Posted on 03/02/2005 10:19:33 AM PST by quidnunc
In the latest episode of the British Royal Family Soap Opera, the Crown Prince has finally got his girl. In short, Prince Charles is to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles, the love of his life, and his mother, the Queen (who is also head of the Church) has given her blessing to the union.
It is a truism that it isn’t easy being a Royal Family these days. It used to be so much easier. When the existence of social hierarchy was taken for granted, someone had to be at the top of it, rather like Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover. But nowadays, not only is Jack as good as his master, he also insists upon repeated public recognition of the fact. How, then, can a Royal Family be justified? What is it for? Upon what sentiments may it depend for its support among the population?
Certainly, it can no longer count on the discretion of the press. Difficult as it may be now for the average Briton to recall it, there was a time not so very long ago when the press would report nothing about the Royal Family except in blandly respectful or gushingly obsequious prose. The life of the Royal Family was portrayed as a fairy tale with the witches removed, a kind of eternal happy ending. Completely and self-consciously unrealistic, this reportage was so dull that only bored housewives could read it. But now we live in an age when everyone has a right to full knowledge, down to the most intimate details, about anyone in whom he takes an interest. The Information Age is also the age of tittle-tattle; and tittle-tattle is the enemy of mystique.
If the Royal Family is no longer protected by mystique, but rather is a group of hereditary celebrities competing with other celebrities for space on the front page, what can protect it from the kind of carping criticism that must ultimately destroy it? Can it claim to incarnate the nation, and thus act as a focus for patriotism? But British patriotism is dead — although a nasty form of nationalism remains a minority interest — while Welsh and Scottish patriotism consists mainly of self-pitying hatred of the English. There is no quicker way of emptying a room in Britain than to play the national anthem, which causes the acutest embarrassment. How can a God in whom no one believes be invoked to spare the life of a woman to whom all now believe themselves equal or even superior?
Is, then, the Royal Family supposed to act as moral exemplar? The historical precedent in this regard is not altogether encouraging; and the idea is in any case antithetical to the hereditary principle. The monarch is monarch because she is the last monarch’s closest descendant, not because she never omitted to say her prayers or clean her teeth, or put away her toys at night. It is possible for a perfect swine to have a better claim to the throne than a veritable saint.
It is true that several of the past few monarchs have behaved well to the point of dullness or impersonality. It would be difficult to find a duller or better-behaved man than George V, for example, the most interesting aspect of whose life was probably his manner of leaving it. Rumors persist that his doctor gave him an overdose of morphine so that he would die in time for his death to be announced in the august pages of The Times, rather than in those of the more demotic Evening Standard.
The present queen has behaved so well, for so many years, that she represents the greatest modern exemplar of devotion to duty known to me. She has been diplomatic and charming to people she must have abhorred from the bottom of her heart; she has endured thousands of the dullest events of which it is possible to conceive, all without so much as a yawn; she has had to eat disgusting food as if with relish; and not for half a century has she once said in public what she really thought. These feats of iron self-control have been performed because of her conception of her duty towards the nation as constitutional monarch. By comparison with her, mere ambassadors have carefree, bohemian lives.
It is not so much that she has no actual, real, personal personality, as it were: It is that that her public personality is entirely coterminous with her public duty, to which she has subjugated everything else. Modern people cannot understand this: They cannot conceive of a duty so imperative that the expression of one’s own personality — beautiful and unique, as almost by definition it must be — is unimportant beside it. From this fundamental incomprehension comes the now widespread criticism that the Queen is a cold, unemotional person. But she believes that it is not her job to be emotional: Her emotions are for strictly private occasions. Her job is to perform her duties to the best of her abilities, and never mind what she is feeling.
Needless to say, this is not a view of life with which much of the population below the age of 60 now sympathizes. The Queen spent many of her formative years during the war, when there was much talk of duty. Prince Charles spent many of his formative years during the 1960s, when there was much talk of self. The Royal Family, however abnormal its world may be, has not proved immune to generational change. Prince Charles is a child of the Sixties: He believes that his personal drama counts, and he therefore feels the need both to express and to explain himself: not as deeply as his first wife, Diana, did, but much more deeply than his mother.
The Prince’s position is a very difficult one; it is not impossible that he will be 75 when — or perhaps I should now say if — he inherits the throne (I mean if there is a throne to inherit). Three-quarters of a century is a very long time to wait to do the only job for which one has been destined since birth. But this is not the only explanation of his personal difficulties. As a child of the Sixties, he has difficulty in entirely suppressing his personality in public in the name of public duty. He, like all the rest of us, is too important for that. He needs causes — some of them well-chosen, like that of the disastrous state of architecture in Britain, and some ill-chosen, like that of alternative medicine — to express himself; but he also needs from time to time to bare his soul. For modern man, baring his soul is the only proof that he actually has one. The Queen, his mother, is deeper than that.
