
Magnus
Wait a moment.
Sudden silence and mistrust.
Proteus
So! There is a catch in it, is there?
Magnus
Not exactly a catch. But you have driven me to face the fact that I am unfitted to be a constitutional monarch. I am by nature incapable of the necessary self-effacement.
Amanda
Well, that’s true, at all events. You and I are a pair, sir.
Magnus
Thank you. Therefore, whilst accepting your constitutional principle without the slightest reserve, I cannot sign your ultimatum, because by doing so I should be making personal promises which I know I should break—which in fact I must break because I have forces within me which your constitutional limits cannot hold in check.
Balbus
How can you accept our principle if you don’t sign the ultimatum?
Magnus
Oh, there is no difficulty about that. When an honest man finds himself incapable of discharging the duties of a public post, he resigns.
Proteus
Alarmed. Resigns! What are you driving at?
Crassus
A king cannot resign.
Nicobar
You might as well talk of beheading yourself. You can’t behead yourself.
Boanerges
Other people can, though.
Magnus
Do not let us quarrel about words, gentlemen. I cannot resign. But I can abdicate.
All The Rest
Starting to their feet. Abdicate! They stare at him in consternation.
Amanda
Whistling a descending minor scale very expressively. !!!!!!!! She sits down.
Magnus
Of course, abdicate. Lysistrata: you have been a teacher of history. You can assure your colleagues that there is nothing unprecedented in an abdication. The Emperor Charles the Fifth, for instance—
Lysistrata
Oh, Charles the Fifth be—be bothered! he’s not good enough. Sir: I have stood by you as far as I dared. Don’t throw me over. You must not abdicate. She sits down, distressed.
Proteus
You cannot abdicate except by my advice.
Magnus
I am acting upon your advice.
Proteus
Nonsense! He sits down.
Balbus
Ridiculous! He sits down.
Pliny
You’re not serious, you know. He sits down.
Nicobar
You can’t upset the apple cart like this. He sits down.
Crassus
I must say this is not playing the game. He sits down.
Boanerges
Powerfully. Well, why not? Why not? Though as an old Republican I have no respect for His Majesty as a King, I have a great respect for him as a Strong Man. But he is not the only pebble on the beach. Why not have done with this superstition of monarchy, and bring the British Commonwealth into line with all the other great Powers today as a republic? He sits down.
Magnus
My abdication does not involve that, Mr. Boanerges. I am abdicating to save the monarchy, not to destroy it. I shall be succeeded by my son Robert, Prince of Wales. He will make an admirable constitutional monarch.
Pliny
Oh, come! Don’t be hard on the lad, sir. He has plenty of brains.
Magnus
Oh yes, yes, yes: I did not mean that he is a nonentity: quite the contrary: he is much cleverer than I am. But I have never been able to induce him to take any interest in parliamentary politics. He prefers intellectual pursuits.
Nicobar
Don’t you believe it. He is up to his neck in business.
Magnus
Just so. He asks me why I waste my time with you here pretending to govern the country when it is really governed by Breakages, Limited. And really I hardly know how to answer him.
Crassus
Things are like that nowadays. My son says just the same.
Lysistrata
Personally I get on very well with the Prince; but somehow I do not feel that he is interested in what I am doing.
Balbus
He isn’t. He won’t interfere with you as long as you don’t interfere with him. Just the right king for us. Not pigheaded. Not meddlesome. Thinks that nothing we do matters a rap. What do you say, Joe?
Proteus
After all, why not? if your Majesty is in earnest.
Magnus
I assure you I am very much in earnest.
Proteus
Well, I confess I did not foresee this turn of events. But I ought to have foreseen it. What your Majesty proposes is the straightforward, logical, intellectually honest solution of our difficulty. Consequently it is the last solution I could have expected in politics. But I reckoned without your Majesty’s character. The more I think of it the more clearly I see that you are right—that you are taking the only course open to you.
Crassus
I never said I was against it, Joe.
Balbus
Neither did I.
Nicobar
I think there’s a great deal to be said for it. I have no objection.
Pliny
One king is no worse than another, is he?
Boanerges
Is he any better? The way you fellows scuttle backward and forward from one mind to another whenever Joe holds up his finger is disgusting. This is a Cabinet of sheep.
Proteus
Well, give the flock a better lead if you can. Have you anything else to propose?
Boanerges
I don’t know that I have on the spur of the moment. We should have had notice of this. But I suppose the King must do as he thinks right.
Proteus
Then the goat goes with the sheep; so that’s all right.
Boanerges
Who are you calling a goat?
Nicobar
If you come to that, who are you calling sheep?
Amanda
Steady there, children! steady! steady! To the King. You have brought us all round, sir, as usual.
Proteus
There is nothing more to be said.
Amanda
That means another half hour at least.
Boanerges
Woman: this is not the moment for your tomfooleries.
Proteus
Impressively. Bill is right, Amanda. He rises and becomes the conventional House of Commons orator.
Ministers compose themselves to listen with grave attention, as if in church; but Lysistrata is contemptuous and Amanda amused.
