Royal Descent

No one would call the governor general’s job an easy one. Juggling the roles of figurehead, political arbiter, patron, and diplomat demands someone adept at ceremony, attuned to political nuance, and comfortable in the public eye: that’s no straightforward combination. Is it any wonder the pool of potential candidates was kept so narrow for so long?

Since Confederation, Canada has had twenty-nine governors general. The first seventeen were British, all cut from the same aristocratic cloth. Today, those early representatives of the Crown might look like nothing more than colonial relics, but that view does them a disservice. Most were highly diligent, some even carving out lasting legacies. Lord Lorne, for example, was instrumental in establishing the National Gallery of Canada, in 1880, while John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, enthusiastically instituted the Governor General’s...