There’s another reason, I think, that we continue to tolerate the monarchy. The tone of the media coverage of the family is hushed, reverent and vague – it only comes alive when we turn to the waiting crowd The royals must act their parts perfectly at all times or we get upset. It is we who are the Marie Antoinettes in this situation – insisting on playing peasants for a day. “Core” royals cannot protect their own privacy or the privacy of their children, they cannot choose their careers, they must abide by strict protocol and endure long church services and boring speeches and endless “appropriate entertainment” wherever they go. Yes, in the end of course it is the royals who must please us: we stand on the sidelines tutting when they use the wrong fork or love the wrong person.
No, the king should not be allowed to make “suggestions” to them. Yes, they would be standing there from 5am, possibly in the rain, to catch a glimpse of their monarch. I was struck by the public reaction to the royal “suggestion” that crowds swear allegiance to the king as he goes by: it ranged, roughly, from bemusement to disgust. I’ve often wondered why in a modern democracy we tolerate the grotesque performance of hierarchy that are royal occasions – why do we stand like cap-doffing peasants in a cost of living crisis to cheer as a gold carriage goes by? Why do we rush to reconstruct this feudal pecking order that puts us at the very bottom? Why all this reverence for a group of very flawed people among whom we can never hope to be? But we tolerate it because we know it’s just pretend: we play-act as loyal subjects but really, we keep the royals in their place, not they us in ours. We approve of the royals because they have no power and it does not matter what they do.
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