Modernising the Monarchy is a path to oblivion
When a nonagenarian sovereign is celebrating 70 years on the throne, it is neither morbid nor disrespectful to consider the future direction of the Monarchy under her successors. While hoping that, four years hence, the Queen will be sending herself a telegram to celebrate her centenary, prudence dictates a need to examine every aspect of a future changing of the guard, to discover any pitfalls that may be lurking.
The first and most obvious question is: who will the next sovereign be? Of course we know the answer to that – the Prince of Wales. But what will he be called? Well, obviously, as all references to him in his future role characterise him, Charles III. It is the name by which he is already known, there is no clash of numerals with the Scottish tradition and the previous holder was a clubbable, accessible character – the Merrie Monarch. So, no problems there.
Except one. In the entire pantheon of Scottish lost causes there is no figure that haunts Scotland more vividly than Prince Charles Edward Stuart – “Bonnie Prince Charlie” – and for the final 22 years of his life he was known to his adherents, as he is still known among many Scottish romantics today, as King Charles III. For a descendant of the dynasty that was victorious at Culloden to assume that title and, by doing so, appear to erase its previous claimant from history could seem provocative.
Before the knee-jerk nay-sayers “in this day and age” pooh-pooh that hypothesis, they might be well advised to recall the row at the beginning of the present Queen’s reign, when Scots took umbrage at the style “Elizabeth II” in a country where the writ of Elizabeth I had never run. Feeling ran high and pillar boxes bearing the offending royal cipher were set on fire or even blown up. That, it should be noted, was in a still deferential, Empire-oriented Scotland, fervently loyal to the crown with which it was intimately linked by a plethora of Scottish regiments and where Scottish nationalism was so insignificant as to command a taxi-load not of MPs, but of voters.
Today, when separatist elements hold the commanding heights in communication and opinion forming north of the border, it is not fanciful to suppose the style “Charles III” might be made a source of contention, starting a new reign on a note of controversy. The row over the royal numeral in 1952 resulted in a bizarre constitutional decision that could open the door to absurd anomalies. Winston Churchill, intruding upon the royal prerogative, decreed that when there was a numerical clash between Scotland and England, the higher number would be used.
If the Prince of Wales, on his accession, were to bypass his current name (as his predecessors Edward VII and Edward VIII did), his bemused English subjects might find themselves swearing allegiance to Malcolm V, Alexander IV or Constantine IV if he chose a historical Scottish royal name – on the reasonable assumption that he would eschew Indulf II for reasons of public relations. That is where Churchill’s expedient, designed purely to validate the style Elizabeth II, could theoretically lead the country.
When dealing with an increasingly prickly Scotland the only safe option is to avoid giving any offence, however remotely likely. The obvious solution is for the next king to style himself George VII, safe and tried territory. It is on the safe and the tried that the Monarchy should rely, not on innovation or, worse, “modernisation”. Demands to make the Monarchy more “relevant” are intrinsically inane: relevant to what? Primarily to Oprah Winfrey, is the Sussex solution, a path to oblivion. An article in GQ magazine last year hit the nail on the head, quoting historian Dominic Sandbrook: “With the monarchy, relevance is a particularly foolish thing to consider, because the irrelevance is kind of the point. The British monarchy’s distinctiveness is its archaism.”
It is concerning to hear apparently informed rumours that the Prince of Wales is planning to “modernise” the monarchy. We must always bear in mind the possibility that he is being misrepresented, but the possibility that he is not is worrying. According to reports, the future king wants to “slim down” the royal family to a core of working members. In practical terms, how would that work? In the early conception of the plan, it apparently included the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as key working members; that is no longer an option.
In 2019, the last pre-pandemic year of normal activity, the royal family collectively carried out a total of 3,567 engagements. That represents an enormous outreach: the number of hands shaken, the number of people asked how long they have been doing this kind of work, the smiles, occasionally the banter, the gratification of volunteers feeling their efforts are being acknowledged – all those events bring crown and people closer and renew the roots of loyalty to the Monarchy across the country. Such interaction is the lifeblood of the Monarchy. It is the sphere in which it is eternally relevant.
But those 3,567 engagements were carried out by 15 members of the royal family; they represented a reduction from the 3,793 engagements fulfilled the previous year, as the Duke of York and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex wound down their public profiles. Clearly, a slimmed-down working royal family could not cope with so high a number of engagements; indeed, it has been suggested that a reduction in the number of events is part of the modernisation plan. Yet anything that reduces contact between the Monarchy and its subjects can only be counter-productive.
