The Jordan Harbinger Show - 992: Royals | Skeptical Sunday

Episode Date: May 19, 2024

What's the point of the publicly funded British Royal family in the modern world? Andrew Gold puts the monarchy under a microscope on this Skeptical Sunday! On This Week's Skeptical Sunday: The British monarchy is a centuries-old institution that has had a significant impact on the UK's culture, politics, and history. While the monarch's role is largely ceremonial, the royal family still holds influence and plays a significant part in British society. The British Royal Family receives public funding through the Sovereign Grant, which is calculated as a percentage of the profits made by the Crown Estate. The Sovereign Grant covers official expenses, while the monarch also has personal income from private estates. The monarchy faces challenges in maintaining its relevance in an increasingly democratic and progressive world. The royal family must balance tradition with adapting to changing societal values and expectations. The popularity of individual members of the royal family, such as Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry, can significantly impact public perception of the monarchy as a whole. Despite the controversies and challenges surrounding the British monarchy, it remains an integral part of the nation's identity and continues to captivate people worldwide. By focusing on their roles as symbols of unity, continuity, and tradition, while also embracing positive change and engaging in meaningful charitable work, the royal family can maintain its relevance and contribute to the well-being of the British people and the global community. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [e-mail] and let him know! Connect with Andrew Gold on Twitter and Instagram, and check out On the Edge with Andrew Gold here or wherever you enjoy listening to fine podcasts! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/992 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host Andrew Gold. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people

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Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, we're going to embark on a fascinating journey with our guest, Andrew Gold. Andrew is the host of the On the Edge with Andrew Gold podcast that looks into cults, true crime, and the royal family. And my, what a diverse sort of set of time. topics that is, Andrew. Today, he's here to help us navigate these somewhat turbulent waters of a truly intriguing topic for many of us, the relevance and fairness of the British royal family. Andrew, as we begin our discussion, let's lay down the foundations. The British royal family,

this is a centuries-old institution, a lineage steeped in tradition, weird tradition that I don't quite understand, a legacy that has significantly impacted the UK's culture, politics, and history from pillars of constants like Queen Elizabeth II, who died after reigning for 70 years, which just sounds exhausting even reading it. And Queen Victoria, after whom an entire era was named, and we even use that in the United States for whatever reason, the Victorian era lasting 63 years, to flashes in the pan, like Prince Harry and Megan, who jumped ship, essentially. The royal family's really fascinating, varied, and has a lot of flawed characters. Like, I guess probably most people's families do, but it's more so on the world stage. But here's the question, considering these

significant changes we've seen in the world over the past few decades, a world that in theory aspires to be more democratic, more transparent, more fair, is the royal family, do they hold relevance today? In other words, this might just be very American of me to say this, but why the hell do we even care about these people at all in 2023? That is a substantial question, Jordan, and it's one with, well, without a straightforward answer, and it wouldn't be skeptical Sunday if it was simple. So yes, the monarchy doesn't have any real political power anymore, but there's still a big deal in British society.

They stand for continuity, tradition, and they're a big part of the country's history. The British monarchy is a constitutional monarchy, which means that the sovereigns, so the king or queens, role is largely ceremonial and symbolic, with real political power lying in the hands of elected officials in parliament. As such, the royal family does not directly participate in the day-to-day governance of policymaking in the country. They do, however, have roles and influence. They meet heads of state from other

countries. They officially appoint a prime minister. They actually do that, but I mean, it's just a tradition they do, you know, it's ceremonial. Right. So it's like, this guy's the new prime minister. You have to say yes now. And they're like, fine with my blessing and they do something with the sword and we're good. Is that kind of that? Yeah, well, exactly. And you know how it gets when somebody gets elected that is quite controversial? And I think the most controversial in recent years was probably Boris Johnson, who was seen as like a Trump-Light kind of character. I mean, he even had the weird hair. Yeah. It's so on brand somehow. But he came first in politics anyway.

Well, in politics, Boris, for years, I suppose. But in terms of prime minister, I'd have to check who was prime minister or president first, but it was roughly the same time, wasn't it? And Boris, his whole life, looked up to Winston Churchill. He wanted to be another Winston Churchill. And the funny thing is that he's now remembered as another Trump, really. Yeah. So it's not what he wanted. I think he sees himself as a much.

Swing and a miss, folks. Yeah. He sees himself as a far more educated character and a far more subtle or whatever, but he's not very subtle in his personality. By the way, I want to qualify that. Whatever you think of Trump, he's not Winston Churchill. And that's just all I mean by that. So I don't want people to be like,

Ah, Jordan's an answer. I'm just saying, if you compare those two guys, and you're on the same reality as everyone else, they're just, they're very different. And I'll leave it there. Yeah, I agree. No problem. Vote for who you want to.

Right. You know, but yeah, Winston Churchill is different to Trump. I mean, it's the education level. Boris was very highly educated and wanted to be seen as this super intelligent guy. So that was the issue there. What the hell was he thinking then if he wanted to be seen? I mean, I want to be seen as a super intelligent guy. Let me go outside in like shorts and a track jacket to the press.

with my hair looking like I just got, it's deliberately ridiculous. You've hit on it. It was deliberately ridiculous. And it helped him get away with so many scandals because it was always like, oh, you know, he was almost doing this Hugh Grant impersonation. And people didn't really pick up on that, but I've always thought they've got very similar voices and ways of speaking, Hugh Grant and all the 90s rom-coms and Boris Johnson.

They look as different as can be, but the voice and it's sort of, oh gosh, he's just boys are being boys until it got to a, point where he had lied so many times that the country gave up on him. And now he's not very popular in any quarters now. I know he got one of the reasons was, didn't he have a bunch of parties when he was like, COVID lockdowns? And then he was like, but not for me. I'm going to have a bunch of parties. And there's going to be a bunch of documentation and videos and photos of it. Yeah. That was it. Yeah. That was it. Interesting. He got in trouble for that and he was lied over and over again. You know, he doesn't mind lying apparently. He's a politician. Well, that's it. That's the point. It's

politicians, and that's what they do, unfortunately. But the point was, because he was quite a controversial new prime minister, a lot of people, maybe more on the left, was saying, like, oh, the queen should step in, she's going to step in. It's like, as if she would do that. And like, what that would mean for democracy in the country just because you didn't get the person you wanted, I understand if it was literally somebody who's saying, we've got to go out and kill people, but Boris wasn't doing that. You know, that would be awful if the queen did step in and do that. And she didn't, and she looked very composed and lovely and fine and had to anoint Boris as the Prime Minister. So they never say no, that's the point. But they do hold private meetings with the

Prime Minister. God knows why and what they talk about. It's all very hush, hush. It seems so senseless. Yeah, what is why? Nice fluffy thing you got there, Your Highness. Yes, it's been in my family for 400 years. What is that? I have no idea. All right. Well, thanks for driving all the way down here. I mean, none of it makes sense. To be a fly on the wall, as, but you know, that did happen a lot with Prince Charles at the time, and he wasn't the king, of course, and Tony Blair, and there was a lot of talk of political influence from Charles, which people weren't happy about. But the point is they're supposed to play a big ceremonial role, the Royals, that is. At the same time, I would just like to dispel the myth that the average Brit is any more obsessed with the royal family than, say,

Canadians. Personally, I started researching the Royals. The reason I started doing them on the podcast is just realizing how interested Americans were in the Royals, because it's ultimately a gossip reality show. the Kardashians or whatever. And we all find ourselves glued to the social hierarchies and tribe dynamics. But growing up myself, I couldn't have told you the difference between Princess Anne and Princess Margaret or who the prince now king Charles's brothers were, although my namesake, Andrew obviously has those links to the girls in Jeffrey Epstein's horrible island. I wasn't going to bring that up, but it's funny when you mentioned those two like having private meetings. I was like the political influence, if we really knew what those guys were doing,

would probably be, well, either really disgusted, like they were doing something gross, or they'll be like, yeah, I'd rather if people think we're doing inappropriate political influence than having them know that we're together playing uncooked two or whatever on the Xbox for hours every week alone in the basement of Buckingham Palace because it's less embarrassing if they just think we're like shagging underage girls instead. Yeah. I mean, like, who knows what's going on? Yeah.

