The Rise and Fall of the House of Windsor
Wilson, A. N.
A N. Wilson is a bit of a rascal, a bit of a card. Some would • say he is a bit of a bounder. Whatever, an homme serieux he is not. He is too smart for that. At this writing he is a monarchist. Not...
...Since the Synod agreed last November to ordain women, High Anglicans, many of them members of what is known as the "Prince's Party," have been talking of going over to Rome, and some have actually done so...
...But if the Church of England were disestablished—and everyone believes that it will be sooner or later—and Protestantism ceased to be the state religion, the law against a Catholic monarch would no longer make sense, and would have to be repealed...
...There will be no choice...
...Fat lot of difference that made to the poor buggers on the Western front...
...Unlike so many other royal authors of recent months, he does not regale us with breathless "revelations...
...The Duke's mother, Princess Alice, is the third daughter of the seventh Duke of Buccleuch, who is a direct descendant of the first Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II...
...And if that were to happen, Charles could approach Rome for an annulment...
...If he did, he would forfeit the crown...
...What is its purpose...
...The monarchy is doomed, even if it survives into the twenty-first century, and Wilson knows it...
...There is another possibility, perhaps less compelling...
...Not long ago he was showing distinct republican sympathies...
...Only a Marxian reading of events makes any sense: if the House of Windsor falls, it will do so suddenly, of its own accord, as a result of its internal contradictions...
...When it became clear that the right had won the economic and moral arguments, however—when it became politically acceptable, if not quite politically Correct, to be a conservative—Wilson denounced Mrs...
...no question of the royal family being legislated out of existence...
...Wilson's purpose in The Rise and Fall of the House of Windsor is to entertain and provoke, and this he does splendidly...
...They may say they do, but if they had to choose between, say, Julia Roberts and Queen Elizabeth, they would choose Ms...
...He changes his views as often as he changes his religion, and he changes his religion a lot (from High Anglican to High Catholic to High Anglican, again, to Fastidious Deist...
...That is what makes him such a powerful journalist: he always has something new to say...
...Not that Wilson is a mere jobbing hack...
...But hold the tears...
...it would be "a symptom of the general coarsening of life in Britain today, in which the brashly new defeats the old, in which the ugly always overcomes the beautiful, and everything of which the British used to be proud is cast down and vilified...
...Under the Act of Settlement of 1701, neither the king nor his consort may be Roman Catholic, the purpose of the monarchy being to maintain the Protestant state religion...
...Thatcher and declared that henceforth he would vote Labour...
...Monmouth—pay attention!—led a rebellion against James II, last of the Stuarts, and was beheaded, clumsily, in 1685...
...B ut if the British royal family is talentless and charmless, and German, why is it needed...
...The royal family did not even pretend to be English until 1917, the year of Passchendaele, when, sensing that a PR gesture was called for, Edward VII changed the family name from Saxe-Coburg Gotha to Windsor...
...At the beginning of the annus horribilis (1992), the target of his snobbery was the royal family...
...He is a prize-winning novelist and biographer (most recently of Jesus...
...Look at the ruined abbeys of England, and you will know what the modern British monarchy is about: greed, lust, perfidy, and liturgical experimentation...
...Instead, he places the crisis in context...
...That is what happened to Marxism, after all, and it is what happens to most revolutionary causes and creeds...
...Yet he keeps ahold of nurse...
...Unpick it, and much more than the thread itself would be lost...
...W ilson, however, is a Di man, a stalwart of the Princess's Party, and has set his heart against a Carolinian monarchy...
...Headed by whom...
...It is not wise, it is harmful to the soul, to brood over historical injustices...
...By page four he is quoting Auberon Waugh's advice that the royal family "should be allowed to return to Germany with dignity and decorum, the plaudits of a grateful people ringing in their ears, and leave Princess Monster [i.e., Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales] behind on her own to receive the cheers of her adulatory fans, Madonna-like, until they grow bored and decide to tear her to pieces...
...The modern British monarchy was created not to defend tradition but to destroy it...
...In spite of this, he remains a conservative...
...Wilson is probably right, but what if the Synod of the Church of England agreed to change the rules on divorce...
...In a secular age, very few people believe in God, King, and Country...
