| How To Find A Consort Fit For A Queen |
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| Written by Dr. Janice Seto | |
| Thursday, 12 April 2007 | |
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Page 5 of 6  Usually she has little experience with men in the family. Up until now, the sovereign lady-to-be was an only child (Queen Juliana) or the eldest of a family of daughters (Elizabeth II, Margrethe II, Beatrix). The only men she comes into regular contact with on her level are the courtiers, not the most macho of men, or degenerate men (a la the Bronte ne'er do well brother, Branwell).In this context, it is almost psychologically inevitable that the Crown Princess is attracted to a man who is not ubsequitous to her — a real man's man, like Peter Townsend to Princess Margaret. She has been brought up around toadying men and used to being in charge. It is a thrill to have a fellow who does not buy into that, like a royal Isabella Linton to Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights). The Alpha Male who can get any woman, like Antony Armstrong-Jones, is a rarity in her world and most appealing. He may not be rough trade but he can brood, this 'Bad Boy'. Based on history, over the long term, this 'Man's Man' finds court tiresome. The Alpha Male derides it as phonies acting phony. This isn't what the Farm Boy dreamt it would be like. The Action Man won't put up with the status quo of tradition and restraint – he calls a spade a spade, this Mr Edward Fairfax Rochester. In the end, the Home Boy will not support the system, the Establishment, the Grey Men, the fact his life is at the command of his wife. And soon The Country Cowboy will be 'checking out, if not physically, then mentally and emotionally. Lonelier than a widowed Queen Victoria is the sovereign lady with an absentee husband. She must carry on or revert to type ('ma deah, Alpha Men can be wearing on the nerves!'), with the double burden of her own duty to the country and the pain of finding solace and strength with the children. My Date Committee wants to share this with the sovereign lady in this situation: "If he wants to go, then tell him to leave now." This reminds me of another marriage, where the spouse could not support the other's career. Earlier this month, I viewed again the 1990 BBC drama Portrait of a Marriage, based on the book by Nigel Nicholson. His father, Harold Nicolson, with a promising career in the Foreign Service, had married in 1912 the Honorable Vita Sackville-West, the only child of Lord & Lady Sackville of that splendid country house in Kent, Knole. |
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