It's probably way less exciting than people think. But it is true that many Andrews that I know are sketchy bastards with questionable taste and morals. So go on. Yeah, yeah. That is a problem. I get on YouTube commenting all the time. People just go, Andrew's a bastard. Andrews a paed.

And these kinds of things. I'm like, wait a minute. Oh, the other guy. The other Andrew. Please can everybody put prints beforehand so that we know who we're talking? Maybe you don't want to give that title to a person accused of doing what he's done. And I say accused because, again, a lot of people get very. angry and defensive and say it hasn't been proved and all that stuff and okay fine. But the point

is the royals, they serve a purpose. From a British perspective, the Crown is said to bring in tourism. Many people visit the UK to check out the various castles and museums packed with diamonds and rubies and historical paintings of ghostly former kings and queens. Buckingham Palace brings in thousands of tourists, as do Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. I used to work right by the Tower of London at the newspaper job, at the Sun, my first ever job, really. I was 21. And it's a fascinating site, the place, because it was initially built, the Tower of London, that is, not the Sun, as a residence for William the Conqueror. So we're talking 11th century. But in the 1800s, it was a zoo with exotic animals that were held in the tower, which is really weird. And it was also a prison. And that's

where most interest lies in the sort of ghastly, ghouly past of history, those parts of history. Well, the tower held many prisoners, including Henry the Eighth's wives, Anne Berlin and Catherine Howard, and many of them met a grisly end there. So one of the arguments, and there are a few, for the monarchy, is the influx of tourism, money, intrigue, and history. Well, yeah, it's almost like you could have tourism and history without currently supporting these people, but that's probably something we'll talk about in a minute. Basically, my point is, I think history is still there, even if the royal family is no longer there. but I would even say that the tourism spots are just as interesting, maybe even more interesting, because we could see all of them. You know, you can't go into Buckingham Palace and see the whole thing, right, because the royals live there. So if they weren't there, you could see the whole

thing. Just saying, some people would probably argue that the monarchy is a little bit like a dinosaur. And I would imagine it's not just Americans saying that. There's got to be Brits who are like, wait, how much money do we give these schmows again? Oh, yeah. And in a world that values democracy and equality. I just can't get over. It seems like having a monarchy. It's so out of place. It's something you expect from Saudi Arabia, not the UK. And the cost of keeping it all going, you have to subtract that from the tourism dollars or the pounds. Tourism pounds. Absolutely right. And I would imagine, to your point about British people being anti-monarchy, probably the most fervent anti-monicists are British. I mean, in America, you probably are either, either you love the monarchy and some people do

or they're fascinated by the royals, or you don't care. Why would you care that much about this far-flung place that has this sort of fairy tale weird stuff going on? Yeah. Whereas in England, if you're like, hey, I pay my tax pounds and I'm doing all the, you know, what the hell are these guys doing there? You paid for Kate's hat, one of many, many hats. Yeah.

I want to get to choose her hat if I'm paying for it. So it did not escape the public's attention that King Charles III's coronation in 2023. It cost 100 million pounds. That's $127 million. that's a breathtaking amount of cash for something that, and I'm going to be a little bit gross, but fully honest here, you're going to have to do that again in like 10 years.

Right? I mean, he's not, he's no spring chicken, King Charles. He's not. He's not. And yeah, I mean, the jokes for years in England or in Britain, I should say, were that the queen would outlast him, and, you know, these TV shows and sitcoms would portray him as scheming against his mother because he wanted her out the way so he could take on the crown. Because if that's something, it does seem silly and ridiculous, the royalty and all that, the royal family, but if you've grown up with the sole purpose of like, you are the person who is going to be the king, that is your role, and you're like 70, and you still haven't gotten to be that thing, it must play on your mind.

I would imagine. So it does cost a fair bit to keep the monarchy going, maintaining their homes, paying the staff, security and all of that. And there's a bit of a lack of transparency because no one is exactly sure how much comes out of our tax. and how much comes from the Royals' personal wealth. Wait a second. This is skeptical Sunday, so we can't just say, eh, we're not sure.

You don't know how much? Where does the money come from? You got to show me the money. I just assumed this was mostly funded by their own investments over the past centuries with some public-facing stuff, like the tourism through Buckingham Palace and all the stuff that they don't use that is just like you said,

tickets to a zoo slash prison slash castle, That stuff I would imagine is taxpayer, but I figured the rest is like, you're rich and famous and we keep you that way, but like you have to pay for it. That's crazy that you're, is it just that we don't know, like you and I? Or nobody's telling you how much of your tax money goes to this? Okay, so I can tell you what we do know because I've done some research. But the average person doesn't know most of this and you have to really sort of dig in to get to this. The British Royal Family receives funding from the public. That's me, but also about 70 million others, who sound a bit like me,

although Sam sound a bit like that, you know, London accent. Yeah, some do indeed. Some I can't even understand, frankly. Those would be the Scottish up north, but they've got beautiful accents, depending on the person, of course. But we're paying a lot of this, and it's through what's known as the sovereign grant. The sovereign grant is an annual payment made to the monarch by the government, which comes from the public purse.

It's starting to get all like Hogwartsy, the public purse and the sovereign grant and the this and that. But basically, yeah, taxpayer money. The sovereign grant is calculated as a percentage of the profits made by the Crown Estate. So the Crown Estate is a collection

of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom owned by the Monarch, which is the King or Queen, such as agricultural lands, residential and commercial real estate, and some areas of the seabed, apparently. The Crown Estate is managed

by an independent organisation with the revenue it generates going directly to the treasury, and then a percentage of this is given back to the monarch as the sovereign grant. So the sovereign grant is used to cover the official expenses of the king's household, including official receptions, ceremonial functions, property maintenance, and staff costs. It also covers the cost of royal travel for official duties, because those are so important. In addition to the sovereign grant, the monarchs, the king or queen, has personal income from private estates, which is the Duchy of Lancaster.

That's basically a portfolio of property. The Prince of Wales, which is just the Prince, that's the son who's going to be King. At the moment, that would be William, has income from another estate called the Duchy of Cornwall. These are historical lands and holdings that provide the Queen and the Prince of Wales, or now the King, I should say,

with personal income, the King and the Prince of Wales. While the royals do contribute to the economy, particularly through tourism related to royal palaces and ceremonies, and indirectly through the revenue of the Crown Estate, their direct funding for official duties does come from public funds. So, again, me and the impressions I did before of someone from London and someone from Scotland, although I am from London, but don't have that accent. It's also worth noting that the cost of security for the royal family

is covered separately by public funding and is not included in the sovereign. Grant, oh, gosh, it's complicated. Okay, that is a mouthful and kind of complicated. So it sounds like it's a very fancy way of saying that they are living in public housing and on welfare. But, you know, again, that's the American in me. That's no, it's a great point. And I can't remember if we're going to cover this in a bit. But among the royals, this is a known thing that it's sort of, they wouldn't admit this, but it's sneered upon.

It's looked down upon for people to earn money. Whereas the American dream is this whole thing of like, you know, somebody who comes from nothing can rise up. And obviously we have that same aspiration in the UK, which is why a lot of people don't like the royal family and that kind of upper class. But the snooty upper classes, which I imagine is the same in the States as well, the really upper upper echelons. We call it old money. Yeah. They're basically like Brits that came over loaded and stayed that way. Yeah.

