A Brief History of the House of Windsor

by Michael Paterson

  June 2012: The Diamond Jubilee

  A day of unseasonal chill and fitful sunshine that, before it is over, will have degenerated into wintry cold and almost solid sheets of rain. The usual crowds sit from dawn on the pavements or emerge, bleary-eyed, from pup-tents in St James’s Park. As the hours pass there are more and more of them, still swapping yarns about where they have come from and what other occasions they have seen. As the numbers increase, the media awaken. As usual, the networks have decided that the crowd will be depicted as happily indomitable, determined to enjoy themselves in spite of the weather. This is what the audience both at home and overseas expect from the British – eccentric cheerfulness and a sense of carry-on-regardless. Presenters and cameramen from the television news channels go up and down the kerbsides, telling people what they are going to ask and what the answers must be (‘When we say: “What keeps you going?” you’re to answer: “Adrenalin!” ’) inciting them to wave and grin and cheer like morons as soon as the cameras are turned on. The hordes obey, and are rewarded with a thumbs-up: ‘That was great!’ Eventually, in mid-morning, the crowd will see a short motorcade that flashes past in minutes. ‘Have I waited four hours for that?’ asks one woman. Only in the afternoon, when the participants come back, will there be the bands and horses and gun-carriages that the spectators wanted. But it is frankly not very interesting, not a patch on 2002. This time most of the effort went into a river pageant, and for those on land there is only a short drive up Whitehall and along the Mall to look at. The crowd are bored. Magic sometimes fails to match expectations. And now the rain has come, threatening the fly-past by Second World War aircraft that is the traditional climax to these events.

  Nevertheless when the family are back inside the Palace and the slow, almost stately surge of the crowd westward up the Mall begins, kept in check by a solid line of policemen, excitement mounts all over again. As always the climax, the moment more to be savoured than any other, is the appearance on the balcony of those who have been glimpsed in passing a short time earlier. The cheering will be deafening, the sense of goodwill and camaraderie and national unity will be fleeting but forthcoming, the notion of being a participant in something magnificent will bring some members of the crowd to tears. This is the single moment that will live in memory long after the early start, the discomfort and cold and boredom have been forgotten.

  Despite such euphoria, there is an often-expressed view in the media that we have all had enough of this, that it will wither away through the increasing indifference of modern and forward-looking people, especially the young. In the days and weeks before the jubilee, and the wedding, there was much talk about the general lack of enthusiasm for these events. The perspective was always the same – that the queen’s subjects are becoming more and more disenchanted with their constitutional arrangements, and that, by implication, there will not be such events in future because the monarchy will have gone. The foreign news coverage was especially dominated by this. Passers-by, stopped at random, opined that either the occasions meant nothing to them personally or they felt such celebrations were inappropriate at a time of recession and national austerity. On the days themselves, broadcasters even went in search of alternative celebrations – anti-weddings or jubilees – and found small groups of listless men and women doing nothing very much. Those they interviewed, almost invariably young and slovenly, are the sort of people who are against any established order anyway. A female Cambridge undergraduate – a self-confessed anarchist who would thus, by very definition, disapprove equally of every other form of government – was interviewed by American television. In the cut-glass tones of one educated in the Home Counties, she fulminated against the occasion with genuine passion if without any coherent arguments. Anyone watching this type of thing would have been aware of a palpable desperation as the networks looked for someone – anyone – who could present the alternative view. They did not manage to find a single spokesperson to put the case articulately or impressively.

  On the afternoon of the river pageant there was a republican protest outside City Hall, close to the route that the vessels, and the royal family, would travel. Attendance was modest, despite the fact that participants had travelled from all over the United Kingdom and beyond (Swedish anti-monarchists, for some reason, were there). Peter Tatchell, an activist and unsuccessful parliamentary candidate, gave a speech in which he acknowledged that those present were a small minority (he was heckled throughout by chants of ‘Long live the queen!’ from loyalists) but compared the ending of the monarchy to the abolition of slavery, the gaining by women of the right to vote and the granting of equality to homosexuals. He pointed out that all of these had been unpopular, unfashionable causes but, because a small number of devoted activists had persevered with them, they had gradually won over the majority and succeeded in their objectives. To pretend that an extremely benign, and widely popular, institution of proven worth – such as the monarchy – is comparable with some denial of human rights is, at the least, very poor reasoning. After emphasizing that his objection was to the institution of monarchy and not the throne’s current occupant, Tatchell went on to say that the queen has ‘never made any sacrifices’ and ‘never suffered any hardship’ – emphasizing that he appears to know little about her. If his speech sums up the current thinking of republicanism, it has overwhelmingly lost the argument.

