The death of Britain’s longest-serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, unleashed a torrent of Anglophile sentiment, and even sparked a revival of monarchist enthusiasm.

In 1782 George Washington famously rejected the role of American monarch, but the idea did not disappear. It persists today at the political margins, waxing and waning with popular discontent. In 1950, only 3% of Americans favored monarchy. By 2018, support for an American royal family had increased to 11%.

Elizabeth II has been eulogized as a stoic and dutiful defender of decorum and tradition, but critics remind us of Britain’s dark imperial legacy from which monarchy cannot be untangled. At its zenith Britain controlled the largest empire in history, holding sway over 23% of the world’s population.

Technically, the first English colony was Ireland, which endured Scottish and English immigration following the Norman invasion in 1169. In the 16th century, English Protestants moved aggressively to the “Ulster Plantation” that is Northern Ireland today, setting the stage for centuries of religiously inspired rebellion and suppression.

England’s early settlements in North America and the Caribbean mostly failed. But in the 17th century religious persecution, joint-stock companies, and the African slave trade catalyzed Britain’s emergence as a global colonial hegemon.

After the Reformation, religious conflict defined European politics and religious persecution was ubiquitous. Competition with Catholic Spain animated England’s quest for empire, and the Jesuits relentlessly schemed to reseat a Papist on the British throne.

The escape hatch for religious dissidents was colonization. Like the Puritans at Plymouth, Maryland was colonized by English Roman Catholics, Connecticut by Congregationalists, and Rhode Island was founded as a colony tolerant of all religions.

Joint-stock companies were a financial innovation pioneered by the Netherlands. This structure allowed the government to use outside capital to fund colonization in an early public / private partnership. Each company was granted a trade monopoly and delegated substantial political authority.

The Royal African Company (RAC) was chartered directly by the Duke of York (crowned King James II in 1685) to control trade and colonies along the west coast of Africa. Owned by the British Crown for the remainder of its existence, the RAC shipped more African slaves to the Americas than any other single institution in the history of the Atlantic slave trade.

African slave labor transformed the struggling sugar plantations in Barbados, St. Kitts, and Nevis into England’s most lucrative colonies. The resulting triangular trade of slaves, sugar, and commodities set the stage for the globe-spanning mercantile triumph of the British Empire.

British ships dominated global trade in human chattel for the 25 years preceding Parliament’s abolition of the practice in 1807. They carried roughly a third of all slaves ever shipped across the Atlantic – approximately 3.5 million individuals.

Apologists for Elizabeth II suggest that her reign from 1952 onward was primarily a period of decolonization and thus she should be viewed as a liberator.

This logic cannot fully disassociate the Queen from the history that created, sustained, and enriched the Crown. It also ignores brutal actions taken in her name to prevent decolonization. From 1952- 1963 British forces crushed the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, allegedly forcing between 160,000-320,000 Kenyans into concentration camps.

The enduring appeal of the House of Windsor – despite its central role in propagating Britain’s oppressive colonial empire – reveals how a mélange of propaganda, fantasy, and ignorance can overshadow factual and scholarly interpretations of the past.

A recent imbroglio at the American Historical Association (AHA) suggests that “presentism” is a more pernicious form of historical distortion.

Lynn Hunt, AHA President twenty years ago, defined presentism in two dimensions. First, as a tendency to interpret the past through the lens of contemporary values. Second, as a shift in historical attention toward modernity and away from the more distant past.

Hunt argued that “interpreting the past in terms of present concerns usually leads us to find ourselves morally superior: the Greeks had slavery, even David Hume was a racist, and European women endorsed imperial ventures. Our forebears constantly fail to measure up to our present-day standards.”

Professor Hunt extolled “the virtues of maintaining a fruitful tension between present concerns and respect for the past. Both are essential ingredients in good history.” Her warnings elicited no public controversy.

In August, current AHA president James Sweet revisited the issue of presentism. “This new history often ignores the values and mores of people in their own times, as well as change over time, neutralizing the expertise that separates historians from those in other disciplines.”

A specialist in the African diaspora, Professor Sweet cited The 1619 Project as an example, suggesting that it may be powerful journalism but is not historical scholarship. It fails to mention the many trafficked individuals initially enslaved by Blacks, and that all major European powers participated in the slave trade. It also ignores the significant number of Africans that were trafficked to Mexico, Jamaica, Bermuda, and Brazil, leaving the false impression that slavery was a uniquely American sin.

“If history is only those stories from the past that confirm current political positions,” Sweet concluded, “all manner of political hacks can claim historical expertise.”

Outside academia this might appear to be self-evident, but what a difference 20 years makes. Mr. Sweet’s peers vilified him – accusing him of racism, sexism, gratuitous maleness, and excessive whiteness – and he was forced through the groveling apology ritual required of all social justice apostates.

Presentism is the looting of history as an evidentiary grab bag. It encourages moral complacency even as it fuels the self- righteous indignation that drives cancel culture.

Queen Elizabeth II’s legacy cannot be divorced from the institution she controlled, or the actions taken by the state during her reign. But neither is she personally accountable for centuries of colonial history that offends contemporary values, or the fact that her predecessor King James II was the biggest slave trader in history.

Temporal relativism – appreciating the context of specific time periods – isn’t simply a variant of “whataboutism.” It is the foundation of disciplined historical scholarship. What a shame our society doesn’t have an appetite for it.