Obviously, not everyone is of a royal line, but if you think about it, we can all act like kings (or queens). And I don’t mean that we should act like royal pains in the neck. What I mean is that we can always act with the nobility of character that is expected from royalty.

So what does it take to be a king? Here is an excerpt from chapter 11 of The Magician’s Nephew, which is the first in the chronicles of Narnia series. Aslan is talking to a kind-hearted London cabby named Frank, who will soon become the first King of Narnia. During this conversation, he will give a kind of checklist on the qualities that a king should have.

“My children,” said Aslan, fixing his eyes on both of them, “you are to be the first king and queen of Narnia.”

The cabby opened his mouth in astonishment, and his wife turned very red.

“You shall rule and name all these creatures, and do justice among them, and protect them from their enemies when enemies arise. And enemies will arise, for there is an evil witch in this world.”

The cabby swallowed hard two or three times and cleared his throat.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, “and thanking you very much I’m sure (which my missus does the same) but I ain’t no sort of a chap for a job like that. I never ‘ad much eddycation, you see.”

“Well,” said Aslan, “Can you use a spade and a plough and raise food out of the earth?”

“Yes, sir, I could do a bit of that sort of work: being brought up to it, like.”

“Can you rule these creatures kindly and fairly, remembering that they are not slaves like the dumb beasts of the world you were born in, but talking beasts and free subjects?”

“I see that, sir,” replied the cabby. “I’d try to do the square thing by them all.”

“And would you bring up your children and grandchildren to do the same?”

“It’d be up to me to try, sir. I’d do my best: wouldn’t we, Nellie?”

“And you wouldn’t have favourites either among your own children or among the other creatures or let any hold another under or use it hardly?”

“I never could abide such goings on, sir, and that’s the truth. I’d give ‘em what for if I caught ‘em at it,” said the cabby. (All through this conversation his voice was growing slower and richer. more like the country voice he must have had as a boy and less like the sharp, quick voice of a cockney.)

“And if enemies came against the land (for enemies will arise) and there was war, would you be the first in the charge and the last in the retreat?”

“Well, sir,” said the cabby very slowly, “a chap don’t exactly know till he’s been tried. I dare say I might turn out ever such a soft ‘un. Never did no fighting except with my fists. I’d try – that is, I ‘ope I’d try – to do my bit.”

“Then,” said Aslan, “you will have done all that a king should do.”

I really love the idea that a king must be the “first in the charge and the last in the retreat.” a somewhat similar theme is discussed in chapter 15, The Horse and His Boy, when Shasta, a boy who was kidnapped in his infancy and raised in the distant Calormen, found out that he was the son of the king and the rightful heir to the throne of Archenland, much to the delight of his flighty twin brother, who was younger than him.

“Hurrah! Hurrah!” said Corin. “I shan’t have to be king. I shan’t have to be king. I’ll always be a prince. It’s princes have all the fun.”

“And that’s truer than thy brother knows, Cor,” said King Lune. “For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.”

I guess being a king is harder than everyone thought it would be.