The Imperial Gardener by Sean M Brooks

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, Fri 20 April 2012, republished Mon 3 March 2014.

This note focuses on one aspect of Poul Anderson's Terran Empire stories usually passed over quite quickly by critics, Josip III. The twenty years reign of this Emperor saw the end of its Principate phase for Terra.

ENSIGN FLANDRY is set three years before Emperor Georgios, the father of then Crown Prince Josip, died. Chapter 1 shows Josip as weak, self indulgent, homosexual, and mentioned as having a notoriously short memory. The best summing up we have of Josip's character is from Admiral Kheraskov's briefing of Dominic Flandry in Chapter II of THE REBEL WORLDS.

"Three years, now, since poor old Emperor Georgios died and Josip III succeeded. Everybody knows what Josip is: too weak and stupid for his viciousness to be highly effective. We all assumed the Dowager Empress will keep him on a reasonably short leash while she lives. And he won't outlast her by much, the way he treats his organism. And he won't have children--not him! And the Policy Board, the General Staff, the civil service, the officers corps, the Solar and extra-Solar aristocracies...they hold more crooks and incompetents than they did in former days, but we have a few good ones left, a few...

"I've told you nothing new, have I?" Flandry barely had time to shake his head. Kheraskov kept on prowling and talking. "I'm sure you made the same quiet evaluation as most informed citizens. The Empire is so huge that no one individual can do critical damage, no matter if he's theoretically all powerful. Whatever harm came from Josip would almost certainly be confined to a relative handful of courtiers, politicians, plutocrats, and their sort, concentrated on and around Terra--no great loss. We've survived other bad Emperors."

The plot of THE REBEL WORLDS revolves around how Flandry neutralized a danger to the Empire from a favorite of Josip who was not an ordinary courtier or politician. And how Flandry thwarted a fleet admiral deliberately goaded into rebellion.

Josip III was a bad, weak, and irresponsible Emperor. One example of that last quality being his refusal to do his dynastic duty of assuring the succession by siring children. As Flandry told Miriam Abrams in Chapter VI of A STONE IN HEAVEN: "Once as a young fellow I found myself supporting the abominable Josip against McCormac--Remember McCormac's Rebellion? He was infinitely the better man. Anybody would have been. But Josip was the legitimate Emperor and legitimacy is the root and branch of government. How else, in spite of the cruelties and extortions and ghastly mistakes it's bound to perpetrate--how else, by what right, can it command loyalty? If it is not the servant of Law, then it is nothing but a temporary convenience at best. At worse, it's raw force."

Josip was thus, despite his vices and flaws, supported by men like Flandry due to the urgent need to uphold Law and legitimacy. However, in one or two other texts I found hints of something better than degeneracy and incompetence in Josip.

WE CLAIM THESE STARS! is set late in Josip's reign, during the Syrax crisis. In this confrontation with Merseia the Empire was forced to concentrate so much of the Navy at the Syrax cluster that Merseia was able to use the Ardazirho to attack Terra at another frontier. E.g., the Ardazirho seized the border colony planet Vixen. While discussing the Syrax/Vixen crisis with Flandry, Admiral Fenross said of the fleet commander sent to Vixen (in Chapter VI): "The Emperor himself gave Admiral Walton what amounts to carte blanche." Which made Flandry think: "It must have been one of His Majesty's off days, decided Flandry.Actually doing the sensible thing." Meaning there were times when Josip did the right thing.

Next, also in Chapter VI of WE CLAIM THESE STARS!, Fenross mentioned how the Vixenite who brought the news of the colony's seizure by Ardazir asked to meet the Emperor. Flandry sardonically said: "And didn't get it," foretold Flandry. "His Majesty is much too busy gardening to waste time on a mere commoner representing a mere planet." Fenross expressed surprise by asking "Gardening?," Flandry replied ironically, "I'm told His Majesty cultivates beautiful pansies."

When I finally paid attention to this bit of dialogue my thought was that if an Emperor as bad as Josip had enough appreciation of beauty to grow his own flowers, then there was some good in him.

However, another thought was to wonder what Flandry had meant by "pansies." THE RANDOM HOUSE HOUSE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1973) had this as the third definition for the word "pansy": "3. Slang. a. a male homosexual." If that was what Flandry meant, it explains why Fenross reacted so nervously to Flandry's comment: "Fenross gulped and said in great haste..." It would also be an example of some slang words retaining their meanings over a millennium from now.

It can thus be seen how "The Imperial Gardener" is an ironic title for this essay. I admire as well the technical skill shown by how deftly Anderson inserted works set early in Flandry's life (such as THE REBEL WORLDS, 1969) after he wrote stories set later in Flandry's life (WE CLAIM THESE STARS, 1959).

I fully agree with what Flandry said in Chapter VI of A STONE IN HEAVEN about how "legitimacy is the root and branch of government." Lacking that, any government is likely to be nothing but "raw force." And this applies to all governments, whatever may be their forms. To preserve and defend legitimacy, it may well be necessary to support rulers a person privately despises. Many examples from history could be listed here of weak, foolish, and contemptible leaders from Chinese, Roman, Byzantine, French, British, and American history. Leaders it was better to accept if they held power legitimately.