...The game is up for the House of Windsor, he believes, but not necessarily for the monarchy...
...On the basis of this assumption he argues that it is virtually impossible for Charles to become king, since a divorced man can hardly be Supreme Governor of a Church that forbids divorce, as the Church of England does...
...S till, let's not cavil or carp...
...The Anglican Church was created to serve the state...
...In the end, though, the message of this book is that the House of Windsor hasn't got a leg to stand on, or a pot to . . . or a pot for the Lady of the Bedchamber to empty...
...It is needed, says Wilson, because the vast majority of Britons want it...
...Or mental incompetence, in either party...
...He writes beautifully, and he has made excellent use of newspaper-clipping libraries...
...In doing so he provides the reader with an easy, anecdotal history of the royal family since the seventeenth century...
...it is more like a golden thread running through an entire tapestry...
...Here he is, hitting his stride, on page three: One does not have to be of a very vindictive temperament to savor the essentially comic misfortunes of a talentless and, it has to be said at the outset, largely charmless family who, by the accidents of birth and marriage, happen to be the custodians of the British monarchical system...
...On what grounds...
...As one might expect, Lady Thatcher is one of the villains in this book...
...The end of monarchy, he writes, would signal the victory of the "bullies and brutes...
...On the contrary...
...Step forward, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, grandson of George V and Queen Mary...
...He repeats himself occasionally, but so would you if you wrote as much as he does...
...It is the blackest of comedies...
...they were still fighting a German army to further the interests of a German king...
...He assumes that Prince Charles will divorce Diana...
...Over the years the monarchy has done its bit to bully and brutalize the kingdom, and has contributed enthusiastically to the victory of the ugly, the new, and the coarse...
...In what he coyly describes as a "modest proposal," he calls for the creation of a new dynasty...
...Just what we need in a king...
...Non-consummation is, presumably, out, so how about Diana's "extreme immaturity" at the time of the marriage...
...or at any rate, like many thoughtful middle-class Englishmen, he is a snob...
...The Church of England is now a minority cult...
...The British royal family has passed its sell-by date...
...That does not mean, however, as Wilson implies it does, that Great Britain must now choose between a monarchy and a republic...
...That is not to say that he likes or admiresthe royal family...
...Roberts...
...He was one of the original young fogeys, the right-leaning thirtysomethings who, in the early eighties, pursed their lips and strutted their stuff (and tossed their curls) in the columns of the Spectator and the Daily Telegraph...
...Since no man who values his position in society can afford to be seen in the company of the Murdoch press, Wilson began to defend the monarchy...
...But what tosh...
...Who in his right mind does not love the familiar, fear change, resist the new, cling to the old...
...Thus, if it were considered in the interests of the state, King Charles III would be Supreme Governor of a Reformed Church of England...
...It is they who have chosen to behave like characters in a Feydeau farce, and they cannot be surprised when the audience laugh...
...It is not inconceivable that Charles himself might join them (though admittedly, it is more likely that he will embrace Buddhism...
...and its purpose is to provide Britain with a sense of continuity and to defend the people from ruthless pols and from scum like the New Brits who did so well in the Thatcher years...
...Disinterested observers (and bitter, lapsed Jacobites) may feel that Tom Paine was sounder on the hereditary principle than Wilson, but Wilson defends that principle as well as anyone has done recently...
...According to Wilson, the Monmouths have a stronger claim on the throne than the Stuarts or the Windsors...
...Furthermore, the present Duke of Gloucester is a decent cove—nonsmoker, married, three children, faithful, reliable, dull—and looks a bit like Clark Kent...
...It is far better to gloat over historical comeuppances...
...As the year progressed, the royals became the target of the Murdoch press...
...The monarchy," he writes, "is not just the golden bauble on top of the stone pyramid...
...Who will not sympathize with Wilson here...
...Trouble is, says Wilson, that the next generation of royals is not fit to rule...
...Very much the reverse...
...The habits and customs of a thousand years were cast down and vilified during the Great Terror of the sixteenth century, and foreign ideas and creeds were imposed on the people withthe help of foreign troops and, ultimately, a foreign monarchy...
Vol. 26 • October 1993 • No. 10