Gatsby. Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah, that's interesting. I never even thought about that. But even in America, I will tell you this, this is kind of a little dark. But recently a billionaire died in a fiery, he was 70-something years old. died in like a fiery racing car crash while he was driving. And people were like, oh, that guy never earned a penny in his life. And people were like, actually, he's the CEO of these companies and

is a general director of these three companies. And then other people were like, let me just clarify what that means. His name is on documents because his dad or granddad started the company. But even then, even when you are old money, rich, don't really have to explain anything to anyone, you will still spend time and or money or just energy looking like you do something other than exist because it's so looked down upon to be a guy who's just loaded for absolutely no reason in this country. Okay. That's the opposite to the Royals then.

But they don't represent the typical British feeling because I think we're more geared to a very similar, I think, in that sense, with American, the individualism and, you know, anyone can succeed kind of thing. It's strange because you would think that's why I can't really relate, right? It's a completely different mindset. It's like, if I were to be Prince tomorrow, but I'm still me, I would be like, oh, crap, I need to really figure out how I look like I deserve any of this, whereas they're just kind of like, I deserve this because I am part of this weird inbred German family.

And I'll ask you about this later, but like I'm part of, I was born into this position and thus, my work is done. That's what it looks like. Well, that's the issue. And we'll talk about this in a bit as well, but that's what Harry and Megan. and that's why Prince Harry is right now. Because imagine being in that situation and you're not the one who's supposed to be king.

So it's like, okay, I was born, and then I die and there was some stuff happened in between that, but it wasn't really relevant to anybody and everything was easy to me. Like, I'd rather be that than impoverished, but I would rather be sort of, as long as I can make ends meet, I would rather be that than born into the royal family.

You know what's better than some inbred German DNA? The fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you for. listening and supporting the show. It is your support of our advertisers that keeps the lights on around here. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you hear on the show so you can check out the sponsors for yourself, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. Yeah, interesting, slightly,

possibly misguided thing, but I'm not him. Okay, so I will say security for a family like that is in the tens of millions of dollars annually. And so I would have imagine that would be covered by the public funds just because otherwise it's untenable. Friends of mine ran slash run personal security for Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, who coincidentally might be fighting one another in a boxing match or an MMA fight that I and millions of others cannot wait to see, which I doubt it's going to happen, but holy crap, do I want to see that? Each of those guys has a multi-seven figure security budget annually, and they're not royals, and the family isn't nearly as large as the royal family.

We're talking about like Zuckerberg and his immediate-ish family and possibly some in-laws. So that stuff gets very expensive, very quickly when it's somebody who's even more famous, more wealthy, and has, I don't know how big the royal family is, but there's a lot of random people that you don't think about, and they all have a security detail. So that stuff is tens of millions of dollars annually, like I said.

So, all right, let me see if I've got this right. they just seem to own lots of land and stuff, and that land generates revenue because it's maybe being used for farming or fishing or whatever or tourism. That money goes to the UK government, as it should, who then give a percentage back to the royals to pay for stuff

because at some point the royals owned all the land in the whole country or whatever, and the government gives more money that is from another source, I guess taxes to cover their security in addition to that money. Yeah, yeah. As I said, it's like it's super complicated and weird because it's like there are many steps there that feel like they've given back to them to give back to them. And it's like, why have we done that? I'm sure that. It seems a little deliberately confusing so that you don't find out that they're getting like $3 billion a year from the Treasury to exist. Exactly. I think so. And it's why no one's really sure whether they do pay for themselves. If they no longer existed as royals, would they then have to give up all of this land, all of this land and these money spinning endeavors? Would the kind of

country then be richer from owning these things outright? You know, it wouldn't be the royal families land. It would be ours now. And what would we do with it? I don't know. Would the economy improve? Or would the government mishandle these properties and land, as they often do? And tourism might dry up. So these are unknowables. All we know for sure is that while they certainly generate tourism revenue and their estates contribute to the public purse, they do also receive a significant amount of public funding. Yeah, that's true, right? You can't just make it for public use because what good is a bunch of random seabed for public use? So you sell it to a company that does something with it.

And they're like, great, we're going to drill it for oil. Oops, we ruined it. Well, that was cool for 20 years. And then it's just destroyed forever or not used for what it was before. It's hard to say. Somebody has done the legwork on this, but it's a little bit in the weeds. And I'm glad we're not going to cover that here. Okay.

So the cost and benefits, tricky to balance. Then again, look, the U.S. has national parks. We don't need a king or royal family to make sure that those national parks. don't go to crap overnight. So maybe I'm missing something there. Another thing that gets talked about a lot is fairness. And with more and more people struggling in the UK, in the US, the monarchy, which is all about privilege and wealth, it gets a lot of flack and I kind of feel like they might deserve it. But how do you see the fairness issue? Yeah, I think this is what's making the royals more and more irrelevant and is probably their biggest challenge as a company. And that's essentially what they are,

a family company. They're often known as the firm. It sounds all a bit mobstery. It does. They have a big cult leader head of the company and their role is to seem as relevant as possible so that they can continue to bring in money, live lavish lives and lead the Commonwealth. You know, if they lose popularity, people are going to start to look in more detail into the kinds of figures, the money that they are taking. So they've hit a bit of a snag with current culture because culture took a big move towards progressive politics in recent years. Just look at the way we are now reflecting on the bad behavior of actors and musicians and other celebrities from death. decades ago. We expect our celebrities to be more clean cut nowadays to be fair, hard

working, decent individuals, and the same goes for our monarchs. Well, that doesn't work. You see these attempts by Charles to be, for example, an environmentalist. You see William and Harry doing work for mental health charities and asking that we talk more about our mental health. William is starting a new enterprise now to try to eradicate homelessness. And good on him. I think these are really good things. But the problem is that they're now trying to appeal to the progress. progressive side of the political spectrum. And that's the very side in which a monarchy with a divine birthright and billions of dollars and assets cash can't exist. It can't work. So they're in a bit of a bind. If they remain snobbish and aloof, they appear less relevant and less likely to continue

receiving funding and support. If they piggyback on the wave of progressive politics, they alienate the traditionalists who are the only ones who would support the idea of a royal family. That is a bind. That is an interesting point. So what can they do? is this eventually going to be the end of the royal family? I just can't see how they stay relevant forever. I mean, so far so good, but still, as an American, it's so tempting to want to just check the sell-by-date on concepts like divine birthright when we're essentially, again, we're talking about inbred Germans at the end of the day. Yeah. I'm sure the traditionalists love it when I say things like that, too. That's probably deeply insulting, but whatever. I don't know.

Yeah. Well, I don't know. Maybe even they can joke about that. I'm sure there are jokes about the German heritage and things like that, and maybe even, I don't know. I would love to be a fly on the wall, but I don't know if they're joking about the sort of rumors of incestuous lineage. I think that all royal families are slightly inbred because they aim to maintain that pure blood, not to get all Harry Potter or Nazi about it, but also to get the sort of tactical collusions between different countries. It was strategic, so all the royals were intermarrying. Prince Albert, who married Queen Victoria in the 1800s, was German, which was where a lot of the German talk comes from. And the late Prince Philip, who was married to the Queen, Queen Elizabeth II, was also part German, part Greek. So the whole German thing happened with that. And it's become a sort of running joke, I guess. I don't know how funny they find it, the royal family.

A lot of people speculated that the whole thing would gradually disintegrate after the death of the Queen. She was such a figurehead and a symbol of constancy and longevity. for people, that even the most fervent anti-monicists weren't too bothered about her being there, you know, at the end. They sort of had a respect for her. If you look at the obituaries of Queen Elizabeth II, well, very few knew very much about her personality,

or if she even had one outside of what we projected onto her, people spoke all the time of her being very funny. She had this amazing sense of humour. But I think that was more out of surprise because she was so stern-looking. She wasn't exactly Seinfeld, you know, We grasped at personality traits that we wanted her to have. And I think that was deliberate perhaps on her part.

