Vice-Regal Saint: Snobbery from the Chattering Classes
I'm going to break with noble protocol here, and inform everyone - not that it's any of our business, not that we actually pay attention or care about these things - that Second Lieutenant Prince William of Wales has broken up with his first ever girlfriend. You don't say - heaven forfend! Why, that snob. Who does he think he is, anyhow? He can't turn his back on her now; without a royal romance or a royal wedding in the works, how is the media going to sell its product. Ah ha! Class snobbery! Toiletgate! And any other tomfoolery they can throw at the Royals.
What balderdash. What rank hypocrisy coming from this opinionated peanut gallery. The Royal Family and their regiments are the last representatives of the ancient virtues now lost amidst the ways and attitude of the new and vulgar chattering classes. They're the snobs and narcissists. They have little appreciation for the ordinary grace and ceaseless dedication in which the Royal Family goes about their daily duties without fuss or complaint. So he wants to wait awhile, pursue his career in the British Army and Royal Navy for a couple of years. Good on him. For God's sake, leave enough alone.
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11 comments:
The sharpest man on parade!
Why are we not allowed to care about the personal lives of our future heads of state?
If the royals are truly to be "the last representatives of the ancient virtues" then shouldn't there be some degree of public accountability for their actions? Or are we just to accept that the royals are moral people, ipso facto, end of discussion?
Kyle,
Neither extreme holds the key. The Monarchist is calling neither snivelling cameramen *nor* popular apathy. There is a middle-ground, where grace and moderation reside.
On the day that a royal wedding is announced, we should take note. Until then, the Prince, a public man with public duties, is entitled to a degree of privacy away from the gawking media. I hope he is going out and drinking with his buddies, catching a flick here and there and meeting girls in his down time. But that is really none of our business. I wish the Royal watchers would keep their watching to his public responsibilities, and give him the space every sane person needs and should be entitled to.
BTW, I wonder if snobbery is the right word, Palmerston. It's certainly self-righteous puffery from an unvirtuous media, but I'm not sure snobbery is the proper descriptor here.
I agree that the British press is most despicable in this regard. But at the same time I strongly believe that as icons of morality, the royals must be held to standards of conduct, even in their personal lives.
This is why I do not particularly respect the Prince of Wales. Some of the things he has done and said in the context of his romantic relationships have been, frankly, disgusting and immoral, and entirely not becoming of a future King.
The response will be to cry "that's not fair, we all have our skeletons, etc." But if royalty is to be worth anything, especially in the 21st Century, it must stand for a degree of sophistication and ethics ABOVE that of the common man.
Stalk the royals? No. But certainly keep an eye on them. They are not simply people, but symbols, and symbols must remain inspiring and clean if they are to remain useful.
Regardless of the ethics-of-journalism issue or the alleged snobbery of the Royals (clearly one is to marvel at the idea that royalty should be elitists), one must feel that we have an historic opportunity: marry the boy off to an Aussie and kill the republic faster than you can say glossy magazine. If Queen Vicky had married her eldest off to an Indian princess, you just know that there would still be Emperors at Delhi. Selah.
Cato
You have a splendid website, and I have blogrolled it.
Although I am an American, I am a wee bit of a monarchist. I quite agree with you about H.R.H., his girlfriend and the insufferable chattering classes which are a particularly noxious form of pollution here in the United States.
In any case, I am glad I found your blog.
Thank you. We have done likewise.
Oops, my if-then's should be versa-visa.
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