OPINION: Harry and Meghan have underestimated the offence they are giving
Jewish News' historian Derek Taylor reflects on the impact of the couple's criticism of the royal family.
So, how should we regard Harry and Meghan? They are busy undermining the royal family. That is the effect of their Netflix programmes. So what should be our reaction?
We’ve had a monarchy in this country for well over a thousand years. Apart from Oliver Cromwell cutting off Charles I’s head, there has never been a time when we haven’t had a monarch. They head up an unwritten constitution which has enormous advantages. All the MPs and the armed forces swear allegiance to the monarch, so you don’t get revolutions. The army may be overthrowing parliament in Burma and Syria, but there is no danger of it doing it here.
The Horse Guards were, in fact, forbidden by Cromwell to enter Parliament Square so as not to threaten MPs, and the King hasn’t led British troops in battle since George II in the 18th century, Not all kings were properly looked after though; Sir Walter Tyrell was shooting at a stag in the New Forest in 1100 and the arrow hit King William Rufus, William the Conqueror’s brother, who was killed. They’re still hunting though.
If the government can’t stop strikes, the armed forces are brought in until things get back to normal. If the government fails to get a majority in a general election, the opposition party is invited by the monarch to form an alternative ruling body. Nothing to do with the armed forces. It’s the King who signs all new laws into being.
It’s a beautiful system and the large majority of the country wants it to continue. Not that the monarch is necessarily the ideal role model; have you heard of Visacountess Falkland, Mary Fox, Lord Adolphus, Lord Augustus, Lord Frederick and Henry Fitz Clarence? Just six of the ten illegitimate children William IV had with an Irish actress. Or his brother, George IV, who had a number of mistresses. Charles II had Nel Gwyn and so on and so on.
Very few kings have abdicated; we lost Edward VIII to Wallis Simpson but George VI reigned over a united country through the Second World War. Another king, Edward II, was forced to abdicate and murdered. in 1327; it’s very rare though.
We have been particularly fortunate with our Queens. Elizabeth I, Anne, Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II ruled for 187 years between them.
We Brits like tradition. We gather on Christmas Day to hear the monarch’s address, we watch the Trooping of the Colour and the service at the Cenotaph. We watch with good natured contempt the efforts of other countries to carry out formal occasions as well as we do. They do their best at events like the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, but a single bagpiper has a greater dramatic effect.
I suspect that Harry and Meghan may have underestimated the offence they are giving to the nation by their criticism of the royal family. It’s like being forbidden to eat any vegetable because you don’t like spinach. Frankly, we don’t care what individual royals may have done; we just want the institution to continue for another 1,000 years.
That’s the wish of the great majority of the citizenry. Minority groups may think differently, but a democracy is not run by minority groups. There may be hiccoughs, like several prime ministers in a single year, but there will be a simple accession of William after Charles and George after William.
George will have to be careful though. The record of first sons succeeding to the throne is not great; Queen Victoria’s first son, Leopold, died at 30, Edward VII’s first son, Albert Victor, died at 27, Edward VIII and George VI didn’t have sons, so Charles III is the first oldest son to succeed since George IV in 1820, 200 years ago.
I’m told by my American friends that Meghan is now very unpopular. If Harry and Meghan want to come to the coronation I would imagine it would be a nightmare for the police. If some idiot was prepared to try to kidnap Princess Anne in 1974, goodness knows what potential danger – heaven forbid – Meghan might be in, if she just comes into London.
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