Switzerland apart, nations feel the need for a head of state. But should he or she be directly elected by the people or indirectly by the parliament? And should the president be an executive one or merely a figurehead? Replacing kings and queens regnant with a powerful political president such as the French or American one would be a massive constitutional change for Britain and Europe’s other monarchies, with their long traditions of parliamentary democracy. By definition, they would also be divisive figures, elected by only part of the nation. The alternative of a German- or Italian-style figurehead president is scarcely more appealing: typically former politicians, selected as a result of a process of horse-trading between the political parties, they rarely command the same respect at home as a monarch. Their profile abroad is also considerably lower: how can you compare the international prestige of Queen Elizabeth with that of President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy or Germany’s Joachim Gauck (who only found himself in the job at all after the resignation of his predecessor over a corruption scandal)?
Considering the alternatives, it is no wonder that a constitutional monarchy can seem appealing to those living within one. A negative justification, certainly – but no less persuasive because of it. Furthermore, this appeal looks set to endure, provided the next generation of monarchs handle their role as deftly as their parents have done, adapting with the times and finding new ways of maintaining their relevance to their changing societies. After all, if something isn’t broken, why replace it?
In 1948, King Farouk of Egypt famously declared, “The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five kings left – the king of England, the king of Spades, the king of Clubs, the king of Hearts and the king of Diamonds.” Farouk was right, at least about one king: himself. Four years after his pronouncement, he was forced to flee his country in great haste, leaving behind all his possessions, including an impressive collection of pornography.3 Sixty years later, however, the other European monarchs are still on their thrones. Most – if not all – will still be there another sixty years from now.
Acknowledgements
Given the extent of the ground that I had to cover in writing this book, I have drawn on many books and other published sources (quoted in the footnotes) in a variety of languages. As part of my research, I have also been privileged to speak to officials from the various royal courts, both on and off the record, who have shared with me their valuable insights.
A number of other people have also helped me. Among them have been Nina Berglund, Elisabet Carlsson, Nina Eldh, Carl-Erik Grimstad, Hillevi Larsson, Karin Lennmor, Herman Lindqvist, Johan T. Lindwall, Jesper Lundorf, Herman Matthijs, Håvard Melnæs, Annemor Møst, Kathy Pauwels, Anne Quevrin, Gitte Redder, Magnus Simonsson, Pol Van Den Driessche and Michiel Zonnevylle – to name just a few.
I owe special thanks to Trond Norén Isaksen, the Norwegian historian, who made use of his encyclopaedic knowledge of European royalty to identify and correct some factual errors in the first draft, and to Vernon Bogdanor, my former politics tutor at Brasenose College, Oxford and now Research Professor at King’s College London’s Institute for Contemporary History, who read the chapter on politics and made some useful suggestions for improvement. If any mistakes have nevertheless made it through into the book, then that is entirely my fault. Thanks also to Phil Robinson, for drawing the family tree.
I would also like to thank my agent, Andrew Nurnberg of Andrew Nurnberg Associates, for initiating the project, which began as a book aimed at French readers, Alessandro Gallenzi and Elisabetta Minervini at Alma Books for taking on this, the English edition, and Alex Middleton for his careful and sensitive editing.
Notes
Introduction
1 Although curiously the united Germany was a federal state, and Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony continued to have their own kings (and other states their own dukes and grand dukes) until 1918.
2 It fell just short of the seventy-two years (1643 to 1715) notched up by Louis XIV of France and the seventy years (1858–1929) of Johann II, Prince of Liechtenstein.
3 Arguably, this list should also include the Vatican – which can be characterized as an elective monarchy – and Andorra, ruled by the Bishop of Urgell and the President of France, who, in his capacity as Prince of Andorra, is the only monarch elected at regular intervals by voters in another country.
4 When the fifteen Commonwealth countries over which the British monarch reigns are added, the figure passes 220 million.
Chapter 1
1 The family’s name was formally changed to Windsor in 1917, at the height of the First World War, from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (prompting George V’s cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, to joke that he looked forward to seeing Shakespeare’s play The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha).
