The gold rush of modern times

Byron Rogers

CHARLES by Penny Junor

Sidgwick & Jackson, E12.95

It was not much fun in the beginning When, between the seed-time and the harvest, there were armies which you had to lead into battle. But towards the end, and the end was a long time coming, all you had to do was drive slowly around in carts and live in palaces full of grub and discreet women; nobody even made you cut your hair. When the going was good the only time they bothered you was once a Year when they got the cart out again, and you had to attend parliament, where you read out a speech written by your pnme minister. The older I get the more attrac- tive Merovingian kingship becomes, If there was a hiccup all that happened was that you suddenly found yourself having a haircut, the cart disappeared, and there were quiet days in a monastery. But then.in seventh-century France there was no Miss Junor coming over the fields with a note- book, and no cuttings libraries. . In this country, long after the last execu- tive powers of monarchy have gone, the English have become more and more Obsessed by it. This has not occurred anywhere else on earth. The last Emperor of China was merely allowed to live on in Iii s palace with all his eunuchs and art treasures, the only difference being that nobody called any more, apart from the odd war-lord plotting sedition. It was an idyll which came to an end the night the eunuchs were caught stealing the art trea- sures. Elsewhere there was the pension, the steam yacht, and the sunset. But here, as the foreground has emptied, so the background has filled with eyes. Why this should be is a mystery, Probably most of all to the Royal Family, at least one of whom had all opinions about the monarchy changed by the popular enthusiasm for the Jubilee.

It must have something to do with the fact that many people still believe the Queen runs Britain, but there is also that fascinated cruelty which Shaw noted. Ythen the wealthiest family in the country is given all the trappings of power and none of its substance, and is forever on public Show, the question of how they spend their time, how they keep sane, becomes a national obsession.

Careers are now founded on it in jour- nalism, circulation figures boosted, for- tunes made (Miss Junor got £140,000 for the serial rights to this book from one paper alone). In the last quarter of the 20th century English royalty has become a gold rush for writers. A couple of weeks in a good cuttings library, and they are away; they cannot fail. The research can be negligible, for the convention is that they are not allowed to acknowledge their sources. You will be familiar with the prefaces in which they thank unnamed people for their help, while respecting anonymity. Royalty itself is the greatest help of all, in that the only mutterings afterwards are in private, and no inter- views are given.

But the Prince of Wales did see Miss Junor once. A second interview was arranged, and he was to have shown her his wild flower garden, only he changed his mind. No matter. She now feels she knows him (He is one of the saddest people I have ever encountered'). That again is one of the oddest features. Perhaps a couple of thousand people knew Charles II; 50,000,000 will feel they know Charles III.

There are some funny things in this book, among them the bibliography which starts by listing the diggings of her prede- cessors in the gold rush but ends: Jung And The Story Of Our Time by Laurens van der Post.

There is the usual trot through Welsh history, in the course of which just about every fact is wrong. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was not the last Welsh Prince of Wales, merely the last to be recognised by the English; tradwye is the plural, not singu- lar of 'traitor'; `Meibion Glyndwr' means the Sons of Glyndwr, not Sons of Snow- donia.

The Duke of Edinburgh emerges as the villain of the piece, the ultimate gym master, a bully who believes in things like manhood, and is insensitive. Lord Mount- batten is the Good Fairy, at first an amiable pander CI believe in cases like yours the man should sow his wild oats'), lending the Prince his own house for assignations, and then, in a wonderful turn-around, a stunned moral conscience when he sees the way things are going.

The realisation that Prince Charles could have virtually any woman of his choosing, whatever their age or marital status, was heady stuff and open to abuse; Lord Mount- batten was always there to remind his pro- tégé of his duty.

Baron Frankenstein faced a similar dilem- ma.

Mr Michael Colborne is portrayed as Good Fairy Number Two. A non- commissioned naval officer, whom the Prince met and then installed in the Palace as his Secretary, he is credited with intro- ducing the Prince to the 1980s (it would have made a lovely Beerbohm cartoon, `Mr Colborne introduces the Prince of Wales to the 1980s'), also with being a convenient target for his master's moods. When things got too bad there was, accord- ing to Miss Junor, Lord Mountbatten again, consoling an aggrieved Michael Colborne ('. . . you're the only person he can lose his temper with. It's a back- handed compliment really, you know. He needs you.') The rest of the book is filled up with lots of stuff about estate management and various charities, all of which is boring, but does illustrate the situation of a young man trying to find something for himself to do, when all that is required of him is an ease at small-talk. The Princess of Wales, in- cidentally, seems to be a superstar at this, and from the examples quoted, is quite at home in a world which will always be full of strangers who, after a meeting, feel they know her.

It was good to read again the speech on modern architecture, but there is a danger in this sort of thing, when a Crown Prince becomes a genuinely populist figure.

The smart men who write about the glories of the English constitution point to the powers that the Crown still possesses. But it would only require the use of those powers ONCE to precipitate the unthink- able. The Merovingians also possessed such powers, and as Gibbon sourly noted, 'Obsolete right could only be used as an instrument of sedition.'

It has become fashionable to lavish praise on the monarchy, but I have yet to see anything on the human dilemma of someone trapped within that institution, obliged forever to be a happy, living phantom. Nobody wants to hear about that.

It may offer some consolation to reflect on how comparatively recent a develop- ment Western European kingship is. It had its origins in kitchenware, when the Ro- man Empire was the biggest department store the world had ever seen, and it was easy for an entrepreneur to set himself up as a king on a trading route in the forest beyond the Imperial frontiers; he just became a mail order service for his follow- ers. When the kitchenware ran out there was nothing for it but invasion; the rewards had become land. When there was no more land the Honours System had to be in- vented — with the passing of the centuries a vast Honours System.

If that is finally discredited then all the notebooks will close. If Miss Junor has read his character right, the Prince of Wales could be the most relieved man on earth.