English liberty means the right to protest against the monarchy
On his way home from church in September of 2022, when confronted with a local procession proclaiming the accession of King Charles III to the throne, he called out 'who elected him?'
For this he was handcuffed, taken away to the station and charged under the Public Order Act with 'threatening or abusive words or behaviour'.
Even though charges were eventually dropped, and Hill has now been paid £2,500 in compensation from Thames Valley police over his arrest, it was a scene befitting a dictatorship rather than a free country.
The monarchy is taken to be so emblematic of British and English identity that opposition to it is sometimes seen as an expression of anti-Britishness. But nothing could be further from the truth.
England doesn't have an official national anthem. While 'God Save the King' – the official anthem of the United Kingdom – is deployed at football internationals, 'Jerusalem' and 'Land of Hope and Glory' are played at other sporting events. These latter patriotic hymns make no mention of a king or queen.
What could be more anti-British than arresting and attempting to punish people for anti-monarchism? Republicanism may be a minority view, but it is just as British – and specifically English – as monarchism. It has a long and deep history on these isles.
You see it with John Milton, the author of Areopagitica, one of the greatest texts against censorship ever written. You also see it with the Levellers and their insistence on popular sovereignty, religious tolerance and extended suffrage.
And you see it with Thomas Paine, whose republican ideas were crucial in shaping the American Revolution, and whose constitutional architecture drew upon the revolutionary ideas of 17th century England.
This radical tradition is also found in the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake and (early) William Wordsworth. Shelley wrote: 'Man must assert his native rights, must say / we take from Monarchs' hand the granted sway.'
When Symon Hill shouted 'who elected him?' about King Charles III, he was echoing an old argument that no ruler can govern a people without the consent of the governed.
A lot of credit must go to English republicanism for helping to shape Britain into becoming a free society governed by the rule of law and not the absolute will of an individual on a throne.
Without its struggle against arbitrary power, England wouldn't have become the 'republican monarchy' that Voltaire eulogised over. For many of us, our affinity to England and Britain isn't and has never been dependent upon the pomp and ceremony of monarchy.
There is nothing at all alien about opposing the Royal family; Britons have been doing it for centuries. And the right to reject the monarchy – even if you strenuously disagree with republicanism – is an affirmation of British values rather than a rejection of it. What is England if not the land of liberty?
If the King is nothing more than a custodian of a free society, there ought to be nothing to fear from one man voicing his opinion against the status quo. To try to repress this would be, above all, a betrayal of the liberty generations before have struggled and perished to advance in this country.
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