The war of the Waleses - Prince and Princesses of Wales

National Review, Nov 21, 1994 by Anthony Lejeune

THE literary missiles whizzing between the two camps in the War of the Waleses make a fine pyrotechnic show, and the latest high-explosive shell, in the form of Prince Charles's authorized biography, appears to have burst above his own trench: but they have caused rather less material damage than the antiwar party suggests.

Of course the Prince and Princess are hurt and angry with each other: their children and Charles's parents may well have been wounded: and they all deserve as much compassion as any other family caught in such unhappy circumstances. No one doubts that the Princess's alleged lover - "Iove rat James Hewitt," as the Daily Express refers to him - behaved like a cad, kissing and then telling for money. Few people deny that the Prince's treatment of his young bride, and his self-indulgent confession now, were, to say the least, grossly inconsiderate. Nevertheless, Britain remains sharply divided into pro-Charles and pro-Diana factions. The divide is, to a significant degree, sexual; Diana's fiercest critics (apart from the Prince's personal entourage) are predominantly female.

The people around Charles have consistently underrated Diana's power. Time and again they have believed that, voluntarily or involuntarily, she would vanish from the front pages, leaving the Prince in command of the field. Some vanishing! Diana, whom the camera loves especiary when looking sad), is unconquerable - a truth which Buckingham Palace would have been wise to accept.

There is another, more profound, split in Britain, between those who cannot get enough of the royal story and those who think it should have been suppressed. The spearhead of the latter group, the official prigs, barefacedly denied every rumor until it was proved true. They blamed, and continue to blame, the press. Oddly enough, a section of the press itself, the conservative Daily and Sunday Telegraph, has taken the same line, though never hesitating to print the juicy details. Unofficial prigs have followed suit. "Hang the media!" said one man-in-the-street when interviewed on the radio.

It is, however, the politicians who have jumped most enthusiastically onto the priggish bandwagon. They are still seeking laws to gag the media, which, they say, by prurient carping have undermined all the country's basic institutions-the monarchy, the Church of England, Parliament. There is a difference, they argue, between what interests the pubhc and what, in the public interest, should be published. They particularly accuse the papers owned by Rupert Murdoch, which have taken the lead in publishing the Charles and Diana story, of being motivated by republican malice.

This is largely nonsense. There is no republican conspiracy. Nothing that has been revealed harms the monarchy as an institution. In a way, the royal family has more popular appeal now than ever before within living memory. Who would wish to swap this rich tale for a mere commonplace presidency.?

(What would be disastrous is if there were any question about the legitimacy of the succession; which is why it remains, in theory, a capital offense to ravish the Queen or the wife of the heir to the throne. Major Hewitt could properly have his head chopped off, and, if Diana were shown to have cooperated with his treason, she could be burnt at the stake, like Guinevere. But when George IV wanted to invoke the treason laws against his unfaithful wife, he was firmly told that, in view of his own behavior, this would not go down well. Diana's admirers needn't tremble for her.)

That the royal family should be treated as characters in a soap opera became inevitable once they were deprived of any political or social role - a loss ("The Queen reigns, she does not rule") of which the official prigs normally boast. The idea that the public should be more interested in the Prince of Wales's constitutional role and good works than in his tormented private hfe is absurd. To suggest that it was the media which destroyed his marriage is, in the light of what we now know, equally absurd.

When the politicians complain about the effect of the media on the country's institutions, they are thinking less about the monarchy or the Church, for which many of them care very little, than about themselves, for whom they care very much. And, as usual, they are blaming the messenger.

It is true that the House of Commons has fallen to an unprecedentedly low level in public esteem. The so-called. "sleaze factor" has pushed even the royal family off the front pages during the past week or so. To the series of sexual misdemeanors which earlier toppled a few minor members of the government have now been added less amusing instances of money being taken for asking questions in Parliament, expensive hotel rooms paid for, and "consultancies" omitted from the register of MPs' interests.

Doubts have also been expressed about the propriety of ex-ministers' becoming highly paid directors of companies which they had helped to privatize, and about the political patronage involved in appointments to the quasi-governmental bodies which stir proliferate like toadstools. Two more ministers have gone. One reluctant resigner - the minister for business probity, no less - hotly declared his innocence and blamed "a media witchhunt."