Proteus
Continuing. It is a solemn moment. It is a moment in which an old tie is being broken. I am not ashamed to confess that it is a tie from which I have learned something.
Male Ministers
Murmur. Hear hear! Hear hear!
Proteus
For my own part—and I think I may speak for others here as well—it has been no mere political tie, but a tie of sincere friendship.
Renewed murmurs of sympathy. Increasing emotion.
Proteus
We have had our disagreements—as which of us has not?—but they have been family quarrels.
Crassus
That’s all. Nothing more.
Proteus
May I say lovers’ quarrels?
Pliny
Wiping his eyes. You may, Joe. You may.
Proteus
My friends, we came here to a meeting. We find, alas! that the meeting is to be a leavetaking. Crassus sniffs tearfully. It is a sad leavetaking on our part, but a cordial one. Hear Hear from Pliny. We are cast down, but not discouraged. Looking back to the past with regret, we can still look forward to the future with hope. That future has its dangers and its difficulties. It will bring us new problems; and it will bring us face to face with a new king. But the new problems and the new king will not make us forget our old counsellor, monarch, and—he will allow me to say—comrade. Hear Hears ad libitum. I know my words will find an echo in all your hearts when I conclude by saying that whatsoever king shall reign—
Amanda
You’ll be the Vicar of Bray, Joe.
Uproar. Proteus flings himself into his chair indignantly.
Balbus
Shame!
Nicobar
Shut up, you b—
Pliny
A joke’s a joke; but really—
Crassus
Too bad, Amanda! Behave yourself.
Lysistrata
She has a perfect right to speak. You are a parcel of sentimental fools.
Boanerges
Rising. Silence. Order.
Amanda
Sorry.
Boanerges
So you ought to be. Where’s your manners? Where’s your education? King Magnus: we part; but we part as strong men part: as friends. The Prime Minister has correctly represented the sentiments of all the men present. I call on them to express those sentiments in the good old English fashion. Singing in stentorian tones. Fo‑o‑o‑o‑r‑r‑r
Male Ministers Except Proteus
Rising and singing.
—he’s a jolly good fel‑low
For he’s a jolly good fel‑low
For he’s—
Magnus
Peremptorily. Stop. Stop.
Sudden silence and misgiving. They sit down furtively.
Magnus
I thank you with all my heart; but there is a misapprehension. We are not taking leave of one another. I have no intention of withdrawing from an active part in politics.
Proteus
What!!
Magnus
You are looking on me, with an emotion which has deeply touched me, as a man with a political past. But I look on myself rather as a man with a political future. I have not yet told you my plans.
Nicobar
What plans?
Balbus
A retired king can’t have plans and a future.
Magnus
Why not? I am looking forward to a most exciting and enjoyable time. As I shall of course dissolve parliament, the fun will begin with a general election.
Boanerges
Dismayed. But I’ve only just been elected. Do you mean that I shall have to stand two elections in one month? Have you thought of the expenses?
Magnus
Surely your expenses will be paid by the State.
Boanerges
Paid by the State! Is that all you know about electioneering in England?
Proteus
You will get your whack out of the party funds, Bill; and if you can’t find the extras you must put up with straight votes. Go on, sir: we want to hear about those plans of yours.
Magnus
My last act of royal authority will be to divest myself of all titles and dignities; so that I may step down at once into the position of a commoner.
Boanerges
Step up, you mean. The common man is the superior, not the inferior, of the titled man.
Magnus
That is why I am going to make myself a common man, Mr. Boanerges.
Pliny
Well, it does you honor.
Crassus
Not all of us would be capable of a sacrifice like that.
Boanerges
A fine gesture, sir. A fine gesture. I admit it.
Proteus
Suspicious. And since when, pray, has your Majesty taken to making gestures? What’s the game this time?
Boanerges
Shame!
Proteus
Shut up, you gaby. To the King. I say, what’s the game?
Magnus
There is no imposing on you, Prime Minister. The game is, of course, that when I come back into politics I shall be in a better position as a commoner than as a peer. I shall seek a parliamentary seat.
Proteus
You in the House of Commons!
Magnus
Blandly. It is my intention to offer myself to the Royal Borough of Windsor as a candidate at the forthcoming General Election.
All the rest except Boanerges and the ladies rise in consternation.
Proteus
This is treachery.
Balbus
A dirty trick.
Nicobar
The meanest on record.
Pliny
He’ll be at the top of the poll.
Crassus
There won’t be any poll: it will be a walkover.
Balbus
This shows what all your fine manners and friendly ways are worth.
Nicobar
Hypocrite!
Crassus
Humbug!
Lysistrata
I wish your Majesty every success.
Amanda
Hear hear! Fair play, boys. Why shouldn’t he go into parliament with us?
Boanerges
Well said! well said! Why not?
The Other Male Ministers
Ya‑a‑a‑ah! They sit down in utter disgust.
Proteus
Very sullen. And when you are in Parliament, what then?
