A Brief History of the House of Windsor (31 page)

The Cambridges live modestly, their only domestic staff consisting of a part-time cleaning woman. They could be the son and daughter-in-law of any middle-aged, middle-class British couple, causing their parents anxiety with their frenetic lifestyle. That they live like middle-class people requires no apology, and the attempt by the Left to turn this appellation into an insult has largely failed. The middle class, strategically situated in the centre of the social order, is the best place from which to view society. The longer they remain there, the better will be their insight into the lives of their future subjects.

Because of the experiences of Fergie and Diana and even Mark Phillips, it has become received wisdom that marriage by commoners into the royal family will prove difficult, and perhaps irretrievably so – that without a lifetime of conditioning, the adjustment simply cannot be made. But failure is not in the least inevitable, as was proved by the fact that the most popular and successful personality in the family for generations was the Queen Mother, who had had no royal background. Today there are other spouses who have quietly got on with both personal and official lives without making mistakes or being savaged by the press. The Duchess of Gloucester was a shy Dane who met her husband while they were both studying at Cambridge. Sophie, Countess of Wessex, has been happily married for more than a decade to Prince Edward and, although caught out once by a press-inspired
scam, has lived a blameless life ever since. Her personality is nothing at all like those of the women who married her two brothers-in-law. Such is the tranquillity of the Wessexes’ private life that many people do not know the names of their children – or indeed that they have any.

Kate Middleton is obviously suited by temperament to life in the royal family. She seems to have needed little more than minimal instruction in how to carry out the mundane but necessary tasks of ‘the Firm’ – greeting people, looking interested, talking superficially with strangers. No doubt important lessons were learned both by courtiers and by the family from the case of Diana. Whatever training the Duchess of Cambridge has received is likely to have been given informally by her husband. It helps, of course, that she is not yet the wife of the heir to the throne and that her official duties are balanced by spells of normality.

Nevertheless she has done very well, even in the eyes of critics in the press. She had several years, at university and afterward, in which to think about what life in the family would be like. Through numerous visits to their various homes, she was able to get to know her husband’s relatives long before she became related to them. Prince William, mindful of his mother’s experience, has gone out of his way to ensure that her transition from private individual to public figure has been as painless as possible. She herself is not sulky and brooding like Diana, and does not have the boisterousness that cost Sarah Ferguson her dignity. The first mishap to befall her, in September 2012, when a French magazine revealed topless photographs of her, saw her react with pained dignity – and legal action. Whereas pictures of Fergie in a similar state of semi-undress caused outrage because of her wild behaviour, the Duchess of Cambridge garnered considerable sympathy as an innocent victim of press harassment.

She has shown an equable temperament and has not been known to get angry – though such a side of her might become visible if she is not left alone by the media. She and William
will have an important bargaining counter once they have children. Public interest will be immense, and they will be able to restrict access if there is a state of war between the Palace and the press. At any rate, the duchess seems to be pleasant, dutiful and suited by nature to her role. She and her husband are of the same generation. They share an interest in sport, and have a similar sense of humour. They have their education in common, which has given them the same circle of friends, and they even had the same gap-year experience in Chile. Whatever guardian angel watches over the House of Windsor has a talent for choosing ordinary, rather average people to marry into the family. She and William should make a very poplar king and queen because of that.

All of this augurs well for the monarchy in general. As for the prince himself, the signs are that he is from the same mould as his grandmother. Like Princess Elizabeth during her time as heir to the throne, he is dutiful, anxious to learn, somewhat earnest but not lacking in humour, only determined to take his role seriously and to perform his tasks well.

The differences in personality between William and Charles are significant. William has not yet acquired the wide-ranging interests of his father, and may never do so. Less sensitive perhaps (one could somehow not imagine him playing the cello), less interested in the arts and architecture, less passionate about the environment, he is also less likely to take sides, to voice strong or controversial opinions and thus become unpopular. While Charles was brought up largely by a single, exacting parent, William has had the guidance of two who were sympathetic and indulgent. He has had an education that was comfortably typical, at least for his class, and has been left alone to achieve whatever prizes his abilities could win him without the bending of rules or the altering of circumstances to make anything easier. He was able to marry for love and without being pestered or pressured to do so, as his father was, and he was very fortunate that the person he found was suited by temperament to the life she would lead.
He and she are well balanced, sensible and informal. Given more years in which to continue their present lifestyle, they may become even more like an average couple despite their official duties and constant media exposure.

Prince Harry, of whom nothing much has been expected, has attracted brickbats for his party-going, but also recently revealed an ability to communicate with the public that many had not expected. Early in 2012 he deputized for the queen on a tour of the Caribbean – his first-ever such duty. He proved to have a natural empathy with the crowds and a sense of humour that won him many admirers. ‘Bookish he will never be,’ as was said about his great-uncle, Edward VIII, but why should that matter? If he is good at the job the monarchy does – taking an interest in the lives of others, encouraging them, cheering them up – he can be forgiven the occasional embarrassing lapse. Here too the auspices are good.

What the subjects of the Windsors traditionally want is the sort of monarch they have had – with the single exception of Edward VIII – throughout the whole history of that house: quietly dutiful, personally modest, likeable – someone who can stand in the foreground to represent the nation, yet can equally well occupy the background so as not to hold back a country that is emphatically forward-looking. That is the best type of sovereign to preside over a people who are vigorous, democratic, iconoclastic yet conservative. Though the family will be perceived as dull for much of the time, they must provide their people with inspiration, entertainment, even occasional scandal. Above all, and in spite of any personal foibles or failings, they must uphold standards of behaviour that others feel no obligation to meet. The Windsors, through a combination of collective experience, common sense and personal inclination, have proved themselves to be very good at this. It has enabled them to adapt and thus to survive. They will continue to do both.

