Monarchy shaken to the core
The royals faced unprecedented criticism after Diana’s death and the relationship between the Queen and people changed forever
ON THE morning after Diana died in Paris in August 1997, the duty police inspector at Kensington Palace anticipated that well-wishers might leave a couple of floral tributes at the wrought-iron gates.
Within 24 hours he and fellow officers were manning the barricades, worried that the public, furious at the way the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family had seemingly ignored her death, were going to storm the palace.
The failure to fly the Union Flag at half mast, the decision by the Queen to stay at Balmoral rather than heading to the nation’s capital, and the Royal Family’s failure to make any substantive statement about the much-loved princess cut down in her prime, was the cause of public outrage.
This public paralysis went to the heart of the purpose of a monarchy in a modern democratic state.
The people wished to see the head of state unify and console, taking her position at the centre of the national stage rather than watching from the wings.
The Queen eventually emerged splendidly from the shadows, delivering a warm and generous tribute to Diana in a televised broadcast days before the funeral. But by then the damage had been done.
Those few days after her death captured forever the contrast between Diana and the House of Windsor; her openness, their distance; her affection, their frigidity; her glamour, their dullness; her modernity, their focus on the past; her emotional generosity, their aloofness.
During her lifetime, and certainly after her death, Diana broadened what could be said and done and by whom. In the process she made the monarchy, or at least her version of that institution, feel more inclusive.
While Diana’s death did not change the country, it was a jolting wake-up call for the monarchy, forcing the Sovereign and her family to recognise that the world was changing and that the Windsors were not representing that transformation.
It was clear that many, particularly those in the shadows of society, felt they were represented more by Diana than by the Royal Family.
It was the Queen who led the tributes to Diana but also, somewhat belatedly, recognised the need for the monarchy to learn from the young princess whom it had so recently banished.
Rather like a lovers’ tiff, both parties, the public and monarch, were reconciled though all realised that things would never be the same again.
“Harsh lessons”, as one private secretary described them, were learned ... “that you have to communicate grief, that you have to communicate sorrow and you have to recognise that when you’re the Royal Family other people are feeling that grief – it isn’t just a private thing,” Mary Francis said.
Subtle changes in style and approach were brought forward with urgency. The emergence of William and Harry as flag bearers for Diana’s brand of monarchy has further altered the nature of the ancient institution. These days it is rather more relaxed and, dare one say it, European.
There has been a change too in the public’s perception of the House of Windsor.
They are now loyal citizens rather than deferential subjects, mindless worship replaced by clear-eyed respect.
It is arguably healthier not just for the country – and Commonwealth – but also for those who represent an institution as old as the nation itself.