A SERVICE FIT FOR THE QUEEN

Damian Thompson on the styles of worship favoured by the

Royal Family, and the reluctance of the future head of the Church to attend his local one

If you want to know about the Queen's religion,' a senior figure in the Church of England told me, 'you should start by looking at the Coronation.' He paused knowingly. 'Something rather puzzling happens during Communion.'

I duly hunted out a video film of the event and saw what he meant. As the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh kneel to receive Holy Communion, the camera suddenly swings away. There is a gloomy shot of the empty throne; then a lingering look at the Abbey's West Window. By the time the monarch comes back into view, the pro- cession has started.

For anyone ac- quainted with the Royal Family, it is a significant moment — the first in- dication of a phe- nomenon which has proved to be a con- tinuing source of friction between some elements in the Church of Eng- land and its Supreme Governor: the Queen's reluctance to receive the Eucharist under the public gaze. Nothing says more about the Anglican's personal faith than his or her attitude towards the sacrament. The Queen's lack of enthusiasm for the celebra- tion of Holy Communion on great public Occasions — and it is well documented puts her squarely in a particular tradition. When he was researching his life of Queen Mary, James Pope-Hennessy broached the subject of Royal church- manship with the Archbishop of Canter- bury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher. 'They're all Low Church,' the primate told him confidently. It's because they come from abroad.' As far as the Queen is concerned, Fisher's statement is as true as it was 30 years ago. Low Church' remains the best description of her faith: not evangelical — no one in her family has ever been 'born again' — but the solid, no-frills, churchmanship of her father and grandfather.

In this tradition, the main Sunday ser- vice is not the Eucharist but Matins, a Victorian mixture of Cranmerian prayer, a sermon and lusty hymn-singing. It is a service associated with the English upper- middle classes, flourishing in cathedrals, public school chapels and certain country parishes. It is the religion of politicians, for whom the most important part of the proceedings often takes place outside church, where photographers are poised for the honoured ceremony of the celeb- rant shaking hands with the celebrity.

The role of Holy Communion in this tradition is not easily defined. The service itself tends to be at eight in the morning, using a Book of Common Prayer text which cleverly allows room for conflicting interpretations of the words, 'This is my body'. In practice, communicants often take a rather Protestant view of the sacra- ment — a commemoration rather than a sacrifice. Paradoxically, though, the pro- ceedings are unusually reverent; this is because receiving the sacrament is essen- tially an act of private devotion. Seen in this light, it is not surprising that the Queen is reluctant to take Communion in public. Even so, clergymen are occa- sionally taken back by the strength of the reluctance. The setting up of the General Synod in 1970 is a case in point. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ram- sey, wanted every five-year Synod to begin with a solemn Eucharist in Westminster Abbey. The Queen did not agree: the result was a pitched battle between Palace and Synod officials. 'It was hideously embarrassing, but there was no question of yield- ing,' says a Church House source. 'We are a eucharistic church. The Palace had to give way.'

It is only fair to point out that the Queen would never dream of forcing the Church to adopt her style of religion. Although her authority to appoint bishops is exercised by the Prime Minister, she is always con- sulted; there are rumours of interference in specific cases — it is an open secret, for example, that Buckingham Palace was horrified at the prospect of the Anglo- Papalist Graham Leonard going to Canter- bury — but the Queen has never attempted to promote a specific Anglican tradition. Like the first Elizabeth, she is not in- terested in putting windows into men's souls, merely in ensuring that she should not encounter practices which she finds uncongenial. On one occasion a new in- cumbent of the chapel attached to Royal Lodge asked if he could wear a chasuble. 'If you like,' came the reply, 'so long as it doesn't happen when I'm here.' This prag- matism is typical: a clergyman's liturgical background does not greatly matter if he follows the rules and — a very important point — preaches 'a decent sermon'.

The Royal Family has always set great store by 'a decent sermon'. In the reign of George V, preachers were instructed by the King's private secretary to speak for 14 minutes: anything less would look like laziness; anything more could be a bore. That advice probably holds good today. Clergymen shortlisted for Royal appoint- ments must prove themselves by turning in a good performance before the Queen. Sermons should be biblical and free of political message: a bishop who recently broke this rule is said to have made the Queen Mother 'positively tremble with rage'. A good performance over dinner is equally important. Michael Ramsey was the Royal Family's least favourite Archbishop of Canterbury, not just be- cause of his mystical High Churchmanship, but because his lack of small-talk made him such an embarrassing guest. (The lack of affection, incidentally, was mutual. 'The Duke of Edinburgh,' he sniffed, 'is a boor.') On the rare occasions when some- one in the Royal Family takes a dislike to a clergyman in their employment, the clergy- man is mysteriously promoted to a suitably distant benefice.

If the Queen's religion is not to every- one's liking, its style is at least consistent. One would be forgiven for imagining that it is the only style of worship in her family. This is not quite the case; ask a moderately well informed clergyman about Royal reli- gious preferences, and the chances are that he will begin with the observation: 'Well, of course, Princess Margaret is High.'

The Queen's sister is, as she puts it herself, 'High but not too High.' She has been seen at St Mary's, Bourne Street, where incense drifts across the sanctuary as gold-vested priests celebrate High Mass, though she prefers the more restrained style of St Paul's, Knightsbridge. There have, in fact, always been members of the family who follow a vaguely Catholic tradi- tion. The extreme sobriety of the Queen's worship essentially derives from that of Queen Victoria, with whom she shares a strong affection for the Church of Scot- land. Edward VII, in contrast, occasionally visited the flagship of Anglo-Catholicism, All Saints', Margaret Street and fitted Sandringham parish church with a solid silver altar and reredos.

