How faith helped the monarchy flex

Understanding how the British monarchy has evolved, means understanding its foundation in faith. Ian Bradley explains.

Ian Bradley

Ian Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the University of St Andrews.

an etching shows William and Mary is a classical scene, priests stand to their right while dogs chew bones at their feet.

A broadsheet illustration celebrates William and Mary, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Lambeth Palace Library.

Christian monarchy has played a central part in the history of the British Isles, promoting the rule of order, justice and mercy in conformity with the values of the kingdom of God and cementing a close alliance between the institutions of crown and church.

Both these aspects are well illustrated in the life and deeds of the first English king to convert to Christianity. Aethelbert, who ruled Kent from 587 to 616, seems to have come to faith through a combination of the influence of his wife, Bertha, the daughter of a Frankish Christian king, and the preaching of St Augustine, who arrived in Thanet in 597, having been sent from Rome by Pope Gregory. According to one account, 10,000 of Aethelbert’s subjects followed him in converting and underwent a mass baptism. Among his first actions as a Christian king were to issue the first set of laws in the English language and to grant land to Augustine on which to build an Abbey, which later became Canterbury Cathedral.

Reign responsibly

Exemplified by such figures as Arthur and Alfred, Christian kingship brought new titles as well as new responsibilities for Britain’s rulers. The first to be appropriated was that of ruling through the grace of God, or Deo Gratia, the idea that is still expressed on every coin of the realm through the abbreviation DG. The late eighth-century Anglo-Saxon king Offa described himself as ‘by the divine controlling grace king of the Mercians’. From the mid-tenth century, several English kings also began styling themselves Christ’s Vicar or deputy. Edgar, Alfred’s great grandson who ruled from 957 to 975, so described himself when founding a new monastery at Winchester in 966. Some years later Ethelred II stated that ‘the king must be regarded not only as the head of the church but also as a vicar of Christ among Christian folk’.

Cult kings

The Middle Ages saw the flowering of the cult of Christian monarchy as both splendid and servant-like, pious and chivalrous, full of knightly virtue, gung-ho triumphalism and miraculous powers, as exemplified in the widespread belief that the king’s touch could cure those suffering from scrofula. While Medieval monarchs cultivated magnificent splendour, they also espoused the theme of the servant-king and acknowledged their utter dependence on God’s grace. Both these elements were reflected in the civic triumphs staged around Epiphany or Advent for the entrance of monarchs into the cities of their realms with the king being portrayed as the type of Christ and the queen as the bearer of heavenly glory. Deliberately modelled on Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, they served as a reminder of the journey to be undertaken by all souls, including royal ones, towards death and the throne of heaven.

Moderate monarchy

The crown played a crucial part in the English Reformation which was initiated by Henry VIII with the help of his loyal lieutenant Thomas Cranmer. Together they created what was effectively a nationalised state church of a moderately Protestant hue with the monarch at its head, bishops and a conservative liturgy in English. Subsequent sovereigns made their influence felt on the emerging Church of England, with Edward VI steering it in a more Protestant direction and playing a key role in the preparation of the first English Prayer Book of 1549, and Elizabeth steadying it to produce the Anglican via media which has remained one of its distinguishing characteristics to this day.

The monarch's headship of the Church of England was a key part of the Reformation settlement. It was established in the 1534 Supremacy Act which declared King Henry VIII 'the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England' with full authority to intervene in its affairs. Elizabeth I modified the monarch’s title from ‘Supreme Head’ to 'Supreme Governor', which it has remained ever since. Alongside it goes the title of ‘Defender of the Faith’, represented on coins as F.D., originally given to Henry VIII by the Pope in 1521 for his defence of the traditional sacraments of the Catholic Church against the novel teaching of Martin Luther. Although revoked after the Reformation, it has continued to be used by and about all monarchs since, although its meaning has never been precisely defined.

Media monarchy

Stuart monarchs tended to push Christian monarchy in a more absolutist direction, being enamoured of the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, although they also did much to forward Christianity in their realms. James VI of Scotland and I of England made a particularly valuable contribution in his patronage of the version of the Bible which still bears his name and is also known as the Authorised Version. He was adamant that it should not be a narrow reflection of a single theological position but rather an irenicon, or instrument of peace, breadth and moderation in the new United Kingdom over which he reigned.

Modified monarchy

The so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688-9, when James II was deposed because of his Catholicism and perceived absolutism and William of Orange invited by Parliament to occupy the vacant throne, effectively signalled the triumph of a covenant theory of monarchy over that of divine right. The constitutional settlement that followed it rested on a concept of limited monarchy and was based on an essentially secular concept of social and civil contract. However, neither the Reformation notion of the godly prince ruling the godly commonwealth nor the close connections between Crown and Church were swept away. Indeed, they were strengthened, with the role of the United Kingdom monarch as protector of Protestantism being expressed in the accession and coronation oaths still taken today.

Modern monarchy

Christian monarchy developed in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain to focus much more on philanthropy, civic duty and spiritual leadership demonstrated through attendance at religious services and public exhortation. The close relationship between the crown and the churches, and especially the Church of England, has remained strong while being extended in recent decades to other faith groups as the monarch has increasingly taken on the role of ‘Defender of Faith’. Television has made the monarch’s Christmas Day broadcast a significant national moment of spiritual reflection.