Magnus
There are several possibilities. I shall naturally endeavor to form a party. My son King Robert will have to call on some Party leader who can depend on the support of the House of Commons to form a Government. He may call on you. He may even call on me.
Amanda
Breaks the glum silence by whistling a bar or two of the National Anthem. !!
Magnus
Whatever happens, it will be a great relief to us to be able to speak out quite frankly about one another in public. You have never been able to tell the British people what you really think of me: no real criticism of the King is possible. I have never been able to speak my mind as to your various capacities and characters. All that reserve, that tedious affectation, that unwholesome concealment will end. I hope you look forward to our new footing as pleasurably as I do.
Lysistrata
I am delighted, sir. You will fight Breakages for me.
Amanda
It will be awful fun.
Boanerges
Now, Mr. Prime Minister, we are waiting for you. What have you to say about it?
Proteus
Rising and speaking slowly, with his brows deeply knitted. Has Your Majesty got that ultimatum on you?
Magnus
Produces it from his breast pocket and presents it to him. !
Proteus
With measured emphasis, after tearing the paper up into four pieces at two deliberate strokes, and throwing the pieces away. There is not going to be any abdication. There is not going to be any general election. There is not going to be any ultimatum. We go on as before. The crisis is a washout. To the King, with deadly concentration. I will never forgive you for this. You stole your ace of trumps from the hand I played this morning. He takes his hat from the balustrade and goes away through the park.
Boanerges
Rising. That was a very deplorable exhibition of temper on the part of the Prime Minister, sir. It was not the gesture of a Strong Man. I will remonstrate with him. You may depend on me. He takes his hat and follows Proteus in a serious and dignified manner.
Nicobar
Rising. Well, I shall not say what I think. He is taking his hat when the King addresses him.
Magnus
So I have not upset the apple cart after all, Mr. Nicobar.
Nicobar
You can upset it as soon as you like for all I care. I am going out of politics. Politics is a mug’s game. He goes.
Crassus
Rising reluctantly and taking his hat. If Nick goes, I shall have to go too.
Magnus
Can you really tear yourself away from politics?
Crassus
Only too glad to be well out of them, if Breakages will let me. They shoved me into it; and I daresay they’ll find another job for me. He goes.
Pliny
Cheerful to the last as he, too, goes for his hat. Well, I am glad nothing’s happened. You know, sir, nothing ever really does happen in the Cabinet. Never mind their bit of temper. They’ll feed out of your hand tomorrow. He goes.
Balbus
After taking his hat. Now that they’re all gone I don’t mind saying that if anything should ever happen to the throne, and your Majesty should become a President with a Cabinet to pick, you might easily find a worse Home Secretary than me, with all my faults.
Magnus
I shall bear it in mind. By the way, if you should happen to overtake the Prime Minister, will you be so good as to remind him that we quite forgot to settle that little affair of the proposal of America to annex the British Commonwealth.
Balbus
By the Lord, so we did! Well, that’s a good one! Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! He goes out laughing heartily.
Magnus
They don’t take it in, Lizzie: not one bit. It is as if another planet were crashing into us. The kingdom and the power and the glory will pass from us and leave us naked, face to face with our real selves at last.
Lysistrata
So much the better, if by our real selves you mean the old English stock that was unlike any other. Nowadays men all over the world are as much alike as hotel dinners. It’s no use pretending that the America of George Washington is going to swallow up the England of Queen Anne. The America of George Washington is as dead as Queen Anne. What they call an American is only a wop pretending to be a Pilgrim Father. He is no more Uncle Jonathan than you are John Bull.
Magnus
Yes: we live in a world of wops, all melting into one another; and when all the frontiers are down London may be outvoted by Tennessee, and all the other places where we still madly teach our children the mentality of an eighteenth century village school.
Lysistrata
Never fear, sir. It is not the most ignorant national crowd that will come out on top, but the best power station; for you can’t do without power stations, and you can’t run them on patriotic songs and hatred of the foreigner, and guff and bugaboo, though you can run nationalism on nothing else. But I am heartbroken at your not coming into the House with us to keep old England in front and lead a new Party against Breakages. Tears come into her eyes.
Magnus
Patting her consolingly on the back. That would have been splendid, wouldn’t it? But I am too old fashioned. This is a farce that younger men must finish.
Amanda
Taking her arm. Come home with me, dear. I will sing to you until you can’t help laughing. Come.
Lysistrata pockets her handkerchief; shakes the King’s hands impulsively; and goes with Amanda. The King plunges into deep thought. Presently the Queen comes back.
The Queen
Now Magnus: it’s time to dress for dinner.
Magnus
Much disturbed. Oh, not now. I have something very big to think about. I don’t want any dinner.
The Queen
Peremptorily. No dinner! Did anyone ever hear of such a thing! You know you will not sleep if you think after seven o’clock.
Magnus
Worried. But really, Jemima—
The Queen
Going to him and taking his arm. Now, now, now! don’t be naughty. I mustn’t be late for dinner. Come on, like a good little boy.
The King, with a grimace of hopeless tenderness, allows himself to be led away.