The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Sunday 20 May 2007

Prince Harry Stays & The Queen Sits

Wednesday�s announcement that Prince Harry would not be going with his unit to Iraq came as no great surprise, albeit it was certainly a big disappointment for the young royal. The fact that he was obviously going to become a particular target of the warring factions in the Iraqi conflict simply posed too great a danger to all of the members of Harry�s unit, and not just to the prince. The ensuing flurry of reporting and commentary generally seems to acknowledge this, though a few voices have been raised in protest. �After all,� says one or two, here or there, �Prince Andrew was in harm�s way back in the 1980s.�

This is a far different conflict from the one in which Prince Andrew served in the Falklands. In that war there was, of course, the inevitable risk of death in combat or capture. But the opposing side was not so intently vicious as has all-too-often been demonstrated by the extremist factions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Had Andrew been captured he would have been treated decently, and eventually safely returned home. Such an expectation in Iraq would be at least uncertain.

Given the propensities of some of the most extreme participants in this war, the horrific possibility of a video-taped beheading of so prominent a hostage was surely taken into account by the powers-that-be. Even more likely would have been the chance of a powerful car-bombing taking out the third-in-line to the throne. But that would at least have been heroic, and in a traditional mode of tragedy. I suspect the prospect of what might happen if Prince Harry were captured is what sent the most chills through the upper echelons in London.

The very fact that the British monarchy is largely symbolic rather than wielding actual power would have made a hostage prince all the more problematic. It would leave the Queen and Prince of Wales in a position of being found as helpless victims before the world, while facing the Prime Minister � shortly to be Gordon Brown � with great pressures to act in defense of national honor whether it was prudent or not.

Even the Prince of Wales� deep respect and friendship for the Muslim community in Britain would not have served the son. Charles� long friendship with various of the Gulf royals is a friendship with the enemies of the extremists, Sunni and Shi-a alike. That is particularly the case in relation to the Saudi royals. And the home ground vision of multi-culturalism that is so dear to Prince Charles is totally anathema to the fundamentalist mindset. Sadly, the most radicalized members of the Muslim community in Britain are often those of Prince Harry�s own generation.

Sources say that Harry remains committed to a career in the military. Good enough. But whatever the utterly valid reasons, this new development surely puts a dent in his prospects for real career advancement. Modern armies do not have the safe niches that their older and more cumbersome predecessors had for folks in Harry�s position. And a young man like Prince Harry wouldn�t want just a safe niche. He�s said so himself.

In some ways it is too bad that Harry did not follow family tradition a bit more closely by choosing a naval career. That is a setting where one can be both in the heart of the action and yet be less vulnerable in the way young Wales would have been on the ground in Iraq. (The recent Persian Gulf incident with Iran notwithstanding.) Over the last century, after all, the real active duty royals have been mostly in the navy.

The unenviable reality of being born royal continues to be that there are some things that a royal simply cannot do, no matter how much they may want to. In this case, Prince Harry�s readiness and willingness to be deployed is much to be commended. The lad has been far less than wise at times in his shenanigans. But he has apparently been quite serious in his intention to serve the British people in the army. The huge personal question is how to proceed from here. Hopefully this set-back won�t divert him towards indulging the wild side of his nature in ways that become more and more problematic.

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Switching gears�. I�d originally thought to reflect on the Queen�s most recent set of photographic portraits done by Annie Leibovitz in anticipation of H.M.�s highly successful trip to the U.S. I found them to be quite wonderful.

It always fascinates me to compare family photos across generations and see what ancestors are peeking out through our own faces. Across the years the Queen has often looked strikingly like her grandmother, Queen Mary. Occasionally there has been a faint glimmer of Victoria� especially when H.M. was being a bit too solemn or glum. But in these photos more of her late mother shows up than I�d seen before, perhaps because she is growing a bit softer and rounder of face as the years go on.

My particular favorite photo of the current set is actually the one that some critics have called �too Harry Potter-ish!� (An oxymoron in my personal lexicon.) It is the one of the Queen in a military cloak � a motif used in some older portraits of H.M. � set against a backdrop of dark and brooding clouds in the Buckingham Palace gardens. To my eye it is truly �magical� and conveys a sense of the inherent dignity and self-possession of Elizabeth Windsor herself. No tiaras and fur. No golden gown or Garter robes. Just an old lady in a cloak, who knows perfectly well who she is, and is a peace with that. It is a perfect counterpoint to the famous coronation portraits of 1953, in which the beautiful young woman in all her regalia was sitting in front of an equally superimposed and fakey sort of background.

The range of portrayals of the Queen over the last half century is really extraordinary. At some future point I expect that someone in the art world to undertake a study of the portraiture of Queen Elizabeth II. Year by year new portraits emerge � produced by painters, photographers, and even holographic artists � that continually stir up fresh controversy. From Annigoni, to Warhol, to Lucian Freud, the images are striking... if not always pretty and complimentary. And this queen will doubtless continue to let a variety of artists show her as they see her� like it or not. A body rather wonders what that says about her? Something basically positive, I suspect.

Yours Aye,

- Ken Cuthbertson