In the case of Princess Margaret, there are more recent influences. If the Queen takes her religion from her father and grandfather, her sister takes at least some of hers from the Queen Mother, who was brought up in the High Church tradition of Scottish Episcopalianism. Unlike the Queen, Princess Margaret is amused by theological controversy. She enjoys the lavish hospitality and sharp, often down- right bitchy, conversation found at Anglo-Catholic dinner tables, although she is also, it must be said, genuinely devout.

It would be wrong to make too much of the contrast between the churchmanship of the Queen and Princess Margaret. Both feel a stronger attachment to the 1662 Prayer Book than to any ceremonial style; Princess Margaret is not a card-carrying Anglo-Catholic, like the Duchess of Kent, who goes on pilgrimage to Walsingham. She never darkens the door of those churches which use the Roman missal; she even seems to share her sister's mild anti-popery as a friend who became a Roman Catholic priest discovered to his cost: 'If you'd stayed,' she told him crossly, 'I'm sure my sister would have found you something.'

The Prayer Book is central to any discussion of the Royal Family and the Church of England, not least because it has recently thrown light on the subject of the Prince of Wales's religious views. The conventional wisdom in High Church cir- cles is that Prince Charles takes a more Catholic view of religion than his mother. It is, however, a view based on skimpy evidence — little more, indeed, than the fact that the Prince, an admirer of Cardinal Hume, once displayed an interest in learn- ing about Roman Catholicism.

There was certainly no discernible High Church bias in the Prince's celebrated attack on the Alternative Service Book, delivered last December in the City church of St James's, Garlickhythe, 'where the Prayer Book is held in High Esteem,' as a notice outside declares. The occasion was organised by The Spectator and the Prayer Book Society, so a defence of Cranmer was on the cards: few were prepared, however, for the Prince's astonishing comparison of the ASB's 'banal and patronising' language with Orwellian Newspeak.

The broadside received an ecstatic wel- come, inevitably, from Prayer Book enthu- siasts, and an equally predictable liberal thumbs-down. Interestingly, a number of conservative churchmen who agreed about 'Looks like the Poll Tax will be scrapped then . . the poverty of the ASB's language found themselves troubled by the tone of the speech. The new prayer book, they argued, is not Cranmer translated into the earnest language of the 1960s: for all its faults, it is an attempt to improve the theology of the liturgy, by making use of older texts than were available to Cran- mer. The Prince is entitled to object to such an exercise: the worrying thing is that he did not seem to know that it had been attempted. To put it bluntly, he seems more interested in the form, rather than the content of the liturgy.

It is not surprising that someone brought up in an inflexible religious tradition should refuse to tear himself away from it. It is, however, surprising that someone with the Prince's inquiring mind should restrict his experience to such a narrow section of the established church — and a church, furthermore, which is experiencing traumatic change. At the beginning of what is supposed to be a decade of world wide evangelism, a mere 3 per cent of the English population regularly attends the services of the national church. One won- ders sometimes, whether the Queen and the Prince of Wales are aware of what is happening — of the reality, for example, that lies behind the statistic that half of all ordinands are now evangelical. There is an almost comic contrast between the swelling ranks of commuter belt charismatics, with their 'storytelling' and feverish hand- clapping, and the worship of the Royal household. Less obvious, but more signifi- cant, is the growing gap between the latter and most middle-of-the-road Anglican parishes, where Matins has long since been abandoned in favour of Eucharistically centred worship.

One need look no further than the Prince of Wales's parish church of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, near Highgrove, where the vicar, John Hawthorne, celebrates an ASB Eucharist. It is a cause of real sadness in the parish that the Prince has never attended their main Sunday service; in- deed, he has declined invitations to do so, explaining politely that he prefers to re- ceive the sacrament in private from a visiting clergyman. He is not, however, the most regular of communicants. One of his contemporaries told me: 'I have found myself visiting the same house as the Prince on several occasions, and I've never known him to go to church or express a wish to do so.' The local church, presum- ably, might not be exactly what he is used to.

In the final analysis, does it matter? There is a school of thought which depicts the Royal Family as a safeguard against wild-eyed activists who want to destroy the Church by ripping out pews and dancing in the aisles, or ordaining women. In this last matter, certainly, this is false optimism. Princess Margaret has assured friends that her sister would 'never permit' the ordina- tion of women. So she may like to believe, but one can imagine how the matter would be handled if the measure went through. Women priests would be like chasubles: perfectly permissible, so long as they were kept out of the Royal presence.

The future well-being of the Church of England depends, in part, on the Prince of Wales. It cannot be easy for him. There are formidable constitutional restrictions on his freedom of manoeuvre; he cannot, for example, contribute to the growing debate on the question of disestablish- ment. At the very least, however, he should take steps to bridge the gulf be- tween his family's own religious observ- ance and that of most people in the Church of England. There are no clergymen in the Prince's immediate circle: that should be remedied. And it is high time that he visited Tetbury parish church to receive Holy Communion with his neighbours.

Damian Thompson is on the staff of the Daily Telegraph