The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Sunday 20 April 2008

Family Milestones

It is a season of milestones for the British Royal family, a time of events and happenings that serve as way-markers in life.  I begin with a tip of my bonnet to H.M. the Queen as she marks her eighty-second birthday.  She�s the first British monarch ever to do that.

My christening prediction of last month has come to pass� if only yesterday.  The big surprise is that Viscount Severn gets to break in the new family christening gown, a reproduction of the Victorian one commissioned by the Queen.  Since he is most probably the last of Elizabeth II�s grandchildren it seems a shame that they didn�t give the old one a final go, and then start fresh in the next generation.  As I am writing this midweek in advance of the christening, I will have to wait and see who the godparents turn out to be.  By the time you read this you�ll know if I was right in saying that James Ogilvy might be on the list.

At the other end of life, the recent hospitalization of the Duke of Edinburgh seems to have reminded some in the media that at nearly 87 years of age he is more and more subject to the frailty that inevitably comes to all, and that sooner or later mortality will catch up with him.  What was nice was to see several articles admitting that he�s a far more decent and intelligent fellow than the caricature too often portrayed.  Blunt at times?  Undoubtedly.  Occasionally insensitive to political correctness?  Guilty as charged.  But often the best bread is found under a really tough crust.  My personal hope is that more people will look honestly and fairly at the Duke, and give him his due while he is still around.  One wonders what impact his eventual demise will have on the woman who has been besotted with him for nearly seventy years?

The April 3 memorial for Sir Edmund Hillary at Windsor, by the way, was to my mind an amazing tribute.  Sir Edmund�s association with the Queen was always very special, and H.M.�s hosting of this unique service shows just how significant he was in her eyes.  The traditional Maori �karanga� by Mereana Hond, calling out to ancestral spirits, must have been a first for St. George�s Chapel.  Just reading about it brought a tear to my eye.  There�s more than one way to commune with the angels and saints.

If there were open nominations for the next occupant of Sir Edmund�s vacant stall in St. George�s, which there aren�t, I�d put up Nelson Mandela.  He would be as much of an honor to the Order of the Garter as it to him.

An old saying popular among clergy types reminds us that there are three �throwings� in life.  There is the throwing of water (christening), the throwing of dirt (burial), and the throwing of confetti or rice (marriage).  In the wake of the christening and the memorial the Mountbatten-Windsors will soon be celebrating with confetti as the Princess Royal�s son becomes the first of the Queen�s grandchildren to wed, just as he was the first of them to be born.

The fact that Peter Philips will be renouncing his place in the succession because his fianc�, Autumn Kelly, is a baptized Roman Catholic has occasioned much renewed discussion on the law that continues to bar persons in the line of succession from marrying Roman Catholics.  Many are, of course, calling for the repeal of the law.  And while I am in general agreement, the fact remains that the Vatican�s ongoing pressure to have politicians and government officials who are Catholic adhere to papal positions on things like abortion, birth control, and same-sex marriage does create potential dilemmas even for royalty.  As I mentioned in one of my early columns on this site back in 2004, the late King Baudoin of Belgium found it necessary some years ago to temporarily �abdicate� just long enough for a piece of legislation his Catholic conscience could not approve to be duly ratified.  While such instances are rare, and many Catholic officials around the world � conservative and liberal alike � blatantly do not adhere to the papal positions, ecclesiastical threats in recent years to possibly go so far as excommunicating officials who disobey the Vatican demonstrate that things aren�t as simple as they seem.  (And that has been true all the way back to the days of the first Elizabeth.)  It is one thing to urge adherents of a religion to follow a certain course in public policy, but quite another to try to compel them to do so.  For those in a public role religion is not always just a matter of personal spirituality.

Another set of stories on the preparations for the upcoming nuptials nudges me to express my deep concern over the boozy behavior of Princes William and Harry in the course of Peter Philips� �Stag� weekend.  The tone of the reporting was that it was all in good youthful fun, and so it may be.  But the ongoing reports of the princes going out to the clubs and then getting taken home very drunk in the wee hours are both wearisome and worrisome.  Whatever else their quirks and faults, Charles, Andrew, Edward, and Anne were apparently never heavy drinkers or substance abusers.  (At the very least they weren�t known to be.)  Though they are very much contemporary young men, William and Harry are also raising the rather haunting specters of the sons of George V in the roaring twenties� when the Prince of Wales and Duke of Kent were particularly given to a variety of excesses including (in Kent�s case) the use of drugs.  The current Earl Spencer�s youthful reputation as �Champagne Charlie� also comes to mind here, but not encouragingly.  I really don�t care if William and Harry have a drink or two, but I do wonder when and if it needs to be recognized as a problem?

I was glad to see that Kate Middleton attended the ceremony where �William Wales� received his RAF wings.  It made me wonder, though, what it must be like to go to these events and have pictures of your significant other�s relatives hanging on virtually every wall?  The BBC pictures of William and Kate walking off together down a hallway after the ceremony show them walking toward a very large portrait of King George V.

Finally, now that the Diana inquest is over and done we do seem to know a lot of new things� just not about her death.  I keep hoping that we are finished with it all.  But that is probably just plain silly. 

Yours Aye,

- Ken Cuthbertson