2 En Kongelig Familie [A Royal Family], Nordisk Film, 2004.
3 There were rumours, though, that he had been poisoned. Count Axel von Fersen, reputed to have been a lover of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, was suspected of the murder and was lynched during the funeral procession.
4 This title, rather than “king of Belgium”, was chosen to emphasize the new monarchy’s link with the people rather than the territory; it also worked better in Latin: the Dutch king had already taken the name Rex Belgii, leaving the Belgians with Rex Belgarum instead.
Chapter 2
1 John Lindskog, Royale rejser – Bag Kulisserne Hos De Kongelige [Royal Travels – Behind the Scenes with the Royals] (Copenhagen: Documentas, 2009).
2 Georgios’s son, Konstantinos, who succeeded him, abdicated twice – first in favour of his second son, Alexander, who died three years later of sepsis brought on by monkey bites, and then in favour of his eldest son, Georgios, who, in what was becoming something of a Greek habit, was deposed but then allowed to return.
3 Billed-Bladet, no. 6, 2010.
4 Failure to do so could mean a repetition of the split between Luxembourg and the Netherlands in 1890, when Grand Duchy’s succession laws prevented it from accepting Wilhelmina as its sovereign.
5 Unlike in other European countries, the Belgian monarch does not automatically accede to the throne upon the death or abdication of his predecessor, but only after taking the oath – which in the case of Albert II, the current king, happened nine days after the death of his brother Baudouin.
Chapter 3
1 In 1642, King Charles I entered the Commons chamber and attempted to arrest five members. The Speaker famously defied the King, refusing to tell him where they were hiding.
2 Nottingham Evening Post, 24th November 1998.
3 Vernon Bogdanor, The Monarchy and the Constitution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 1.
4 Ibid., p. 1.
5 ‘Nick Clegg “Propped Up” Gordon Brown to Seal Tory Deal: Insider Account Reveals Lib Dems Never Wanted Coalition with Labour’, Mail on Sunday, 14th November 2010.
6 Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 18.
7 Interview with the author, April 2012.
8 Jörgen Weibull, ‘The Power of the Crown’, in Gösta Vogel-Rödin, ed., Paul Britten Austin, trans., The Bernadottes: Their Political and Cultural Achievements (Lidköping: Läckö Castle Foundation, 1991), p. 40.
9 ‘Prince Hans-Adam II: Liechtenstein’s Future as a “Clean Tax Haven”’, New York Times, 31st August 2000.
Chapter 4
1 The Queen’s real birthday is 21st April, but the weather at that time is not considered reliable.
2 ‘Being Queen Is Just What I Do’, Sunday Telegraph, 5th January 2003.
3 The Swedish king retained the position, at his own request, after the Church of Sweden was formally separated from the state on 1st January 2000.
4 Interview with the author, Copenhagen, September 2009.
5 BBC News, 28th February 2008.
Chapter 5
1 ‘Your (Commuter) Carriage Awaits! Thrifty Que
en Catches Ordinary Passenger Train on her Journey to Sandringham for Christmas’, Daily Mail, 17th December 2009.
2 Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (1867; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 49–50.
3 Marion Crawford, The Little Princesses (London: Odhams Press, 1950), p. 40.
4 Sarah Bradford, Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen (London: Heinemann, 1996), p. 358.
5 Robert Lacey, Royal: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (London: Little, Brown, 2002), p. 189.
6 ‘Revealed: The Battered Table That Carries Tea, Toast, Jam (and Mismatched Crockery) for the Royal Breakfast in Bed’, Daily Mail, 26th October 2009.
7 Horatio Clare, ‘The Moral of the Queen’s Breakfast Tray’, Daily Telegraph, 27th October 2009.
8 ‘The Real Elizabeth II’, Daily Telegraph, 8th January 2002.
9 Jeremy Paxman, On Royalty (London: Penguin, 2006), p. 275.
10 ‘Mystery over Prince Charles and his Boiled Eggs Deepens’, Mail on Sunday, 24th September 2006.
11 ‘I Need More Public Cash to Repair Palaces, Says Queen’, Daily Telegraph, 5th July 2011.
12 The military budget, by contrast, had been voted annually and controlled by parliament, under a system finalized in 1698, limiting the King’s ability, should he be so tempted, to use the army for internal repression.
