Visible Crown: Queen Elizabeth II and the Caribbean

The British Monarchy and the Cayman Islands

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 13:45:03 GMT

Queen Elizabeth II visits Cayman, February 1983. Photo credit: Cayman Islands Government

The Queen in the Cayman Islands

After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, historians have been reflecting on her legacy in countries across the Commonwealth. In British Overseas Territories like the Cayman Islands, where she remained Queen for the entirety of her reign, her death was more visibly commemorated than in many independent, formerly colonised nations where her legacy appeared more complicated and controversial.

In the Cayman Islands, the government established a special section of their website dedicated to the Queen. The website brings together events, memorials, photographs, videos and memories of her visits. In his official message , the Premier, Wayne Panton, emphasised that 'our loyalty to the British Crown was strongest and most heartfelt under her reign'.

Here's footage of the Queen's 1994 visit to the Cayman Islands:

In an article for Small States & Territories , Grace Carrington explores the symbolic role of the monarchy in local politics in the Cayman Islands. She examines the ways the Queen was used to bolster a sense of loyalty to Britain, to maintain the colonial status quo and to legitimise the power of local elites. The article highlights how, in Cayman, the British monarchy functioned to symbolically reinforce the colonial order rooted in White supremacy during the mid-twentieth century. This helped to maintain the political dominance of powerful merchant families and to stifle attempts at alternative leadership. Thus, the Queen was a symbol of continuity in the Cayman Islands, in more ways than one, facilitating ongoing colonial and racial inequalities.

Read the full article on 'The Queen in the Cayman Islands' here .

The Cayman Islands and the new King

In light of the Queen's death, it will be interesting to see how Cayman's relationship with the monarchy develops during the reign of King Charles. Charles has visited the islands several times, first touring Cayman in 1973. Most recently, he spent two days in the islands in March 2019 , visiting Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, as well as Grand Cayman.

In keeping with the Cayman government's approach under Queen Elizabeth, it appears that similar emphasis has been placed on royal occasions and official celebrations for the King. Several major events and public holidays have been held in Cayman to mark the early moments of King Charles' reign. On 11 September 2022, following the first public proclamation at St James's Palace in London, Caymanians were invited to swear allegiance to the new monarch at a ceremony in Grand Cayman . Eight months later, on 6 May 2023, Caymanians celebrated the King's coronation .

For King Charles’ first official birthday on 19 June 2023, the Cayman Islands held two major events. Firstly, youth organisations and uniformed groups paraded at Government House in a ceremony described by the government as ‘filled with the customary pomp and circumstance’. The Governor, Jane Owen, as the King's representative in Cayman, received the ' First Royal Salute ' and also presented honours to nine Caymanians. Later that afternoon, the Governor hosted a Garden Party at the Governor's Residence, which was open to the public. Unlike the UK, 19th June 2023 was celebrated as a public holiday in the Cayman Islands.

As with Queen Elizabeth II, Cayman's relationship with the new King will form a crucial element in its ongoing ties to the UK.

About the author

Dr Grace Carrington

Research Fellow at both the UCL Institute of the Americas and the Department of International Politics at City, University of London. Grace’s research interests centre on Caribbean politics in the era of twentieth century decolonisation. She has published on grassroots politics and independence movements in the non-sovereign Caribbean, including Guadeloupe and the British Virgin Islands.

The Queen’s Diplomacy: Why the Commonwealth May Be Elizabeth II’s Greatest—and Most Fragile—Legacy

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 17:34:37 GMT

Photo credit: Simon Berry

"There are few points of comparison for a head of state who remains in office for seven decades. In June 2022, Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8, surpassed even Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej to become the longest-reigning monarch in the industrial era. Only Louis XIV of France, who ruled for 72 years in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, spent more time on the throne," writes Philip Murphy for Foreign Affairs.

Read the full article here .

