‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’ A go-to Hamlet quote to indicate one is both unimpressed at loud repeated denials of something dodgy and well read to boot. It’s a kind of literary tut and eye roll that places the speaker above the cut and thrust of the lower orders – or at least so in their own mind. To the easily beguiled and feeble minded it may once have served as a gentle reminder of social position. Dropped seamlessly into conversation such slices of refinement could distinguish not just the wheat from the chaff educationally, but separate the different quality grains into their correct bins without the vulgarity of asking which school one had attended. Responses often yield far more than the face value of an inquiry.
The trouble today is that the torrent of lies, falsehood and subsequent protests of innocence are just the background noise of life. Rarely is there a collective public intake of breath in awe at a protest of innocence so unlikely it could only come from a sociopath hitherto untroubled by public sentiment. Rarely…
Defence of monarchy is tantamount to wearing ones lowly rank with bovine pride and celebrating those who over centuries have behaved appallingly to one’s own forebears. Whenever social hierarchy is viewed as a national quirk, traditions which lead to cap doffing and a ‘them and us’ stratified society are to the detriment of all. We order ourselves anyway with no need for a cap on our aspirations and unfairness is everywhere without institutionalising it. Defence of and deference to the monarchy has allowed a small group to believe they and they alone should have the keys to the kingdom and it flies in the face of every struggle for social advancement. So many attacks on the elite or the establishment fall short of real criticism of a monarchy that is the cornerstone of unmerited privilege. A haven for living unquestioned lives at public expense and avoiding any real and lasting scrutiny.
It must be somewhat annoying for the upper echelons for whom the world was made, to have all and sundry not only crash the party and feel at home doing so, but all of a sudden questioning them. The great unfairness of it all is further compounded when the exchange is not reciprocated. It must be unimaginably irksome to see those descended from cannon fodder and serfdom join in and flourish with their uncouth regional accents whilst they themselves are constrained and unable to go for pizza without a close personal protection officer.
Poor old royalty is always there to stick the boot into and given how little else they do, they serve that end with distinction. No longer able to completely hide behind a sycophantic media and flag wavers defined as ‘subjects’, they are at times a wonderfully open goal into which one member or another scores own goals with aplomb.
At the nicer end of the scale, eager beaver warrior, charity worker and general good sort Prince Harry outgrew his family’s penchant for German military regalia at a relatively young age and didn’t continue down the road of some of his predecessors. Given he is actually the fruit of desire; he is a rare case among royals and may have been lucky enough to side step the nature vs nurture question. Perhaps this is his non-iron cross to bear and it led to his choice of wife.
Meg, who is well above the knee-trembler variety of love encountered in railway arches, has nonetheless triggered the 70s football fan in many otherwise dutiful subjects. Unwittingly together they have uncovered even deeper depths of meat-headedness in those who often sing the national anthem loudest and bemoan the disappearance of white dog poo from the streets. These poor souls haven’t been dropping their H’s only for a foreign upstart to pick one up and use it as a pet name.
Chiming with the current zeitgeist for keeping it real, they have named their child Archie. It is a name that straddles both worlds by playing to the twee Brexity nostalgia for a Michael Caine dreamscape whilst also keeping Archibald in reserve should the wind some day shift.
The only genuine cause for complaint about this gilded little family unit is their public whinging about the scrutiny under which they live. Perhaps Megs didn’t do much due diligence on H and the family business, and a longer engagement might have allowed a more thorough kicking of the tyres.
Harry was the spare to the heir required of those in line to the throne before they can withdraw their reproductive organs from public discourse. A back up plan or organ donor of sorts. Fortunately for both he and Archie, there are now a good number of spares ahead of them and they could, and probably should do one ASAP. Once the spare is unneeded, hanging around often leads to trouble.
Some credit has to be given to Liz herself who, knee deep into her nineties and up to her neck in the misbehaviour of her ne’er-do-well family, is probably as good as it gets royal-wise.
Husband Phil, closing a century at the same speed he drove out of the gates of Sandringham is, in his dotage lending a shred of proof to the immortal Lizard people conspiracy theory as he walked unscathed from his upturned Range Rover.
Youngest son Eddie, is dusted off for family get-togethers before going back in his box under the stairs with the Christmas decorations and the vacuum cleaner. King-forever-in-waiting Charlie is finally happily married, talks to plants and dutifully enquires about his mother’s health on a regular basis while working tirelessly on his eulogy. The sister is somewhere doing something but nobody really cares anymore unless told to by a tabloid.
There are plenty of B-listers to fill a balcony and privilege for them is not a destination but a road to further privilege. Draw a line from Liz through Charlie, Billy and his eldest and anyone not on it is surplus.
Then there is Andy.
As the culmination of a meaningless existence as a spare and now a lowly 8th in line, he has surrounded himself with dodgy company and lived at the expense of those for whom he barely feigns appreciation. Poor chap has had a pretty hard time of it lately and in a possible attempt to head off further accusations of sex with minors, his staff is stumped at how they ended up with a dromedary.
‘This doesn’t look like the thoroughbred idea we had’ they puzzle. How could an ill judged and unsolicited interview make him seem the villain? How could such humility be interpreted as an arrogant and disdainful disregard for those he may or may not have had statutory rapey relations with? It’s not as if he ever paid for anything himself anyway much less underage prostitution and don’t forget he suffers PTSD from fighting for mother and country. Keeping up a long tradition of dodgy royal behaviour is at least matched by a lack of public sympathy for this privileged nobody and there is a cautionary tale for spares that H, Meg and Archie would be well advised to heed. They should flee under cover of this dark pantomime villain and never look back at Sodom.
The laddie doth protest too much, wethinks.
