| 2005: A Turning Point For The House of Windsor? |
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| Thursday, 29 December 2005 | |||||||
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The British Royal Family has always been in the survival business. Over the years, the House of Windsor has demonstrated a remarkable ability to overcome practically anything that has been thrown at it. More than once, they have prevailed in the face of controversy, scandal and scorn, to emerge with their image dented but otherwise intact and, in time, rejuvenated. For example, in 1992 — the year the Queen called her "annus horribilis" (horrible year) — pretty well everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The marriages of the Queen's daughter, Princess Anne, and two of her three sons failed in the searchlight glare of media publicity. Diana, Princess of Wales, revealed the sordid details of her life with Prince Charles in 'Diana: Her True Story'. The book, written by British journalist Andrew Morton, recast the Queen’s heir as Public Enemy Number One, unfit to inherit the throne and the epitome of the cruel, neglectful husband. Charles's younger brother, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, fared a little better — no one actually blackened his name — but the multiple adulteries of his wife, the former Sarah Ferguson, and her very public dalliance with her financial adviser John Bryan, among other men, made lurid headlines across the world.  The eventual outcome, in a family once regarded as a model of marital bliss, was three divorces — two of them in a single year, 1996, when the marriages of both the Prince and Princess of Wales and Duke and Duchess of York were dissolved. Once, the Royal Family had been reverenced, and were considered to be above common criticism. Now, they became targets for insult and innuendo. They were labelled a bunch of overprivileged freeloaders and a waste of both money and space. Then, in 1997, Diana died in a car crash in Paris while being chased by papparrazzi freelance photographers. Republicans, rumour-mongers, conspiracy theorists and internet websites lost no time touting her demise as a cataclysmic event that finally sealed the doom of the Royal Family. So it may have appeared, at least on the face of it. But the face of it was deceptive. That has been conclusively proved by the fact that in 2005, eight years after Diana died and thirteen after the "annus horribilis", the Royal Family is still very much in place. Prince Charles has married his long-time mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles — the controversial 'other woman' in his divorce from Diana. Public appearances by the royals still attract crowds of well wishers, as was proven this week when around 2,000 people turned out on Christmas Day morning to see the Windsors arrive at St. Mary Magdalen Church on the Queen's Sandringham estate. The Queen’s honours lists still flourish, adding to Britain's stock of knights, dames and holders of other prestigious awards. Contrary to all expectations — and the hopes of republicans and moralists — the British Royal Family has made it into the 21st century, and has done it in pretty good order. To achieve this recovery, a great deal has had to change since the days when newspaper headlines blazed with moral indignation over the royals’ antics and badmouthing them was fashionable. These days, there’s a distinct lack of excitement on the royal front. The Queen and her family aren’t sensational front page news any more, and the royal watchers and royal correspondents who once filled newspaper columns and TV air time with tales of goings-on at the palace have moved on to pastures new.  No one has succeeded Diana as Britain’s sentimental darling or, in another of her roles, as a fashion icon. The Countess of Wessex, wife of the Queen’s youngest son, Prince Edward, goes about her royal engagements with little publicity and less fuss. So does Camilla, who acquired the title of H.R.H. The Duchess of Cornwall on her marriage to Prince Charles. Sarah Ferguson, the once outrageous Duchess of York, spends most of her time abroad and barely registers on the British royal scene. The younger royals — for example, William and Harry, or Zara Phillips, Princess Anne’s daughter — have been left largely alone to live their own lives away from the publicity spotlight. It may seem paradoxical, but this absence of thrills helps explain why the British Royal Family has outlived the traumas of the 1990s and the media broadsides which hurt, but failed to sink them. After the Queen’s two colourful daughters-in-law disappeared from the scene, there were no more juicy stories, no more shock revelations and no more banner headlines. By 1998, when the furore at last died down, press and public were left with the pre-Diana, pre-Sarah Royal Family. They still had their detractors, still levelling the same old charges against them: the trouble with the royals, these critics maintained, was that they were dull, dowdy and out of touch. The criticism was misplaced. The real troublemakers had been the glamorous Princess of Wales and the feisty Duchess of York, who joined the Royal Family to excited forecasts that they were going to ginger up their staid and starchy in-laws. Where it all went so horribly wrong was when this 'modernising' process went way too far as too much dirty royal linen was washed in public and the rules of acceptable royal behaviour were broken. The royal behaviour that has become acceptable evolved from constitutional monarchy which today regulates what the Queen and her family may and may not do. Originally introduced as long ago as 1689, constitutional monarchy is an arrangement whereby the monarch reigns, but does not rule, and his or her prerogatives — such as the right to make war or raise taxes — are handled by the elected government. The royals are not allowed to become involved in Parliamentary politics or to have direct personal influence on national policy. They can’t even vote in the general elections held every four or five years to choose a new government. This, of course, denies the royals the democratic rights their adult subjects enjoy, but in their unique position, there are considerable advantages. A central purpose of constitutional monarchy has been to keep the Royal Family well away from political or moral controversies. This should ensure that they aren’t embroiled in public wrangles and don’t become identified with unpopular policies. Above all, it stops them from being treated like just another brand of celebrity to be hyped up, glorified for a time, then knocked down when the novelty wears off. This was where the Princess and the Duchess, aided and abetted by the media, made such a big mistake. They managed to circumvent the safeguards provided by constitutional monarchy and were in danger of turning Royal Family life into a soap opera when divorce and Diana’s untimely death intervened.  Afterwards, the Royal Family was able to return to the activity where they have no rivals, one which has always commended them to their subjects and provides the most successful way for royalty to endure in a modern democracy: the public engagements they perform to promote charities or involve themselves, even if only for a few hours, in the lives of their subjects. Yes, it’s routine, even mundane. Yes, it follows an unvarying pattern. Yes, there’s a strict protocol which demands that the visiting royal must speak first and should not be asked any direct questions. Yes, the Queen and members of her family will chat in platitudes and never express an opinion. It may all be carefully stage managed and the royal smile may wear a bit thin with fatigue or boredom by the time it’s all over. But to the people involved, a royal visit has an undoubted magic. Whether the venue is a factory, housing estate, social club, hospital or school, the visit is always an eagerly anticipated event. As the photographs invariably show, the day they met a member of the Royal Family leaves those who were there shiny-eyed with excitement and the prospect of dining out for weeks on the experience. Royal-bashing hasn’t gone away, of course. Before their wedding in April 2005, Charles and Camilla received one thousand hate letters, presumably from Diana devotees. The Queen’s husband, the grouchy Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is carpeted from time to time over some unwary remark. So is Prince Charles. Every now and then, Prince Harry gets himself into trouble with his youthful high jinks. In 1988, some sections of the media 'outed' the then still unmarried Prince Edward, claiming that he was gay. The story was hotly denied and nothing came of it. Diana stories still surface from time to time. In 2002, for example, there were rumours that one of her alleged lovers, James Hewitt, and not Prince Charles, was Harry's father. Hewitt denied the story, but it stayed in print for only a day or two before it faded from the headlines.  If anything proves that, in 2005, the Royal Family has once more come through the fire and survived, it is the way in which potentially damning stories like these have proved to be no more than one or two-day wonders — a far cry from the 1990s, when they would have been the stuff of savage onslaught in the media and yet more fodder for its ever-hungry sleaze machine. Please feel welcome to offer your opinions on this and any other royal story by visiting our Royal Forum or via our Comments section below.
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