OP-ED: When Queen Elizabeth left, she took the happiness with her
As another American presidential race begins, I find myself missing the queen, who was the last of a dying breed, royal or otherwise, and a monument to what we used to call class without fear of offense.
Elizabeth’s departure from her mortal coil has left a void. The upside is that it distracts from “hating” everyone in the American presidential queue. While I don’t really hate anyone, if you stay in journalism long enough, you discover one day that there’s no one left to like. This will be my 12th presidential race, which sounds to me a small number, given the degree of my malaise.
The similarities between our nation of migrant mutts (speaking of my own ancestors), who fought to extract themselves from monarchical control, and the descendants of that same monarchy, have amounted to approximately zero – until now. Without Elizabeth, the royals are at least as common as the rest of us, and further proof that privilege does not endow happiness.
King Charles and his mirthless seedling Harry have this nonroyalist fixated as never before.
Throughout the latter years of the queen’s reign, I sometimes wondered why she wouldn’t step down and allow her eldest son to assume the throne before he, too, grew old. Alas, Elizabeth knew what she was doing. She knew her own son well enough and wasn’t letting go of that crown.
How sad she must have been to realize that her embarrassing brood would inherit and sadden the kingdom. Exceptions among the younger generations are the Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Kate (and their three children), who seem to be cut from the same cloth as Elizabeth. If only Charles and Camilla would retire to the Waldorf Towers, as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor had the decency to do.
Nothing makes me an expert on royalty, fond as I am of the Royal We. I am, however, a student of human nature and recognize that the royals are a miserable lot, largely because they’re so useless. People naturally want to strive; without striving, idleness leads to trouble.
Which brings us to Charles III, the most unhappy king because, at the end of the day, being king isn’t a great job for him. Just a guess. As king, Charles has encountered a truth and a principle. The truth about life is that satisfaction comes from the journey, not the destination. The Peter principle says that being good at one job doesn’t mean that you’ll be good at a higher one.
Environmentalist was a palatable role for a polo-playing prince. He excelled at it and did valuable work. As a ribbon-cutting king, though, he’s as stale as a leftover scone. To wit: Charles recently attended a plaque-unveiling to mark the 50th anniversary of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. A photo shows a rather wooden monarch, pinched and unsmiling as he meekly waves from the driver’s cab of the Flying Scotsman, which was marking its 100th anniversary.
When Queen Elizabeth performed similar functions, she carried an aura of duty. Charles’s aura is that of a peevish old man who’s just tasted a lemon. The sourness, dear Charles, is karma, and its name is Harry.
If the Fates are in charge, they’ve sent Harry to punish Charles in a purgatory of endless humiliation. The prince recently was in London to testify in court against the villainous media that led to his mother’s death and that, he says, continue to badger him and his bride. Harry, who apparently loves to talk about himself, was in high dudgeon, as usual. The palace reportedly worried about what he might say under oath. Royals aren’t supposed to speak under oath not because they might lie but because they might let slip a truth.
Harry seems not to understand the leading role he plays in his own misery. He has engaged the media in a folie à deux, a shared madness in which neither can quit the other. But deep down, Harry’s rage may be against Charles. On some level, he knows that his father helped along his mother’s early death.
But stiff upper lip, Charles! Last Saturday, the military extravaganza known as Trooping the Colour celebrated Charles’s 75th birthday, the first of his reign, with hundreds of horses and soldiers performing battlefield drills to military music. The royal family appeared on a balcony (don’t they always?) and the Royal Air Force, to which Charles once belonged, performed a “flypast.” It was a jolly time for all, except perhaps for Charles.
We Americans may be a nation of miscreants, fools and sinners, but at least we don’t pretend to thrones. For that, we have Britain’s monarchy. And, thanking you for your indulgence, I feel much better now. Bring on the clowns.
Kathleen Parker is a columnist for The Washington Post.