There is a vaguely racist royal fancier of my acquaintance who’s probably feeling quite vindicated just now. I remember her declaiming loudly, on and off social media: ‘she’ll bring them down. She’ll bring them down. They’ll regret it…’ etc.
For me, the bamboozling thing is how this person isn’t even English, lives in a country that is notionally a republic, and yet expends far more emotional energy on the House of Windsor than, say, taxation, the war in Syria, or the proper consistency of boiled eggs.
I’ve been involuntarily hearing about the English royals since I was a child. I’ve come to see the obsessive interest of millions as just another proof of the idea that human intelligence doesn’t really exist, and that what the vast majority of people really need is a nice cup of tea and someone to pat them on the head and tell them that everything is fine and they’re simply wonderful (indeed, some cute practitioners make obscene amounts of money doing just this).
Constitutional Monarchy is a perfectly legitimate, if slightly silly form of Government. It derives from the medieval notion of the divine right of Kings, whereby a King arrived in his office directly as a result of God’s will. In this instance, ‘God’s will’ meant you had either been born or managed to viciously murder all your rivals (or both).
It might not sound all that great today, but this was the system which prevailed in Europe and beyond for many centuries, and indeed, human non-intelligence being what it is, it’s questionable whether it ever really died.
Time marches on, as we know, and public tastes became a little too squeamish for absolute kings. Instead, power passed to types who were, to one extent or another, ‘chosen’ by the people. The desirability of the ‘choices’ available to people is another cup of coffee entirely, but the reason why we still hear about families like the Windsors has to do with constitutional law, which is another, very fancy name for ‘laziness.’
Basically, law doesn’t like wholesale change, mainly because it might upset the privileges of the fat, rich types whom the law is essentially there to protect. We might have done away with ‘divine right’ but, so the theory goes, there needs to be somebody there to symbolize and ’embody’ the legitimacy which has supposedly passed from God to the people.
Of course, and this particularly applies to systems where the ‘Head of State’ has little or no executive power (it probably, for example, applies to a lot of Presidents too), you don’t really need a person there at all; if it’s just as symbol, then it might as well be a toaster, or a book, or a decorative pole.
But no, constitutional law in these countries holds that you still need a person to point at and go ‘look at him there. Isn’t he great?’
This, essentially, is why the British royals are there in the first place. What makes them unique however, is the largely self-generated public soap opera.
After all, precisely the same constitutional function is carried out by the royal families of Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark etc., and when was the last time you heard mad stuff about them?
I was surprised to hear recently that Prince Philip was a driving force behind the idea that the Windsors would actively court publicity, would seek to turn themselves into proto-Kardashians or, just as Megan and Harry did this week, play the global game of ‘please please like me.’
The thinking was obviously that the soap opera would generate untold extra revenue (as indeed it has), but it has backfired on the Windsors quite spectacularly, most notably in the years leading up to the death of Princess Diana, the persistent stench of sleaze around Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, and indeed the latest potato enthralling nonsense.
I’ve never had much sympathy for the royals about this. Publicity seeking is by its nature a two edged sword, and just as in the era of divine right, he who lives by the sword etc.
Some things just never change, and one of these is the petulance of powerful men and women who court public opinion, only to find that the press wants to do more than simply transcribe their press releases.
Another thing which doesn’t change, apparently, is the ability of the mediocre offspring of Kings to attract the hottest females. Whatever else you might think of her, Meghan Markle is a gorgeous looking girl. Hell, I’d marry her myself if I wasn’t afraid that her pushy Hollywoodness might upset the delicate familial ecosystem.
Harry, on the other hand, could hardly be referred to as an oil painting, unless the painting is by Edvard Munch or Francis Bacon. Nor, you suspect, is he likely to win any awards for being brilliantly clever.
The same was true of his parents: Diana in her day was accounted a great beauty, Charles certainly was not. Divine right of Kings, it seems, still lives on in the psyches of beautiful women. What does this say about humanity?
Personally, I’m thinking of changing my name to something like ‘Prince Uguntu IV.’ I might even get some cards printed up. In the meantime, we need to be positive, and I’m here to suggest that all might not be as bleak as it looks for poor Meghan and Harry, down to their last hundred million and cut off from the taxpayers’ largesse.
Why, surely Meghan could play herself in Season 49 of ‘The Crown.’ Hell, maybe Harry can play himself as well (although they’ll probably give that part to someone much better looking).
On a separate but related matter, wasn’t OPRAH supposed to have retired a few years ago? There’s another thing that never changes!
jasongill2015 