  Republicans are almost visibly disappointed that members of racial minorities are not more outraged by the royal family’s ethnicity. In fact, among these groups the queen has long since won respect. As Head of the Commonwealth she is known to move easily among the leaders and peoples of the countries from which Britain’s new communities are drawn. She is head of state in a number of them. Her views on racial discrimination – seen most clearly in her reaction to South African apartheid – are well known. However disenchanted minority citizens may become with British governments or other institutions, the monarchy is not a target of their anger. One historian, Philip Howard, has neatly summed up the sovereign’s position thus: ‘Constitutional monarchy is, paradoxically, a democratic institution: by giving the official head of state no power, it makes her a representative of all her subjects, particularly the weaker and the powerless.’ Perhaps minority citizens sense this, or know it, while those who are indignant on their behalf do not. She is all things to all men. That is the beauty of it.

  The notion that ‘this is the twenty-first century’ is perhaps the most ludicrous ‘argument’ of the lot, though it is much used by the lazy and the unthinking. What has the date on the calendar to do with whether an institution is useful and effective? The idea that change is compulsory whether or not it is for the better, simply because time has moved on, is a very quick recipe for disaster. We would be left with nothing very useful at all if we got rid of tried and proven things just because they have been around for a long time. Does anyone suggest we abolish the International Red Cross because it was founded as long ago as 1859? Or the Olympics because they hark back to Ancient Greece? Parliament was first summoned in England in 1295, yet one does not hear people saying: ‘But this is the twenty-first century! Why do we still have a constituent assembly that dates from over seven hundred years ago?’ Institutions such as schools and businesses are proud to advertise the date at which they began, because it suggests that by having been in existence a long time they have not only proved trustworthy but have given satisfaction, gained valuable experience and adapted to suit changing needs. Why should the monarchy, which has done all of these things, not be judged by the same criteria and take the same pride?

  There is also an argument produced by republicans that monarchy prevents any person, anywhere, from becoming Britain’s head of state – that there can be no ‘log cabin to White House’ dream, as there is in the United States. Yet the position of British prime minister is not exactly negligible. It is one of the world’s great offices, bringing with it tremendous power and prestige. It was sufficient to satisfy the ambitions of
Churchill, Disraeli and Pitt the Elder. Harold Wilson, a working-class boy from Yorkshire, actually lived that dream when he was photographed as a child outside Number 10 Downing Street. He was to return forty years later as the occupant, and twice to serve as prime minister. To anyone of reasonable ambitions the premiership would surely be enough to satisfy them. (Today, in addition, children could grow up wanting to be president of the European Council.) The post of prime minister has the added attraction that it gives its occupant the opportunity to exercise power without its usual accompaniment – the need to preside over hours of mind-numbing official entertaining and protocol. It could be argued that the monarchy has taken on all the dull bits of being in office, saving others the trouble. It is also worth remembering, since politics attracts people with considerable self-regard, that the presence of a monarch keeps in check the egos of ambitious statesmen. When MPs attend the queen’s garden parties, as they do each summer, it is noticeable how little interest their presence arouses.

  Republicans often cannot understand why others do not share their zeal or their perpetual resentment. They seize avidly on any small reverse for the House of Windsor as evidence that victory is imminent. Every time Prince Philip makes one of his trademark faux pas they react with spluttering indignation. What the shrill and humourless apostles of political correctness do not realize is that a great many members of the public do not think such incidents worthy of anger. Knowing that these throwaway remarks are unintentional and not meant to offend, they might even find them funny, and may well enjoy the notion that public figures can successfully get away with defying the straitjacket of current orthodoxy. Every instance of Prince Philip or Prince Harry speaking out of turn (often when the media had no business to be eavesdropping in the first place) is trumpeted by newspapers, and may pursue them for years afterward. The public, however, tend to forgive, or simply not to hold it against them in the first place.

  There was considerable smirking among progressives when, following the death of the Queen Mother in 2002, there was no immediate rush to sign books of condolence for her. At least one newspaper featured a photograph of a deserted crush-barrier next to St James’s Palace where thousands had been expected, and asked if she did not deserve better after a lifetime of public service. The prophecy that this showed a terminal decline in the popularity of monarchy was to prove seriously premature. Though crowds had been slow to gather, after that they came in very significant numbers. They queued for anything up to nine hours to pass her coffin while she lay in state in Westminster Hall, and over a million lined the streets on the day of her funeral. It was not only a matter of her personal popularity, it was a quiet but effective riposte from the people of Britain to those who predicted that apathy would be their only reaction.

  One thing that critics also seriously underestimate is the sheer entertainment that the royal family provide. Everyone knows who they are. The public have followed the doings of the principal characters all their lives. They like to know how the younger generation are getting on at school and university, what they will go on to do for a living, how they meet their spouses and when and where they are going to settle down. Births and other new arrivals are greeted with interest. Any comparison of the Windsors with a soap opera – a comment first made in the fifties – need not be seen as derogatory. They are indeed like a long-running television series, but such programmes are immensely popular with millions (far more people watch them than would vote for any single political party or support any movement), and are a very important part of national life. The characters in the royal family, like those in Coronation Street, are expected to earn the attention of viewers through their entertainment value – by being interesting, loveable, villainous, eccentric, controversial, by both leading and following social trends.