She knew she was a symbol, the head of a country, a figurehead that while the country was divided by politics and ever-changing political landscape, and the fear of change and technology, she remained ever-present. So her obituaries were all about her dedication, her duty, her longevity. She was simply there. Okay, I do have stuff to say about that, but how is that fair, though? She was simply born into ridiculous money and went around in like a gold freaking chariot while many of her subjects struggle to put food on the table. I mean, it's a little gross. It just, it's a little gross. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's not fair. I agree with you. The monarchy is all about privilege. It's all about who you're born to. A lot of people see that as unfair as you and I do,

but I think that most people were patient and understanding of that, providing that the Queen remained apolitical, kept herself to herself, performed her duties, and held up this stiff upper lip in times of adversity. Then for a lot of Brits, she was a connection to history, a symbol of who they are as a nation. But for that to work, she had to remain stoic, a bit boring, a bit sullen and stern, as I say,

and somehow otherworldly, like she's not a real person. She was this sort of grandma figure for the whole country and she was always there and then one day she wasn't. I think if you want to see how quickly that can turn, look to Prince Harry and Megan Markle. Reports from polls recently showed Megan at minus 47 points popularity and Harriet minus 36. For perspective, Princess Anne,

who most people don't know who that is. I've never heard of. Yeah. Is at plus 60. They love her. Prince William is at 57 plus 57 and his wife Kate is at plus 59. It's so funny.

It's like I just have no clue who most of these people are. I do know, of course, who Kate and William are, but Anne and some of the other folks, I just, I feel like I've never heard of them before this show. Meanwhile, Harry and Megan are like the most talked about couple in the United States anyway of the last year or two, I feel like a lot of the people think that maybe they're disliked because of racism because I guess Megan is mixed race.

What do you say to that? By the way, I heard the term mixed racist. That is polite in the U.S., but I've told it's racist to say that way in the UK. Is that correct? I don't think so. Who told you that? Somebody was like, you can't say that. You have to say half. And I'm like, what? But what if they're not half? What if they're like a quarter? That doesn't make any sense. No, no, you can't say half. You can't say half. The old word was half cast, which is now not allowed. Not good. Okay, so this person just had it backwards completely, because half sounds not right at all to me. They were trying to get you in trouble. I think so. I think so. Or maybe this is an Australian telling me that, not a UK. I don't know.

Now I'm curious what Australians say. Good on. Mike. Although do we look to Australia as bastions of polite society? I don't know, Mike. Yeah. Yeah. Look, the racism thing is very possible. I'm just doing my Australian accent. Very possible. I think it is very possible. Plausible even. It's unusual to have ethnic minorities of any kind in the royal family. And it is something that the press have picked up on. In fact, in another poll, 50% of British journalists said they believe there has been some racist coverage of Megan. One example was a reference to her exotic DNA. Cring.

Another example often, yeah, it's cringe. Yeah, cringe and horrible. Another example often touted is journalist Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail, whose headline was, yes, they're joyfully in love. So why do I have a niggling feeling, or a niggling worry, I think it was about this engagement picture. That's so deliberate. Yeah. Yikes.

If it is, it's just like the world. worst thing ever, but maybe it's not. But maybe it is, and it's the worst thing ever. So I don't know. Yeah. So another one, this one was a little bit awkward, right? It's going to sound bad at first, but this one was, I actually believe, the guy. It was a former BBC personality or presenter, Danny Baker, who tweeted a photo of royals holding a chimpanzee when baby Archie, that's Megan and Harry's son, was born. But Danny had previously tweeted photos comparing all the members of the royals to zoo animals. He found it funny to suggest that royals were like chimps. He said the photo of a chimp dressed as a lord was a way of lampooning privilege and the racist elements hadn't crossed

his mind. It's so bad that I almost believe him because otherwise it's so bad that he's... You've got a guy with like no history of saying particularly controversial things, particularly nothing like racist or anything like that who suddenly tweets out this photo of the royal family with a chimp. So he said like this is a quote. In attempting to lampoon privilege and the news cycle, I went to a file of goofy pictures and saw the chimp dressed as a lord and thought, that's the one. Had I kept searching, I might have chosen General Tom Thumb or even a baby in a crown, but I didn't. God knows, I wish I had. Minutes later, I was alerted by followers that this royal baby was, of course, mixed race,

and waves of panic and revulsion washed over me. What had I done? It was a genuine, naive, and catastrophic mistake. So I guess only he'll know what his intentions were. He instantly deleted the tweet and apologized, but was fired immediately by the BBC. Yeah, lost his job, never got back to the same standing. Villified, because I think a lot of people just go, I don't care what he says.

But he does raise an interesting point because many people, including me, had no idea that Megan was of mixed heritage until that tweet. It seems mad to think that now. It does. I honestly just, when I first saw her, I just thought she was like really, tan, which I know could get me canceled even saying that. She's beautiful. I didn't, but it didn't

occur to me that she, I just don't pay enough attention. I just thought she was very, yeah, tan, or dark skin, I obviously, I had no idea. God, oh my God. I agree. She's clearly a very beautiful woman and I lived in South America for like eight years. You could be South America, could be Latina, could be Jewish. I got a lot of Jewish friends who looked like that. And it turns out she's mixed race, you know, fine, but I believe this guy when, when he says that he didn't know. It's too awful. Why else would he do that? Yeah, it's just too awful to have been anything other than a mistake.

If he hasn't been like flirting with white nationalism his entire career and this was the final step, right? Then it's like, okay, buddy, you got your just desserts. But it sounds like he was just naive to the point of torpedoing his own career. My goodness. Which some people would say is problematic, which is a word I don't like to use. I know some people would say, well, that's an issue then. If you didn't know, you need to be more connected. you need to actively know that doing that has been done in the past and that Megan is mixed, right?

You need to know these things? I wouldn't say that, but I think some people would argue that point. Do you know what I mean? I mean, he's a journalist, right? So it's almost like you shouldn't just be willy-nilly. But then again, it's just really, that was a minefield, and he found himself in the middle of it, and he didn't, he made a misstep and he couldn't find his way out. That's what that was.

I mean, I guess. That's what it looks like from the context you've given me. Yeah. So I don't want people to be like, you're just to find. I'm not. I'm just saying, holy crap. If it was an accident, which it looks like it might be, I really feel for the guy. The royals have the same issue, though.

Like, they can't do anything at all without also having that same level of scrutiny applied to them in a very unfair and ridiculous way. Well, that is true. But then a lot of the other accusation, sorry, of media racism revolve around comparisons between Megan and Kate, who is, of course, white. And when Kate eats an avocado, it's like, look at this brilliant person who's eating an avocado. It's a fantastic new age idea. you should all eat avocados too. And when Megan eats an avocado, it's like, she's killing the rainforest, don't you know what? And there's like loads of pictures of there.

So there definitely is some of that. But then you've got to go, well, okay, is that racism? Or is that to do with the different behaviors of Kate and Megan? Or is it somewhere in between? Yeah. Oh, God, it's hard to know, which is just racism or just some bias held by the press, or just whoever's polling that week is viewed with a rose-colored glasses or vice versa. Oh, gosh.

I don't envy these people at all. As rich as they are, I still don't, I still would never want to be in their shoes, honestly. Yeah, well, so that's the thing, you know, going back to my point about the queen and duty and all of these things, it's the fact that we don't mind people having immense privilege, providing that they are aloof, otherworldly distance, and you're just weird little things that don't seem like real people. Kate performs that role, you know, to perfection. She's almost inhuman. I don't think I'd want to be friends with Kate.

