Yes, the wedding was something new – but it was also the product of our long history
There is something odd, sometimes charmingly revelatory, about catching a glimpse of yourself through the eyes of others. But, like eavesdropping, it can also be dangerous. For you may discover, sadly, that you have been totally misunderstood. And when you do find out, that can be infuriating.
“No,” you want to interrupt, “you’ve got totally the wrong end of the stick.”
So it has proved with the wedding of – as they then were – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. To us, their marriage was a flawless demonstration of the best of Britain, an effortless combination of ritual and relevance; a twinning of an institutional genius of monarchy honed over a millennium and the wonderfully evident love of two individuals.
But across the Atlantic, our American cousins, looking on also in wonder, have settled on a different narrative. For some commentators there, the now Duchess of Sussex has become nothing less than a muchneeded emissary from the New World to the Old, an envoy whose angelic message of inclusivity and tolerance may just save an establishment doomed by its barely disguised racism and divisiveness. The New York Times, itself a bastion of the establishment so well entrenched that it is known as the “Gray Lady”, reckons it has taken “an American actress who is three years [Harry’s] senior, bi-racial, divorced and vocal about her views” to drag the British monarchy into the 21st century.
Well, that really is infuriating. Let us remind ourselves of a wedding quite recently that involved a divorced, older bride marrying into the Royal family. Her name was Camilla, and she married Harry’s father, to resounding success, more than a decade ago.
And, as for that scorching subject of race … well, it is quite something to take lectures about race from a nation where one state, Mississippi, officially abolished slavery only in 2013. It was always something that stopped me in my tracks, when I was The Telegraph’s obituaries editor, to be reminded that many of the American lives we described had begun during segregation. For them, the division of black and white had not been some relic, some history-book grotesquery like the Black Death, but an all-too-real fact of life. But that is the spiky reaction of the affronted eavesdropper. The truth is that we Britons should not be affronted by America’s temptation to turn this milestone into a mountain, granite-hard and huge in significance. No doubt we did the same – seeking out simple implications and getting them wrong – when Barack Obama was first inaugurated as President of the United States.
As both our great nations know well, the very best institutions are not dragged, unwillingingly, into the modern age. They know when to adapt. They are agents of their own change. And the price of failing to do so is high. Just ask Marie Antoinette.
Britain’s record is certainly not perfect, but to flick back through the historical record is to remind oneself that this country, from the top down, knows precisely how to extend the hand of friendship without jettisoning its own character; is disposed to welcome new people and ideas, without abandoning the values it knows to be vital; is geographically impelled to look outwards, even from our island home.
In other words, we are perfectly capable, thank you very much, of marrying inclusivity and tolerance, with tradition and identity. Indeed, doing so is at the very core of our identity, it is what has allowed us to thrive, prosper, adapt, prosper and thrive again. Without it we would barely limp along.
Just ask the Huguenots, or Jews, for whom Britain has provided a stable haven for more than 350 years. Queen Victoria, so emblematic of the establishment which apparently so needs updating, was creating Jewish knights and peers of the realm in the 1830s. It was not too long before Benjamin Disraeli became prime minister – an office that has since gone on to be held by two women, two Conservative women. Would it be churlish, at this point, to make gender comparisons between the occupants of No10 and the White House? Probably…. The point is, naturally enough, that it is not despite of, but precisely because of deep, established roots, that institutions such as our monarchy can, as Americans would say, pivot. If our Royal family was so malleable that the simple addition of a single new member would reshape it for all time, then it would never have endured. It would have been blown away, like tumbleweed, long since.
So, who will have the greater effect and influence on whom? Is it really true that the “American actress who is three years [Harry’s] senior, biracial, divorced and vocal about her views” will profoundly change her in-laws? Or isn’t it actually more likely that, with her sense of theatre, her maturity, her generosity of spirit and, yes, her outspokenness, she will fit right in?
Britain tried Splendid Isolation once, in the late 19th century. It didn’t
We Britons should not be affronted by America’s temptation to turn this milestone into a mountain
The price of failing to adapt is high. Just ask Marie Antoinette
suit us. But we saw the error of our ways soon enough, and looked out to influence – and be influenced – once more. Above all, we looked to America.
And there we decided that we should form a unique transatlantic alliance. A Special Relationship.
The special relationship that was sealed on Saturday was fruit of that past, not essential updating of the present. Rather than some infusion of modernity, it was the product of our long history and the confidence it brings to stage – based on the experiences piled up, year upon year, like the foundation stones of Windsor Castle – something entirely new.