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Good morning. Barbara Bush, who has died at the age of 92, was described in many obituary notices as the matriarch of the Bush dynasty, the wife of one president and the mother of another. And yet the irony in the use of that term is that back in 2013, when Jeb Bush was mooted as a possible president, his mother, while saying very supportively that he was the best qualified candidate, declared ‘we’ve had enough Bushes’. She was described as a matriarch, but had no wish, it seems, to found an enduring dynasty. In her suspicion of dynasties, Barbara Bush’s sentiments align pretty much with those of the Old Testament. In the Book of Samuel, the people of Israel come to Samuel, judge and prophet, asking for a king – so they can be just like all their neighbours, they say. He warns them against: a king, he says, will take your sons to be his horsemen, your daughters to work in his kitchens, and your vineyards and olive groves to supply his household and to reward his friends. This is, by the way, a bit rich coming from Samuel since he has himself tried to set up his two unworthy sons as judges in his place – to follow in the family business – so to speak. But perhaps that just makes the point. When Barbara Bush was in the White House she used her position to advocate for literacy, and later set up a foundation to promote it. There’s a nice link there with her anti-dynastic thoughts, since literacy is surely one of the great counterweights to the corruption to which dynasties can tend – we talk about ‘bringing someone to book’, perhaps because they haven’t done things ‘by the book’; indeed, if they have behaved very poorly, we might have to ‘throw the book at them’. In these idioms the book, which is only open to us because of literacy, becomes the symbol for the standard against which we can judge good and bad in political life, and in life in general. No longer can the exercise of power be justified simply as having been passed on within a family line; it must, instead, measure up to standards enshrined in writing, in codes, charters and constitutions – and for Christians, it must measure up to standards enshrined in the books of Old and New Testaments. I wonder however, whether Barbara Bush’s message goes a bit further than we might think. I heard this week that my four year old has got into the primary school we had our eye on – and like any other parent in the same situation, I was obviously delighted. Now I’m not looking to found a dynasty, but too often looking out for our children amounts, in effect, to trying to pass on to them, the next generation, the advantages and privileges we ourselves enjoy. Parents, we say, want the best for their children. And so they generally do. But perhaps a proper suspicion of dynasties and the sense of entitlement which they instill, means actively seeking to secure advancement for all children, not just our own.