Why we make kings

As the new King's coronation approaches, Ian Bradley explores the deep roots of kingship as an answer to anarchy and disorder.

Ian Bradley

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

A medieval illustration of King David being anointed by Samuel

Samuel anoints David king. An early 14th century illumination from the Vaux Psalter.

Lambeth Palace Library.

At the most solemn moment of King Charles III’s coronation on 6 May, the Westminster Abbey choir will sing Handel’s thrilling setting of words from the first chapter of the first Book of Kings:

Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king.

It provides a reminder that the anointing of the monarch with holy oil is carried out in direct imitation of a practice described in the Bible in connection with the inauguration of the kings of ancient Israel.

This is not the only link which the coronation will make with stories found in the Bible. Legend has it that the Stone of Destiny, on which Charles will be seated when he is crowned, started life as the pillow on which Jacob slept when he had a dream of the ladder leading up to heaven as described in Genesis. Jacob set the stone up as a pillar to commemorate the place where God had talked to him. Later stories identify it as the pillar beside which Abimelech was crowned king of Israel and King Josiah made his covenant with the Lord to keep his commandments and statutes.

The theme of monarchy looms large in the collection of books making up the Hebrew Bible which tells of God’s dealing with the chosen people of Israel and forms the Christian Old Testament. The word ‘king’ occurs 565 times and ‘kingdom’ 163 times. Six of the so-called historical books have the monarchy as their main subject matter, including the aptly named first and second books of Kings. The life of one particular king, David, occupies more space than that of any other figure, including the great patriarchs, Abraham and Moses.

By popular request

Kingship is presented in the early books of the Old Testament as both the popularly requested and the divinely appointed answer to the anarchy and disorder prevailing under the judges who ruled the people of Israel for the first two hundred and fifty years or so after their arrival in the promised land of Canaan around 1250 BCE. The Book of Judges emphasizes the corruption and lawlessness under this form of government, noting: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel: everyone did what was right in his eyes.’

The inauguration of the Israelite monarchy, which took place around 1020 BCE, is described in the Book of Samuel. A crucial role is played by Samuel, the last of the great judges who becomes the first king-maker and presides over the coronations of both Saul and David, the first two Israelite kings. Samuel is portrayed as prophet, seer and intermediary between Yahweh/God and the people, to whom the elders of Israel come asking for ‘a king to govern us like all the nations’. Samuel puts this request to Yahweh who is initially reluctant to accede to it and tells him to spell out to the people the dangers of kingship in terms of the accretion of private wealth and military might. These warnings are ignored, however, and the people continue to insist that they must have a king ‘to govern us and go out before us and fight our battles’. When Samuel reports this to God, he is told, ‘Hearken to their voice and make them a king’.

On king making

If there is a certain initial unease in God’s mind about the desirability of kingship, the institution is subsequently given divine blessing, with the king been seen as God’s chosen one – Messiah in Hebrew, or Christos in Greek. There is a sense of partnership between Yahweh and the chosen people of Israel in the making of kings. The emphasis is on a three way covenant between God, king and people. This concept of covenant is one of the most distinctive and central features of Israelite kingship, as is the idea that the monarch mediates and represents divine rule and stands for justice, fairness and truth.

During and after the long period of exile that followed the ‘Babylonian captivity’ of Israel in 597 BCE, Jews increasingly pinned their hopes on the future coming of a new Messiah, a king from the house of David, raised up by God to deliver Jerusalem from where he would reign, restoring and re-uniting Israel and bringing about a new world order of justice and righteousness, as looked forward to and promised in the Psalms and the writings of the prophets.

The theme of kingship, so fully explored in the Old Testament, continues to figure prominently in the New Testament, although its central focus is on the kingdom of God, inaugurated and proclaimed by Jesus, with its dethroning of the rich and powerful and exaltation of the humble and meek. All four of the Gospel writers use royal titles and monarchical allusions in their descriptions of Jesus. He is identified as the anointed king, the Messiah or Christos, leading his followers to be known as Christians. From his birth in Bethlehem in the house and family of King David, and his baptism where he is identified by God as his beloved Son, to his trial and crucifixion for being ‘King of the Jews’, the royal theme runs as a clear thread through his life and death.