‘It’s vital that the monarchy keeps in touch with the people. It’s what I try and do.’

Princess Diana

‘I want to see things evolve. The direction the monarchy seems to be moving in – toward a more mainland European model – is one I would feel sympathetic about.’

Andrew Motion, former poet laureate

Monarchical government is as old as the notion of living in communities. In some societies the king was elected, or served a term of office in rotation with others (in one country – Poland – there was an elected monarchy until the eighteenth century), and in many he lived much like any other member of the community. By the Middle Ages the concept of kingly splendour had universally taken root, however. It was considered necessary in an unstable era to impress subjects, rival claimants and other countries with the wealth and might of a sovereign. Castles were as huge and imposing as the ruler’s
budget would permit. The number of retainers, and the gorgeousness of their livery, the brawn and ferocity of royal guards, all helped intimidate subjects, noblemen and foreign ambassadors alike. The notion of visual splendour was to reach its apogee with the Palace of Versailles in the reign of Louis XIV (1638–1715). More a small, aristocratic city than a single palace, it became an expression of the Sun King’s majesty and was widely copied by other rulers – Drottningholm in Sweden was called ‘the Versailles of the North’; the palace of Het Loo was ‘the Versailles of the Netherlands’. Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, was the only monarch to copy it on the same scale, and her palace at Tsarskoe Selo was specifically designed to outshine Louis XIV’s creation.

Subjects wanted their monarch to live in splendour. They expected magnificence. In eras dominated by wars – and it has only been since 1945 that this spectre has vanished from western Europe – it was the prestige of the monarch, the impressiveness of his dwellings, the might of his armies, the flowering of culture at his court, that gave their country standing in the eyes of others, wooing allies and warning potential aggressors. A king who was kind to his people was a pleasant thing to have, but it was not as important as having a monarch who was feared by his neighbours, for that could ensure peace for his country.

Yet there have been sovereigns who won popularity with their subjects by the modest simplicity of their lives. One instance of this was Frederick the Great, king of Prussia from 1740–86. His kingdom was not rich, for its terrain was a sandy plain without natural resources, and the notion of royal ostentation did not sit easily with the austere national mindset. Frederick was only ever seen in one type of garment – a blue officer’s coat, which he wore until it was in tatters before replacing it with an identical one. This enabled those subjects who owned only one coat to identify with him. Frederick was highly revered, though this had more to do with his considerable success in winning battles than with what he
wore. Nevertheless his parsimony and canniness won general approval, and made him the subject of indulgent nostalgia after his death. An unlikeable man in reality, he is remembered with affection to this day.

His British contemporary, George III (1760–1820) had something of the same simplicity. In this he was following precedent. While other European sovereigns built vast monuments to their own glory, the kings of Great Britain lived in comparative, and perhaps even risible, modesty. Kensington Palace, in an unimportant village west of London, became the official home of the royal family (after the destruction by fire of Whitehall Palace in 1698) until Queen Victoria moved into Buckingham Palace in 1837. It looked like a slightly larger than average country manor house. George III chose to settle his family in an even smaller residence, Kew Palace. The monarchs also, of course, had Windsor Castle, which was and is the world’s largest inhabited fortress, yet this was not usually their main or their permanent residence. The smallness of scale of the king’s favourite dwelling seemed appropriate to a nation in which the real power rested with an elected Parliament and not with an absolute monarch.

As with the house, so with its occupants. Visitors to Kew Palace today are often surprised not only by the pokiness of the rooms but by the simplicity of George’s family life as it has been reconstructed. The king, who was nicknamed ‘Farmer George’ because he had many of the characteristics of a small-scale country squire, led a domestic life that was not very different from that of his more prosperous subjects. This was much commented upon by both press and public, and it endeared him to his people. He even adopted a blue-and-scarlet coat – still sometimes worn as ‘Windsor Dress’ by the royal family and their servants – that was modelled on Frederick the Great’s famous garment. Then, as now, an extravagant sovereign caused resentment among taxpayers and the notion of a massive, imposing royal palace or an over-sumptuous wardrobe smacked too much of Continental
despotism. Had a king’s plain living been characteristic of a weak sovereign or country it would have been viewed as a national embarrassment, but George presided over the world’s wealthiest nation. His army and navy were mighty enough to be feared throughout the world. His was a simplicity of greatness and of choice rather than meekness or necessity.

Not all sovereigns, of course, were as home-loving as this. George’s son, who reigned as Prince Regent from 1811 and as King George IV from 1820–30, was hated by the public. His vanity, extravagance and complicated love life gave a field-day to satirists and cartoonists, though the architectural monuments to his spendthrift nature – Brighton Pavilion, or the embellishments to Windsor Castle – have been much appreciated by posterity. It was not until the reign of George’s granddaughter Victoria (1837–1901) that the British monarchy returned to a semblance of domestic ordinariness. The queen herself possessed a quiet and stable personality that would have influenced her court and British society, even had she not been married to a man who shared these characteristics in fuller measure. In 1840 she married Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a minor German princeling. Earnest and largely humourless, he was – undeservedly – not popular with the British people, but he set the tone for Society in a manner that would dominate the Victorian age. He strongly disapproved of the hedonistic and immoral aristocratic circle that made up the Court, and set out to distance his wife from it. Imbued with the ideal of service and devoted to hard work, he acted as
de facto
co-ruler, not only advising the queen – a role he was not entitled to claim constitutionally – but working entirely in tandem with her, a situation encapsulated by their joint desk, which can still be seen at Osborne House.