Historian Vashna Jaganarth was a guest on Eusebius on TimesLIVE in an episode focused on understanding the long history of English monarchies. Jaganarth started off, setting aside political and moral questions about contemporary Britain, and focused on narrating a long, rich and interesting history of English monarchies. She shows how the territory now known as England was itself a site of violent contestation, based on the expansionist ideals of mainland European dynasties. Before British colonialism was even possible, argues Jaganarth, conquests within Great Britain were precursors to expanding the empire across the global south.

This is why, in a lighthearted moment between host McKaiser and Jaganarth, the “backslapping” between Irish Twitter and black Twitter in recent days, is made sense of. Imperialism, explains Jaganarth, is not reducible to race, and started out with the subjugation of people within Great Britain, after the enclosure of land in the north. Racism emerges later as the empire expands, but class subjugation was the foundation of early monarchical violence and domination.

McKaiser prompts Jaganarth to explain how the historical shift happens in the histories of English monarchies from blunt, violent, forays into foreign territories to modernity. This leads, in part, to a critical discussion whether, in modern times, the monarchy ought to be thought of as “benign”. Jaganarth argues against this view, and explains why, on a proper examination of the historical record, Elizabeth is morally and politically implicated in imperialism. She warns against the aesthetics of an innocent grandmother figure which obscures hard truths.

The podcast ends with a brief discussion on whether all monarchies, including within SA, are compatible with constitutional democracy.