Prince Charles leads Royal Family through a good lockdown

According to John Maynard Keynes, Stanley Baldwin described the new intake of MPs after the Great War as “a lot of hard-faced men who look as though they had done very well out of the war”. Arms dealers, profiteers and conscription dodgers may benefit from military conflict. It is difficult to think of anyone who does well from a deadly pandemic – as many of those who left the trenches unscathed discovered when Spanish flu swept across Europe soon afterwards.

How they handle a health crisis can still enhance or damage the reputation of those in any kind of authority. In the UK the coronavirus has not been kind to many in leadership roles. The Prime Minister’s approval ratings in opinion polls have plunged into disapproval. With the exception of the Chancellor, Boris Johnson’s ministers fare worse, and the least said about his once much vaunted Svengali, Dominic Cummings, the better. Sir Keir Starmer may have gained in stature but the public is not yet prepared to trust the Labour Party in government.

Few question the sincerity and clinical skills of “the experts”, but any notion that Chief Medical and Scientific advisors possessed special knowledge of “The Science” which would save us all faded as the UK’s Covid-19 death rate rose above that of equivalent nations. The work of the mainstream media covering the global outbreak has also come under vicious assault from some quarters.

As the lockdown is lifted there is one pillar of the establishment which has escaped without tarnish, actually looking better than before this emergency.

The Royal Family have often fumbled national crises, especially when they are intimately involved, such as during the abdication crisis or after the death of Princess Diana. This time, though, it seems that they have got it right, helped perhaps by the virtual lockdown of less central figures such as the Princes Andrew and Harry.

Far more than the behaviour of UK’s elected leaders, the Royal Family’s experiences have shadowed those of the rest of the nation. There seems to have been a conscious effort on their part to give a lead by what used to be called “setting an example”, while never explicitly showing up Downing Street.

In the run-up to the lockdown the Royals were no better than the rest of us. Prince Charles kept up a round of official engagements which included handshakes with identifiable Covid carriers. Camilla and Anne joined the throng at the Cheltenham Racing Festival and the Princess Royal was in the stands at the Rugby in Cardiff, just like Boris Johnson and Carrie at Twickenham.

But even before the Prime Minister issued his “stay at home order” on March 23 they began to obey lockdown. The Queen’s last official engagement in person at Buckingham Palace was receiving a brace of bishop on March 17. She and her then ninety-eight year-old consort, Prince Philip, then retreated into what became known as “HMS Bubble” at Windsor Castle.

From then on, Boris Johnson had to be content with phone calls for his audiences with the monarch – just the same as the Prime Ministers of Canada and New Zealand. The Royals quickly demonstrated a facility with more up to date means of virtual communication. Charles, William, Anne, Sophie each kept up a diary of engagements using video links and conference calls.

Like many owners of second or even third homes, Prince Charles and Camilla headed for Birkhall, their Scottish residence. The SNP leadership are carefully pro-monarchy so Nicola Sturgeon declined to comment on the new arrivals, beyond warning others not to follow them to the Highlands. In practice the months spent in Scotland by the Duke of Rothesay and the Queen have so far helped stich up the fraying Union.

Charles’s humanity was further confirmed when he succumbed to the virus. Little obvious fuss was made of his illness. The convalescing heir to the throne soon popped up on video link upstaging the physically present Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, to open London’s Nightingale Hospital. His few words were prescient. He hailed what would be an under-used facility as an “intensely practical message of hope”, before adding: “let us also pray, ladies and gentlemen, that it will also be required for as short a time and for as few people as possible.”

Ten days later, as the pandemic reached its deadly peak in the UK, the Queen delivered her pitch-perfect video address, watched as it went out for the first time in many other countries around the world, including the United States. She evoked the Second World War bulldog spirit of which the British are so proud, and her family’s part in it, while offering hope by looping back to Vera Lynn’s famous song, “We’ll meet again”.

The Queen was the Queen. Her sometime pompous and thin-skinned heir to the throne displayed new sides to his character as he moves into his seventies. When the time comes, the nation may find it easy to accept this genial and cultured country squire as its monarch. He spontaneously caught the nation’s mood in a relaxed video interview when he told Sky News’ Rhiannon Mills how sad he was not to be able to hug his father on his ninety-ninth birthday.

Liberated perhaps from the brothers’ psychodrama by Prince Harry’s removal to North America with Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge also revealed a more sympathetic side. Kate’s photographs of the family reflected the national mood and epitomised the universal gratitude to the NHS and other carers. Her “life in lockdown” photography competition forged a link with her mother-in-law’s subjects. The equestrian photograph of the Queen reminded us that she is no slouch at letting an image tell the story.

On cue, as the government lifted lockdown, the Royals obediently upped their public appearances. The Queen and Princess Anne relaxed in a chummy zoom chat with carers. Anne, Charles, William and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, (an increasingly deployed and non-threatening support player) all resumed social distanced engagements in person. Kate’s camera was on hand as the Royal generations met up again.

Like most of the rest of the nation, the Royals have also cut back. They need to. With the Royal palaces shut to tourists, the keeper of the Royal purse reckons their income will be down by a third. There have been big savings. Around now the Royal Garden Party season would be drawing to a close. There have been none this year. Trooping the Colour was slimmed down to a small ceremony at Windsor. There was no royal wedding.

Right now the call by the usually sensible Penny Mordaunt to spend the Department for International Development’s budget on two royal yachts look as absurd as Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron taking a flyby salute by the Red Arrows and Les Fleches Rouges (or something), or the latest YouTube video by Republic, the campaign.

Prince Charles will never have a better chance to introduce the focused twenty first century monarchy he is said to want. If he seizes the opportunity, he and the UK will have salvaged something good out of coronavirus.