Article

Attention

Culture

Digital

22 April 2025

5 min read

Let me level-up about playing games on my phone

Like all art, there's no standard for 'good', but good art doesn’t leave you puzzling over how you wasted an hour.

Mark Gilbert

Mark is a research mathematician who writes on ethics, human identity and the nature of intelligence.

Onur Binay on Unsplash.

Earlier this year I got a bit too into a mobile phone game. In the game, I was master and controller of a small virtual grid of assorted shiny objects. By the flick of my finger on the screen, I’d swap the objects to try to match groups together. If I did this in the right way, then the matching objects would merge into shinier ones which would help me win the game. I’d want to know what the next shiny thing would be and how I could use it to beat the next level.

I first started playing on my commute to work – usually I like to read or write and listen to music and sometimes to catch up on emails – but on that day I felt too tired for any of that. The puzzles started easy but got gradually harder. They were challenging enough to occupy the mind, but never felt too taxing, and the satisfaction-hit from each small win along with the visuals and sound-effects made me really want to keep playing. On the train home, it felt easier to just open the app and play a few levels than do anything else. I’d start the journey by telling myself I’d do a few levels and would do something else, but I’d easily spend the best part of the journey rearranging shiny objects.

I knew this wasn’t ideal. I’ve come to see my commutes as a rare unfilled moment, each a scrap of time, a space to read and think, and I was filling this gift with a pixellated dopamine hit. I’d try to stop and bargain with myself – setting a limit of say five levels per journey, but knowing this to be an arbitrary number, I’d blow straight through it. There are other empty moments, waiting for the bath to run or once the children are in bed, but these other scraps are empty only in appearance, and I started to play in these too.

My phone has a ‘sleep mode’ which tries to mitigate the by now well-documented negative effects of phone use on sleeping – lower sleep quality, duration and interference with circadian rhythms. In sleep mode, you choose a time – after this the colours of your phone will be replaced by black and grey. I started using this feature, thinking that at least if I dulled the bright colours to greys then I’d take the enjoyment out of playing and it’d be harder to tell the shiny squares apart. It was a good try, but it didn’t work. I learnt to tell the grey objects apart, and played on.

Mainly, what I'm not doing when I’m glued to my phone is engaging with life.

You’ve heard it before, but our devices are not that good for us – excessive smartphone use fuels depression, anxiety and insomnia, and the average teenager spends seven to eight hours a day in front of a screen. Smartphones are closely related to social media - a recent study found one in six adolescent girls showed signs of social media addiction. Smartphone use has become a well-worn topic with a familiar set of talking points: How lucky we are to have all the world’s knowledge in our pocket; how bad we should all feel about being so distracted; how smug we can feel about the fools stuck to their phones. These discussion points aren't new - many of the concerns about smartphones and screen-time started decades earlier in response to TV and video games.

These concerns are certainly valid, but I find it easier to consider what some of my smartphone habits are stopping me from doing. I'm not sure I'd advocate that we all stop using smartphones - having easy access to the Internet is a huge convenience, but I do pause to think about what I'm not spending time doing when I obsessively scroll or click. I'm also not convinced that all mobile games or even all social media use is bad. Computer games can be entertaining and thought provoking. Like all art, there's no globally agreed standard about what's good, but good art doesn’t leave you puzzling over how you wasted an hour. What differentiates social media and certain phone games is their business model – your time and attention is their revenue stream.

Mainly, what I'm not doing when I’m glued to my phone is engaging with life. If I put the phone down, I could be more attentive to the people I'm with – be able to listen to all the subtle ways we tell each other how we are – in short, I could be more fully present. I could read books, and I could read whole magazine articles or news stories on my phone, actually stopping to read rather than scrolling from headline to headline. Or I could do nothing and just be, undisturbed. If I’m commuting, I could enjoy the scenery or just let my mind wander. And I can remember that even in the quietest moments I'm not alone - God is always alongside us, and we can always spend time and speak to Him in prayer. Even for a few short moments to lift up the joys and troubles of the day.

“Well”, you may say, “That's all very nice hearing about these possibilities I could enjoy if I clawed back time from social media and freemium games. But how do I actually do it!?” Most of the answers I’ve found to this involve either stopping the habit completely – deleting the app or even not having a smartphone, or else they involve enforced periods away. Some have found that a digital detox of several days or weeks has helped to reset their relationship with tech, others set fixed times in their day when they can and can’t use their devices or certain apps, and some observe a “digital sabbath” where they intentionally avoid or reduce technology use for a full day each week.

As for me, my only way out was to delete the shiny object game, losing all record of all 1,500 completed levels. Given that I rejected my own help by outsmarting “night mode”, I doubt moderation would have helped. Unsettlingly, my fingers and part of mind really seemed to miss it. As I unlocked my phone, I’d feel a tinge of absence, as though checking my emails or messages didn’t have the same grip as matching colourful blocks

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