Jesus himself redefines the concept of kingship. This is signalled most dramatically by his choice of a donkey on which to make his entry into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. He deliberately opts for an animal associated with humility, humiliation even, rather than a proud charger or stallion more fitting for a king on a triumphal progress. In washing his disciples’ feet on the first Maundy Thursday, he further shows that he is, in Graham Kendrick’s memorable words The Servant King displaying meekness as well as majesty. When Pontius Pilate repeatedly asks him whether he is indeed the King of the Jews, he gives the cryptic answer 'You have said so'. Jesus never repudiates the idea of kingship but gives it a wholly new meaning of humble servanthood which has been the inspiration for Christian monarchy ever since.

Review

Character

Culture

Music

21 March 2025

4 min read

Lady Gaga’s battle for authenticity

A new album, and interviews, reveal her progress.

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

A black and white photo of a woman about to open her mouth to sing.

Ladygaga.com.

'Bridled' isn't the first word that comes to mind about Lady Gaga. She has never struck me as being someone restrained and confined. But in a wide-ranging interview in the New York Times, she recently spoke about how the music industry 'bridles' women in music: "they talk to you a lot about your look and what the aesthetic is for the album and the “brand” of music. That started to affect how I made music.”

Whether it's others' beliefs that her more adventurous personas were the real her, or that the 'normcore' (as she puts it) of acting in A Star is Born was a sellout, she is keen to own for herself the definition of authenticity. And, two decades on, she is determined finally to match her relentless authenticity with authority. In interviews with both the New York Times and the Times of London, she has described herself as 'the boss’.

Emerging from several significant personal battles, not least the price of fame itself, Gaga is well-placed to be an authority on authority and authenticity. The jazz musician Miles David said, “Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.” By returning to her pop roots in her new album Mayhem, she is eschewing the fear of what others might think. Gaga reflects that however romanticised the tortured creative can be, it is unhealthy, and she didn't enjoy this past self when making music, contrasted with the joy of making music from a more contented place now.

When fame is so caught up with artistry (her first album in 2008 was The Fame, reissued a year later as The Fame Monster), she is communicating a sense of peace at where she has arrived in her career. Brittany Spanos reviewed her new album in Rolling Stone by saying “Gaga feels like her most authentic self from start to finish on this album: There’s no characters, concepts, or aesthetic impulses overshadowing the songs,”. This chimes with what Gaga said in her interview in the New York Times about how her work had previously taken over her: “I was falling so deeply into the fantasy of my artwork and my stage persona that I lost touch. I changed my name and refused to live outside my art, but gravity brought me home.” She may be iconic but she is not her own iconoclast: she is comfortable with myriad expressions without being defined by them.

For someone bothered about authenticity, it was an authentic friendship that inspired her to have hope to emerge more fully from her battles.

Now, the 'Perfect Celebrity' as one of the tracks on her album is called, she invites us to think about our relationship with those in fame, but also the battle for authenticity as one who is famous: “The way that we feel about celebrities, whether good or bad, is just part of the entertainment now. So you need to acknowledge that and then also acknowledge that there are now two selves. The real you, in private, and the one you project to the world. And this is something a lot of people face nowadays — which part of myself should I value more?” Gaga recognises the necessity of the platform and image for her work, but “It feels further away from who I am.”

This disconnect between the authentic self and the one portrayed is one we all face - Gaga says: “There is just more of a stage for everybody now. Everyone has the opportunity to have fame." Is it possible for people growing up today to discover who they are, when a version of fame is enmeshed with themselves?

For Lady Gaga, Jonathan Dean writes that being able to experience 'realness' saved her life. “I mean my fiancé, his mother, my family. Friendships — the real ones. Going to the store, making dinner. That is what made my whole life more rich.” She pauses. “I wouldn’t say fame made my life more full.”’

In particular, she credits her now-fiancé with her general wellbeing. If you listen to The Interview podcast from the New York Times, the moment she breaks down in tears is when she is asked how she knew that Michael was genuine. She said it was because he wanted to be her friend. For someone bothered about authenticity, it was an authentic friendship that inspired her to have hope to emerge more fully from her battles.

Being saved by fullness of life through friendship is something that Jesus spoke about. He chimes with Gaga's reflections on an industry that sought to take so much from her, when he says: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Lady Gaga's experience will be more extreme than most of us will endure, but we all have those places where things are taken from us and given to us, destructive and creative. It is noteworthy that her sense of own human flourishing, and being her 'authentic' self has come through relationship. And that's surely something to sing about.

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