About the author

Philip Murphy

Professor of British and Commonwealth History at the University of London and Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Philip’s many publications include a study of the relationship between the British royal family and the Commonwealth, Monarchy and the End of Empire (2013) and, most recently, The Empire’s New Clothes: The Myth of the Commonwealth (2018). He is also joint editor of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. Alongside British Imperial History, Philip has a long-standing interest in intelligence history, and in international intelligence links.

Commonwealth Caribbean Wants More than Symbolic Change from British Monarchy

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 17:26:39 GMT

Photo credit: Reuters

"Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Charles has become King, not only in the UK, but also in fourteen other countries around the world. Over half of these states are in the Caribbean and reactions to the announcement of a new King have been decidedly mixed. As people in these Caribbean ‘realms’ are faced with a new, less popular monarch, one which they have not chosen, will this accelerate a growing movement for republicanism in the region?” writes Grace Carrington for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Read the full article here .

About the author

Dr Grace Carrington

As a historian of monarchy, I thought I was immune to its magic. Not today

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 17:19:40 GMT

Photo credit: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

"There are dates that generations of British schoolchildren remember: 1066 – the battle of Hastings; 1215 – the sealing of Magna Carta; 1588 – the defeat of the Spanish Armada; and the outbreak of the world wars in 1914 and 1939. Now, we add 2022 to that list: the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history,” writes Anna Whitelock for the Guardian.

Read the full article here .

About the author

Professor Anna Whitelock

P rofessor of the History of Monarchy at City, University of London and Director of the Centre for the Study of Modern Monarchy. Anna is a historian of monarchy and has published widely on early modern monarchy, queenship and the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I. She has an established media profile as a commentator on modern monarchy and regularly appears on ITV News, BBC and Channel 4 as well in the US, Australia and Canada. She is a Trustee of the Heritage Alliance and of the Institute of Historical Research.

Routes to Republicanism in the Caribbean

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 09:41:34 GMT

Reparations activists protest the royal tour in Jamaica, March 2022. Photo by Advocates Network Jamaica @Advocatesnetja

Barbados’ transition to a republic in 2021 raised the question as to whether any of the eight remaining constitutional monarchies in the Anglophone Caribbean would follow suit. Moreover, the highly criticised royal tour by William and Kate in March 2022 prompted calls to remove the Queen in all three of the countries they visited: Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas. Likewise, Edward and Sophie’s April 2022 Jubilee Tour has encountered calls for reparations and republicanism in Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Lucia. Media coverage of these events has been full of inaccuracies and misconceptions regarding how different Caribbean countries could become republics. This article seeks to clarify the routes to republicanism for countries and territories in the Anglophone Caribbean.

Firstly, let us consider the states which have already become republics. Dominica is the only nation in the English-speaking Caribbean to have become a republic at the moment of independence in 1978. Meanwhile, Guyana became independent in 1966 and transitioned to a republic in 1970, following a resolution in the National Assembly. Trinidad and Tobago gained independence in 1962 and chose to become a republic in 1976. It is notable that in the three cases, including Barbados, where countries removed the Queen as head of state in the years after independence, this was accomplished through a parliamentary bill.

For the remaining constitutional monarchies, only Belize has the ability to abolish the monarchy through the National Assembly. The other seven states need a referendum to make this kind of change to their constitutions.

Furthermore, the requirements for these constitutional referenda differ across the Caribbean countries. In the Bahamas, Jamaica, and St Lucia a simple majority vote is required in a referendum in order to become a republic. However, for St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, and Grenada, a two-thirds majority vote is needed, making the transition to republic far more difficult to achieve.

Finally, there are the British Overseas Territories, which retain the Queen as head of state through their more formal ties to the United Kingdom. The Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, Montserrat, Anguilla, and Bermuda currently have internal self-government and would need to become independent states in order to remove the British monarchy.

Until now, only St Vincent and the Grenadines have attempted to become a republic via a referendum. In the 2009 referendum, only 45% of voters chose to replace the Queen with a ceremonial president, falling far short of the two-thirds requirement.

