Welcome to our regularly scheduled audio Ovaltine twenty minutes before you lower your lamp. It's Episode Sixteen of a far-sighted caper by Robert Hugh Benson, Lord of the World: a novel published in 1907 and speculating about the state of the world a century hence - ie, right about now.
Among the many things Mr Benson got right was the end of the Age of Kings. That's quite an accomplishment in 1907. There were people who thought war was coming, and that winding up on the losing side might cause problems for this or that regime - but few thought that a little over a decade after Benson's novel all the great Continental houses would have fallen - the Habsburgs, Romanovs, Hohenzollerns, all the way to the Osmanoğlu sultans in Constantinople.
When a king goes into exile, he usually settles for some other fellow's kingdom - as did, say, Napoleon III and King Constantine of Greece when they made their way to England. But in Benson's tale all the monarchs have been swept away and Europe is wholly republican - not just Germany and Russia, but everywhere else from Sofia to Windsor.
So where did they all wind up? In tonight's episode, we find out that they're all jostling side by side in Papal Rome:
He looked out again, and realised what he had known only intellectually before, that here before his eyes was the royalty of the old world assembled...
Round the steps of the basilica spread a great fan of coaches, each yoked to eight horses—the white of France and Spain, the black of Germany, Italy and Russia, and the cream-coloured of England. Those stood out in the near half-circle, and beyond was the sweep of the lesser powers: Greece, Norway, Sweden, Roumania and the Balkan States. One, the Turk, was alone wanting, he reminded himself. The emblems of some were visible—eagles, lions, leopards—guarding the royal crown above the roof of each...
He had been told by the Cardinal on the previous evening that William of England, with his Consort, had landed at Ostia in the morning and that the tale of the Powers was complete.
If you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club you can hear Part Sixteen of our serialisation of Lord of the World simply by clicking here and logging-in. All previous episodes can be found here.
Thank you for all your kind words about the story so far. Alison Castellina points out that, while Benson foresaw the psychology of our time pretty accurately, the technological advance of then nascent audio and video technology passed him by entirely:
I reckon that volor/flying machine was going at nearly 80mph. The speed of modern aeroplanes was beyond Benson, but he grasped high speed trains. Surely taking Benson's high speed train to Rome would have been quicker?
Benson's masses had been completely brainwashed via newspapers. He did not seem to envisage the advent of TV, radio, internet, social media or mobiles. How easy brainwashing has been, with the aid of TV and online news.
I do wonder why a film of Lord of the World has not, apparently, been made.
Indeed. But maybe it's because on the chilly volors all the passengers wear furs.
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