So Charles, Prince of Wales and Future King, will be marrying Camilla, Future Duchess Of Cornwall. How many Americans care? Heck, according to polls, onluy half of all Britons care. So why am I posting about it?
I’m reading through System Of The World right now, and it deals with an insane amount of European royal shenanigans. Stephenson takes it down to a personal, fictional level, but bases his representations on known behavior patterns of the real people he writes about.
England’s current Royal Family has a REALLY long history, and however inane, stupid, silly, or glorious their current actions are, they’re going to be placed into the history books right next to the Henrys, Charles’, James’ and Georges. It may seem like they have no effect on the world whatsoever, but it’s one of the last Royal Families of Old Europe left, certainly the most visible, and the effects are many and subtle.
So I don’t really care what they do, but it’s interesting to me to compare it against what’s been done in the last 500 years.
The key difference between the period you’re reading about and the current royal family is their constitutional role. While the royals presently do have a variety of ways of influencing the political climate, their constitutional role is token at best, with royal assent for bills being merely a formality.
I’m definitely in the 50% that couldn’t care less what Charles gets up to, and wishes the media would concentrate on something of real import. Perhaps the most interesting repercussion of Charles’ re-marriage is how the Church of England (of which the monarch is a sort of patron) responds. That issue is likely the reason that the wedding will be a civil ceremony, but I’m hoping that this will lead to disestablishment of the church.