13 Phillip Hall, Royal Fortune: Tax, Money and the Monarchy (London: Bloomsbury, 1992), p. 8.
14 Ibid., p. 11.
15 Robert Rhodes James, Albert Prince Consort (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1985), p. 143.
16 Hall, op. cit., p. 45.
17 The reason for such a convoluted arrangement became clear only several years later: like many of her subjects, the Queen was trying to cut her tax bill. Treating these payments as costs meant she could offset them against any tax she owed.
18 ‘Cameron Gets on Board “Inspirational” Royal Yacht Plan’, Financial Times, 16th January 2012.
19 ‘Queen Shares the Pain with Pay Freeze to 2015’, Sunday Times, 4th December 2011.
20 ‘Prince Charles’s Income up by £1m’, Guardian, 28th June 2011.
21 ‘Anti-monarchy Group Says British Royals Costs Taxpayer 5 Times Palace’s Official Figure’, Associated Press, 23rd June 2011.
22 Interview with the author, 9th November 2009.
23 Interview with the author, 10th November 2009.
24 Ekstra Bladet, 26th January 2009.
25 Herman Matthijs, Overheidsbegrotingen [Public Spending] (Bruges: Die Keure, 2009).
26 Interview with the author, September 2009.
27 ‘Le Vlaams Belang veut contrôler les dépenses royales et princières’ [‘Vlaams Belang Want to Control Royal and Princely Expenses’], Le Vif, 14th May 2008.
28 ‘Koning Albert wil zelf meer transparantie’ [‘King Albert Wants to Increase Transparency’], Knack, 19th August 2009.
29 Interview with the author, September 2009.
30 ‘Belgian Royals Latest to Join Austerity Drive’, Guardian, 9th January 2012.
31 ‘The World’s Richest Royals’, Forbes, 17th June 2009.
32 Wall Street Journal, 6th December 1999.
33 Paul Belien, A Throne in Brussels: Britain, the Saxe-Coburgs and the Belgianization of Europe (Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic, 2005), p. 42.
34 Federico Quevedo and Daniel Forcada, El negocio del poder. Así viven los políticos con nuestro dinero [The Business of Power. So Politicians Live with Our Money] (Madrid: Altera, 2009).
Chapter 6
1 Thomas Sjöberg, Deanne Rauscher and Tove Meyer, Carl XVI Gustaf: Den motvillige monarken [Carl XVI Gustaf: The Reluctant Monarch] (Stockholm: Lind & Co., 2010).
2 ‘Camilla Henemark fick skandalboken’ [‘Camilla Henemark Received Scandalous Book’], Expressen, 6th November 2010.
3 Peter Wolodarski, ‘Kungen: Tredubblade insatser’ [‘The King: Tripled Efforts’], Dagens Nyheter, 31st May 2011.
4 Jaime Peñafiel, Juan Carlos y Sofía: Retrato de un matrimonio [Juan Carlos and Sofía: Portrait of a Marriage] (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2008), quoted in ‘Code of Silence Broken as New Book Reveals Popular King as a Don Juan’, Times, 12th January 2008.
5 Pilar Eyre, La soledad de la Reina [The Solitude of the Queen] (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2012).
6 Mario Danneels, Paola: van la dolce vita tot koningin [Paola: From la Dolce Vita to Queen] (Leuven: Uitgeverij Van Halewyck, 1999).
7 Crawford, op. cit., p. 59.
8 Nicholas Davies, Elizabeth: Behind Palace Doors (London: Mainstream Publishing, 2000), p. 70.
9 De stem van de koningin [The Voice of the Queen], Één, 6th June 2006.
10 De Morgen, 21st May 2005.
11 ‘Albert had duobaan met “de patron”’ [‘Albert had a job share with “the boss”’], De Standaard, 11th April 2009.
12 ‘The King’s Place in My Art’, Times, 17th April 2008.
13 Delphine Boël, Couper le cordon [Cut the Cord] (Brussels: Wever & Bergh, 2008).
14 Paul Preston, Juan Carlos: Steering Spain from Dictatorship to Democracy (London: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 154.
15 ‘Family Reunion’, Time, 13th September 1954.
16 Época, 22nd March 1993.