In 2022, political leaders in several Caribbean countries, including Belize and Jamaica, have indicated a wish to remove the Queen as head of state. Perhaps the more pressing question, as raised by constitutional experts like Professor Cynthia Barrow-Giles , is whether any constitutional amendments would seek to tackle the ‘institutional and cultural malaise in the constitutional and political fabric’ of many Caribbean countries. On independence, former British colonies in the region inherited the so-called Westminster system of government, which maintained rather than disrupted the social, gender, class and racial hierarchies in Caribbean politics and society that had been embedded during the colonial era. Furthermore, reparations advocates across the region have highlighted the need for reparatory justice in light of Britain, and particularly the monarchy’s, involvement in slavery in the Caribbean. Clearly then, to be more than just symbolic, transitioning to a republic would also need to encompass more lasting changes to democracy and inequality both within Caribbean states and in terms of their relationship to Britain.

About the author

Dr Grace Carrington

The State of Belize in the World: Monarchy, Justice, and a Future Republic?

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 10:25:17 GMT

29 April 2022, 10:00 am

Event Information

This event is free and open to all.

Delivered By:

Dr. Dylan Vernon
Ms. Dominique Noralez
Mr. Dino Gutierrez

Meeting ID: 859 9346 1321
Passcode: 147025New Paragraph

Monarchy vs Republicanism: Barbadians Had Their Say

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 14:43:44 GMT

19 December 2021, 3:00 pm AST

You are invited to the discussion of poll findings on attitudes to monarchy and republicanism in Barbados.

Event Information

This event is free and open to all.

Moderator: Dr Cleve Scott, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus

Representative: Dr Kate Quinn, UCL Institute of the Americas

Discussant: Professor Cynthia Barrow-Giles, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus

Discussant: Professor Dwayne Devonish, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus

Webinar ID: 872 2928 0351

Access the Barbadian public opinion survey analysis presentation here .

Forging a Nation: Confronting New Realities

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 12:04:54 GMT

8 December 2021, 7:00 pm AST

You are invited to the 16th Patrick A.M. Emmanuel Memorial Lecture titled: Forging a Nation: Confronting New Realities.

Event Information

This event is free and open to all.

Organiser: Faculty of Social Sciences , The University of the West Indies

Presenter: The Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, QC, MP, Prime Minister of Barbados cl-ia@ucl.ac.uk

Live on www.uwitv.org and www.facebook.com/uwitv

The Queen in Barbados

Mon, 29 Nov 2021 11:44:22 GMT

The Queen is welcomed by Prime Minister of Barbados, the Honourable Errol W. Barrow on her arrival at Seawell Airport, Barbados, February 1966.

The Queen first visited Barbados in February 1966. She and the Duke of Edinburgh spent two days there. The Queen visited the Queen Elizabeth hospital, and she opened the Farley National Park and the East Coast Road; plaques mark the spots. She visited the University of West Indies and a school. Two-hundred children greeted her with a song: ‘From big to little England/Our gracious Queen you come’. Government officials offered loyal addresses. A red carpet was laid in Bridgetown and the crowds, The Times reported, strained at the police lines. Among the many fluttering Union Jacks, one large red flag with a hammer and a sickle ‘struck a slightly discordant note’ ( Telegraph , 15 February 1966). Discordant notes and dissenting voices have always been heard when royals are on progress, as far back as Elizabeth I. Unrest is anticipated, and official reports of tours often express, with great and exaggerated relief, the unanimous and spontaneous joy of cheering crowds.

This royal visit to Barbados formed part of a 5-week tour of the Caribbean and was, apart from Jamaica which the Queen had visited as part of her 1953-4 coronation tour, the first time that Elizabeth II, as Queen, had visited the region. The idea for a Caribbean tour began when Trinidad and Tobago, following independence in August 1962, issued a formal invitation to the Queen. It would not, it was suggested at Royal Visit Committee meetings during 1965, be politic to visit Trinidad and Tobago without also visiting Jamaica, which had also become independent in 1962. Once an invitation from Jamaica had been suggested, and secured (since the Governor General, and not the Palace, had to be seen to initiate royal visits) it was then decided that a tour to as many other Caribbean countries as possible should become a priority for spring 1966. Visits to what the Palace and Whitehall called ‘the monarchies’, it was argued, ‘are of a quite special character’. They ‘play a major part in the maintenance of the Commonwealth association’ (TNA, DO161/220). Visibility was understood to be powerful. ‘I have to be seen to be believed’, Elizabeth II once, apparently, said.

