Sunday 2 January 2005 Royal WomenAfter the recent deaths of Diana, Princess of
Wales, Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother, and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester,
there are far fewer royal women than in the past. As
the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York remain unmarried, the only senior royal women now
are the Queen, the Countess of Wessex (Prince Edwards wife Sophie), and the Princess
Royal (Princess Anne). The royal women farther
from the throne but still royal highnesses are Princess Alexandra and her sisters-in-law,
the Duchess of Kent and Princess Michael of Kent (who does not perform royal duties), and
the Duchess of Gloucester. Now that Princess
Alexandra is a 68-year-old widow, she may choose to reduce her schedule in the near
future. All of these ladies of the Queens
generation are likely to have lower profiles as time passes and the younger grandchildren
of King George V are pushed further away from the throne by the descendants of George VI. While the older generation nears retirement,
another generation of royal women should be coming on the scene soon. Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are almost grown
up, and it seems likely that they will take on royal duties.
During the 1990s it was said that in the future the number of active royals
would be reduced, but at that time it was anticipated that the late Princess of Wales
would remain active, and that Princes William and Harry would marry fairly soon, as well
as taking on full schedules of royal duties themselves.
Now it looks as though Prince William is reluctant to end his private life
as a student and become a working royal, while Prince Harry shows every sign
of intending to run wild for as long as he can. Most
likely both princes will enter the military and remain single for several years. During that time the The New Year is a good time to think about royal
duties, as the annual calculation of how many royal engagements were performed by each
member of the family is about to be published. This
tabulation is based on the royal engagements announced in the daily Court Circular. The Duchess of York complained in her autobiography
that much of the charity work she did was not published in the Court Circular, and
therefore was not considered in the annual league table. Also, appointments of only a few minutes are
counted as if equal to spending an entire day at the same place, so the system encourages
the royal family to be superficial in their work. But what are these duties? Only the Queens duties as monarch could be
described as mandatory. The senior royals have
appointments as honorary heads of military divisions as well as numerous charities and
other worthwhile organizations, and many of their public appearances are associated with
these organizations. They also make one-off
appearances at the request of other people or groups.
These are built around the annual movements of the Court to Balmoral,
Sandringham, and Windsor, as well as the events such as Trooping the Colour and
Remembrance Sunday that are attended by the whole family.
All of these appearances are flexible in terms of how many members of the family are full-time
working royals at a given time. If the family happens to have fewer active adult members than usual at a given time, some organizations have to do without royal patrons, but few people notice the difference. In the past, when royal and aristocratic women did not have the option of having careers, the public was less interested in whether royal women were pulling their weight by performing a full schedule of appearances. Now the trend seems to be towards making clearer distinctions between full-time senior royals, who live at public expense, and their royal relatives, who have titles and may choose to have philanthropic interests, but must earn their own money and not live in the state-owned palaces. These distinctions were not always observed by the generation of the Queens cousins, but for the generation of her grandchildren I think that royalty will be a job as much as a position and not all of them will want or get the job. -
Margaret Weatherford |
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