This is an English version of an Opinion piece which I have written for Spain’s El Mundo newspaper as part of their coverage of the Royal engagement.
Like the crisp autumn sun that broke through the heavy mist shrouding much of England on the same day, the royal announcement brought in an instant a sense of clarity to the nation’s citizens.
One can say what one likes about the British Royal family, but history has shown its capacity to bring as much fortitude and hope as division and sadness- and this is a good story, impeccably timed, and skilfully delivered in a manner designed to lift our collective spirits.
On a day when our finance minister was struggling in an Asian summit to contain the latest threat of Euro crisis contagion emanating from neighbouring Ireland, and the government had finally accepted that British citizens held in Guantanamo had a right to be compensated because of the complicity of our intelligence services and military in torture, the Royal announcement drowned our media bulletins, and raised a contented smile from John O’Groats to Land’s End.
I can vividly remember the instant we heard Prince Charles was to marry Diana and the wedding, months later in the summer of 1981, feeling a similar lifting of the collective British psyche just when it seemed most destabilised. It coincided with a hardening of Mrs Thatcher’s first government which had provoked race riots, rising despair among the marginalised and unemployed, financial uncertainty. The wedding, watched by millions around the world, seemed perfectly scripted to indulge our most romantic schoolroom fantasies: Prince Charming weds his beautiful princess.
Except for a very intimate circle of Royal friends and relatives, the British nation did not know then that this was all pure myth, an engagement destined to end in Shakespearean tragedy. But the decision took time to hit us, and in between our heroic victory over the Argentina of the bloody juntas in the Falklands War brought us renewed hope that Britannia was not only great but also ruled the waves.
This latest Royal engagement comes at a time when we once again are haunted by fresh doubts about ourselves us a nation. We have a coalition government not because anyone really voted for it, but because too many voters had lost faith in any one single party or politician. In military terms we have made a mess of Iraq and are contemplating retreat from Afghanistan. Meanwhile the threat of severe budget cuts affecting everything from universities to our once emblemic Royal Navy has filled us with a terrible sense of social vertigo.Students last week rioted in the streets of London.
It is in this context that Prince William’s engagement to Kate Middleton can be better understood, and indeed celebrated. The future event of their wedding is even more positive when set against the memory of the huge and terrible mistake that took Charles to the altar with Diana, and the humiliating telenovela of the House of Windsor that followed it.
All British school kids have grown up conscious that a Royal has always been present and inspirational at defining moments of the nation’s history, like when the King and Queen chose to share in the suffering and endurance of the British people in the war against Hitler’s Germany.
William and Kate are a Royal couple made to measure, capable of resurrecting some of the hopes and dreams of the British people, of drawing the world towards us again, to share in what we do best: put on the greatest Royal show on earth next Spring or Summer.
This is a Prince that seems to combine the charm, good looks, and humanity of his mother Diana with a sense of selfless duty and responsibility- often lacking in his younger brother Harry but which has made of his grandmother , the Queen, such an enduring popular figure.
William is serving as a pilot in the still emblemic and widely respected Royal Air Force and only last weekend dignified our troops in Camp Bastion with his presence on the day we remember our war dead. He plays polo and likes skiing and rugby but he listens to rock music and is also a fan of Aston Villa football club like his mother was. He has built villages for the poor in Chile, and slept with the homeless in London to raise money , as he does for many works of charity.
Kate Middleton brings to the Royal Couple an extra layer of modernity, and a necessary genuine common touch, even if her father is not exactly poor. University educated, she is both intelligent and creative and has earned the respect of the media. Kate helps her parents run a successful mail-order business selling toys and games for childrens’ parties. Unlike Diana, she does not come from a high social background. She was born into a comparatively ordinary middle-class family. Nor, thank God, does she share with Camilla Parker-Bowles the dubious distinction of carrying the role of Royal mistress in her genes. Kate, by all accounts, does not sleep around, and is the Prince’s first and only true love.
Perhaps as important as all the above is that the Queen has happily accepted Kate into the Royal circle, judging her to be a young woman with the sufficient grace, discipline, and educational backbone to bring her one day one onto the enduring throne of England.
