The Stuarts and the Shah

You wouldn't think at first glance that the Feast of King Charles the Martyr, executed 377 years ago today in London, would have much to do with current events in Iran.

But recently I've been reading both my old friend Gareth Russell's excellent new biography of King James I (1566-1625), which I finished last night and which at the end goes briefly into some of the related challenges and tragedies faced by his son and successor Charles I, and for the second time Andrew Scott Cooper's "The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran." And for all the vast differences between 17th-century Britain and 20th-century Iran, I was struck by at least one parallel.

Reading both books, I found myself often feeling a burning resentment against the kind of literally puritanical religiosity that undermined (and eventually toppled) both monarchies, whether Scottish Presbyterianism in James's early reign, English Puritanism in his later reign and his son's, or militant Shia Islam in the Shah's. In all three cases, a monarch who was genuinely personally religious himself (admittedly, Charles perhaps more so than his father) was nevertheless stridently and relentlessly opposed and criticised by dour clerics who found the Monarchy to be insufficiently "godly." (The Kirk didn't want James's wife Queen Anne to have a coronation, both because elements of the ceremony were thought "papist" and because they feared, correctly, that there might be drinking and dancing.)

An even more curious parallel is that in both countries, an unholy alliance was formed between this kind of strict religious zeal (which today we might call "Right-wing") and the more secular "democratic" kind of opposition (which might be called "Left-wing") to the monarch for being (allegedly) too authoritarian. Of course, in both cases, when the religious fanatics actually took power, they imposed a regime that was far more oppressive than the Monarchy had ever been, though fortunately the English version lasted only 11 years; Iran has now endured 47, almost my entire life.

Will Iran ever get its May 1660? One can live in hope.

Princess Irene of Greece (1942-2026)

Very sad royal news today, including for me personally. The first royal I ever had the honour to meet, HRH Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark (1942-2026), has died in Madrid at the age of 83. I am deeply saddened to learn of this loss.

HM Queen Sofía of Spain, 87, is now the only surviving child of King Paul and Queen Frederica of Greece.

Meeting and performing (Debussy Sonata with pianist Emile Naoumoff) for Princess Irene at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music on 13 May 1999 (two days after her 57th birthday) remains one of the highlights of my career. I had always hoped I might see HRH again one day, but it was not to be. I was so thrilled when she happily signed my copy of her mother Queen Frederica's (1917-1981) autobiography.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa (where the Greek Royal Family were for a time in exile during World War II) on 11 May 1942, with Premier Jan Smuts (1870-1950) as her godfather, Princess Irene after the war grew up in Greece during the reigns of her uncle George II (1890-1947), her father Paul I (1901-1964), and her brother Constantine II (1940-2023). A talented pianist, she studied with Gina Bachauer (1913-1976) and Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), which is how she knew Emile who as a child prodigy was the legendary French pedagogue's last and youngest student. She once joined Bachauer (who knew that the novelty of a princess performing with her would gain the event much needed attention) in performing with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, then in financial difficulties which that concert helped alleviate. The Princess never married. It was known that her condition had been deteriorating for some time.

May she rest in peace.