By Douglas Murray
Thursday, January 23, 2020
The house of Windsor is perpetually said to be in
“crisis.” Not because it is but because this is the language that headline
writers prefer. For examples of monarchies that have been in crisis, we might
remember the royal families of Russia, Germany, Italy, and Greece, among
others. By comparison not just with these, but with almost every other
institution on earth, the British royal family is an unparalleled success. It
has been in situ longer than the American republic, longer than the state of
Australia, and longer — though it may not feel like this — than if you knitted
all of Joe Biden’s monologues back to back and set them to music.
For centuries the British crown has been a constant in
our lives, and, like all such constants, it has been a model of slow, adaptive
change.
Of course, this has required bridging many
contradictions. The present age has as many of these as ever. And if there is
one that today’s boils down to, it is that the public wants the institution of
the monarchy to be like us and also not like us. We want the royals to be above
us and yet not to show that they are much above us. To be as privileged as if
they had earned it, and yet not to flaunt it.
While those born into the family tend to know the deal,
those who are new to it can stumble. Not that all do. Kate Middleton, who
married Prince William nine years ago, got things right almost from the get-go.
Think of the royal couple waving to the crowds from the royal coach on their
wedding day. Prince and princess grinning and waving frantically, as though
worried they would overlook anyone in the crowd. Rarely can any newlyweds have
looked like such caged supplicants.
But sacrifice is required. It is part of the deal. In
return for a life that is materially stable and undeniably privileged, and that
brings willing deference from the public, members of the royal family must give
themselves wholesale to the nation. Part-time or half-hearted service does not
cut it. And complaining or seeking sympathy at any stage is the fastest way of
all to lose the public.
So it is with the recently happy, now distinctly unhappy,
story of the marriage of Meghan Markle to Harry, duke of Sussex. Without any
consultation with the queen or the wider family, in January the couple released
a statement on Instagram announcing that they were stepping back from royal
duties. A crisis meeting with the queen and other senior royals followed, and
the upshot was that the Sussexes got all the independence that they professed
to want. From now on, they are going to make their own way in the world, seek
financial independence, drop their royal titles, and live — slightly
bewilderingly — in Canada.
The “crisis” headlines have come about because this woe
follows so fast upon another. For it is only a matter of weeks since we saw the
self-withdrawal of the queen’s second son, Prince Andrew. For more than a
decade, the palace has been fielding stories about his friendship with the
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Pressure on the palace ebbed and
flowed. But late last year, someone — exactly who remains disputed — thought it
was time for Prince Andrew to finally speak publicly and clear the air. Epstein
was dead, but the question of why the prince had kept up a friendship with him
(even staying at his home after his initial prosecution and imprisonment)
bubbled on.
Whatever the palace’s hopes, rather than clearing the
air, the interview instead made everything around the prince radioactive. He
appeared entitled, evasive, and on the main matter — of why he had remained
friends with Epstein — frankly implausible. Shortly afterward it was announced
that the prince was stepping back from all his public duties and would
henceforth not be playing any role as a senior member of the royal family.
Yet it is the removal from public life of the prince a
generation below Prince Andrew that is the more serious blow for the now
93-year-old queen.
For aside from the queen herself, the princes William and
Harry have in some ways been the royal family’s most precious assets in recent
decades. Known for their attractive and generally down-to-earth personalities,
the boys are of course the sons of Princess Diana. And there is a rarely
mentioned but undeniably ever-present national guilty conscience about her. The
British public was obsessed with Princess Diana, and, as the perhaps excessive
show of grief at her death demonstrated, that obsession (along with a drunk
driver and a refusal to wear a seatbelt) undoubtedly went some way to causing
the crash in Paris’s Pont de l’Alma tunnel in August 1997. So it has seemed
very important in Britain that her boys — the princes — grow up not just happy
but as normal as possible. They have, and will perhaps always have, our
sympathies.
For his part, Prince William appears to be doing well.
His choice of wife was especially sensible. Middleton was a university
sweetheart who has the looks, sense of duty, and slight dullness that is
critical for anyone marrying successfully into the royal family. For the truth
is that wild cards, “personalities,” and one-offs tend to be burnt out (or
burnt through) by their presence in the family. And if there is a reason, it’s
that although the perception may be that the role is glamorous, the reality of
royal service (as the queen herself knows) is an endless round of not widely
noticed charity events: cutting the ribbon on a new hospital wing, putting a
spade of soil on a commemorative sapling, unveiling a forgettable plaque.