The Caribbean tour began in British Guiana and from there the royal party, sailing in Britannia, would largely follow the line of the islands: Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Montserrat, Antigua, Saint Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, a detour north to the Bahamas, and ending in Jamaica. To mark this first Caribbean visit, the Colonial Office produced a commemorative short film which, in particular, emphasized modernity in Barbados – the port, the hospital, the new road: ‘ The Royal Tour of the Caribbean ’.

Not everyone everywhere was behind such visits; many complained about the cost, or the politics of visible monarchy. Just before the 1966 Caribbean tour, a clipping from the tabloid Sunday Citizen headlined ‘Are these Royal Trips Necessary?’ was circulated among the members of the Royal Visits Committee. It was also around this time that the High Commissioner to Canada advised the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Commonwealth Relations Office, Joe Garner, that visits to Canada be kept to a minimum since the ‘position of the Crown’ in Canada was precarious, and ‘any visit likely to cause controversial issues to flare up’ (TNO, DO161/219, 16 December 1965).

The Royal Visits Committee were aware that British Guiana would become independent at some point during 1966. The possibility that Barbados would also seek independence was raised at one of their meetings late in November 1966, but when this might take place was then unknown (TNA, DO161/219). When Barbados did become independent, on 30 November 1966, the Duke and Duchess of Kent were there. It was the Duke of Kent who handed Barbados’s constitutional instruments of independence to Prime Minister Errol Barrow.

Since 1966, the Queen has visited Barbados on four further occasions: in 1975, 1977 (Silver Jubilee year), 1985 and 1989. This last visit coincided with the 350th anniversary of the Barbados Parliament. In a speech, the Queen referred to a ‘small band of expatriate Englishmen’ who established the House of Assembly in 1639, ‘according to the principles of individual liberty’ ( The Times , 10 March 1989).

On 30 November 2021, it will be Prince Charles, at the invitation of Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who will officially represent the Queen when Barbados, at the stroke of midnight, becomes a republic. Visible bodies, signs and symbols matter. On Sunday 28 November, at the National Service of Thanksgiving in Bridgetown, Barbados’s new military colours were consecrated and shown to the public for the first time. They replace the old military colours which bore the insignia of Elizabeth II. Last week, Barbados Today reported that a peaceful demonstration was planned for 29 November, to protest against Prince Charles’s presence at the transition ceremony. ‘You are either breaking with the monarchy or you are not breaking with the monarchy. And if you are breaking with the monarchy, then you cannot invite them to be part of that process’, General Secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration David Denny said.

Photo credit: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021

About the author

Alice Hunt

Associate Professor at the University of Southampton. Alice is a historian of monarchy and royal ceremonies. She has published on Tudor and Stuart monarchy, the English republic, and on the modern royal family.

Barbados’s transition to Republic status in regional perspective

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 12:46:48 GMT

10 November 2021, 5:30 pm–7:00 pm

In November 2021, fifty-five years after independence, Barbados will transition from a constitutional monarchy to a Republic. Barbados is the fourth Commonwealth Caribbean nation to remove the Queen as constitutional head of state, joining fellow republics Guyana (1970), Trinidad and Tobago (1976), and Dominica (1978). While the decision to become a republic has been broadly supported, the process of enacting this change is not without controversy. What are the implications – constitutional, symbolic, and material - for Barbados, and for the wider region? Why has Barbados succeeded in this endeavour where other Caribbean states have failed? To what extent is there political will or popular support to effect such a change elsewhere? Has ‘time come’ for the British monarchy in the Caribbean?

Event Information

This event is free and open to all.