I don't think you can. I mean, even if you were in that circle, I don't think. Are they even allowed to have normal friendship and interaction? Wasn't that kind of the complaint? No, I think they do, but it's all like a little bit. The word incestuous keeps popping into my head now, but it's all just very Etonian, as in they went to Eton College, the poshest school in the world.

I don't think Kate did, by the way. And she was called in the papers when she started. There was a lot about her family not being quite as posh, even though they're much posher than the vast majority of the country, but not as posh as the rest of the royals. So I think for her it was about showing how, posh and graceful, she can look as though she was an Eaton college, whatever, whereas for Megan it was a whole different thing. So Kate turns up, she does all of her duties. These are charities,

events, gala, whatever it is. And she smiles and curtsies and remains apolitical, stiff up a lip, and so on. She retained a dignified silence, even when the press invaded her privacy, as they did many times, I think there were photos of her naked sunbathing somewhere. And she didn't say anything, and I'm not saying that that's an admirable trait or a good way to act. I don't think we should encourage people to be so boring and just go, okay, well, I don't mind. I just think that people in general don't mind that privilege of the Royals so much in those cases. William is the same. Harry, on the other hand, has for years been stumbling drunk out of parties. He dressed up as a Nazi. Oh, yeah, that was cute. And he has now released a book now about his own victimhood.

Now these are things that if a friend of mine did it, it's like, oh, you, what have you done, you know? But people don't then want to look at this super rich person who's born into wealth and see somebody claiming they're a victim. And I read that book, Spare, and it's full of scenes where he complains and moans about how hard things were for him. And they were hard. His mom died and the paparazzi were all over him. But it makes him seem more human and flawed. And that makes people realize how privileged he is. He's no longer this sort of ghostly queen character.

He's like a real person who sees himself as a victim and is complaining. there's a scene in the book when he's at Eton College, the world's poshest high school, looking out the window, and he's telling us the reader how lucky everyone outside that window was compared to him. Well, Eton is a beautiful college and a beautiful place, but it's surrounded by low-income areas such as Slough and Staines. Those just sound like low-income areas. Those have been low-income areas for centuries, but given the name, right? Those are unbeautiful names. Slough was the chosen location of the British office, the original sitcom, The Office.

because it sounds so dull and boring. That's the whole point. It does. So that was slough. And Staines, that was Ali G. Sasha Baron Cohen, his first character was Ali G, and he was from Staines. So again, these were places chosen for that. They're right outside Eton. People are sometimes struggling, by the way, I don't want to say that everybody in those places is, you know, it's difficult for them. It's just that they're not the same as eaten. So people are sometimes struggling to put food on the table for their families and they're being told by the prince that they're lucky compared to him. That's like big let them eat cake vibes hearing something like that.

Are these places dangerous? Because Ali G, I remember that's when he had the dew rag and like the ridiculously loud clothes and he used all these improper phrasing and didn't know what words meant and was basically like super ghetto gangster talking and looking guy, but UK version. Yeah, I think they might have been some time ago. I don't know how it is right now. And also I wouldn't want to. Your reach on the Jordan Harbinger show is so large that just saying that, just saying that

could actually reduce house prices further there. So I don't want to- Well, I just wonder, is it like South Central LA where it's like, do not even drive through there? Or is it like, yeah, you don't want to buy a house there, but you could go eat in the neighborhood and leave, and it's fine? I think it's a second option there, but certainly people who Harry shouldn't be envying.

He was envying them because they don't have police escorts everywhere, and I do understand that point. They can live their life without that privacy invasion. But I wish in the book he just at times, because I agree with him about that, I just wish that at times he said, like, however, I do understand that I was born with immense privilege and that it must be very difficult for these people in another way. And he doesn't say that. There's another scene in the book that frustrated me in a similar way where he was out in South Africa

doing some press or something with his dad. And he hates the press because he thinks they killed his mom. And I get that as well. He happens to be with the Spice Girls because they were on the same sort of tour. I don't know why the Spice Girls and the Royals are touring together, but they just were in the 90s. And the Spice Girls, he sort of describes them, he sneers at them. And he's like, oh, look at them, the way they were just fawning over the cameras and blah, blah, blah. But the Spice Girls were mostly working class women who had to work extremely hard by flaunting it, by dancing, by singing, and they were talented at what they did. And Harry, meanwhile, is this guy, obviously he was a kid at the time when he was getting photographed with them.

But now as an adult, he's looking back and he's unable to realize the immense privilege he had compared to them. So that frustrated me a little bit. So with Megan, it's a similar backlash for what is perceived as an attempt to play the victimhood card. That's what South Park was suggesting about her as well. And I think that inspires in the public a sense of competition. It's like, look, you can't compete with the queen or the king for status, money and power. So you just see them as like some different league. But by making victimhood the key part of their strategy, Megan and Harry brought themselves down to our level. And we can all compete for victimhood. We love to compete for victimhood, right?

and we don't want to hear it from people with a combined wealth exceeding anything most of us can ever imagine earning. Speaking of casual racism, how about a word from our sponsors? We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. It is your support of our sponsors that keeps us going. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can search for any sponsor using the search box on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support the show.

Now, for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. That's a really good point. You're either, yes, I exist in a completely different plane and that's the way it is and yada yada royal family, or you play the victim card as they've chosen to do, but it's really hard to do that credibly when you're hanging out with Oprah. And you have your bodyguards flying you on private jets and stuff like that because of the paparazzi. It's like, you're not going to get in the weeds and win on that one when somebody's like,

yeah, I'm a single mom with four kids that I can't really feed without food stamps and they didn't arrive in the mail or like whatever. You're just never going to get there and do it an incredible way. And they're still being paid pretty damn good money too. I presume Harry's got some money already, as does Megan from her acting, maybe not millions and millions, but probably. And then it's got to have just skyrocketed with their recent deals, right? They've had a Netflix thing. They had a podcast thing. Do you have the details on that? Yeah, yeah. That's right. A big recent furor was around whether Harry could get the royals

to pay for his security whenever he was in the UK and his father, Charles, was like, we're not doing that. You left us and you've got to make your own way. They were paid $100 million in 2020 to produce series, documentaries and children's shows for Netflix.

They were also paid $20 million by Spotify to make podcasts and Harry got $20 million for its book, Spare, which I read so you don't have to, like saying. He made this whole thing about his privacy being invaded and then he wrote this book, impinging upon the privacy of pretty much everyone he ever encountered in great detail. At least when it's the press doing it, it's like, okay, Harry can shut the door,

and ideally they're not going to hack his phones, which he's saying they did and they might have done. But this is like detail about the person he first had sex with and what was going on. Like only he could know that. And like details about his dad doing like handstands. He did these weird headstands or handstands just in his underwear in the house and stuff like that. And he's supposed to be this elderly statesman. And now we're reading this in Harry's book. So the impinging upon privacy stuff was just mad. Come on, Andrew. How's a brother supposed to get by on a measly $140 million? And plus, whatever they'd save from their previous careers as A-list celebrities slash

royals, pay for your own damn bodyguards. Look, they're expensive, but $140 million, yeah, that can go a long way. I feel like you could get by on the interest on that, even if you needed millions of dollars worth of security. It's ludicrous. It's unfathomable. Yeah. Imagine that. Just a few millions, done. Okay, you don't have to worry about my life anymore. And he's got hundreds. It's ridiculous.

And as for duty, that's the other thing about, God, I'm starting to rant a bit here. And I don't mean to because I want to be a neutral, skeptical Sunday person. But duty, obviously, that being important to the Queen and the King and Prince William, they were supposed to make several films, Harry and Megan, for Netflix as part of the $100 million deal.