  More importantly, the entire mindset of the British people is unsympathetic to the notion of removing the monarchy. Not that there are not intelligent and articulate people who disagree with the system, but these are not in anything like a majority, and they are not likely to be. The great mass of the populace is against them. The feelings of the public, whether conscious or subconscious but reflected in the results of opinion polls over decades, are in favour of an institution they respect and a non-political head of state to whom the Civil Service, the armed forces, politicians and the judiciary owe allegiance.

  Many people – probably the majority – in any country are more interested in their own affairs than in the doings of the government except when these impinge upon their lives. Americans may well think about the presidency only every four years when they are subjected to electioneering. So it is with the monarchy. It is quietly there for the whole of British people’s lives, taken for granted. Only when some great occasion makes it conspicuous do the general public start to think about it. When a royal occasion is coming up, the preparations always start slowly. They gather momentum gradually, until at last, on the day or the weekend itself, there is an explosion of enthusiasm. That is, again, not contrived – nobody tells these millions to celebrate – it is simply true that the party mood is not and cannot be sustained over weeks. That is why a number of people interviewed beforehand sound apathetic. They have not yet made their plans, or thought about the matter properly. They may go along to see the festivities, they may not. It would probably be the same in any free nation. What anti-monarchists see as apathy among the great majority is more accurately a quiet and undemonstrative approval of the way things are, and an inability to see any good reason to change them. In the opposite corner, what is actually passive indifference is sometimes angled to suggest positive, even passionate, views.

  Foreign news coverage often has its own peculiar perspective. In 1969 when Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle, media in the Soviet Union – wishing to present the monarchy as unpopular and despotic – conveyed the impression that bombs were going off all over the Principality (there were two, planted by attention-seeking nationalists, and neither was anywhere near the event). Less dramatically, the angle is often to show the quaintness of British tradition, but sometimes it is to suggest – because such things make a good news story – that the institution is about to collapse. Watch this television coverage or read this newspaper, the media is saying, because the event it records may never happen again. The whole thing may soon vanish.

  This is not going to happen, suddenly or soon. The monarchy is an older institution than almost any other. It has already withstood a successful revolution that got rid of it for a dozen years, yet it came back invigorated as if nothing had happened. It has survived a host of unpopular sovereigns, major scandals, national emergencies. Two long and costly wars simply – and greatly – increased its popularity. It outlasted the upheavals that swept away most of the European thrones, and the age of Bolshevik revolution that followed. It also came through the Great Depression. It has, in other words, already faced every type of attack, in more serious forms than are experienced today. If these things could not shift, or even seriously threaten it, why would the grumbling of present-day malcontents succeed in its abolition?

  It is very unlikely that a monarchy would ever be abandoned in peacetime and in normal circumstances. The European Crowns that have fallen have all been toppled, directly or indirectly, by violence. The French emperor through a disastrous war with Prussia; the German kings and emperor, and the Habsburg dynasty of Austria–Hungary, through the loss of the First World War; the Romanovs through Russia’s collapse after three years of the same war. Two other countries, Italy and Greece, lost their monarchies through plebiscite, but only after either war or military coup had rendered the Crown ineffectual. Other countries – Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia – became Communist. No similar circumstance has arisen in Britain. The loss of some monarchies has no lessons to teach a country whose conditions are so different.

  The abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, which was the gravest test it has faced in a century, simply enhanced the popularity of h
is successor, George VI, for whom the nation felt a surge of sympathy. As an institution, the Crown has come largely unscathed through the era of debunking and has even weathered the latest scandals in the 1990s. It just is not true that this form of government is on the verge of collapse or that anything will seriously alter the way Britain is governed. If mature democracies throughout the world – Canada, Australia, New Zealand – still opt for monarchical government despite the distance between themselves and Buckingham Palace, is the country in which the House of Windsor actually resides likely to abolish them? They will not fade from history, but what we can be sure of is that they will adapt, and go on adapting. They always have, and they have survived. It’s what they do.

  It is usually the elderly, and especially women, who favour the monarchy. Their connection is, naturally and principally, a sentimental one. They have grown up with this family, they recall the milestones in the queen’s life and may have been married or had children at approximately the same times. They are the group least likely to want to see change and the one most likely to appreciate the old-fashioned virtues that royalty represents. They are also the most prepared to recognize the element of selfless duty that has characterized the lives of the queen and her husband. They are, on the other hand, more likely than the rest of society to wonder what will become of the monarchy once the present generation that has championed these values has gone from the scene.