A bit bleary eyed, arising at 2:30 to watch the royal wedding. Very quickly, let me just say that, to my mind, the wedding itself wasn’t particularly noteworthy, but the coverage of it was. Technology may have its detractors, but watching it all on my flatscreen TV, with the detail so crisp that one could count the paving tiles in the Cosmati mosaic of the chancel- or more distractingly the wild hairs in the eyebrows of the Archbishop of Canterbury- made this, for me, a wedding to remember. I happened to watch it uninterrupted on NBC’s ‘Today’, and the producers had a brain wave in adding former BBC commentator Martin Bashir to the panel. It was Bashir’s ‘there were three of us in this marriage’ interview with Princess Diana that was, for all intents and purposes, the end of the line for Charles and Diana. I don’t recall that Bashir had anything particularly noteworthy to say about the proceedings this morning, but his very presence gave weight and legitimacy to whatever anyone else on the panel had to say.
With all that, and looking beyond the interesting headgear of some of the ladies present, that the wedding was not particularly noteworthy is probably a good thing. I have to say, considering being constantly in the spotlight and despite the, shall we say, complicated domestic arrangements of his parents and the early death of his mother, Prince William seems a remarkably uncomplicated young man. And a young man who seems keenly aware of his role and responsibility. The 20th century hasn’t been easy for monarchs, with modernity at cross purposes with kings, leaving them these days rather thin on the ground.
The House of Windsor endures, though, as they’ve maintained just the right balance of regality and democracy, distance and personality, to keep them popular with their subjects. Something that Martin Bashir did say this morning, a recent poll indicated that 89% of the British public are, if not ardent royalists, then at least strongly supportive of the monarchy. For all the pomp and splendour, the royal family is not particularly costly, with the per person tariff to keep the family going running to only about £1 annually for each person in the UK. By the way, this is another Bashir statistic.
Yesterday on NPR, a British commentator mentioned how the royal wedding would be watched by so many people the result of our fascination with reality TV, with in her words, the royal wedding representing the ‘acme’ of the genre. I don’t think so, and not just because I find most reality TV shows, to put not to fine a point on it, repellant. The royal wedding, indeed the royal family, are popular because a fair bit of what they do conserves tradition- note that I said conserve, not preserve. Consequently, enough of what they are and what they do has a contemporary resonance. More important, though, is their service to tradition that forms a common touchstone, a reminder that what is arguably the best in all of us has been formed gradually and when and if modern life seems confusing, a remembrance of tradition allows us to regain our bearings.
So there it is, for me, and I suspect for most of us who got up at 2 this morning, a unique blend of the best of today, with the best of the past.