Yeah. And they made one. It's been three years. They've made one film. And it's not like they're the filmmakers who have to go and, like, get the cameras. and get the, how are we going to get the acoustic panels in the studio on the wall and stuff? It's just like sit on the sofa and talk for 20 minutes.

And somebody else would do all the work and make the documentary for you. Like show up is the thing you have to do. Show up vaguely knowing who you're about to talk to and try to make it interesting. That's it. Yeah. Just didn't do it, right? They were supposed to make many podcasts as well and podcast episodes. They made like one series in three years again, and it had about 10 episodes.

So again, you know, I look at what you've done, Jordan and what I've done. We're in the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these episodes where, at least from the start, we're doing every single part of it. And this is why I'm bitter. I started to get bitter because we're doing every part of it. And then I'm being told that they're victims. It's rumoured that Megan didn't even deign to interview the low status individuals on her podcast. That was done by producers. That's alleged anyway. The podcast head of innovation at Spotify has come out incredibly and publicly stated that Harry and Megan are effing grift. Can we swear? This is Bill Simmons from the ringer. So he's a well-known sports

personality. And he's like the head of development or something at Spotify podcasting. I'm not exactly sure his position. But yeah, he said they're fifters. Yeah. But he was, it wasn't like, oh, they're freaking grifters. He's like, there's a bunch of grifters. Like he was, he was fired up. Yeah. Because they don't. any work. And it's like either stick with the royal family and just do your thing, or if you want to be taken seriously, go out there and work really hard and people will respect it. She just got given the world's most famous people to be on her show. Any other podcasts, and I bet there are a lot of podcasters in your audience and a lot of people who are looking to make TV series and things

like that. How difficult that is when you're starting. The first episode is trying to get guests to come on and stuff like that. Look, I'm not saying that Harry and Megan are evil or bad people even, And I think they're actually right about a lot of the things that they're upset about. They have a cause to be upset. The point is that they've made it so that you can compare yourself with them. They brought themselves down to our level. And now it's like open season. We all feel like we didn't get these starts that they got and they call themselves victims.

Whereas Kate, Williams, Kate, for all I know, she eats babies. I don't know what she does. She might murder whoever. But she lives on a different planet from me. She's not telling me that she's had it harder than me. I don't even care. You know, I don't know about her aspirations, ambitions. I wouldn't say I have a lot of respect for her or William or any of these people.

And perhaps they don't have ambitions and aspirations. And that's probably a good thing. Yeah, there's no point. Why bother? Yeah, just you live your life, do your thing. You're a princess or you're a prince. You're a king, a queen. Do your thing.

Charles, William, you know, who are these people? Who cares? So I think that's why Megan and Harry get so much bad press. They made it so that they're competing with the rest of us. Yeah, I can't imagine starting a podcast. and they're like, oh, who do you want to interview? Barack Obama, Oprah. Maybe you could have like Jay-Z

to spice things up a little bit. I don't know. What about the rock? Yeah, I don't know. Just name whoever you want Elton John or something like that. And they'll drop everything and they'll make it work for your podcast. We're going to pay you $20 million. Maybe you do like 36 episodes and you do.

Ten. Yeah. And they're like, nah, we'll do 10, but we're going to like mail it in. And then I don't know if I want to write these TV shows. And by right, I mean, sit in a room while other people flip ideas at me and I approve them. And then do some voiceover or whatever. It's crazy. Who was your first guest?

Do you remember? Oh, gosh. Like 16 years ago? No, I don't remember. You don't remember your first ever guest? No. No, no, no. On this new show, it was Frank Abagnale from Catch Me If You Can.

Oh, wow. But I'd already been podcasting for 11 years by then. So it's not like I just called Frank Abingale, who turned out to be a scammer. by the way. Like, his whole story's a lie. It was a scammer pretending to be Frank Abagnall. No, no. So Frank Abagnale of Catchman, if you can, that movie, right, he's that big scammer, and he goes through that whole thing, and now he's like a consultant. Turns out none of that ever happened. He just lied about it. He was like a petty criminal

and it's all bullshit. That's amazing, though, isn't it? That's almost better. It should be the final scene when Leo climbs out of the airplane toilet and it's just like, by the way, none of this happened. There's a director's cut waiting to happen where at the end he's like, A, that whole thing you just saw never happened. Yeah, so the whole thing, he never worked the FBI. Like, it's all bullshit. It's just all bullshit. The whole thing about him being this prolific scammer is also just a scam.

He was in jail for check fraud during most of the time that he said all of these other things happened. Wow, that's amazing. And he won't talk about it. I'm not surprised. My first guest was Nate Phelps. It was the son of Gramps Phelps from the Westbro-Baptist Church. Oh, well, I mean, that's a decent one, too. It's no Oprah.

No, it's about finding. people, I suppose, who are not like super famous, but the things they've done are pretty like insane and everyone knows. The things they've done are famous, but they're not famous. And those people are who you can get at the very beginning. There you go. Okay. So all this controversy nonsense, has that been good for the monarchy? Because it looks bad if you're in the monarchy and you're old and you're like, we want everything to be completely stayed and tried and true. But also they thrive on the drama and publicity. So because people have been so put off by the showiness of Megan and Harry, have they sided maybe more with the royal family? And it's like, oh, I'm more sympathetic

towards these people who maybe I didn't like so much before. Could there be a resurgence in public goodwill towards the royals in life even beyond the queen? Basically, they're almost like a foil character now that puts the other one where you're like, God, I just missed when they were boring and not embarrassing the crap out of everybody. Yeah, yeah. I think that's definitely true. And I definitely have, whenever I've criticized Megan and Harry, I've definitely had people going, oh, right, and you think the royals are perfect. And it's like, no. Cool straw man. You know, it's become this real tribal thing. You've got to be one or the other instead of thinking the whole thing is just bananas, which I do think. So I think so. And I don't know if it's necessarily a good thing for the royals, the whole Megan.

And, you know, my enemy's enemy is my friend. That kind of thing. It's hard to know how that's going to play out in the long term. People see Charles perhaps as a victim of a deserting son that could help rather than the short-tempered mean man, which he appears to be. He's also, you know, he's meddlesome having gotten involved with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, writing secret letters to one another. It's a huge faux par for the royals and he doesn't come across, King Charles III this is, he doesn't come across well in the Netflix series

The Crown, where he is portrayed as this cold, conniving antagonist. So Megxit or the exit of Megan and Harry might have helped Charles and taken the attention away from that portrayal of him in the Crown. But whether the Crown can continue, I mean the real life Royals, not the TV,

series remains to be seen. I just have to slow clap for the term mexit. That is chef's kiss perfect. That's so funny. I've never heard that before. Yeah, it wasn't mine. I think it's been talked about a lot in the UK papers and stuff after Brexit. Man, that's hysterical. God, that's funny. We do that with words, don't we? Like, you know, Watergate or whatever, suddenly everything's a gate. Now everything in England is a Zit. Yeah, well, you remember when the iPhone, the new iPhones were bendable, if you put them in your back pocket and sat down, they would sometimes bend, and they called it Bend Gazi, and it was like, it's still just so tragic, but funny. The actual Benghazi was tragic. Like anyone gives a crap about the iPhone design. It's like, this is such a big deal. We have to name it. Yeah,

that's it. That's it. Look, some really value the tradition and heritage that the monarchy stands for, and for them, it's a key part of being British. Others see the monarchy as something old-fashioned, something that doesn't fit with today's democratic values. They'd rather the UK was a republic. What the public thinks can also change depending on how popular different members of the royal family are. Personally, I'm not one way or the other.