17 ‘Royalty: My Son, the Prince’, Time, 28th December 1962.
18 ‘The Netherlands: Woman in the House’, Time, 13th May 1946.
19 ‘Queen Wilhelmina Wore the Pants’, Milwaukee Journal, 8th September 1955.
20 Henri de Monpezat, Destin oblige (Paris: Plon, 1996), p. 24.
21 Per Egil Hegge, Harald V: En Biographi [Harald V: A Biography] (Oslo: N.W. Damm & Søn, 2006).
22 Interview with the author, 10th November 2009.
23 Hegge, op. cit.
24 Annemor Møst, 25 lykkelige år: Kong Harald og dronning Sonja i hverdag og fest [Twenty-Five Happy Years: King Harald and Queen Sonja in Their Daily Lives and Celebrations] (Oslo: Schibsted, 1993), p. 158.
25 Interview with the author, 10th November 2009.
26 Møst, op. cit. p. 158.
27 Norbert Loh, Silvia von Schweden: Eine deutsche Königin [Silvia of Sweden: A German Queen] (Munich: Droemer, 2003), p. 55.
28 Margaret of Connaught died at the age of thirty-eight and Gustaf VI Adolf then married Louise Mountbatten, elder sister of Prince Philip’s influential “Uncle Dickie”.
Chapter 7
1 Alison Weir, King Henry VIII: King and Court (London: Jonathan Cape, 2001), p. 403.
2 Christopher Hibbert, George IV, Prince of Wales 1762–1811 (Newton Abbot: Readers Union, 1973), pp. 14–19, 23–24.
3 Kate Williams, Becoming Queen (London: Hutchinson, 2008), p. 6.
4 Valérie de Montfort, Les plus belles anecdotes historiques sur la famille royale [The Best Historical Anecdotes about the Royal Family] (Brussels: Jourdan Éditeur, 2007), p. 27.
5 Belien, op. cit., pp. 75–76.
6 Ibid., p. 77.
7 de Montfort, op. cit., p. 52.
8 Belien, op. cit., p. 77.
9 Ibid., p. 93.
10 Ibid., p. 94.
11 ‘A Queen’s Unhappy Life: Misery of the Late Marie-Henriette of Belgium Revealed in Letters’, New York Times, 5th October 1902.
12 ‘Holland’s Queen’, New York Times, 26th September 1897.
13 Lord John Hervey, Some Materials towards Memoirs of the Reign of King George II, Vol. 1 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1931), p. 42.
14 Belien, op. cit., p. 78.
15 Pall Mall Gazette, 10th, 11th April 1885, quoted in Belien, op. cit., p. 102.
16 Munthe later became well known as the author of The Story of San Michele, an autobiography that became one of the first truly international best-sellers after it was published in 1929.
17 John D. Bergamini, The Spanis
h Bourbons: The History of a Tenacious Dynasty, (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974), p. 108.
18 Gerard Noel, Ena: Spain’s English Queen (London: Constable, 1984), pp. 238–40.
19 Eleanor Herman, Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers and Passionate Politics (New York, NY: William Morrow, 2006), p. 137.
20 Half a century later the jar was discovered by Catherine the Great on a dusty shelf in a back room of the palace, alongside another containing the head of Mary Hamilton, one of Peter’s own lovers, whom he had also beheaded. Although struck by how well both were preserved, the Tsarina did the decent thing and had them both buried.
21 Joan Haslip, Catherine the Great (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978), p. 353.
22 Bergamini, op. cit., p. 229.
23 Herman, op. cit., p. 252.
24 Tor Bomann-Larsen, Folket: Haakon og Maud [The People: Haakon and Maud] Vol. II (Oslo: Cappelen, 2004).
25 Reuters, 14th October 2004.
26 Odd Arvid Storsveen [book review], Historisk Tidsskrift, No. 1, 2005, pp. 130–41.
Chapter 8
1 ‘Globespotters; London: A Fashion Biography’, New York Times, 18th April 2010.
2 ‘The Girl in White Gloves’, Time, 31st January 1955.
3 Pascal went on to have a fling with Gary Cooper before marrying Raymond Pellegrin, another actor – by whom she had a daughter.
The Great Survivors Page 41