Organiser: UCL Institute of the Americas ucl-ia@ucl.ac.uk

The Institute of the Americas Caribbean Seminar Series is delighted to bring you this expert panel discussion in collaboration with the AHRC-funded collaborative research project, The Visible Crown: Elizabeth II in the Caribbean, 1952 to the present.

Panel:

Professor Cynthia Barrow-Giles is a professor of Political Science and former Deputy Dean of Outreach at the University of the West Indies (Cave Hill). She has authored numerous publications on governance in the Caribbean; has participated in a number of Election Monitoring and Expert Groups in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean; and served on the St. Lucia Constitution Reform Commission from 2005-2011. She has recently been appointed by Prime Minister Mia Mottley to serve as Adviser to Barbados’s Republican Status Transition Advisory Committee (RSTAC).

H.E. David Comissiong has served as Ambassador of Barbados to CARICOM since 2018. He is the founder of the Clement Payne Movement, which successfully campaigned for the official recognition of the working-class heroes of Barbadian history. He has also served as served as Director of the Commission For Pan-African Affairs and is a founder member of the Global Afrikan Congress. His publications include It's the Healing of the Nation: The Case For Reparations In An Era of Recession and Re-colonisation (2013) and Marching down the wide streets of tomorrow: emancipation essays and speeches (2008).

Dr Derek O’Brien is a Reader in Public Law at Oxford Brookes University. He has previously taught at the Truman Bodden Law School in the Cayman Islands. His research focuses on the interrelationship between politics, history and constitutional law in the Commonwealth Caribbean. He is the author of Constitutional Systems of the Commonwealth Caribbean (2014) and a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Constitutions (2020).

Professor Emerita Carolyn Cooper taught literature and popular culture at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica for over three decades. She is the author of two influential books on Jamaican popular culture: Noises In the Blood (1993) and Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large (2004) and the editor of Global Reggae (2012). Cooper writes a weekly column for the Jamaica Gleaner.

Constitutional Reform and the Republic: Understanding the Transition Process and Rights

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 12:46:45 GMT

18 November 2021, 5:00 pm AST

On 30th November 2021, Barbados will patriate its constitution and become a republic. While the act itself will take place this year, further post republican transition changes to the Barbados constitution are anticipated, and to that end, throughout 2022 into 2023, a series of consultations will be held with the Barbadian public. As a premiere educational institution, there is a space for the UWI to guide much of that discussion and education of the public.

The Faculties of Social Sciences and Law at UWI are jointly hosting monthly town hall meetings to discuss various socio-economic, cultural, political, legal and constitutional issues relevant to constitutional reform of this magnitude.

Event Information

This event is free and open to all.

Organiser: The University of the West Indies

The University of the West Indies is delighted to welcome you to the town hall meeting and look forward to the engagement and your contribution to the discussion.

Webinar ID: 930 8689 9667

Participant ID: 123783

Barbados' Long-drawn-out Promise of a Republic

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 11:30:35 GMT

"Barbados is expected to become a parliamentary republic in November 2021 and, immediately afterwards, embark on the process of drafting a new constitution. Despite the pitfalls of the government’s approach – especially its announcement of the transition and subsequent constitutional overhaul without public consultation – this process, if successful, may provide the impetus for renewed calls for the termination of the remaining constitutional monarchies in the English-Speaking Caribbean." writes Cynthia Barrow-Giles for Constution.net.

Read the full article here .

Photo by Kathryn Maingot on Unsplash

About the author

Cynthia Barrow-Giles

Professor in Political Science, Department of Government, Sociology and Social Work at the Cave Hill campus. Cynthia’s publications include: Introduction to Caribbean Politics: Texts and Readings (2002); and Living at the Borderlines: Issues in Caribbean Sovereignty and Development (2003). Cynthia has participated in a number of Election Monitoring and Expert Groups in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. She served as a member of the St. Lucia Constitution Reform Commission from 2005-2011.