The Prince’s own son, Harry, is further proof that the Royal Family is not immune to generational change or wider cultural influences. Pictures of Prince Harry, with his vulgar snarling expression, and reports of his less than amusing exploits, prove that he is fundamentally no different from so many of his British compatriots: drunken, arrogant, violent, and charmless.
When and where will the British Royal Family Soap Opera end? Sooner than I once thought possible, or than the Queen deserves. Unless there is cultural reversal, her descendants will one day move among the Umbertos, Farouks, and Zogs of the world.
Dr. Dalrymple is the author of Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass and of Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses, due from Ivan R. Dee in May.
FYI..a good read..
"OFF!, With their Heads!..it was, so much easier in the 1500s."
Not really. You would have been far more likely to lose your own head at the monarch's behest in the 1500s than to be able to even speak aloud, much less act on, a desire to off the monarch!
Remember Wm F Buckley's novel,whe the American spy has an affair witht he soon to be British queen?
He knows zero about King George V - a man who literally saved the country. It's not well known, but in 1931, Ramsay McDonald was forced to enact spending cuts because of the Great Depression. However, he couldn't summon a majority to do it and so went to the King to resign. However, George V knew that if McDonald was replaced by a Tory who would enact the spending cuts, class warfare might ensue. He persuaded McDonald to stay on.
After the spending cuts, the Royal Navy mutinied. The government panicked and King George V took personal control - he sent an envoy to deal with the mutineers, and order was restored.
Dull and uninteresting? Hardly - a pillar of strength. Just because we cannot see the value of monarchy at the moment, does not mean it didn't have value in the past and value that could come into play in the future.
Regards, Ivan
Good post.
Dr. D is correct about the monarchy. It appears to be going the way of all flesh...and so it should.
Cheerio old top!
Well, I was speaking in general terms...the public in general, the Gossip Press specifically.
Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, and Quasimodo were all talking one day.
Sleeping Beauty said, "I believe myself to be the most beautiful girl in the world."
Tom Thumb said, "I must be the smallest person in the world."
Quasimodo said, "I absolutely have to be the ugliest person in the world."
They decided to go to the Guinness Book of World Records to have their claims verified.
Sleeping Beauty went first and came out looking deliriously happy. "It's official, I AM the most beautiful girl in the world."
Tom Thumb went next and emerged triumphant, "I am officially the smallest person in the world."
Sometime later, a confused-looking Quasimodo came out and said, "Who is Camilla Parker Bowles?"
LOL!
The British monarchy only survived into the 20th century as the embodiment of British public school values.
It seems to me that the British system was based on a romanticization of the kind of collective child-rearing the Spartans practiced, where boys were taken from their families and raised in barracks to turn them into hardened warriors... and emotional cripples. The upside of all that emotional deprivation and steely emotional control is to convince you that you are a stronger, superior being to the soft people around you who have feelings. The downside is it makes you insufferably arrogant.
And what if you really aren't superior ? When the Spartans were smashed by the Thebans at Leuctra, when they saw that their system really didn't make them stronger, when they learned that free men can outfight militarists didn't they question the price in human suffering their system asked of them ? What is all that stiff upper lip emotional deprivation worth to be king of a minor power ? What was all that sacrifice and loneliness for since you're not really superior ?
Charles strikes me as a man who feels cheated out of a childhood, out of a normal life, out of the simple freedom to marry the woman he loves, and for what ?
The Royals are extraordinary people who have dedicated their entire lives to charity and public service. The Left has been trying to abolish it for decades and with it...English history and tradition.
For a conservative publication to print something so vile about this incredible family is disgusting.
With Charles marrying Camilla - I can see the Brits revolting about Charles being King. I get the impression a lot of Brits still blame Charles for Diana's death.
I can't help but wonder if Charles will be passed over and William will become King. Would the Brits be happier if they saw William taking the throne as somehow justice for Diana ..??
Thank you for your post. You hit the nail on the head. The only people in the UK who do not like the Royals are the socialist. The same people who banned Fox hunting and introduced the liberalisation in our schools.
No, I was hit with a reality stick and bitten by the realization that a majority of the British public — left, right and center — hates President Bush.
Brits apparently feel free to meddle in our elections and generally trash America, but have an almighty Brit snit fit if the hostility is reciprocated.
I don't think they make Royals like they used to, Ivan.
Most Britains view the US as both good and bad. They view their country in the same way. Both have positives that outwiegh the negatives and that is the general consensus.
Focusing on the negatives only is inane.
You could post some threads about the British troops that have served in Afghanistan and Iraq or how the Queen has gone out of her way to send her best wishes to the US after 9/11, even knighting Giulani or how we are at the fore-front of technology or medicine or anything except constant brit-baiting.
The day the Left succeeds in ending the monarchy will be the day the English tourist industry takes a nose-dive and with it goes the economy of the UK.
When I go home to the Isle of Man, I plan on wearing a t-shirt that says: KILL A FOX FOR CHRIST!
Becasuse of his Muslim sympathies he was purposely not scheduled for any American visits because his posse was afraid that he would say something which would cause a diplomatic incident.
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