Which brings us to Meghan Markle. Did she know this? Was
she aware of what the job of marrying Prince Harry actually entailed? Perhaps
not. Though she certainly sought out her prince. As the London-based gossip
columnist Katie Hind has revealed, in 2013 Markle was in London openly scouting
and asking around for help on how to bag herself an eligible Englishman.
Various footballers appeared to be in the offing. But it seems that Markle knew
the top prize and went out of her way to get it.
By the time she bagged Prince Harry, it seemed to be a
win all round. The Hollywood starlet had found her prince and the royal family
had found an addition who brought a dose of something important to the family.
Now that accusations are flying each and every way, it is worth noting what the
problem is not. Actresses have married into the royal family before. Lord
Frederick Windsor, a cousin of Prince Harry’s, had earlier married the actress
Sophie Winkleman. Stardom alone is not a problem. Nor, in itself, is being an
independent woman. The house of Windsor has had plenty of them.
The problem seems to be a Meghan-related one. In an
institution in which people are not expected to grumble, she appeared surprised
that people did not want to hear her grumble. In an institution that is not
expected to preach, she appeared — through the medium of a guest editorship of Vogue, among other things — to be all
too willing to preach. And for someone who wanted to join the royal family, she
is oddly averse to media attention. And despite having used the press when she
wanted it, she now finds herself in the unprecedented situation of suing a
British newspaper for accurately printing a letter that she had written to her
estranged father shortly after the wedding. (Her father gave the letter to the Mail on Sunday.) None of this is nice,
but it is less than most royals have had to put up with. And she has put up
with it for less time than anyone else in the family.
Perhaps the job is not what she expected. Perhaps the
press intrusion and criticism genuinely are beyond anything she had been warned
about. But there is one accusation that now seriously sticks in the craw of the
British public. That is the idea that there is anything racist about criticism
of the Sussexes or that racism is the reason the couple are now departing for
Canada and have given up their royal perks and titles.
The accusation has come from a number of angles.
Inevitably pushed by the New York Times,
it has also been claimed on national television in Britain. On one morning
program, a black commentator making the accusation that Meghan was the victim
of racism said that it was “not the job” of black people to educate white
people about racism and that Meghan’s exit merely proved that racism was
endemic in Britain. A host calmly asked what evidence there was for the idea
that Britain was a country so racist that it had chased Meghan out. “That is
another problem,” the guest said: “when people keep asking what examples.” In
the absence of evidence, it has become common to argue that the idea of
evidence is itself some kind of white, racist construct.
Such arguments themselves feel to many of us in Britain
to be a distinctly American import. Doubtless it has caught on with some people
in America in particular because it fits in with one narrative of the age (that
Brexit, Trump, and racism are all of the same piece). As it happens, the polls
show consistently that the British public is exceptionally happy about mixed
marriages and related social issues. Not one prominent public figure in Britain
in any way criticized the Sussex couple on racial grounds.
But for those who believe that facts are a social
construct, let me give a “lived perspective” of my own: Far from there being
any prominent or meaningful examples of racism perpetrated against Meghan
Markle, the British public (as evidenced not least by the huge crowds that
lined the streets for their wedding) expressed an understated but definite
pride in her entry into the royal family. In a very short space of time,
Britain over recent decades has become exceptionally racially diverse. And if a
monarchy is to survive in such a situation, it must probably at some point,
even if only on its margins, look more like the country it wishes to continue
to reign over.
The sight of Prince Charles leading Meghan Markle down
the aisle brought genuine pride to many of us. The palpably warm and happy way
in which the Prince of Wales later took the arm of Meghan’s mother at the
signing of the registry brought still more. And then there were the official
photographs, released last year, of Markle’s black American mother cooing
alongside an obviously delighted Queen Elizabeth and duke of Edinburgh over
Meghan and Harry’s first child, Archie. All these things pointed to change in
the way that Britain does best: not through huge upsets or upheavals but by the
calm and happy acceptance of change from the top of the nation.
That change appeared to be going well. But the Sussexes
have now decided to walk out on it. Perhaps they think they will do a great
amount of good outside the institution of the family. And perhaps they will do
some. But nothing they do will have the impact that it would have had if they
had worked away — as Harry’s grandmother has her whole life — to demonstrate
the virtues of constancy and duty in a world running low on both.
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