Defenders and theorists of the British monarchy, such as the late philosopher of conservatism Roger Scruton, have argued that the institution, by representing the State in the figure of a human being, with all its frailties, wins political loyalty through affection. And also, that it is the mirror of the society whose loyalty it claims. When Kate Middleton announced this Friday—firm, but pale; calm, but with a trace of weakness in the tone of her voice – that she was undergoing preventive chemotherapy treatment because doctors had detected cancer in her body, the news turned out to be the umpteenth blow to a United Kingdom that, in In recent years, it has also seen its forces reduced.
The initial reaction of the Government, the opposition, the country's main institutions and the vast majority of citizens has been one of solidarity and understanding with the Princess of Wales. Kate Middleton and her husband, William of England, calculated with parental precision the exact moment when they should reveal to their three children, Jorge (10 years old), Charlotte (eight) and Luis (five) the storm that was stalking the city. family. The couple chose the start of the Easter school holidays to avoid the children facing comments or curiosity from their classmates. And they told them what was happening with their mother at four in the afternoon (five o'clock, Spanish peninsular time), two hours before Middleton herself told the world, in a two-minute and 15-second video recorded by the BBC. in Windsor Gardens. A wooden bench and a grassy background with a bed of daffodils, the most beautiful and symbolic flower of British spring.
“It is a smaller and more fragile royal family than what citizens were used to. It seems unbelievable that just a decade ago people complained that there were too many of them,” wrote journalist and historian Andrew Marr, one of the most respected and listened to voices in the United Kingdom, in the magazine The New Statesman. “Kate had become the mainstay of his popularity. None appeared on newspaper and magazine covers as much as she did. Her illness, undoubtedly a terrible stroke of bad luck, and something very sad from a human point of view, is also something very serious for the institution,” she warns.
The threatened continuity
The British gave up using the death of Elizabeth II, on September 8, 2022, as the necessary moment to reflect on the state of their institutions. The second Elizabethan era—which had defined the post-war United Kingdom, the second half of the 20th century and the uncertain beginnings of the 21st—was ending and a commitment was made to a continuity that, in essence, was impossible. The accession of Charles III to the throne was greeted with forced joy and apparent normality, because the future of the monarchy was implicit in the radiant public presence of William and Kate. “It is going to be very complicated to follow in the footsteps of Elizabeth II,” Jonathan Sumption, former judge of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and historian, acknowledged to EL PAÍS. “But the future is called Kate Middleton, a very strong woman with a keen sense of connection with citizens.”
The plans of Charles III – which he designed for decades in his head, while waiting for his turn to reign, a smaller and more functional monarchy – have been truncated. The monarch himself has retired from face-to-face public activity, while he undergoes his own treatment for the cancer that was detected in early February. A few weeks before him to his daughter-in-law. It has not been necessary to activate any replacement mechanism, because he continues to take charge of the main state affairs that correspond to his position. But he has conveyed an image of institutional fragility and scarce reinforcements.
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Prince Harry, exiled with his wife Meghan Markle in the United States and romantically distanced from his family, no longer counts as a representative of the royal family. Some British media reported this Saturday that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have conveyed to Buckingham Palace their availability to return to public duties, but there are many advisors and experts who consider this possibility more of a distraction and a risk than a help. Charles III's brother, Prince Andrew, has no possibility of return after the social and institutional ostracism to which he was condemned by his family due to his turbulent relationship with the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
Everything now falls especially on the shoulders of William of England. The British media are now giving him a truce, because they understand that his responsibilities as a husband and father must take precedence. But it will be a brief truce. “He knows his responsibilities, and will continue to fulfill his public commitments. But one can imagine the difficulty of maintaining a smile every time, in each of these acts, they ask about the health of his wife or his father,” he noted this Saturday in SkyNews Rob Jobson, the senior royal specialist in the British press.
So far, Queen Consort Camilla and Princess Anne, the king's sister, have helped William of England. But the two women are already of an age that will not allow them to maintain very intense activity. That is not the main problem of the House of Windsor. Kate Middleton's absence takes the shine off a monarchy that needs it more than ever, at a time when no other British institution is raising its head.
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