UK Legislation and the Transition to a Republic by Barbados

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 14:18:02 GMT

Plans by Barbados to become a republic have attracted some remarkably ill-informed international coverage. ‘Barbados to Quit British Commonwealth’ claimed the South Atlantic MercoPress agency. Meanwhile, an opinion piece in a UK newspaper described the move as ‘ another example of “Global Britain” losing its grip’ . The first suggestion is palpably wrong – not only does Barbados have no plans to leave the Commonwealth, it will not even have to reapply for membership. The second is at least arguable although, ostensibly, the move has very little to do with the UK.

The decision to become a republic and the legislation necessary to enact the change are entirely matters for Barbados itself. The government of Mia Mottley has adopted a two-stage approach to the issue , with a swift move to a republic on 30 November, followed by a consultation process leading to a new constitution. This way, it avoids the risk of disagreements about the broader shape of the constitution delaying the achievement of republican status. The first stage was secured on 30 September with the passage through the Barbados Parliament of the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2021 , which essentially transferred the functions and powers of the Barbados Governor General (the Queen’s representative on the island, nominated by the prime minister of Barbados) to the new President of the republic.

Yes – the British government will have to pass consequential legislation of its own as it has done on previous occasions when Commonwealth Realms have become republics. But crucially, this is necessary in order to avoid any confusion in its own domestic law rather than to give effect to a republic in Barbados. The last time it passed a similar bill was the Mauritius Republic Act 1992 . The key clause of its extremely short text stipulates that any relevant UK act or instrument would ‘have the same operation in relation to Mauritius, and persons and things belonging to or connected with Mauritius, as it would have had… if Mauritius had not become a republic.’ Moving its second reading , the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Mark Lennox-Boyd, noted that it sought ‘essentially to ensure that the operation of our existing law in relation to Mauritius is not affected by the change of status’. He was at pains to stress that, ‘The decision to become a republic was, of course, for the Government of Mauritius to take and did not in any way require the concurrence of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom.’

This point had been noted repeatedly within Whitehall in the past. A briefing paper prepared by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Commonwealth Coordination Department in February 1969, at a time when Guyana was preparing to transition to a republic, noted, ‘It should be borne in mind that the question of whether a monarchical country becomes a republic lies entirely within its own competence and is one in which Britain has no particular standing’ [Coombe to Sankey, 27 February, 1969, FCO 63/114].

The fact that UK consequential legislation in no sense enacted the transition from a Realm to a Republic meant that the British government was relatively relaxed about its timing. In 1976, when Trinidad and Tobago was about to become a republic, the FCO told the UK high commission there, ‘While it is desirable that this [UK] Legislation should coincide with the entry into force of the new Constitution, this is, in fact, not essential and similar bills relating to Guyana and Malta both had retro-active effect’ [Preston to Diggines, 8 March 1976, FCO 63/1431].

A couple of factors mean that legislating on this issue in the UK will be even simpler in the case of Barbados than it had been in the past. The first relates to a change of rules within the intergovernmental Commonwealth. Before 2007, a Realm transitioning to a Republic had to reapply for Commonwealth membership. While this was largely a formality, it was necessary for the outcome to be known before the UK could draft its own legislation, as it would have practical implications, particularly on the question of whether the country’s citizens resident in the UK had the right to vote. The communiqué of the 2007 Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Kampala signalled that the organisation no longer required a member dropping the Queen as head of state to reapply. Barbados will be the first Realm to transition to republican status since this change was announced.

Secondly, in the UK Acts for Trinidad and Tobago in 1976 and Mauritius in 1992, the only specific area dealt with in any detail related to the desire by both countries to retain appeals to the UK Privy Council after republican status had been achieved. Hence, for example, in the case of the former, the UK Act stipulated that, ‘Her Majesty may by Order in Council confer on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council such jurisdiction and powers as may be appropriate in cases in which provision is made by the law of Trinidad and Tobago for appeals to the Committee from courts of Trinidad and Tobago’. Barbados, however, abolished appeals to the Privy Council in 2005, so presumably no such clause will be necessary in relation to its transition to republican status.

