“Whoso thinks it slavery to serve under an eminent prince is mistaken; liberty is never sweeter than under a pious king.” – Clauidan

“A Prince whose piety, and whose virtues, combined with a manly firmness and consistency of character, have been for years the grand bulwark, not only of this country, but of the whole civilized world.” – John Bowles on King George III

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America’s last king

Removed his golden crown,

A sign of earthly order,

Upon his coronation day

When Communion commenced

And the Lord’s Supper was received,

For, he said, his Savior had suffered

With thorns wrapped ‘round His head

And the universe ran purple

As the robe Herod bestowed

To humiliate, in his heathen hauntiness.

As such, Christian kingship

Should begin bare-headed,

Boasting in naught but Christ’s sacrifice,

Every soul’s only dependence.

America’s last king 

Knelt, as he would each day,

In supplication before his Master,

For by grace, he was sworn sovereign,

But by birth, a wretched sinner,

His own confession penned

Over praises towards his person

In the Book of Common Prayer.

He warned his preachers

Not to flatter him from the pulpit

In quest of royal reward,

For nothing was more favorable to him

Than hearing the Gospel proclaimed

Without ornamentation.

When a bishop bragged

About his scholarly apologia,

The wise monarch remarked,

“The faith needs no apology,”

And urged him, instead, to preach

With a plain tongue. 

America’s last King

Understood the order of nature,

Still imbued with traces of Eden,

As God’s good book,

Second only to Holy Writ,

And the soil was the realm’s worth

To be stewarded, on his sacred oath.

His name meant “farmer,”

While his patron was a martyr,

Full fitting, for rain and blood

Nourish the land alike.

So he spoke to his subjects 

About the sheep in the meadow

And the cows in the corn,

And gave out guineas to countryfolk

Too busy to appeal at the palace.

A barren woman begged the royal touch,

As the Confessor bequeathed it

From the age of Saxon saints,

And the King, to comfort her, conceded,

Laying hands on her head 

And letting her kiss his ring,

Ruby red as a wound.

America’s last king

Proved faithful to his family,

Playing on the floor with his children,

With eyes for none but his wife.

He sought to cleanse the court of iniquity,

Insisting the Lord’s Day be observed

And blasphemy be banished,

Lest his kingdoms be cursed,

For heaven and earth must be unified,

Or the rivets of reality are removed.

His own reality would be shaken

By sickness and strife,

The rending of his empire

And reduction of his faculties,

And yet the dual attributes

Of farmer and martyr remained

Ever rich in him.

America’s last king

Had honor enough to die for,

According to thousands of Britons

And Americans too, loyal to the end,

Cut down by led, strung up by rope,

Their final hour tragic yet glorious,

Joining forever siblings split by sea.

The King praised and mourned them,

For he was nothing if not loyal

To those who dared remain so to him.

He offered any favor to a Methodist

Who defended his name against slander 

With a rush of hot black ink,

But the man said he wished for naught

Save yet more grace to guard him,

And the King, pleased with his reply,

Was his protector from thence forth.

Dare I say, across the tide of time,

In the undertow of enlightenment,

When democratic despotism holds sway

And the common cry is “No Kings,”

We could do far worse,

Yes, immeasurably worse,

Than be blessed again

With such a king as he.