To me, they're just sort of their existing. It doesn't bother me, although it is mildly ridiculous. One thing I'll always remember is the comedian and public intellectual Stephen Fry, of whom I'm a great fan, speaking about the royals. He always has something interesting to say

at a different angle or outlook. Countries, that's how he talks, countries that have kings and queens, I won't do the whole impression, which are rationally stupid, weird ideas are empirically freer and more socially just than countries that don't. Look at social justice, happiness and equality in the world

and you're thinking Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Britain and Holland. I'm not saying, therefore, you must have a king or queen in order to be free. Having one doesn't stop you from being freer, from being opener. These are very open societies, Denmark and Sweden and Norway in particular. And so similarly, I'm not necessarily in favor of separation of church and state. I come from a country, the UK, where church and state are absolutely like that. And it's the most secular society I've ever experienced. It has the highest level of atheism anywhere.

In America, they have separation of church and state, and 74% of Americans think angels walk on the earth. Wow. Okay. I didn't know that. I wonder if that, is that stat true? 74%, because that's a lot, that's high. That's too high. what Stephen said. And it's a bit of a dig in America, but I suppose what Fry is saying is that the monarchy might be considered one of those mad, irrational things that actually helps in some ways. Have you given much thought as to why that might be? Yeah, well, firstly, we have to consider that it might be a coincidence that these free

or so-called free democratic secular societies all have royalty. Perhaps it says something about the age of the countries that have had centuries to work out what their ideals and philosophies are, maybe due to the... the tribal nature of humans, having a head of state who is essentially powerless, but nonetheless a symbol, one we can't choose but are just sort of stuck with, just sort of works. It can be said to take some symbolic power away from politicians. The head of state in, say, the US, is Biden or Trump or George W. Bush or Clinton. And these are all divisive figures, but also revered figures. I'm just thinking about how, like, Rhodes' street signs are named after presidents and

things like that. They can sometimes be celebrated and hated in equal measure just for being these elected figures, whereas I think we're more likely in the UK to have a royal family member, you know, King George Avenue or something like that. We would never have a prime minister's name in a street sign. It sort of takes away that symbolic power of the politicians. Again, pointing to our tribal nature, it's possible that if you have a president, so a head of state who appears to be particularly conservative, you might then, in response, become a bit more liberal and vice versa. But you don't need to respond to the queen because nobody knew what she supported anyway. She was this empty slate onto which we projected our own desires. This is just conjecture,

but with church and state, the reality is that religious beliefs have a very limited effect on laws in real life in the UK, where things like abortion are legal and not even questioned really, even by the religious right. But the head of state is King Charles III, and he is the head of the Church of England. So there's no getting away from that. It's weird. The Church of England even has 26 bishops in the House of Lords, so they do have a vote on certain policies. It gets complicated because the Church of England's role is limited to England, so there are different heads of churches in Scotland, for example. And they sort of invented the Church of England, right? Take us through that little bit of history with Henry VIII. He kind of literally made up a religion so he could get

divorced from the sound of it? That's right. In that sense, I suppose he was an old-fashioned Elron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who made up Scientology. Henry VIII did make up the Church of England to get out of his marriage to annul it with Catherine of Aragon, which sounds like a Lord of the Rings count. It definitely does. That's some Game of Thrones nomenclature there.

Catherine of Aragon, I'll take you back, Jordan, to the roaring 20s, the 1520s. Everybody smelled bad, had rotting teeth, which is also like Scientology. he found at Elwyn Hubbard, as he hated and feared dentists, his teeth rotted into his face. That's why he talks funny, huh? I knew he, because he talks a little bit like, lurch. And I was like, why did he do that with his teeth? Yuck. That's also like an old-worldy thing, because that's like Marlon Brando in the Godfather with the stuff in his, he put stuff in his face, didn't he, like a chipmunk, so he would talk like, Rish-Rush, Rish, Rish. Yeah, that's right. He did talk funny, but I don't know if, maybe.

But was it because his teeth were rotting into his face because he didn't go to the dentist? I don't know. I'm going to make you a proposition. Did you care? Yeah, something like that. But yeah, the 1520s, Henry the 8th, has been married at that time for 20 years, which is a long time, actually, to Catherine of Aragon, and she's just not giving him a male heir at all. She's just not done it. And also, he fancies Anne Boleyn. So Henry sought the Pope's permission to annul his marriage or null his marriage to Catherine, arguing that their marriage had been invalid from the start because Catherine had previously been married to his late older brother, Arthur. There we get all the inbred stuff as well.

However, the Pope refused to grant the annulment. In response, Henry decided to break with the Catholic Church. He pursued a series of acts known as the Acts of Supremacy, which were passed by Parliament in 1534, and declared Henry to be the supreme head on earth of the Church of England, and lovely, big Scientology kind of name as well. This effectively created a separate church of England and severed its ties to the Pope and the Catholic Church.

Henry was then able to get his marriage to Catherine annulled by the newly independent Church of England and he married Anne Boleyn. This move had far-reaching consequences and marked the beginning of the English Reformation. Wow, I mean, he must have had a hell of a crush on Annie B. Also, the Pope lost a ton, T-O-N-N-E of power by refusing to bend the rules for this one. I have to say, I think I almost admire that level of conviction from the Pope. and I'm a little surprised by it because he had to be like, huh, this entire country and royal family is going to leave if I don't let him slide on this one thing.

Nope, these are the rules. Yeah, good on him. He's thinking the same thing. I don't have to, I want to get a divorce. I'm not doing it, so why? I don't know if the Pope can get married. I doubt it. It seems like a priest thing.

Oh, yeah. It's worth noting, though, that while Henry's desire to divorce, Catherine, was a major catalyst for these events. I'm talking about the English Reformation that it sparked. There were other factors at play, including political considerations and wider dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church at that time. But this all led to the English Civil War,

and the only time that England didn't have a monarchy from 1649 to 1660. Anyway, they're back, maybe for good. And so for the moment, England, the monarchy and the religion are intrinsically linked, and you can't have one without the other two. So was that the only time ever that England was a republic? How did they get rid of the monarchy for a decade? I have my suspicions. It sounds like somebody got the axe, literally.

Yes. Well, I love this story, actually, because even British people, we grow up and we hear about, like, the American Civil War, and we don't even know there's a British one or an English one or whatever it is that most people don't realize. And it was a big part of our history. So it was the parliamentarians, which is a bit of a mouthful. They fought against the royalists. You can imagine what side they were on.

And the parliamentarians executed King Charles. Charles I, in 1649, at which point Lord Protector, that's the name he gave himself, Oliver Cromwell, took charge. Charles II, the son of Charles I, after Charles I was executed, famously hid in an oak tree to avoid capture by the parliamentarians and fled to France. And then the Spanish Netherlands, which sounds like a made-up country, and then the Dutch Republic. They all sound like, I don't know if you ever had that when you went to restaurants when you were a kid and you could like get the cup and put like Sprite and Coke and all the different drinks all together in one drink. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, because you control the fountain. That's the Spanish Netherlands in my mind. But yeah, that all happened. Is it a giant oak tree or was this like a little boy at the time? I don't think he was that young at the time. It's a big old oak tree. So that was in 1651. It was the Battle of Worcester, which I challenge any American to pronounce. Now, to spell, I should say, because it's spelled like War Sester. W-O-R-C-E-S-T-E-R. You know it, you know it.

Yeah, we have Worcestershire sauce. Ah, right. So. Exactly, okay, so you do know that. And it was a big thing with Leicester City, which is the soccer team who won the Premier League a few years ago, and it was a similar spelling. You mean Leicester? That is what it looks like. Exactly.

Exactly. So Charles II was 21 years old. So it was a big oak tree. Yeah, big oak tree. Although back then 1649. 21 years old, he could have been like four foot two and been quite a normal size for that era, I would imagine. Maybe trees were also shorter.

Who knows? Yeah. I don't know if that's how trees work, but definitely how people work for sure. All right. So those do sound like, by the way, the Spanish Netherlands definitely sounds like a made of. It sounds like me bullshitting a geography test in high school. Ah, yes, the Canadian, Mexico, Californians and their revolution back in Swedish, Denmark. I know it well.