Another feature of the scheme is said to be the admission of the public to Buckingham Palace all the year round, with the new king retreating to a flat above the premises. That would make the palace resemble a National Trust property, with the owners side-lined in effective retirement. This situation would not only break the “We must not let in daylight upon the magic” maxim of Walter Bagehot, already serially infringed in a succession of disastrous royal television documentaries and interviews, it would also initiate a Museum Monarchy. By making Britain’s working palaces look like the museums to dethroned royalty visited by tourists abroad, the ethos of a living Monarchy would be undermined psychologically.
But if inflicting that fate on Buckingham Palace is ill-advised, carrying out a similar exercise at Balmoral would be politically disastrous. It is said the Prince of Wales intends to turn Balmoral into a museum; nothing could better play into the hands of Nicola Sturgeon and the separatists than the spectacle of Balmoral emptied of royalty, as if a Scottish republic had already been established. Already there is a claustrophobic political atmosphere in SNP-dominated Scotland; the spectacle of the royal family holidaying there brings a welcome reassurance to beleaguered Scottish unionists. The sight of a museum replacing the seasonal bustle of royalty in residence would be demoralising. Birkhall is no substitute.
There is another threat hanging over the Monarchy. It is in danger of becoming tainted by the one element in 21st-century society that the public viscerally loathes: politics. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex succumbed to that toxic culture, but at least they have assumed an arm’s-length relationship to the royal family. Unhappily, in the quest for “relevance”, other members are in danger of following suit.
The Queen has, in her 70-year reign, triumphantly remained above politics. It speaks volumes that, less than half a dozen times in that long period, hostile critics have striven unsuccessfully to discern a political message in some bland utterance by the Queen. It is questionable, however, whether the succeeding generations feel bound by the same ethic of total political neutrality. A couple of weeks ago Nick Timothy wrote an article in The Telegraph entitled: “The modern Royal Family is in danger of becoming too political”.
He is right and it is a problem that straddles two generations. Decades ago, when the Prince of Wales began denouncing modern architecture, he struck a chord with a majority of people and angered a professional elite; but it was all within the rules of the game, far removed from party politics and involving a milieu in which royal princes had traditionally interested themselves.
That was a far cry from the Prince’s “time has quite literally run out” speech at COP26, the ultimate forum of global climate alarmism, where every green prescription had huge consequences for policy among national governments. This was an advocacy too far. If the policies promoted at COP26, to which net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is the British government’s response, are in any degree realised they will have a large effect on the lives of millions of people in the United Kingdom. That is seriously political.
The irony is that the Prince’s early focus on green issues may have been seen as a safe, uncontroversial cause. The problem, as Nick Timothy correctly diagnosed, citing Charles’s climate advocacy and the Duke of Cambridge’s focus on mental health, is: “But even such matters of consensus are dangerous. Beneath sweeping statements lie contentious choices and details of policy. And when the facts change, political positions change.”
Royalty fell into the trap set by the climate alarmists years ago, when they decided to insist that “the science is settled” and refuse even to debate climate change. It had, in their propagandist fabrication, become a consensus. That meant it was safe to take a side when there was only one side. Today, under pressure from the inadequate performance of renewables, the premature abandonment of fossil fuel resources, the post-pandemic financial crisis and the war in the Ukraine, the hardships created by “fighting climate change” are about to become the most hot-button political issue.
Families suffering from fuel poverty will not look kindly on an heir to the throne who has for years been at the forefront of the campaign to create the outcomes we shall soon be facing. It is a safe prediction that climate issues will become the most toxic of all; and the Monarchy is liable to be damned by association.
Since the 17th century – and this is more to be regretted than welcomed – the Monarchy has progressively been shorn of political power. The rare constitutional crises, such as Queen Victoria’s attempt to retain her Whig ladies of the bedchamber after the advent of a Conservative government, ended in further erosion of royal power. Since 1688, Britain has been a crowned republic. Yet the sovereign retains the important rights to be consulted, to encourage and to warn. The Queen has admirably observed that constitutional protocol throughout her reign. If her successors depart from that self-discipline, the future of our ancient Monarchy may become endangered.