![]() ![]() The working classes of the East End, dismissed by Victoria's attendant as 'socialists and the worst Irish' when they booed the Queen, are less feral. The idle aristocracy that used to offer camaraderie rather than deference is busy selling stately home marmalade to stave off death duties and dry rot. While this reverence may be bogus and temporary, it still offers evidence that the House of Windsor can deploy the mystique Walter Bagehot isolated as the one essential ingredient of survival.Īrguably, the reservoir of fake fealty has deepened, rather than diminished, as the Windsors' popularity has slumped. ![]() A third of the population wants a republic, a third couldn't care what befalls the monarchy, but damp-palmed curtseyers abound. When eventually the royal visitor enters, the squashed hordes will be hotter and humbler constrained by new clothes, tight shoes and an unexpected awe of a representative of a family that knows how to command a deference out of kilter with its popularity. But excessive waiting also has a deeper purpose. Prince Charles has been approached by an eccentric with a fake weapon, and the late Queen Mother once smashed her lace-trimmed parasol over the head of a man following her carriage, unaware that he wanted to give her daughter a ten-shilling note. At any event attended by a member of the royal family, the invitees must be in place long before the honoured guest arrives. ![]()
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