The Windsors forever

Almost exactly 100 years ago, the crowned heads of Europe gathered in London for the Coronation of George V, grandfather to the Queen. Magnificent though the occasion was, many astute observers believed the system of rule on display stood no chance of lasting out the 20th century.

The playwright George Bernard Shaw dismissed monarchy as a “universal hallucination” of the people that would soon pass away. H G Wells, the radical novelist, warned that monarchy had as much chance of survival “as the Lama of Tibet has of becoming Emperor of this earth”.

These predictions seemed perfectly reasonable. At the dawn of the last century, the ancient monarchies of Europe were feudal, absurd and hopelessly out of touch with the democratic spirit of the age. Furthermore, the critics were soon to be proved brutally right. Within a very few years of George V’s coronation, many of the great dynasties had been destroyed. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian heir apparent, was shot dead in Sarajevo alongside his wife Sophie just three years later. The King’s cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was forced into exile at the end of the First World War. The Romanovs in Russia were slaughtered.

Amid the carnage, however, the British Royal Family survived. There have been moments of difficulty, of which the abdication crisis in 1936 and the popular convulsion which followed the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 have proved the most threatening. But the monarchy has pulled through – and it has rarely looked stronger than this week, as we approach the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

So it is important to address the glaring question: what explains the survival of what appears at first sight to be such an anachronism? Read full article in the Daily Telegraph.

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A confused public opinion

Despite royalist flag waving and republican complaints the British don’t know what to do about the royal wedding, argues sociologist Frank Furedi writing in Spiked. “There is little magic in the air. Today, the British public appears confused and uncertain about expressing cultural and national affiliations,” he writes. “The sense of ‘we’re not sure what we should be doing’ is fairly widespread in the run-up to the wedding. That is one reason why, in contrast to previous occasions, there has been a remarkable drop in the number of applications for street parties.” One third of local councils say they have not received any applications; other local councils have only received four or five applications.

Frank Furedi notes that discussion of the negative sides of monarchy has been allowed in the media, something notable by its absence when Prince Charles married the late Princess Diana in 1981. This doesn’t mean Britain is on the road to a republic. “Neither side’s arguments resonate with the public imagination. And the absence of public enthusiasm for organising street parties does not translate into support for [pressure group] Republic’s campaign.”