Yeah, I love that. Well, look, it's funny because, you know, since it's so far back in history, this civil war and the parliamentary uprising is seen as, you know, just a time without a king, time as a republic. But it was really a military dictatorship of sorts, sparked by a military coup. When Oliver Cromwell, that was the Lord Protector, remember, when he died, his son Richard took over. And he didn't have much of a passion for the whole thing.

So Parliament reconvened and they decided, like, hey, we need a monarch to you. unite the country again and gain stability. And they invited Charles I second back to the throne. Interesting that they tried what sounds a little bit like democracy and they were like, oh, this is a mess. What we need is one guy just telling everybody what to do. That would be a lot easier. It seems like it's hard to put that toothpaste back in the tube, I guess. If I'm Charles the second, though, I would assume it's a trick. I'd be a little suspicious if I barely survived by hiding in an oak tree after they killed my dad. And it's like, no, really, come back. look, that whole thing with us killing your dad, that was just politics, mate. You know how it is.

All right. So in a sense, the whole of modern England today and Stephen Fry and you and all those people, you owe a great debt to an oak tree. So that's what it kind of, obviously that story seems apocryphal and never really happened. Who knows? Who knows what might have happened, though, if Charles II had been killed by the parliamentarians, maybe you'd still be a republic. And maybe that would have been a less objectionable government to the American colonies because it's, I don't know, sort of democracy-ish and, well, maybe we would have had the same color passport. Where did all the king stuff start? Anyway, who was the first king of England?

The title of first king of England is typically attributed, or attributed, I should say, to Alfred the great king of Wessex, who reigned from 871 or 871 to 899, so the late 9th century. Although Alfred never formally held the title of King of England, his definition. defence of his kingdom against the Viking invasion led him to become the dominant ruler of England, or ruler in England, I should say. He was a dominant ruler. Because at the time, it was lots of kingdoms. So it was actually Athelstan, Alfred's grandson. And that ah, at the beginning of Athelstan, is spelt with like a capital A, with an E joined onto it for some reason. That looks old English-y to me. Yeah. I want people who are listening to be able to hear the old Englishness of that.

You guys still use that in the word encyclopedia, don't you? We don't use it. We don't use it. We drop that. We do. It's that e-sound, and you're right, but it's not joint like that. Or maybe it is in capital letters, and that's why it looks so old-worldy to me. I've never seen them joint. It's just a hemoglobin or whatever, and, well, pedophilia in English.

It's that e-sounds that you guys do an e-for, like, pedophile. I'll stop saying that word now. Oh, you use that in the word, so it's like paedophile or like encyclopedia. It's like a way of it. of signifying that it's an E sound for us, I guess. It's weird. Huh. It's probably like from Germanic. I'm going with Greek.

I bet it comes with the two dots over it in other languages, right? It's probably the A with the two dots over it. Possibly, but the German A with two dots on it is an ear sound. Yeah. But it could be like another thing. Someone's listening right now who's a linguist going, you idiots, how do you not know? Yeah, tearing their freaking hair out.

And they're like, this guy says he speaks German. It's not, eh. It's e. Come on. Yeah. a bloody encyclopedia. If you're idiots, numskulls. Anyway, Athelstan,

Alfred's grandson, who is generally considered the first king to rule over a united England. His reign began in 924, and by 927, he had secured control over all the English kingdoms of his time, which often included regions

not part of modern England, like parts of southern Scotland. Scotland. This is why Athelstan is often refer to as the first king of England. He reigned until his death in 939. I love all this stuff. Under Athelston's rule, England began to take the shape of a unified, coherent nation with its own discrete identity as opposed to a loosely related collection of different regional kingdoms. Historians consider him really pretentious because all sorts of coins and things give him

title, like from the time, give him titles he didn't have like King of Britain, but, and there were a few other like mad ones. I thought, you know, savior of. of the universe. I made that one up. But before him and before his grandfather, it was just a sort of bunch of Vikings and Scots and Anglo-Saxons and other tribes messing about, really. And here we are more than a thousand years later with the royal family intact, save for a brief 11-year period as a republic. That's kind of amazing. And even without Elizabeth II, it doesn't show any signs of slowing down, at least nothing overt, or of people losing interest, certainly. They still take up lines and lines of gossip columns in a way that other monarchies really don't. I mean, I couldn't

tell you the last time I read anything about other kings. I guess Muhammad bin Salman in Saudi Arabia for different reasons. I'm not like curious what he wore to the Met Gala or on vacation. It's more like, oh, he murdered these people or is not delivering petroleum anymore. It's more like that stuff. So why do you think that is? How does the British monarchy compare to other royal families? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, the British, royal family is definitely one of the most well known, probably the most well known, but there are monarchies all over the world, each with their own level of power and influence. Some, like in Japan, are mostly symbolic, a link to their country's past. In other places like Monaco, or as you say,

Saudi Arabia, but Monaco's got quite a famous one as well, the monarchy there. These monikies are sort of in charge, and maybe the British monarchy is sort of right in between that, where they still have enough influence to be somehow sociopolitically relevant, but aren't scary enough to actually make a tangible difference. History plays a part too. Remember that the British Empire was the largest empire of all time, I believe, and one of the first things it indoctrinated its new subjects with were God save the king, God save the queen, all that royal stuff.

Combined that with the fact that the English language is so well spoken across the globe, partly because of you guys, And then there are the big sensationalist characters like Henry the 8th, the queen, as in the queen, which was Queen Elizabeth II for us, Queen Victoria, Charles and Diana, Harry and Megan. They're also one of the longest, almost continuous outside of that English Civil War time, monarchies in the world. And they know how to put on a good show with pomp and ceremony. And the occasional dramatic disaster, I suppose, and I'm not making light of that. actually, they've dealt with quite a bit of tragedy, and it is sad to see that happen in public when there are kids involved and things like that, especially with Diana. That was just awful,

and I assume part of Harry's rationale for wanting out. Well, there you have it. You may not agree with the concept of the royal family. You may not like them or their ridiculous hats, but they and the hats are here for some time still, and people seem to be happy enough with it. Thanks, Andrew, for explaining something so quintessentially British to the rest of us, And I hope y'all listeners have a deeper understanding of what the monarchy means to its subjects and the role of plays in today's society. All right. See you next time on Skeptical Sunday. Thank you all for listening topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday.

Send them right to me, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. A lot of these are fan suggestions. Keep them coming. We love it. Outsource that brainpower to you guys. Always does help a little bit. Show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com. Those include the transcripts as well.

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next time. And God Save the King. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with a black man that befriends members of the Klu Klux Klan. I don't support the KKK at all. I don't support that ideology. But I support people having the right to believe as they want to believe, as long as they don't cross the line and hurt people. And to show, to prove that I will stick up for somebody else's rights has also led to people just like that sticking up for mine. I know, I didn't convert anybody.

I am the impetus for over 200 to make up their own minds to convert themselves because I've given them reason to think about other things that make more sense than what they're currently doing. It bothers me a great deal that we call ourselves the greatest nation on the face of this earth. You know, we have to admit that there are some flaws here. I don't adhere to that statement that we are the greatest. Maybe I would bend and say that perhaps technologically we are the greatest. So how is it that we as Americans can talk to people as far away as the moon or anywhere on the face of this earth,

but yet there's so many of us who have different people. difficulty talking to the person who lives right next door. This is the 21st century. This racist nonsense does not be long in any century, let alone the 21st. We are living in space-age times, but there are still too many of us thinking with Stone Age minds. For more on how Daryl Davis convinced 200 KKK members to give up their robes, check out episode 540 on the Jordan Harbin. Show. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger Show,

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