The royal family is embroiled in frantic damage limitation ahead of the Queen’s platinum jubilee this summer. The Duke of York’s court case, which could turn into a high-octane festival of royal humiliation, runs the risk of contaminating the celebrations. This should have nothing to do with the British monarchy, except that it has a lot to do with it. The essence of the monarchy is its image; Right now, the public appearance of the royal family looks messy.
The lifestyles of the queen’s son and grandson, the Dukes of York and Sussex, have taken on the aura of a Shakespearean tragedy befitting their titles. The Duke of Sussex has done nothing wrong; So far, neither has the Duke of York. Prince Harry was simply looking to cash in on his only negotiable asset: royalty. Prince Andrew used the same asset to win unsavory friendships, one of which exposed him to what he considers outrageous blackmail, yet to be proven in a court of law. His desperate hope was that a New York judge would reject Virginia Giuffre’s claim. But American lawyers don’t volunteer to starve.
The Queen may not have power, but she can wield tools of emphasis. Just as the Duke of Sussex was stripped of the slightest royal status, his uncle has been stripped of titles, insignia, regiments, charities, and patronage. Like a disgraced medieval saint, he is thrown from heaven into the jaws of hell. His guilt is not a question of good or bad, he can still be the victim of a great injustice, but of shame, shame and misery, caused to his mother and family and the institution they represent.
The monarchy depends for public support not on votes but on a fragile and intangible foundation of public opinion. It needs to be loved for its dignities, its ceremonies, and its anniversaries. It must be beyond criticism, pure as fallen snow. It can be tedious and boring. The only thing that cannot be is scandalous, much less sexually scandalous. Sex was always a real taboo; for royalty it was about inheritance, as Jaime II and Edward VIII learned at his expense.
As for Prince Charles, he has spent a quarter of a century purifying his image after his own years of purgatory. He has been carefully modeled as a cool and flawless middle-aged monarch on hold. As his time approaches, the last thing he needs is his brother’s alleged antics making headlines around the world. As he discovered with his second son, he must preserve royalty on his haunting and unsullied pedestal.
The way in which a nation embodies its statehood is bequeathed to it by history. One virtue of the inherited monarchy, perhaps its only virtue, is that it takes the succession beyond dispute. It also leaves out of the question any suggestion that the monarch should exercise political power. If the monarchy strays into politics or controversy or shame, it ceases to embody its nation.
That was the fundamental risk the Queen took, allegedly against her better judgment, when she decided in the 1960s to depart from the custom of other post-war European monarchs and present the British monarchy as a “royal family”. As monarchs in Sweden, Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands retreated into bourgeois semi-darkness, where they have wisely remained, the Queen turned the monarchy into a family business under a glare of televised advertising.
The royal offspring, who were still children then, instantly became a celebrity. A cast list of titled princes, princesses, dukes and duchesses hovered in gossip columns and monarchy magazines. Inevitably, they became accidents waiting to happen. It was difficult to see these young royals as anything other than victims as they stumbled across the dangers of life, but the main risk was to the monarchy itself. This has been demonstrated.
The best decision Prince Charles could make upon assuming the throne is simply to abolish the royal family. It should go Scandinavian. Monarchs don’t die young. The throne only needs an heir and a replacement. The rest of the family should become commoners and lead a normal life. Perhaps inadvertently, that process began this week.
www.theguardian.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism