Margaret Weatherford Column

Sunday 3 April 2005

Thoughts on a Royal Wedding

No prizes for guessing the subject of today�s column. Charles and Camilla are finally getting married, and yours truly gets to be one of the many, many people to offer my opinion on the subject. So here are some thoughts.

First, the discussion of Camilla�s title during Charles� reign is premature. Camilla will be 58 on July 19, while the Queen will turn 79 on April 21st. Yes, that�s right - the Queen is less than twenty years older than Camilla. The Queen Mother lived to be almost 102. The Queen may very well live longer, thanks to modern and future medicine. Camilla, on the other hand, smoked heavily for years and her mother and grandmother died relatively early. Sorry to be ghoulish at this happy time, but I strongly suspect that Charles will be a widower again when he comes to the throne, if indeed he outlives his mother himself. (Incidentally, I suspect that his conspicuously healthy organic-veggies lifestyle is a result of his fear of predeceasing the Queen.) And no doubt about it, she will still be an anointed monarch on the day that she dies, no matter how crabby an octogenarian king-in-waiting might get.

Meanwhile, Camilla will be called HRH Duchess of Cornwall, though she will in fact be Princess of Wales. I agree that this shows sensitivity to the continuing popularity of the late Princess of Wales, who surely would be appalled at the idea of Camilla bearing her title. However, the Windsors need to be careful about this precedent. The whole idea of the monarchy, and titles in general, is that you do not pick and choose. This notion that one person should not assume a title strongly associated with another person is perhaps a result of living in the later years of a long reign, when there is little memory of other royals having these titles. I am reminded of the early months of Edward VII�s reign, when the heir to the throne (the future George V) was known as �Duke of Cornwall and York.� The King had been Prince of Wales for over fifty years, and was not eager to give the title to someone else, even his beloved son. (Or perhaps Queen Alexandra did not wish to see her daughter-in-law as Princess of Wales, a title she held much longer than Diana did.) The result was that the future Queen Mary was the only woman since ancient times to be known as Duchess of Cornwall. I wonder what she would think of the new Duchess of Cornwall. My guess is that she would see her as just as acceptable as her great-grandmother Alice Keppel in the role of mistress, and would think that her great-grandson has lost his head in actually wanting to marry her.

But he does want to marry her, and for good reason. Many couples their age do not bother to get married - when there will be no more children, what�s the point? At the time of the Grosvenor/van Custem wedding fuss in November, I thought it was a routine royal story. Now it appears that it finally made up the Prince of Wales� notoriously indecisive mind to marry Camilla. For those who may not have heard, the Prince�s godson Edward van Custem married a daughter of the Duke of Westminster. The seating at the ceremony and reception was in line with royal protocol, with the result that Charles was expected to sit with the Queen rather than Camilla, and to arrive at a different entrance to the cathedral. Even though they had always complied with such rules in the past, Charles and Camilla decided not to attend the wedding under such conditions. The Queen and Princes William and Harry did attend. The Prince of Wales appeared to be sulking because he had been told for once that he could not have it both ways by having Camilla treated as his wife without actually being his wife. To his credit, he seems to have learned his lesson. Such problems are in the past now.

So what new problems are on the horizon? There will be problems, no doubt about it. People who marry after long relationships often underestimate the changes that marriage will make. For royal men, marriage makes a very important change - suddenly their wives are royal too. (This is an excellent reason to marry a princess.) A major problem of his first marriage seems to have been that the Prince did not realize that Diana would consider herself to be his equal partner after their marriage, and that therefore she would behave differently towards him as the Princess of Wales than she had as the deferential Lady Diana Spencer. I think that is one reason why Camilla will not be Princess of Wales, and may be Princess Consort rather than Queen if that day should come. The Prince loves her deeply, but he also wants to keep her in her place.

The notion of a Princess Consort is a profound departure from thousands of years of tradition. But it is also indicative of a trend in the modern Royal Family. After the divorces of the Queen�s sister and three eldest children, the family seems to be moving toward a policy of lowering the profiles of royal spouses, and giving them supporting rather than starring roles. This is easy for the husbands of princesses, who have never become royal upon marriage. It remains to be seen if this trend will continue for William and Harry�s wives. I would not be at all surprised if Harry decides to marry someone who the Palace prefers to keep in the background (learning their lesson from his Uncle Andrew�s marriage). William, on the other hand, seems to be a very traditional young man. I think that he will expect his wife to be Queen, and she will be. Assuming that King Charles III (or maybe George VII) ascends the throne with the Princess Consort at his side, it would be a mistake for the Palace to imply at the beginning of the next reign that William�s wife deserves to be Queen while Camilla did not. When kings and queens have to deserve their thrones, the monarchy is almost over.

- Margaret Weatherford

The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Thoughts on a Royal Wedding