Above, HRH the Duchess of Sussex in Nigeria, May 2024.
Herewith: a 2 hour and 35 minute and 22 seconds long YouTube video of the marriage of TRHs the Duke & Duchess of Sussex on Saturday 19th May 2018: https://www.youtube.com/live/N42MQJX4KoY?si=W-0eytTwsb0q2n_2
I’ll make a prediction: Not many BG readers will “click” on the above link! Fewer still will listen to any more than a minute. Probably nobody will listen right through to the end.
In five days time TRHs will be celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary. According to this website (https://www.caketoppers.co.uk/page/wedding-anniversary-names) it is their wood anniversary and the suggested gifts should be made of silver. Before my latest “Google Enlightenment” I did not know this!
As we approach the fifth anniversary of this Royal marriage, one is tempted to look back and remember the huge sense of optimism felt at the time. The marriage seemed a 21st Century fairytale dreamt up not by Jane Austen but by such as Penny Mordaunt the Minister for Women and Equalities (30 April 2018 – 24 July 2019) at the time! After all, the Member for Portsmouth North “had form” insofar as being “PC”!
Along with Ms Mordaunt, I too felt optimistic as the “optics” looked propitious. Here was a beautiful and accomplished young woman entering the Royal family. A woman who seemingly was prepared to leave the film set for the Royal stage. From acting a fictional role of some character in a drama to a real life role of an honorary champion of a public service her stage not being such as the London Palladium but a shopping centre or an industrial location in the UK. It seemed that her previous career had made her well suited to this role. Ask a competent professional actress to play the role of a Royal Duchess playing it “straight” and limiting the professional demands by not stretching her abilities by adopting an accent not her own (something very difficult to do well) and allowing her to “be herself” by putting her own personality into the role and not creating another, well, she should be able to do a very competent job.
For whatever reason or set of reasons things did not work out.
There is no doubt that the British monarchy has been badly damaged by this.
Of course, many on “the Left” and other’s who label themselves “Republicans” will feel quite satisfied as they are dreaming on the day when the British electorate go to the polls in an election for a President. This of course could be a ceremonial president as in Ireland or an executive president as in the USA. Most British “Republicans” will want the former.
I would suggest that these “Republicans” remember the old saying: “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it!”
Given the level of voter dissatisfaction with the present crop of MPs the idea that we should say goodbye and bon voyage to the Royals and elect a politician to the role is dangerous.
Why?
Because the public need to be able to have some aspect of public life that they can feel good about!
At the end of the Great War the victorious allies made certain grave mistakes that brought about World War Two.
The most glaring was of course the crushing terms of the Versailles Treaty. This caused the economic collapse that precipitated the rise of Hitler and the aggressive French action in the Rhineland effectively guaranteed Hitler’s electoral victory.
There was however another factor. One advocated by President Woodrow Wilson and supported by Prime Minister David Lloyd George: Elimination of all the German monarchies.
It is easy for people to write an alternative history but that is a relatively pointless exercise in “what might have been”. We are where we are! As they say.
The UK is undergoing dramatic cultural and demographic changes. Stability is needed. The Royal family provide this. An elected politician or a “celebrity” personality would not!