Since we speak of High Romance in the knighthood of the Duke, we might notice what our Juliet saw as the ‘mannerly devotion’ of her Romeo in our PM. As well as being a devout monarchist, Mr Abbott is a devout Catholic. This is a source of conflict and pain to our PM, because he can never have a Catholic as his monarch.

In 1701, the English had had enough of Catholic monarchs. They signed up a German line for their crown under strict terms. Under the Act of Settlement, ‘whosoever shall come into possession of this crown shall join in communion with the Church of England as by law established.’ That law is part of the English Constitution. While we have the English crown as our head of state, that law binds us, and it is beyond our power to change it. Catholic disqualification is a cross our PM has to bear while he retains his dual devotion.

Australia cannot have as head of state a Christian from any precluded sect, and we certainly we cannot have an atheist – just look at the previous incumbent, who lived in sin, to boot. The next thing you know, someone might suggest that we put a Muslem or a Jew up there.

Now, this lack of religious tolerance is offensive. It flatly contradicts our own Constitution and way of life. But that, we are told, is a small price to pay to keep the connection to the English crown. After all, no one takes any of these old laws seriously. You might as well bring back the round table, or knights and dames – or confer a colonial knighthood on an English duke.

Some Australians feel demeaned by this nonsense with the Duke. I am one of them. But I feel no more demeaned by this nonsense than I do every day of my life when I am told that the people of this nation are incapable of governing themselves without maintaining our mannerly devotion to the English crown.

The above is the text of the last of along line of letters that were not good enough for our press.  I should have kept a file.  I found another reject from November 2012 which is set out below.  It deals with one of the many disgraceful ways in which this nation dealt with the immediate past PM.  Whatever her faults were, there were no doubts about her sanity.  One of the curious issues in the present debacle is that I would have thought that the Palace in London would have understood that it does nothing in or for Australia of a remotely political nature until it is assured that the proposal has the full backing of Her Majesty’s Australian advisers.  It is common ground that that was not the case here.  This failing puts a dint in the proposition that having a monarch in England is a harmless window dressing since they only ever do what we tell them to do.

The text of the former letter follows.

People have not before been so revolted by their politicians as they are now. Some politicians now make people feel physically ill.

The inane pogrom by The Australian against the Prime Minister must make decent journalists ashamed to see their professional colleagues living off the earnings of Mr Rupert Murdoch.

Sir Maurice Bowra said that a people get the gods they deserve. So it is with politicians and journalists. The editor of The Australian does not apologise for threatening to sue one of his journalists – as it happens, a woman –for libel for contradicting him. His newspaper now shows for our country the evil that can be done to political life by a corrupted news outlet like Fox News or the Volkischer Beobachter.

In the upshot, The Australian has made a remarkable contribution to modern science. They have shown that the Prime Minister has balls but that the Leader of the Opposition does not.

Journalists at The Australian should be ashamed of themselves. They dishonour their profession.

And could someone tell them how the defence of superior orders went down at Nuremberg?