Fact and fiction in the royal soap-opera

Charterhouse Chronicle by Gerard Noel
TWO hundred years ago, almost exactly, King Louis XVI of France lost his head. It was a fate that was deserved but not by him personally. Rottenness had infected French society, starting from the top as from the time. in particular, of Louis XIV.
During that reign even religion had become debased. Worshippers for Mass at the royal palace in Versailles had had to sit with their backs to the altar in order to face the king. This was not only ridiculous and blasphemous but bad policy to boot. It was the reductio ad absurdum in fact of the late Renaissance theory, spurious from the beginning. of the "divine right" of kings.
The British royal family, by contrast, greatly benefitted from a radical break with its past when. in 1714. monarchy by "divine right" came to an end. "Charles III" was passed over by Parliament in favour of a distantly related German Elector, this starting an entirely new and foreign line from which Prince Charles is descended (Diana. on the other hand, is directly descended from the deposed Stuarts. albeit via the "bar sinister")
Thus began. with all its ups and downs. Britain's constitutional monarchy in its modern form. But what of its future? Any prognosis. to be meaningful. must start by eliminating some currently prevalent misapprehensions. eg: Myth: royal prestige is at an unprecedentedly low level from which it may never recover. Fact: support for royalty has never been greater at popular level. It is only certain upper class snobs, and middle class "intellectuals", who forecast doom. (Footnote: republican sentiment today is of negligible extent whereas in the 1870s it was widespread. Queen Victoria was booed on every public outing with cries of "there goes boring old Mrs Brown" in mocking reference to her Highland 'servant'.) Myth: the royal story is beginning to look like a soap opera and is therefore in danger of falling into fantasy and irrelevance. Fact: the royal story is not like a soap opera, it is one; but a soap opera based on real life with episodes so gripping and full of surprises as to guarantee its indefinite continuance.
(Footnote: life even imitates art in the case of at least one minor member of the royal family, whose first marriage was annulled by the Vatican. Her close friend, about whom there was much speculation in 1985. was one of the Texas Hunts. real-life role models for the Ewings of the soap-opera Dallas.) Myth: the public is sick and tired of "gutter press" reports about royal happenings. Fact: such reports are savoured with insatiable voracity. It is, again. only the "intellectual elite" who feign indifference, and also (incidentally) despise John Major.
Myth: a possible relaxation of the 1772 Royal Marriages Act. so as to permit remarriage after divorce. would further expose the weakness of the Anglican position as opposed to that of Rome. Fact: the Catholic system makes it easier, in many cases. to get rid of unwanted marriages than in the Church of England, which does not recognise "annulment".
(Footnote: The Catholic law as to annulment is fully defensible in theory but has, in recent years, been so abused in practice by individuals as to create a major problem. So many annulments were being granted at one time in certain areas. particularly the former diocese of Brooklyn, that they had to be drastically curbed to prevent further scandal.) And what. meanwhile, of the royal soap-opera, currently playing to a mass audience world-wide? Let us look at the main protagonists with their easily identifiable counterparts among stock characters from classic dramas and the world of showbusiness. Main character, dominant but more respected than deeply loved (the Queen); megastar, almost a goddess in the eyes of her hundreds of millions of fans (Diana); anti-hero "hero" (Charles); aristocratic royal "friend" (Camilla); teasing tomboy and wild card in pack (Fergie); mystery boy (Edward); horsey. remarried matron (Anne); et al.
What will happen next? There are endless possibilities. Therein lies the secret of guaranteeing an indefinite run ahead.
If the Royal Marriages Act is revised so as to permit Charles to remarry, he will be king; if not, not.
In the latter. more likely, case William V will be our next King with Diana as powerful "Queen Mother" in all but name.
But they say she will be debarred from any such role if she remarries. Not necessarily. Suppose she were to become a Catholic. This could produce a sensational change in the whole situation.
REPORTS that she is
already having conversations with an Oxford Dominican with a view to what used to be called "conversion" have been officially discounted. (They would be wouldn't they?) But they are not necessarily untrue merely because they came as a surprise to Lord St John of Fawsley.
As a Catholic she would be entitled, with marriage (as opposed to "remarriage") in view, to seek an annulment. But, it may well be asked. on what possible grounds?
Who knows? The labyrinth of Catholic legislation on this highly technical subject is of infinite complexity as well as being mysterious and sometimes highly secret. It can also produce sensational (often royal) surprises, as in the case of Princess Caroline of Monaco. Consider. moreover, the ultimate implications, within a similar hypothetical context, of the British monarchy's most notorious dynastic matrimonial tangle of modern times. Edward VIII, it was rightly asserted at the time, could not validly marry the twice divorced Mrs Simpson with the official approval of the Church of England. Supposing, however, she had become a Catholic after the abdication. It is quite conceivable that she could then have had a bellbook-and-candle wedding with the former king.
The reasoning behind this conclusion, and its implications have never been fully worked out. But it is time they were. Mrs Simpson, as a Catholic, could almost certainly have obtained an annulment from her marriage, as a young woman, to "win" Spencer, whom, as her first main biographer points out, she barely recognised, soon after their wedding, as the man she had so recently wed. ("Lack of due discretion", as a grounds of annulment, casts a wide net.) As it was, her marriage, then presumed valid, to Spencer would, in Catholic eyes, have rendered her marriage to Ernest Simpson null and void ab initio. But were her first marriage to be subsequently annulled, she would be free thereafter to be married in the (Catholic) Church though not in the Church of England.
CLIOMPCATED? Certainly. But then so is all Catholic law and procedure in this complex area.
The hypothetical result imagined as above would have been sensational indeed. How much more sensational would it be if the divorced Catholic wife of the heir to the throne were thereafter to many (in the Roman Church) and enjoy a long life as effective "Queen Mother" of the King (William V) of Great Britain and Northern Ireland! For this is what would happen if, as seems probable, Prince Charles renounces the throne to remarry in the likely absence of any relaxation in the Royal Marriages Act.
Much time, it is true, is needed for all the parts to fall into place before any such "scenario" could come about. But stranger things have happened in the past.
Imagine, if such developments did come to pass, the final outcome in terms of British history. The Queen, currently. reigns without ruling. But in the above hypothesis, Diana would rule without reigning but possessed of a degree of power. backed by massive popularity, unknown since the days of Queen Elizabeth I.
Think about it and meanwhile keep tuned. This show as opposed to the deadly dull monarchy of pld is due to run and run.
Fr Ronald Rolheiser's column appears this week on page 5