Family drama
The British royals may have weathered centuries of scandal, but their dynasty keeps on rolling along
Of course, a superficial observer of royalty might conclude that on the face of things, the royal family is in a bad way--that Camilla is a poor substitute for the glamorous Princess Di, that Prince Harry's appearance at a costume party in a brown shirt with a swastika armband was a gross example of bad taste or worse, that the Prince of Wales's high-minded but somewhat baffling speeches would put anybody but Parker Bowles to sleep, and that the queen's all too apparent displeasure with her own family and the Duke of Edinburgh's perpetual scowl would all seem to indicate that some image reconstruction is called for. But on the contrary, all this is par for the course for the royal family. After the death of her husband the prince consort, Queen Victoria spent the rest of her life in mourning (with a perpetual scowl on her face) and was much more beloved than she had been before. Her grandson King George V was notorious for his bad temper, his dissatisfaction with his own children, his fierce rages, and his widely feared popeyed glare of disapproval at even the smallest error or carelessness of dress, but he was nevertheless one of the most popular of British kings, his passing deeply and universally mourned. Those who love royalty love it "warts and all."
Americans particularly, who live in a merit-oriented society, often find this aspect of the royal family baffling. Shouldn't something be done about Prince Harry? Can't some image consultant teach the queen not to scowl? Or hide the Duke of Edinburgh behind a potted palm when there's a photographer in sight? But royalty does not, of course, need to be charming, or fashionable, or witty; it merely needs to be royal. In December 1940, the question arose as to whether the 10th Duke of Devonshire should be awarded the Garter, the highest and most restricted of all British honors. There was much telephoning back and forth between King George VI and Winston Churchill, then prime minister, on the subject, at this low point of British fortunes in World War II when one might have imagined, in any country but Britain, that there were more important things for them to be doing. But Churchill finally remarked to those who questioned the award that Devonshire was not bad as dukes go and that anyway the important thing about the Garter was "that there was no damned merit about it."
Churchill was absolutely right. The Garter is the most coveted and restricted of British honors precisely because it is not awarded for any kind of merit--the Duke of Devonshire was an affable, wealthy landowner but not otherwise deserving of his country's highest award--and in much the same spirit, "no damned merit" attaches itself to being royal or is required for royalty.
To put it simply, royalty is merely the extreme expression of hereditary succession. The British do not choose or elect the person best suited to be the monarch. Virtually alone among the citizens of major modern states, they are still ruled by the person who, by blood and by place of birth in the former Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family (their family name was changed to Windsor during World War I by George V to disguise the German connection) is next in line to inherit the throne.
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