Hereditary monarchy and aristrocracy [sic] cannot really be rationally defended in an age whose assumptions are secular and egalitarian. That is one of their strengths. Because they cannot really be defended, the hereditary aspect of government manages to be, simultaneously, both wonderful and risible; it inspires devotion, but cannot, by its very nature, inspire fanaticism. Monarchy partly immunises the body politic against ideological disease.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 164)