Previous transitions have involved the British government in some more minor tidying up regarding matters of protocol, and the same is likely to be true in the case of Barbados. One such issue relates to the formal credentials of its high commissioner (the term given to ambassadorial representatives between Commonwealth states). In 1976, the FCO noted that the British high commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago had been appointed without formal agreement or credentials, as the posting was from one Realm to another. It pointed out that although the transition to a Republic would not invalidate that appointment, the British high commissioner would need formal credentials (a ‘Letter of Commission’) from the Queen to the new President of Trinidad and Tobago. Likewise, the high commissioner for Trinidad and Tobago in London would need to present the Queen with credentials signed by their President. The transitions from Realm to republic in Sri Lanka in 1972 and Malta in 1974 again suggest that UK was relaxed about the timing of all this. The FCO told the British high commission in Trinidad and Tobago ‘our High Commissioner in Colombo presented credentials a couple of months after the Republic (his counterpart in London ten months after) and our High Commissioner in Valletta presented his four months after (and his counterpart in London seven months after)’ [Martin to Diggines 26 March 1976, FCO 63/1431]. Nevertheless, similar formalities will have to be observed when Barbados becomes a republic. Indeed, changes will have to be made in the protocols governing relations between Barbados and other Commonwealth Realms. In Canada, for example, the process for formally receiving newly-appointed high commissioners from other Realms differs from that applied to those from Commonwealth republics.

Finally, there is a broader point which emerges from the UK files on earlier transitions to republican status. While official doctrine holds that the Queen is quite separately and equally sovereign of the United Kingdom and of her other Realms, that did not stop British officials worrying that she might in some way be embarrassed (and hence UK national prestige somehow undermined) by developments elsewhere in the Commonwealth. They were not, on the whole, especially concerned by the rise of republicanism per se. From the 1960s onwards, London increasingly saw this as a natural and inevitable process, one that might actually improve the UK’s relations with the Commonwealth Caribbean by removing any suspicion that Britain was using the monarchy to maintain neo-colonial influence. They did, however, worry about the mechanics of severing links with the Crown, and they were particularly anxious that formal conventions should be rigorously observed. These began with the government concerned informing the Queen, via the Governor General, of their intention to become a republic. Thereafter, London was keen to know as much as possible about the timing of subsequent moves by the country concerned so that it could coordinate its own response. Its ability to obtain information about these matters was supposedly limited by a firm expectation that correspondence between the Governor General and the Queen was the Palace’s own private channel of communication with the Realm concerned, and that the British government should not have access to it. Yet from the files on earlier moves towards republican status – and from material located elsewhere in the UK National Archives – it is evident that the Palace was quite willing to share this correspondence with the FCO on a confidential basis. In early March 1976, a senior official at the FCO, R W H du Boulay, wrote to the Queen’s deputy private secretary, Philip Moore, mentioning that Moore had passed him a letter from the Governor General of Trinidad and Tobago outlining progress towards republican status. Du Boulay added,

You mentioned to Stanley yesterday the sensitivity of the letter from the Governor General and we shall ensure that it is destroyed after it has been read by those directly concerned here [Du Boulay to Moore, 2 March 1976, FCO 63/1431].

Despite the obvious constitutional impropriety of this move, only a few days later Moore briefed du Boulay about another letter from the Governor General outlining further steps to be taken in the move towards a republic [Memo by du Boulay, 10 March 1976, FCO 63/1431].

Notwithstanding official doctrine about the equality of the Realms, a combination of history, culture and simple geographical proximity has meant that the Palace and the British government have always enjoyed a very ‘special relationship’. At times this has entailed the sharing of confidential information on other Commonwealth monarchies. This situation is somewhat obscured by continuing official secrecy, which has delayed the release of historical materials charting the relationship between the Governors Generals of the Realms, the Palace and the British government. But it deserves to feature in debates about the relative advantages of Caribbean countries retaining the Crown or becoming republics.

Photo credit: regani .